Red Knife (8 page)

H
enry Meloux lived on an isolated peninsula called Crow Point that jutted into an inlet far north on Iron Lake. There were two ways to get to Meloux’s cabin: You used a paddle or you used your feet. Cork guided his Bronco along the paved county road north, then turned east onto gravel. He drove until he came to a tall, double-trunk birch that marked the trail to Meloux’s. He parked and began to walk. For almost a mile, the trail cut through national forest land, then it crossed onto the reservation. Cork had walked the trail many times. If what George LeDuc said was true, Alex Kingbird had recently done the same.

When he broke from the trees, Cork saw the small cedar-log cabin perched at the far end of the point, set against a sky full of sluggish gray clouds. He was upwind, and in a few moments Walleye, Meloux’s old dog, had his scent and let out a couple of lazy, requisite barks.

Meloux had just brewed a pot of coffee and he offered Cork a cup. Though he was an old man, in his early nineties, it was clear from everything about him that he still had a lot of road ahead before he found his way onto the Path of Souls. He walked slowly, but that was less the result of age than patience. Meloux was a member of the Grand Medicine Society, one of the Midewiwins, a Mide. His life had been engaged with healing the bodies and spirits of those who sought him out. He’d helped Cork on many occasions and, in one significant miracle of healing, he’d brought a traumatized Stevie O’Connor back to a wholeness of soul. Not long ago, Cork had been of significant help to Meloux, locating a son lost to the old man for decades, healing a wound so painful to the old Mide that it had nearly killed him. The threads that bound these two men together were many and long and ran deep.

Meloux’s hair was like a long breath of white wind. He wore overalls, a flannel shirt, and scuffed boots. Cork sat with him at the table in the old man’s one-room cabin, a place that felt as welcoming as home. It was furnished simply: a bunk, a table and three chairs handmade from birch, a cast-iron stove, a small chest of drawers. Meloux used kerosene lanterns. He drew his water from the lake. Twenty yards toward the trees stood an outhouse.

“Alex Kingbird,” the old man said. “Kakaik. A name to be proud of.”

“You called him Kakaik?”

“That was his name.”

“Not legally.”

“Legally?” Meloux laughed. “A man is who he wants to be.”

“Who was Kakaik?”

“To me, someone who asked questions. In that, he was like you.” The old Mide smiled.

“Did he come for healing?”

“I think that was not in his mind. But probably it was in his heart. He wanted to be a man of clear thought. He did a lot of cleansing.”

“Sweats?”

“And other things.”

“What did you think of him?”

Meloux had brewed the coffee in a dented aluminum pot on his stove. Like Cork, he drank from an old, blue-speckled enamel cup.

“If I lived in the days of my ancestors,” he said, “he would have been a man I wanted as a war chief.”

Walleye had settled himself in a corner of the cabin. He’d stayed alert for a few minutes, but when it was clear the men were going to pay him no attention, he dropped his head on his paws and closed his eyes.

“Henry, did Kingbird say anything to you about Lonnie Thunder?”

“Thunder. He took the name Obwandiyag.” The old man didn’t seem pleased with the choice. “You know about Obwandiyag of long ago?”

“No.”

“He was an Odawa war chief. To most white people he is known as Pontiac.”

“Pontiac. Big name for someone with a heart as small as Thunder’s. Did Kingbird talk about him?”

“Obwandiyag weighed on Kakaik.”

“Did you advise Kingbird?”

“He did not ask for my advice. But he did bring Obwandiyag here. Now there was a man full of fear. The white girl had died, the fault, Kakaik said, of Obwandiyag. He hoped I could help Obwandiyag find courage, find purity of spirit, find the warrior’s heart.”

“Did you?”

“Obwandiyag did not want my help. He left before I could do anything for him. I did not see him again.”

“Kingbird was hiding him, trying to protect him, I suppose. Did he give you any idea where?”

The old man put his cup on the table. “Is it Obwandiyag you’re hunting or the truth about Kakaik?”

“I think they might lie along the same path.”

The Mide nodded. “There is hope for you yet, Corcoran O’Connor. I do not have an answer for you. But I have advice, if you would like it.”

“I’d appreciate it, Henry.”

“I would take a hawk’s-eye view of the situation.”

Cork waited. “That’s it?”

“That is all I have to offer. Unless you would like more coffee.”

Cork stood up, and Meloux after him. Walleye worked his way to his feet and padded to the table.

“
Migwech,
Henry,” Cork said, thanking the old man. At the door, he paused. “A hawk’s-eye view?”

