Northwest Angle

FIFTY

Bimaadiziwin. 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.

But Stephen drew himself up and said, “Do you think he’s on the Path of Souls now?”

“I don’t know,” Rainy said. “But if so, he was prepared to make that journey.”

Waaboo began to fuss, and Jenny picked him up from the bedding in the ice chest. “He’s hungry,” she said. “I wish I had a bottle.”

They heard a rustling from outside and froze. All except Waaboo, who’d begun to flail his arms and legs and emit unhappy little squeals. A moment later, the sunlight that filled the cave opening was eclipsed.

“You in there?” Aaron asked.

“Come in,” Rainy said. “It’s a little tight, but we’ll fit.”

Aaron crawled in, dripping wet.

“There’s no way to get to that little landing except by canoe or swimming,” he explained. “The lake’s pretty chilly. I hope we don’t have to hide out here for long.”

Stephen shot his hand up, signaling them to be quiet. Again, they all held still, except Waaboo, who was becoming more vocal in his insistence on being fed. From outside the cave and somewhere above them came voices. Angry men.

“I don’t know, but the signal was coming from somewhere around here. Then it was gone,” one of the voices said.

“There’s nothing here, Josh. Unless they jumped off the cliff.”

Waaboo fussed, and the sound seemed huge in the small cave and in its consequences. Jenny offered him her little finger as a pacifier, and she was thankful when he took it.

Please, God, she prayed, let him be quiet.

“They’re here somewhere,” the first voice said. “We’ll find them.”

In the cave, they barely breathed.

“How did they follow us?” Stephen whispered.

A question to which no one had an answer.

Waaboo pulled away, maybe sensing all the tension, and let out a cry.

God, please, Jenny prayed and slipped the tip of her little finger back into his mouth.

Stephen leaned near the opening of the cave. “They’re still above us,” he whispered.

Aaron went to his hands and knees and crawled toward the opening. “I’m going out there.”

“No,” Jenny said.

“I’ll try to lead them away.”

“Aaron, don’t.”

“I’ll be okay. Never told you this, but I was a champion hurdler in high school.” He kissed the top of her head, then crept into the cave mouth and slipped outside.

A moment later, Jenny heard a splash in the water.

“There! See him?”

“Yeah, come on.”

For several minutes, everything was quiet. Waaboo had settled, and Jenny hoped desperately that Aaron was successful and safe.

Then the evening stillness outside was shattered by gunshots. Several of them. Rainy took Jenny’s hand. Stephen put his head into the cave mouth and listened. They held that way for several minutes more.

Stephen drew back suddenly, and Jenny understood immediately why. She heard the scrape of boots on the rock face outside and the rustle of blackberry brambles.

Let it be Aaron, she prayed.

“All right, you have a choice,” came a voice from the mouth of the cave. “You can come out, or we’ll just spray the inside of this place with bullets. You have ten seconds to decide.”

They exchanged looks, and Jenny saw in the eyes of the others exactly what she felt, too: sudden and complete despair at the inevitability of what lay ahead.

“Wait,” Rainy said, in a tired voice. “We’re coming.”

One by one, they crawled out, Stephen first, then Jenny with Waaboo, and finally Rainy. Two men stood outside, one on either side of the cave opening, each holding a powerful-looking rifle.

“All right, Josh is going to lead the way,” said the man to Jenny’s right. It was his voice she’d heard before. He was tall, with a sharp jaw, long nose, and eyes as blue as a cold winter sky. “You folks just follow him. And if you try anything, I’ll put a bullet through you as surely as I’m standing here.”

“Aaron?” Jenny asked.

“Your boyfriend?” said the man with the cold blue eyes. He shrugged. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”