William Krueger: Trickster's Point

When Cork pulled into the parking lot of Sam’s Place, there was only one other vehicle: the Subaru that belonged to his daughter Jenny. It was evening, and the sky was charcoal with overcast. The weather forecast was for snow flurries, and Cork, when he got out of his Land Rover, felt the cold kiss of a flake against his cheek. The sheriff’s department had kept and bagged as evidence his hunting jacket, which was stained with Jubal Little’s blood. Even though he was chilled, he stood awhile before going inside, staring down the shoreline of the lake into the gloom of descending night. Well beyond the poplars stood the tall pine trees of Grant Park, black now in the dim light, brooding sentries looking down on the place where he’d first met Jubal Little.

In all that had occurred that day, Cork hadn’t allowed himself to feel the loss of the man who’d been his friend since boyhood. He’d been intent at first on simply comforting Jubal as he died. Then he’d been involved in explanations. Now, alone, he tried to understand how he felt. Frankly, he was confused. Jubal Little was an easy man to like, but anyone who’d been close to him knew that he was a difficult man to love. The reason was simple. In the end, in Jubal’s heart, there was room enough only for Jubal.

“Dad?”

Cork broke off his reverie and looked toward the Quonset hut, where his sixteen-year-old son, Stephen, stood in the open doorway, framed by the warm light from inside.

“You okay?” Stephen called.

“Yeah,” Cork replied. “I’ll be right in.”

The Quonset hut had been erected during the Second World War, and when the war ended had sat idle for some time, until it was purchased by an Ojibwe named Sam Winter Moon. Sam had divided the structure into two parts. In the front, he’d cut serving windows and installed a propane grill, a deep-fry well, a walk-in freezer, an ice-milk machine, and a food prep area. In the back, which was separated by a wall that Sam had constructed himself, was a living area, complete with a small kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. In the summer, Sam lived in the hut and ran his burger operation. Over the years, he developed a following of both locals and returning tourists, for whom a visit to Tamarack County wouldn’t be complete without a stop at Sam’s Place. Summers in high school, Cork had worked for Sam, and much of what he knew about what it was to be a man he’d learned from this friend and mentor. On Sam’s death, the property had passed to Cork, who’d done his best to honor Sam Winter Moon’s legacy. Now Cork’s children were involved in the enterprise as well.

He stepped into the Quonset hut and found Stephen entertaining Waaboo, Cork’s grandson, who was nearly two.

“Where’s Jenny?” Cork asked.

Stephen nodded toward the door in the room’s back wall. “Closing up,” he said. “I offered, but she told me she’d do it if I kept this little guy occupied.”

Waaboo was not the child’s legal name. Legally, he was Aaron Smalldog O’Connor, but his Ojibwe name was Waaboozoons, which meant “little rabbit,” and he was called Waaboo, for short. He was a wonder of a child, whose Ojibwe blood was apparent in his black hair and dark eyes, in the shading of his skin and the bone structure of his face. He bore a clear scar on his upper lip where surgery had closed a terrible cleft, a genetic defect. He was not Jenny’s by birth, but in her heart, in the hearts of all the O’Connors, he took up a great deal of real estate.

Waaboo smiled when he saw Cork, and he said, “Baa-baa,” which was his word for “Grandpapa.”

Cork lifted his grandson and swung him around, much to Waaboo’s delight.

“You’re home early,” Stephen said.

“You haven’t heard?” Cork put Waaboo down, and the child toddled toward a big stuffed toy bear that lay on the floor.

“Heard what?”

Cork was relieved that word of Jubal Little hadn’t spread. Dross and her people had, for the moment, done a good job of containment. But it wouldn’t last long. Something like this, it would go public quickly, and the jackals of the media would quickly gather to feed.

“Jubal Little’s dead,” Cork said.

“What? How?”

“Someone killed him.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

The door to Sam’s Place opened, and Jenny came in, bringing with her the smell of deep-fry. She was twenty-five, a willowy young woman with white-blond hair, ice blue eyes, and a face in which the cares of motherhood were just beginning to etch a few faint lines. She’d become a parent through extraordinary circumstances that had involved the brutal death of the child’s birth mother. Jenny’s intervention had saved Waaboo’s life, and little Waaboo had, in a way, saved hers. She’d been trained as a journalist but had chosen to put her career on hold while she adjusted to these new circumstances. At the moment, she helped manage Sam’s Place, wrote short stories, and devoted the rest of her time to Waaboo.

“Thought we weren’t going to see you tonight,” she said, heading toward her son, who’d wrapped his arms around the big bear and had rolled the stuffed animal on top of him. “Thought you and our next governor were going to hang out and do manly things together.”

“Jubal Little’s dead,” Stephen told her.

She stopped in bending to lift her son and shot her father a startled look. “How?”

Cork explained what had happened.

“You sat there for three hours while he died?” Jenny had the same look that Cork had seen on Dross’s face and Larson’s, a look void of comprehension. “Why didn’t you go get help?”

He was tired of explaining, and he said, “At the time, staying with Jubal seemed best.”

“Was it an accident?” Stephen asked.

Cork shook his head.

Jenny said, “Why so sure?”

“Because what the sheriff’s people don’t know but will figure out pretty soon is that the arrow that killed him may well have been one of mine.”

“How do you know that?”

“I make my own arrows, Jenny. My fletching pattern is unique. When I saw the fletching on the arrow in Jubal’s heart, I knew where it came from. Or where it was supposed to look like it came from.”

“Somebody’s what-trying to frame you?” Stephen asked.

“That’s sure how it looks.”

“Does the sheriff think you did it?”

“At the moment, I’m the only suspect on the horizon.”

Jenny said, “Do you have a lawyer?”

“I called Leon Papakee. He got there in the middle of my interview with Ed Larson. I’m afraid he was a little late for damage control.”

“You let them question you without a lawyer?” Jenny seemed astonished.

“I know,” Cork said. “It’s strange how, when you’re on the other side of things, you’re not as smart as you think you’ll be.” He shrugged. “Maybe I was still a little in shock, I don’t know. I said more than I should have, and unless I can figure out who fired that arrow, I’ll probably regret it.”

Stephen had dark almond eyes, the eyes of his Ojibwe ancestors, and they were hard with concern. “What are you going to do, Dad?”

“I need some time to think, and I need a little advice. I’m heading out to talk to Henry Meloux. Look, I don’t think things will blow up tonight, but if they do, we’ll be getting calls at the house. Don’t talk to anyone, okay?”

“Sure,” Jenny said. “We’ll see you later tonight?”

“Morning, more likely,” Cork said.

To which Jenny smiled. “While you’re out there, say hello to Rainy for us.”

Cork drove north out of Aurora, along the shoreline of Iron Lake. Dark had fallen completely. At the edges of the headlight glare, the trees-pine and spruce and birch and poplar-were like stark walls hemming him in. Although he’d tried his best to hide it from his children, he was worried. Not only had someone killed Jubal Little but they’d also done their best to make it look as if Cork was guilty of the crime. The evidence was slight at the moment, and nothing that would convict him, if it came to that, but he had no idea how carefully the murder had been planned and what other evidence might have been created or planted that would point his way.