They stood together, waiting, and in a few moments, Stephen and Meloux caught up, with Walleye beside them.
“We got some great mushrooms,” Stephen said. “A ton of morels. I figured they’d all be gone by now, but Henry knows where to look.”
“And now you do, too,” the old man said.
“Migwech, mishomis,” Stephen said.
“I have been thinking about that mattress on my bunk for the last two miles,” Henry said.
He nodded to Jenny and went ahead with Stephen, and they both entered the cabin. Walleye started inside, then stopped and turned back and stared at the woods on the far side of the meadow, sniffing the air.
Aaron stood looking at the grass beneath his feet. “I think it’s true. Silence says a lot. I’ve been tight-lipped lately, I know. This whole thing with Waaboo has had me pretty confused.”
Jenny was pleased to hear him use the name, pleased that the baby was someone to him now, not just an inconvenient circumstance.
He lifted his eyes and looked at her with sad determination. “Jenny, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and there are some things I need to say.”
“I’m listening.”
He took a deep breath and spoke somberly. “My parents never wanted me. They never wanted a child. Their lives were all about them, and mostly I was an inconvenience. That was a sad truth. But the sadder truth is that I’ve grown up to be just like them. My life’s all about me. I could never look at Waaboo the way you do. The kinds of sacrifices you make without thinking twice I could never make.” He stopped and took her hands, and she could feel him trembling. “I can’t be what you want me to be, Jenny. I’d be a selfish husband and such a bad father that I don’t even want to try. Whatever you decide about Waaboo, you need to decide it without me in the picture. I love you, but I can’t do this. Do you understand?”
They stood together a moment, the quiet between them uncomfortable and weighty.
“I hope you get your baby,” he finished.
She thought maybe she should feel as if she’d fallen off a cliff, but she didn’t. She felt strangely free and wasn’t quite sure what she should say. What came to her was simply this: “Thank you, Aaron.” And delicately she kissed his cheek.
At the cabin doorway, Walleye let out a low woof and started barking again, wildly this time, coming up off his front paws as he snapped. In a minute, Meloux stepped from the cabin. Stephen and Rainy were right behind him.
“What is it?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t know,” the old man said. He peered toward the woods. “It’s been a long time since my eyes saw what they ought to. Stephen, do you see anything?”
Stephen stepped forward and studied the trees. “There,” he said and pointed.
Jenny followed the line his finger indicated across the meadow. In the pallid, late afternoon light, the grass was tall and yellow-green. Where the meadow met the pine woods, a dark, sharp line of shade lay. The forest beyond that line was deep and brooding, and the shadows there were thick and almost impenetrable. Then she saw what Stephen saw.
“It’s a woman,” she said.
“What is she doing?” Meloux asked.
“Just standing there,” Stephen replied. “Looking at us.”
Walleye’s barking had grown furious. He charged forward and came back and charged again. He was an old dog, but in his fierce and protective fury, he had become young again.
“There is more in those woods than a woman,” Meloux said. “Walleye may not see much better than me, but his nose is still good. Into the cabin, everyone.”
They quickly retreated inside. Meloux crossed to the wall where a rifle lay cradled in a rack. He took the rifle down and said to Rainy, “The box in the cupboard. There are cartridges.”
She opened a door and pulled out a small, beautifully carved wooden box. She lifted the lid and spilled the contents into the palm of her hand: six cartridges. She looked down at them, then up at Meloux, and asked, “Uncle Henry, when was the last time you fired that old Winchester?”
He worked the lever and pulled the trigger and said, “It will fire just fine.”
“It’s not the rifle I’m worried about,” she said and held out her hand to him. “These rounds look pretty old.”
“They will have to do,” he said. One by one, he took the cartridges from her palm and fed them into the rifle’s magazine.
“Now wait a minute,” Aaron said. “Before we go off half-cocked and shoot an innocent someone, I think we should talk to this woman. Maybe she’s Ojibwe and is coming to you for advice? Or maybe she’s just a lost hiker or something. Hell, maybe she’s not even there anymore.”
