Cork began to draw in the rope hand over hand. But something was wrong. Although it hurt like hell to pull, he shouldn’t have felt much resistance. Yet tug as he might, he couldn’t budge the green parka from the spot where the snowmobile had gone under. Then to his shock, he felt the line slipping from his grasp. Despite his tortured ribs, he looped the rope around his own body. The pull at the other end began to drag him toward the water. He was confused. The life ring should have come easily, but it was as if Cork were in a battle with something that wanted the green parka more than he did. Vainly he dug at the ice with his heels. When he looked up, he saw that the green parka was grasping the ring desperately, beating at the water, and was still being dragged inexorably under. Cork strained against the rope as he was inched nearer and nearer the edge. He heard the thin ice crack under his weight and knew that in a moment the water would have him, too.
He let go. The green parka slid from sight, swallowed by the lake as if by a hungry giant. The rope continued to jerk for another minute, and then it was still.
Cork’s right hand throbbed. His ribs hurt so much that he could barely breathe. He realized he was shivering, although he wasn’t cold. He could hear the wail of sirens somewhere off to his right. Wally Schanno was getting help. He stared at the black water. White flakes of snow drifted down onto the surface and melted. The lake looked so calm, so peaceful, as if swallowing a man was nothing.
The flashing lights brought out a lot of spectators from town. They gathered along the shoreline and watched as if it were an event. Cork spotted Sandy Parrant speaking with some of the deputies and nodding authoritatively as they gestured toward the open water. Their eyes met briefly, coldly, then Parrant left. Cork refused to leave until the divers from the fire department had brought the body up. Near midnight, they hauled it dripping onto the ice and laid it in the glare of the flood-lights that had been set up a safe distance from the perimeter of the water. The divers said they had to cut a shoe free; the lace had become entangled in the track of the snowmobile. Although the body had been in the water more than an hour, standard procedure required the paramedics to attempt revival. They pumped on his chest and tried administering oxygen, but even a blind man could see that their efforts were useless.
The face of the man in the green parka was a lighter color than Cork had ever believed it could be. And maybe more peaceful. Russell Blackwater, the man with the hungry hunter’s eyes, would hunt the earth no more.
27
He slept late, slept through the ringing of the telephone, thought he heard a knocking at the door and slept through that, too. It was cold in the Quonset hut but warm under his blanket, and he didn’t want to leave that very small place where he curled for safety. Finally the deep, ceaseless throbbing of his hand forced him to get up. He took a couple of the extra-strength ibuprofen the resident on duty at the community hospital emergency ward had given him when he stitched up his hand. The doctor had also x-rayed the place along Cork’s ribs where his skin had turned a deep brooding purple. Nothing broken. In the bathroom, he studied himself in the mirror. He looked old, a decade older than a week before. His eyes were dark circled, his face puffy. There seemed to be a brutish aspect in his appearance that he’d never recognized before, and he felt a cold, abiding despair sunk all the way to his bones. Who was this man staring at him? What was he becoming?
It was late morning when he stepped outside. Snow no longer fell, but the sky was heavily overcast. A wind blew across the lake, harsh and steady, and tore at the edges of a note he found tacked to his door. “Call me.” It was signed by Father Tom Griffin. Cork checked the headlight that had been shattered by the bullet from Blackwater’s gun. It would have to be fixed, but he wasn’t in any hurry. He went to the storage shed and hauled out his auger and ice spud. He loaded them in the back of the Bronco, and he put his fishing gear there, too. He went once more into Sam’s Place to fill a bucket with grain, and then he headed down to the lake. The geese were gone. After last night, that didn’t surprise him. He stood a moment, looking across the choppy, gray water. There’d been something welcoming about it when the geese were there. Now the open water seemed only menacing. He emptied the bucket and left it in the snow.
He hated hospitals. He couldn’t get beyond the idea of them representing death. In his experience, people went to the hospital to die. His father had died in a hospital with Cork helpless beside him. He hated the sinister cleanliness of their look and smell, the hush of them as if holding a big insidious secret. In so many ways, the scent of burning cedar and sage and the chant of the Midewiwin seemed more real and hopeful.
Wally Schanno was no longer in the Aurora Community Hospital. Cork spoke with the resident, a young man named Dr. Ferman, the same one who’d stitched up Cork’s hand and who’d been on duty since early morning. He looked even more tired than Cork. Schanno had checked himself out several hours ago against the doctor’s advice. The gunshot wound was clean, no bone or artery hit, but Dr. Ferman would have liked a day or so for observation anyway. The doctor said that a little before noon Sigurd Nelson visited Schanno, and a short time later the sheriff told the station nurse he was leaving. Dr. Ferman had come down and argued with him.
“He’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions.” The exhausted resident shrugged. “He signed the waiver. My hands are clean.”
Cork called the sheriff’s office from a hospital pay phone. Schanno was there.
“Get over here,” the sheriff said, sounding tired but pretty excited for a man with a hole recently torn through his leg. “I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”
Sandy Parrant sat in a chair near Schanno’s desk. He looked at Cork with a blank expression. Cork returned the look in kind.
“Hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up, Cork,” Schanno said with a big grin and a nod toward his leg, which was hidden by the desk. Leaning against the wall directly behind him was a pair of crutches. “Come on in. Hang up your coat.”
“How’s the leg feel?” Cork asked.
“I’m on painkiller right now, so not so bad. The doctor said I’d have a couple of scars, but nothing to worry about.”
“Voters like scars on their lawmen,” Cork said.
Schanno gave an appreciative laugh.
Cork said, “Those painkillers sure seem to help your humor, Wally.”
“It’s not the painkillers. I think I’m just about ready to close the book on what’s been going on around here. It’s pretty simple in the end.”
Cork sat in an old wooden chair near the window. He crossed his legs and looked at the two men. He saw Schanno’s eyes shift for the briefest instant toward a small, white three-drawer filing cabinet sitting on the floor near Parrant. It was out of place with the tall green cabinets in which the sheriff kept the regular files.
“Any of your people find my thirty-eight last night out where Blackwater collided with the ice hut?” Cork asked.
“I don’t know. Check with the desk officer on your way out.” Schanno seemed irritated that Cork had jumped to a different track suddenly, but the pleased look came back to him as he went on. “I found something very interesting this morning. A folder Harlan Lytton had that I think explains everything.”
“One file,” Cork considered. “And it explains everything?”
“Have a look for yourself,” Schanno said.
He picked up a manila folder in front of him and offered it to Cork. The typewritten name on the folder, read “Blackwater, R.” Inside were several pages of computer printout with figures and money amounts arranged under headings and columns that clearly dealt with the Chippewa Grand Casino. In several places the figures in the columns had been highlighted with a yellow marker.