Iron Lake (11 page)

Not much, he admitted as he flicked his cigarette into the snow. The ember hissed a moment, then died. Not very damn much. Unless it was your own.

I
N THE PARKING LOT
of Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler, Molly Nurmi clipped on her skis and headed toward the lake three blocks away. Outside the small business district of Aurora, the streets hadn’t been touched by a plow blade. Although sidewalks had been cleared or were being cleared, most of the town looked as it had in the early light when Molly came off the lake on her way to work. Drifts sloped against anything upright—fences, hedges, walls. Slender tree limbs wore a thick white layer like icing on a dessert bar. In the sunlight, everything sparkled in a way that thrilled Molly greatly, and when she hit the open flat of the lake, she let herself fly.

Snowmobiles whined across the lake, buzzing like fast small insects, leaving a maze of tracks that reminded Molly of patterns in wormwood. Far out on the ice, a small fleet of four-wheelers had made their way to fishing shanties. There seemed more life on the hard water of Iron Lake than on land.

Molly cut north, following several of the snowmobile tracks toward the small copse of trees that hid the old foundry. Beyond that was Sam’s Place, and Cork would be waiting. She loved to push her body, to feel how strong it was, how she could ask so much of it and it would deliver. Her body was the only thing she’d ever known that was so reliable, and she took care of it religiously. In summer she ran the forested, back roads or swam long distances in the lake. Winters, she skiied every chance she got. She fed her body in healthy ways, eschewing caffeine and alcohol especially. There had been a time in her life when she wouldn’t have bet money on living past twenty-one. Now she sometimes felt wonderfully invulnerable, as if she could live forever. In a life that had been spent mostly running away from the past, she felt she’d finally come to rest somewhere full of hope.

As she broke from the trees and saw Cork standing near his Bronco watching her approach, she thought it had been a long journey to reach the place she’d come to, nearly thirty years. But she was glad to be there.

“I love this snow!” she exclaimed as she stopped beside the Bronco. She opened her arms in a gesture as if hugging the whole world. “I love winter. I adore everything about it.” She leaned to him and kissed him passionately. “And I adore you.”

“Let’s get those skis on the Bronco,” he said.

Molly saw that he had his own skis—old wooden things—already on the rack. “We’re going skiing? Together?”

“I’m using your place as starting point to ski to Meloux’s.”

“Let’s start from here,” she suggested.

“Are you kidding? I’d die. Come on, off with those skis. I’ll drive you home.”

Molly released the toe clips and stepped out. Cork put the skis on the rack and tossed her poles in back with his. He held the door of the Bronco open for her, then got in behind the wheel and pulled away from the Quonset hut. Molly took off her stocking cap and shook out her hair. The heat from her body and the moisture from her sweat steamed the windows and Cork kicked the defrost fan up a couple of notches. Molly watched him closely.

“You’ve been thinking about Sam Winter Moon and Arnold Stanley,” she said.

He was surprised, but tried not to show it. “What makes you think so?”

“I can always tell. Your face gets like a mess of old knotted-up rope.” Molly slid across the seat so that she was against him. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go to my place, do the sauna, roll in the snow, and screw ourselves blind. That’ll take the knots right out of you, I guarantee.”

“Can’t,” Cork said.

Molly ran her hand slowly up his thigh. “Not true.” She smiled.

“I mean I don’t have time right now. Like I said, I’m on my way to see Henry Meloux.”

“All right.” She shrugged and slid back across the seat. “Your loss.”

Although she said it without malice, Cork still felt guilty. “Want to come with me?”

They turned off onto County Road AA, which curved around the north end of the lake toward Molly’s place and the thick pines of the Superior National Forest. Meloux’s cabin stood on a piece of reservation land just beyond.

“Does Meloux have anything to do with the judge?” she asked as she watched the endless snowbanks sliding past.

“You heard, huh?”

“This isn’t exactly New York City, Cork. Death here is big news. Was it awful?”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

Cork said, “I put Jo through law school by being a cop in the worst part of Chicago. I saw a lot in those days.” He drove a little way and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the pinched look of disapproval on Molly’s face. “You’re right,” he admitted. “You never get used to something like that. It was pretty bad.”

“It’s odd. He was just about the last man I would have suspected of suicide.”

“If it was suicide.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you said, he was the last man anybody would suspect. That in itself makes me wonder.”

“Did he leave a note or something?”

“Nothing.”

“So what, then? Murder?”

“Not my jurisdiction anymore. Ask Wally Schanno.”

She reached out and touched his shoulder. “It must be hard sitting on the sidelines.”

“I’m getting used to it,” he lied. “Here we are.”

Molly’s lane hadn’t been cleared and the plowing of the county road had left a steep snowbank blocking her access. Cork put the Bronco into four-wheel drive and carefully crawled over the bank. He had no trouble in the powdery snow beyond. He stopped in front of Molly’s cabin, got out, and pulled the skis from the rack. He changed to his cross-country boots, and as he bent to clip on his skis, Molly asked, “Is Henry expecting you?”

“He has a way of expecting everything,” Cork replied.

