Trickster's Point

  “Killed for her?” Cork lowered the cup he was just about to sip from. “Who did you kill?”

  Jubal took his eyes from the sun, and his pupils had become black pinpoints. “You were there.”

  It took Cork a couple of seconds to put it together. Although decades had passed, he felt an electric jolt, as if the whole incident had only just happened, or had just happened again. “Donner Bigby?” he said. “But I thought—”

  “Jesus, Cork. You always knew. You just didn’t want to see.”

  That wasn’t true. Was it? He’d believed the story Jubal had told him about what happened on top of Trickster’s Point. Hadn’t he?

  “You killed him? In cold blood?”

  “I knew the moment I started climbing Trickster’s Point that only one of us would come down. That’s why I went up and not you. You couldn’t have done what needed doing.”

  “What needed doing? Jubal, we didn’t go out there to kill Donner Bigby.”

  “Didn’t we? Then why were we there? You wanted him dead as much as I did. We both wanted him dead for what he did to Winona. Don’t go all sanctimonious on me. I just did what I knew you couldn’t.”

  Long before the sun had risen, the birds had begun to sing, but it seemed to Cork that he was only just now hearing their songs. In the early light, there’d been clouds the color of fuzzy peaches, but he saw that they’d evaporated or moved on, and the sky was a clear blue. An innocent blue, he thought. The smell of the coffee in his cup rose up, a good aroma that filled his senses every time he breathed. This was life, he understood. This was life, and this was what, according to Jubal, he’d had a hand in taking from Donner Bigby.

  But was Jubal right? When they’d stood together at the bottom of Trickster’s Point, Cork had wanted to be the one to climb up after Bigby. He remembered that. And he remembered the rage that had filled his heart. But was it a rage so intense that it was murderous? Had the real reason he wanted to climb up after Bigby been to ensure that the brute never came back down? And, as had so often been the case in those days, had it simply fallen to Jubal to do what Cork could not?

  Finally Jubal said, “Winona’s always known what’s in my heart, Cork. And I’ve always known what’s in yours.”

  Cork let a moment pass, a moment of further dark consideration, then said simply, “Bullshit.”

  He put his cup down hard, and coffee sloshed on the porch boards, and he left Jubal sitting alone in the sunlight and he didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER 30

  Camilla Little stood looking at one of the framed photographs on the wall of Willie Crane’s cabin, a shot of a lynx alert in an arrow of gold light in the middle of a stand of winter birch. The shaft of sunlight, the animal’s thick coat and great paws, the soft snow, the pillars of birch, all of the elements were lustrous, as if imbued with some holy spirit. Willie was at the front window, staring into the dark, watching for Winona to arrive.

  “These photographs are stunning,” Camilla said. “How do you . . . ?” She stopped herself.

  “How do I shoot them with this twisted body of mine?” Willie said without turning.

  “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “It was what you were thinking.” Willie finally turned and spoke to her directly. He didn’t seem bothered in the least by what he assumed she thought. “Do you know the story ‘The Bound Man’?”

  “No.”

  “By Ilse Aichinger, an Austrian writer. A man is set on by thieves. They beat him, rob him, bind him with rope, leave him for dead. When he wakes, he finds that the rope isn’t tight enough to keep him from moving, just tight enough that he can’t move like a normal person. He discovers that, if he accepts the limitations imposed by the rope, he can do things that amaze people. He becomes a circus performer. The Bound Man. He’s famous. One day he’s attacked by a wolf, and because he understands his own predicament so well, understands the capabilities of his body, even bound, he defeats the animal. No one believes him, so he enters the circus ring, tied up in his rope, to fight another wolf. But a woman who loves him and is afraid for him cuts him loose. The Bound Man is forced to shoot the wolf. His circumstances become normal again, and he does everything like everyone else. He’s no longer special.”