“She’s there,” Stephen said from the window. “And she gives me the creeps.”
Meloux started toward the window. In the middle of the room, however, he stopped and stood dead still as if paralyzed. Jenny was afraid that he might be suffering a stroke. But a kind of light had come into his face, and she saw his body change, straighten, draw erect. She watched a new spirit enter him. What had been a thin construct of flesh and quivering muscle and brittle bone became sturdy and strong. As if it were an actual stream of substance, vitality filled Henry Meloux.
“Ah,” he said.
“What is it, Uncle Henry?” Rainy asked.
He put out his right hand, and it held steady in the air. “No trembling.”
“I don’t understand,” Rainy said.
“Neither did I, Niece. But it is clear to me now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The problem and its answer are out there in the woods,” he said.
“I don’t understand what you mean, Uncle Henry?”
“I believe that you will, Niece,” he said. “Very soon.”
“This is crazy,” Aaron said. “I’m going out to talk to her.”
“She will not talk,” the old man said. “She is here for one purpose. To bring death.” He looked down at the ice chest, where the baby lay watching Jenny with quiet intent.
“Is it Noah Smalldog?” Jenny said. “He’s found us?”
“That’s not Smalldog. It’s a woman, for God sake,” Aaron said. “Henry, you point that rifle at anyone, and there will be hell to pay. Look, you all just wait here. I’ll go talk to her and clear this whole thing up.”
“No, Aaron. Please don’t go.” Jenny grabbed his arm.
“It’s all right. Really. You’ll see.”
“Henry,” Jenny pleaded.
“It is a mistake to go,” the old Mide said to Aaron. “But if it is to be done, then I will do it.”
“It’s my idea,” Aaron said stubbornly. “I’ll go. You stay here with the others. If you’re right, they’ll need someone who knows how to shoot that thing.” He smiled indulgently, gave Jenny a kiss on the cheek, opened the door, and walked out.
“What do we do, Henry?” Jenny asked desperately.
“We honor his wish.” The old man knelt at the open, screen-less window and laid the rifle across the sill. “And we cover his back.”
They gathered behind Meloux and watched Aaron cross the meadow toward the woman, who stood just inside the shadow of the trees.
“He’s right, Henry,” Jenny said, trying to convince herself. “I’m sure she’s just a lost hiker, like he said.”
The old man didn’t reply. He gripped the rifle, laid his wrinkled cheek against the stock, and sighted.
FORTY-EIGHT
Overturf flew a legendary bush plane, a De Havilland Beaver. Rigged as a floatplane, it had a maximum airspeed of 155 miles per hour. The distance from Windigo Island to Iron Lake was almost two hundred air miles. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a beautiful flight over lovely wilderness scenery and would have seemed relatively brief. But to Cork, every mile felt like ten, and every minute like an eternity.
They’d done as Kretsch suggested, gone to Amos Powassin for help. He’d listened, then had called Overturf and said what he needed. He’d told them where on W
indigo Island they would find Overturf’s place. They’d found it without any problem; the De Havilland on the water was a dead giveaway. They’d docked, and as they approached, a young collie who’d been drowsing in the porch shade of the little yellow house had scrambled to his feet and began a furious racket.
“Ojibwe burglar alarm,” Cork had said, and they’d waited in the yard until the front door opened and a man stepped out. He was big and wore a ball cap and wrinkled khakis held up by red suspenders. He had on a green T-shirt with a NASCAR logo across the front, faded but unmistakable. He’d stood very still, studying them. Finally he’d said something to the dog, who’d ceased barking and sat on his haunches. The man had lifted his arm and beckoned and hollered, “You the folks Amos called about?”
He had already gassed the De Havilland, and they’d flown out immediately. He’d taken them high over Oak Island. There were four boats still at the dock, Bascombe’s launch and three others, but of the men who’d stayed behind—Tom Kretsch and Noah Smalldog and Seth Bascombe—or of those who’d come from Stump Island, nothing could be seen. And if there was yet gunfire, it couldn’t be heard over the sound of the De Havilland’s engine.
