Windigo Island

  “What’d you find, Walt?” Seekins asked.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what we didn’t find. We didn’t find no bodies.”

  “What?” Jenny had been leaning against the side of the Explorer, but this made her stand upright.

  “My guys went through that whole damn trailer. Some hot spots still there, but nothing burning. They checked real careful. No bodies.”

  The deputy said, “You sure, Walt?”

  “I been fighting fires as long as you been giving tickets, Tommy. When I say there’s no bodies, there’s no bodies.”

  Seekins looked at Cork and at Jenny. “You folks sure those two didn’t get out without you seeing them?”

  Cork said, “Bars on the window, Deputy. And I checked the back door after the gas blew, thinking maybe I could go in that way. Locked. No way anyone could’ve got out of there.”

  “Then you care to tell me where those two bodies went?”

  “I don’t know.” Cork looked toward Jenny, but he could see that she was just as baffled as he was.

  Seekins said, “We’ll impound this SUV, and I’ll have the office put out an APB for French and Two Bears. We’ll get them.”

  “And Henry?” Jenny asked.

  “No warrants on him. Don’t know what to tell you. Man old as you say he is won’t get far. He’ll turn up.” He gave them back their licenses. “Where you folks staying?”

  “Friends on the Fort Berthold Reservation,” Cork replied.

  Seekins eyed him curiously. “You Indian?”

  “Anishinaabe.”

  The name clearly didn’t register with the deputy.

  “Ojibwe,” Cork said. “Chippewa.”

  “Oh, like Turtle Mountain.”

  “Yeah,” Cork said. “Like Turtle Mountain.”

  “Well, could’ve fooled me, name like O’Connor, the way you look and all.”

  “Fools a lot of people,” Cork said.

  “All right, then. You coming into Williston now?”

  “We’ll be along shortly,” Cork said. “Any problem if we stay here awhile? Got a few things to process, emotionally.”

  “No hurry. I’ve got to track down who it is owns this place. That’ll take a while on a Sunday. Walt and his guys have got some cleaning up to do. Just see that you stay out of their way.”

  The deputy returned to his Tahoe, made a U-turn, and headed north, back toward Williston.

  Jenny said, “No bodies. How could that be?”

  “I’m thinking,” Cork said.

  By the time the fire engines finally pulled away, leaving the blackened, burned-out hull of the trailer, he had a thought. He waited until the big trucks were out of sight and the dust from their passing had settled and he was certain that he and Jenny were alone. The sun was high, the air still. Cork watched a couple of hawks circling high on the thermals that rose above the tree-capped promontory where the trailer—what was left of it—sat. The hawks reminded him of all the ash that had been aloft and scattered God knew where. He walked to the trailer through mud created by the water that had been sprayed in putting out the fire. He stood in the center of the destruction, in the wet char inside the gutted shell, and studied the floor.

  “What are you looking for?” Jenny called from the safety outside the burnt shell.

  “Remember what Mariah said about our Windigo? He comes and he goes. He was gone when we got here. And then suddenly he showed. Where did he come from?”

  Moving carefully, Jenny joined Cork in the trailer.

  “He was hiding,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it. No bodies. Grates on the windows, doors locked, but he and Henry got out somehow.” He began walking slowly, kicking burnt debris clear of the floor as he went.

  “You think there was some kind of trapdoor?”

  “I think there was another way out, and I think the floor is the most reasonable consideration.”

  “Meloux came from there,” Jenny said, pointing to the north end of the trailer. “So wouldn’t it make sense that Windigo came from there?” Now she pointed south.

