William Krueger - Northwest Angle

“This is crazy,” Aaron said.

“Don’t argue, damn it,” Jenny said.

Rainy had lifted the pane of the back window, which overlooked the tip of Crow Point. The shore, no more than twenty yards distant, was lined with aspens.

“Wait,” the old Mide said. He moved to the west window that looked toward the fire ring. He knelt and laid the rifle barrel on the sill. Carefully, he took aim at the man on the rocks. He breathed quietly and squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell with a click, but the round did not fire.

In the wake of the failed shot, Jenny felt dread fill the silence of that small room.

Meloux worked the lever, ejecting the bad round and sliding another into the breech. He took careful aim, breathed again, and drew his trigger finger back. The crack of the rifle startled Jenny, startled them all, including Waaboo, who began to wail.

“Now,” Meloux said fiercely. “Go now.”

They went through the window quickly. At their backs, the crackle of rifle fire broke out, and Jenny heard the shatter of window glass and the chunk of bullets embedded in the thick logs of the cabin’s front wall. The noise of the gunfire was a good thing because it covered the sound of Waaboo’s cries.

They ran single file down a path worn between the aspens to the shoreline of Iron Lake, where a wooden canoe lay tipped. Two wooden paddles leaned against the hull. Rainy grabbed the stern and Stephen took the bow. They waded into the water and, together, righted the canoe, settled it on the lake, and steadied it for the others. Jenny put the ice chest and Waaboo in the center between the two thwarts, then climbed in behind. Aaron took his place in front of the ice chest. Paddle in hand, Stephen clambered into the bow, while Rainy did the same in the stern.

“We’ll keep close to the shoreline,” Rainy called to Stephen. “The trees will give us cover. We’re going about a mile east.” She dipped her paddle and stroked hard, and Stephen followed her lead.

Under a sky that was a brooding blue with the approach of evening, they left Crow Point and cut over the glassy surface of the lake, leaving the gunfire behind and headed, Jenny dearly hoped, for safety.

FIFTY

B imaadiziwin. It was an Ojibwe word, Jenny knew, but she had no idea of its meaning. Whatever it was, this was where Rainy was guiding their canoe.

In the bow, Stephen stroked powerfully, and Jenny marveled at his strength. She’d always thought of him as just her little brother, but in this terrible business, he’d conducted himself with courage and resolve, and now, to a degree, her life and the life of Waaboo were in his hands. In that moment, she loved him more than she ever had.

At her back, she could hear the dip and occasional splash of Rainy’s paddle, and feel the glide of the blade whenever the older woman ruddered to bring the canoe to a new heading. This was a woman who, until last night, had been only a name to her. Now she was friend, ally, savior, meeting Stephen’s every stroke with her own, speeding the canoe away from the gunfire on Crow Point, doing her damndest to save Waaboo, to save them all.

The baby had grown quiet, soothed, Jenny guessed, by the motion of the canoe. Her father had once told her that, in the old days of the Anishinaabeg, when a baby could not be calmed, a canoe ride was a well-known cure.

“There it is,” Rainy said.

Jenny looked where Rainy pointed, toward a gray wall of rock on the shoreline. The cliff rose a hundred feet above the lake. A quarter of the way up, across its face, grew thick blackberry bramble.

“I don’t see anything,” Stephen called back.

“A cave, behind the blackberry bushes. We’ll pull up to the right. There’s a kind of landing and some natural stairs in the rock.”

Rainy guided the canoe to the south end of the cliff, and just as she’d said, there was a narrow shelf above the waterline. Rugged, natural stair steps led up toward the blackberry brambles. None of this was obvious, and if you didn’t know it was there, you’d have easily missed it. Stephen stepped out of the canoe and held the bow while the others disembarked. Last of all, Jenny lifted out the ice chest.

“Listen,” Stephen said.

Aaron cocked his head. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly,” Stephen said darkly. “No more gunfire.”

They all exchanged glances, but no one said a word of what they were thinking.

“I’ll hide the canoe,” Aaron volunteered. “In that inlet over there. Then I’ll join you.”

“Do you know how to paddle?” Stephen asked.

“I spent five summers at Camp Winn-eh-bego. I can braid a lanyard, too.”

“Just follow the stairs behind the brambles,” Rainy told him. “You’ll find us.”

Aaron stepped back into the stern of the canoe, wrapped his hands around the paddle, and took off for the small inlet, which lay a hundred yards south.

By the time Rainy led the way up the cliff, the sun was low in the sky. Its rays glanced off Iron Lake and lit the face of the rock with intense brilliance. They brushed against their own shadows as they climbed, and it seemed to Jenny that they were being paced by a column of specters, of the dark and the doomed, and she tried to thrust that thought from her. At the brambles, they had to press themselves hard against the cliff and edge their way carefully in order to avoid the thorns. Then Rainy bent and disappeared. A moment later, Jenny came abreast of the opening. She laid the ice chest on the floor of the cave mouth, and Rainy grabbed hold and pulled it inside. Jenny crawled in after, and Stephen followed.

Except for the sunlight that lay at the opening, the cave was dark, and it took a few moments for Jenny’s eyes to adjust. The floor sloped down toward the entrance, so that any water that might have found its way in would have quickly drained. The chamber was small, fifteen feet in diameter, and edged with rock shelves. On the shelves lay many items, some that appeared to be quite old. Jenny could see no rhyme or reason to what had been placed there: a bow made of hard maple with a deer-hide quiver full of arrow shafts whose featherings had long ago turned to dust; a colorfully beaded bandolier bag; a rag doll; a muzzle-loader with a rotted stock and beside it a powder horn, still in good condition; a woven blanket; a coil of rope. There were knives and a tomahawk and what looked to be a collection of human scalps. There was, however, one item she recognized: a rolled bearskin. It had belonged to her father, but a few years ago had disappeared from the house.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“ Bimaadiziwin . It means ‘healthy living.’ A healthy way of life.”

“What are all these things?”

“Symptoms of sickness,” Rainy said.

“What do you mean?” Stephen said.

“These are the symptoms of illness in some people,” Rainy said. “These are symbols of the burdens that they could no longer bear and that made them sick, in body and in spirit. Hate. Anger. Revenge. Jealousy. Even love, I suppose. These things, these are reminders of what they hoped to leave behind in this place. They wanted to lead a different kind of life, an unburdened life, a life of wholeness and spiritual health.”

“Hoped to leave?” Stephen said.

“There’s powerful energy here,” Rainy replied. “But even that power can’t work unless the desire to be healed and whole is sincere. That’s what Uncle Henry has told me anyway.”

Jenny wondered what sickness it was that her father, in leaving the rolled bearskin, was trying to heal.

“Henry,” Stephen said, and his voice was only a wisp of a whisper and full of sadness. “Do you think he’s really . . .”

Jenny thought that her brother could not finish.