“Any idea where he goes?”
She shrugged. “His business. I’ve never pushed him on it.”
“Arne Soderberg’s smug, so whatever it is they have, it must be pretty solid.”
She was quiet. At first, Cork thought she was looking at the lake again, but then he saw that her eyes were closed. Custer resettled himself, laid his head on his paws, and blinked at Cork.
“I’ve always been afraid that someday whatever it is that gets into him would get him into serious trouble. But this.” She hugged her legs, laid her forehead against them. “Christ.”
“If you hear from him, try to make him understand that it’s important to come in and talk to the sheriff. Jo will be happy to go with him.”
Dot lifted her head, nodded. “Thanks.”
He got up, and Custer jumped to his feet.
“No, you stay here,” Dot said to the dog. She put her arm around his neck and pulled him next to her.
Cork left her beside the lake, left her staring out at the water. As he walked away, he couldn’t help thinking of Fletcher Kane who, when Cork last left him, had been staring across his own lake of sorrow.
Cork headed through Alouette, along back roads, until he was well into the woods that edged the north boundary of the reservation. He slowed down and finally saw what he was looking for, a cut through the trees on the left side of the road, an old access. He pulled in and made his way carefully between the trunks of pines so close to the edge of the track that they threatened to scrape the paint off his Bronco. It was a quarter mile to the cabin.
Summers, Sam Winter Moon had lived in the back of the Quonset hut on Iron Lake so that he could run his burger stand. But early fall through late spring, he lived in his old cabin near the headwaters of Widow’s Creek. It was a small, rustic affair, a single room heated by an old, potbellied stove, no electricity or running water, and an outhouse. In the years after his father died, Cork had spent a lot of time there with Sam, learning much about himself from a man who was a patient teacher.
As Cork drew near, he saw a black Ford Ranger parked in front of the cabin.
Sunlight, low in the sky, broke through the pine trees and hit the cabin in bright splashes. Except for the incessant cawing of a crow somewhere in the high branches of the trees, and the gurgle from Widow’s Creek a dozen yards north, the woods were quiet. No one answered his knock, and Cork opened the door. He’d been inside only once since Sam died, and that was to retrieve an important item that Sam had bequeathed to him. A bear skin. Entering now, smelling the place-the old logs and the sooted stove, leather bindings and wool blankets-Cork traveled back instantly across more than three decades to his adolescence. He felt a great happiness inside him, thinking about Sam. The room was neatly kept, and Cork had a pretty good idea of why.
He stepped outside and found himself staring into the black maw of a shotgun barrel.
“What are you doing here?” Solemn Winter Moon said.
He was a little taller than Cork, wore jeans, a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled back, a green down vest. His long, black hair was pulled into a ponytail. Cork couldn’t help seeing behind his dark good looks and his distrusting eyes the face of the boy who’d fished for sunnies from the dock at Sam’s Place.
“Looking for you,” Cork said.
Solemn lowered the barrel of the shotgun. A grouse lay in the dirt at his feet, the feathers messed and bloodied by buckshot.
“Yeah? Why?”
“I was hoping to get to you before the police did.” Cork waited. “You don’t seem surprised, Solemn.”
“What do they want?” His question seemed more an afterthought.
“To talk about Charlotte Kane, I’d guess.”
“Ancient history.”
“It’s a current affair now. I think the sheriff believes someone killed her, and you may be the number one suspect on his list. Look, I’m here to help, not to take you in.”
Cork watched his eyes, looking for a sign of the fire that might signal some impulsive action. The kid seemed pissed, but not out of control.
“Why’d you take off?” Cork asked.
“It’s what I do sometimes.”
“Bad timing. Looks pretty suspicious.” The crow stopped cawing. The still of the evening wrapped around them, and Cork felt the goodness of the place. “Come here to think?”
Solemn didn’t answer.
“You can feel him out here, can’t you? I sure can.”
Cork looked for a crack in the front the kid put up, but Solemn remained hard.
“He saved my life once. Did you know that?”
No sign whether Solemn knew or not, whether he even cared.
“It was in the fall, a year after my father died. Sam asked me to help him build a bear trap, something he’d never tried before. We set it a mile or so down Widow’s Creek, near that meadow full of blueberries. You know the one?” Solemn gave no reply, but his face altered a bit, a splinter of acknowledgment. “The bear sprung the trap, but it was such a goddamned huge animal it got away. Sam went after it and took me with him. I’d never hunted a bear before. We tracked it for a day and a half. Finally we got into a rocky area where even Sam couldn’t track and we turned back. I remember that Sam was happy he wasn’t going to have to kill a creature as magnificent as we knew that bear was.
“Toward evening, coming back, we hit a thick patch of sumac, bloodred stuff. We’d passed it earlier. This time Sam sensed something. He told me to wait, and he headed into the sumac. I waited, like he said. Then I heard a rustling in all those red leaves. I thought Sam was coming back. But it wasn’t him. The biggest black bear I’ve ever seen charged out, coming right at me. It had circled. Bears sometimes do that. I was paralyzed. Couldn’t move. That huge bear reared up on its hind legs, claws longer than my fingers. I was sure it was going to rip me apart.
“Then Sam shot it. At first, nothing happened. Finally the bear wavered, stumbled back, fell. It tried to get up, defend itself, but it couldn’t. Sam came out of the sumac, spoke to the bear, something in Ojibwe I didn’t understand. And he finished the kill. I could tell it made him sad to do it.”
Solemn cradled the shotgun in a hunter’s safe stance, barrel toward the earth. He looked at the place where the barrel pointed.
“I loved him, too, Solemn. Almost like he was my father. And he’d tell you what I’m telling you. Talk to the sheriff. Jo says she’ll go with you if you’d like. The choice is yours.”
Cork turned and started away.
“You going to tell anyone?” Solemn called after him.
“No.”
“Not even my mother?”
“Not if you don’t want me to. Okay if I tell her you’re fine?”
Solemn thought about it. “Yeah.”
Cork paused before he got into his Bronco. “In everything we remember, Sam’s still alive. In every decision we make, he’s still with us. But you know that. It’s why you come here.”
The light was fading as Cork pulled away. Solemn was still standing in front of the cabin, his figure darkening along with the day, his shotgun pointed at nothing. The truth was Cork hated leaving him alone that way. But there was nothing more he could do. Solemn Winter Moon was no longer a boy.
9
Cork came home to disaster. Rose was leaving. She had a suitcase packed and sitting beside the front door. The children were gathered around her, looking at her with sad eyes.
“You’re going somewhere?” Cork said.
Rose opened her purse to double-check the contents. “Ellie Gruber called. Her sister broke a hip. Ellie’s going to stay with her for a while to help out. She asked me if I’d be willing to take care of things at the rectory until she’s back.”
“A broken hip,” Cork said. “That could be quite a while.”
“It could be.”
Rose didn’t seem concerned, but to Cork-and to the children, judging by their faces-it felt as if the O’Connors were being orphaned.