  Cork began in the kitchen area, which was where Jenny had pointed last. He walked a grid across the bubbled, curled linoleum but found nothing that seemed promising. He moved out of the kitchen, down the short hallway to the bathroom. He came up empty there, too. He went to the bedroom. There’d been carpeting on the floor, but that had burned away. He slowly walked the perimeter, then worked his way across the rest of the room, around the blackened bed and mattress. The closet door stood open. A few shreds of clothing still hung from the metal hangers. A pair of leather shoes, cracked and hardened from the heat, sat in one corner. The carpeting had somehow remained mostly intact. Cork stepped inside. Immediately, he felt the floor give just a little under his weight. He bent and found a seam in the carpet. He pulled at the edge, and a flap curled back in his hand. Beneath lay the trapdoor of Jenny’s speculation. Cork grasped the steel pull and lifted the door, revealing a crawl space below. He peered into the hole. Along the back wall of the cinder blocks that were fitted as a skirting between the foundation and the bottom of the trailer, he saw a gap where sunlight shot into the dark.

  “They got out this way.” Cork stood up. “Come on.”

  Jenny followed him outside. He hurried to the rear of the trailer, where he found four cinder blocks lying beside a two-foot gap in the trailer’s skirting.

  Cork said, “He crawled out here. See the handprints there. And those deep, round indentations behind them, they’ve got to be knee prints.”

  “What about Henry?” Jenny said.

  “He dragged Henry out. See those shallow ruts? Plowed by Henry’s heels is my guess.” He walked away from the trailer into the sparse, dead grass of the clearing. “And then he carried Henry.”

  “Why?”

  “Only one set of footprints.”

  “No,” Jenny said. “I don’t understand why he would carry Henry.”

  “Most likely because Henry was unconscious.” He looked at her straight in the eyes. “Or Henry’s dead.”

  “But, Dad, why would he cart off a dead man? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I think you’re right. So I think Henry’s still alive, though probably unconscious.”

  “Why take him in the first place?”

  Cork looked at the line in the dead grass Windigo had trampled in his flight. He looked toward the cottonwood trees a couple of dozen yards distant, where the footprints led. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine the mind of a man like Windigo.

  “Two possibilities,” he finally said. “He took Henry as a hostage, in case we followed. Or he took Henry as bait, so that we would follow.”

  “A trap?”

  “Let’s take a look at the lay of the land.”

  In the backyard was a gray chimenea with four canvas chairs nearby. There was also a stack of wood to burn in that outdoor fireplace. Not far away stood the stump of a cottonwood, cut flat with a chain saw. The surface of the stump carried dozens of scars where wood had been split for feeding to the fire, and the blade of the long-handled ax responsible for the splitting was sunk deep into the stump. Cork tried to envision Windigo or Brick chopping wood, preparing a fire so they could sit with their girls and enjoy one another’s company under the broad, starlit North Dakota sky. It was impossible. That kind of domesticity in the sort of hellish relationship that must have existed in Windigo’s “family” Cork simply couldn’t imagine.

  Then he realized the kindling around the stump was freshly split, and he thought he had the answers to a couple of questions that had puzzled him: Why did Windigo know they were coming but Brick didn’t?

  “Chop, chop, chop,” he said to Jenny.

  “What?”

  “That’s what Mariah told
us when I asked her where Angel was. ‘Chop, chop, chop,’ she said. He was out here, cutting wood for a fire tonight. That’s when he must have got Breeze’s call. But it came too late for him to do anything about it. He probably only had enough time to pop under the trailer before Shinny came around in back to check on things.”

  “Enough time for that and to fill the trailer with propane gas.” She eyed the nearby cottonwoods. “Let’s find him.”

  They followed the single set of prints into the trees. They made their way to the edge of the promontory, easily reading the trail Windigo had left in his passage. They stood looking down a steep slope covered, like the hills around them, with dry grass. At the bottom, a quarter mile distant, lay the silty brown flow of the Missouri River, bordered on the far side by a broad stretch of pale green wetlands.

  “What do you think?” Cork said.

  “He’ll stick with the Missouri,” Jenny replied. “Away from roads. There’s no cover on these hillsides, but there’s plenty along the river.”

  “Where will he go?”

