William Krueger - Northwest Angle

Powassin didn’t answer, didn’t show any sign that he’d even heard. Cork thought it might be because the question came from Bascombe and not Stephen. He was a little pissed at the man for butting in, but it was done. He waited with the others. At the old man’s back, Cherri Allen watched with interest, as if she had no idea how, or even if, he was going to respond.

Finally the old Ojibwe said, “We’re hunting Noah Smalldog.”

“Why, grandfather?” Stephen asked.

“I would like to sit down,” the old man said.

Cherri fetched a wooden chair from inside the house and brought it to the porch. Powassin sat down with a grateful sigh. In the strong sunlight, his long white hair glowed like electrified filaments. His face was dark, both from his heritage and from decades of life lived mostly outside. He folded his big, gnarled hands across his belly.

“We got called yesterday about Sonny Chickaway,” he said.

“That was me,” Tom Kretsch said. “I called.”

The old Ojibwe continued, “Some of our men went to his place and saw it was all tore up and saw all the blood. They started asking around on the islands, couldn’t find Sonny, came up with nothing. That’s pretty strange out here.”

“What do you think it means, grandfather?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not good, I can tell you that.”

“Grandfather,” Cork said, with great respect in his voice, “do you think Noah Smalldog did something to Sonny Chickaway? Is that the reason you’re hunting him?”

Before responding, the old man weighed his words for another long period. “In my life, I’ve tried to understand most of the creatures who call this lake home. Smalldog? He’s still a mystery to me. What Noah Smalldog might do, only Noah Smalldog knows. And that probably makes him the most dangerous animal you could run into out here.”

The old man squinted, as if the strong sunlight finally bothered him. He leaned forward in his chair and spoke quietly. “My advice is to leave. Leave this lake now. Take the child and go somewhere safe. The safest place you know. But do it careful. Do it real cunning. You’re being watched.”

“By whom?”

“This is a small community with a lot of eyes and not much to see. Everyone is watching you. And tongues wag. News of what you do is gonna travel across the Angle faster ’n this damn wind.”

He sat back, and his mouth formed a line from which wrinkles radiated like stitches on a wound.

“ Migwech, grandfather,” Stephen said.

The old man raised a hand in a gesture of parting, but spoke no more.

Stephen turned away and the others followed.

THIRTY-THREE

Aaron sat on the bench at the end of Bascombe’s dock, a rifle across his legs. He faced the cabin, with the lake and the sun at his back. He wore a ball cap that shaded his long, handsome face, so that Rose, as she walked toward him, couldn’t clearly see his expression.

“I found blueberries in Seth’s kitchen,” she said. “I made muffins. I thought you might like one. It’s still warm from the oven.”

“Thanks.” Polite, but without enthusiasm.

She handed him the muffin and sat down beside him. He removed the rifle from his lap and laid it on the boards at his feet. He broke the muffin into two pieces and offered her half. She accepted. While the wind shook the branches of the poplars on the shoreline and the lake washed restlessly around the dock pilings, they ate without speaking.

“Thank you,” Rose finally said.

“What for?”

She nodded toward the rifle. “For that. It’s uncomfortable, I imagine.”

“If this Smalldog actually came, I don’t know if I could shoot him.”

“I understand. But I think the hope is that, seeing you and the rifle, he’ll be prudent and just stay away.”

“A man who’d abuse and then torture and kill his own sister? If we have what he wants, I’m not sure anything can keep him away.”

Rose finished her half of the muffin and turned and looked out at the lake. The channel was frothy with whitecaps and brilliant with flashes of blue from the sky and silver from the sun. On the far side rose the deep green of Birch Island, a long, impenetrable wall of trees and underbrush. As she watched, a bald eagle lifted itself on broad wings and curled in a swift arc toward the north.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said. “I find it hard to think of anything so ugly up here.”

“Ugly happens everywhere,” he said, as if he were an expert on the subject.

“I’ve read your poetry. You’re very good, but not very optimistic,” she told him.

“I’m a realist.” He tipped the ball cap back on his head, and when he looked at her, a sliver of sunlight played along his cheek, like a yellow scar. “Frankly, I don’t get the O’Connor sunny view of life.”

“I don’t know that it’s sunny,” Rose said. “It’s just that we’ve come through a lot of hard times together. We’ve supported one another. We’re a close family, the O’Connors.”

“But you’re not an O’Connor.”

“Not technically. A long time ago, when I was a little lost in what to do with my life, my sister and Cork asked me to help with their first child.”

“Jenny.”

“Yes. Jo, that was Jenny’s mother, was trying to create a law career. Cork was a cop with odd hours. This was in Chicago. I stepped in to fill gaps. Do you know what I found? That the gaps in my own life were filled. I loved helping to raise the children. I never felt like an outsider in this family.”

“You and Mal have no children of your own?”

“No. And if you’re wondering do we want children, yes. It just hasn’t happened.”

“Children,” he said, as if the word were a hard, heavy stone.

“You don’t want children,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Children, in my experience, are an inconvenience. And children, in my experience, are mostly a disappointment to others and are themselves disappointed. Nobody wins.”

“I’ve never looked at it as a competition.”

“You understand what I mean.”

Rose watched two gulls ride the strong wind over the open water, maneuvering in the difficult air currents with extraordinary grace.

“I do,” she said. “And I disagree. But my experience is different from yours.”

“And what do we base our choices on but our own experience?” he asked.

“Faith,” she offered.

From inside the lodge came the sound of the baby crying. It was quite loud, and easily heard above the rush of the wind. Aaron looked there, and his face, in the shadow of the long brim of his cap, was dark.

“I’m not a religious man,” he said coldly.

“Faith in people,” she said. “Faith in Jenny. Faith in yourself.”

He gave her a sidelong glance, and the coldness seemed to melt for a moment. “You were a cheerleader in high school, I bet.”

She laughed. “Hardly.” She draped an arm over the back of the bench and faced Aaron directly. “I’ll tell you something. My childhood and much of my early adult life was a nightmare of taking care of an alcoholic mother. I prayed sometimes for her to die. When she did, I discovered it wasn’t the release I’d thought it would be. My life had been so defined by caregiving that, unless I had someone to help, I didn’t know who I was. That was the real reason I agreed to live with Jo and Cork and give a hand with Jenny. I thought it would save me from having to stumble around searching for a life.”

“You just went on being a caregiver,” he said.

“No. I learned what it was like to nurture. Which is different. That’s what the children did for me.”

“Semantics,” he said, dismissing her.

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything, honestly,” she said. “I just believe there’s another way to look at life.”