Only the Dead (2 page)

Lance Hansen had walked down all the aisles without putting a single item in his shopping basket. Now he was back where he’d started, at the front counter. He was cold and wet and in need of a hot meal.

“Been out hunting?” asked Henry.

“Yep.”

“Get anything?”

“Nope.”

He pretended that he’d suddenly remembered something and made another round of the aisles. At the meat counter at the very back of the store he saw only a couple of bratwursts and some roast beef that had gone gray after a long day. For a moment he stopped to stare at the packages of Land O’Lakes butter and the bottles of milk lined up behind the glass doors in the cooler. Not that he needed milk or butter, but he’d always liked that logo showing the beautiful Indian maiden in front of a dazzling blue lake.

He heard the front door open as someone came into the store. A woman’s voice replied to something Henry said. Lance went over to the shelves of snacks and put a bag of Old Dutch potato chips in his basket. Without further hesitation he went over to the canned foods section and grabbed the first one he saw. Beefaroni was just as good as anything else.

On his way back to the counter, he practically ran right into Becky Tofte.

“Hey, Lance!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on his arm, as she usually did. “Long time no see.”

“Uh-huh.”

She was holding a box of Betty Crocker brownie mix in her other hand as she looked at him.

“Have you been out in the woods?”

“Deer hunting.”

Outside a lumber truck and trailer drove by. The vibra tion from the weight of the vehicle and the double load of lumber started things clattering somewhere in the store.

“So how’s it going?” asked Becky when the noise faded.

“Things are good.”

He noticed that she had pursed her lips, as if trying to make up her mind about something.

“You look . . . ,” she began, but then stopped.

Lance glanced away.

“Already November,” she said. “It’ll soon be Thanksgiving again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We haven’t seen much of you lately. At the station, I mean.”

“There’s been a lot going on out in the field.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

He couldn’t decide where to look. Becky gave the Betty Crocker box a little shake. “Well, I’d better see about getting home to make these,” she said. Then she touched his arm again, turned on her heel, and left the store.

Lance stayed where he was among the aisles, waiting until he heard Becky start up her car and drive off. Only then did he go over to the counter and set down his shopping basket. As he stood there, watching nearsighted Henry ring up his purchases on the old-fashioned cash register, he caught sight of the heart-shaped Dove chocolates in the candy rack. Out of habit, he grabbed a handful.

HE
WAS
JOLTED
AWAKE
by a loud bang. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out where it had come from. A car was on fire on TV. He found the remote control and turned down the sound. His plate with the fork and the congealed Beefaroni was still sitting on the table. And next to it was an empty beer bottle. Mesabi Red. He tried to remember if he’d been dreaming about something, but his mind was blank, as usual.

He hadn’t had a dream in more than seven years now. In his last dream he had been climbing down some steep mountain slopes. Below him lay a huge body of water that he recognized as Lake Superior. It was light enough for him to see where he placed his feet, and he was breathing and moving as easily as he did on land. On closer reflection, he wasn’t really sure if that was how the dream started or not. The beginning might have been different, more chaotic, something he could no longer recall. Something that was impossible to put into words.

As he remembered the dream, it began with him halfway down a mountainside, in the process of making his way farther down. And there weren’t just mountains down there. He also saw a muddy plain with several old trees, their trunks smooth and hard, their branches sticking out in all directions. At last he stood below on the uneven, icy lake bottom, where it was as bright as the day above. No, it was a more bluish light. Spreading out around him was a landscape of icebergs, shimmering blue. He knew at once that he was at the deepest spot in the lake. No one had ever seen this before, nor would anyone ever see it again. Beauty like this existed nowhere else but here. The cold from the icebergs began eating into his body. Very fast. He was turning rigid, his marrow freezing, his bones filling up with ice. Soon he wouldn’t be able to move. That was when he awoke, drenched with sweat.

He got up from the sofa and cleared the table, carrying everything out to the kitchen. It was already eight. He’d been asleep for almost an hour. From the living room he could hear the weather report for Minnesota. He rushed back to the sofa and turned up the sound on the TV, but the report was almost over. The only thing he heard was something about “difficult driving conditions in the northeast.” It wouldn’t have bothered him if the driving conditions got so bad that they’d have to cancel their hunting expedition. He regretted not shooting that deer today; if he had, that would have been the end of it. A whole year until the next hunting season. Instead, he was going to have to spend tomorrow with Andy. He had the distinct feeling his brother knew who was behind the break-in at his cabin. But did he also know why? Did he know that Lance knew?

