Red knife

FIFTEEN

Henry Meloux lived on an isolated peninsula called Crow Point that jutted into an inlet far north on Iron Lake. There were two ways to get to Meloux’s cabin: You used a paddle or you used your feet. Cork guided his Bronco along the paved county road north, then turned east onto gravel. He drove until he came to a tall, double-trunk birch that marked the trail to Meloux’s. He parked and began to walk. For almost a mile, the trail cut through national forest land, then it crossed onto the reservation. Cork had walked the trail many times. If what George LeDuc said was true, Alex Kingbird had recently done the same.

When he broke from the trees, Cork saw the small cedar-log cabin perched at the far end of the point, set against a sky full of sluggish gray clouds. He was upwind, and in a few moments Walleye, Meloux’s old dog, had his scent and let out a couple of lazy, requisite barks.

Meloux had just brewed a pot of coffee and he offered Cork a cup. Though he was an old man, in his early nineties, it was clear from everything about him that he still had a lot of road ahead before he found his way onto the Path of Souls. He walked slowly, but that was less the result of age than patience. Meloux was a member of the Grand Medicine Society, one of the Midewiwins, a Mide. His life had been engaged with healing the bodies and spirits of those who sought him out. He’d helped Cork on many occasions and, in one significant miracle of healing, he’d brought a traumatized Stevie O’Connor back to a wholeness of soul. Not long ago, Cork had been of significant help to Meloux, locating a son lost to the old man for decades, healing a wound so painful to the old Mide that it had nearly killed him. The threads that bound these two men together were many and long and ran deep.

Meloux’s hair was like a long breath of white wind. He wore overalls, a flannel shirt, and scuffed boots. Cork sat with him at the table in the old man’s one-room cabin, a place that felt as welcoming as home. It was furnished simply: a bunk, a table and three chairs handmade from birch, a cast-iron stove, a small chest of drawers. Meloux used kerosene lanterns. He drew his water from the lake. Twenty yards toward the trees stood an outhouse.

“Alex Kingbird,” the old man said. “Kakaik. A name to be proud of.”

“You called him Kakaik?”

“That was his name.”

“Not legally.”

“Legally?” Meloux laughed. “A man is who he wants to be.”

“Who was Kakaik?”

“To me, someone who asked questions. In that, he was like you.” The old Mide smiled.

“Did he come for healing?”

“I think that was not in his mind. But probably it was in his heart. He wanted to be a man of clear thought. He did a lot of cleansing.”

“Sweats?”

“And other things.”

“What did you think of him?”

Meloux had brewed the coffee in a dented aluminum pot on his stove. Like Cork, he drank from an old, blue-speckled enamel cup.

“If I lived in the days of my ancestors,” he said, “he would have been a man I wanted as a war chief.”

Walleye had settled himself in a corner of the cabin. He’d stayed alert for a few minutes, but when it was clear the men were going to pay him no attention, he dropped his head on his paws and closed his eyes.

“Henry, did Kingbird say anything to you about Lonnie Thunder?”

“Thunder. He took the name Obwandiyag.” The old man didn’t seem pleased with the choice. “You know about Obwandiyag of long ago?”

“No.”

“He was an Odawa war chief. To most white people he is known as Pontiac.”

“Pontiac. Big name for someone with a heart as small as Thunder’s. Did Kingbird talk about him?”

“Obwandiyag weighed on Kakaik.”

“Did you advise Kingbird?”

“He did not ask for my advice. But he did bring Obwandiyag here. Now there was a man full of fear. The white girl had died, the fault, Kakaik said, of Obwandiyag. He hoped I could help Obwandiyag find courage, find purity of spirit, find the warrior’s heart.”

“Did you?”

“Obwandiyag did not want my help. He left before I could do anything for him. I did not see him again.”

“Kingbird was hiding him, trying to protect him, I suppose. Did he give you any idea where?”

The old man put his cup on the table. “Is it Obwandiyag you’re hunting or the truth about Kakaik?”

“I think they might lie along the same path.”

The Mide nodded. “There is hope for you yet, Corcoran O’Connor. I do not have an answer for you. But I have advice, if you would like it.”

“I’d appreciate it, Henry.”

“I would take a hawk’s-eye view of the situation.”

Cork waited. “That’s it?”

“That is all I have to offer. Unless you would like more coffee.”

Cork stood up, and Meloux after him. Walleye worked his way to his feet and padded to the table.

“ Migwech, Henry,” Cork said, thanking the old man. At the door, he paused. “A hawk’s-eye view?”

Meloux shrugged. “It is a place to begin.”