William Krueger - Copper River

“I heard Amber Kennedy likes you.”

“Right.”

“No shit. And don’t tell me you haven’t looked at those tits of hers when you pass her in the hallway. Dude, the way she pushes them out, it’s totally grotesque. Like Alien, you know. I keep thinking something really scary is going to pop out of there.”

Ren slid off the picnic table, went to the fireplace, and picked up the remains of a burned piece of wood. He walked back and began to doodle in charcoal on the tabletop. Charlie watched him for a while.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Can’t you tell?”

“I don’t know. Looks like mountains or something.”

Ren drew a few more strokes.

“Jesus, that’s Amber Kennedy, and those are her tits.” Charlie laughed and gave Ren a playful shove.

“Hey, guys. Guys. You gotta see this. Quick.” Stash frantically waved them over to the riverbank.

They moved slowly, not just because of the weed but because Stash sometimes got worked up over stupid things.

“Look. See it? Do you see it?”

Stash pointed at something in the water, sweeping downriver in and out of the troughs of the cascades. Ren couldn’t, in fact, see it clearly because the light was so poor now, and the river had become a dark gloss of black and pale silver. Also, the fast water quickly carried away whatever it was that Stash had seen.

“It was a body,” Stash said.

“Bullshit,” Charlie said. “It was just a log or something.”

“I’m telling you it was a body. I saw it when it went by.”

“You mean like a dead person?” Ren said.

“Yeah, man, a dead body.”

Charlie shook her head. “Naw, if it was a body it had to be, like, a deer or something.”

Stash turned on her angrily. “If you weren’t so goddamned slow you’d have seen it.”

“Slow? Me?” Her fist exploded forward and caught Stash hard in the arm.

“Owww. Damn it.”

“That’s from my movie. Charlie Kills Stash.”

Stash rubbed his arm. “I’m telling you guys it was a body.”

“You’ve been watching too many old gangster movies, dude. It’s screwing with your head.”

“That or the weed,” Ren threw in.

“I’m going down there to find it.”

“You do, and you’re walking home, Stash. I’ve got to split for the cabins. You want a ride, you come with me now.”

“It was a body,” Stash said sullenly.

“Yeah, well, now it’s in the lake, and you know what they say about Superior: it never gives up its dead. So whatever it was, it’s gone.”

Stash stood looking downstream where a hundred yards away the pale river water met the deep blue of the great lake. “ ‘Oil and water are the same as wind and air when you’re dead,’ ” he said.

Ren and Charlie stared at him and waited.

“Humphrey Bogart. The Big Sleep, ” Stash said, disappointed. “Let’s go.”

Cork heard the boy enter and quietly close the cabin door.

“I’m awake,” he said.

Ren paused and looked at him without emotion. Very Ojibwe, Cork thought. The blood of The People was evident in his fine black hair, high cheeks, dark eyes, latte-shaded skin. Ren said nothing but continued to the kitchen area, turned on the light, and sat down at the table. Carefully, he laid out the things he’d been carrying. A stack of comic books, a sketch pad, a box of colored pencils, a hard white lump that Cork couldn’t identify.

“What time is it?” Cork asked.

“Nine.”

The boy opened one of the comic books, then flipped back a page of the sketchbook. He selected a pencil, paused a moment, and began to draw.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She got a call. An elk ranch west of Marquette. Some kind of emergency.”

“And she asked you to sit with me again, is that it? Thanks.”

The boy remained intent on his drawing.

“What are you doing?” Cork asked.

“Nothing.”

“How do you know when you’re finished?”

The boy hesitated, thought that over, decided to smile.

“Did your mom tell you about me?”

“Not much.”

“You’ve got questions, I imagine.”

The boy finally looked up.

“You deserve answers,” Cork said.

Ren tapped the pencil top on the table a few times. “Who are you?”

“Your mother’s cousin. You visited my house in Minnesota once with your folks. You must have been seven or eight then. Do you remember?”

“I remember you arrested Dad.”

“I thought you might.”

“Made Mom mad, but it was a story Dad used to like to tell.” He thought a moment. “I remember two girls, older than me. One was blond and really pretty.”

“That would be Jenny.”

“The other one could play baseball as good as Charlie.”

“And that would be Anne. They’re both in high school. You probably don’t remember Stevie. He was just a baby. He’s seven now.”

The boy looked unsatisfied. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

“You meant who am I that somebody would want me dead?”

“Yeah, that.”

Cork worked on sitting up. Despite the painkiller Jewell had given him, his leg throbbed. He edged his way upright with his back against the wall. Finally he could look at the boy eye to eye.

“I’m Corcoran Liam O’Connor, sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota.”

“Oh. A cop.” As if, of course, that was all he needed to write Cork off.

Cork went on. “I was shot because a rich man has put a bounty on my head. Half a million dollars, as I understand it.”

Ren’s eyes opened like a couple of sunflowers. “Why?”

“He thinks I killed his son.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Will he come looking for you here?” He seemed less worried than curious.

Cork shifted his position a little, hoping to ease the pain in his leg. It didn’t work. “Men like him don’t soil their hands with the actual dirty work. That’s the reason for the bounty.”

Ren worked this over in his thinking, then his face went slack again. “So you’re the police.”

“You hold that against me?”

“You know how my father died?”

“I know.”

“The police murdered him.”

“Most police aren’t like that.” He tried to judge how the boy received his words, but Ren was a blank slate. “It’s hard for you, I know. I lost my father when I was your age.”

Again, a flicker of interest in Ren’s dark eyes. “Yeah?”

“He was the sheriff of Tamarack County, too. He was killed doing his duty, protecting people.”

“How?”

“Some men tried to rob the bank in town. My dad and two deputies responded. There was shooting. In the middle of it, a deaf old woman walked onto the street right into the line of fire. My father ran out to pull her to safety, took a bullet that probably would have hit her. He died on the operating table.”

“You’re trying to tell me all cops aren’t bad.”

“No. Just telling you about my father and me. I still miss him.”

Ren studied the sketch he’d begun in his pad. “What do you do when you miss him?”

“Try to remember that he’s never completely gone. He’s here.” Cork touched his head. “And he’s here.” He touched his heart. “Sometimes when I’m not sure what’s right, I find myself thinking, What would Dad have done? ”

“Me, too,” Ren said.

“What do you do when you miss him?”

“What he taught me to do. Draw.”

“You’re an artist, too?”

“Not like him.”

“What are you working on?”

“It’s just a comic book.”

“You like comic books?”

Ren nodded.

“Me, too.”

“Yeah?”

“I used to anyway. I always knew when the new issues were due to arrive at the drug store and I’d head there right after school. I was a Marvel fan. The Fantastic Four were my favorites. They still around?”