His cell rang. He picked it up from the coffee table and saw that it was the same number as earlier in the day. This time he answered.

“Lance Hansen.”

“Ah, there you are,” he heard his former father-in-law say.

“Willy?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Here.”

“Did you borrow a phone from somebody?”

“No. Mary bought me a . . . one of those . . .”

“Cell phones? Did Mary buy you a cell?”

“Yes. She’s afraid I’ll drown.”

“What?”

“She says this is safer. I don’t know . . . I guess she thinks I can use it to float if I fall into the lake.”

“I saw that you tried to call me earlier today.”

“Yes.”

“I was out deer hunting.”

“Oh, really? Did you shoot any deer?”

“No. I
could
have shot one, but I let it go.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It was too small.”

Lance had talked to Willy Dupree on only one occasion in the past three years. That was four months ago. He’d paid a visit to the elderly Ojibwe to ask him about an old photograph.

“Was there something special you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked now.

The old man muttered something.

“What?” said Lance.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Willy, speaking a little louder.

“Okay . . .”

“But you have to come here . . . tonight.”

“It takes me an hour and a half to drive out to Grand Portage. Couldn’t you tell me now?”

“On the phone?”

“Uh-huh.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No.”

“I don’t really know if I can . . .”

“You have to.”

2

March 1892

Fat fish that I could cook and eat and drink the broth from afterward. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it. But it’s impossible to catch the fish in the lake. First I need to get me a boat. Then I can set out some nets and bring them up full of fish. The water is gurgling underneath, at the edge of the ice. The moon is shining. I’m sitting on the snowshoes that are tied to the back of my knapsack, leaning back against a big black rock that’s capped with snow.

I saw it from far away. There’s something about rocks standing all alone like that. Almost as if they were houses. As if people lived here. But there’s no one around. I hack off a piece of the icy crust of snow and stuff it in my mouth. Suck on it. I brought along only the few things I had room for. Some clothes, a little food, my Bible, and an ax. I bought the ax in town. I thought it best to have my own ax if I’m going to look for work in the woods. So I went with Mr. Dahl to a shop that sold all kinds of axes. But I didn’t like the town. No, I definitely did not. And then there’s the language. I can hardly understand anything. Only a few words: yes, no, ticket, dollar, food, train, room, water. And moon. Hard to believe it’s the same moon as back home.

I’d better stand up now and get moving. Can’t stay sitting here in this cold. There’s nothing left of the food Mrs. Dahl gave me to take along. I haven’t eaten since . . . I don’t know how long. No food left in my bag, just some clothes and the ax and my Bible. Hard to believe it was only a year ago I was confirmed. “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”

I got up and have started walking again. In some places the ice stretches so far that I can barely see the water way off in the distance. In other places it’s such a narrow strip that I can hear a gurgling under the edge. The water is completely black, with moonlight shining on it. The snow is smooth and slippery and I think there must be rocks underneath. Smooth rocks all along this huge lake. In the summertime it must get so hot that you could burn your hand if you touched them.

The fish are supposedly so big they almost look human. That’s what I’ve heard. Fish as big as grown men. I fought with one of them. Or was that something I dreamed? Am I asleep? No, I’m walking along the lake with my eyes open. Or am I asleep standing up, dreaming that my eyes are open? I tell myself that this is a dream. And then I open my eyes. I can hardly believe what I see. Because I’m still sitting on the rock. I haven’t budged. And I’m so cold. I was dreaming about fish as big as grown men and that I was fighting with one of those fish in the shallow water. But it’s deadly dangerous to fall asleep in cold weather like this. I haul myself up. My legs are aching with cold. To make sure I’m not asleep, I blink my eyes again and again. This better not be a dream.

THE
RAIN
WAS
JUST
A
LIGHT
DRIZZLE
, almost like dew hitting the windshield. The wipers were set at the slowest speed. Occasionally the glow from the headlights swept over a dark wall of spruce trees. Lance was thinking about Andy knocking on the window on the passenger side of the Jeep and peering through the glass. He should have come out of the woods on the other side of the road if he was coming from Copper Pond, the way he’d claimed. And if so, wouldn’t he have knocked on the window on the driver’s side, where Lance was sitting? No matter what, he must have reached the road from somewhere behind the Jeep; otherwise Lance would have seen his brother walking toward him. But he hadn’t noticed anything until Andy knocked on the window. At that point he’d already moved the Jeep about a hundred yards. It seemed unlikely his brother would have entered the road so far away from where they had parked. He would have followed the creek from Copper Pond just as Lance had done, which meant Lance would have seen him coming. Had Andy even been at Copper Pond?

