Northwest Angle

TWENTY-FIVE

Lynn Belgea stood at the open door to her home, which was nestled among a stand of tall red pine on Angle Inlet, a small community a couple of miles north of Young’s Bay Landing. She watched Rose and Jenny and Babs Larson pile out of Larson’s truck and start up the dirt path through the patch of wild grass and flowers that was her yard. At her feet stood a brown and black dog, a standard poodle, who barked at their approach and eagerly wagged his tail.

“Hush, Teddy,” Belgea said. “You’ll wake the baby. Come on in, folks. I’ve been expecting you.”

They entered her home, a modest little cabin nicely furnished with pine furniture and braided rugs, and immaculately clean. The dog danced along beside them, jumping up on his hind legs to get a look inside the basket.

“Sit, Ted,” Belgea said, and the dog obeyed. “I haven’t had him long,” she apologized, “but he’s learning. I’ve found that peanut butter works wonders with him. This way.”

She led them to a small examining room with a view of the pines in back.

“Let’s have a look at this little man,” she said.

Jenny took the baby from the basket and handed him to Belgea, who didn’t blink an eye at his misformed upper lip. The woman laid him on the examining table and looked him over carefully while Jenny explained the circumstances in which she’d found him.

“I’d say he’s between eight and ten weeks old,” Belgea said. “His weight seems good, despite his ordeal. He’s been well cared for.”

“What about his lip?” Jenny asked.

Belgea’s capable hands cradled his little head, and she looked closely at his mouth. “Not all that unusual. Native Americans have the highest rate of children born with cleft lips and palates.”

Rose said, “Why would that be?”

“Some of it’s genetic. Babies inherit a gene that either causes the cleft directly or is part of a syndrome that includes clefting as one of its symptoms. Sometimes it’s simply a gene that makes a child more susceptible, and an environmental issue actually triggers the clefting.”

“Environmental issue?”

“Smoking or drinking or drugs during pregnancy. Sadly, that’s a real problem for a lot of young Indian mothers. And this guy has another strike against him. Male babies are twice as likely as females to have clefting.”

“What can be done about it?”

“He’s young enough that the cleft can be easily closed surgically. In a few years, all that will show is a bit of a scar that most people won’t even notice.”

Jenny said, “You’re from the Angle. Do you have any idea who he is?”

Belgea and Babs Larson exchanged a brief but knowing look.

“Go ahead, Lynn,” Babs said. “She’s bound to hear the whole story eventually, so it might as well come from you.”

Belgea handed the baby back to Jenny. The grating call of a blue jay from outside drew her attention. She stared beyond the window screen where the pines isolated her home, spent a moment gathering her thoughts, then told what she knew.

* * *

It began with Vivian Smalldog, a woman of mixed heritage and mixed nationality, who’d grown up on the Angle. Her father was a logger and a drunkard, her mother a First Nations Ojibwe from Reserve 37, a weak, battered woman. Growing up, Vivian never had much of a chance. She was wild and pretty and got into trouble early on. When she was seventeen, she met an Ojibwe from Sioux Narrows on the north end of the lake, an older man named Leon Smalldog, who saw the pretty in her and ignored the rest. They got married and had a child, a boy they named Noah. Leon Smalldog was a well-known guide, a settled man, who soon wised up to the fact that the woman he’d married was not the marrying kind. He remained in the marriage for nearly a decade before his wife’s drinking and infidelities drove him to separate from her. As far as Belgea knew, the couple never officially divorced. Smalldog moved back to Sioux Narrows and took Noah with him.

Soon after, Vivian left the Angle. For good, she swore. Occasionally word came back. She was in Bemidji; she was in Brainerd; she was living in the Heart of the Earth community in Minneapolis. Bits of news here and there, scraps torn from the whole fabric of a life folks on the Angle didn’t really give a damn about. After a dozen years, she came back, a hollow-looking woman by then, as if the world had taken a knife and filleted her, left her with no spirit and no bone. She brought a child with her, a pretty little girl named Lily, who said almost nothing and wouldn’t look at you directly, and folks, when they talked about her, called her “slow.” Vivian’s mother was dead by then, a suicide drowning. Her father, a raging alcoholic, had moved away. Gone to Fargo, was the word, though no one could say for sure.

Vivian went to work as a housekeeper for a Baptist church camp on Stump Island that operated a year-round program. She had her own little cabin, where she and Lily lived. The camp folks were good to them. Lily attended the one-room schoolhouse in Angle Inlet, where they didn’t really have the resources to help a challenged girl, although they did their best. Mostly Vivian and her daughter stayed on the island, happy from all accounts, though it was common knowledge that Vivian was given to bouts of severe depression and every once in a while found solace with a friend named Jack Daniel’s. The camp folks nursed her through these periods, and life went on.

Three years ago, the Baptist group, who’d run the camp for forty years, sold it to another religious organization called the Church of the Seven Trumpets, with the stipulation that Vivian and Lily be allowed to remain on the island, living in the cabin they’d come to call home. It looked like everything would be fine.

