Tamarack County

CHAPTER 47

The dreams had stopped coming, and his sleep was deep. When Stephen finally woke, he found sunlight in his hospital room and his father sitting at his bedside. His father’s eyes were closed, and Stephen studied his face carefully. He’d heard that a daughter becomes her mother; he wondered if the same was true with son and father. He hoped this wasn’t so. He loved his father deeply, but he didn’t want to be him. His father carried a terrible burden. Even in sleep, he couldn’t relax completely. Ogichidaa, Stephen thought, and knew that when you’ve stood against evil in defense of what was good, you could never let your guard down completely. There would always be evil in the world. He understood that this was part of the design of the Great Mystery, although the why of it was beyond him at the moment, and maybe always would be. This was something he would ask Meloux about.

And as often happened, no sooner had he thought of the old Mide than Meloux appeared, standing in the doorway, studying him calmly.

“Good morning, Henry,” Stephen said quietly.

Stephen’s father opened his eyes. He looked at his son and smiled. “How’re you doing, buddy?”

“Better,” Stephen said.

Meloux came forward. He put his old hand over Stephen’s. His palm was rough from the hard work across all the years he’d lived without convenience in his cabin on Crow Point, lived simply and purely.

“I can feel your strength,” the old man said. “It returns.” He nodded toward the window. “Like the sunlight.”

“Where is everybody?” Stephen asked.

His father rose from the chair and stood beside Meloux. “I have a lot to tell you,” he said and filled Stephen in on the events of the night.

“You got shot?” Stephen said. This surprised him because his father seemed fine.

Cork O’Connor tugged his shirttail from his pants and lifted the material to expose his left side, where a large square of sterile gauze lay taped. It reminded Stephen of a patch over a hole in an inner tube.

“No significant damage done,” his father said. “Went right through my love handle. Another couple of scars to add to my collection thanks to Walter Frogg.”

Stephen heard the way he said the man’s name. “You think it would be better if he was dead.”

“I think the world wouldn’t miss a man like Frogg. And I think that as long as he’s alive, he’s trouble. For you, me, and a lot of others.”

“How’s Annie? Is she here?”

“Yes.”

“Could I talk to her?”

“Sure.”

“Is Marlee here, too?”

“She is. I’ll get them both.”

His father tucked his shirt back into his pants and left his son alone with Meloux.

“You look tired,” Stephen told the old man.

“When the years you have lived equal mine, you will look tired, too.” The wizened Mide smiled. “It is good to be with you. I have missed your company.”

“There are things I want to ask you. So many.”

“I will be here,” Meloux promised. “Until it is time for me to walk the Path of Souls, I will leave my home no more.”

From the doorway at Meloux’s back, Anne called, “Stephen?”

She came into the room, and Stephen saw a knowing look pass between her and the Mide. He wondered what that was all about.

“When you want me, I will return,” Meloux said and left Stephen alone with his sister.

“Dad told me about last night,” he said to her.

“A night of resolution,” she replied.

He sensed a calm in her that had been missing for a long time. “You’re not talking just about that Frogg guy. There’s something else.” He gazed deeply into her eyes, and he understood. “You’re going back to the sisters.”

“Not right away. I want more time to think things through.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Live in Rainy’s cabin through the winter and help Henry. We’ve decided, he and I. It works for both of us.”

The meaning of the look that had passed between her and the old man was now clear to Stephen. “I was hard on Skye. I blamed her for what you’ve been going through, but I think this is all a part of the journey you were always meant to take. Will you tell her I’m sorry?”

“I will.”

“So what about Skye and you?”

There was hurt in her face, hurt in her eyes, hurt in her voice. “I’ll always love her, but my life is about something else.”

“Will this make you happy?”

She thought a moment. “Remember when we used to sleep out in the backyard in summer, hoping we’d see the northern lights? We’d stay awake as long as we could and nothing would happen. Then we’d finally fall asleep, and sometimes we’d wake up and there they’d be. I think happiness is like that. If you spend your life looking for it, you’ll probably be disappointed. It comes on its own.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with her. That was another thing he would have to think about and maybe ask Meloux.

Anne turned, and he followed her gaze, and there was Marlee in the doorway. The low morning sunlight bathed her in gold, and to Stephen she looked like an honest to God angel, bruises and all.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“I’m just leaving,” Anne said. She squeezed her brother’s hand. “We have lots to talk about. Later.”

When they were alone, Marlee sat on the edge of his bed. She kissed his lips gently. “You got some sleep?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I napped on the couch in the waiting room.”

“You look good.”

She smiled beautifully. “And you look wonderful.”

He took her hand in his, and their fingers intertwined. “Marlee, I’m sorry I got you involved in all this.”

“I want to be involved in everything that’s you, good and bad.” She glanced at the long, motionless ridge under his sheet, where his useless legs lay.

With his free hand, he cupped her chin and drew her gaze back to his face. “I’m going to walk again. I’ve decided.”

“Then I know you will,” she said, and he could tell she believed it, too.

She bent and kissed him again, this time long and passionately.

And he was sure, absolutely certain, he felt a tingling deep inside him that ran all the way down to his toes.

* * *

Cork took the call in the hospital hallway. It was from Marsha Dross. She informed him that one of the cadaver dogs had located the body of Evelyn Carter. It had been buried in the snow less than a hundred yards from her home. She’d been stabbed to death, most probably with the knife that had gone missing from the Judge’s display case. And Cork, who’d been a cop too long to keep himself from it, a man twice cursed, knew that he would start putting all the pieces of Eveyln Carter’s death together until he could visualize it step by step in his own mind and it would join all the other bloody images that, in his worst moments, he could not help but recall.

“Have you told her daughter and the Judge?” he asked.

“They know.”

“So it’s over?”

“This particular situation is over. But does this kind of thing ever end?”

This kind of thing, Cork thought and knew exactly what she meant, a perspective that was yet another curse of wearing a badge.

“Get some sleep, Marsha. You deserve it.”

He went to the waiting room and told Anne and the others there-Stella, his friends and family from the rez, Henry Meloux and Hank Wellington-that he would buy them all breakfast. He said he would meet them in the parking lot. They rose in a noisy bunch and moved into the hallway. Stella stayed behind, watching Cork carefully. When he turned to her, he saw that her face was drawn, and when she spoke, there was hardness in her voice. “I know that look,” she said. “You’re going to tell me it’s been swell but you have other fish to fry now.”

“What I was going to say is that a lot’s happened in a very short time in both our lives. I need a while to think. I don’t want to jump into anything. I’m way too old and way too tired for jumping. Does that make sense?”

She considered his words, and her face softened. “I was the one who said it wasn’t about anything except one night.”

“When your heart’s in the right place, it’s pretty tough for one night to be that simple.” He went to her, took her in his arms, and drew her against him. Son of a gun, there was that incredible fragrance, whose scent he could not quite name, as enticing as ever.

She asked hesitantly, “Do you think we have a chance? You and me?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Damn me,” she whispered. “Yes.”

“There’s a big part of me that wants it, too. But like I said, it’s a leap, one I need to think about.” He stepped back. “Can I think about it, about us?”

Her eyes were glossed with tears, but she nodded. “I’m going nowhere.”

“Me neither. Tamarack County’s got its hooks in both of us.” He kissed her, gently and not too long. “You hungry? Me, I could eat a moose.”

He took her hand, and they walked from the waiting room together.