Thunder Bay

TWENTY-NINE

Henry sat all afternoon feeding the fire, watching the southern sky, though he knew it was useless to hope. He beat himself with the unknowns. Would Maria ever come back? Would he spend the rest of his life in prison? Should he run now instead of waiting for Wellington to bring the police? If he did that, how would he ever find her?

No matter how he looked at the situation, Maria was gone. Gone forever.

He’d lost much in his life, but losing Maria left him wanting nothing but to die.

A familiar voice at his back startled him out of his reverie. “I thought you had left.” Maurice came from the trees and sat by the fire near Henry. “I heard the airplane,” he said. “You look terrible, my friend. What happened?”

Henry explained the events. “They know about you, Maurice. They will be back. I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.

Maurice thought awhile. “Come with me.”

“But if they come back-”

“They won’t be back today. Come with me. There’s something I want to show you, something that might help.”

Henry followed in dismal silence. Never had the woods felt so empty. Never had he seemed so far from home.

They reached Maurice’s cabin on the swift little stream. Maurice led him inside and blew into the embers of the fire and stoked the flame. He put water on to boil.

“Some tea will help. Hummingbird’s recipe. Burdock root, sheep sorrel, slippery elm, and red clover.”

Henry sat in the cabin, but his mind was still on the airplane he’d watched lift off the lake that morning, spray streaming from the floats, Maria vanishing.

The hot cup was suddenly in his hands.

“Drink,” Maurice said gently. “And listen to me.” He settled into a chair facing Henry and leaned close. A shaft of afternoon light came through the open window and struck his face. The sharp cheekbones above his beard were like dark, polished cherry wood. “In all my time among white people, the one thing I understood best was that for them, money forgives everything. In their courts, money can undo any wrong, even murder.”

“Not murder,” Henry said hopelessly.

Maurice shook his head. “Money will buy a good lawyer, and a good lawyer with enough money behind him can sell a lie to anyone.”

“What lie? I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“You kill a white man, it doesn’t matter why. They won’t listen. Money will make them listen.”

“I don’t have money,” Henry said miserably.

“What I want to show you.”

Maurice rose from his chair, went to the bunk, and pulled it away from the wall. Henry saw the outline of a trapdoor beneath, cut into the floorboards. A knotted rope served as a handle. Maurice grasped the rope and lifted. He beckoned Henry to look. Beneath the floor lay a dozen deer-hide pouches, each larger than a man’s fist.

“Take one,” Maurice said. “Open it.”

Henry lifted one of the pouches, surprised by its weight. He undid the leather cord and looked at the heaping of yellow grains inside.

“Do you know what that is?” Maurice asked.

Henry said, “Gold.”

“It’s yours. As much as you want.”

“Why?”

Maurice smiled kindly. “I came looking for this. Once I had it, I realized I’d found something better here with Hummingbird. Happiness. We had each other. We had food and shelter. We had this land whose spirit is generous and beautiful. Children would have been good, but…” He shrugged that thought away. “So we stayed. When Hummingbird died, I thought about leaving. Except all my memories are here. Her spirit is here, too. I feel her with me all the time.” He put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “What need do I have for gold?”

Henry closed up the pouch and carefully tied the cord. “If I take the gold, they will know where it came from. They will he hack.”

“They will be back anyway. It is only a matter of time.”

“I will think about it,” Henry said.

He stayed awhile with Maurice, but his mind was drawn to the campsite and the empty sky above the lake.

“I should go back and wait,” he finally said.

“I’ll wait with you,” Maurice offered.

Henry didn’t want to risk the white men seeing Maurice. “I will wait alone.”

Maurice nodded. “If that’s what you want. Remember, the gold is here for you. It will always be here.”

They left the cabin. Maurice looked at the sky and sniffed the air.

“Your people don’t come back soon, it won’t matter much,” he said to Henry. “Snow is on the way. I can smell it. I’ve got food if you need to spend the winter.”

Henry thanked him and left. He made his way to camp and sat down to wait.