But two years ago, Vivian went missing. They found her three days later, floating in the lake. The autopsy, done by the Lake of the Woods County medical examiner, revealed that death was, indeed, the result of drowning. At the time she died, Vivian’s blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit for driving. The official determination was that she’d become intoxicated, had fallen into the lake, and had drowned. Folks on the Angle, who knew how Vivian’s mother had died, figured it was no accident.

The Seven Trumpets people were more than happy to allow Lily to stay on as before, living in the cabin she’d shared with her mother, earning her keep doing housekeeping and cooking.

And that’s when reports of Noah Smalldog began to surface.

“We all heard that he’d come home,” Belgea said.

“Home from where?” Rose asked.

“Afghanistan. He’d been serving with the Canadian army as part of the Coalition forces there. From all accounts, he’d come home angry as hell.”

“Why?”

Belgea shrugged. “He was an angry kid, and when he came back, he was an angry man. And way mysterious. Nobody ever sees him.”

“What does that have to do with Lily?”

“Apparently, on his return, Smalldog began visiting his half sister. The folks out there on Stump Island reported that they’d had trouble with him trespassing.”

“He’s family. What’s the harm?”

Belgea considered her words carefully. “There’s been a good deal of speculation that Noah Smalldog hasn’t been treating his sister in a strictly brotherly way.”

Jenny said, “Abusing her sexually?”

“Yes.”

“Did Lily ever make that complaint?”

“As I understand it, Lily remained absolutely silent on the whole situation. Out of fear or confused love, I don’t know.”

“It sounds like you believe that what they say about Noah Smalldog abusing her is true.”

Belgea said, “I didn’t believe it. Until I saw this child. You see, Noah Smalldog was born with a cleft lip, too.”

The child began to fuss, and Jenny said, “I brought some formula and his bottle back with me. They’re in the basket. Aunt Rose, would you mind?”

“I’d be happy to, honey.”

“Water and a pan in the kitchen,” Belgea said.

“I’ll show her,” Babs said. “I know my way around your place, Lynn. And, honey,” she said to Jenny, “you’re probably hungry, too. What if I made a sandwich?”

“That would great, Babs. Thanks.” Jenny picked up the baby and held her nose to his diaper. “He needs changing. I didn’t bring anything for that.”

Belgea said, “Not to worry. I always keep a few disposables on hand. Up here, I try to keep a little of everything available.” She opened the cupboard beneath the sink in the examining room and brought out a box of Pampers. She took a disposable diaper and brought it to Jenny, but before she handed it over, she eyed the baby and then Jenny with obvious concern. “That baby’s taken to you.”

Jenny was pleased that the bond was so obvious.

“Just a word of caution,” Belgea went on. “This baby belongs to someone else. Eventually, you’ll have to give him up.”

“I know. But in the meantime, he needs someone, and here I am.”

“That’s abundantly clear. And he’s lucky. But when the time comes, it may break your heart.” She spoke with great compassion, as if it were her own heart on the line.

Jenny looked down into the baby’s dark, gentle eyes. “It’s been broken before,” she said. “And I survived.”

Ted got up from where he lay, trotted to the front door, and began to bark. A moment later there was a knock at the screen, and a man’s voice called out, “Jenny?”

“That’s Aaron,” Jenny said.

She heard Rose’s voice from the front room. “Come in. They’re in the examining room. This way.”

A moment later, Aaron and Anne walked in. Aaron came to her directly and looked as if he would have given her a big hug but for the baby she held. As it was, he leaned over the child and kissed her.

“Oh, God, Jen, I’ve been so worried.”

“We’re safe now.”

The baby’s face was turned against Jenny’s T-shirt, as if seeking her breast. Aaron glanced down at him, obviously disconcerted, and stepped awkwardly back.

Anne moved in and gave her sister a hug. “They told us everything at Young’s Bay Landing. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Jenny said.

Anne smiled down at the squirming child. “This is him, huh?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll give you folks some privacy,” Belgea said. “When the bottle’s ready, we’ll bring it in.”

“Thanks,” Jenny said.

Belgea left, and the room was uncomfortably quiet. Then Aaron asked, “What are they going to do with him?”

“I don’t know,” Jenny replied. “For the moment, I’m in charge of his well-being.”

The hungry baby finally cried out and turned his head away from Jenny’s body. Aaron and Anne got their first good look at his face.

“Jesus,” Aaron said.

“He has a cleft lip,” Jenny explained tersely. “It can be repaired surgically.”

“God, I hope so. For his sake.”

A little flame ignited in Jenny, and she snapped, “He’s beautiful, Aaron. Even if that lip never got fixed, he’d still be beautiful.”

To that, Aaron had no reply.

“You found his mother, we heard,” Anne said. “Dead.”

“Yeah.”

“And we heard something about a psycho with a rifle,” Aaron added.

“You heard right.”

“But you’re okay?” he said. “For sure?”

Jenny looked down at the child in her arms. “If it hadn’t been for this little guy, I might not be. I think I would have freaked, except I had to keep myself together for him. In a way, we saved each other.”

Aaron eyed the baby, and Jenny went hard inside, because it was clear to her that he wasn’t at all certain that was necessarily a good thing.