Northwest Angle

  The rifle clattered across the floor. Cork was on it in an instant. “That’s enough!” he shouted. When the fighting didn’t end, he lifted the barrel toward the ceiling and pulled off a round. The sound in that close room was like cannon fire, and the two men froze.

  “Seth, you stay on the floor. Smalldog, you stand up.”

  Each man did as instructed.

  “Mal, get the other rifle.” When the second firearm was secure, Cork said, “How long have you been awake?”

  “A while,” Smalldog said. “I couldn’t quite remember what happened. Seemed best to play dead till I had things figured. You don’t need to point that rifle at me. It’s not you I’m after.”

  “The baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep those religious sons of bitches from getting him.”

  “What do they want with him?”

  “It’s just like you told Bascombe there. They want to use him to get at me.”

  “All because of money?”

  “There’s a hell of a lot more to it than money.”

  “Tell us about it,” Cork said.

  And Smalldog did.

  It was Bascombe who’d made the initial approach. The big man tracked him down in Kenora and laid out a sweet deal. He wanted Smalldog to bring shipments of B.C. Bud—marijuana grown in British Columbia and famed for its purity and potency—across Lake of the Woods. Transport, that was all. Nothing particularly dangerous for a man with Smalldog’s reputation, a man who knew the lake so intimately that he could run at night without lights or GPS, a man who’d smuggled before and had a stomach for trouble. Smalldog had agreed. For a couple of years, the arrangement had been fine. It paid better than the cigarettes and Cuban cigars and alcohol and even the human cargo that Smalldog had, on occasion, transported.

  It hadn’t been difficult for Smalldog to find out what Bascombe was up to: selling the potent marijuana to contacts on the U.S. side of the border at a good profit.

  “He paid fifteen hundred dollars for every pound of B.C. Bud, and I’m betting he got two, maybe three times that when he sold it to his contacts,” Smalldog said. “Most shipments ran a couple hundred pounds. He used some of that money to buy weapons. The rest went back to Seven Trumpets, where it had come from in the first place. Weapons and money, that’s what those people were after, and he was the middleman, making himself a fine profit.”

  “And the Seven Trumpets people have all the money they need to build their mighty fortress?”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Because you stole it? Why? To keep them from buying weapons and building the Citadel?”

  Smalldog’s face turned hard. “What do I care if chimooks kill each other? They wipe themselves out, it’s fine with me. Hell, in Afghanistan, I saw plenty of what white people call ‘helping.’ Slaughtered a hell of a lot more innocent people than they ever did the Taliban. Most of the time it made me sick and ashamed to be there. No, I did it to get back at those Seven Trumpets bastards for letting Lily get used like a whore.”

  “You took Lily from Stump Island?”

  “Sonny and me.”

  “We found something carved into the wood above her bed. Gizaagin. I love you.”

  Smalldog looked disgusted. “That was for the Hornett kid. He’s an oily, coward son of a bitch.”

  Sarah said, “All good looks and no heart.”

  “Lily thought he loved her,” Smalldog said. “When Sonny and me figured out what was going on, we took her away from there. Until she started showing—and that wasn’t till toward the end—we didn’t know she was pregnant.”

  Cork said, “You’re sure Sonny couldn’t have been the father?”

  “He never touched her that way. She was like a sister to him. The Seven Trumpets people, they put out all that dirt.”

  “You set her up in that old hunting camp. Why?”

  “I was afraid that, if she knew exactly where she was, she’d try to get back to Hornett. And Hornett, if he knew where she was, would try to get to her, so it was best to put her where she couldn’t get away easy and she’d stay hid. Me and Sonny visited her all the time, brought her supplies. I threw one of her sweaters in the lake near Stump Island so the Seven Trumpets people would figure she was dead.

  “I wanted to get back at them for letting her get used the way they did, but I bided my time. A couple of weeks ago, Bascombe had me pick up the biggest shipment of bud yet. Five, six hundred pounds. Worth close to three million dollars to them. Instead of making the usual drop, I stashed it where nobody’ll ever find it. Figured that would put a big fat hole in all their plans. That’s when they started hunting me.”

