William Krueger - Red knife

“Thunder. He took the name Obwandiyag.” The old man didn’t seem pleased with the choice. “You know about Obwandiyag of long ago?”

“No.”

“He was an Odawa war chief. To most white people he is known as Pontiac.”

“Pontiac. Big name for someone with a heart as small as Thunder’s. Did Kingbird talk about him?”

“Obwandiyag weighed on Kakaik.”

“Did you advise Kingbird?”

“He did not ask for my advice. But he did bring Obwandiyag here. Now there was a man full of fear. The white girl had died, the fault, Kakaik said, of Obwandiyag. He hoped I could help Obwandiyag find courage, find purity of spirit, find the warrior’s heart.”

“Did you?”

“Obwandiyag did not want my help. He left before I could do anything for him. I did not see him again.”

“Kingbird was hiding him, trying to protect him, I suppose. Did he give you any idea where?”

The old man put his cup on the table. “Is it Obwandiyag you’re hunting or the truth about Kakaik?”

“I think they might lie along the same path.”

The Mide nodded. “There is hope for you yet, Corcoran O’Connor. I do not have an answer for you. But I have advice, if you would like it.”

“I’d appreciate it, Henry.”

“I would take a hawk’s-eye view of the situation.”

Cork waited. “That’s it?”

“That is all I have to offer. Unless you would like more coffee.”

Cork stood up, and Meloux after him. Walleye worked his way to his feet and padded to the table.

“ Migwech, Henry,” Cork said, thanking the old man. At the door, he paused. “A hawk’s-eye view?”

Meloux shrugged. “It is a place to begin.”

Lucinda often walked to the Gun Sight, bringing lunch to her husband, and to Uly as well on those occasional days when he helped his father there. She enjoyed the stroll through Aurora. That Monday, she thought it would be a good idea for both herself and Misty to get out for a while. Well-meaning people were calling and stopping by and although Lucinda was grateful, she was also weary of having to respond to their concern.

The sky was overcast but didn’t seem to threaten rain. Lucinda settled Misty in the stroller, made certain the baby was warm enough, and set off.

Having to care for the baby full-time wasn’t difficult for Lucinda. In truth, it gave her a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt since Uly had become a teenager and pulled away, retreating into himself in the way teenagers did. A baby was a good deal of work, but a baby let you know you were needed. And the needs were so simple really, and so blessedly direct. You fed her when she was hungry, changed her diaper when she was wet or soiled, held her when she was fussy, smiled at her when she gazed up at you with her eyes full of wonder. God never took, she’d always tried to believe, without also giving. Alejandro and Rayette had been taken, but little Misty had been spared and put into Lucinda’s keeping.

Will’s shop was on Oak Street. Before he bought the building, the place had belonged to a florist. Whenever she first walked in, Lucinda thought she caught the faint fragrance of roses, but the scent vanished immediately, replaced by the acrid odor of the solvents Will used to clean polymer weapons.

Her husband knew firearms. He was also an expert with that other elegant instrument of warfare, the knife. He was a dealer, with a clientele of collectors worldwide. He was also an expert gunsmith and was often engaged in making something that was of custom design. They had saved carefully all their lives, and with his marine pension they easily had enough to live on. His need to work had nothing to do with finances. In a way, Lucinda believed, it kept him connected with the military life, which was the life he knew best.

He was in the back room when she pushed the buzzer. For security, he kept the door locked. There was a sign above the buzzer button that read PUSH FOR ENTRY. Will had a camera mounted outside and positioned in a way that let him see who was at his door. She heard the reply buzz and the lock release and she rolled the stroller inside.

“Back here!” he called.

At the front of the shop were rifles, shotguns, and handguns mounted in display cases behind security glass. Arrayed in the long glass counter on which his cash register sat were the knives he carried. Near the door stood a three-by-three-foot polished maple board that rested on a tripod. Will had affixed shelves to the board, on which he displayed a selection of some of the components he used in his work: barrels, actions, frames, slides, stocks, grips. The shop front wasn’t an area that he’d created to feel particularly warm and welcoming. It had a Spartan, utilitarian sensibility.

She went through the open door behind the counter and into the back of the shop, where Will stood at one of his workbenches. He had several rifles laid out before him. When Lucinda came in, he left the bench and met her near the door.

“Thanks.”

He took the Tupperware container she handed him, but didn’t open it. She never ate lunch with him, only brought his food. In the afternoon or evening when he came home, he would hand her the empty Tupperware to wash. Music came softly from a CD player on a shelf, Neil Young’s Harvest, one of his favorites. When he was young and courting her, he had played the guitar. They would take a picnic lunch to one of the beaches and he would sing to her and strum. He hadn’t touched a guitar in years.

“It’s quiet,” she said. Often when she came, he was dealing with a customer.

“I didn’t want to see anyone today,” he said.

“Misty didn’t cry at all this morning.”

“That’s good, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want her to cry, Luci?”

“I thought she would miss her mother.”

“You feed her, change her, hold her. What would Rayette do that you don’t?”

“I’m not her mother, Will.”

“You are now.”

“If I was Rayette, I wouldn’t want her to forget me.”

“She’s only six months old, Luci. She doesn’t understand about mothers. She understands wet and dry, hungry and full.”

“There’s more to a mother than that, Will.”

“Whatever it is, it’s coming from you now.”

She looked behind him at the table where he’d just been working and where three rifles lay. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“A Winchester Stealth, a Weatherby TRR, a Dragunov. These are very powerful rifles, Will. Sniper rifles.”

“What do you know about rifles?”

“When you talk to me, do you think I don’t listen? What are you doing with these rifles?”

“I have a buyer.”

There were many things her husband was, but a good liar he was not.

“Six months ago,” she said, “you sold a very expensive Robar Elite shotgun to Buck Reinhardt.”

“So?”

“I know you think he killed Alejandro and Rayette. You told me as much last night.”

“Go home, Luci. Take the baby and go home.”

“Alejandro and Rayette are dead. Nothing we do can bring them back.”

“Go home.”

“We have to think of Misty now, Will. I will try to be her mother, but you must be her father. You have to be there for her, Will. You have to be there for us.”

“Go home.”

This time it was an order, and she understood that he was finished with listening. Whatever she said now, he would not hear.

She turned and started away.

“Luci.”

She glanced back.

“Thank you for bringing me lunch.”

There was so much more she wanted to do, for Will, for Uly, for Misty, for them all, but she felt powerless.

She caught Father Ted as he was crossing the yard between St. Agnes and the rectory. He wasn’t a priest who wore a cassock or a clerical shirt or a collar on an everyday basis. He’d visited the day before to express his sympathy and offer his help, and he’d looked priestly then, but today he was wearing a blue denim long-sleeved shirt and jeans.