Copper River

“Made Mom mad, but it was a story Dad used to like to tell.” He thought a moment. “I remember two girls, older than me. One was blond and really pretty.”

  “That would be Jenny.”

  “The other one could play baseball as good as Charlie.”

  “And that would be Anne. They’re both in high school. You probably don’t remember Stevie. He was just a baby. He’s seven now.”

  The boy looked unsatisfied. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

  “You meant who am I that somebody would want me dead?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Cork worked on sitting up. Despite the painkiller Jewell had given him, his leg throbbed. He edged his way upright with his back against the wall. Finally he could look at the boy eye to eye.

  “I’m Corcoran Liam O’Connor, sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota.”

  “Oh. A cop.” As if, of course, that was all he needed to write Cork off.

  Cork went on. “I was shot because a rich man has put a bounty on my head. Half a million dollars, as I understand it.”

  Ren’s eyes opened like a couple of sunflowers. “Why?”

  “He thinks I killed his son.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Will he come looking for you here?” He seemed less worried than curious.

  Cork shifted his position a little, hoping to ease the pain in his leg. It didn’t work. “Men like him don’t soil their hands with the actual dirty work. That’s the reason for the bounty.”

  Ren worked this over in his thinking, then his face went slack again. “So you’re the police.”

  “You hold that against me?”

  “You know how my father died?”

  “I know.”

  “The police murdered him.”

  “Most police aren’t like that.” He tried to judge how the boy received his words, but Ren was a blank slate. “It’s hard for you, I know. I lost my father when I was your age.”

  Again, a flicker of interest in Ren’s dark eyes. “Yeah?”

  “He was the sheriff of Tamarack County, too. He was killed doing his duty, protecting people.”

  “How?”

  “Some men tried to rob the bank in town. My dad and two deputies responded. There was shooting. In the middle of it, a deaf old woman walked onto the street right into the line of fire. My father ran out to pull her to safety, took a bullet that probably would have hit her. He died on the operating table.”

  “You’re trying to tell me all cops aren’t bad.”

  “No. Just telling you about my father and me. I still miss him.”

  Ren studied the sketch he’d begun in his pad. “What do you do when you miss him?”

  “Try to remember that he’s never completely gone. He’s here.” Cork touched his head. “And he’s here.” He touched his heart. “Sometimes when I’m not sure what’s right, I find myself thinking, What would Dad have done?”

  “Me, too,” Ren said.

  “What do you do when you miss him?”

  “What he taught me to do. Draw.”

  “You’re an artist, too?”

  “Not like him.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “It’s just a comic book.”

  “You like comic books?”

  Ren nodded.

  “Me, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I used to anyway. I always knew when the new issues were due to arrive at the drug store and I’d head there right after school. I was a Marvel fan. The Fantastic Four were my favorites. They still around?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who do you like?”

  “The Silver Surfer’s pretty awesome. I like Hellboy, too.”

  “The comic book you’re working on, does it have a superhero?”

  “His name’s Jack Little Wolf. But he’s really the reincarnation of a famous warrior named White Eagle.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Jack’s an artist, kind of a quiet guy. White Eagle’s this awesome dude. He calls up the forces of nature. You know, wind and lightning, that stuff. Also animals. He’s, like, very psychic with animals. But he doesn’t realize he does all this. He has these blackouts and he doesn’t remember.”

  “Disconnected from who he really is?”

  “Right.”

  “What triggers the blackouts?”

  “Evil. He can sense it. He, you know, begins to tingle and stuff.”

  “Lucky him. Been times I could have used that myself. May I see?”

  “I don’t really show it to anybody.”

  “That’s cool.” Cork nodded toward Ren’s left.

  “What’s the white thing?”

  Ren held up the hard lump. “A plaster cast of a cougar track I found outside.”

  “A cougar? Here? You’re sure? Maybe it’s a bobcat.”