  “How’d they know about Lily on the island?”

  “Lily’s baby developed some kind of allergy to her milk. Made him break out in terrible hives. I told Lily she needed to start bottle-feeding him. Near broke her heart, but she understood. I sent Sonny to get some formula and bottles and nipples and stuff, and he wasn’t careful about who saw him. Word must’ve got back to Hornett, and he got to Sonny. I figure they did to him pretty much what they did to Lily. Probably forced him to show them the way to the island, then finished the job and dumped his body in the lake. After that, they started in on Lily.”

  Smalldog had the darkened skin of the Anishinaabeg people, but Cork saw it grow darker as the Shinnob spoke. The man’s voice became taut as he fought to control his rage. “She couldn’t tell them where I was. I’ve got a place no one knows about. I don’t know how she kept the baby from falling into their hands.”

  “She hid him,” Cork said. “And my daughter found him.”

  “She died without giving him away.” Smalldog’s eyes, like hot stones, fell on Bascombe. “Now everyone who had a hand in that butchery dies.”

  “I had nothing to do with what happened to Chickaway or your sister, I swear,” Bascombe said. “I didn’t know those people were capable of that kind of thing. Christ, they’re nuts, but they call themselves Christians, don’t they?”

  Anne asked, “Did you ever study the Inquisition, Seth?”

  “Not all of them could do that kind of thing,” Sarah said. “I don’t believe Josh could. He doesn’t have the guts. But Abigail does.”

  “Why do you say that?” Cork asked.

  “Because she’s just like the Reverend. Obsessed. She absolutely believes everything they stand for. End Times and Satan’s armies and that anything done in the name of the Second Coming is justified. If you’re not one of them, you’re on the side of Satan. Black and white. Good and evil. Right and wrong. She can’t see it any other way. Even Gabriel’s not so bad. He delivers the fiery sermons these days, but she’s the power behind the church. Whatever was done to Lily, if Abigail didn’t do it herself, she was there making sure it was done right. She’s pure hate in human form.”

  Cork looked to Bascombe. “You said they’re on their way here?”

  Bascombe shrugged. “I radioed them from Kretsch’s boat.”

  “It’s me they want,” Smalldog said. “I’ll be happy to greet ’em.”

  “They’re coming prepared for all-out war,” Bascombe said. “God’s on their side. They won’t stop with killing just you. They’ll kill everybody here. There’s more to this than you know.”

  “What do you mean?” Cork said.

  “If I tell you everything, will you let me go?”

  “Go where?” Cork said. “We have enough to hang you no matter where you go.”

  “Let me take him out back,” Smalldog said. “In five minutes, he’ll tell me everything he knows, I guarantee it.”

  “No!” Rose and Anne spoke together.

  “Tell you what,” Cork said. “Give us everything you’ve got, and we’ll speak on your behalf to the authorities when this is over.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Bascombe said.

  “Or, maybe I will let Smalldog here take you out back. Or better yet, I’ll just put you out in front of us as a human shiel
d when those Seven Trumpets folks arrive. I’ll give you odds they won’t hesitate a minute to cut you down to get to us.”

  Bascombe thought it over quickly. “Is that a promise, that you’ll speak up for me if we get out of this alive?”

  “I give you my word,” Cork replied solemnly.

  “Okay. They got huge debts because of all those projects on Stump Island. The Citadel,” Bascombe said derisively. “They need the money from the bud Smalldog stole. But they know that, even if they have him in their hands, he won’t give them a thing. So Abigail wants the baby. She’ll be willing to skin that child alive if that’s what it takes to get Smalldog to talk.”

  “She’ll never find him,” Rose said.

  Bascombe swung his gaze to her, and everyone in the room could see the dismal truth even before he said a word.

  “You told them,” Cork said. “You told them about Meloux.”

  “That doesn’t matter, does it?” Anne threw in. “They don’t have the slightest idea how to get to Henry’s cabin. And nobody on the rez is going to tell them.”

