William Krueger - Boundary waters

As they pulled back onto the road, Raye asked, “Why wouldn’t he talk to you?”

Cork turned east out of Allouette and began to follow a dirt road that cut through thick forest. “Stormy’s got a temper,” he explained. “A few years ago he got into a fight, killed a man. Afterward, he panicked and ran. Holed up in a shack up north on Iron Lake, threatened to shoot anyone who tried to come near him. The sheriff talked his way in and convinced Stormy to give himself up. Assured him he’d get a fair trial. As it turned out, he didn’t. Stormy spent five years in the prison at Stillwater.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t talk to you.”

Cork pulled across an old wooden bridge over a small creek and stopped behind a dusty blue Ford Ranger parked at the side of the road. “I was the sheriff.”

The biting whine of a chainsaw chewed through the stillness of the woods near the creek. Cork followed the sound until he came to an area where a number of big dying firs stood brown among the other evergreens. Several trees had already been felled, their dry branches splintered against the ground. Stormy Two Knives was moving swiftly down one of the horizontal trunks, a big yellow McCulloch in his gloved hands, carving away the limbs and slicing the trunk into sections. The air smelled of oil and gas and sawdust. A boy of ten followed on the ground gathering the debris into piles. The boy noticed them first.

Cork waited in a big patch of sunlight until Stormy Two Knives cut the motor of the chainsaw and lifted his safety goggles. Two Knives saw the boy looking, and he looked, too. He stepped off the fallen tree.

“Anin, Stormy,” Cork said. “Anin, Louis,” he said to the boy.

Two Knives set down the chainsaw. He took off the ball cap he was wearing and shook his head vigorously. Sweat flew off him like a dog shaking dry after a bath. “You don’t have to pretend the Indian shit with me, O’Connor.”

“Anin,” Louis Two Knives said.

His father shot him a stern look.

Stormy Two Knives was slightly smaller than Cork but outweighed him by fifty pounds. He stood hunched a little forward from overdeveloped back muscles, a characteristic of men who’d cut timber most of their lives. In the years he’d been in prison, Two Knives had used his time to develop the rest of his body as well. His chest was massive. The sleeves of his plaid flannel shirt were rolled back, revealing sinewy arms. But prison had also developed something else in Two Knives, and it showed in the coldness of his dark eyes.

“Sarah told us you’d be here. I need to talk to you, Stormy.”

“I’m busy.”

“It’s important. It’s about your uncle.”

Two Knives reached down to where a thermos sat on a stump. He poured cold water into the thermos cup and took a drink. He offered the cup to his son.

“Wendell? What about him?”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Why?”

“It’s important I talk to him.”

“Haven’t seen him.”

Louis Two Knives handed the thermos cup back to this father. “He’s in the Boundary Waters.”

“Louis,” Stormy Two Knives snapped.

“He’s been gone a long time,” the boy continued, ignoring the hard look from his father.

“Stormy,” Cork said. “He may be in trouble.”

“The only trouble an Indian is ever in is with the law. Has my uncle done something?”

“He guided a woman into the Boundary Waters. We think somebody may want to hurt her, and they might try to use Wendell to get to her.”

“We?” Two Knives coldly scrutinized Arkansas Willie Raye, looking directly into his eyes, an unusual thing for an Ojibwe. But prison had changed Stormy Two Knives in a lot of ways. “I know you.”

“Call me Arkansas Willie,” Raye said. He thrust a hand out, but Two Knives only looked at it.

“Used to watch you on TV,” Stormy Two Knives said. “Didn’t know you were still alive.” He turned his attention back to Cork. “I don’t know anything about my uncle.”

“Stormy, this woman’s life may be at stake. Your uncle’s, too.”

“My uncle can take care of himself.”

“I’ve been told he goes in and out of the Boundary Waters frequently. I think he must take supplies to this woman. Louis says he’s been gone a long time. That makes me worried.”

“Look, what do you care, O’Connor? You’re not the sheriff anymore. You don’t make the laws around here.”

“I never did, Stormy.”

“Like I said,” Two Knives went on, lifting his chainsaw, “I’m busy. Hand me that bar tool, Louis. I want to tighten this chain.”

“I’ll pay you,” Willie Raye said.

Two Knives paused. “How much?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“We get an allotment from the casino profits now.” He hefted the saw and plucked at the chain to gauge the tension. “You can take your thousand dollars and shove it up your ass.”

Willie Raye moved forward a step. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m just plumb scared, Stormy. I got me a little girl out there, lost as a blind kitten in a kennel full of hounds. I’d give my left nut just to know she’s okay. A man loses his family, doesn’t matter what else he’s got. He’s got nuthin’. There’s no reason you should help me. No reason on earth. Except you’re the only one who can.”

Stormy Two Knives stared at him. “You her father?”

“I’m her father.”

Two Knives’ face was impassive as he stood considering. Louis reached out and touched his father’s arm. Two Knives bent down and the boy whispered.

In the quiet, Cork heard the crack and pop of twigs as someone approached from the direction of the old logging road. In a moment, Booker T. Harris and Dwight Sloane appeared. They walked to where Cork and Raye stood and Harris addressed Stormy Two Knives.

“Is your name Hector Two Knives?”

The skin around Two Knives’ eyes went tight as old leather. “Everyone calls me Stormy. Except cops.”

“Is that your Ranger parked out there?”

“That’s my Ranger.”

“Mr. Two Knives,” Harris said, taking a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket, “you’re under arrest.”

“ Under arrest?” Two Knives’ eyes flashed toward Cork. “What for?”

“Sloane,” Harris said.

Agent Sloane held out his hands. He wore black gloves. Cradled in the palms of his gloves was a big handgun. Cork guessed, from its size and square trigger guard, that it was probably a Ruger Super Blackhawk,. 44 magnum. Not an uncommon handgun.

“I found this in the toolbox in the back of your truck,” Sloane said.

“You have a search warrant to look in the toolbox?” Cork asked.

“The lid was up,” Sloane said.

“That’s not mine.” Stormy stood rigid, the saw poised in his hands.

“You can argue that from your prison cell. This is a parole violation, Hector. You’re going back to hard time,” Harris said. “Put that saw down.”

Stormy didn’t move. “You didn’t find that in my toolbox.”

“I will testify under oath that I did,” Sloane said. He put the gun in a plastic evidence bag.

“What’s this all about, Harris?” Cork demanded.

Stormy shot Cork an angry glance. “You know them?”

“FBI,” Cork said. “That’s Special Agent in Charge Booker T. Harris. And that’s Agent Dwight Sloane. They’re looking for the woman, too.”

“Too?” Harris said. “I thought we were working together on this, O’Connor.”

“So did I,” Cork said. “I thought we agreed to do it my way.”

Stormy Two Knives regarded Cork as if he had murder on his mind.

“Read him his rights,” Harris said to Agent Sloane. He stepped toward Stormy with the cuffs in his outstretched hands. “Unless he wants to tell us where the woman is.”