Meloux shrugged. “It is a place to begin.”

L
ucinda often walked to the Gun Sight, bringing lunch to her husband, and to Uly as well on those occasional days when he helped his father there. She enjoyed the stroll through Aurora. That Monday, she thought it would be a good idea for both herself and Misty to get out for a while. Well-meaning people were calling and stopping by and although Lucinda was grateful, she was also weary of having to respond to their concern.

The sky was overcast but didn’t seem to threaten rain. Lucinda settled Misty in the stroller, made certain the baby was warm enough, and set off.

Having to care for the baby full-time wasn’t difficult for Lucinda. In truth, it gave her a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt since Uly had become a teenager and pulled away, retreating into himself in the way teenagers did. A baby was a good deal of work, but a baby let you know you were needed. And the needs were so simple really, and so blessedly direct. You fed her when she was hungry, changed her diaper when she was wet or soiled, held her when she was fussy, smiled at her when she gazed up at you with her eyes full of wonder. God never took, she’d always tried to believe, without also giving. Alejandro and Rayette had been taken, but little Misty had been spared and put into Lucinda’s keeping.

Will’s shop was on Oak Street. Before he bought the building, the place had belonged to a florist. Whenever she first walked in, Lucinda thought she caught the faint fragrance of roses, but the scent vanished immediately, replaced by the acrid odor of the solvents Will used to clean polymer weapons.

Her husband knew firearms. He was also an expert with that other elegant instrument of warfare, the knife. He was a dealer, with a clientele of collectors worldwide. He was also an expert gunsmith and was often engaged in making something that was of custom design. They had saved carefully all their lives, and with his marine pension they easily had enough to live on. His need to work had nothing to do with finances. In a way, Lucinda believed, it kept him connected with the military life, which was the life he knew best.

He was in the back room when she pushed the buzzer. For security, he kept the door locked. There was a sign above the buzzer button that read
PUSH FOR ENTRY.
Will had a camera mounted outside and positioned in a way that let him see who was at his door. She heard the reply buzz and the lock release and she rolled the stroller inside.

“Back here!” he called.

At the front of the shop were rifles, shotguns, and handguns mounted in display cases behind security glass. Arrayed in the long glass counter on which his cash register sat were the knives he carried. Near the door stood a three-by-three-foot polished maple board that rested on a tripod. Will had affixed shelves to the board, on which he displayed a selection of some of the components he used in his work: barrels, actions, frames, slides, stocks, grips. The shop front wasn’t an area that he’d created to feel particularly warm and welcoming. It had a Spartan, utilitarian sensibility.

She went through the open door behind the counter and into the back of the shop, where Will stood at one of his workbenches. He had several rifles laid out before him. When Lucinda came in, he left the bench and met her near the door.

“Thanks.”

He took the Tupperware container she handed him, but didn’t open it. She never ate lunch with him, only brought his food. In the afternoon or evening when he came home, he would hand her the empty Tupperware to wash. Music came softly from a CD player on a shelf, Neil Young’s
Harvest,
one of his favorites. When he was young and courting her, he had played the guitar. They would take a picnic lunch to one of the beaches and he would sing to her and strum. He hadn’t touched a guitar in years.

“It’s quiet,” she said. Often when she came, he was dealing with a customer.

“I didn’t want to see anyone today,” he said.

“Misty didn’t cry at all this morning.”

“That’s good, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want her to cry, Luci?”

“I thought she would miss her mother.”

“You feed her, change her, hold her. What would Rayette do that you don’t?”

“I’m not her mother, Will.”

“You are now.”

“If I was Rayette, I wouldn’t want her to forget me.”

“She’s only six months old, Luci. She doesn’t understand about mothers. She understands wet and dry, hungry and full.”

“There’s more to a mother than that, Will.”

“Whatever it is, it’s coming from you now.”

She looked behind him at the table where he’d just been working and where three rifles lay. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“A Winchester Stealth, a Weatherby TRR, a Dragunov. These are very powerful rifles, Will. Sniper rifles.”

“What do you know about rifles?”

“When you talk to me, do you think I don’t listen? What are you doing with these rifles?”

“I have a buyer.”

There were many things her husband was, but a good liar he was not.

“Six months ago,” she said, “you sold a very expensive Robar Elite shotgun to Buck Reinhardt.”

“So?”

“I know you think he killed Alejandro and Rayette. You told me as much last night.”

