William Krueger - Tamarack County

Sterne thought a few moments. “He’s got a cousin lives somewhere up near Babbitt. Name’s Hanson, Hanshaw, something like that. No stranger to a jail cell himself, so I’m guessing if you checked in with the local constabulary there, they’d be able to give you some direction.”

Cork stood up. “Much obliged.”

Sterne rose, too, grunting just a little with the effort. “Your boy, how’s he doing?”

“He’ll be all right.”

“I’m glad to hear that. And if there’s anything more I can do for you, you just ask.”

They shook hands again, and Cork returned to the bitter cold of that midwinter season.

On his way back to Duluth, Cork pulled into a SuperAmerica for gas and used the opportunity to call Marsha Dross.

“I talked with a cop in Aitkin, Frogg’s hometown,” he told her.

“Old news,” she replied, sounding less than cordial. “I just talked with him myself, thanks to Warden Gilman, who called to give me the same information she gave you a while ago. I would have appreciated being in the loop sooner.”

“Sorry,” Cork said. “I don’t have the luxury of a lot of time here.”

“Maybe not,” she replied, no thaw in her icy tone, “but you can’t cover all the ground by yourself. For example, I just sent Azevedo over to Babbitt to see if he can track down Frogg’s cousin. I could have had that going a lot sooner.” She was quiet a long while and, when she spoke again, sounded calmer. “Where are you?”

“Heading back to the hospital. Half an hour out.”

“What’s the word on Stephen?”

“He came through surgery fine, but still no feeling in his legs.”

Her next question was asked with extreme delicacy. “Will that be a permanent situation?”

“We won’t know for a while.”

Now her voice was like family. “Cork, you take care of Stephen. We’ll take care of bringing in Frogg.”

“Let me know what Azevedo comes up with, okay?”

“You’ll be the first call I make, promise.”

He arrived at the hospital and took the elevator to Stephen’s floor. When he came to the waiting area, he was surprised to see Hank Wellington sitting with Jenny. He stepped in, shook Wellington’s hand, and asked, “Henry?”

“He insisted I bring him down from Aurora. He and Anne are with your son right now.”

Cork looked to Jenny. “Any change?”

She shook her head. “He still can’t feel his legs, Dad.”

Meloux walked into the room and said, “ Boozhoo, Corcoran O’Connor.”

Cork tried to read the old Mide’s face, but those ancient features gave away nothing.

“How is he?” Cork asked.

“Strong.” Meloux inclined his head toward Jenny. “All the children you have been given are strong, Corcoran O’Connor. This is both a good thing and a hard thing.”

“Hard?” Jenny asked.

“You are the light. The darkness will always try to snuff you out.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jenny said.

“You are not unrewarded,” Meloux replied with a gentle smile.

“Waaboo?”

“Who is strong, too,” Meloux told her.

“What reward for Stephen?” she asked.

The old man opened his empty hands. “We will have to be patient.”

A sudden fire rose up in Cork, a burning immediacy, and it came out in hot words. “I don’t understand all this, Henry. I don’t understand why us, why my children, why Stephen. To hell with patience. Right now, all I want is to get my hands on Walter Frogg and tear the heart out of his chest. Will the Great Mystery give me that satisfaction?”

“If we understood the spirit that moves all things, Corcoran O’Connor, we would not call it the Great Mystery. I do not know what the purpose of this is, but I try to wrap my heart around the belief that there is purpose. I have been trying to help Stephen do the same.”

“And I appreciate that, Henry. Now I’m going to go see my son, and then I’m going to hunt down Frogg, and I’m going to hold to the belief that the Great Mystery will deliver him to me.”

Meloux looked at him, looked directly into his eyes, and spoke in a way that was, at the same time, like rock and like feather. “Anger blinds, Corcoran O’Connor. To hunt, if that is what is in your heart, you will need a clear eye. For that you will need a clear mind. The animal you hunt does not act out of anger. It acts in the way it does because that is its nature.” He laid his open palm against Cork’s chest. “Your nature is different.”

The hallway outside exploded with voices, and a moment later, a small crowd entered the waiting room. Stella Daychild and Marlee were in the lead, and behind them came half a dozen familiar faces from the rez. A nurse was with them, caught up like a piece of flotsam in a flood.

“You can’t all be up here,” she was saying. “You can’t be making this kind of disturbance.”

“You think this a disturbance, lady, just try to kick us out. Hey, Cork. Boozhoo, cousin.”

On the Iron Lake Reservation, Ojibwe of a similar age often hailed each other as “cousin.” In this case, however, it happened to be familialy accurate. Tom Bullhead was the grandson of Cork’s grandmother’s sister. Grandma Dilsey had married a white schoolteacher. Bullhead’s grandmother had married a fishing guide who was true-blood Iron Lake Ojibwe. Bullhead, who was big, broad, black-haired, and high-cheeked, looked every inch an Indian. Like his grandfather and his father, he made his living guiding hunters and fishermen deep into the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. He was also a maker of mandolins, which he sold in a little shop he kept in Allouette and on the Internet.

Along with him, Bullhead had brought a motley assortment of Shinnobs, all of whom Cork had known his whole life-Chuck Daydodge, Oliver Hudson, Bob Rainingbird. Carson Manydeeds was with them, wearing a VFW ball cap with gold braid on the crown. Ray Jay Wakemup was there as well, his first full day as a free man after two months in the county jail. They all exchanged greetings, and Cork said, “What the hell are you guys doing here?”

The nurse said, “Making trouble.”

“Not at all,” Bullhead assured her with a big grin. “We’re the rez cavalry. We’re here to help. We heard the guy who went after my cousin’s son is still out there, maybe thinking of trying something again. We figured we’d help cover here, give that son of a bitch something to think about if he was considering taking another crack at Stephen. You understand that, right?”

“The police-” the nurse began.

“Are nowhere in sight.” Bullhead spread his arms toward the waiting room, indicating the complete absence of uniforms. “They show up, we’ll take a powder, promise. In the meantime, wouldn’t you rather have someone making sure no one brought violence onto your floor?”

She eyed him with suspicion, obviously trying to decide if violence hadn’t already arrived.

“We’ll be a quiet presence, I promise,” Bullhead said and used his index finger to make a little cross over his heart.

“If there’s any trouble-”

“It won’t be coming from us, I guarantee it.”

The nurse considered this, then considered the gathering, and finally gave a perfunctory nod. “I’ll be watching.”

“A comfort to us all,” Bullhead said with a pleasant smile.

The nurse retreated.

Bullhead turned to Cork. “So what’s the plan, cousin?”

* * *

“There’s someone here to see you,” Stephen’s father told him. “Marlee.”

Since he’d come out of post-op, Stephen had been drifting in and out of sleep. The sleep wasn’t peaceful. It was a disturbing mix of images from Crow Point-the stranger on the shoreline, the gun, the frigid water-and things that had nothing to do with reality-walking through an empty house that he didn’t recognize and that was full of secret rooms, running a cross-country race in his underwear. Each time he came back to consciousness, it was with the realization that he could not feel his legs and feet. At last, he’d awakened and found Henry Meloux beside him, and the old Mide’s presence and calming voice and wise perspective had helped ease some of his anxiety.