William Krueger: Trickster's Point

“Broom’s interview didn’t go so well, I heard,” Cork said.

Larson nudged the glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Depends on what you were looking for. If you just wanted someone to charge in Jubal Little’s murder, then it was pretty much a washout. If you were looking for the truth of this whole thing, then it was helpful in its way. Took Broom out of the mix as far as I’m concerned. I’m pretty sure you were right. He’s trying to cover for someone else. The question is who.”

Cork could have offered up Winona Crane but didn’t want to send the investigation down another blind alley that would just result in dragging more innocent people into the mess.

“Are Marsha and Holter in conference on what to tell the media?”

“Yeah. Holter let it slip that he’d turned from investigating a hunting accident to a homicide investigation, and that he had his man. Marsha was pissed, and now he’s got to figure out how to make a strategic retreat.”

“Any more word on the identity of the John Doe on the ridge?”

“Nothing.” Larson sat back, clearly tired. “As far as legal radar is concerned, the guy seems to have always flown below it.”

“What about whoever it was shot the arrows into him and Jubal?”

“We had almost nothing to begin with, and that’s still all we’ve got. The only thing we really know about the shooter doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

“What’s that?”

“He may have been a little drunk. Maybe had to find some courage in a bottle. But for somebody who’d been drinking, he had awfully good aim with those arrows. So, like I said, I’m not sure what sense to make of it.”

“Drunk?” This was news to Cork. “How would you know that?”

“Something the Border Patrol agent, John Berglund, noted when he finished tracking that day.”

“Did he write up a report?”

“Just some notes.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

“Be my guest. But don’t let Holter know I’m doing this.”

Larson took one of the manila folders from a small stack on his desk, thumbed through some papers inside, and came up with three pages torn from a small wire-bound notebook. He handed them to Cork and said, “Take your coat off and have a seat.”

It was late afternoon, darkening already from both the gloom of the overcast and the early sunsets that came with the season. Snowflakes kissed the windows of Larson’s office and melted and formed trickles down the glass. Larson had his desk light on, and between that and the soft gray illumination that still sifted through the windowpanes, Cork could see well enough to read.

The words on the lined paper were in ink, ballpoint probably, written neatly. They indicated directions, distances, topography, ground conditions, weather. They elucidated the particulars of the signs that Berglund had found and followed. Cork read the description of the two sets of tracks, with special interest in the set made by what Berglund, in his notes, referred to as the “unsub,” the unknown subject in the investigation, the killer, who’d come up from the lake, shadowed the John Doe to the ridge, and returned the same way when he finished what he’d come there for. Berglund had noted that often the footprints seemed askew, as if the person who’d made them was stumbling, unsteady in his gait, a little drunk perhaps.

Cork handed the notes back.

“Anything?” Larson asked.

“Nothing,” Cork lied.

But in his head he was thinking, Not drunk. Just someone trying to protect the things he loves.

It was dark by the time Cork pulled up the drive to Winona Crane’s place. Willie’s modified Jeep was parked there. A dim light shone inside the house, and Cork saw a shadow cross a window. He parked his Land Rover, got out, climbed the front steps, and knocked at the door. A few moments later, Willie Crane stood in the open doorway, looking at him with surprise, then with irritation.

“What do you want now?” he asked. Whayouwannow?

“May I come in?”

“What for?”

“I’ve been looking for you. Went to your cabin and then to the Native Art center in Allouette. I’d like to talk to you and Winona.”

“She’s not here.”

“I figured that. So I’d like to talk to you about where I think she is.” He waited a moment, then added, “Please.”

Willie relented and stepped back to let him pass. They stood in the living room, surrounded by all the evidence of Winona Crane’s search for… what? Truth? Peace of mind? Love?

“I came to apologize,” Cork said.

“What for?”

“For leaning on you so hard in a difficult time.”

“Apology accepted.” It was obvious that, for Willie, the matter was ended, and he was just fine with Cork leaving.

Cork’s cell phone rang. Without looking at the incoming call, he turned the unit off. In what was ahead, he didn’t want any disturbance.

He walked toward a framed photograph on the wall, a magnificent shot of a moose, standing in the shallows of a wilderness lake at sunset with red fingers of sunlight stretched across the sky above, as if the hand of God had reached out in benediction.

“You’re a remarkable guy, Willie. I’ve always admired you. There’s nothing the rest of us can do that you can’t. I still remember when you saved Isaiah Broom from drowning. That was amazing.” Cork idly scratched the back of his neck and turned casually toward Willie. “You sure proved Sam Winter Moon wrong.”

Willie stood with his back to a wall where one of Winona’s exotic icons hung, a ceramic mask, a grotesque-looking thing with a mouth stretched in a huge, ruby-lipped oval, a silent scream of pain or maybe terror. What god it represented or what religious sensibility Cork hadn’t the faintest idea, but it eyed him wildly over Willie’s left shoulder and made Cork even more uncomfortable with what lay ahead.

“What do you mean?” Willie asked.

“Sam taught me and Jubal and your sister to hunt in the old way, but not you. He must have figured you couldn’t handle it.”

“He offered to teach me, but I had no interest in killing anything.”

“He must have taught you to track though. You sure know how to stalk an animal with a camera.” Cork nodded toward the photograph of the moose at sunset.

“He taught me,” Willie admitted.

“So. Was it Winona who taught you how to shoot an arrow? Or was that your good friend Isaiah Broom?”

Willie frowned at him but didn’t reply.

“The man who killed the chimook on the ridge above Trickster’s Point and then killed Jubal Little left an odd trail,” Cork explained. “The tracks were a bit awkward. The official thinking in the investigation is that the killer had been drinking to build his courage. Maybe. But if you ask me, it would be awfully hard for a drunk man to stalk anything quietly. So I’ve been thinking about a different kind of man. About a man who’s walked a little awkwardly all his life and who knows how to compensate. About a man who, despite all the challenges against him, can stalk wild animals and get close enough for remarkable photographs.”

Willie was as speechless as the screaming mask at his back.

“I’m willing to bet that, when I tell the sheriff’s investigators to compare your fingerprints with those on the arrow through the John Doe’s eye, they’ll get a match. I don’t know how you acquired the skill, Willie, but I’m sure you can shoot a hunting arrow as well as I can. Hell, from what I’ve seen of you over all these years, I’m willing to bet you can probably shoot better.”

“Why are you here?” Willie finally asked.

“Believe it or not,” Cork replied, “it’s love that brings me.”

Willie said, “I need to sit down.” Ineedasidon. He dropped into an easy chair, collapsed there like an emptied sack.