And what about the communications equipment? The walkie-talkies were always kept on a shelf near the ceiling in the garage, but this morning they were missing. He thought about the fact that Andy hadn’t answered his phone. His explanation had been anything but convincing.

At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, Lance noticed something moving. He heard two thuds as something struck the car. It all happened so fast he didn’t even have time to brake. He stopped, put the car in reverse, and began to back up. Luckily it was a long, straight stretch of road with no traffic right now. After about a hundred yards he parked on the shoulder and put on his emergency lights. Only then did he start to think about what sort of animal he might have hit. All he’d seen was something moving fast on the road in front of his car. Maybe a badger or a hare. Not a big animal, at any rate.

He got out the flashlight that he always kept on the floor of the Jeep and opened the door. The cold, raw air smelled of the forest. Even though he was sure it had to be some small animal, he felt hesitant about where he set his feet on the ground in the dark. Then he pulled himself together. He shined the flashlight around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He aimed the light at the ditch, but saw only dirt and stones. After walking a short way along the shoulder in both directions, he gave up and went back to his vehicle. He was just about to get in when he heard a hissing sound close by. Again he aimed the flashlight at the asphalt and along the ditch but didn’t see anything. But the hissing didn’t stop. Finally he squatted down and shined the light under the Jeep. Two eyes gleamed at him, and now the hissing erupted into a shrill screech. It was a big white cat lying there.

Lance got in the Jeep and backed up a few yards, then got out again. The cat was lying in the same spot on the road, apparently unable to move. He opened the tailgate, using the beam of the flashlight to look through the junk inside. A big wrench was the best thing he could find. Lance grabbed it and went over to the cat, which was staring up at him and hissing. Then he leaned down as he raised the wrench. He was so close that he could clearly see the cat’s face. Its lips were drawn back, its teeth gleamed white in the glow from the flashlight. Just as he was about to bring down the wrench, the cat uttered another shriek, loud and shrill. For a moment fear seized him. Then he struck.

The wrench hit something soft. The shrieking stopped abruptly, then started up again, even louder. He struck again, but it was impossible to hold the beam steady as he slammed the wrench down, and this time it hit the asphalt. Pain shot up into his shoulder. He tossed the flashlight aside and began pounding with the heavy wrench. The feel of the soft body under the blows of the wrench made him furious. The animal offered no resistance, and yet it refused to die, continuing to howl. Then he became aware of the sound of a car approaching, and he looked up. The car came driving along the flat clearing, gradually slowing its speed. Finally it stopped right next to the Jeep, only a few yards away. A gurgling sound came from the cat as he kept on hitting it. The stranger in the other car didn’t move, and Lance had the feeling he was being watched as he delivered one blow after another, faster and faster. After a moment the car drove off, and he was alone. The only sound was his own breathing, and the blows that kept on striking the cat’s body in the dark.

“I
DREAMED
that I found a wooden figure of two people holding hands,” said Willy Dupree. He was sitting there with his eyes closed, looking as if he were asleep.

“Over near the lake, after a storm. I went there as I always do, to see what might have drifted ashore this time, and that’s when I caught sight of that wooden figure lying there. It wasn’t much bigger than a grown man’s fist. I picked it up to take a closer look. It was a tree root, or . . . it was both a root and something that someone had carved. It was both things at the same time. That’s possible in dreams, you know. It was smooth, as if newly whittled or as if the bark had just been stripped off. Totally new and fresh. And as I said, it looked like two people holding hands.”

Lance waited for him to go on, but the old man just sat there with his eyes closed and his hands clasped over his stomach. Had he dozed off?

“Did anything else happen?” Lance ventured.

Willy opened his eyes. “No. Then I woke up.”

“And this is why I had to drive all the way out here? To hear this?”

“No. My dream reminded me of something. That’s why I called you, but you didn’t answer the phone. You were out hunting.”

“That’s right.”

“Alone?”

“No, with Andy. I was on post when you called. Andy was driving.”

“I thought these days everybody shot deer from platforms up in the trees.”