  Ren stood and brought the casting to the bunk. “Too big for a bobcat. This one’s almost four inches across. And see the second toe, how it’s longer than the others? That’s like our index finger. It’s one of the characteristics of the cougar’s forepaw. I looked it up.”

  “You have a dog, Ren?”

  “No.”

  “Cats?”

  “No. I had a pet raccoon once, but I had to let him go.”

  Although the idea of a cougar seemed pretty farfetched to Cork, he wondered if he should be concerned. Most wild animals were careful to avoid humans. It would be very unusual for a predator as large and cautious as a cougar to prowl so near a dwelling, especially one without pets or small livestock to attract it. Still, if it was desperately hungry…

  “Have you told your mom?”

  “No.”

  “Let her know, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Cork, knowing boys, wondered if he actually would. He made a mental note to mention it to Jewell himself.

  “What happened to your lip?” Cork asked.

  Ren reached up and touched the puffed area. “Got into a fight. It’s okay.”

  He started back to the table. Cork called after him. “Could you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “I need to call someone. My cell phone is still in my car, in the glove compartment. Could you get it?”

  “Sure.”

  Ren put the casting on the table and headed toward the door.

  “Maybe you should take a poker, just in case you meet the cougar.”

  Ren smiled big, then seemed to understand that Cork wasn’t kidding.

  “I’ll be all right,” he said.

  Cork was sure he would be, but he knew from his own mistakes that it paid to be careful.

  Outside, a wind bullied its way through the pine trees, and a cloud scarred the face of the rising moon. Around the cabins, everything was dark. There was a yard light on a pole near Thor’s Lodge. When they’d had guests, Ren’s father kept the light burning until ten P.M. After that, he turned it off, believing that dark was one of the things people sought when they fled the city. Now the yard light was always off because the bulb had burned out and neither Ren nor his mother had bothered to put up a ladder to change it. The dark didn’t worry Ren anymore, but he used to be afraid at night. His father had tried to explain that the woods—the animals and trees and rocks and rivers and lakes—were family, Ren’s family, and that the wind was the breath of manidoog, spirits that watched over him and guided him. Ren liked hearing that, but he didn’t believe it, not in a way that dissolved his fear. He knew from the stories his great-grandfather told him that there were other spirits in the woods not particularly inclined to look kindly on him. The Windigo, for example, a horrible cannibal with a heart of ice.

  After his father’s death, Ren had determined not to be afraid anymore. It was something that he wanted to do for his father. So he went out alone one night, far from the cabins, far from anyone who could come if he called out. He didn’t build a fire. He wanted to see the true face of the dark. It had been a night like this with a restless f
eel in the wind and strange sounds in the forest. He’d been afraid at first, terrified. But gradually he understood that the noises were simply the nocturnal prowling of small, harmless critters. Eventually the sky filled with the aurora borealis. Ren finally fell asleep on a bed of pine needles under a canopy of lights with the music of the woods all around him. He dreamed of a white eagle that night, dreamed the great bird carried him on a flight that left him breathless, and when he woke, he woke free of many burdens.

  Ren stopped in Thor’s Lodge for a flashlight, and also for a walkie-talkie his mother had asked him to give to Cork so he could call them if he needed anything. Then he headed to the equipment shed. His mother had parked the man’s car behind the shed, hiding it from sight should anyone come calling. Ren hadn’t taken much notice of the car except that it was old and a yellow-green that reminded him of the color his urine turned whenever he ate asparagus. He tried the passenger side door. It was locked. When he went around the driver’s side, he saw the pocking of bullet holes, four in all. He gingerly lifted the handle, released the door. A smell rushed out at him, raw and unpleasant, like old meat. The dome light didn’t come on, so Ren used his flashlight. The beam fell across a massive black stain on the upholstery. The carpet was stained, too. The man’s blood, he realized.

  Not the man, he told himself. Cork. It was Cork’s blood. Ren suddenly wanted to know how it felt to be shot, and wondered if it would be impolite to ask.