  Camilla listened politely and, when Willie had finished, said, “That’s a lovely story, and I understand, honestly. But really what I was wondering was how it is that you’re able to capture on film the soul of nature.”

  “The soul of nature?” Willie laughed easily, as if genuinely and pleasantly surprised. “The spirit of the Great Mystery is how I think of it. It’s something we can’t name or even comprehend. We can only allow ourselves to be a part of it and, in that way, know it. I’m never so happy as when I’m out on a shoot. It’s just me and the woods and the Great Mystery. John Muir said, ‘In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.’ That’s how I’ve always felt.” Willie held his hand toward the dark window glass. “When I die, I want to be left out there in the woods, not buried in a grave or cremated. I want the forest to consume me completely, so that I can give back something in return for all that I’ve received.”

  Cork finished his beer. “It’s been a long wait, Willie. Maybe she isn’t coming.”

  “Let me call her,” Willie said.

  They were in an area where cell phone coverage was iffy at best. For his business, Willie Crane had long ago had a landline strung to his cabin. He went to the phone that hung on the wall in the kitchen area, punched in a number, and waited.

  “Nona,” he said. “It’s me. They’re here. Are you coming?”

  He closed his eyes and listened.

  “No,” he said. Then, “It’s safe, I promise.”

  He shook his head at whatever his sister was saying.

  “She deserves answers,” he said.

  His shoulders dropped, and Cork could tell that Willie had failed to convince her.

  “It’s all right,” Willie said, as if soothing a child. “It’s all right, Nona. I’ll explain.”

  He hung up the phone and faced them.

  “She’s afraid.”

  “Of me?” Camilla asked.

  “Of everything. She gets this way.”

  It was true. Cork had seen it, especially whenever Jubal had been with her and then left. Sometimes Winona would disappear for weeks, and Willie was the only one who saw her. In those times, Willie took care of her completely.

  “I’m sorry,” Willie said to Camilla. “A wasted trip.”

  With great admiration, Camilla looked at the photographs on the cabin walls and offered Willie Crane the most cordial of smiles. “I don’t think so. And thank you for trying.”

  Willie stood in the doorway as they left, silhouetted alone against the light inside the cabin in exactly the way he’d been when they arrived.

  “Well,” Camilla said quietly, when they were in the Land Rover, “I guess that’s that.”

  “Not necessarily.” Cork started the engine.

  She turned to him, her face a dim, sickly green from the illumination of the dash lights. “What do you mean?”

  “We came to see Winona Crane. We’re going to see Winona Crane.”

  He pulled away from the cabin and offered her no further explanation.

  * * *

  Winona lived in the house that had been her grandmother’s. It was a small thing of weathered gray clapboard, one story, which Cork had been in only once in all those years, and that was on the day Jubal had threatened to kill her. By the time Winona returned from the outside world, her grandmother was dead, and Winona lived in the house alone. Willie had offered to live there with her for company, but she preferred her privacy. Cork figured that her lifelong consort with Jubal Little was probably a major factor.

  As he threaded his way among the trees along the drive off the main road, Cork could see already that the house was dark. He’d hoped to find a light on, a sign that Winona was in hiding there.

  “What is t
his place?” Camilla asked when Cork parked and killed the engine.

  “Winona’s house.”

  She studied it a long time. In the starless night and without any ambient light, Cork couldn’t see her face but could imagine her reaction. This was where her husband, time and again, had slept with another woman.

  “No one’s home,” she said.

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?” Cork opened his door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “No one locks their doors on the rez.”

  “You’re just going to walk inside?”

  “I’ll knock first. It’s the polite thing to do.”

  He reached across Camilla to the glove box, popped it open, and pulled a flashlight from inside. He got out, and after a moment, Camilla followed. They climbed the steps, and Cork knocked, then knocked again. He tried the knob and swung the door open.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Camilla said, holding back.

  “After you’ve done it a few times, you get used to it,” Cork said.

  Camilla gave him a puzzled, and not very pleasant, look.

