Vermilion Drift

FOURTEEN

Cork’s father had left a legacy that included a lot of intangibles. The idea that justice was an imperative. That you made commitments in life and, come hell or high water, you stood fast by them. That loyalty was the lifeblood of friendship. That the love of family was the deepest root that tapped your heart.

But he’d also left material things, among them, the house on Gooseberry Lane, his sheriff’s uniform with its bloody bullet hole through the pocket over the heart, a fine basket weave holster, and a.38 caliber Smith amp; Wesson Police Special revolver.

In his own time as sheriff, Cork had proudly worn his father’s sidearm. He’d kept it cleaned and well oiled, and it fired perfectly. Three years earlier, after a bloody incident that had turned his stomach against their mindless potential, he’d divested himself of his firearms and had given them into the keeping of Henry Meloux. What the old Mide had done with the firearms, he’d never said. Cork had never asked. But as he sped north along the back roads of Tamarack County toward Crow Point with mounting concern, that’s exactly what he intended to do.

He parked his Land Rover near the double-trunk birch that marked the trail to the old man’s cabin. He walked quickly, going over and over in his head thoughts and questions that plagued him.

Meloux, in his parting words the last time they’d met, had revealed that Liam O’Connor knew about the sink on reservation land, about the other way into the mine. Cork’s father, better than anyone, was in a position to thwart a criminal investigation. His father owned the same kind of weapon that had killed Monique Cavanaugh. What the hell had gone on forty years ago? And what the hell was going on now?

With an angry bound, he leaped Wine Creek and, a few minutes later, broke from the pine trees into the meadow, where he fixed his eyes on the solitary cabin ahead.

“Stop!”

He spun to his right, startled by the woman’s voice.

She knelt among the wildflowers and, like them, seemed to grow up out of the earth itself. She wore a straw hat with a wide brim that shaded her face. She’d braided her long hair, and it hung over her left shoulder and fell between her breasts. She glared at him from the shadow of her hat.

“My uncle is resting. He shouldn’t be disturbed,” she said.

“I’ll talk with Henry,” Cork replied and started forward again.

“Are you always this rude?”

“Visiting your uncle was a hell of a lot easier before you arrived.”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

Cork altered his course and waded through the meadow grass to the place where she knelt. Despite the rising heat of the summer day, she wore a long-sleeved shirt of thin cotton embroidered with tiny flowers around the cuffs and collar.

“What exactly is going on with Henry?” he asked. “Is he sick?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t either.”

“The shaking?”

“It began a month ago. It’s getting worse.”

“Parkinson’s?”

“Maybe. Without tests, it’s hard to know.”

“And he won’t be tested?”

“No.” She looked toward the cabin. “He tires easily these days.”

“He’s within a stone’s throw of having lived a hundred years. Maybe he’s entitled to a little fatigue.”

“This isn’t just age,” she said. “This is something else.”

“Did he ask you here?”

She plucked a wildflower, a touch-me-not, and dropped it in a basket woven of reeds. “I came under the guise of wanting to learn more about his healing techniques. The family sent me. We’re all worried.”

Cork almost smiled. “And you think Henry hasn’t seen through you?”

“I’m sure he has. But he hasn’t objected.”

“He wouldn’t.” Cork glanced toward the cabin. “I need to talk to him. It’s important.”

She considered him and finally stood. She lifted the basket, which contained many gathered wildflowers. “Very well,” she said and led the way.

She quietly opened the door. In the cool inside, Meloux lay on his bunk. Walleye was sprawled on the floor nearby. They both turned their heads as Cork entered with Rainy. Walleye’s tail wagged sluggishly across the floorboards. Meloux simply smiled.

“Two visits in one day. I am a blessed man, Corcoran O’Connor.” The old Mide rose slowly and swung his feet over the side of the bunk. “My niece is going to make blackberry leaf tea, I think. Will you have some?”

“Migwech, Henry.”

Rainy went to the old stove, opened the door, and threw in a few sticks of wood to stoke the fire. The old man stood up and said to his niece, “We will be by the lake.”

Cork walked beside his old friend down a path that threaded between two great rock outcroppings. On the far side, very close to the shoreline of the lake, lay a circle of stones that contained the deep black char of many fires. Sectioned tree trunks had been placed around the circle for seating. Meloux eased his old, narrow butt onto one of these, and Cork sat next to him. Meloux’s breathing was rapid and shallow, and he seemed exhausted. Cork thought about commenting on this but figured if Henry wanted to discuss it he would.

Meloux stared at Iron Lake. There was no breeze, and the surface of the water lay flat and silver. The air near the fire circle smelled of the ritual burning that was often a part of the old Mide’s work.

It was a long time before Meloux spoke. “You visited Millie Joseph?”

“Yes,” Cork replied. “She was helpful.”

The old man nodded.

“Henry, I need to know what you did with my revolver.”

Meloux turned his face to Cork. His eyes were brown and watchful. “I put it with your rifle in a safe and sacred place.”

“Where?”

“A place I do not think even you know, Corcoran O’Connor. It is a place remembered by only the oldest of The People, a place of bimaadiziwin.”

Bimaadiziwin. Cork translated the word in his mind: a healthy way of life.

“It is a place where things that have blocked the way of our people, the path toward wholeness, have been put aside for good.”

“I want to see the revolver, Henry.”

The old man seemed puzzled. “Do you need it?”

“No, I just need to know that it’s still there.”

“Why would it move?”

“Humor me, Henry. Just tell me how to find it.”

