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William Krueger: Iron Lake

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William Krueger Iron Lake

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The old man had been quiet a long time, smoking the Lucky Strike reflectively. Finally Cork asked, “What brings you into town on a day like this, Henry?”

The old man said, “I seen it.”

“What?” Cork asked. “What did you see?”

The old man looked straight ahead. “It jumped over my cabin two nights ago, headed northwest, going toward the storm before the storm come in. I seen the black where it ran through the sky and covered the stars.”

“Seen what?” Cork asked again.

“I heard it, too. Heard it calling names.”

From the way Meloux’s voice dropped to nearly nothing, Cork figured that was bad. “Heard what calling names?”

But the old man clammed up on the subject. “I can walk now,” he said.

“You’re not thinking of going back to your place before the roads are cleared.”

“I walked here a long time before there were roads.”

“That was a couple of centuries ago, Henry.”

The old man took one last drag on his cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray. “Thank you, Sheriff O’Connor.”

“Christ, I’m not the sheriff anymore.”

Meloux put on his mittens, opened his door, and stepped out. “The smell of you alone has been worth the time.” He grinned once again, then shut the door.

Cork watched him tuck the ends of his muffler into his mackinaw and turn toward the lake, toward the glittery dome invisible behind the storm where everyone who came to Aurora these days was headed, where the bright neon of the huge new casino blazed night and day, and where, even in the worst of weather, the doors were always ready to swing wide in a warm, smoky welcome promising easy fortune.

When Meloux was gone, vanished in the white, Cork smiled to himself and said the name of the thing the old man had dared not utter.

“Windigo.”

3

Stu Grantham stood before a large framed photograph of Split Rock Lighthouse that hung on the wall of the law office of Nancy Jo O’Connor. He clasped his hands behind his back as he stared at the famous landmark on the North Shore of Lake Superior. He’d been that way for nearly a minute-thoughtful, silent, unmoving-and Jo simply let him be. She had him cornered. She knew it, and if he thought about it awhile, he’d know it, too, and they could get on with things.

A tapping at the door and Fran, Jo’s secretary, peeked in. “Jo, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want to be disturbed, but the state patrol’s just closed Highway 1. I heard it on the radio.”

Jo glanced out her window. The parking lot of the Aurora Professional Building was nearly empty. Her blue Toyota Cressida was covered with snow and hung with icicles and looked like some kind of Arctic beast hunkered down to wait out the storm. Beyond that the world was white and nothing moved in the sea of snow.

“Thanks, Fran,” Jo said. “Why don’t you go on home before you get stuck here.”

“What about you?” Fran asked. She glanced at Grantham, who seemed oblivious to the news she’d brought.

“I’ll finish here with Stuart and be right behind you.”

Fran stepped toward her and handed her several pages from a phone memo pad. “I held your calls as you asked. Here are the messages.”

“Thanks. Drive carefully.”

“You, too.”

Jo scanned the phone messages. One from Frank Monroe at the department of natural resources. Call him about the Rust Creek variance for the casino. Two from Judge Robert Parrant. Simply call him. One from Dorothea Hayes about the easement for the new pulp mill. One from Sandy Parrant. No message.

Stu Grantham walked silently to the small table where Jo kept a stainless steel coffee server and several mugs, poured himself some coffee, and sat down. Grantham was a realtor by profession and head of the county board of commissioners by choice of the electorate. In his late fifties, he was white-haired and still handsome. Talc softened his cheeks. He smelled of musk aftershave. Jo wondered if he’d shaved just before coming. Men sometimes did that for her, believing it might make a difference.

Jo was a rigorously slender woman. She had hair so blonde it was almost white and eyes blue-white like glacial ice. She’d been separated from her husband, Cork, for several months. Some men, Grantham apparently among them, saw that as an opportunity.

“What is it with you, Jo?” Grantham finally asked. “Whenever I try to use your services, you’re always going on how you’re so busy you can’t hardly see straight. But here you are still taking on the cases of these-” He stopped himself abruptly.

“These what, Stu?”

“You know. These pro bono Indian cases. They’ve got the casino now. Let ‘em hire their own damn attorneys.”

“The casino is owned by the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe. Louise Willette is Lakota. She gets nothing from the casino profits. She has to work hard for what the county pays her. What she doesn’t need is the constant harassment of her coworkers.”

“For Christ sake, Jo, she’s the only woman on a road crew of men. What does she expect? These guys can’t watch every word that comes out of their mouths.”

“When it applies to my client, or to women in general, they’d better.” Jo put down the phone messages and folded her hands patiently on her desktop. “Look, Stu, I could easily have started an action against the county. The evidence is overwhelming. But I brought it to you first because I’d like to save you and the rest of the board a lot of embarrassment. My client is willing to settle this quietly. Come election time next November, I’m sure you’ll be glad Louise and I didn’t splash this across the headlines of the Sentinel.”

“Doing me a favor.” Grantham grinned, showing an incisor outlined in silver. He set his coffee mug on the desk and began to twirl a heavy, gold Aurora High class ring on his finger. Class of ’52 or ’53, Jo guessed. Aurora good ol’ boy. “Know what I’m thinking?” Grantham said. “I’m thinking Wanda Manydeeds put her up to this.”

“Nobody put her up to anything. But, yes, it was Wanda who told Louise to see me. And why shouldn’t she? I’m the best attorney in Aurora.”

“Ever since you and that Manydeeds got together, Tamarack County hasn’t been the same,” Grantham lamented.

“And amen to that.”

Jo kept her reply amiable. She’d handled Stu Grantham and others like him since she’d first hung her shingle in Aurora nearly a decade before. But it hadn’t been easy.

They’d moved back to Cork’s hometown to raise their children in a place that was not like Chicago. Cork warned her things would be difficult; she was an outsider and a woman. She hadn’t realized just how hard it would be until she’d gone nearly three months without a single client.

Then one spring day Wanda Manydeeds stepped into her office.

She was a large woman-not heavy, but tall and solid-dressed in faded jeans and a blue flannel shirt rolled up to her elbows. Her long black hair was done in a single braid and ornamented with a feather. She wore brightly beaded earrings and a beaded bracelet and possessed one of the most confrontive gazes Jo had ever encountered in another female. A young woman, probably twenty, though she was hardly larger than a girl, stood behind her, slightly hidden.

“What kind of lawyer are you?” the large woman with the earrings and bracelet asked.

“A good one,” Jo replied.

“Are you a lawyer for money or for justice?”

“Given the choice between those two, I lean toward justice.”

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