William Krueger - Tamarack County

When it was put that way, Stephen didn’t have a choice. He said, “All right.”

They walked together, Stephen in front and the stranger at his back. The angle of the sun made their shadows seem to walk with them, mute witnesses to an execution. The crow went on with his cawing, a long, bitter complaint, and Stephen wondered if that was going to be the last sound he would hear in this life. He was grateful that he wasn’t afraid and he thought that probably this was the point of the visions, to prepare him for death at the hands of this majimanidoo, this angry stranger.

His body had begun to shiver violently. He’d been out of the lodge a long time. The muscles of his feet were starting to cramp from the cold. His brain was becoming thick, his thinking a little fuzzy. A sign of hypothermia, he understood. When he reached the edge of the open water, he hesitated.

“Go on in,” the stranger said.

“And then what?” Stephen’s voice came out cracked and stuttering, the result of the cold, which was eating into him, into his muscle, his brain. He kept his eyes on the silvery surface of the open water.

“I won’t shoot you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” the stranger said.

“You want me to freeze to death?”

“I need this to look like an accident. It’ll be quick, I imagine. And I’m told it’s warm at the end. You get in there now, before your sister comes back.”

Which was the leverage the stranger held.

Stephen waded in. The first time, his skin and body had been superheated in the sweat, and that had been a brief buffer against the cold of the water. This time his body had cooled, and the lake became a huge hand that squeezed him and gave pain everywhere it touched. He could barely catch his breath, and it felt as if his heart might explode, but he kept moving.

When he was up to his waist, he turned. He was going to say something, wasn’t he? To the stranger? He couldn’t remember what. His overlong exposure to the cold air and now to the icy water was making his thinking slushy. The stranger stood on the shoreline, watching. Over his shoulder on the branch of the bare aspen tree, the crow also watched.

And behind them both, up where the meadow would be green in summer and full of wildflowers, Anne watched, too.

Stephen heard her call his name. And he saw the stranger turn toward her, the gun in his hand.

Stephen summoned all the strength and clarity left to him and shouted, “Run, Annie! Run!”

The stranger spun back to him, the gun barrel leveled.

Although Stephen felt immediately the hammer blows of the bullets as they hit his chest, he never heard the shots.

When Stephen didn’t answer his cell phone, Cork tried calling Anne. She didn’t answer either. Next he tried Jenny at home. No luck there. He finally got a response when he called Jenny’s cell phone. She picked up almost immediately.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Sure. What’s wrong?”

“Where are you?”

“At the Pinewood Broiler. Waaboo, Skye, and I are having a little afternoon snack here.”

“Have you heard from Annie or Stephen?”

“No. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I hope. But as quickly as possible I want all of you together at home, okay? Marsha’s sending a deputy to meet you there.”

“And you say nothing’s going on?”

“I think someone may be trying to harm Stephen, and if he can’t get at Stephen, I’m afraid he might go for you or Annie or even Waaboo.”

“Who is he?”

“I’ll explain everything when I’m there with you. Right now, you need to get yourself and Waaboo home, is that clear?”

“We’re on our way, Dad.”

“Marsha and I are heading back to Tamarack County. It’ll take us maybe three hours. In the meantime, if you hear from Annie or Stephen, make them understand they’ve got to get home, too. Okay?”

“I’ve got it. Can Marsha send a deputy out to Crow Point?”

“She already has. Take care of yourself, kiddo, and my grandson.”

“That’s a big ten-four, Dad.”

* * *

They were an hour north of the Twin Cities. Cork hadn’t said a word for a very long time. Finally Dross said, “I know you. You’re beating yourself up. In silence.”

Cork looked out the window at the frozen landscape. “I should have seen the connections.”

“They’re pretty obscure, Cork.”

“You saw them.”

“Not all of them. I didn’t see the connection to you. And you were innocent in the whole affair; there’s no reason you should have seen it either. And there’s another thing, Cork.”

He waited.

She gave him a quick, sidelong glance. “You’ve been emotionally involved in this one. It might be that you just couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”

Which gave him no comfort at all.

His cell phone rang. He checked the display. The call was coming from the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department.

“O’Connor,” he answered.

“This is Azevedo,” the deputy on the other end said. “Cork, there’s been some trouble up on Crow Point.”

“Stephen?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What’s going on, George?”

Azevedo hesitated, let a beat filled with ominous silence pass, then said, “He’s been shot.”

Cork’s mouth went instantly dry and the breath went out of him. For a moment, he felt as if he was suffocating. His heart thumped deep in his chest and blood pulsed through his temples and a voice screamed in his head, God, no!

“Give me all of it.” He spoke calmly even as he tried to prepare himself for the worst.

“He’s alive, Cork. He’s been taken to the ER at Aurora Community Hospital. He’s still unconscious and his condition is critical.” Again, Azevedo was silent and Cork had the sense that there was more bad to come. “When Pender pulled him from the water, Stephen wasn’t breathing.”

“From the water?”

“He was shot twice, but what stopped his breathing was the drowning.”

“Drowning?”

Azevedo went on, quickly now. “The ER doctor says the drowning was actually a good thing. Stephen’s whole system shut down, and the intense cold kept more damage from being done. Pender revived him, and the EMTs did good preliminary treatment of his wounds. He still has one of the bullets in him, and the doctors are trying to decide when it might be safe to take it out.”

“Annie,” Cork said. “What about Annie?”

“She’s okay. She was the one who put in the 911 call. But whoever it was that attacked Stephen went after your daughter, too.”

“Was she hurt?”

“Not at all. She scared him off. According to what she’s told me, she shot at the guy, and he ran.”

“Shot at him? With what?”

“She’ll tell you the whole story when you get here. Is the sheriff with you?”

Dross had been casting Cork all kinds of questioning looks but had said nothing while she concentrated on driving.

“She’s with me,” Cork said. “Behind the wheel right now.”

“Tell her to come straight to the hospital. I’ll meet you both there. And if anything changes, Cork, I’ll let you know.”

“Jenny and my grandson?”

“They’re all right. Deputy Weber’s escorting them to the hospital right now.”

“Thanks, George. Thanks a million.”

“See you soon.” With that, Azevedo ended the call.

“Hit your lights and siren, Marsha,” Cork said. “We need to get to Tamarack County. Now .”

* * *

They were all in the Intensive Care waiting area-Jenny, Waaboo, Skye. And Anne. Cork had never seen her looking so hollow, so frail, so afraid. In the O’Connor family, Anne was the iron rod of faith. She’d seen killing before, been in the middle of a brutal attack in the hallways of her high school. Even in the face of that incomprehensible slaughter, she’d held to her faith. But whatever had been so solid in her before, so powerful, seemed to have melted away. Cork took his daughter in his arms, and she laid her head against his chest and wept and wept.