There was something very different about the young man. Since Sam’s passing, the muscles around Solemn’s eyes were always tense, wary, waiting, expecting the approach of something bad. That tension was gone now. Cork had the feeling he was finally seeing Solemn’s eyes clearly. And they were beautiful eyes, dark brown and sparkling.
Meloux sat with the lake at his back. He blew smoke into evening air that smelled of pines and also, in that particular place, of the char and ash of many fires.
Without looking directly at Solemn, Meloux said, “I think you are right. I think it is time.”
Solemn seemed to divine Cork’s confusion. “We’re talking about what I ran from,” he said. “It’s time to go back and face it.”
“I was beginning to think you were dead,” Cork said.
Solemn laughed. “In a way, I was. After you left me alone at Sam’s Place that day, I got to thinking about my chances with the law. I knew what people thought of me. I didn’t see any way I was going to get a break. Man, I could feel those iron bars closing in. I got scared and ran. I followed the lake north, thinking I’d make it to Canada, figure what to do from there. But I didn’t get to Canada. I ran into Henry instead.”
The old Mide shook his head. “You ran into Walleye.”
Solemn pointed toward the trees northwest along the lake. “Out there in the woods beside Half Mile Spring. Walleye wouldn’t let me pass. A few minutes later, Henry showed up.”
Meloux said, “I thought Walleye must have scared up a rabbit. Turned out to be a scared rabbit in a young man’s skin.”
He grinned, and Solemn laughed.
“I gave him shelter,” Meloux said. “And food. I heard his story. I let him stay, and I burned cedar, and considered what should be done. The nephew of Sam Winter Moon, that is something to think about. If he were a man truly, I would have told him to turn and face his problems. But I could see he wasn’t. And then I understood.” The old man took a draw on his cigarette, and let the smoke out slowly. “Giigwishimowin.”
Cork knew the word, knew of the rite. In the days before white people disrupted the Anishinaabe way, giigwishimowin was the experience that marked a male’s passage into manhood. When the time was right, usually sometime in his teens, a young man was sent out into the forest alone to fast and to seek a vision that would guide him for the rest of his life. Not until Kitchimanidoo, the Great Spirit, had granted him that vision showing him the path he was to follow and that would lead him in harmony with creation, did he return to his village. He left as a boy and came back as a man, in his own eyes and in the eyes of his people.
“I explained it to him, because it was a thing he had never heard of,” Meloux said.
“A modern Shinnob.” Solemn smiled at his ignorance. “Mumbo jumbo, I thought. But I figured whatever it took to keep my ass out of jail. Henry led me into the woods. We walked for a couple of hours. I didn’t have a clue where we were going, where we were. Finally Henry stopped and said, ‘Here.’ That’s all. A man of few words.”
“You don’t have to speak much if you speak well,” Meloux replied.
“We were in this big hollow with a stream running through,” Solemn went on. “I asked Henry what I was supposed to eat. He said, ‘Nothing.’ I asked him what exactly I was supposed to do. He said ‘Nothing.’ I asked him when he would come back. He said, ‘When it’s time.’ And then he left.
“At first, I was just bored, you know. Time dragged by. Night came. I went to sleep. Maybe I dreamed, I don’t remember. The next day I got hungry. I thought about looking around for something to eat, but Henry told me to eat nothing, so that’s what I did. When I got thirsty, I drank from the stream. I sat, thought, slept, thought some more. Day after day. Man, my stomach growled like a bear. The nights got pretty cold. The only visitors I had were blackflies and wood ticks. A lot of times, I was close to just packing it in. But what then? There wasn’t anyplace for me to go. I lost track of the days. My thinking began to get confused. Henry tells me I was out there for sixteen days when it finally happened, when I finally had my vision.
“I was sitting up against a big rock beside the stream when He walked out of the forest. He came to where I was and smiled. He sat down and we talked.”
Solemn’s eyes were alive with the color of the sky and the lake, the color of a fire that burned beyond the horizon but still lit everything.
“Who was it?” Cork finally asked.
“You’re going to love this,” Solemn said. “It was Jesus.”
Cork looked at Meloux, who seemed unperturbed at this startling declaration.
“Jesus?” Cork said.
“The Son of God,” Solemn said.
“He appeared to you?”
“We had a good, long talk.”
Cork peered hard at Solemn’s face. He saw no indication that it was a joke, a hoax, a diversion. In fact, what he saw in those dark eyes was utter calm.
Cork said, “What was he wearing?”
“Jeans. An old flannel shirt. Minnetonka moccasins, I think.”
“He was dressed like a Minnesota tourist?”
“Maybe in Mexico He wears a sombrero,” Solemn said.
Cork felt fire on his fingers, and he realized he’d forgotten about his cigarette. The ember had burned all the way down to the point where it was singeing his skin. He dropped the cigarette and jerked his hand to his mouth to suck away the pain.
“Did he give you a message to deliver?”
“We just talked.”
Cork blew on his fingers. “About what?”
“He told me He understood what it was like to be accused of a crime you didn’t commit. He told me it was okay to be afraid, but that all things occurred for a purpose, and to believe that all of this was happening for a reason.”
“Did he tell you the reason?”
“Just to believe.”
“What happened then?”
“He told me he knew I was tired and that I should lie down and sleep. So I did. When I woke up, he was gone.”
“When you woke up,” Cork said.
“You think it was just a dream,” Solemn said.
Cork looked toward Henry Meloux. “What do you think?”
Meloux finished his own cigarette, ground the ember against the side of the maple stump, and threw the butt into the ashes inside the stone ring.
“The concern on a vision quest is this: Has the vision guided the life? Solemn Winter Moon went into those woods lost. When he came out, he had found himself. Look at him, Corcoran. You can see the change for yourself.”
“Henry, do you really think Jesus visited Solemn?”
The old Mide gave it some consideration. “In a thing like this,” he finally said, “what one man thinks, or even what many men think, isn’t important. A life has been changed. A good man walks with us today. This is always a reason to be glad.”
Cork looked back at Solemn. “Just like that, it happened?”
“Just like that,” Solemn replied. He licked his fingers, pinched the ember of his cigarette to extinguish the glow, and tossed the butt into the ashes with Meloux’s. “I figure your coming here is a sign that it’s time to go back.”