Deputy Cy Borkman stepped into the rectangle of light that fell on the ground from the opened door. He was a heavy man, a longtime deputy. He held up an evidence bag that contained a couple of shell casings.
“All we could find,” he said. “Might uncover more in the morning when we can see better, Sheriff.”
“All right,” Dross said. “Why don’t you call the guys in. We’ll give it a shot again tomorrow.”
Borkman handed the evidence bag to Ed Larson, who’d joined them. Larson lifted it to the light and Cork studied it with him.
“Thirty-five-caliber Remingtons,” Cork said. “Good caliber for deer hunting.”
“Two casings,” Larson said. “He probably left the last expended cartridge in the chamber when he ran. Would make sense. I’ll have Rutledge send these down to the BCA lab. If we ever get hold of Lonnie Thunder, maybe we’ll find a rifle that matches the chamber marks or the marks from the firing pin.”
The phone in Sam’s Place rang. Cork went over and checked the caller ID. Thunder, L. He picked it up.
“Stop looking for me. Next time I don’t miss.”
“Lonnie,” Cork began, but the line went dead before he could say any more. He put the phone down. “Thunder,” he told the others. “Must’ve used his cell.”
“What did he say?” Larson asked.
“Just what you’d expect. He was warning the idiot.”
Dross said, “I’ll do everything I can to bring him in, Cork.”
“No,” Cork said. “I’ll bring him in.”
She looked at him, surprise evident on her face. Then she nodded, getting it.
“Anything you need, let me know. Come on, Ed. We’ve got paperwork to do.”
They left and Cork stood in Sam’s Place, which was empty now but for him and a determination, cold and deliberate, to make Thunder pay.
It was a busy night in the ER of Aurora Community Hospital. A late bout of flu had hit a lot of folks hard, and both the very young and the very old showed up at the hospital dehydrated. Cork knew the admitting clerk, Sally Owens, who let him pass. Inside, he learned that Jo had just gone with Stevie for some X-rays. He went back to the waiting area and used the public phone to call home. Annie answered.
“Hi, Dad.” She sounded happy. “Where is everybody?”
“Your mom didn’t call?”
“No. Why?”
“There was some excitement at Sam’s Place this evening. Stevie bumped his nose. Maybe broke it. We’re at the hospital right now getting it checked out.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s fine.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll fill you in when we get home. Just didn’t want you worrying.”
“Should I come?”
“No. We’ve got it under control. We’ll see you in a while.”
He went back to the ER and waited by the bed in the curtained-off area where Stevie and Jo had been before the X-rays. He sat for half an hour, listening to the beeps of monitors, the banter of staff, the low whispers of the ill and those who were with them. Finally Jo and Stevie returned. The bruising had spread from his nose to the area around both eyes. His son was starting to resemble a raccoon.
“How’s it going, guy?” Cork asked.
“Okay.” Stevie sat on the bed and lay back. He looked tired.
“Hurt much?”
“Not much.”
Jo said, “They gave him Tylenol.”
“What did the X-rays show?” Cork asked.
Jo sat down in the chair Cork had vacated. “They’re looking at them now.”
“I called Annie,” Cork said.
“Thanks.”
There was something immeasurably exhausting about sitting in a hospital emergency room, waiting. On more occasions than he cared to remember, Cork had felt that suck of energy. He watched Stevie’s eyes flutter closed.
Jo said quietly, “When I think about what could have happened out there . . .” She didn’t finish.
“It was a warning, Jo. Thunder called after you left.”
“What did he say?”
“About what you’d expect. Lay off or next time he won’t miss.”
“Won’t miss you? Won’t miss Stevie? Won’t miss whoever happens to be with you?”
“Jo, I told Marsha this morning that I was through helping with the Kingbird business.”
“Apparently Lonnie Thunder didn’t get that message. What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t have time to say anything. He hung up.”
“What would you have told him?”
The doctor came before Cork could answer. He was a new one, a tall kid with wire-rims and stubble who looked like he’d been on his shift too long. His name was Stiles.
