William Krueger - Thunder Bay

I walked to Meloux, who’d climbed onto the picnic table. Like an extra couple of feet would improve his view.

“What do you think, Henry? Familiar?” I asked.

“Seventy years, Corcoran O’Connor. A long time to remember anything. And these old eyes…” He shook his head and slowly climbed down.

The Explorer came back. Benning poked his head out the window. He still had on his shades. “Through town,” he instructed. “At the intersection, keep straight on. Stay well back from me, though. Understand?”

“Not exactly, but I get your drift,” I replied.

The town, what there was to it, was laid out at the eastern end of the lake. It reminded me of a lot of small towns on the Iron Range of Minnesota, places that had exploded with a burly energy when the iron mines were operating, but had had the wind knocked out of them once the operations shut down. Along the one-block business district, several storefronts were vacant. Among those still open were a grocery store, a couple of bars, and a little Mexican restaurant with a sign in the window hyping the blue margaritas. The variety store, a place called the Outpost that sold clothing, sporting goods, hardware, hunting and fishing licenses, and Minnetonka moccasins, seemed to be doing okay. We passed it all quickly and followed Benning north, out of town.

A couple of miles farther on we came to a turnoff onto another road that curved along the shoreline of Flame Lake. A large sign was posted at the intersection: PRIVATE ROAD, NO TRESPASSING. We took the turnoff and headed west on the private road. I tried to stay far enough back from the Explorer that we weren’t eating the dust it kicked up. The cloud my Bronco left behind us kept me from seeing if the green SUV was still following.

After eight miles of this, the road ended. Benning pulled up before an expansive, two-story log house built on the lakeshore. It wasn’t a new structure, but it had been well cared for. The logs were pine the color of dark honey. There were green shutters on the windows. A small apron of grass separated the house from the surrounding trees. Beds of flowers lined the foundation. We parked behind Benning, who got out and walked to the Bronco.

“Wait here. I’ll let Mr. Wellington know you’ve arrived.” He left us, jogged up the steps to the front porch, and went in the door.

Meloux slid from the Bronco and headed around the side of the house, toward the lake.

“Henry?” I called.

He didn’t pay any attention. Schanno and I followed him. Meloux crossed the backyard, which was maybe a hundred feet of coarse grass, and stood at the edge of the lake, staring across the water toward the ridges on the far side.

We stayed back, giving him the space and time he seemed to need.

With his back to us, he said, “I stood here and watched Maria swim.”

“Here? You’re sure?”

“She was like an otter, sleek and beautiful.”

For the first time since I’d brought him north across the border, he sounded deeply satisfied. I felt happy for him.

“Hey!”

We turned toward the house. Benning had come out onto the large rear deck.

“Inside,” he called. He jammed his thumb toward the sliding glass door that stood open at his back. “Mr. Wellington is waiting.”

We mounted the steps of the back deck and trailed Benning into the house. It was furnished sparely, but what was there was beautifully made. The whole place was strongly scented with the good smell of wood smoke, a scent comforting and welcoming, the essence, it had always seemed to me, of where the human experience and the wilderness met.

Benning led us to a room at the southwest end of the house. It was full of books and sunlight and Henry Wellington.

He was less imposing than the legends about him suggested. He stood six feet at most, taut, slender. His hair was white and thick. For a man of seventy, he had skin that was remarkably smooth and unblemished. His dark eyes regarded us calmly. He was dressed in white drawstring pants and a loose shirt of white cotton. He wore sandals. He didn’t offer to shake hands, but he did invite us to sit, and he offered us something to drink. We declined.

He said simply, “You’ve come a long way to talk to me. I’m listening.”

“When I was a young man,” Meloux told him, “I loved your mother, and she loved me.”

“My mother has been dead for sixty-five years.”

“You are wrong,” Meloux said. “In you, I can see that she lives still.”

Wellington studied the old Mide carefully but not with a cold eye. “Tell me how you knew my mother.”

Meloux told his story, much as he’d told it to me. As he talked, the box of sunlight on the polished floorboards changed. At one point, the wind rose slightly outside, and the sound of it through the pines was a steady, distant sigh. I heard heavy thuds from a far part of the house, hut Wellington gave no sign that they were important. I wondered if there was someone else in the house besides Benning.

Wellington listened patiently and with an intensity that made me believe every word Meloux spoke was being processed and filed away and could be accessed a decade later, verbatim.

When Meloux finished, Wellington said, “I’m to believe that Leonard Wellington was not only not my father but was a killer as well?”

“No,” Meloux replied. “The killing is on my shoulders.”

“But he was a man with murder in his heart, yes?”

“That was one thing in his heart.”

“Do you have the watch?”

Meloux brought it out from his shirt pocket. Wellington crossed the room, and took it from him. He walked to a window that looked south across the lake. The late-afternoon sun struck him and seemed to ignite the white he wore. He looked at the photograph in the pocket watch for a long time.

“This is the only proof you have?” he asked.

“She gave me her love and I stole the watch,” Meloux said. “In their ways, they were gifts I did not ask for, but I took them gratefully.”

Wellington turned. I couldn’t read his face.

“I require more,” he said.

He and Meloux locked eyes. For the next half minute, it was as if Schanno and I didn’t exist.

“I will take you to Maurice’s cabin,” Meloux said.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Wellington studied the sky outside the window. “In four hours, it will be too dark to see.”

Meloux stood up. “Then you had better keep up with me.”

Wellington smiled. “Very well.”

He took a few minutes to change his clothes. Under Benning’s watchful eye, Meloux, Schanno, and I went out to my Bronco, where I put a few things into my day pack: a flashlight, three bottled waters, bug repellent, and my Swiss Army knife. For good measure, I took Schanno’s loaded Colt from the glove box and slipped it in the pack. I didn’t know Wellington, and I hadn’t been able to read him. I didn’t know what his true agenda might be. It was possible he was simply as intrigued as he appeared to be. It was also possible that he planned to have us all whacked in the isolation of the woods. Whoever it was that had trailed us in the green SUV was probably lurking somewhere near. The weight of the Colt in the day pack gave me a measure of comfort.

“What do you think?” Schanno asked, coming around the Bronco as I shut the door.

“About Wellington?”

“Him, yeah, but I also meant about Meloux hiking to the ruins of this burned-down cabin.”

“Meloux hikes from Crow Point into Allouette all the time. A good ten miles round-trip.”

Meloux was standing not far away, but his attention was focused on the lake and the distant ridges. He didn’t seem to hear our conversation.

“Three days ago he was in the hospital, and word was that he wasn’t coming out,” Schanno said.