William Krueger - Copper River

“Yes.”

“Who do you like?”

“The Silver Surfer’s pretty awesome. I like Hellboy, too.”

“The comic book you’re working on, does it have a superhero?”

“His name’s Jack Little Wolf. But he’s really the reincarnation of a famous warrior named White Eagle.”

“What’s he like?”

“Jack’s an artist, kind of a quiet guy. White Eagle’s this awesome dude. He calls up the forces of nature. You know, wind and lightning, that stuff. Also animals. He’s, like, very psychic with animals. But he doesn’t realize he does all this. He has these blackouts and he doesn’t remember.”

“Disconnected from who he really is?”

“Right.”

“What triggers the blackouts?”

“Evil. He can sense it. He, you know, begins to tingle and stuff.”

“Lucky him. Been times I could have used that myself. May I see?”

“I don’t really show it to anybody.”

“That’s cool.” Cork nodded toward Ren’s left. “What’s the white thing?”

Ren held up the hard lump. “A plaster cast of a cougar track I found outside.”

“A cougar? Here? You’re sure? Maybe it’s a bobcat.”

Ren stood and brought the casting to the bunk. “Too big for a bobcat. This one’s almost four inches across. And see the second toe, how it’s longer than the others? That’s like our index finger. It’s one of the characteristics of the cougar’s forepaw. I looked it up.”

“You have a dog, Ren?”

“No.”

“Cats?”

“No. I had a pet raccoon once, but I had to let him go.”

Although the idea of a cougar seemed pretty far-fetched to Cork, he wondered if he should be concerned. Most wild animals were careful to avoid humans. It would be very unusual for a predator as large and cautious as a cougar to prowl so near a dwelling, especially one without pets or small livestock to attract it. Still, if it was desperately hungry…

“Have you told your mom?”

“No.”

“Let her know, okay?”

“Sure.”

Cork, knowing boys, wondered if he actually would. He made a mental note to mention it to Jewell himself.

“What happened to your lip?” Cork asked.

Ren reached up and touched the puffed area. “Got into a fight. It’s okay.”

He started back to the table. Cork called after him. “Could you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“I need to call someone. My cell phone is still in my car, in the glove compartment. Could you get it?”

“Sure.”

Ren put the casting on the table and headed toward the door.

“Maybe you should take a poker, just in case you meet the cougar.”

Ren smiled big, then seemed to understand that Cork wasn’t kidding.

“I’ll be all right,” he said.

Cork was sure he would be, but he knew from his own mistakes that it paid to be careful.

Outside, a wind bullied its way through the pine trees, and a cloud scarred the face of the rising moon. Around the cabins, everything was dark. There was a yard light on a pole near Thor’s Lodge. When they’d had guests, Ren’s father kept the light burning until ten p.m. After that, he turned it off, believing that dark was one of the things people sought when they fled the city. Now the yard light was always off because the bulb had burned out and neither Ren nor his mother had bothered to put up a ladder to change it. The dark didn’t worry Ren anymore, but he used to be afraid at night. His father had tried to explain that the woods-the animals and trees and rocks and rivers and lakes-were family, Ren’s family, and that the wind was the breath of manidoog, spirits that watched over him and guided him. Ren liked hearing that, but he didn’t believe it, not in a way that dissolved his fear. He knew from the stories his great-grandfather told him that there were other spirits in the woods not particularly inclined to look kindly on him. The Windigo, for example, a horrible cannibal with a heart of ice.

After his father’s death, Ren had determined not to be afraid anymore. It was something that he wanted to do for his father. So he went out alone one night, far from the cabins, far from anyone who could come if he called out. He didn’t build a fire. He wanted to see the true face of the dark. It had been a night like this with a restless feel in the wind and strange sounds in the forest. He’d been afraid at first, terrified. But gradually he understood that the noises were simply the nocturnal prowling of small, harmless critters. Eventually the sky filled with the aurora borealis. Ren finally fell asleep on a bed of pine needles under a canopy of lights with the music of the woods all around him. He dreamed of a white eagle that night, dreamed the great bird carried him on a flight that left him breathless, and when he woke, he woke free of many burdens.

Ren stopped in Thor’s Lodge for a flashlight, and also for a walkie-talkie his mother had asked him to give to Cork so he could call them if he needed anything. Then he headed to the equipment shed. His mother had parked the man’s car behind the shed, hiding it from sight should anyone come calling. Ren hadn’t taken much notice of the car except that it was old and a yellow-green that reminded him of the color his urine turned whenever he ate asparagus. He tried the passenger side door. It was locked. When he went around the driver’s side, he saw the pocking of bullet holes, four in all. He gingerly lifted the handle, released the door. A smell rushed out at him, raw and unpleasant, like old meat. The dome light didn’t come on, so Ren used his flashlight. The beam fell across a massive black stain on the upholstery. The carpet was stained, too. The man’s blood, he realized.

Not the man, he told himself. Cork. It was Cork’s blood. Ren suddenly wanted to know how it felt to be shot, and wondered if it would be impolite to ask.

To get to the glove compartment, he would have to crawl across the bloodstain. The idea didn’t appeal to him. He opened the back door, climbed in, and slid to the other side. He reached over the passenger seat and popped open the glove compartment. He saw the cell phone immediately, and also saw that it was broken, a hole smashed through the middle. A bullet, Ren figured. Something else in the glove compartment caught his eye. A gun. A small stainless steel pistol with a beautiful polished wood grip. Sometimes the hunters who used to come to the cabins carried handguns along with their rifles, but they were ugly-looking things. Ren had never before seen a pistol so carefully crafted. He couldn’t resist touching it. The metal was cold against his fingertips. He was tempted to pick it up but thought better of it. He closed the compartment and started back.

When he handed Cork the cell phone, the man seemed disappointed. “Looks like it got hit by a bullet,” Ren told him. “But here, you can use ours.” He handed Cork the phone he’d taken from Thor’s Lodge on his way back and also a walkie-talkie.

“What’s with this?” Cork asked, looking at the little Motorola unit.

“Mom wanted you to have one of the walkie-talkies. None of the guest cabins have phones, so if you need us in the night or something, just use that.” Ren started to turn away but held up a moment. “The people who shot at you, did you shoot back at them?”

“No.” Cork studied the pad on the cell phone, his finger poised to dial.

“Why not?”

“I’d have been firing on the fly. My shots might have gone wild. Somebody innocent could have been hurt. It was a better idea just to get the hell out of there.”

“Have you ever shot anybody?”

Cork hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

“Did you kill them?”

He hesitated even longer. “Yes.”

Cork didn’t look like a man who killed people. He wasn’t tall or menacing or grim. He didn’t even look like a cop, really. Maybe it was his eyes. There was something kind in them.