He was the son of Vernon Blackwater, who, until his recent death, had been chairman of the tribal council, as well as a prosperous businessman on the reservation, operating a lumber mill in Allouette. Russell was one of the few college graduates from the rez. When he returned to help run the lumber mill, he came with his black hair long and braided. He dressed in beaded vests or an old jean jacket with the AIM insignia on the back. He rode a Harley-Davidson chopper. The reservation elders viewed him with caution, watching his hungry hunter’s eyes carefully whenever he spoke before the tribal council. But he had a large following among the younger Anishinaabe. He had frequently given Cork a hard time as sheriff, haranguing him for being part of an establishment and a system bent on the continued subjugation of the people of his own blood. Cork had tolerated that, even understood it, and although he never admitted it out loud, he often wrestled with the conflict in his own heritage.
Now that Russell Blackwater was manager of the Chippewa Grand Casino, he kept his hair cut short. Instead of beaded vests, he wore a charcoal suit and wingtips.
Blackwater was eating an omelette while he read the newspaper. He put down his fork and paper as Cork approached. “A little early to be messing around with that slut Lady Luck, isn’t it, Cork?”
“I’m not here to gamble, Russ. I understand Henry Meloux was looking for you last night.”
“So I heard.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
“I wasn’t here at all yesterday. My father’s funeral,” he reminded Cork somberly.
“Any idea what Meloux wanted to see you about?”
“Probably wanted to apologize for not making it to the funeral. They were old friends, him and my father.”
Blackwater went back to eating his breakfast.
“I suppose you’ve heard about the judge.”
“What about him?”
“Dead. Killed himself, looks like.”
“The judge?” Blackwater snorted. “I don’t believe it.”
“Wrapped his mouth around the barrel of a shotgun.”
Blackwater paused and considered a forkful of omelette. “How do you know this?”
“I was there after it happened. I saw him.”
“What were you doing? You’re not the fucking law anymore.”
“An accident. I was looking for Paul LeBeau.”
“Darla’s kid?”
Cork nodded. “He’s missing. Word is that Joe John’s back.”
“Joe John?” Blackwater smiled. “I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Last I heard he was panhandling on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. I don’t think he’ll ever be sober enough to find his way back here.”
“Where’d you hear about the panhandling?”
“I heard.” Blackwater shrugged.
“Seen Darla this morning? I wanted to talk to her about Paul and Joe John.”
“She called in sick.” Blackwater gave Cork a cold grin. “You really like asking questions, don’t you? Bet you really miss that uniform, Cork. Just another white man without it.”
“You know, Russ, in those clothes you look like just another white man, too. See you around.”
10
Back at Sam’s, Cork went to the utility shed-a corrugated aluminum thing Sam Winter Moon had purchased from Sears-and pulled out his old cross-country skis. They were ancient wooden touring skis with hard, hickory edges. Cork took out a scraper, propped the skis against the picnic table in front of Sam’s, and began patiently to peel off the layers of old wax.
The snowmobiles were out in force on Iron Lake, zipping about the ice like ants frenzying on a frosted cake. In summer it was motorboats and Jet Skis and sailboats. No matter what the season the lake had little peace.
The Anishinaabe called it Gitchimiskwassab, which meant “big rump.” In the myth of the Iron Lake Anishinaabe, the lake was formed when Naanabozho, the trickster, attempted to steal the tail feathers from an eagle. As Naanabozho grabbed the feathers, the great bird took flight. Higher and higher it flew, and Naanabozho became more and more exhausted attempting to hold on. Finally, the trickster let go and fell to earth. Where he landed, a great indentation was made from each of the cheeks of his butt. Naanabozho cried from the pain of his fall and filled the double indentation with his tears. Thus, Gitchimiskwassab.
The Iron Lake Treaty of 1873 placed the northeastern “cheek” of the lake entirely within the reservation of the Iron Lake Anishinaabe. The south-western “cheek” became public waters. For several generations, the Iron Lake band spearfished and gillnetted their own part of the lake without any trouble. Because the language of the treaty arguably gave the Iron Lake Anishinaabe fishing rights on all the lake, the state of Minnesota had for years paid a small compensation to the band for not exercising those rights. The arrangement had been, at least from a white perspective, reasonable.
Cork scraped the layers of wax from his skis, thinking about the spring a year and a half before, when everything changed.
Several weeks before the first day of spearfishing season-which preceded all other forms of fishing in the state and was limited to Native Americans-Russell Blackwater, speaking on behalf of the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe, declared that The People intended, for the first time in over one hundred years, to spearfish and gillnet all of Iron Lake and its tributaries, not just that portion within reservation boundaries. Speaking for the tribal council, of which he was an elected member, he decried the state’s policies of the past that offered the Anishinaabe a pittance in exchange for their treaty rights. He characterized the arrangement as just another in a long line of maneuvers by the white man to take from The People what had been a gift to them from Gitchimanidoo, the Great Spirit.
The resort owners and the white fisherman immediately raised an outcry. A group calling itself SORE, which stood for Save Our Resources and Environment, quickly formed and sought an injunction against the Anishinaabe. As she had so often in the past, Jo O’Connor represented the interests of the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe in an expedited hearing before a federal judge in Minneapolis. The court found in favor of the Anishinaabe.
The next move for SORE was to appeal to the state’s department of natural resources, whose responsibility it was to oversee the fish population in all Minnesota waters. SORE’s contention was that the level of gillnetting and spearfishing the Iron Lake band proposed would, in conjunction with normal line fishing, result in the depletion of the fish population. The DNR agreed and their own attorneys sought an injunction against the Anishinaabe. Jo O’Connor, on behalf of her clients, argued that while the DNR did, in fact, have the right to enforce limits, they had no right to control how those limits were reached. In essence, the terms of the 1873 treaty gave the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe the right to take the full limit allowed by the DNR from the lake if they so desired. The court promised a ruling before opening day of spearfishing.
None of the legal maneuvering took place in a vacuum of dry proceedings. Outside the courtroom buildings, SORE members rallied, their numbers swelled by other fishermen who feared the ramifications of the legal decisions handed down in the case of the Iron Lake Ojibwe. Helmuth Hanover, owner and editor of the weekly Aurora Sentinel, published a letter from a group calling itself the Minnesota Civilian Brigade warning that if the government didn’t stop interfering with rights of American citizens, civil rebellion was the only recourse. As the most visible and outspoken of the Anishinaabe, Russell Blackwater received a number of anonymous threats. In a television interview with a Twin Cities station a week before the fishing was to begin, Blackwater declared that if the whites wanted to wage war, the Anishinaabe were more than ready.