William Krueger - Boundary waters

“Think he’ll keep going?”

“He’s after Shiloh, not us. Yeah, I think he’ll keep going.”

“Maybe we held him enough for her to make it out okay.”

“Maybe,” Cork said.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Chunk of rock. At least it wasn’t a bullet. Christ, I’m freezing.” He hadn’t noticed during all the excitement, but now the wet clothes and the brisk air made him shiver. His hands were purple from the cold. “We need a fire going. Fast.”

They began back through the trees along the river. They hadn’t gone far when they moved into the smell of wood smoke. Ahead, they saw a gray billowing, and a minute later they found Louis feeding dead wood onto a roaring blaze he’d built against the curl of rocks. Cork saw that the boy had constructed a council fire, the sticks of wood in a cross-hatched square so the fire would burn big and hot and fast. The heat had already melted the snow several feet from the flames. Louis had somehow managed to move Sloane as near to the fire as he safely could.

Sloane’s eyes flickered open when Cork and Stormy arrived. He managed a weak smile. “You got some boy there, Two Knives.”

“I know.”

“You get him?” Sloane asked Cork.

“No,” Cork answered.

He heard the awful quiver in Sloane’s voice, saw how his body shook. The fire wasn’t doing a lot of good yet. Cork threw off his wet jacket and pulled off his wool sweater. He handed it to Louis. “Hold this near the fire and get it warm.” He took off his pants and socks and pulled his wet wool hat from the pocket of his coat. “Can you handle these, too, Louis? Stormy, help me get Sloane out of those wet clothes.”

Sloane made no protest as they undressed him. Cork was sure the man was going into shock. But one problem at a time. When they had Sloane’s clothes off, Cork quickly checked the wound. Entry was a penny-size hole through the bottom of the rib cage, right side. The exit wound was a huge explosion of flesh out of the lower back, full of jagged bone fragment.

“In my left coat pocket, Stormy, there’s a red bandanna.”

Stormy got it. Cork folded the bandanna into a compress and put it over the exit wound. It wasn’t going to be enough, he knew, but there wasn’t much else he could do.

“How’re those clothes, Louis?”

“Warm.”

“Let’s have them.”

The wool was steaming when Louis handed the clothing over. Cork and Stormy pulled the things onto Sloane’s cold body. Hat, sweater, pants, socks. Finally they put him against the rocks that were beginning to feed back the heat of the fire.

Cork stripped off his thermals and stood stark naked so close to the flames that he smelled the hair on his legs singeing. He turned himself frequently, letting the heat hit his whole body. Stormy and Louis did the same. Cork shook his head. Men reduced to one of the most basic and primitive of relationships. Cold naked flesh and fire.

Their clothes hung on sticks thrust into the ground and leaned toward the flames. Their boots ringed the fire. They sat against the heated rocks with Sloane lying between them. For a long time, they hadn’t spoken. Cork was tired beyond words. Even so, he found himself thinking, remembering.

He was remembering the day Marais Grand had left Aurora, the day she’d started the long train of events that would ultimately bring him and the others to this juncture.

They’d gathered at Pflugelmann’s Rexall Drugs where the Greyhound bus stopped on its way to and from Duluth. Ellie Grand was there, and Marais, and Cork’s mother, and Cork. Marais had a backpack, a guitar case, and a one-way ticket to L.A. Ellie Grand was sure her daughter would be back within a few weeks. Marais was just as positive she was leaving for good. She looked down Oak Street, the main street of town, and predicted, “Someday they’re going to put up a sign that says ’Hometown of Marais Grand.’ People are going to come just because I used to live here. They’ll point to this spot and say, ’That’s the last place she stood before she left for good.’” She smiled at Cork. “And they’ll beat down your door, Nishiime, just because you knew me.”

She kissed him when the bus came. Her eyes were bright with expectation. Her mother’s eyes, Cork recalled, were green pools with streams spilling from them. They all stood waving in the cloud of stinking diesel as the bus pulled away. Except on the screen of his television, he never saw her again.

He wondered now if anyone could have foreseen that her life would end as suddenly as a stone dropped in water, or that the rings of tragedy that swept outward from that death would overtake so many lives fifteen years Later.

“Thirsty,” Sloane said.

Cork danced across the cold ground to the river and tried unsuccessfully to bring back water hi his cupped hands.

“Wait a minute,” Louis said. He disappeared into the trees and came back a few minutes later with a strip of birch bark roughly folded into a vessel. He dipped it in the river and brought it back full. He knelt down.

Sloane grinned slightly and said, “Is this water okay? Don’t want to get sick.”

Cork laughed quietly. “It’s fine. Drink all you want.”

Sloane sipped a little, looking Cork over with his droopy eyes. “Used to make fun of the idea of men dancing naked in the woods. Where’s your drum?”

“Don’t talk,” Cork advised.

Sloane said, “Won’t make any difference. We both know it.” He closed his eyes a moment. “Can you do something about these clothes? They’re itchy and they smell.”

“Are you warm?” Cork asked.

“I’m done on this side. You can turn me over.” Sloane rolled his eyes toward Louis. “Sorry about all this, son. Tough trip for you.”

Louis said, “It’s okay.”

Sloane closed his eyes and was quiet again.

Cork felt his thermals. They were almost dry.

“I’m going to get dressed and go downriver. See if I can find any sign of Arkansas Willie and take a look for the canoes and our gear. You okay staying with him?” He nodded toward Sloane.

“Yes,” Stormy said.

The sun was level with the treetops by the time Cork left the fire. Another couple of hours before hard dark, he figured. With the sky so clear, the temperature would probably drop fast.

He scaled the palisade, crossed the top, and worked his way off the downriver side. He followed the river to the bend, then another quarter mile until he spotted the canoes. They’d hung up among the branches of a pine that had fallen, half blocking the river. They were overturned, nudged against one another and bobbing in the current like mating beasts. Cork shinnied out along the trunk of the pine tree. He saw that the hulls had been smashed, the bows shattered beyond anything the river or pine branches could have done.

Majimanidoo, he thought darkly.

Because the hulls were upturned, he couldn’t tell if the packs were still secured to the thwarts. He knew he’d have to get wet again. The prospect was disheartening. He eased himself into the icy flow of the Deertail and went under. Threading his way through the branches that had snagged the canoes, he felt under the stern thwart of the canoe he and Raye had paddled. The pack was there. He surfaced, took a deep breath, and went back under. Wetted, the knots of the cord that held the pack were impossible to untie. Once again, he surfaced for air. This time when he went under, he undid the pocket of the Duluth pack and pulled out the old Case knife he kept there. He unfolded the blade, sliced through the cord, and hauled the pack out. After he’d wrestled it to solid ground, he returned to the canoe and cut the cord holding the supply pack that had been secured under the bow thwart.

That was enough. The cold had cramped his hands. He dragged himself onto the riverbank, knowing he had to get back to the fire quickly. He shouldered both packs, awkwardly. Waterlogged, the load seemed twice as heavy as it would have dry. Cork stumbled to the palisade, but once there, knew he couldn’t drag both packs over. He abandoned his own and started up with the supplies.