“As I suspected, the nose is broken. Setting it will probably require that we rebreak it. I’m going to have you see Dr. Barron tomorrow. He’ll be better able to tell you the specifics. He handles this sort of thing all the time. In the meantime, keep Stephen on Tylenol for the pain and use ice for the swelling.”
Stevie was awake and listening.
“Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”
“Up to your folks, but I’d say it’s probably best to take a day off, see how things go.”
“All right!” Stevie gleamed.
Jo said, “I thought you liked school.”
“Yeah, but I like a day off better.”
* * *
At home, Annie greeted them at the back door. Cara Haines was with her. Both girls made a big fuss over Stevie, which he pretended not to like. After Stevie went upstairs with Jo to put on his pajamas, Cork told them the full story.
“We were at the Broiler and heard the police sirens, but we didn’t know they were going out to Sam’s Place,” Cara said.
“Do you think it was Lonnie Thunder?” Annie asked.
“Seems a reasonable possibility,” Cork said.
“Ike Thunder was at the Broiler, Dad.” Annie was talking about Lonnie Thunder’s father. “He came in after we heard the sirens.”
“How did he seem?”
“Stumbling a little, like he was drunk. He was still sitting at the counter talking to himself when we left.”
Cara looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go, Annie.”
Annie walked her to the front door, and Cork headed upstairs. Stevie was already in bed. Jo sat beside him and they were talking quietly.
“You look like the Lone Ranger,” Cork said. Then he said, “Stevie, I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“I got you right in the middle of things tonight.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Dad. And I wasn’t scared for me. I was scared for you.”
Almost half a decade earlier, Stevie had seen his father shot, a serious wound that had nearly killed Cork. It had taken a while—visits with a therapist, and finally the wisdom, guidance, and healing of Henry Meloux—to make the boy whole again. To a ten-year-old, five years was half a lifetime, and Cork was relieved to see that Stevie had, indeed, grown beyond the old terrors.
“What are you going to do?” Stevie asked.
Jo looked interested in the answer to this one.
“I’m not sure.”
“I think it’s like with a bully,” Stevie said. “You don’t let a bully bully you or else he always will.”
“Where’d you learn that?” Jo didn’t sound happy with Stevie’s position.
“You told me, remember? Last year when Gordie Sumner was being such a pain in the butt.”
“This is different, Stevie,” she countered. “This bully has a rifle.”
Stevie shook his head. “With bullies there’s always something to be afraid of.”
Cork said, “What scared me most was that you might get hurt.”
“I’m not afraid.”
Cork understood that this was true at the moment and he was proud of his son. Jo stood up and kissed Stevie’s cheek. “You need rest. If you have any trouble in the night, you wake
us up, okay?”
“Okay.”
Cork leaned down and kissed his son’s forehead. “I love you, guy.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“Light on?”
“Maybe for a little while,” Stevie said.
Jo went to the bathroom, where Cork heard water running in the sink and the sound of an electric toothbrush. He headed to the bedroom and took the small suitcase from the shelf in the closet. He’d half filled it when he heard Jo leave the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway and watched him pack.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to stay at Sam’s Place until this business is finished. I think it’s safest for everyone. If Thunder gets it in his head to pull off a few more rounds, I don’t want any of you anywhere near me.”
Her eyes went cold and her voice was all frost. “You’re going after him.”
“I’m not going to just let this thing lie.” He went to the closet and pulled out a hooded sweatshirt that was hanging on a hook.
“You won’t be happy until one of you is dead, is that it?”
“There’s no way I can make you understand, Jo. I’m not even going to try. This is just the way it’s going to be.”
“Goddamn you, Cork.” She said it quietly so that Stevie, in his bed down the hall, wouldn’t hear.
He snapped the suitcase closed.
“What do I tell him?” she said.
“Tell him I’m squaring off with a bully.”
“This bully has a rifle.”
“With bullies there’s always something to be afraid of.”
She went to him and put her hand on his arm, as if to restrain him. “You were all set to step away from this.”