  Bascombe took a deep breath, the kind Cork had sometimes heard coming from the confessional in St. Agnes while he waited his turn.

  “The ice chest I filled with bedding?” Bascombe finally said. “I cut a little chamber in the bottom and put in a long-range GPS tracker. Wherever that ice chest goes, they’ll follow. It’ll lead them right to the kid.”

  For a long moment, it was as if they’d all become stone. No one spoke or moved or even breathed. Then Cork said, “How many?”

  “Abigail and her two sons headed out in their boat last night.”

  “The fast boat?” Cork asked.

  “Yeah. You thought it was Smalldog. Christ, you think his is the only cigarette boat on this lake?”

  Cork realized he’d been so narrowly focused on Smalldog that he’d never considered another possibility. He kicked himself for it, but what was done was done.

  “Anyone else?” he asked.

  “Two more took a boat to the Angle and drove to the south end of the big water to meet them.”

  “Five,” Cork said. “Heavily armed, I’m sure.”

  “You got that right,” Bascombe said.

  “We have to get word to them,” Kretsch said. “Was that true, Seth, what you told us about your phone line being cut?”

  Bascombe nodded.

  “Use the radio on your boat to contact the mainland,” Cork suggested.

  Kretsch gave Bascombe a killing look. “After he radioed Seven Trumpets, he smashed the unit.”

  “Then we use the one on Seth’s boat.”

  Bascombe shook his head. “I took the battery out of my boat this afternoon. Didn’t want anyone leaving the island. The Seven Trumpets people’ll be here before we get it back in and hooked up.”

  “Then we have to get to the Angle,” Cork said.

  “No time,” Bascombe said. “They’ll be here any minute.”

  Kretsch said, “With the men and firepower they’ll bring, we won’t stand a chance. Maybe we could make it over to the Angle Inn Lodge.”

  “That’s a good half mile away. And even if we made it there, these Seven Trumpets people are willing to kill all of us,” Cork said. “Do you think they’d hesitate to mow down your neighbors, too?”

  “Overturf,” Smalldog said.

  Cork shot him a questioning look.

  “Jim Overturf,” Kretsch said, and it was clear he understood.

  “Who’s this Overturf?”

  “A mixed blood. Lives on Windigo Island,” Smalldog replied. “He has a floatplane he uses to take fishermen to remote sites. If you can get to him, he can fly you off the lake.”

  “Heck, he could fly you all the way to this Henry Meloux you talk about,” Kretsch said.

  “Okay,” Smalldog said. “This is how it goes. You all head out the back way and across the island and take the deputy’s boat. They won’t be looking for you there.”

  “What about you?” Anne said.

  “I’ll give the Seven Trumpets people plenty to think about here, keep them occupied while you make it to Windigo.”

  “We can’t just leave you,” Rose said.

  “I’m not staying alone,” Smalldog told her. He looked toward Bascombe. “This son of a bitch is staying with me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bascombe objected. “What do you need me for?”

  “You’re going to go out on your dock and greet your Seven Trumpets friends and do whatever song and dance you can to delay them while these folks make it to the deputy’s boat.”

  “Yeah, says who?”

  Smalldog held out his hands to Cork. “Take these cuffs off me.”

  Cork drew the key from his pocket and freed the Shinnob.

  “Give me your rifle.”

  Cork hesitated.

  “You have to decide who’s on your side,” Smalldog told him. “And you don’t have much time.”

  “Give it to him, Cork,” Rose said. “I believe him.”

  “She’s right,” Mal said.

  Cork handed the Marlin to Smalldog, who took the weapon and leveled the barrel at Bascombe. “Want to argue with me now?”

  “Christ, they’ll shoot me down like a dog,” Bascombe said.

  “Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. You’re pretty good at putting yourself in the middle of things. Let’s see how good you are at getting yourself out.”

  “I’m staying, too,” Tom Kretsch said.

  Smalldog shook his head. “Overturf knows you. You’ve got to convince him to help these folks.”

  “They can go to Amos Powassin. He’ll help them.”

