William Krueger: Blood Hollow

Mal pulled the tape from Rose’s mouth. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, Mal,” was all she could manage, and she buried her head against his shoulder.

A moment later, Gooding’s eyes closed. His body relaxed.

Mal said to Rose, “It’s all right now.” He gently gave her over to Cork, stepped toward Gooding, and knelt. “May the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed.”

In the golden light that fell across Randy Gooding’s forehead, Father Malachi Thorne traced a cross.

From outside the church came the wail of a siren, and the sound mixed in an eerie way with Gooding’s final, whistling breath. Long ago, Randy Gooding had died and been brought back to life. Cork was pretty sure that this time he was dead for good.

July

He stood alone in the cemetery.

Two hours earlier, the sun had risen and now the dew was evaporating from the grass, carrying upward the smell of wet, fertile earth. Scattered across the hillside below Cork lay the buried dead, seeds whose planting had brought forth a crop of stone.

North, in a grave less than two weeks old, lay the body of Randy Gooding. A hundred yards south was Fletcher Kane’s marker, a block of white marble, small for a man who could have afforded a mausoleum. Down the hillside to the east stood the angel pillar that marked the resting place of the young woman whom Aurora had known as Charlotte Kane. The three graves were within sight of one another. Three points of a triangle, Cork realized. A closed shape. Completed. Explained. Understood, however, only as much as anything human could ever be fully understood. There were still a lot of questions in Cork’s mind, but they were questions only the dead could answer now.

Gus Finlayson drove up on his little tractor, hauling a trailer full of garden tools. He stopped behind Cork’s Bronco, got down, and came to where Cork stood.

“My favorite time of the day,” the groundskeeper said.

“It’s peaceful.”

“Usually is. I figure that’s why I see you here so much these days.”

“Mind?”

“Why would I mind? Lots of folks drop by to spend some time here. This place, it makes you look at life a little different, I figure.” Finlayson gazed across the headstones. “Some people seem upset about Gooding being buried in the cemetery. Like any of his neighbors here care. How’s that saying go? Fences make good neighbors? You ask me, it’s death does that. The dead, they’re not prejudiced. They don’t complain. And they never make too much noise.” Finlayson scratched his nose with his thumbnail. “Heard the priest left town.”

Cork nodded. “Taking some time to think a few things through.”

He didn’t know what to hope for. But if being together was what they finally decided, he thought he would be very happy for Mal and Rose.

“Guess everybody needs that now and again, even priests.” Gus thought a moment. “Maybe especially priests. But then I’m Missouri Synod Lutheran, so what do I know?” He turned back toward his tractor. “Gonna be a beautiful day. You take ’er easy, Sheriff.”

“You, too, Gus.”

By the time Cork drove down the hill into town, Aurora had awakened. Traffic was moving on the streets. A few cars had already pulled into the lot of the IGA grocery store. Fishermen who’d been on Iron Lake since before dawn were being joined by pleasure boats cruising out from the marina.

He loved Aurora and understood why it was the kind of place people who wanted to escape from problems-of the world, of a big city, of a troubled past-came to. But there was no place far enough away to run from who you were. The secrets people hid from others, they still had to live with themselves. It was just as Cordelia Diller had told him on that high bluff in Iowa. In starting over, the best place to begin was facing the truth.

The truth about Gooding was something Cork would never fully know. A man cold enough to kill many times over, but also compassionate enough to consume the sins of Solemn Winter Moon and Fletcher Kane, freeing them, in his own belief, to stand unstained before God. He understood why some people might object to Gooding resting forever in Lakeview Cemetery. They thought he was evil, pure and simple. Cork didn’t believe anyone was purely and simply anything. All human beings, it seemed to him, were a collection of conflicting impulses stuffed into one skin, trying somehow to find peace. Death was certainly one way.

He didn’t go directly to the sheriff’s department but headed first to St. Agnes.

He stood at the bottom of the steps looking up at the church doors. Over the course of his life, he’d crossed that threshold hundreds of times. Then horrible things had happened, and he’d turned his back on St. Agnes and all it stood for.

Two days before, he’d gone with Henry Meloux to Blood Hollow and in the sweat lodge there had worked with Meloux to restore a sense of harmony. At the end, when they emerged into sunlight, Meloux had said, “It’s not finished. You’re a man of two bloods, two people, a spirit divided. I think you still have a long road ahead of you, Corcoran O’Connor.”

Now he mounted the church steps. Inside, he came to the place where Gooding had fallen. The carpet had been cleaned of blood, leaving nothing to indicate that a man had died there, killed by Cork’s hand. But Cork knew, and he would never be able to cross that spot without remembering.

He stood almost where Gooding had stood and had held a knife to Rose’s throat, and he looked where Gooding had looked the moment the light had filled the church and the man had stood transfixed.

What Cork saw was the window behind the altar, a stained glass rendering of Jesus, his right hand uplifted in blessing. The figure had always been there, during every service ever held in the church. Randy Gooding must have seen it a hundred times. So why, on the morning he’d held Rose’s life in his hands, did he seem paralyzed? What did he see that day that he’d never seen before? Maybe he really was blinded by the light. Or maybe his own warped mind had conjured up a vision. With Gooding dead, there was no way to know for sure. Cork was more than willing to accept another possibility, however, one that the life and death of Solemn Winter Moon, the simple faith of people like Rose McKenzie and the family from Warroad, and the reality of his own experience while lost in a whiteout on Fisheye Lake had opened him to. It was possible that what had stayed Gooding’s hand was nothing less than a miracle.

Near the confessional, the new parish priest waited. His name was Father Edward Green. He was an earnest young man, still a little uncertain in his manner. He was half Cork’s age, and Cork had trouble thinking of him as “Father” anything.

“Thank you for agreeing to this,” Cork said.

“No problem.” The priest smiled.

“It’s something I wanted to do before I put this on.” Cork held out his badge.

“I understand. Welcome back to the church.”

The young priest didn’t really understand. It wasn’t the church Cork was returning to. It was the journey. Meloux was right. In his search for that place where his soul would feel undivided and finally at peace, Cork knew he still faced a long road. He could have chosen any number of paths, but the religion of his youth and his family seemed to him as good as any other.

“Shall we?” The priest stepped into the confessional and pulled the curtain.

Cork entered the other side.

There was a moment of silence, then the priest said, “Go ahead.”

Cork crossed himself, surprised how natural the gesture felt after so long an absence.

“Bless me, Father,” he began, “for I have sinned.”