  To get to the glove compartment, he would have to crawl across the bloodstain. The idea didn’t appeal to him. He opened the back door, climbed in, and slid to the other side. He reached over the passenger seat and popped open the glove compartment. He saw the cell phone immediately, and also saw that it was broken, a hole smashed through the middle. A bullet, Ren figured. Something else in the glove compartment caught his eye. A gun. A small stainless steel pistol with a beautiful polished wood grip. Sometimes the hunters who used to come to the cabins carried handguns along with their rifles, but they were ugly-looking things. Ren had never before seen a pistol so carefully crafted. He couldn’t resist touching it. The metal was cold against his fingertips. He was tempted to pick it up but thought better of it. He closed the compartment and started back.

  When he handed Cork the cell phone, the man seemed disappointed. “Looks like it got hit by a bullet,” Ren told him. “But here, you can use ours.” He handed Cork the phone he’d taken from Thor’s Lodge on his way back and also a walkie-talkie.

  “What’s with this?” Cork asked, looking at the little Motorola unit.

  “Mom wanted you to have one of the walkie-talkies. None of the guest cabins have phones, so if you need us in the night or something, just use that.” Ren started to turn away but held up a moment. “The people who shot at you, did you shoot back at them?”

  “No.” Cork studied the pad on the cell phone, his finger poised to dial.

  “Why not?”

  “I’d have been firing on the fly. My shots might have gone wild. Somebody innocent could have been hurt. It was a better idea just to get the hell out of there.”

  “Have you ever shot anybody?”

  Cork hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  He hesitated even longer. “Yes.”

  Cork didn’t look like a man who killed people. He wasn’t tall or menacing or grim. He didn’t even look like a cop, really. Maybe it was his eyes. There was something kind in them.

  Ren took a chance. “Did it hurt when they shot you?”

  Cork closed the phone and put it in his lap. “Not at first. At first, I was too scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “Somebody shoots at you, Ren, believe me, you’re scared. You know about adrenaline, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “One of the effects of adrenaline is to mask pain.”

  “So, did it hurt later?”

  “A lot. What scared me most was losing blood and the chance of going into shock.” He waited, but at the moment Ren didn’t have anything more to ask. “Mind if I make my call?”

  “Oh, sure. Go ahead.”

  Ren went back to his sketch pad on the table and pretended to be drawing while Cork talked.

  “Dina? It’s Cork.” He closed his eyes. “Safe at the moment. I screwed up, though. Somebody almost collected on that bounty. They put a bullet in my leg before I got away.” He shook his head. “No, no hospital. I don’t want to be a sitting duck. Look, is there any chance your phone’s been tapped? You’re absolutely certain? Okay, I’m in Bodine, Michigan, forty miles northwest of Marquette. I’m staying with my cousin and her son. A resort called Copper Country Cabins, about a mile west of town on County Road Eighteen.” He laughed quietly. “God was smiling on me. Jewell’s a veterinarian. Patched me up, gave me some painkillers, and put her son, Ren, to work as my personal assistant and bodyguard.” He winked at Ren, who’d looked up at the mention of his name, then turned serious again. “No, don’t call Jo. I’m sure her line’s been tapped. They may even have bugged the duplex. I don’t want her or the kids or anyone else down there jeopardized.” He gave a final nod. “Fine. I’ll see you in the morning. And, Dina? Thanks.”

  He broke the connection and laid his head back against his pillow in a tired way.

  “Dina?” Ren asked.

  “A friend. She’s saved my life on a couple of occasions.”

  “You could have used her yesterday.”

  Cork grinned. “I’m all right, Ren. You don’t have to stay. I have my bedpan. And the walkie-talkie if I need you.”

  “Mom asked me to stay. I don’t mind.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Ren went back to his sketching. He was working on White Eagle, but he hadn’t been able to get the features to his liking. The guy was supposed to be Indian, yet every time Ren tried for that look, he failed. White Eagle had all the muscle you’d expect on a superhero, but his face looked too, well, white. When he forced himself consciously to draw Indian, it felt exaggerated and artificial.

