Jo shook her head. “I told you. I can’t represent him.”
“No, you said you won’t. That’s different. He needs our help.”
“I can’t just leave here. I’m in the middle of a hearing.” She waved toward the judge’s bench.
“Solemn’s just a kid, Jo, and he’s scared. He could bolt at any moment. Couldn’t you ask Hickey for a continuance or something?”
Jo pressed the tips of her fingers to her forehead and closed her eyes a moment. “Look, talk to Oliver Bledsoe. He really is Solemn’s best hope. He’s here today. Courtroom B. Cork, I’m sorry, but I can’t help Solemn, not in the situation he’s in right now.”
“Will you at least go with me to talk to Ollie?”
Jo looked at her watch. “If he’s free.”
They were in luck. Bledsoe was standing in the hallway outside Courtroom B, consulting his Palm Pilot.
Cutting off a part of his foot had turned out to be a blessing for Oliver Bledsoe. He’d been a young man without much direction beyond earning a good paycheck and spending it having a good time. While recovering from the logging accident, he’d decided to make some significant changes in his life. The first thing he did was to enroll in college. He completed his B.A. at the University of Minnesota at Duluth in three years and applied immediately to law school. He graduated from William Mitchell School of Law in St. Paul, second in his class. He could have had his choice of law firms. Instead, he opened a storefront legal office on East Franklin Avenue in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, an area that at the time contained the largest population of urban Indians in the United States. He represented people who often had little hope and even less money. His practice ranged from simple wills to defending clients accused of murder. Eventually, he made a name for himself. His one-person law office grew over time to include half a dozen lawyers, some of whom had left lucrative positions to work in what they considered the front lines of American justice. After twenty years, Oliver Bledsoe had been persuaded to return home to head up the new legal affairs office for the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe. Because of the casino profits, he was better paid now, but his clients and their problems were little changed.
Bledsoe glanced up when Cork and Jo approached, and he smiled.
“Got a minute?” Cork said.
“Just.”
“You heard about Solemn Winter Moon?”
“You’d have to be deaf not to.”
“He wants to turn himself in. He’ll need representation.”
Bledsoe’s eyes shifted toward Jo.
She held up her hands in objection. “I can’t. I’ve never handled a criminal charge that serious.”
Bledsoe shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t help him either.”
“You’ve got the experience,” Cork said.
“But I’m not in a position to help. Cork, I represent the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe. I officially represent them. You know better than anyone how tenuous the relationship is between the rez and the rest of Tamarack County. Solemn’s antics feed into some of the worst stereotypes white people have about Indians. I can’t risk the possibility that people will associate him as an individual and the mess he’s got himself into with my official representation of the reservation. If Solemn’s civil rights were being violated, or, shoot, if I really believed he was being wrongly accused-”
“You don’t?” Cork said.
“It’s my understanding there’s plenty of evidence against him.”
“He’s still entitled to the best representation possible.”
“Look, why don’t you try Bob Carruthers? He’s a good, experienced criminal attorney.”
“Experienced,” Jo said. “Good would be a stretch.”
Bledsoe looked at his watch. Cork was becoming irritated that in this house of the law, time seemed more important to everyone than justice. But he kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sorry,” Bledsoe said. “I’m due in court. Good luck.” He headed away.
Cork swung his gaze to Jo. He could see her tense a moment, then give a little sigh. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go with Solemn while he turns himself in so that he’s got someone to advocate for him, but I’m not agreeing to take his case. I’ll help just until we can get a lawyer capable of doing a good job of representing him in this thing.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Jo said without enthusiasm. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to tell Judge Hickey.”
The occasional snowflake had turned to a dismal drizzle of cold rain by the time Cork and Jo pulled up to Sam’s Place. Iron Lake had disappeared behind a gloom of mist. As they walked across the lot, they felt the wet gravel like slush under their feet. Cork pushed open the door of the Quonset hut and called, “Solemn?”
There was no answer.
He looked in the front where the rain dripped down the glass of the serving windows, but Solemn was not hiding there. He turned back to Jo.
“You told me he didn’t exactly promise he’d stay,” Jo said. “You tried to help. What more could anyone ask?”
Cork stood in the room where he thought he’d made a connection with Solemn. He felt that he’d somehow failed the young man, although he couldn’t have said exactly how. He glanced at the kitchen sink and saw that it was empty. Before he’d vanished, Solemn had done the last thing Cork had asked of him. He’d washed the dishes.
13
May
On a sunny spring morning a few days after the autopsy, on a hillside in Lakeview Cemetery, Charlotte Kane was buried. If she’d still had sight, her eyes would have beheld a wonderful view from the few feet of earth that were to be hers forever. Spread out below her was Iron Lake. In winter, it would be hard and white as a beaver’s tooth, and in summer so blue it would seem like a fallen piece of the sky. If she’d still had her senses, she’d have felt the touch of the wind off that lake and smelled the cool, deep scent that was the breath of a million pines. Cork had always believed that if you were going to be stuck somewhere forever, that hillside was a pretty good place. Not many people were asked to attend the simple graveside ceremony. Rose and the Soderbergs were among them. Rose had spoken with Glory about a visitation, some way for the folks of Aurora-or of St. Agnes, at least-to pay their respects, but Glory wanted nothing of the kind. Apparently, what Glory wanted most was to be gone, because the morning after the funeral, she left town. Without a word to anyone. Not that there were many who would have cared. Rose told Cork that when she stopped by the old Parrant place to call on Glory, Fletcher had given her the news. “Gone,” was all he would say. And no idea where. Cork could see that Rose was puzzled by her friend’s abrupt departure, and perhaps a little hurt that Glory hadn’t said good-bye.
April warmed gradually into May. The ice on Iron Lake retreated and then was gone. The aspens and poplars budded, and above them geese wedged their way home to the Boundary Waters and to the lakes of Canada beyond.
The Anishinaabeg called May wabigwunigizis, which means month of flowers. It was the season in which Grandmother Earth awakened and the storytellers fell silent, waiting to speak the sacred histories until after the wild rice had been harvested and the snow had returned and Grandmother Earth slept again.
It was tick season. The news was full of reports and warnings of Lyme disease, and doctors’ offices were crowded with patients concerned about every little rash.
It was softball season, and Cork’s favorite team, the Aurora High Voyageurs, for which his daughter Annie pitched, were predicted to take the conference title.
It was the opening of fishing season, the beginning of months when tourists flocked to Aurora lured by walleye and the beauty of the great Northwoods naked of snow.
And it was, as always, the season of love.
“Dad?” Annie said.
“Yeah?”
“What do guys want?”
It was Saturday afternoon. Cork was standing on a stool in Sam’s Place, checking the consistency of the mixture for the shake machine. Business had been slow that day, which was good because Annie had seemed preoccupied.