“Not us.”

“It’s supposed to be much easier. That’s what I’ve heard.”

“But hunting isn’t supposed to be easy.”

“No, no, I guess not . . .”

“So what did you want to tell me?’

“Well, you know the spirit huts that we build over our graves?”

Lance nodded. He’d seen the small wooden structures erected in old Ojibwe cemeteries, built to cover the whole length of the grave.

“People used to put things inside that the dead person might need on the journey to the realm of the dead. Food and tobacco, for instance. Preferably something that the deceased was particularly fond of when he was alive. A special pipe, maybe, or a gun. Swamper Caribou was a great medicine man, a sort of priest, if you will. There’s no doubt that he would have been given a traditional burial, but no one ever found his body. When I was young, I heard an old man talk about Swamper disappearing. He remembered when it happened, you see. He said that several other medicine men came here to Grand Portage to discuss what had happened. And since he disappeared while he was staying at the lake—he was trapping mink and otters down by Cross River—they decided to build a canoe and send it out on the water with things his spirit would need on the journey. They made a small version of an ordinary canoe. I don’t remember anymore exactly what they put in it. Except for one thing, and that was Swamper Caribou’s knife, which he always carried with him in this life. I think it was found inside his hunting cabin, and they thought he would need it on the other side. Finally, they sang a sacred song over the canoe before they sent it out onto the lake.”

Willy Dupree slowly leaned forward to pick up his glass of water from the table. His hand was shaking badly as he raised it to his lips. He drank greedily. The old man’s Adam’s apple moved up and down under his slack skin. Then he set the glass on the table, his hand still shaking. Once again he leaned back in his chair, breathing hard. A trickle of water ran down his chin, but he didn’t notice.

“All a man has left is a bunch of memories,” he said.

“You have your grandson, Jimmy.”

“That’s true. We have our daily chat.”

“Do you ever tell him the old stories?”

“Sometimes.”

“About Swamper Caribou?”

“No.”

“That’s probably best. He might get scared.”

“What about you, Lance?”

“What about me?”

“Does Swamper Caribou scare you?”

Lance tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right.

“Do you want to know what happened to his knife?”

Lance nodded.

“A man was putting out nets off Hat Point when he happened to see something floating in the water a short distance away. He paid it no mind, just kept setting out his nets. When he was done, the object had drifted closer, and he got curious, so he paddled over to it. And he found Swamper Caribou’s little canoe, the one the other medicine men had made, although the man had never heard about that. All he thought was that the canoe was much too small to be of any use. But then he discovered the knife. And he could always use an extra knife. No matter what, he couldn’t figure out what it was doing out there on the lake in a little birchbark canoe. Since it didn’t seem to belong to anyone, he picked up the knife and took a closer look. The shaft was made of buckhorn, the blade so sharp that he started bleeding as soon as he touched it with his fingertip. The man decided to take the knife. When he came home, he told the whole story to his wife. She thought that if a knife appeared in that way, it must have come from the spirit world, and she told him to get rid of it. The man promised to do as she said.

“That very evening, he went over to the lake to throw the knife into the water. But just as he was about to do that, he had a sudden feeling the knife was not merely a dead object. It felt like . . . like a
friend.
And now he was supposed to throw it into the lake so it would never be found again? He couldn’t make himself do it. But his wife would refuse to have it in the house if she found out he hadn’t done as she asked, so on his way home the man hid the knife in a hollow tree he knew about. Every evening he would go over to that tree and take out the knife. Whenever he held it in his hand, he would get the same feeling that this was more than just a knife. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he thought it had to be magic, because it had come sailing toward him in a little canoe on the big lake, and it felt like it was alive. So he thought, just as his wife did, that the knife had some connection to the spirit world. And yet he couldn’t make himself give it up.

“Soon he became so obsessed by the knife that his wife thought he was going out to the woods to be with another woman. She asked her husband if that was what he was doing, and she said she refused to accept a simple no as an answer. The man told her she was right, he was going to the woods every evening to see another woman. After that, his wife left him and went to live with the family of one of her brothers. The man was happy because finally he was alone in the house. Now he could bring the knife home. It would no longer have to live in the hollow tree in the woods. He tore out a piece of the lining in his jacket and used it to make a fine bed for the knife next to his own on the earthen floor. Then he went to the woods to get it. When he neared the hiding place, he caught sight of the back of a man disappearing among the trees.”