That night, Henry slept in Maria’s tent. The smell of her on the sleeping bag was next to heaven. In the night, he heard music, the little chime of the gold watch. He found it among the things she’d left behind. He went outside and stirred the embers and stoked the fire until he had a flame bright enough to see by. He spent the rest of the night dividing his time between staring at the stars and staring at Maria’s tiny image. Near dawn, he put the watch in his pocket, where it would stay. He didn’t care if it was stealing.

They didn’t come the next day or the next. That night Henry dreamed: The lake had turned to ice. The ridges were white with snow. He stood at the shoreline staring at Wellington’s plane, which sat on frozen water. Flakes began to drift from the cloudy sky, and soon a curtain of falling snow descended, so that all Henry could see was the dim outline of the floatplane. He wanted to rush to it, to find out if it had brought Maria back to him, but his feet wouldn’t move.

The door opened. A figure clambered out. Henry thought it was Wellington, but he couldn’t be sure. The figure walked toward him.

As it came, it grew, taking on huge dimensions. The head became a ragged growth of shaggy hair. The fingers grew into long claws. Through the white gauze of snow, the eyes glowed red as hot coals. Henry realized that what was coming for him was not a man but a windigo, the mythic beast out of the horror stories of his childhood, a cannibal giant with a heart of ice. He turned and tried to run, but he could not move his legs. He looked back. The beast was almost upon him. Henry tried to cry out. His jaw locked in place, and only a terrified moan escaped. The foul smell of the windigo-the stench of rotted meat-was all around him. He saw the great mouth open, revealing teeth like a row of bloody knives. The beast reached for him. Henry tensed and cringed, prepared to be torn apart.

He jerked awake in the cold gray of early morning. Outside the tent, the sky was overcast. In the air, he could smell the approach of snow.

The airplane came at noon. Henry was napping. He heard the low thrum in the sky from the eastern end of the lake. He grabbed his jacket and ran out of the tent. The plane dropped toward the water like a swan descending. The floats touched, shattering the glassy lake surface, and the wings squared toward the shoreline where Henry stood. He couldn’t see into the cockpit. The engine cut out, the blur of the propeller ceased, the blades froze. The plane nosed up to solid ground. The door opened.

Leonard Wellington climbed out. He walked along the pontoon with a rope in his hand. Leaping ashore, he tethered the floatplane to one of the large, heavy rocks that littered the shore. He went back to the cabin door and spoke to someone inside. Finally he looked at Henry.

“Wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” he said, stepping off the pontoon. “If I was you, I’d have taken to the woods. Vamoosed.”

Henry only half heard. He was staring at the open cabin door. His heart was a wild horse galloping in his chest. He could barely breathe.

Another man climbed from the belly of the plane. He carried a rifle. Henry’s hope cracked into a thousand pieces.

Wellington saw his face. “Expecting Maria? You’ll never see her again, Henry. That’s the way she wants it. You killed her father. That’s right, he’s dead. Yesterday.”

Henry stared at the man who’d come with Wellington. He didn’t look like a policeman. He looked Indian, and familiar.

“Maria told me about the Negro, Henry,” Wellington went on. “We have a deal to offer you. Take me to him and the police will never know it was you who killed Carlos Lima. You have my word, eh.”

Henry didn’t answer. He felt dull, thick-witted. Nothing made sense.

“She hates you,” Wellington said. “She wanted to come with me and tell you that herself, but I persuaded her to let me handle this, man to man.”

Henry opened his mouth. He had no idea what he was going to say. What came out was, “I don’t believe you.” He eyed the Indian, who now stood behind Wellington, the rifle cradled across his chest.

Wellington smiled sadly. “I understand, Henry. You love her. Love makes you blind. But if I was lying, how would I know about the Negro? She told me everything. Except she couldn’t tell me how to get to his cabin.”

Henry studied the Indian. He was as tall as Wellington, over six feet, lanky but powerful-looking. His black hair was cut short in the way of a white man, with flecks of silver throughout. Henry remembered where he’d seen the man before, on the dock at the lake where the floatplane had landed to refuel on the flight north.

“Boozhoo,” Henry said to him.

The man showed no sign of understanding the familiar Ojibwe greeting.

“I want to make a deal with this Negro fellow,” Wellington went on.

Henry focused on Wellington’s eyes, dark and small, like rabbit droppings. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Wellington lost his smile. “I’m talking about the gold, Henry.”