  Inside, the beam of the flashlight swept across the tiny living room, which looked pretty much the same as when Cork had seen it years before. Lots of icons and artifacts and images from other religious traditions. Framed photographs on the walls, all clearly shot by her brother. Simple, comfortable furniture. He continued through the small dining area to the kitchen.

  “What are you looking for?” Camilla asked.

  “I was hoping for Winona. But I’ll take anything that might give me a clue to where she’s hiding.”

  “And that would be?”

  “I’m hoping I’ll know when I see it.”

  “Why don’t you just turn on a light?”

  “Might bring someone from the road. I’d rather nobody caught us in here like this.”

  “Duh,” Camilla said.

  It was so pedestrian a response from so grand a lady that it made Cork laugh. He ran the light over the floor, the table, the counters, the walls.

  Camilla said, “Wait. There.”

  Her hand entered the beam, and a bright, white finger with a dark red nail pointed at a piece of stationery framed and hanging on the wall. She reached for the frame, a thin construction of honey-colored pine with a clear glass covering the paper, and pulled it from the hook where it hung. On the paper inside was a poem, handwritten. Camilla read it silently and said, “That son of a bitch.”

  “May I?” Cork took the frame from her. It held a love poem titled simply “To Winona.” Cork read it. Although his own knowledge of poetry didn’t extend much beyond Robert Frost, he thought it was a little sentimental and not very original. But he supposed a woman might be flattered to be the subject of a poem, even a bad one.

  “He gave that poem to me on our wedding night,” Camilla said bitterly. “Only it was my name at the top of the page. Christ, he couldn’t even give that little bit of himself just to me.”

  She grabbed the frame from Cork and threw it to the floor, where the glass covering shattered.

  “I’m leaving,” she announced.

  “Hold on, Camilla. There are a couple more rooms I want to check.”

  “I’ll wait for you in the car.” She spun away and took a step.

  “There might be animals out there.”

  She stopped. “You’re just trying to scare me.”

  “Just alerting you. On the rez, bears and coyotes and even wolves aren’t uncommon. Just make sure you go straight to my Land Rover and lock the doors.”

  She hesitated, clearly weighing her options, and finally decided in favor of what might threaten her outside over what she might have to face if she stayed inside with Cork. She disappeared, stomping away in the direction they’d come. Cork heard the front door open and slam closed. He figured it was probably for the best, because the next room he wanted to check was Winona’s bedroom, and God alone knew how Camilla might react at the sight of the bed where so much infidelity had taken place.

  He found the bed unmade, the sheets a rumpled mess. Each of the two pillows still held a clear indentation where a head had lain. Otherwise, the room was clean and neat. Cork discovered nothing of interest there and continued on to the final room of the house, the bathroom.

  Although Winona tended to clutter her home with religious and spiritual knickknacks, she was essentially a good housekeeper. The bathroom, like the other rooms, was spotless. Cork swung the flashlight across the top of the small vanity, opened the cabinet, checked the shelves where the towels and washcloths lay neatly folded. On a small, low table next to the tub sat a big candle, a compact CD player, and a single plastic CD case. He remembered how his wife, Jo, used to love to relax at the end of a long day with a bath, a candle, and soft music. There was a wicker hamper next to the door. He lifted the lid. What was inside surprised him. Several towels lay thrown there, all of them deeply stained red. He touched the topmost towel. The red was crusted. He turned and ran the beam of the flashlight more carefully over the small room. When the light fell on the floor beneath the claw-footed bathtub, Cork caught another glimpse of crimson.

  He knelt and looked more closely. It was a thin rivulet, a few inches long. He touched it and confirmed that it had long ago dried. He swept the whole area under the tub with the light but could see nothing more. He went down on his hands and knees and carefully examined the rest of the bathroom floor, which was hardwood. In a tiny seam where the old wood had shrunk and separated, he found another gathering of what appeared to him to be dried blood.

