We drove north along Iron Lake past cabins and small resorts nestled among pines and spruce and stands of paper birch. At the north end of the lake, we turned off the paved highway onto the gravel county road that serviced the last of the resorts before the reservation began. It had been a dry summer, and the Bronco kicked up a thick tail of dust that hung a long time in the still morning air. A quarter mile along, I glanced into my rearview mirror and saw an SUV swing off the highway and plow into the cloud I’d raised. I felt a little bad throwing up all that dust, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Another mile and I pulled to the side of the road and parked near the double-trunk birch that marked the trail to Meloux’s cabin. Stevie opened his door and Walleye leaped across him eagerly. The dog’s tail was going crazy, and it was clear he was happy to be in his own territory again. Stevie saw it, too, and he sighed.
I opened my door just as the SUV behind us shot past. It was silver-gray, but coated everywhere with the red-brown dust of the county road, except for a couple of streaky arcs on the windshield where the wipers had tried to clean. I yanked the door shut, glad I’d pulled far off to the side. Whoever was driving the SUV couldn’t have seen the Bronco in time to avoid hitting it. As it was, I almost lost the driver’s door. The SUV sped past and kept heading northeast.
Stevie and Walleye trotted ahead. I trailed behind, noting my son’s slumped little shoulders. I found myself agreeing with Jo. A turtle was no kind of pet for a boy.
We broke from the trees amid the buzz of the grasshoppers still infesting the woods. On Crow Point, smoke drifted up from the stovepipe on Meloux’s cabin. Walleye loped ahead, barking. Meloux opened the door and stepped into view. He smiled at the sight of his old friend, bent down, and his ancient hands caressed the dog.
Looking up at us as we approached, he said in formal greeting, “Anin, Corcoran O’Connor. Anin, Stephen.” He stood up. “Migwech,” he finished, thanking us.
He had on a pair of worn khakis held up with new blue suspenders. The sleeves of his denim shirt were rolled above his elbows. He wore hiking boots, much scuffed about the toes. His long white hair fell over his shoulders. His eyes were clear and sharp. He looked healthy. He looked very much like the Meloux I’d known all my life.
“I have made coffee,” he said, inviting us in.
We stepped out of the sunshine into the cool shade of his cabin. He closed the door, but not before a couple of grasshoppers slipped into the cabin with us.
There were three chairs around his table. Stevie and I sat down. Meloux went to his black potbelly stove where coffee sat perking in a dented aluminum pot. He poured dark brew into three cups already placed around the table, as if we’d been expected. Stevie looked at the coffee then at me. I nodded okay.
Walleye had padded quietly back and forth with Meloux. When the old man finally sat down, Walleye settled at his feet. Stevie watched the dog dolefully.
I sipped the coffee, which was hot and strong. “Henry, I was more than a little surprised to hear that you’d left the hospital.”
The old man shook his head. “The surprise for me was finding myself there. I did not realize the weight I carried on my heart, it had been there so long. Tell me about my son.”
Wisps of steam rose from our speckled blue cups. Stevie blew across the surface of his coffee and lifted his cup. He jerked back from the touch of the hot brew against his lips.
“He’s a sick man, Henry.”
I explained as simply as I could what I had observed. The old man listened without showing any emotion. As I talked, the two grasshoppers explored the cabin. When they took to the air, their wings made a sound like the rattle of tiny dry bones. They hit the wall a couple of times, small, dull thuds. Meloux didn’t seem to notice.
When I finished, the old man said, “He would not come?”
“No, Henry.”
Meloux nodded and stared for a little while out the small window at the sunlit meadow beside his cabin.
“It may be that the weight I felt on my heart was not mine alone. It may be that I felt his, too.” He touched his chest. “Miziweyaa” -which meant wholeness-“is here. The way is always here. But sometimes a man needs help in understanding the way.”
The coffee had cooled. Stevie took a polite sip and squeezed his eyes against the bitter taste.
“We will return to the island called Manitou,” Meloux declared. “We will see my son together, and I will show him the way toward miziweyaa.”
I started to object, but Meloux cut me off.
“If my son is ill in the way you say, we need to leave today, this afternoon.”
Twice over I owed Meloux my life. And what was he asking for, really? In the decades I’d known him, I’d experienced things that had no rational explanation, and I felt the rightness of what he was pressing for now. Still, I was a man with obligations of my own.
“Tomorrow, Henry,” I offered. “We’ll go tomorrow. I have things to do first.”
“What things?”
“I have a business to put in order. I have a wife to explain this to.” I didn’t mention Jenny. “Give me a day, Henry. One day. Please.”
He seemed to realize what he’d asked. “I’m sorry, Corcoran O’Connor. I was being selfish.”
But I was the one feeling selfish, knowing that if it were Stevie in trouble, sick in the way Meloux’s son was sick, I’d want to leave immediately.
“First thing in the morning,” I promised.
I reached into my shirt pocket and drew out the watch. I handed it to Henry. He opened it and spent a moment staring at the photograph inside.
“Come on, Stevie,” I said, standing.
Stevie leaned over and patted Walleye. “Good-bye, boy.”
Meloux got up, and the dog with him, and they saw us to the door. The meadow was full of grasshoppers. They jumped around in front of the cabin, climbed the log walls. A big grasshopper lit on Meloux’s arm. He eyed the bug, and the bug eyed him.
“What do you make of all these insects?” I asked the old Mide.
He thought a moment. “The lakes and rivers are full of grasshoppers. The fish who eat them are fat. The bears who eat the fish are fat. If our people still ate the bear, we would all be fat.” He grinned, plucked the bug off his arm, and put it on the ground, rather gently I thought. “Tomorrow, Corcoran O’Connor. When the sun comes up, I will be ready.”
We crossed the meadow and entered the woods. Stevie kept in step beside me without a word. In that heavy silence, the walk back to the road felt long.
We found the Bronco covered with grasshoppers. They flew off the doors as we reached for the handles. The grill was full of the insects we’d plowed through on our way there.
When we were inside Stevie asked, “Are there grasshoppers everywhere?”
“I think so,” I said. I put the key in the ignition.
“This many everywhere?” he said.
I was glad to see he was curious and had moved on to a subject other than Walleye.
“I don’t think so, buddy,” I said. “This is pretty unusual.”
I turned the engine over.
“There were grasshoppers smashed all over the Canada car,” Stevie said.
“What Canada car?”
I checked the road behind me, preparing to turn around and head toward town.
“The one that went by when we stopped.”
“It was from Canada?” I looked over at my son. “How do you know?”
“The license plate in back. I saw it.”
Even deep in his concern over giving Walleye back to Meloux, my son had caught details that escaped me. But then, I’d been more worried about the SUV taking off my door. It wasn’t necessarily a significant thing. Canadians came across the border into Minnesota all the time. But it struck me as chillingly coincidental, especially in light of the fact that up the gravel road where the SUV had gone there was no real destination.
Instead of turning around, I drove straight ahead. Not far from the double-trunk birch, I came to one of the old logging trails, unused for so long it was mostly overgrown with weeds. Parked just far enough among the trees off the road so that it couldn’t be too easily seen was the SUV.