“Go home, Luci. Take the baby and go home.”

“Alejandro and Rayette are dead. Nothing we do can bring them back.”

“Go home.”

“We have to think of Misty now, Will. I will try to be her mother, but you must be her father. You have to be there for her, Will. You have to be there for us.”

“Go home.”

This time it was an order, and she understood that he was finished with listening. Whatever she said now, he would not hear.

She turned and started away.

“Luci.”

She glanced back.

“Thank you for bringing me lunch.”

There was so much more she wanted to do, for Will, for Uly, for Misty, for them all, but she felt powerless.

She caught Father Ted as he was crossing the yard between St. Agnes and the rectory. He wasn’t a priest who wore a cassock or a clerical shirt or a collar on an everyday basis. He’d visited the day before to express his sympathy and offer his help, and he’d looked priestly then, but today he was wearing a blue denim long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

“Father Ted,” Lucinda called out to him.

He turned and smiled. “Lucinda.” Misty was asleep in the stroller and Lucinda took her time reaching the priest. When he looked at her closely, he seemed gravely concerned. “Is everything all right?”

“May I talk to you?” she said.

“Of course. Shall we go into my office?”

“Thank you.”

They went together into the wing that housed the church offices and the education classrooms. The priest unlocked the door. The building was empty. She liked the quiet, the emptiness that was not really emptiness, she knew, because the church and every part of it was filled with the Holy Spirit. The young priest stopped at the front desk and picked up some mail.

“How is the baby?”

“She is doing well, Father. But…”

“But what?”

“It’s almost as if she doesn’t even miss her mother.”

“In a way, that strikes me as a blessing.”

“For her, yes. But I think of poor Rayette. Her little girl will never know her, probably never even think of her as her mother.”

“You can help her with that. You can make sure she knows who her mother was and that Rayette loved her deeply.”

“I will try, Father.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” Lucinda thought for a moment, not certain how to approach her real concern. “Father, what is the duty of a wife toward her husband?”

The priest put down the mail and lines appeared on his brow as he considered. “I would say it’s to love him, to respect him, to support him, to create and raise a family with him, to help as he strives in his service to God and the Church. If we look at scripture, Ephesians tells us that a wife should respect and obey her husband.”

“What if a wife is afraid of something?”

“Afraid of her husband?”

“No, no. Afraid
for
him.”

“Then I think she does all that she can to help him.”

“What if he doesn’t want her help?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I’m sorry, Father, I can’t.”

“Well then, this is what I think. But, Lucinda, it’s only what I think, not necessarily advice. I think sometimes people don’t really know what they want, but I’ve never seen a situation where giving a loving hand was a mistake.” The lines on his young brow deepened and he leaned toward her confidentially. “Is there something you want to tell me, something I might be able to help with?”

“No, Father. It’s all right. Thank you.” Misty was awake and had begun to fuss in her stroller. Hungry, Lucinda thought. “I should get home.”

“All right, then. I’ll see you on Wednesday for the service and burial.”

“Thank you, Father.”

She left the church. On the sidewalk that ran along the street, she glanced back. Through his office window, behind the reflection of that cloudy day, the priest was watching.

When she arrived home, she heard voices coming from Uly’s bedroom. Her son had stayed home from school that day, something she’d insisted on, although Will had pressed for Uly to proceed with life as usual. It was rare that Will gave in to her, but in this she’d prevailed. She took Misty from the stroller and as she headed to the baby’s room, she stopped and knocked on her son’s door. He didn’t answer, and she knocked again, louder, and called, “Uly?”

He opened the door and looked at her without speaking, looked at her as if she was an unwelcome stranger.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone,” she said.

Lucinda saw that the chair at Uly’s computer desk was occupied. From the clothing the visitor wore—all black—and the black-dyed hair, she knew immediately that it was Darrell Gallagher, a boy Uly hung out with a lot these days. Darrell didn’t acknowledge her, didn’t even look away from the computer screen, where he was probably surfing the Internet. He and Uly spent a good deal of time on the Internet, communicating with people in cyberspace. She wished Uly would spend more time with real people in real space.

“I was just chilling with Darrell,” he said.

“Why isn’t he in school?”

“He took the day off to keep me company, okay?”

“Yes. Of course.” She tried to think of it as a nice thing for a friend to do.

Uly smiled at the baby. “How’s Misty doing?”

“She’s fine.”

“Hey there,
chiquita.
” He gently stroked the baby’s cheek. “Later, Mom.” He closed the bedroom door against her.