The pilot looked at the gun and laughed again. “What? You’ll shoot me? And we all crash? What a good plan that is.”
The tall man said, “A stop at the clinic in Gordonville will delay us only a little. You told my nephew we’re on the same side. I don’t know you, Indigo, but if that’s true, you’ll put the gun away.”
Indigo returned the Glock to the shoulder holster from where he’d pulled it. “We fail,” he said, “it’s not on my shoulders.”
“We fail,” the tall man said, “or we succeed, it’s only because Kitchimanidoo wills it to be so.”
Cork watched Indigo give his head a little shake as if what he’d just heard was nothing but ignorant claptrap.
They banked to the east, and in a few minutes, Cork saw a small lake materialize. It lay at the mouth of a deep canyon carved by the tumble of a white-water river. The Manitou, Cork was pretty sure. A little town lay on the shore of the lake. There was a sand beach at the edge of the town. Cheval brought the Beaver down onto the water and taxied toward the beach. The tall man got out and stood on the pontoon. As they neared the beach, the tall man leaped onto the sand and used the tether line to draw the plane gently to shore. A sign had been posted on the beach indicating there was no lifeguard on duty, swim at your own risk. The tall man tied the line to the signpost.
“Everybody out, so we can unload Bird,” Cheval said.
Indigo had pulled his Glock from the holster. As Cork and Lindsay disembarked, he cautioned, “You try anything stupid, you’re dead. Both of you.”
The tall man and Cheval helped Bird out. The kid could barely walk, and he hung between the two men.
“We’ll take him to the clinic,” the tall man told Indigo and Mrs. Gray. “Then we’ll be back.”
Before they left, Lindsay put her hand on the kid’s arm. “Remember what I told you, Bird?”
He nodded weakly. “Spirit is at the heart of everything.”
“You’re going to be fine.” And then she did something surprising. She kissed his cheek.
The tall man and Cheval shuffled down the beach, burdened by the weight of the hobbling Bird.
“Back in the plane,” Indigo ordered.
Cork and Lindsay Harris turned to obey. But Mrs. Gray, sour to the end, stayed on the beach, looking where the tall man, Cheval, and Bird had gone.
“Fools,” she muttered. “Stupid, stupid fools.”
CHAPTER 44
They met Sheriff Dross in her office, crowding into the small room. Rose sat, but the others stood in varied and uneasy poses as Dross explained the situation.
“Bud Bowers flew over every lake that Henry mentioned was on the old warpath. Flew over them several times at different altitudes. He didn’t see a thing. No sign at all of Cork and Lindsay and whoever they’re with.”
“They could have been hiding,” Jenny said.
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Dross said. “So what Bowers did was to move away from each lake for a while, then come back in the hope of catching them out on open water.” She shook her head. “I think that if they were ever there, they’ve gone now.”
“If Henry says they were there, they were there,” Stephen said.
“Then someone pulled them out,” Dross said.
“Pulled them out?” Jenny said. “How?”
“The same way we planned to. A floatplane.”
Rose said, “Where have they been taken?”
“My guess would be deeper into Canada,” Dross said. “That’s the direction they’ve been headed all along.”
“And that’s what Henry said about the warpath,” Stephen pointed out. “That it led to Canada.”
Jenny’s brow furrowed. “Why Canada?”
Dross put her hands on her desk and pushed herself up. “I think it’s time I had a little talk with Trudeau.”
* * *
The day had started with a break in the cloud cover. The sun had appeared, and the dead grass of the meadow on Crow Point had seemed to come alive again with a golden brilliance. Rainy’s spirits had revived, too, as she waited for word that Cork and Lindsay Harris were safe.
She’d prepared breakfast for Henry and for their guests, then Daniel had received a call from Jenny, telling him that the CIRT team hadn’t been successful in their mission. Cork and Lindsay Harris were still missing. After that, she went for a walk alone and took a towel with her.
She crossed the meadow and followed the lakeshore to the place where Wine Creek emptied into Iron Lake. The bottom was sandy, and a tiny half-moon of a beach curled to one side. The spill of the creek kept the water there ice-free well into the winter. She dropped her towel on the sand, disrobed, waded into the frigid lake naked, and submerged herself. It was like being in the angry grip of an ice giant. She fought her body with her mind, worked to calm her rebellious, cramping muscles, focused on moving beyond all the alarming messages of the flesh. She endured this self-imposed torture for several minutes, and it was only when she knew that she would not break and run that she rose up and slowly exited the lake. She dried herself carefully, dressed, and stood at the edge of the water, letting her mind and body enjoy the sense of being fully alive and, for a little while, empty of concern. It was a discipline she’d learned from Henry.
She didn’t think of herself as a weak woman, but she knew that love had opened the door to a fear outside herself. Love let in harpies of worry that beat their wings against logic and courage and could drive a person mad. Although he seemed never to show it, even Henry admitted to being harassed occasionally by these demons. But somehow he found a way to keep them at a harmless distance. She wondered if she would ever achieve that wonderful old man’s strength of spirit or his wisdom.