“Look there,” Overturf had said.
He’d pointed toward half a dozen boats speeding across the lake from the direction of Windigo and Little Windigo. In the blue water, all had left wakes that fanned out behind them like the white tail feathers of eagles flying in formation.
“Amos Powassin spread the word,” he’d told them. “Bunch of our guys are heading over to Oak Island to give Smalldog and that deputy a hand.”
“If they’re still alive,” Anne had said.
“Listen,” Overturf had offered. “If I could choose any man to have at my side in a firefight, it’d be Noah Smalldog. And Tom Kretsch, he’s got heart. The Seven Trumpets people’ll have their hands full, believe me.”
Cork wasn’t himself much inclined toward hope, but he appreciated the man’s sentiment, and the effect his words seemed to have on Anne and the others.
Now they were nearing the south end of the big water. Overturf radioed the Lake of the Woods County Sheriff’s Department. He was told that, in response to a frantic 911 call from Young’s Bay Landing, units had been dispatched to the Angle. Cork got on the radio and explained the danger in Tamarack County. He asked that the sheriff’s office there be notified; it was imperative that armed officers be sent to Crow Point on the Iron Lake Ojibwe Reservation. The dispatcher gave him over to a deputy named Spicer, who listened as Cork once more told the bare-bones facts. Spicer, God bless him, gave a ten-four and promised to make the call to Aurora. He came back on the radio a few minutes later and confirmed for Cork that the Tamarack County’s Critical Incident Response Team was being mobilized. Then he said, “They tried the cell phone number you gave me for Rainy Bisonette. No answer. They’ll keep trying. And listen, O’Connor, you’ve got friends down there. Sheriff Dross personally asked me to let you know she’s got every available officer headed to Crow Point.”
Cork signed off and sat back in the seat next to Overturf.
The pilot leaned to him and said, “I’ll get you there as fast as I can. Believe me, even if all I’ve got to land on at the other end is a puddle of rainwater, by God, I can do that.”
“Thanks,” Cork said. “Guess there’s nothing more we can do except wait.” He tried to sound calm, but the helplessness of his situation nearly killed him.
Anne put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s not true, Dad.”
Rose, as if she’d read her niece’s mind, said, “We can pray.”
Cork wanted to be with them in the way they held to prayer and believed in its power. But he was remembering the death of his wife and how hard he’d prayed for her safety and the uselessness, finally, of invoking the divine. Better, he thought, to believe in the wisdom and cunning of Meloux and the desperate ingenuity of Jenny and Rainy and Stephen and even the clumsy love of Aaron.
Best, he thought, would have been to be there with them at that very moment, holding a rifle.
FORTY-NINE
They watched from the cabin as Aaron crossed the two hundred yards of meadow. The sun was low in the sky, the late afternoon windless and still. Crow Point was silent, as if all the birds had fled. Jenny forced herself to breathe.
“He’ll be all right,” she whispered. But her words felt heavy and useless.
Meloux kept his cheek to the rifle stock. Jenny was grateful to see how steadily he held the weapon.
Aaron reached the woman, and they appeared to talk for a minute. Then he made a gesture toward the cabin and turned, and they began to walk back together. Jenny saw Meloux shift the barrel of the rifle a bit and realized he’d been aiming directly at the woman but was now scanning the woods at her back. It wasn’t until they were within fifty yards that the old man drew the rifle out of the window. He stood, went to the cabin door, and opened it. He didn’t go out, nor did he set the rifle aside.
Aaron smiled as he came up to the cabin, just ahead of the woman. He stepped inside, and she followed. “Folks, meet Abigail. She’s a little lost.”
Jenny judged the woman to be in her late fifties, with short hair gone gray. She was lean and muscular, as if from hard work or working out regularly. Her face was thin and plain, the bone beneath sharply defined. She had eyes that were glacier blue, and those eyes were clearly appraising her hosts. It could have been simply a stranger attempting wisely to take the measure of the group before trusting herself to them, but Jenny sensed something terribly unsettling in their intensity.
