Vermilion Drift

TWENTY-EIGHT

He offered his flashlight. She refused.

“I don’t need your help,” Rainy said as she gathered cut wood from a box near the ring. “I know how to build a fire.”

“Fine,” Cork said. “I’ll just stand here and watch.”

The moon gave only a faint definition to things. The tall outcroppings that isolated the ring were the color of pencil lead. The ground was a gray pool of bare dirt, the fire ring a black hole of ash. The lake a dozen yards away was like mercury, a dark liquid silver. The woman, as she moved from the woodbox to the fire ring, was an angry obsidian blur.

Cork said, “He can be hard to understand sometimes, but in my experience, he’s usually right.”

She dropped a load of wood inside the ring. “Jesus, the man was drunk. He was waving a rifle, for Christ sake. And I’m supposed to say ‘Mi casa, su casa’?”

“Henry’s casa actually.”

She bent and spent a minute arranging the wood. Cork could hear the snap of kindling.

“Damn it,” she said.

“What?”

“I didn’t bring any matches.”

“Me either.”

“I need to go back to the cabin.”

“Why don’t you relax for a little bit? That was pretty intense stuff back there.”

She stood a moment, outlined against the dark silver of the lake, then sat on the ground not far from Cork.

He studied the stars and let a minute pass.

“Why did Broom come to Henry?” he asked.

“People come to Uncle Henry all the time. They think he knows everything that happens on the rez.”

“He probably does. Why did you come to Crow Point?”

“I told you. The family’s worried about Uncle Henry.”

“No, I mean why you? Of all the family, why you?”

“For one thing, I’m a public health nurse.”

“Summer off?”

“Funding cut. I’m between jobs at the moment.”

“For another thing?”

“My children are raised and gone. I have no one who depends on me being there every day.”

“Not married?”

“Divorced. A long time ago. Are you always this nosy?”

“Inquisitive. Goes with my job.”

“And your nature, I’d say.”

Cork heard the flap of big wings overhead. Rainy looked up startled.

“An owl,” Cork said. “Should I be worried about Henry?”

Rainy didn’t answer immediately. She continued to look up where the owl had flown and where the stars were legion.

“The shaking? The tiredness? They’re symptoms,” she said. “Of what, I can’t say. There are dozens and dozens of diseases or conditions that could cause it. If it were something like multiple sclerosis, I’d expect to see problems with his vision and maybe numbness or tingling in his limbs. He claims to be fine. If it’s the result of a stroke, then it was a mild one. But even so, I’d expect to see, oh, I don’t know, muscle weakness or numbness or maybe some disorientation. Maybe it’s simply a neurodegenerative situation of some kind. Old age, basically. But he’s not showing any other symptoms, so I don’t know. Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem much concerned.” A loon called from the lake, and Rainy turned her head. “It’s lovely here,” she said.

“Not a bad place for a man to live. And to die, when that time comes.”

“That time will not come soon, Corcoran O’Connor.”

They hadn’t heard the old Mide’s approach, but Meloux stood not ten feet away. He came now and sat with them.

“I thought you were going to build a fire, Niece.”

“I didn’t have matches, Uncle Henry.”

“Just as well,” Meloux said. “I think Isaiah Broom will not wake until morning. And I think I need to sleep. Thank you for your help,” he said to Cork.

“You want me here when Broom wakes up?”

“He will wake in sunshine and hungover. He will not be in the mood for confrontation. He will want to be quiet, and I think he will listen.”

“What will you tell him?”

“What I tell him will be for his ears only, Corcoran O’Connor.”

In the dark, Cork leaned nearer the Mide. “I’ve found a few answers, Henry, but I still have a lot of questions. I think you can help me.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“All right. Forty years ago, it went like this. I think that the Vanishings began with Leonora Broom. I think she confronted Indigo about what he’d done to her son and Broom killed her and put her body in the Vermilion Drift. Maybe he’d killed before or just had the deep desire to kill, I don’t know, but murdering Isaiah’s mother set him off that summer for sure. Next it was Abbie Stillday, a girl everybody knew was leaving the rez sooner or later. And then it was the vulnerable ones, the ones easily preyed on. Somewhere along the way, Broom brought Monique Cavanaugh into it. Or maybe it was just the evil of these two people that somehow brought them together. Broom snagged the victims and he and Monique Cavanaugh both…” Cork searched for the right word.

Meloux supplied it. “They fed.”

“Fed?” Rainy said, aghast. “You don’t mean they cannibalized their victims?”

“Do you know the story of the Windigo, Niece?”

“A monster with a heart of ice. A cannibal.”

“They were both Windigos,” Meloux said. “They did not start out that way, but they did not start out as whole human beings either. They were born with something missing. They did not have souls.”

“Everyone has a soul, Uncle Henry,” Rainy said.

“What is a soul? I believe it is our connection with the Creator and our deep awareness of our connection with all things created by him. And this is what they did not have. Some people who have souls make choices that lead them to evil. These two did not have a choice.”

“Majimanidoo. That’s what you called Broom. Evil spirit. He was simply born that way? But why would the Creator do that, Uncle Henry?”

“I have lived a very long time, Niece, and I have seen many things I do not understand. I only know they are so.”

“If Broom and Monique Cavanaugh didn’t start out as Windigos, Henry, what happened?” Cork asked.

“A small evil is like a shadow. It follows us but it has no effect. But when evil finds evil, it can become a different creature, Corcoran O’Connor. It can become huge and monstrous. When those two soulless people met, something worse than what they had been before was created. They fed on their own evil and then they fed on The People.”

“Why The People?”

“Because if the Ojibwe disappeared, who would care? Only the Ojibwe and we were few and powerless.”

“How did these two find each other, Henry?” Cork asked.

“I do not know.”

“My father knew about them, didn’t he?”

“He knew.”

“What did he do about it?”

“Your father was a good man. One of the best I have ever known. But he was not one of The People.”

“What does that mean?”

“You are not yet at the end of your journey, Corcoran O’Connor. When you have reached the end, you will understand and my answers will not be necessary.”

“It was my father’s gun that killed Monique Cavanaugh, wasn’t it, Henry? Explain that to me.”

“You still ask in anger. The end of your journey is a place without anger. Come to me when you have reached that place.” Meloux slowly stood. “I am going to bed now.”

Cork watched the dark between the outcroppings swallow his old friend.

“Shit,” he said under his breath.

Rainy said, “He can be hard to understand sometimes, but in my experience, he’s usually right.”

“Oh shut up,” Cork said and got to his feet.