William Krueger - Blood Hollow

“Enough to clear his name.” He laid his cheek on her shoulder. “You were right, Jo. If you’re not careful, all you see in someone is what you’re looking for. I probably ought to apologize.”

She took his head in her hands and kissed him. Her lips were the best thing he’d tasted in days.

“You’re a pretty smart woman, you know?” he told her.

She laughed gently. “I’ve been trying to make that clear to you for years.”

He disentangled himself from her embrace. “I’m going to see Fletcher.”

“Good luck, sweetheart.”

Blue thunderheads climbed quickly out of the west as Cork turned onto North Point Road. He drove slowly past the Soderberg house. Lyla’s PT Cruiser was there, as well as Marion Griswold’s mud-spattered jeep. Arne’s BMW was gone. Cork had heard that Soderberg had taken up residence in the family cabin on Lake Vermilion and had gone back to work for Big Mike. He wondered about Tiffany, how she was doing in all this.

As he pulled up to the old Parrant estate and got out, thunder rolled out of the distance. The wind picked up, and Cork could smell the coming storm in the air. It was a good smell, one that in his experience promised something cleansing and refreshing.

He knocked on the door. Almost immediately, Fletcher Kane opened it. He greeted Cork with an angry look and the barrel of a Remington shotgun.

“You’ve got to be the world’s stupidest man,” Kane said.

The Remington scared Cork. “I’m going to turn around right now, Fletcher, and just walk away.”

“It’s that easy for you? I don’t think so.”

Cork decided not to move. “I talked with Constance. And with Glory down in Iowa.”

“What gives you the right to pry into my life?”

“I know the truth now. And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Kane said. “Sorry for what?”

“That a lot of bad things happened to you that you didn’t deserve. I’m sorry that Charlotte’s dead. And Maria. I’m sorry that I thought you might have been responsible, because I know now how much you loved your daughters.”

“Daughters?” He frowned. “There was only Charlotte.”

“I know you would never have done anything to hurt her.”

The blue-black clouds had gobbled up the sun. The deep boom of thunder shook the porch. Cork waited. Kane stared at him. The black eye at the end of the rifle barrel stared at him, too. Cork tried to think if there was anything more he should say.

“Get out of here,” Kane finally spit.

Without another word, Cork backed off the porch and down the stairs. He moved at an even pace, never taking his eyes off Kane. Big drops of rain thudded onto the ground around him and thumped against his skin. By the time he reached his Bronco, the rain was a torrent. He got in, wiped the drips from his face, and carefully left the drive. The whole time, Fletcher Kane followed him with the shotgun. When he was safely away, Cork finally let himself breathe.

Cork headed north out of town. The storm passed quickly, leaving a steaming vapor rising from the pavement. He turned onto a graveled county road and continued for several miles before he came to the place where the split trunk birch marked the trail to Henry Meloux’s cabin. He left the Bronco parked at the side of the road and began the long walk in.

Half an hour later, he crossed the ruddy water of Wine Creek. On the far side, the air was still. Shafts of sunlight broke through the high branches like boards shoved down out of heaven to create a sanctuary. Whenever Cork entered the deep woods, he knew he was stepping into a sacred place. This was much the same way he’d felt as a child entering the church. It was not just the peace, although it was truly peaceful. It was more than the incense of evergreen all around him and the choir of birds in the branches above and the cushion of the pine needles like a thick carpet under his feet. There was a spirit here so huge it humbled the human heart. The Anishinaabe blood that ran through his body might have been the reason Cork felt this way, but he didn’t think so. He believed that any man or woman who walked there without malice would feel the same.

He found Henry Meloux sitting on the ground, cross-legged, in the sunlight in front of his cabin. Walleye, his old yellow hound, lay in the shade not far away. Meloux held a small pine branch in one hand and a Green River knife in the other. He was carefully working the wood with the sharp blade. Walleye slowly got to his feet and shuffled out to meet the visitor, but Meloux seemed not to notice.

“Anin, Henry,” Cork said, using the traditional Ojibwe greeting.

“Anin, Corcoran O’Connor,” the old man said. He lifted the piece of whittled wood and squinted along its length. “I have been thinking this morning about your grandmother.” With the tip of his knife, Meloux pointed to a place near him on the ground, and Cork sat down. The old Mide returned to his woodworking. “She was a beautiful woman. When I was a young man, I thought that someday she would be my wife.”

This was news to Cork. Grandmother Dilsey had never spoken of it nor, until this moment, had Meloux.

“But one day a man with hair the color of fox fur came and opened a school on the reservation. His hair was not the only thing about him like a fox. He stole your grandmother’s heart. If I had not already chosen to become a member of the Grand Medicine Society and to understand the way Kitchimanidoo means for his children to live together well upon the earth, I might have been filled with hatred for this man. I might have killed him in anger.” The old man glanced at Cork, and a smile touched his lips. “Your grandfather was a lucky man.”

“You’re talking about anger, Henry. You know about Fletcher Kane?”

“I know.”

“Is Solemn here?”

“Not here.”

“But you know where.”

Meloux cut a shaving from the stick.

“I’d like to talk to him,” Cork said.

The old Mide lowered his hands and set the knife and the piece of wood in the dirt. “I will have to think about this.” He uncrossed his legs and pushed to his feet. He began down the path toward the lake, and Cork followed.

They threaded their way between two high boulders and on the other side came to the end of Crow Point, where Meloux often set an open fire and burned sage and cedar. Iron Lake spread away from the rocky shoreline in a glitter of reflected sunlight. Meloux sat on a maple stump next to the blackened stone circle. Cork sat on the ground. The old man drew a tobacco pouch from the pocket of his worn flannel shirt. He offered a bit toward the four directions of the earth, then he took papers from the same pocket and rolled himself a cigarette. He handed the pouch and the papers to Cork. They smoked a long time in silence. Cork had never known Henry Meloux to hurry a thing.

“What do you think?” the old Mide said at long last.

About what, Cork had no idea. He gave the question due consideration, however, and finally replied, “The more I think, the more confused I become.”

Meloux nodded once and smoked some more. “What do you feel?” he asked.

“That I’ve been tricked.”

“Who is the trickster?”

“I guess, Henry, that would have to be me. I let my feelings about Fletcher Kane get in the way of understanding things. Maybe I’ve misjudged everything because of it.”

Henry Meloux regarded the last of his hand-rolled cigarette. “The head confuses,” he said. “The heart misleads.”

“So what’s the answer?”

“There is a place between the two, a place of knowing.”

“How do I get there, Henry?”

Meloux threw the butt of his cigarette into the ash inside the stone circle. “Follow the blood,” he said. He stood up and began to walk away.