Boundary waters

9

Cork took the long way home through the Iron Lake Reservation, where he stopped at the mobile home of Wendell Two Knives. Wendell didn’t answer his knock. Cork checked the door. Unlocked, as he suspected it would be. The Anishinaabe did not believe in locking doors. He called inside. No response. He checked the trailer briefly but found nothing that caused him concern. On the back of a car-wash receipt, he wrote his phone number. Call me, he added. Urgent. Cork O’Connor. Then he put the note on the door with a bit of silver duct tape from the toolbox in his Bronco.

He left the reservation and drove around the southern end of Iron Lake toward Grandview. Will Raye opened the door as Cork approached along the flagstone walk.

“What’d you find out?” Raye asked.

“I think I know who guided Shiloh in. A man named Wendell Two Knives. A good man.”

“A good man,” Raye nodded gratefully. “That’s something.”

“I stopped by his place tonight. Nobody home. I left a note for him to call.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“I’ll head over first thing in the morning.”

“We’ll head over,” Raye said.

“Not a good idea,” Cork told him. “On the rez, people tend to be suspicious and tight-lipped around strangers.”

“She’s the only family I have, Cork. I can’t just sit here and wait.”

Once again, Cork found himself imagining what it would be like if he were in Raye’s shoes and it were Annie or Jenny out there.

He relented. “All right. If Wendell calls, I’ll let you know. Otherwise I’ll be here at eight-thirty to pick you up.”

“Thank you.” Raye looked out at the night beyond Cork. “What if he’s not there in the morning?”

“Then I think we try his nephew Stormy. If anybody would know where Wendell is, it’s Stormy Two Knives.”

Raye slumped against the doorjamb, as if the waiting had already exhausted him.

“Get some sleep if you can,” Cork advised.

It was late by the time Cork returned to Sam’s Place. He got himself ready for bed, turned out the lights, and lay down. He lived in one big room in the back of the Quonset hut. Simple amenities. A kitchen area with a gas stove, old refrigerator, sink. A small table and two chairs Sam Winter Moon had made of birch wood. A single bed. A writing desk and three shelves of books. A small bathroom with a toilet and shower stall. Everything smelled of french fries and grilled hamburgers. A couple more weeks and he’d probably close up for the winter, something he wasn’t looking forward to. He liked the business. He liked it a lot. It was easier pleasing customers than it had ever been pleasing voters when he was sheriff. A bad hamburger was a simple thing to get rid of. A bad law was something else. He loved having the girls help him. And he liked the fact that he was self-employed. He could close up shop any time he wanted and just go fishing. Or searching for a lost woman.

He thought about the woman in the Boundary Waters. Whether he liked it or not, she was his concern now.

It was going to be hard to sleep. In the days when he smoked, this would have been the time to light a cigarette. Instead, he got up, put on a pot of coffee, and sat down at the birchwood table with Elizabeth Dobson’s diary in front of him. He went over everything carefully. What he noted most significantly was that there was a great deal missing. Whole days. Whether Elizabeth Dobson had decided not to confide in her diary in those times or whether the pages had simply been excluded from the copy Cork was given, he couldn’t say. He didn’t like the feel of things at all, didn’t trust Agent Harris or the others, had such an overwhelming sense of having been diverted from the heart of something important. But what? He hadn’t reported the break-in at Grandview-something that went against all his professional training-not only because he suspected nothing substantial would be found but also because he was reluctant to trust the authority of the FBI until he had a better sense of what he was really dealing with.

As usual, Meloux had given him plenty to think about. Majimanidoo . Evil spirit. What the hell did that mean?

The coffee finished perking. He went to the counter to pour himself a cup and took a moment to stare out the window toward the lake. What was it Meloux had warned? Pay attention to the wind that blows across the water?

The moon had risen high and grown smaller. The light that came from it was weaker now and less revealing. On a calm night, Cork could usually see stars reflected on the surface of the lake like sugar crystals sprinkled over dark chocolate. But there was a breeze ruffling the water, just enough so that nothing reflected from the sky, and the lake spread away from the shore in a darkness that was like the vast empty space between planets.

Then a star appeared on the water. One red-orange star. As Cork watched, it bloomed brighter, like a nova, then dimmed.

Someone on the lake, maybe fifty yards out, was smoking.

Cork jammed on his socks, grabbed a flashlight, and hurried outside. At the edge of the water, he flicked on the beam and shot it where the ember glowed. He couldn’t make out much; the boat was too far away. But whoever it was who was watching didn’t seem particularly disturbed that Cork was watching back. An outboard motor kicked over and, leisurely, the boat began to glide into the dark well beyond the range of the flashlight beam. Cork flipped off the light. Shivering in the cold, he listened until the sound of the motor was too far away to be heard anymore.

He wasn’t certain, but he could almost have sworn that the breeze across the lake carried on it the faint odor of cigar smoke.