Everything in her life, in the life she’d created for herself on Crow Point, seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. Everything she’d come to love seemed about to be taken from her. She didn’t believe that the Great Mystery was a spirit of punishment, but even in the calm of that moment, she heard an old, vindictive voice in her head that told her this was retribution for all she’d run from, all those ancient sins. But the calm of the discipline stayed with her, and as Henry had advised, she let that withering voice speak without giving it power.
She felt she was no longer alone and turned to see Daniel coming from the direction of the cabins. His face wore that determined look it took on whenever he was focused on some essential mission. He was a young man for whom duty was important: his work as a tribal game warden on the Iron Lake Reservation, his relationship with Jenny and Waaboo, his responsibilities to his larger family and to his people. He was not unlike Cork in this respect, and Rainy thought about the old saw that women marry their fathers. But Daniel was his own man, very different from Cork in many ways: a published poet, a reader of literature, a partner who could appreciate Jenny’s deep desire to write and would support her in that journey. As she stood watching her nephew approach, she retained a good measure of the calm that the discipline of the icy plunge had given her, and she realized that even in her worry, the worries of them all, as a family they remained greatly blessed because whatever the outcome, they would still have each other.
“I’m sorry to break in on you like this, Aunt Rainy, but I got another call from Jenny. Marsha Dross is rounding up Ben Trudeau for questioning and she wants Trevor Harris there. I thought you might want to come along.”
“Thanks, Daniel. I’d like that.”
Daniel watched her pick up her towel, then he eyed the crystal water. “You really went swimming?”
“Not swimming exactly,” she said. “Waking up. Focusing.”
“Jesus,” he said in a voice tinged with awe. “Wouldn’t a cup of coffee do as well?”
“Let’s go,” Rainy said. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers.”
But at Henry’s cabin, it was clear that Trevor Harris had other ideas.
He sat on the bunk with his arms crossed and his face pinched.
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head like a recalcitrant child. “I’m not leaving. I show up in public and I’m a dead man.”
“You’ve been watching too many gangster movies,” Daniel said.
“They don’t know I’m here. As soon as they see me with you, they’ll know, and then there’s no place to hide. I’m not going.”
“Oh, you’ll go,” Daniel said. “One way or another.”
Henry said, “I will go, too.”
Rainy saw the young man’s face change just a bit, grow a little less fearful, less set in its look of refusal. She wondered if her great-uncle’s decision was because he thought his presence might bolster Trevor’s flagging courage.
Henry made it clear that wasn’t the case. “I would like to talk to this Trudeau myself,” he said.
Leah said, “I should go, too. Back to my hotel for a change of clothes, at least.”
Daniel held out his hands toward Trevor Harris, as if to show they hid nothing. “There you have it. Everyone’s leaving. You want to stay here by yourself? You’ve already made it clear these people are everywhere. Who’s to say they won’t show up at this cabin while you’re all alone?”
The young man’s eyes flew to the windows, then around the small room, and finally settled on the door. “You don’t have any locks?”
“Here, everyone is welcome,” Henry said.
“My gun?” Trevor’s voice was taut with mounting panic. “Where’s my gun?”
“In a safe place,” Henry assured him. “But a gun is no protection from what stalks you.”
The young man looked at him without comprehension, then looked to Rainy as if for an explanation.
“What threatens you is your own fear,” she told him.
“Christ, you’d be afraid, too, in my shoes.”
“I am afraid,” Rainy said. “We’re all afraid.”
Trevor shook his head and nodded toward Henry. “Not him. I want to stay with him.”
“Then come,” the old man said gently.
CHAPTER 45
Ben Trudeau sat at the table in the interview room of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Office. Rainy could see him from her side of the one-way glass. Cork’s children were there with her. Henry, too. Trevor Harris had been asked to wait in the sheriff’s office until Marsha Dross finished her questioning of Trudeau. It was clear that Deputy Pender, who was videotaping the interview, thought the observation room was way too crowded, but it wasn’t his call. The sheriff entered the interview room, bringing with her a couple of disposable cups filled with coffee. She set one of the cups in front of Trudeau and then sat at the table herself. Trudeau had a pleasant smile on his face, as if he and the sheriff were just going to have a friendly chat. Which, in fact, had often been the case. Trudeau had become well liked, well respected in his short time in Tamarack County, and genial meetings over coffee were part of how he’d connected so quickly and so easily.
“Thanks for coming in this morning, Ben.”
“Always at your service, Marsha.” He glanced around the room. “Though this is a little different.”
“I’ll get right down to it. We’ve received some rather disturbing reports about the casino operation, Ben.”
“Really? What kinds of reports?”
“Specifically, cheating at your blackjack tables.”
“We watch that very carefully, Marsha. I can assure you that no one slips anything by our security people.”
“Apparently, Trevor Harris has,” she said.
He nodded thoughtfully, and his face took on a serious look. “We’re watching Harris closely. He’s a big winner right now, but gambling is all about odds, and sometimes odds can swing in a startling direction for a while. They always swing back eventually. I can assure you that Harris won’t enjoy this winning streak of his much longer.”
“We’ve had a report that you’ve interfered personally with the surveillance of Harris’s activities at the casino.”