“I don’t know about any gold. I don’t know about this Negro.”

Wellington reached behind him, under his leather jacket, to the small of his back. When his hand reappeared, it held a revolver with a blued barrel, which he pointed at Henry. “I’d just as soon kill you, but I need what’s in your head. You’ve got five seconds to start telling me how to find the Negro’s cabin.”

Henry eyed the Indian, who watched impassively.

“One. Two. Three. Spill it, Henry. Four. Five.”

The revolver popped. Wellington’s hand jerked. The bullet struck Henry’s right leg, high above the knee. It felt as if he’d been hit with a baseball bat. He went down, sprawled on the ground. He grabbed his thigh. Worms of blood crawled between his fingers.

“Tell me where it is, Henry, or the other leg is next.”

Henry bit down hard and held to his silence.

“Another five count. One. Two. Three.” Wellington thumbed the hammer back. “Four. Five.”

The gun barked again. This time the bullet burrowed into the dirt next to Henry’s left leg.

Wellington grinned. “I thought you might be reluctant. That’s why I brought Pierre with me. Claims to be the best tracker in northern Ontario. Guess we’ll have to see. With all that traipsing back and forth you and Maria did to the Negro’s cabin, I figure you must’ve left a decent trail, eh.” He spoke over his shoulder to the Indian. “There’s some rope in that far tent. Get it.”

The Indian did as he was instructed and returned with a coil of hemp rope.

“Get him over to that tree. I don’t imagine he’ll be able to travel on that leg, but let’s make sure he’s not tempted.”

The Indian tossed Wellington the rope and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He grasped Henry under the arms and dragged him across the campsite to the pine tree Wellington had indicated. He lifted Henry to his feet, shoved him against the trunk, and held him there. Wellington stuffed the revolver in his belt and uncoiled the rope.

Henry tried to keep his weight off the wounded leg and his mind off the pain. As Wellington bound him to the tree, he tried also to flex all his muscles and expand his chest. Wellington cinched the rope tight from neck to ankle and stepped away.

“I’ll be back for you, Henry. Unless the wolves get you first.” Wellington turned to Pierre. “Find the trail.”

The Indian began in a slow arc at the edge of the camp, following one lead after another. Half an hour later, at the western edge of the campsite, he signaled with a whistle.

Wellington rose from where he’d been sitting near the black pine. “The hunt is on.”

The two men disappeared into the woods, following, Henry knew, the trail that would lead them to Maurice’s cabin. He was angry with himself for not having been more careful, but he hadn’t worried about leaving a trail. The white men couldn’t have followed the signs to save their lives. The surprise was the Indian.

His thigh was on fire. The leg of his jeans was soaked with red, but Henry thought the wound had stopped bleeding. He knew he was lucky. The revolver hadn’t been a big caliber, and the bullet hadn’t hit bone or an artery. He was also lucky in a way he didn’t understand. Why hadn’t Wellington killed him? The only thing that made sense was that if the Indian couldn’t follow the trail, Henry was the fallback.

But Henry was determined not to wait for Wellington’s return.

As soon as the two men were out of sight, he began to work on his bonds. He couldn’t move his head. The rope about his throat gave him so little slack he could barely swallow. Wellington hadn’t been as careful with the other loops, and Henry found that much of the advantage he’d hoped for in tensing his muscles he’d actually achieved. His hands and arms could move ever so slightly. First he worked his right hand back and forth, up and down. The rough pine bark scraped away the skin of his wrist, but he kept at it. Over the next half hour, by fractions of an inch, Henry gradually eased his hand free. Next was his left, easier because the release of his right hand created more slack in the rope. Gradually, he slipped both arms free, and when that was done, the loops fairly fell away. When he was free, he collapsed and lay at the base of the tree.

Wellington and his tracker had an hour’s head start, and they each had two good legs. Henry dragged himself up and limped to his tent. He cut two strips of the soft canvas flap. The first strip he folded and placed over the wound in his thigh. The second he wrapped around his leg and tied to hold the compress in place. From inside the tent, he took his rifle and stuffed the pockets of his jacket with cartridges. He grabbed a tent pole to lean on as he walked. With his rifle slung over his shoulder, he followed where the two men had gone.