  “Williston, probably.”

  “Why?”

  “Resources there.”

  “That’s a long way to carry Henry. And what if he’s followed? How will he know? Remember, that may be exactly what Windigo wants.”

  She thought, her blue eyes hard, focused. Finally she said, “He’s down there somewhere we can’t see, but he can see us.”

  “Where would that be?”

  She scanned the near bank of the river, squinting. “In one of those clusters of trees.”

  She wiped a fist across her jaw, a pointless gesture, but it signaled to Cork the intensity of the moment for her, which was a good thing.

  “If it’s the police who follow,” she went on, “he can dump Henry’s body in the river. He might even go in with it, let the current carry him to Williston. If it’s us he sees coming down this hill, he’s got what he wants.”

  Cork was pleased. She’d learned a great deal on this hunt, how to think like the prey you hunted. If things went south, she wouldn’t be unprepared. “Stay here.”

  He left Jenny at the edge of the cottonwoods and went back to his Explorer. Before the fire engines and the Tahoe from the Williams County Sheriff’s Office had arrived, while he and Jenny were getting their story straight with each other, Cork had put Daniel’s Glock under the Explorer’s front seat. Now he pulled the sidearm from its hiding place. He leaned across the driver’s seat and opened the glove box. From inside, he took his field glasses and a folded hunting knife.

  When he returned to Jenny, she looked at the Glock. “What are you going to do, Dad?”

  “Give him what he wants.”

  “We’re going after him?”

  “I’m going after him.”

  “Not alone.”

  “You need to stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “You fulfilled your vision, Jenny. You saved her. Your part in this is finished.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You’ve got a son back in Tamarack County to think about. Take this.” He held the sidearm out to her, but she refused it. “Look, we may be wrong,” he said. “Windigo may double back, return to the trailer when he thinks it’s safe. Until they actually send someone out to impound it, his SUV is still here. Maybe he has money stashed somewhere nearby, operating funds. I’ve seen it before. If he does come back, you’ll need this.”

  “To do what?”

  “Shoot him. Don’t talk to him, don’t hesitate, just shoot him.”

  “In cold blood?” she said.

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He won’t give you time to think.”

  “You’re talking about killing a man, Dad.”

  “I’m talking about saving your own life.”

  “Keep the gun. When you find him, you’ll need it.”

  He held up the knife he’d taken from the glove box of the Explorer. “My Buck Alpha.” He opened it. “Three-and-a-half-inch blade. I keep this razor-sharp. I find our Windigo, I intend to cut his throat and skin him.”

  His heart was ice, and it wasn’t an idle threat. All his logic, all his clear reading of the signs had one purpose: to find the man called Windigo and kill him.

  Jenny stared at him, stared nails. “I don’t need a vision to tell me what’s going to happen. Windigo’s big gun wasn’t anywhere in the trailer. He probably took it with him. He’s hoping you’ll go down there, Dad. If you do, I won’t lose just Henry. I’ll lose you, too.”

  “All right,” he said. “I keep the gun, but you get out of here.” He dug in his pocket and brought out the keys to the Explorer.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said.

  “You’re not going down there with me.”

  “Then you’re not going down there.”

  Cork’s whole body was iron, his hands like forged steel, white around the weapons he held. Below his thin sheath of human flesh was a beast hungry for vengeance. He could already taste blood.

  “Dad,” Jenny said, her voice quiet, amazingly calm. “Dad, listen to me. You march down there, that won’t save Henry. It will only get you killed. I love you. Waaboo and Annie and Stephen and Rainy, we all love you, and we don’t want to lose you.”

  “I left Henry to die once today. I won’t do that again.”

  “There’s another way. There’s got to be.”

  “I don’t know what that is, and we’re running out of time. It may already be too late.”

  She reached out and put her hand gently against his chest. Her light, loving touch made him realize how tense he was, how hard he held himself, how bound up in his desire for blood he’d become.

