William Krueger: Tamarack County

Frogg lay still, but not quite senseless. He groaned and his eyelids fluttered. Blood flowed freely from his nose and mouth, ran down his cheek, and dripped red on the honey-colored floorboards.

Cork stepped back, stretched his arm in front of him, and lowered the pistol barrel until it was aimed directly at the middle of Frogg’s forehead. “Leave the room, Annie.”

“Dad-”

“You heard me.”

Frogg opened one eye, just a crack, just enough for light to glint off the dark pupil beneath. “Going to shoot me, O’Connor?” The words were barely audible. “Cold-blooded murder.”

“Dad, you can’t do this.”

“Get out, Annie.”

“Dad, please.”

“If you don’t want to see it, leave now.”

“I won’t let you, Dad.” She stepped between her father and Frogg.

“He’s crazy and he’s patient, Annie,” Cork told her in a voice chill and urgent. “Sooner or later, he’ll be back to finish this.”

Frogg’s other lid opened slowly, no more than the width of a strand of yarn, and he looked up at Anne with dull, soulless eyes. “Going to let him kill me, Sister?”

“Dad,” she said. “I can’t.”

“You can forgive him?” Cork asked, inflamed.

“I don’t know. But I know I couldn’t forgive myself if I just walked out.”

The fire of his anger consumed every other human emotion. He glared down at the man helpless on the floor and considered simply shoving his daughter aside and emptying the pistol even as she watched.

“Dad,” Anne said. She reached out and gently laid her hand against his chest over his heart. “Dad, please.”

Her touch released him. That’s exactly how it felt. Something powerful and graceful, something he did not himself possess, came through her and into him. It was a gift, he would later come to believe, one that freed him, at least in that moment, from the kind of anger and hate that had imprisoned Walter Frogg his whole life. The fire died, and Cork relaxed.

“Call the sheriff’s office,” he said to Anne. To Frogg he said, “If you try to get up off that floor, I will kill you.” He looked hard into the narrow slits of the man’s eyes and spoke the absolute truth. “I will kill you.”

Frogg gave his head a ghost of a nod, all the movement he could muster.

Anne picked up the phone from the desk and dialed 911.

The dreams had stopped coming, and his sleep was deep. When Stephen finally woke, he found sunlight in his hospital room and his father sitting at his bedside. His father’s eyes were closed, and Stephen studied his face carefully. He’d heard that a daughter becomes her mother; he wondered if the same was true with son and father. He hoped this wasn’t so. He loved his father deeply, but he didn’t want to be him. His father carried a terrible burden. Even in sleep, he couldn’t relax completely. Ogichidaa, Stephen thought, and knew that when you’ve stood against evil in defense of what was good, you could never let your guard down completely. There would always be evil in the world. He understood that this was part of the design of the Great Mystery, although the why of it was beyond him at the moment, and maybe always would be. This was something he would ask Meloux about.

And as often happened, no sooner had he thought of the old Mide than Meloux appeared, standing in the doorway, studying him calmly.

“Good morning, Henry,” Stephen said quietly.

Stephen’s father opened his eyes. He looked at his son and smiled. “How’re you doing, buddy?”

“Better,” Stephen said.

Meloux came forward. He put his old hand over Stephen’s. His palm was rough from the hard work across all the years he’d lived without convenience in his cabin on Crow Point, lived simply and purely.

“I can feel your strength,” the old man said. “It returns.” He nodded toward the window. “Like the sunlight.”

“Where is everybody?” Stephen asked.

His father rose from the chair and stood beside Meloux. “I have a lot to tell you,” he said and filled Stephen in on the events of the night.

“You got shot?” Stephen said. This surprised him because his father seemed fine.

Cork O’Connor tugged his shirttail from his pants and lifted the material to expose his left side, where a large square of sterile gauze lay taped. It reminded Stephen of a patch over a hole in an inner tube.

“No significant damage done,” his father said. “Went right through my love handle. Another couple of scars to add to my collection thanks to Walter Frogg.”

Stephen heard the way he said the man’s name. “You think it would be better if he was dead.”

“I think the world wouldn’t miss a man like Frogg. And I think that as long as he’s alive, he’s trouble. For you, me, and a lot of others.”

“How’s Annie? Is she here?”

“Yes.”

“Could I talk to her?”

“Sure.”

“Is Marlee here, too?”

“She is. I’ll get them both.”

His father tucked his shirt back into his pants and left his son alone with Meloux.

“You look tired,” Stephen told the old man.

“When the years you have lived equal mine, you will look tired, too.” The wizened Mide smiled. “It is good to be with you. I have missed your company.”

“There are things I want to ask you. So many.”

“I will be here,” Meloux promised. “Until it is time for me to walk the Path of Souls, I will leave my home no more.”

From the doorway at Meloux’s back, Anne called, “Stephen?”

She came into the room, and Stephen saw a knowing look pass between her and the Mide. He wondered what that was all about.

“When you want me, I will return,” Meloux said and left Stephen alone with his sister.

“Dad told me about last night,” he said to her.

“A night of resolution,” she replied.

He sensed a calm in her that had been missing for a long time. “You’re not talking just about that Frogg guy. There’s something else.” He gazed deeply into her eyes, and he understood. “You’re going back to the sisters.”

“Not right away. I want more time to think things through.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Live in Rainy’s cabin through the winter and help Henry. We’ve decided, he and I. It works for both of us.”

The meaning of the look that had passed between her and the old man was now clear to Stephen. “I was hard on Skye. I blamed her for what you’ve been going through, but I think this is all a part of the journey you were always meant to take. Will you tell her I’m sorry?”

“I will.”

“So what about Skye and you?”

There was hurt in her face, hurt in her eyes, hurt in her voice. “I’ll always love her, but my life is about something else.”

“Will this make you happy?”

She thought a moment. “Remember when we used to sleep out in the backyard in summer, hoping we’d see the northern lights? We’d stay awake as long as we could and nothing would happen. Then we’d finally fall asleep, and sometimes we’d wake up and there they’d be. I think happiness is like that. If you spend your life looking for it, you’ll probably be disappointed. It comes on its own.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with her. That was another thing he would have to think about and maybe ask Meloux.

Anne turned, and he followed her gaze, and there was Marlee in the doorway. The low morning sunlight bathed her in gold, and to Stephen she looked like an honest to God angel, bruises and all.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“I’m just leaving,” Anne said. She squeezed her brother’s hand. “We have lots to talk about. Later.”

When they were alone, Marlee sat on the edge of his bed. She kissed his lips gently. “You got some sleep?”