While Meloux considered this request, Rainy appeared, carrying three white ceramic mugs, which she brought to the stone circle. She handed one to Meloux, one to Cork, and kept the other.

“Shall I stay?” she asked her uncle.

Which seemed to Cork clearly her intention, considering the cup she’d brought for herself.

“For a few minutes,” the old man said. “Then you will show our guest something.”

Cork glanced up at her. She seemed as surprised by this as he.

She sat down. Her presence felt awkward, and Cork was reluctant to continue the discussion. But perhaps as far as Meloux was concerned the discussion was finished anyway. They sat for several minutes in an ill-fitting silence. Cork was used to silence; the Ojibwe were quite comfortable with saying nothing for a long time. But the woman struck an alien chord in him. He wanted to be rid of her. Meloux seemed blithely clueless. He drank the tea, which smelled both sweet and pungent, and contemplated the silver lake. For her part, Rainy did the same.

“The home of Judge Parrant,” Meloux finally said. “It is a place of bad medicine. There are many diseased places, but there are also those places of healing, places of bimaadiziwin.”

“Bimaadiziwin,” Rainy responded. “The healthy life.”

“Do you remember where the blackberry bushes grow? I showed you.”

“Of course. East along the lakeshore about a mile. On top of a cliff.”

The old man gave a nod. “There is a cave in that cliff. The opening is small and hidden by blackberry brambles. What Corcoran O’Connor is looking for, he will find in that cave. Will you take him there?”

“Of course, Uncle.”

“I would go myself, but I am tired.”

“Would you like to walk back to the cabin?” she asked.

“No. I will stay here and finish my tea. You go with Cork. Go now. I think today he is a man in a hurry.”

She stood up, walked to where the path threaded between the outcroppings, and glanced back impatiently, as if she were the eager one and Cork the laggard. He pulled his butt off the stump and said to Meloux, “Migwech, Henry.”

At the cabin, Rainy paused only long enough to put their mugs inside, then walked briskly east. She led him through a dense stand of paper birch, then across a small marsh on a narrow spine of solid ground he would never have found on his own. He followed her up a face of rock colored and lined like a turtle shell and topped with aspens. They wove among the aspens, which were pale green with new leaves, and when they broke from the trees they stood atop a cliff with Iron Lake stretching below them. All along the edge of the cliff grew blackberry bushes. “This must be it,” Cork said. “Where is this place of health?”

“You know as much as I do. Uncle Henry asked me to bring you to the top of the cliff, and here we are.”

Cork eased his way between the thorny blackberry brambles and carefully peered over the side of the precipice. The lake lay a good hundred feet below. The water was clear, and he could see perfectly the dark contours of the rock that had broken from the cliff face and now lay jagged on the lake bottom. Just above the waterline, seeming to cling to the very rock itself, was another long line of blackberry bramble.

“I can’t see any way down,” he said.

“Maybe down isn’t the best way to approach,” Rainy suggested. “Maybe up from the water.”

“Henry didn’t offer us a canoe.”

“You can’t swim?”

He gave her a cold look and walked farther east, where the land sloped in a gentle fold. At the bottom was a small creek that fed into the lake. Cork followed the creek to its mouth, where he sat on the trunk of a cedar that had long ago toppled. He untied his laces and removed his boots. He pulled off his socks and stuffed them into the boots. He unbuttoned his blue denim shirt and shrugged it off. He tugged off his T-shirt. Finally he began to unbuckle his belt.

Rainy, who’d followed him, watched all this with deep, silent interest.

“The pants are coming off,” he warned her.

“Boxers or briefs?” she said.

He hesitated. “It’s been a long time since I took off my pants in front of a woman. I’m not real comfortable with this.”

“For heaven’s sake, I’m a public health nurse. Believe me, I’ve seen it all.”

He skinned the jeans from his hips and drew them off.

“Black boxers,” she said. “Interesting.”

He ignored her, folded his pants, and laid them atop his other things.

“Are those bullet holes?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“It’s hard to believe they didn’t kill you.”

“At the time, I was pretty sure they would.”

“Luck?”

“Henry, I think, would say destiny. You coming?”

“Are you kidding? That water’s freezing. I’ll wait here, make sure no one steals your clothes. Enjoy your swim.” She smiled with wicked delight.

She was right. Although it was mid-June, the lake water was still frigid. In the North Country, the cool nights would keep the water temperature challenging until well into July. Cork plunged in, and the icy water gripped him like a fierce, angry hand. He considered with amazement the mining engineer, Genie Kufus, who claimed to swim in the lake regularly. You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din, he thought as he swam feverishly away from shore and circled back to the cliff.

In the middle of the gray face of rock, beginning just at the waterline, he found natural steps. He quickly climbed from the lake and immediately the sun began to warm him. Barefooted, he carefully mounted the rock, working his way toward the line of blackberry bushes. Although from the lake the opening of the cave couldn’t be seen, from his current vantage, Cork could clearly make out the small black hole Meloux had mentioned. He eased behind the bramble, knelt in the mouth of the cave, crawled inside, and waited while his eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light.

It was cool and dry. The floor sloped toward the entrance, so that any water that might have found its way in would have quickly drained. The chamber was small, the size of a five-man tent, and edged with rock shelves. On the shelves lay many items, some looking quite ancient. Cork 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. And there was a bearskin that belonged to Cork, in which he’d wrapped his Winchester rifle and his.38 Smith amp; Wesson Police Special when he’d handed them over to Henry Meloux. He pulled the bearskin from the shelf, set it on the floor, and unrolled it. The Winchester was still there. The.38 was gone.