“Really?” He looked genuinely surprised, then gave a little shrug. “In an operation as large as the Chippewa Grand, you’re always going to have a disgruntled employee or two who will do their best to sully the operation and throw some dirt, especially at those of us in charge. You’ve been sheriff here a lot of years. You’ve never had to deal with an underling who had a chip on his shoulder?”
“Trevor Harris has confirmed that his winning is more than just luck.”
The genial demeanor dropped away, and Trudeau said, “He’s accused someone at the Grand of colluding with him to cheat the casino?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me who it is, and I’ll see to it that she’s dealt with. I’ll see to it personally.”
“She?”
He faltered, then regained his composure. “The majority of our dealers are female.”
“Does the name Wes Greenfield mean anything to you?”
He thought a moment. “No.”
“I had a conversation less than an hour ago with Greenfield. He’s with the New York Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Do you know the Lake Pokegama Casino in New York?”
“I know it’s one of the casinos the company I work for manages.”
“A man named Virgil Stark won over sixty thousand dollars there in the space of a couple of weeks. Does that name ring a bell?”
“I can’t say that it does. But big winners aren’t unusual in the course of operating a casino. As I said, the odds always swing back. I’m sure if you were to follow up, you’d find that this Virgil Stark has probably lost everything he won and more.”
“He won the money by cheating. And he isn’t spending any of it at the moment. He’s in jail. He’s been charged in the murder of Richard Axton.”
Trudeau gave a small, quick smile. “If a man is a cheater, maybe it’s only a short step to being a murderer, too.”
“So cheating is one way to win, yes?”
“I suppose it’s possible. But not in the casinos I run, I can assure you.”
“Richard Axton was a Canadian citizen accused of human trafficking. He was alleged to have dealt primarily in the trafficking of Native women and children. He’d been investigated by the RCMP and New York’s BCI, but nothing had come of those investigations. No charges were filed on either side of the border. Then Mr. Axton was murdered.”
“A man like that.” Trudeau gave his shoulders a little shrug, and finished, “As ye sow.”
“Stark has told investigators that he was paid to kill Axton. It was a hit. His payment came in the form of winnings at the casino, some of it prior to the hit, some of it after. A down payment and then a settling of the bill.”
Trudeau’s face showed no change.
“The woman who dealt that man his winning hands has given a sworn statement confessing to her part in the payoff.”
“Given to whom?” Trudeau said.
“Me. She works at the Chippewa Grand now. A dealer there. In that statement, she confessed to doing the same thing here with Trevor Harris. And she’s implicated you.”
Trudeau folded his hands in his lap and his face was a blank.
“Trevor Harris was paid to deliver his grandfather and his sister into the hands of kidnappers. Why?”
“If, in fact, that’s true, I have no idea.”
“Between the evidence that’s coming in from the New York investigation and the statements we’re collecting here, we have enough to hold you on suspicion of conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Maybe even murder.”
“Then I think it’s time I asked for a lawyer,” Trudeau said calmly. “Don’t you?”
That’s when Henry stood up and said, “I will talk with this man.”
* * *
Deputy Pender knocked on the door of the interview room and called the sheriff out. Dr
oss excused herself and came to the observation room, where Henry repeated his request. She thought it over.
“What can it hurt?” Daniel said.
Dross glanced at Trudeau, who sat in his chair in the interview room looking not uncomfortable in the least.
“What the hell,” she said with a shrug.
She left with Henry, and a moment later, Rainy saw the door of the interview room open. Henry entered alone. The sheriff joined the others in the observation room.
“Boozhoo, Benjamin Trudeau,” the old man said.
“Boozhoo, Grandfather.”
“We have not met, but I know of you.”
“And I know of you, Grandfather.”
Henry sat at the table. “Will you smoke with me?”
“I will.”
The old Mide took a small leather pouch from one of his two shirt pockets and a slightly larger beaded pouch from the other. From the beaded pouch he drew out a carved stone pipe. From the leather pouch, he took a bit of tobacco and filled the pipe. He plucked a tiny box of wooden matches from the front pocket of his pants and lit the tobacco. He smoked and offered the pipe to Trudeau, and they shared it in silence. When the tobacco had become ash, the old man tapped it into his palm, added the ash to the contents of the leather pouch, put the pipe and the tobacco back where he’d pulled them from, and sat with his ancient, spotted hands folded on the table.
“I would like to tell you two stories,” Henry said.
“I would like to hear them, Grandfather.”
“When I was a young man, much younger than you, I often went with my uncle when he guided men into the great wilderness to the north, Ishpeming. My uncle was a fine hunter and he knew that wilderness well, and loved it as a man loves his home. One autumn, he led two hunters into Ishpeming. I went with him. It soon became clear that it was not the animals of the forest they hunted. These men were looking for gold. When we became aware of this, I asked my uncle how he could do this thing that might end in a great wounding to the spirit of Ishpeming. He told me that if these men found what they were looking for, he would kill them. He was not a violent man. He knew that to do such a thing would deliver a terrible wound to his own spirit. But because of his love for that beautiful place, he was willing to do this thing.”