William Krueger: Tamarack County

“The worst. But you don’t have to worry about that until you’re up for reelection. By then, you’ll have this whole case wrapped up with a bow. Trust me.”

When he came home from school to the house on Gooseberry Lane, Stephen found Anne alone in the kitchen. Normally, he’d have been delighted, but there was an air about his sister since she’d come home, something dense, like the atmosphere around an alien planet, slightly poisonous.

She was sitting at the table, writing in what looked like a journal. When he came in she glanced up, a little annoyed, it seemed to him.

“Hey,” he greeted her with a smile.

“Hi,” she replied with a clear lack of enthusiasm.

He hung his coat on a peg by the door and went, as he always did the minute he got home from school, to the refrigerator to grab something to eat. He pulled out a plate of cold fried chicken and a half-gallon plastic jug of milk.

“Want anything?” he asked.

“No,” she said and closed her journal. “I’m fine.”

That morning, before he’d gone to school, they’d shoveled the walk and the driveway together, but not like they had in the old days. When he was a kid and hated the chore, Anne had always made a goofy competition out of it-who could shovel the most? She was six years older than he and could easily beat him, but because things like that mattered to him, she always managed to make it a close race and frequently lost. That was the old Anne. The young woman at the table was someone else. Something that had always been essential to her was missing. As he put a couple of chicken legs on a plate for himself and poured some milk, Stephen thought about what that was.

At seventeen, he understood a lot about people and about life. When he was just seven years old, he’d been kidnapped, along with his mother, and had seen his father take a bullet in the chest and been certain he was dead. For a long time after that, he’d worked with the old Mide, Henry Meloux, in order to heal in mind and spirit. A few years later, he’d lost his mother in a tragedy caused by the greed of others. Two summers ago, he and Jenny had had their lives put in peril because they’d taken little Waaboo into their care. He thought of these things often, but never dwelled on them in a way that brought darkness to his thinking. This was the influence of Meloux, who’d taught him that, although human beings were often blind to the ultimate purpose of the Great Mystery, the Great Mystery never acted blindly.

He turned from the counter toward the table, studied his sister, and thought he understood what was missing from her. It was joy. He wanted very much to know what terrible thing had happened to take that essential element from her. But one of the other important lessons he’d learned from Meloux was the virtue of patience, and so he simply sat at the table with her and began to eat.

“Where are Jenny and Waaboo?” he asked.

“A playdate with Claire Pilon and her son. She’ll be home in time for dinner. She was wondering what you planned on fixing.”

“Shoot,” Stephen said. “My turn to cook. I forgot.”

“I’d be glad to put something together.”

“Really? Thanks.”

Anne left the table, eagerly it seemed, as if she was uncomfortable just sitting there with him. She went to the refrigerator to take inventory. To her back, Stephen said, “We’ve got everything for macaroni and cheese and hot dogs.”

“Is that what you’d like?”

“One of Waaboo’s favorites.”

“Okay,” she said, and when she turned back to him there was, at last, a hint of a smile on her face. “For Waaboo, then.”

She began to pull things together. “How come you haven’t put up a Christmas tree yet?” she asked.

“Dad wanted to wait until you got home. He wanted you to be a part of that.”

The sun was on the horizon, a red ball in the cold blue western sky, and the light that it sent through the window above the sink and that bathed Anne as she worked was the color of fresh blood.

“Dad knows,” Stephen said.

“Knows what?” She turned to him with a small note of panic.

“That you’re leaving the sisters.”

“Oh,” she said. “Did you tell him?”

“He figured it out. You know Dad. He wanted to know why.”

“What did you say?”

“That you’d let us know when the time was right.”

“Really?” She seemed surprised and pleased. “Thanks.” She looked at her hands, bathed in that sanguine evening hue. “Some things change, Stephen. They just change.”

“What are you going to do now, Annie?”

She leaned against the counter and thought a moment, deeply. “I’d like to go somewhere . . . away . . . for a while.”

“Like Africa or someplace?”

“It doesn’t have to be that far. Just someplace by myself, someplace I can think some things through.”

“How about Henry’s place or Rainy’s?”

“I don’t want to impose on them.”

“You wouldn’t. They’ve both left Crow Point for the winter. Their cabins are empty.”

“Really? Why? Where’d they go?”

“Rainy’s son is having some problems with drugs again. Rainy thought she needed to be there with him. He lives in Arizona now, so that’s where Rainy is.”

“What about her and Dad?”

Stephen shrugged. “Dad doesn’t talk about that. Some kind of understanding, I guess.”

“So who’s taking care of Henry?”

“He’s gone to Thunder Bay to stay with his son. It’s something he’s been wanting to do for a while, and now he’s doing it.”

“How long?”

“He says he’s coming back once the snow’s gone. Late spring, maybe.”

“Did he take Walleye?” she asked, speaking of the old dog who’d been Meloux’s companion for as long as Stephen could remember.

“Walleye died last fall,” he told her gently. “He just lay down one day and didn’t get up. I’ve never seen Henry so sad. I think maybe that’s part of why he agreed to go to Thunder Bay. He wanted to get away from Crow Point for a while.”

Anne’s expression seemed suddenly far away. “Like I said, things change.”

“Not so much,” Stephen said. “And not forever. Henry will be back. And when he comes home, we’re going to get him a new dog.”

“What about Rainy? Is she coming back?”

“I don’t know. Guess we’ll have to see.”

“Who’ll help Meloux if she’s not there?”

“Dad’s talked to a bunch of folks on the rez. They don’t have a plan at the moment, but he says they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.”

Stephen’s cell phone gave a little chime, signaling a text message. He took it from his pants pocket. The message read: C U @ 7.

“Marlee?” Anne asked.

Stephen nodded.

“Are you two serious?”

If his father had asked, Stephen would have interpreted it as an interrogation, but coming from Anne the question felt okay.

“We’re just talking,” he said. “We’re going to a movie tonight.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“I told you we’re-”

“Just talking, I know,” Anne said with a little laugh.

Even though it was at his expense, Stephen was happy to hear the sound.

* * *

Later, he heard Jenny come in the front door, but everything was quiet for a while before she joined him at the kitchen table, where he was checking his Facebook page on his laptop. Waaboo wasn’t with her.

“Napping,” she told him, as she began to make a pot of coffee. “He and Joey played their little hearts out. No Dad yet?”

“Not a word. Should we call him?”

“If there’s something he wants us to know, he’ll call us. Is that mac and cheese I smell?”