  “Listen to me, Dad. Remember what Henry told you? The windigo is a creature of darkness. Darkness feeds on darkness. Our Windigo wants you to do this. He wants you to blind yourself the way he’s blinded. That’s how he’ll beat you in this hunt. There’s got to be another way. And Henry would say look for it here.” She tapped his chest above his heart.

  They stood among the cottonwoods at the edge of the promontory. Cork lifted his field glasses and followed the trail Windigo had left through the tall, dry grass, so clear an idiot could have followed it. The hillside was uneven. Here and there, the slope was cut by swales and dips, and the trail dropped out of sight. He lost it eventually but could see that, more or less, it headed northeast, toward the largest growth of trees along the bank of the Missouri. There was something wrong with the cottonwoods there. The copse appeared ravaged, as if a violent storm had swept through, knocking trees down right and left in its rampage. If a man—or windigo—were looking for an ideal place to lie in wait unseen, this would be it. He knew it in his heart.

  Cork lowered the glasses. Something had slipped in to replace the fear, the anger, the vengeance. A small glimmer of light had appeared, exactly what Meloux had said the windigo wanted to extinguish. And that light was simply hope.

  “Maybe there is a better way,” he said.

  Chapter 41

  * * *

  From where he lay in the tall, wild grass, Cork watched Jenny emerge from the trees atop the promontory and begin, in a halting way, to follow the trail Windigo had left down the hillside. She moved slowly, pausing periodically to look about her, as if uncertain which way to proceed. Cork’s field glasses hung around her neck, and every so often, she lifted the lenses to her eyes and scanned the riverbank. Alone on the tip of that high finger of land, which pointed toward the Missouri, she stood out like a black fly on a scoop of caramel ice cream.

  Cork had descended the south side of the promontory, which was hidden from the ravaged copse of trees where he believed Windigo had taken Henry Meloux. He’d entered one of the swales that followed the contour of the hillside. As he’d hoped, he’d been able to get within a hundred yards
of the riverbank without revealing himself to anyone who might have been watching from below. He’d taken his cell phone and had told Jenny that as soon as he was in position he would call her. That’s when she needed to begin making her own way down the hillside, but in plain sight. If Kitchimanidoo and luck were with them, her descent would distract Windigo while Cork made his dash for the river.

  He watched his daughter’s great show of uncertainty. But it wasn’t just hesitancy she played out. She moved oddly, one leg stiff, in the same way that Louise Arceneaux walked when she wore her peg leg. It was a brilliant piece of misdirection, he thought. It reminded him of how the little killdeer pretended to be hurt in order to lure away predators who neared its nest. He hoped desperately that Jenny’s charade would attract and hold Windigo’s eye.

  Cork had kept the Glock, but had done so with one condition: as soon as he began to make his way along the riverbank toward the damaged trees, she would return to the trailer, drive the Explorer a safe distance away, and await his call. If she didn’t hear from him within half an hour, she would phone the Williams County Sheriff’s Office and explain her situation. Under no circumstance was she to put herself in jeopardy.

  He allowed her a few minutes of playing out her charade before he made his run. When he was ready, he hunched low and shot for the river, trying to keep as much of himself as he could hidden by the thigh-high weed cover. Grasshoppers buzzed away at his coming, and not far from the river, he flushed a pair of grouse. When the birds hit the air, he dropped and waited, pressing his body against the dry earth, breathing dust. He gave himself a full minute before he pushed up and loped on. When he was finally inside the safety of the riverbank vegetation, he looked up the hillside and found Jenny still moving haltingly, awkwardly down the slope. He pulled his phone from its belt holster and made his call.

  “I’m good,” he said. “You go.”

  “Not until you reach those trees where we think he’s got Henry.”

  “No, you go now. That’s what we agreed to.”

  “I’ll keep you in sight with my binoculars. When you get there, I’ll turn back, that’s a promise.”