  He stood up and considered, and what he thought was that someone had bled here, bled quite a lot, and then someone—a different someone?—had tried to clean up all that blood. Whether for the sake of cleanliness or to get rid of evidence he didn’t know.

  A scream came from outside, and Cork spun, thinking, in that instant, that he’d warned Camilla against the wrong kinds of animals. He ran through the house, out the door, and found Camilla in the Land Rover with the doors locked. When she saw him, she lowered her window.

  “Someone,” she said. “There.” She pointed to the side of the garage, and Cork shot the beam of his flashlight in that direction. It illuminated the garbage bin, and a fat raccoon with his little paws full of fish bones. His eyes glittered in the light, and he stared at them as if they, not he, were the intruders.

  “Sorry,” Camilla said.

  “That’s all right.” Cork decided his visit to the house was at an end for the moment. He slid into the driver’s seat.

  Camilla asked, “Well?”

  He considered telling her what he’d found but, because he didn’t know yet what it meant, decided discretion was best.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  * * *

  When they arrived back at the courthouse, the Escalade wasn’t the only vehicle waiting for them. A gray Mercedes SUV had parked behind it. Cork pulled to the curb under the streetlamp in front of the Escalade and got out. As he walked to the passenger side to open the door for Camilla, Yates left his vehicle, and two figures emerged from the Mercedes. They all converged on Cork.

  Nick Jaeger held back a discreet distance, but Alex thrust his face to within inches of Cork’s. “Jesus Christ, O’Connor, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Before Cork had a chance to respond, Camilla Little stepped out and said, “I asked him to do me a favor, Alex. He was just honoring my request.”

  Yates, who stood very near to her, said, “Sorry, Mrs. Little. They just showed up.”

  “That’s okay, Kenny.”

  Alex forgot about being upset for a moment. “You saw her?”

  “No,” Camilla replied. Then added, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “We’ll discuss it, but not here.” He turned his attention to Cork again. In the harsh light of the streetlamp, the scar lines on his face were like worms embedded under the skin. “After what happened to you this afternoon, I can’t believe you’d put
my sister at risk this way. And you”—to Yates—“you’re supposed to protect her.”

  “I’m also supposed to respect her wishes.”

  “In this situation, that kind of respect could have got her killed.”

  “She’s your sister. You try arguing with her.”

  “And you try finding a job after I fire you.”

  “With all due respect, I work for the Littles.”

  Alex ignored the remark and addressed his sister once again: “You’re coming with us. We have things to talk about.”

  He tried to take hold of Camilla, but Yates clamped a huge and powerful hand on his arm, cutting short the man’s reach.

  “Is that what you want, Mrs. Little?” Yates said.

  “It’s fine, Kenny.”

  Yates released his grip on Alex Jaeger’s arm but with reluctance, it was clear. He stood beside Cork, watching silently as Camilla Little was taken away by her brothers. Cork glanced at his face and saw concern there. And something more, maybe?

  “She’ll be okay,” Cork said. “They’re family.”

  Yates seemed unimpressed. “Jubal hired me to protect her from the crazies out there. You ask me, what she most needs protecting from is that family of hers. Crazy as peach orchard pigs.”

  “Peach orchard pigs? What’s that mean, Kenny?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Just something we say in Texas.”

  “Jubal married into that family with his eyes wide open.”

  “Yeah, I asked him once why he put up with their smug white liberalism and their relentless political maneuvering. He told me that when he played professional ball, even though he didn’t particularly like some of his teammates, he understood that the only way he’d ever make it to the Super Bowl was playing on a team.”

  “The Super Bowl?”

  “A metaphor,” Yates said and looked at Cork as if he were an idiot. “For the presidency. Jubal had his sights set on the White House.” Yates stared down the street, where the taillights of the Mercedes were like two eyes glaring at him from the dark. “She’d have made a hell of a First Lady,” he said.