“Thunder changed my mind.”
“And I can’t change it back.” She dropped her hand. “This is so fucking macho stupid.”
“Lock the doors,” he said, and moved past her.
He took his .38 police special from the lockbox in the closet and pulled the gun belt with the basket-weave holster from the shelf. He went to the basement and from the locked cabinet took his Remington and cartridges for both firearms. Upstairs, Jo stood in the kitchen, near the back door.
“Cork, please don’t go. Please just let Marsha and Ed and their people handle this.”
“Their people don’t know the rez. Nobody on the rez will talk to their people. You know that.” He understood her fear, he really did. He wished she understood him. He tried one more time. “Jo, can’t you feel it? It’s like we’re standing on an ocean shore watching a tidal wave come at us. Something big and awful is taking shape and it’s going to hit this county and everyone in it. I can’t just stand by and let that happen.”
“You’re exaggerating, Cork.”
“Am I? Two people have been brutally murdered already. The Red Boyz aren’t going to let that slide. Buck Reinhardt wants Lonnie Thunder dead, and to make that happen he’s probably more than willing to go through all the Red Boyz and anyone else who stands in his way.”
“Including you.”
“It doesn’t have to come to that.”
“But it could,” she said.
“Not if I find Thunder.”
“This argument feels hopelessly circular. And I know I’m not going to convince you, so just go.”
“About Stevie tomorrow—”
“I’ll take care of Stevie. Just go.” She put a hand on his chest and gave him a light shove toward the door.
Now he felt pushed out, which didn’t sit well with him. But leaving was what he’d wanted, right? Even so, he hesitated, trying to think of something reasonable to say, something that would relax the tension between them. Jo just stood there and stared at him, resigned and unhappy, and finally he simply turned and left.
All the way to Sam’s Place, Cork felt a vague unsatisfactory anger. At himself, at Jo, at all the stupid people who’d done stupid things lately and all those who were poised on the brink of doing still more stupid things. He pulled into the parking lot and stopped in almost the exact spot where he’d been when the shots were fired. He sat gazing at the old Quonset hut, which was a dull gray in the dim light from the gibbous moon visible behind high, thin clouds, and he couldn’t help feeling that Jo was right. He’d abandoned his family. Again.
He had no idea if what he was doing was the right thing. It had felt right at first, but now he was uncertain. Maybe if Jo had sent him off with hugs and kisses and encouragement, that would have made the difference. Or maybe it was simply that her arguments were reasonable and he saw now that he was just too damn stubborn to listen.
Shit.
He climbed out of the Bronco, grabbed his suitcase and his firearms, and headed inside. Sam’s Place still smelled of the coffee he’d brewed earlier. He got sheets, a pillow, and a pillowcase from the corner cabinet where he kept such items for just such situations as this. He made up the mattress on the bunk. He stripped out of his clothes and took a pair of gray gym shorts and a clean T-shirt from the things he’d brought. He turned on the lamp that sat on the old night-stand, which he’d constructed from lacquered birch limbs. He turned out the overhead light. He turned back the covers, crawled into bed, and lay awake a long time, unable to close his eyes. All that coffee, he told himself. In his head, he reviewed the day, a loop tape that replayed a dozen times, never leading him anywhere certain, anywhere safe.
Finally he grabbed a book from the small selection he kept sandwiched between bookends on the nightstand. A collection of Robert Frost. He turned to one of his favorite poems and began reading:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .
TWENTY
In the days when he wore the badge, Cork had collared Ike Thunder at least once a month, usually for being drunk and disorderly or driving while intoxicated. The D and Ds he would often let ride, particularly if Ike’s offensive behavior was mostly verbal. Ike, when he got drunk, talked mean, but he seldom carried through with the threats he made. It was hard for a man missing most of an arm, most of a leg, and all of an eye to do much damage, especially someone as small as Ike. Cork often put him in a holding cell and simply let him sleep it off. The DWIs were a more serious matter, and Ike finally spent six months as a guest of the Tamarack County Jail for the repetition of that offense. It cured him of the driving, but not the drinking. Ike took to confining himself to the North Star Bar, at the southern edge of the reservation, a place he could easily bum a ride to with one of his cousins. If he couldn’t get someone to give him a lift home, Fineday, who owned the bar, would let him sleep on a cot in a corner.
