William Krueger - Northwest Angle

Cork nodded, continuing to think it through. “You told us you worked ATF in the Pacific Northwest. I’m guessing your investigations there brought you into contact with the Seven Trumpets people. I thought you didn’t believe in all their religious crap.”

“I don’t. In my book, those folks are crazy as loons,” Bascombe said. “But loons with money.”

“It must have been you who suggested Stump Island to them for the Citadel,” Cork said.

“When I heard that the Baptists out there were putting it up for sale, I knew it was exactly what the Reverend had been searching for.”

“And took an early retirement from the government and came out here to help them in the same way you did back in Washington State, I imagine,” Cork speculated.

“More or less,” Bascombe said.

“What do they want with Smalldog?”

“Right now, he’s got a lot of their money.”

“Stole it?”

Bascombe laughed. “You think they’d just hand it over?”

“That’s why they tortured Lily?” Cork said. “They were trying to get to Smalldog through her?”

At the mention of the murdered girl, Bascombe seemed to grow sullen. He leveled the rifle directly at Cork. “Enough talking. Just shut up and wait.”

Like flesh electrified, Smalldog moved. He shot from the sofa and, in one long stride, reached Bascombe. His cuffed hands grasped the rifle barrel and swung it toward the ceiling. He used the momentum of his body to drive Bascombe into the wall. The big man’s head flew back and shattered the window. Cork was sure that would end him, but Bascombe let out a roar, and his big, strong body, pumped with rage and adrenaline, seemed to grow even more powerful. He threw his weight on Smalldog, and both men tumbled.

The rifle clattered across the floor. Cork was on it in an instant. “That’s enough!” he shouted. When the fighting didn’t end, he lifted the barrel toward the ceiling and pulled off a round. The sound in that close room was like cannon fire, and the two men froze.

“Seth, you stay on the floor. Smalldog, you stand up.”

Each man did as instructed.

“Mal, get the other rifle.” When the second firearm was secure, Cork said, “How long have you been awake?”

“A while,” Smalldog said. “I couldn’t quite remember what happened. Seemed best to play dead till I had things figured. You don’t need to point that rifle at me. It’s not you I’m after.”

“The baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“To keep those religious sons of bitches from getting him.”

“What do they want with him?”

“It’s just like you told Bascombe there. They want to use him to get at me.”

“All because of money?”

“There’s a hell of a lot more to it than money.”

“Tell us about it,” Cork said.

And Smalldog did.

It was Bascombe who’d made the initial approach. The big man tracked him down in Kenora and laid out a sweet deal. He wanted Smalldog to bring shipments of B.C. Bud—marijuana grown in British Columbia and famed for its purity and potency—across Lake of the Woods. Transport, that was all. Nothing particularly dangerous for a man with Smalldog’s reputation, a man who knew the lake so intimately that he could run at night without lights or GPS, a man who’d smuggled before and had a stomach for trouble. Smalldog had agreed. For a couple of years, the arrangement had been fine. It paid better than the cigarettes and Cuban cigars and alcohol and even the human cargo that Smalldog had, on occasion, transported.

It hadn’t been difficult for Smalldog to find out what Bascombe was up to: selling the potent marijuana to contacts on the U.S. side of the border at a good profit.

“He paid fifteen hundred dollars for every pound of B.C. Bud, and I’m betting he got two, maybe three times that when he sold it to his contacts,” Smalldog said. “Most shipments ran a couple hundred pounds. He used some of that money to buy weapons. The rest went back to Seven Trumpets, where it had come from in the first place. Weapons and money, that’s what those people were after, and he was the middleman, making himself a fine profit.”

“And the Seven Trumpets people have all the money they need to build their mighty fortress?”

“Not anymore,” he said.

“Because you stole it? Why? To keep them from buying weapons and building the Citadel?”

Smalldog’s face turned hard. “What do I care if chimooks kill each other? They wipe themselves out, it’s fine with me. Hell, in Afghanistan, I saw plenty of what white people call ‘helping.’ Slaughtered a hell of a lot more innocent people than they ever did the Taliban. Most of the time it made me sick and ashamed to be there. No, I did it to get back at those Seven Trumpets bastards for letting Lily get used like a whore.”

“You took Lily from Stump Island?”

“Sonny and me.”

“We found something carved into the wood above her bed. Gizaagin . I love you.”

Smalldog looked disgusted. “That was for the Hornett kid. He’s an oily, coward son of a bitch.”

Sarah said, “All good looks and no heart.”

“Lily thought he loved her,” Smalldog said. “When Sonny and me figured out what was going on, we took her away from there. Until she started showing—and that wasn’t till toward the end—we didn’t know she was pregnant.”

Cork said, “You’re sure Sonny couldn’t have been the father?”

“He never touched her that way. She was like a sister to him. The Seven Trumpets people, they put out all that dirt.”

“You set her up in that old hunting camp. Why?”

“I was afraid that, if she knew exactly where she was, she’d try to get back to Hornett. And Hornett, if he knew where she was, would try to get to her, so it was best to put her where she couldn’t get away easy and she’d stay hid. Me and Sonny visited her all the time, brought her supplies. I threw one of her sweaters in the lake near Stump Island so the Seven Trumpets people would figure she was dead.

“I wanted to get back at them for letting her get used the way they did, but I bided my time. A couple of weeks ago, Bascombe had me pick up the biggest shipment of bud yet. Five, six hundred pounds. Worth close to three million dollars to them. Instead of making the usual drop, I stashed it where nobody’ll ever find it. Figured that would put a big fat hole in all their plans. That’s when they started hunting me.”

“How’d they know about Lily on the island?”

“Lily’s baby developed some kind of allergy to her milk. Made him break out in terrible hives. I told Lily she needed to start bottle-feeding him. Near broke her heart, but she understood. I sent Sonny to get some formula and bottles and nipples and stuff, and he wasn’t careful about who saw him. Word must’ve got back to Hornett, and he got to Sonny. I figure they did to him pretty much what they did to Lily. Probably forced him to show them the way to the island, then finished the job and dumped his body in the lake. After that, they started in on Lily.”

Smalldog had the darkened skin of the Anishinaabeg people, but Cork saw it grow darker as the Shinnob spoke. The man’s voice became taut as he fought to control his rage. “She couldn’t tell them where I was. I’ve got a place no one knows about. I don’t know how she kept the baby from falling into their hands.”

“She hid him,” Cork said. “And my daughter found him.”

“She died without giving him away.” Smalldog’s eyes, like hot stones, fell on Bascombe. “Now everyone who had a hand in that butchery dies.”

“I had nothing to do with what happened to Chickaway or your sister, I swear,” Bascombe said. “I didn’t know those people were capable of that kind of thing. Christ, they’re nuts, but they call themselves Christians, don’t they?”