Meloux’s cabin was made of cedar and had been on its small point of the lake—Crow’s Point—for as long as anybody could remember. In winter when the other resorts were closed for the season, Meloux was Molly’s closest neighbor. Just inside the reservation boundary a mile northeast along the shoreline, Crow’s Point was visible from Molly’s sauna. As they started out onto the lake, Cork could see smoke from Meloux’s tiny cabin rising up calm and straight as you please into the perfectly still air above the pine trees. The shoreline curved away from them in a ragged arc of inlets and small rocky points. Three-quarters of the way across the ice, a long tongue of open water stuck out into the lake. It came from Half Mile Spring, a rush of water that issued from ground so near the lake that it didn’t have time to freeze in its journey.

They stayed well clear of the mouth of Half Mile Spring. Crow’s Point was rocky and steep, and they had to remove their skis to climb up to the old man’s cabin. Meloux opened the door to them even before they knocked, and he stood grinning in welcome. An old yellow dog stood patiently at his side, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

“Corcoran O’Connor,” the old man said. “I see you survived the storm.” He laughed in a way that sounded as if he were making fun of Cork’s concern for him the night before. “And Molly Nurmi. It is always good to see a neighbor’s face. Come in, you are both welcome.”

He stood aside and let them enter. The cabin was a clean and simple place, one room, with a wood stove, bunk, a rough-hewn table, and two benches. On the walls hung many objects, some from animals—a bearskin, a bow with string made from the skin of a snapping turtle and ornamented with feathers, a deer-prong pipe; some of wood—a birch-bark basket, a small toboggan, snowshoes. On the floor beside the bed lay a mat of woven cedar bark. Not far from the stove hung an old Skelly calendar—1948—with an elaborate cartoon picture of a pretty young lady in revealing shorts, bent to check her makeup in the rearview mirror, much to the delight of an admiring gas station attendant. Cork handed Meloux a pack of Lucky Strikes, which the old man accepted graciously, then Cork sniffed at the air.

“Somebody sick?” he asked. “Smells like you’ve been burning cedar.”

“I purify the air, I purify the spirit,” the old man said. “Also, I have been baking. I have baked butter-milk biscuits. Will you eat with me?”

They sat at the table and the old man brought the biscuits and butter and a clay jar of honey. “I have blackberry tea,” he told them. He turned to the stove, but before he could move toward it, the blue tea kettle jumped and rattled of its own accord. Molly jerked, startled, and the dog leaped up growling fiercely.

“Go back to sleep, Walleye,” the old man said to the dog.

“What was that?” Molly asked breathlessly.

“A Windigo is about,” Meloux replied, and went to fetch the tea. Cork explained the myth of the Windigo, the cannibal giant whose heart was ice, and Molly looked with wide eyes at the tea kettle in Meloux’s hands.

“Don’t worry,” Meloux told her. “The Windigo is not hunting you.” To put her at ease, the old man entertained them, made them laugh with his stories of all the years in that place. He told stories of Sam Winter Moon and the pranks he used to play as a young man on the Iron Lake Reservation.

“He was hunting once near the edge of the reservation,” Meloux said. “A duck fell right out of the sky at his feet. As he picked it up, a white hunter appeared and claimed the duck was his because he’d shot it. Sam Winter Moon pointed out that the duck was on reservation land, and so the hunter had no right to it. The hunter claimed it was his because the duck was not on reservation land when he shot it. Sam Winter Moon looked at the man who was angry and at his rifle and suggested a way to decide. ‘We will have a contest,’ he said. ‘We will kick one another in the nuts and whoever is still standing will get the duck.’ The white hunter, who was a very big, meanlooking man, agreed. Sam said he would go first. The white hunter braced himself and Sam Winter Moon gave him a good kick. The man turned red then blue then white. He staggered around holding himself in great pain. After a few minutes he drew himself up and said to Sam Winter Moon, ‘Now it is my turn.’ But Sam Winter Moon said, ‘You win,’ handed him the duck, and walked away.” Meloux laughed. “He was a good man. He was a warrior. His Anishinaabe name was Animikiikaa, which means ‘It thunders.’ ”

When they rose to leave, Meloux said to Cork, “I have something for you.” He went to a basket set in a corner and pulled something out. He returned to Cork and pressed a bit of dried root into his hand.

Cork nodded and turned to Molly. “Could you wait outside for a moment?”

“Sure.” Molly left, closing the door behind her.

“I need to ask you something, Henry.”

“Ask, then,” the old man replied.

“You said you heard the Windigo call a name as it passed overhead. What name?”

The old man shook his head. “With the Windigo, you cannot help, Corcoran O’Connor. I do not think you are the one to fight the Windigo.”

“Tell me this. Was the name Judge Parrant?”

The old man laughed. “That is a name I would not mind the Windigo calling, but it was not the name I heard.”

“Was it Paul LeBeau?”

“Joe John’s boy? No.” The old man put his hand on Cork’s shoulder. “It will do no good, but I will tell you the name I heard. The name the Windigo called was Harlan Lytton. And that is another name I do not mind the Windigo calling.” He walked Cork to the door. “Thank you for visiting. I am grateful for your concern over an old man.”

Cork hesitated before leaving.

“What is it?” Meloux asked.

“Sam told me once that a man knows when the Windigo is coming for him. Is that true?”

“A man who listens will hear his name.” The old man stared at him a moment. “You heard.”