  His father had taught him to draw from life. Looking around him, Ren saw no model. As far as Indians went, in Bodine he and his mother were it. And his mother had never been big on being Indian.

  He heard Cork snoring softly and he considered him. There didn’t seem anything imposing about the guy, especially laid out on the bunk with a bedpan in easy reach.

  A cop in the family.

  Who would have thought?

  7

  He wasn’t given to nightmares, but this night he dreamed a doozy.

  His father with his head split open, scratching at the window.

  Ren jerked awake. Although sleep still dragged at his senses, he was certain something had been there. He sat upright and glanced toward the window glass that glowed with moonlight. An eerie evanescence invaded his room. It gave the familiar contours—his desk, chair and computer, his shelves of books, his plaster castings and plastic models and wall poster of Spider-Man—an unfamiliar sense of menace. He listened, heard nothing for a full minute. Thought wind. Thought branches. Thought nightmare. Still, there was a nudging certainty behind his thinking that told him something.

  He didn’t think of himself as brave. His fifth-grade teacher had once told him that he was bright and reasonable, and that had sounded fine to Ren, though he hoped brave might be added someday. He was curious, however, and finally his curiosity overwhelmed his fear. He inched the covers back and slid his bare feet onto the cool floorboards. He crept to the window, stepped into the spill of moonlight, and peered out.

  His room was at the back of Thor’s Lodge and the windows opened toward the forest that ran almost unbroken from the old resort all the way to the Huron Mountains in the west. Tall hemlocks shattered the fall of moonlight, and a quilt of silver splashes spread over the deep bed of evergreen needles that covered the ground. On that soft bed, anything could approach without a sound.

  He pressed his nose to the cold glass. His eyes shifted left, r
ight, trying to pierce the night and the shadows. The fog of his breath obscured the window-pane for a moment. He drew back, wiped the glass with the arm of his pajama top.

  In that instant, he caught a glimpse of motion, a blur among the trees. He leaned forward so quickly his nose bumped the glass and his eyes blinked shut. When he opened them, the blur was gone.

  It was an animal, he was sure. A coyote, maybe even a wolf. Yet, there was something about it that was not like any coyote or wolf he’d ever seen. The swiftness. There, gone. And a sense—okay, maybe he was imagining this, he admitted—of power barely contained.

  The cougar?

  He stood at the window for a few minutes more, but nothing moved.

  Ren knew he should go back to bed, and he knew he would not. The thrill of the possibility of what was out there was far too attractive. He felt afraid and excited at the same time. He pulled on his pants and a hooded sweatshirt, slipped into socks and his sneakers. As a last thought, he grabbed the baseball bat from his closet.

  In the kitchen, he took the Coleman flashlight from its charging cradle, then he stepped outside.

  A clear fall night. Breathing the air was like sucking frost. The careless hand of the wind off Lake Superior brushed the tops of the pines, which rocked back and forth easily. Ren held the flashlight in his left hand, the beam turned off. In his right, he gripped the bat. He crept to the side of the cabin, pressed against the sturdy logs, and peered around the corner. He scanned the clear area with the chopping block in the center where his father used to split wood for the cabins’ stoves.

  Quiet as a spider, he stole along the wall to the back. He poked his head around that corner, too, and saw no more than he’d seen from his window: the woods empty except for all that silver light and shadow. He held his breath and listened. He thought of turning on the flashlight, but if there was something there, something magnificent and cautious, he didn’t want to scare it away.

  A thump on the ground behind him made him spin. In the dark, his eyes darted around desperately. He edged backward, finally hit the switch on the flashlight, illuminating a big pinecone the wind had nudged loose from a branch.

  He padded to his bedroom window and ran the beam of the flashlight along the wall. Beneath his window frame, long scratches cut parallel lines down the logs. Ren had never seen those marks before. He knelt and brushed his hand over one of the gouges. From the exposed bone-white wood at the heart and from the curl of the shavings along the edges, he knew they were new. Very new.