  “I’m not leaving you men here,” Cork said. He hated the thought of deserting them. He was pretty sure that, if they stayed behind, there wasn’t much hope they’d come out of their encounter with Seven Trumpets in one piece.

  “Go,” the deputy ordered, with all the authority of the law. “There’s no time to argue.”

  “I can’t just run out on you,” Cork insisted.

  Smalldog looked at him, for the first time with something resembling affection. “The man who threw rocks at me and wouldn’t back down, that’s the man I want standing between the Hornetts and my sister’s baby. And you got a daughter to think about, too. I’ll feel a whole lot more comfortable sticking here if you go.”

  “Goes for me, too,” Kretsch said.

  Every instinct in Cork cried out to argue with them, but he knew they were right. His duty lay elsewhere now. As much as he hated leaving these two good men to their uncertain fate, he hated more the thought of what might happen at Henry Meloux’s cabin on Crow Point if he couldn’t find a way to intervene.

  “Bascombe.” Smalldog eyed the big man. “You do your best to help get these folks away from Lake of the Woods, and I’ll do my best to cover your back while you’re out on the dock. You do anything to screw it up, though, and you’re dead, I promise you that.”

  “Someone cut me loose,” Kretsch said.

  He held out his duct-taped wrists.

  Cork used Smalldog’s knife to free the deputy, who grabbed the second rifle.

  “Thank you,” Cork said.

  He wanted to take a precious moment to shake their hands, but from the lake outside came the engine rumble of boats approaching.

  “Go,” Kretsch said. “Get the hell out of here.”

  And they did—Rose and Anne and Sarah and Mal and Cork—hurried out the back door of the cabin, across the apron of grass, and into the woods. They hit the trail at a lope, Mal grunting every time he put weight on his injured ankle, but he kept up, and the trees quickly swallowed them.

  They were almost to the little cove where Kretsch’s boat lay anchored when they heard the first of the shots far behind them. A moment later came the rattle of automatic weapons fire.

  Rose whispered, loud enough for Cork to hear, “God be with them.” Then he heard her add, “God be with them all.”

  FORTY-SEVEN


  It was late afternoon in Tamarack County, Minnesota. On Crow Point, the shadow of the rock outcropping that walled Meloux’s fire ring stretched across the green meadow grass. The forest that edged the clearing had become murky as the daylight grew pale in the elongated slant of the sun. There was not a breath of wind. The water of Iron Lake was so perfect a mirror that, whenever Jenny looked there, it was as if she saw two skies.

  She and Rainy had spent the past couple of hours preparing dinner, a savory stew made of herbs and venison and vegetables, which filled the cabin with a delectable aroma. Rainy had baked bread as well, something the new stove facilitated. Waaboo lay in the ice chest on the floor, and Jenny made certain that when he was awake he could see her. He seemed perfectly content watching.

  Walleye seemed restless, occasionally rising from the floor to pad around the cabin and sniff the air. In that room, Jenny thought it would be impossible to pick up any scent except the wonderful smell of the stew.

  “They’re coming,” Rainy said.

  She was looking out the east window toward a stand of aspen that ran along the shoreline of Crow Point. Jenny stood next to her and saw them returning, Aaron in the lead, with Stephen and Henry Meloux many paces back. Stephen carried the old Mide’s beaded bandolier bag. In his right hand, Meloux held a long walking stick, and he seemed to lean on it significantly as he made his way across the meadow to the cabin. Jenny went out to greet them, and Walleye tagged along.

  “You were gone a long time,” she said to Aaron.

  “I think we walked every inch of the Superior National Forest.” He smiled as if he’d actually enjoyed it.

  “How was Henry?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  “One tired old man,” he said. “But he kept pushing himself. A lot to admire there. And, Christ, I’ve never met anyone who knows so much about everything around him, and I’m not just talking about the woods. I swear, the minute I think something, he looks at me as if I spoke it out loud. Spooky.”

  “My dad says that Meloux reads people, everything about them. Their eyes and faces and hands, how they hold themselves and walk and speak. He says even the silence of people tells Henry a lot.”