Rude parked beside the station wagon, and they all got out and walked to the trailer. Rude mounted the three steps to the door. As he lifted his hand to knock, a furious barking began inside and an old voice called out, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Jon Rude, Will. I’d like to talk to you. I brought some visitors. And I brought some beer.”
The door opened just wide enough to reveal an old man wearing a ratty blue hooded sweatshirt, jeans faded nearly white, and a pair of thick black socks on his feet. Beside him stood a young German shepherd with its tongue lolling out.
“Beer?” the old man said. He gazed at them with an unspecific focus, and Cork quickly understood that the old man was blind or nearly so.
“Coors, Will. Know how you like it.”
“You got someone with you?”
“Friends. Been showing them the country from my chopper. Mind if we come in?” He reached out and took the old man’s hand and guided it to the six-pack he held.
The old man grasped the beer, turned around, and indicated his visitors should follow.
Compared with the glare off the snow outside, the trailer seemed especially dark. The curtains over the windows were drawn closed and there were no lights on. It took a moment for Cork’s eyes to adjust. What he saw then was a place sparely furnished. A short couch, a stuffed easy chair, a standing lamp, a coffee table. In the kitchen area, there was a dinette with a Formica top and two metal chairs. On a stand in one corner of the room sat a big, new television. The television was on, tuned to a football game. The trailer smelled musty, as if long in need of a good cleaning.
“Listenin’ to the Broncos beat the crap outta Oakland,” the old man said, settling into the stuffed chair. He put the six-pack on the floor, where he could reach it easily with his right hand. Cork and Stephen sat on the couch. Rude stood near the old man. Will Pope held out a bottle of beer, waiting for it to be taken. Rude eased it from his grip and handed it to Cork. The old man offered a second, which Rude kept, and then he offered a third.
“You got us covered, Will,” Rude said. “One of us is too young to drink.”
“Yeah?” The old man twisted the top off his beer and took a long draw. “Which one?”
“Me,” Stephen said.
The old man turned his head in Stephen’s direction. “How old, boy?”
“Thirteen,” Stephen said.
“Hell, I was drinkin’ when I was thirteen.”
“He might be, too, if I let him, grandfather,” Cork said. “My name’s Cork O’Connor. This is my son, Stephen.”
The old man picked up the remote from the arm of his chair and turned the television off. He drank some more of his beer. The dog, who’d been sitting on his haunches next to Pope’s chair, eased himself down and laid his head on his paws.
Rude said, “We wanted to talk to you about that vision of yours, Will. Baby’s Cradle.”
“Never said it was Baby’s Cradle.”
“From the description you gave, it seems pretty clear.”
“In a vision, nuthin’ is necessarily what it seems. What’s your interest?”
“Cork’s wife was on the plane that’s missing.”
“Ah.” The old man nodded.
“When did you have the vision?” Cork asked.
“Come to me the night the plane went missin’.”
“How’d it come to you, grandfather?” Stephen asked.
“Same as always. In a dream.”
“You’ve had visions before?” Cork asked.
The old man looked peeved. “I’m a spirit walker.”
“I had a vision, too,” Stephen said.
The old man’s eyebrows lifted. “That so?”
“I saw my mother disappear behind a door in a wall, grandfather.”
“You sound like a nahita but you speak with respect.”
“Nahita?”
“A white,” Rude said.
“I’m white and I’m Anishinaabe, grandfather.”
“Anishinaabe?”
“Ojibwe, grandfather.”
“Mixed blood.” The old man shrugged as if it wasn’t important. He finished his beer and reached for a second. “Ojibwe. That what the whites call you?”
“Or Chippewa,” Stephen said.
“They call us Arapaho. Hell, that’s the name the Crow give us. We are Inunaina. Means ‘Our People.’ ”
“Inunaina.” Stephen tried the word.
“That’s good, boy. What did you say your name was?”
“Stephen O’Connor.”
“O’Connor. My great-grandfather was Cracks the Sky. The first agent this reservation had couldn’t pronounce our Arapaho names so he give us names he could. Changed my grandfather’s name to Pope. Not like the one in Italy. Some damned poet. Some folks got luckier. Ellyn Grant’s people got named after a president.”
“Would you tell us your vision, grandfather?” Cork said.
The old man took a long draw on his beer. “I seen an eagle come out of a cloud. Not like any eagle I ever seen before. Wings spread, all stiff, like it was frozen. It circled and glided into something looked like a bed only with sides to it.”
“Like a cradle?” Rude said.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, boy.”
“I’m sorry, Will,” Rude said.
“Go on, grandfather,” Cork said.
“It landed and a white blanket floated down and covered it. That’s pretty much it. Except that as it faded away, I heard a scream.”
“From the eagle?” Stephen asked.
“No.” He turned his face in the direction from which Stephen’s voice had come. “Truth is, Stephen, it sounded to me like a woman.”
“Grandfather,” Stephen said cautiously, “do you have a feeling about my mother?”
The old man looked toward him with those eyes that no longer saw the light. He was quiet a long time. “Some people think of death like a hungry wolf, Stephen, and they’re afraid of it. Me, I think death is just walkin’ through a door and we go on livin’ on the other side, livin’ better, livin’ in the true way, just waitin’ for those we love to join us there. I got no feelin’ about your mother, but I think you shouldn’t be afraid. We all walk through that door someday. You understand what I’m sayin’?”
Stephen looked disappointed, but he said, “Yes.”
The old man drank his beer and stared ahead at nothing.
“Anything else?” Rude said to Cork.
“No. That does it, I think. Thank you for your time, grandfather. Migwech. ”
“Migwech?”
“In the language of the Anishinaabe people, it means ‘thank you.’ ”
The old man held up his beer. “ Hohou. Same thing in Arapaho.”
THIRTEEN
Day Five, Missing 103 Hours
Outside Will Pope’s trailer, Cork paused and looked around. There was no sign of life in Red Hawk. He could hear a distant motor that might have been a generator of some kind, but the streets were deserted. Late Sunday afternoon. Maybe everyone was watching the Broncos beat the crap out of Oakland.
“I’m not sure what that accomplished,” he said.
“He’s not like Henry Meloux,” Stephen said, “but I like him.”
Rude pulled his gloves on. “He was sober. That’s real unusual for Will. Folks here on the rez treat him with respect because he’s an elder, but most don’t give any weight to his visions. I thought maybe if you saw him in his usual state you might understand why Dewey Quinn is skeptical.”
“I still want to fly over Baby’s Cradle,” Stephen said.
Rude shrugged. “Okay by me. Cork?”
“Why not?”
“All right then. I’ll get it cleared with Dewey for tomorrow.” A tan Blazer passed the church, turned onto St. Alban Lane, and came toward them. There were emergency lights across the top, and the lettering on the door indicated that it belonged to the Bureau of Indian Affairs police. The Blazer parked in front of Pope’s place, and an officer got out. He wore a leather jacket over his blue uniform. He was a stocky man with a broad face, dark eyes, close-cropped black hair, and teeth white as baking soda. He squinted in the sunlight, eyeing Rude, then Cork, then Stephen.