Ike Thunder was a war hero, a decorated Vietnam vet who’d gone away with a young man’s fervor and come home with two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, half a body, and a well of bitterness so deep, all the alcohol in the world couldn’t fill it up. He’d left behind a girl who loved him and who, when Ike came home so terribly damaged, swore that she loved him still. They married and had a son, Alonso. Rachel Thunder was a pretty woman, small like her husband. From early on it was clear that their son, whom everyone called Lonnie, was going to be an enormous human being, a circumstance that greatly troubled the diminutive Ike. When he was a little drunk, which was often, he would take to speculating on the true paternity of the boy. When he was roaring drunk, which was not so often back then, he would sometimes try to abuse Rachel, not a wise choice for a man with only one good eye, one good arm, and a leg made of plastic. Rachel, who’d grown up tough on the rez, had no trouble dealing with Ike, usually with the aid of a baseball bat that she kept handy and, Cork had heard, that she’d dubbed Excalibur. By the time Lonnie turned four, Rachel had had enough. She left her husband and took her son to Chisholm, where her sister lived and where she got a job working for a small trucking firm. An ice storm the day before Thanksgiving that year coated everything in silver as slippery as mercury. On her way home from work, Rachel fell on a steep slope of sidewalk, hit her head, and died from the cerebral hemorrhage that resulted. Lonnie was returned to Ike,
who raised him on his disability pension and the life-insurance money he received from Rachel’s death, claiming he was doing the best he could for a boy who was probably not even his own.
Thunder lived in a small clapboard house a couple of miles south of the old mission, near the center of the rez. The house had been built by his grandfather, an excellent carpenter. Ike was good with the tools his grandfather had taught him how to use and he kept the place up. Occasionally he earned extra money custom making furniture. His product was amazingly good, but his delivery timetable was always questionable, for two reasons: It took a man with one arm a lot longer to get the project done, of course; but in addition, Ike was often too drunk to work.
The morning after the shots were fired at Sam’s Place, Cork pulled off the road and parked in the bare dirt beside Thunder’s house. It was another overcast day, with a cool wind out of the northwest. He got no answer to his knock. He walked to the shed that had been built as a garage but was now Thunder’s workshop. The door was unlocked and he stepped in. The shed had a good smell to it: the fragrance of sawdust and raw wood released at the bite of the crosscut tooth and the shave of the plane. A half-completed chest of drawers sat on the old floorboards. The wood was probably maple, the color of dark honey. The shed was neat and spoke well of the enterprise that took place there. Cork had heard that Thunder altered all his tools to accommodate the use of the prosthetic arm he wore. Still, Cork would have loved to see how the man managed his work.
Lonnie Thunder didn’t live with his father, but he did live on his father’s land. Cork followed an old rutted lane that cut between the house and the shed and led into a stand of mixed pine and aspen. The ground was hard and dry, but the lane held tracks from wide SUV tires. Lonnie Thunder drove an off-road Xterra. There hadn’t been a good rain in a long time, so Cork knew the tracks weren’t recent. After ten minutes of walking, he spotted the trailer, an old silver Airstream up on blocks. Thunder’s Xterra wasn’t there. Even so, Cork drew his .38 police special from its holster and stepped off the lane and into the trees. He circled carefully and approached from the back. He put his ear to the trailer but heard nothing. He peeked through a window where there was a crack between the curtains inside. Although mostly he saw dark, Cork could still see clearly that the place had been trashed. He crept to the door. The metal around the latch was damaged where someone had used a pry bar to pop the door open. The door was still ajar an inch. Cork eased it open farther until there was a gap wide enough for his head. He looked in, satisfied himself the trailer was empty, then stepped inside.