“I was out hiking with my husband,” the woman explained. “He went off looking for mushrooms, and we got separated. Now I don’t have the slightest idea where he is, or where I am, for that matter. Frankly, I’m a little worried.”
Jenny said, “You’re not from around here.”
“No.” The woman’s eyes froze on her. “From Michigan. My sister lives in Duluth. We’re visiting.” Her icy gaze left Jenny and took in the cabin, settling at last on little Waaboo lying quietly in the cooler. “I wonder if anybody has a cell phone I could use to call my husband.”
“I would have given her mine,” Aaron said, “but I’m not getting any signal out here.”
“Mine works,” Rainy said. She went to a crocheted bag hanging on the wall and dug inside. She pulled out a cell phone, powered it on, and handed it to the woman. “It can be hit and miss, but I usually get a bar, even this far out.”
“Do you mind if I take it outside and make the call?”
“No, go right ahead.”
The woman stepped from the cabin and walked a few yards into the meadow.
“You see?” Aaron said. “A perfectly normal explanation. Henry, I think you can put that rifle down now.”
Meloux made no move to comply.
The forgotten stew bubbled over and sizzled on the hot stove top. The sound caught them all by surprise, and they turned for a moment from the door.
“Where’s my head?” Rainy said and hurried to move the pot to a cooler place at the edge of the stove.
The woman returned and stood just outside the cabin. “Thank you. He’s on his way.” She held out the cell phone toward Rainy. “There’s a creek back in the woods. He’s coming from there.”
“Wine Creek,” Rainy said, taking back her cell phone.
“The Anishinaabeg call it Miskwi,” Stephen threw in, “which means ‘blood.’ ”
That brought an arch to the woman’s eyebrows. “Interesting,” she said.
Stephen looked beyond her and pointed. “There he is.”
A man stood at the edge of the woods on the path that Jenny and the others had taken the night before. He lifted an arm to signal his presence, and the woman said, “Thanks so much for your help. I was afraid I might wander these woods forever.”
“The path will take you back to the county road,” Stephen said. “It’s less than two miles.”
The woman looked inside the cabin, e
yed the cooler where Waaboo lay, and her voice, which had been generally pleasant, suddenly took on a razor edge. “In old times, children with cleft lips were believed to be the spawn of Satan.”
Jenny went rigid and replied, none too hospitably, “Fortunately, we live in a more enlightened age.”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Fortunately.” She turned and walked across the meadow toward the waiting man.
For Jenny, the woman had left a sourness behind, and she asked Rainy, “Who did she call? Can you tell?”
“Her husband,” Rainy said, without looking.
“Could you check the number?”
Rainy clearly believed it was unnecessary, but she tapped her phone to power it on, then tapped again. “It’s dead,” she said with surprise. “But I charged it just two days ago and that’s the first call that’s been made on it since.”
“Let me see.” Aaron took the phone, tapped a few keys, then slipped the battery cover off. “The battery’s gone,” he said. “But she left this.” From the compartment, he pulled a piece of paper folded several times. He carefully opened it and read, “Give us the baby or you all die. Middle of the meadow. Fifteen minutes.” He glanced out the door at the figure of the woman retreating across the clearing and seemed stunned. “Who is she?”
“Whoever she is, she’s not getting Waaboo,” Jenny said.
As soon as the woman joined the man on the far side of the clearing, two more figures stepped from the woods. They all held large rifles.
“Over there,” Stephen said, indicating the rock outcropping that walled the fire ring. “Somebody’s there, too.”
Jenny saw him, standing atop the rocks, cradling a big firearm.
Meloux said firmly, “You will all go out the back window. Take the canoe, Niece. Bimaadiziwin.”
“What about you, Uncle Henry?”
The old man stood tall and shook his head. “This is the moment I have been preparing for, Niece. The trembling, the resistance. My body and my spirit understood long ago. My brain has been slow to catch up, but I understand now.”