William Krueger - Tamarack County

In all the gray of the walls around him, there was only one door. Stephen walked toward it. He wanted to be out of this odious, alien place, and he hoped that the door would be the way. But as he neared it, he heard a sound from the other side, a low growl that was not like that of a dog or wolf or any other animal he’d ever heard. He was afraid. He stepped back. He wanted to turn away and run. But there was something about the door and what was on the other side that held him, that compelled him to stay. And now it was not just fear he felt. It was pain and distrust and loneliness. And that anger, anger like a great hunger trying to consume him, to suck him into itself, to make him part of it.

Stephen stood before the door, feeling all the foulness on the other side, both compelled and repelled, paralyzed by those competing impulses. Then he heard at his back the voice of Henry Meloux speak clearly and calmly: “This is your way. Open your heart to the other side of that door.”

The struggle ceased. Stephen reached out, turned the iron knob, which was as cold as a chunk of ice, and swung the door wide. For a moment, he stood in a blinding light, blinking against the intensity of the glare. He heard the growling and saw a dark figure silhouetted against the light, approaching. The figure was the size of a normal man, but as it neared, Stephen saw that the eyes were like burning coals, the same eyes he’d seen in the face of the majimanidoo in his vision the night before. In another moment, he could make out the face clearly, the face of a normal man, the face of a stranger.

Stephen spoke. “Who are you?”

In reply, the stranger said simply, “Welcome to the light.”

Stephen came out of the vision, found himself in the dark of the sweat lodge, feeling the air cooling around him, understanding that this round of the sweat was finished but uncertain of the meaning of what he’d seen. He left his blanket and began to crawl clockwise toward the flap that hung over the entrance. As he reached out to push it aside, the flap was drawn away and sunlight blasted into the lodge and into Stephen’s eyes, blinding him momentarily.

“Come out,” someone ordered, a voice familiar to Stephen. He’d heard it only moments before, in his vision.

He crawled out and stood up, blinking against the sunlight, which shot directly into his eyes. He saw the form of a man silhouetted against the light. A moment later, he could make out the face, the same face he’d just seen in his vision, the face of a man he did not know.

What Stephen saw now that he had not seen in the vision was the large handgun the man held pointed at his heart.

“Who are you?” Stephen asked.

The stranger smiled and said to him, “Welcome to the light.”

“It happened during the prison riot,” LaPointe said. “That was before Warden Gilman came, during the days we were double-bunked here.”

“Double-bunked?” Dross said.

Gilman explained: “One of the state’s budget shortfall periods. As a cost-saving measure, two of the private penal facilities were closed and the inmates were transferred here and to the prison in Saint Cloud. Normally, we have one inmate per cell. In order to accommodate the influx, the wardens had to put two inmates to a cell. Double bunking. It crowded everyone. Another thing our brilliant legislature did was cut funding for most of the work and educational programs for the prison population, so we had lots of angry guys with lots of idle time on their hands. The final straw was that our personnel budget was also slashed, so we had to lay off guards, and those who remained were terribly overworked. It was a perfect recipe for disaster.”

LaPointe said, “Men without much hope and with nothing to do but stew in the juice of their own hatred. A blind man could have seen what was coming.”

“What about this man who loves you?” Cork said.

“My old bunkmate,” LaPointe said.

“Frogg?” Warden Gilman asked.

“Frogg,” LaPointe confirmed.

“You’re saying Walter Frogg loves you?” Gilman seemed surprised.

“Where love is concerned, Walter is a man whose whole life has been a desert. He thirsts for it and has no idea how to find it.”

“But he found it in you apparently,” Cork said.

LaPointe smiled. “I offered him what I offer everyone, the world according to White Eagle. It was water in his desert.”

“You also saved his life, Cecil,” Gilman pointed out. “So in addition to believing that he loves you, he probably also believes he owes you. Pretty strong motivations, if you ask me.”

“Frog? Like the little pond creature?” Cork asked. “That’s really someone’s name?”

“Two g ’s on the end,” Gilman said. “But it must have been hell for him on the playground.”

“Tell us about this Walter Frogg,” Cork said to the warden.

Gilman crossed her arms and shook her head. “In his own eyes, the most persecuted man ever. He’s been in trouble with the law most of his life, and to hear him tell it, it’s all because of lies told against him, because of personal vendettas by law enforcement and prosecutors and judges. He’s been convicted of forgery, tax evasion, welfare fraud. But that’s not what landed him in Stillwater. What put him here were terroristic acts against the people who’d been involved in his earlier prosecutions. He sliced up dead animals and placed them on the doorstep of Ramsey County’s prosecuting attorney. He threatened the children of the judge in one of his cases. He’s slashed tires, smashed windows with cinder blocks and iron pipes, made threatening phone calls, planted fake bombs. His actions caused a judge and a prosecutor to withdraw from his case because of fear of retaliation. He eventually pleaded guilty to thirteen counts of terroristic threats and was sentenced to seven years. As soon as he got here, he began trying to withdraw his plea, claiming he’d been coerced into confessing, that the prosecution had threatened him with a forty-year sentence.

“Inside Stillwater, he was a consummate con man,” Gilman continued. “He played everyone-other inmates, the guards, me. We kept an eye on him, often for his own safety. In prison, you’re conning the cons, and that can get you killed.”

“How did he happen to end up in LaPointe’s cell?” Dross asked.

“Random assignment,” Gilman replied.

LaPointe shook his head. “The official view. Me, I’d say it was the work of the Great Mystery.”

“How so?”

“Nothing in life is random, Sheriff. Frogg came to me for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“For me, a test of my beliefs, I think. He was one of the most difficult human beings I’ve ever dealt with. That’s saying a lot when you live in a prison.”

“What made him so difficult?”

LaPointe didn’t answer at first. It was clear that he was close to the edge of exhaustion. If the man’s knowledge and understanding weren’t absolutely essential, Cork would have called an end to this interview. He found himself feeling deep gratitude toward Cecil LaPointe, who twenty years earlier, he’d helped send to this hell made of stone.

At last, LaPointe seemed to have gathered enough strength, and he went on. “Walter was angry, blameful, paranoid, conniving, smart, and he was my companion day and night. I couldn’t escape him. He talked constantly. Every moment I spent with him, he challenged me to practice what White Eagle teaches, which is acceptance.”

“What did he talk about?” Dross asked.

“His cases, all the wrongs done him by lawyers, judges, prosecutors, cops. Whenever he vented that way, I was simply quiet. Eventually he’d move on to other things, and I’d join him in the conversation. He liked flowers, so we talked about flowers. He liked old movies, so we talked about old movies. He had some ideas about writing books, so we talked about the books he might write someday.”