William Krueger - Heaven's keep

Mal was up long before the others. It was still dark when he came downstairs in his robe and slippers.

“Up early,” Cork said.

“I’m always up early. And I smelled coffee.” Mal went to the kitchen and came back with a cup. “Anything new?”

“Nothing from Wyoming. There’s a situation in Kansas that’s getting the coverage.” Cork explained the standoff.

“So much harm in the name of God. Makes atheism look mighty appealing sometimes.” Mal shook his head and sipped his coffee.

Cork went upstairs, showered, and put on clean clothes. When he came back down, Stephen was on the sofa with Mal. Rose and the girls were up, too. They filled the kitchen with breakfast preparations while the men and Stephen monitored CNN. Finally Rose called, “Breakfast’s ready.”

Another day of waiting had begun.

An hour after sunup, about the time Cork anticipated day would be breaking in western Wyoming, he phoned the Owl Creek County Sheriff’s Department and spoke with Deputy Dewey Quinn.

“The weather there is clear,” he reported to the others. “The planes are just taking to the air. They’ll keep us informed.”

“Did you ask him about that Arapaho’s vision?” Mal said.

“He dismissed it. The man’s a notorious drunk, and the area his vision indicates is nowhere near any of the corridors the plane may have traveled.” Then to Stephen he said, “Let’s go see Henry Meloux.”

Cork drove his old red Bronco. He stopped at the Gas-N-Go for a pack of American Spirit cigarettes. He also bought himself a cup of coffee and some hot chocolate for Stephen. The defroster was giving him trouble, and he kept having to wipe the windshield as he drove. They headed north out of Aurora along the shoreline of Iron Lake. After twenty minutes they left the paved highway and began bouncing over the gravel washboard of a county road. Another fifteen minutes and Cork pulled to a stop near a double-trunk birch that marked the beginning of the trail that led to Henry Meloux’s cabin. They got out and began to walk.

For almost a mile the trail cut across national forest land, then it entered the Iron Lake Reservation. It led in a fairly straight line through tall second-growth pines. The ground was a soft bed of shed needles, and the air was sharp with the scent of pine sap. The air was still, and the only sound was the occasional snap of twigs under their feet. In some places the sunlight came through the trees in solid pillars and in others it lay shattered on the ground, so that the forest had the feel of a temple partly destroyed.

They broke from the trees onto a long point of land covered with meadow grass that was still green so late in the season. Near the end of the point stood an ancient, one-room cabin. Smoke poured from the stovepipe that jutted from the roof, which Cork had expected. What he didn’t expect was that dark smoke would be pouring from the windows and door as well.

“Come on!” he called to his son, and they began to run.

They reached the cabin together, and Cork called through the door, “Henry! Henry, are you in there!”

“Here,” Meloux hollered back and emerged from the smoke with an old yellow dog at his heels.

Cork was greeted with another unexpected sight: Henry Meloux was laughing.

“Are you all right, Henry?”

Meloux was an old man, the oldest Cork knew, somewhere in his nineties. His hair was long and white. His face was as lined as the bark of a cottonwood. His eyes were like dark, sparkling water. And at the moment, his hands held what looked like a smoking black brick.

“Corn bread,” the old man said.

Stephen had knelt down to pet the dog, to whom he was a well-known friend. “You okay, Walleye?” he asked.

The dog’s tail wagged in eager greeting, and he licked Stephen’s hands.

“What happened, Henry?” Cork said.

“We went for a walk. I forgot about the corn bread I was baking.” He looked at the hard, burned brick cradled between pot holders. “The corn bread is a disappointment.” He smiled at Cork and Stephen. “But the walk was not. It is a day full of beauty, Corcoran O’Connor.”

Cork said, “We’d like to talk, Henry.”

Meloux’s face turned thoughtful. “I have heard about your trouble.” He looked back at the cabin, where the smoke was beginning to thin. “I think it is a good morning to sit by the lake.” He put the burned corn bread on the ground, where Walleye sniffed at it, then stepped warily back. The old man said, “Only a very stupid or a very hungry animal will eat that. In this forest, there are both.” He went back into his cabin, and when he returned he carried a box of kitchen matches, which he slipped into the pocket of the red plaid mackinaw he’d put on.

A path led from the cabin across the meadow and through a breach in an outcropping of gray rock. At the edge of the lake on the far side of the outcropping lay a black circle of ash ringed by stones. Split wood stood stacked against the rock, and nearby was a wooden box the size of an orange crate. Meloux lifted the lid and pulled out a handful of wood shavings and some kindling. These he handed to Stephen. “We will need a fire,” he said. He pulled the box of matches from his coat pocket and held them out to the young man.

Without a word, Stephen set to work.

Cork handed the pack of American Spirits to Meloux. The old man took the gift, opened it, and eased out a cigarette. He split the paper and dumped the tobacco into the palm of his hand. He sprinkled a pinch in each of the four cardinal directions and dropped the last bit into the fire Stephen had going at the center of the ring. They sat on sawed sections of tree trunk, and the old man passed a cigarette to each of them, then a stick that he’d lit from the flames. They spent a few minutes while the smoke from their cigarettes mingled with the smoke from the crackling fire and drifted skyward. Stephen had smoked with his father and Meloux before in this way because this was not for pleasure. In the belief of the Anishinaabeg, tobacco smoke carried prayers and wishes to the spirit world.

Meloux was an Ojibwe Mide, a member of the Grand Medicine Society. As far back as Cork could remember, the old man’s guidance had been an important part of his life. When Meloux was a young man, his renown as a guide and hunter was legendary. He had the heart of a warrior and twice had saved Cork’s life. His knowledge and understanding had also helped Stephen back to wholeness after the trauma of a kidnapping. This old man who’d turned corn bread into hard charcoal was remarkable in more ways than Cork could say.

“Tell me what I can do,” Meloux said.

Stephen explained his dream. “I don’t know what it means or why it came to me,” he confessed. “Was I supposed to do something, or is there something I’m supposed to do now?”

The old man considered. “Sometimes a dream is just a dream, Stephen. It is a way for the spirit to examine pieces of this world.”

“I think it’s more than a dream, Henry. I think it was a vision.”

“Tell me what you think this vision means.”

“The white door has got to be the snow, right?”

The old man did not reply.

“Right?”

Instead of answering, the old man said, “You thought there was someone in the room with you. Who?”

Stephen frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t know, but whoever it was, I was afraid of them.”

“Afraid for yourself or for your mother?”

“For her, I think.”

“This room, you said it was big. What else do you remember?”

“It was yellow. And full of white rocks,” Stephen said suddenly.

“There were rocks in the room?”

“Yes. They looked like ice. Like the door looked.”

The old man nodded. “Do you remember anything else?”