“Two men came in this way,” he said. “Only one went back.”
“Did they come together?”
“Can’t tell.”
“Think you can follow the trail far enough to figure out how they approached Trickster’s Point?”
“As I understand it, there’s just the one Forest Service trail, and that’s the one I took from the trailhead back at the county road. Saw evidence of foot traffic along the way, but nothing that appeared recent. How’d you get here?”
“Canoed across the lake. It’s the shortest route.”
Berglund nodded. “We might be able to assume that this man and whoever killed him both approached the area in a way that assured they wouldn’t be seen.”
“Can you confirm it?”
Berglund considered. “I guess I can try. You want in on this?”
Cork shook his head. “I’m going to stay with the body, make sure it isn’t disturbed.”
Berglund shrugged as if to say “Whatever,” turned his back, and began to move east along the ridge crown, his nose aimed toward the ground like that of a bloodhound.
Once again, Cork was left alone with the dead and in spitting distance of Trickster’s Point.
The first time he’d been in that situation, he was just shy of seventeen. Not much older than Stephen was now.
It was early October, deep into football season. The Aurora High Wolves were at the top of their division that year, taken there mostly by the strong arm and reliable leadership of Jubal Little. Talk of a state title was on everyone’s lips. But no team is built entirely on one man, and that year there were several fine players, among them Cork O’Connor, who was a junior and played end, and Donner Bigby-Bigs-in his senior year, at fullback. Between Jubal and Bigs there was no love lost. Since that first meeting in Grant Park when Jubal had stepped in to thwart Bigby’s cruelty toward Willie Crane, there’d been a kind of charge building between them, like a summer storm you knew was on the way, inevitable, and even though it was still beyond the horizon, you could feel the buzz of the electricity everywhere around you. On the football field, Jubal was all business and didn’t appear to let his own feelings toward Bigs get in the way of what was best for the team. Bigs wasn’t so magnanimous; when a pass went awry or a play call was questionable, he was given to deriding his quarterback. If Donner Bigby hadn’t been an unstoppable locomotive in the backfield, his mouth might have got him benched for much of the season.
The homecoming game that year was against the Virginia High School Blue Devils, a team whose win record was only one game back of Aurora’s. It was played in a downpour, on a field that was more mud than grass. The wet conditions seriously hampered both Jubal’s accuracy in passing and his receivers’ ability to hold on to the ball. So the game was played mostly on the ground and was dominated by the rhino charges of Donner Bigby. As the fourth quarter neared its end, the score was tied at 13–13. The Blue Devils had the ball and had pushed deep into Wolves territory. The drive stalled on the twenty-two-yard line, and the Blue Devils lined up for a field goal attempt. The kick went wide to the right. All that remained was for the Wolves to run out the clock-five or six running plays, or three and a good long punt-and the game would end in a tie, with Aurora’s lead in the division secure.
In the huddle, Jubal Little called a fullback sweep right. The play was good for a short gain. He called a gut left. Bigs plowed ahead for four yards on that one. The team huddled. Their jerseys, once a glorious white and gold, were the color of pig slop and hung wet and heavy against their pads. Their bare legs and arms were so mud-crusted that you couldn’t see the color of their skin or the bruising there. The air was chill, and their huffed breaths clouded the center of the circle that their bodies, shoulder pad against shoulder pad, had formed.
Jubal looked them over. His eyes were the color of his muddied uniform, and the whites of them, under the glare of the field lights, seemed to glow. He said, “You want to settle for a tie? Or do you want to beat these bastards?”
“I want to grind their nuts under my cleats,” Bigs said without hesitation. “Just give me the ball.”
“We all together on this?” Jubal asked his teammates.
“Yeah,” they said and “You bet.”
Jubal’s eyes fell on Cork. “If I get it to you, can you hold on to it?”
“What are you doing?” Bigby said.
Cork’s heart was stomping around in his chest, and he couldn’t swallow, nor could he speak. But he could still move, and he gave Jubal a decisive nod.
“Little, I’m telling you-” Bigs began.
“Ends, five and out. Quick right fake, on two,” Jubal called. “Let’s go.”
They broke from the huddle. Cork saw the Blue Devils crowding the line of scrimmage, expecting a run, but their safeties were in a prevent formation, defending against the long pass. The area between, as Jubal had probably expected, was wide open. Cork set himself on the line, drier of mouth than he’d ever remembered. Jubal crouched under center and called out the count. The ball was snapped, and Cork gave a quick head fake to the end who guarded him, then broke toward the sideline. He looked back over his right shoulder, just in time to see the ball spiral toward him with a grace he would never forget. He opened his palms like cradles, and then it was in his hands, and he wrapped his arms around it and locked it against his chest and turned up-field. He saw the two safeties moving to intercept him and could sense, galloping hard at his back, the end who, for a fateful fraction of a second, had bought Cork’s feint. Cork ran as he’d never run before. At midfield, the nearest safety angled toward him, and Cork veered straight at the kid. An instant before they collided, he danced right and spun and shed the arm tackle, and ran on. At the thirty-yard line, he heard a grunt as the end behind him launched himself in a last, desperate effort to grasp an ankle. Cork stumbled but didn’t go down. He saw the goal line, twenty yards ahead, and the second safety running an arc that would cut him off well before he scored. There was no feeling left in his legs, no strength. He ran on wooden stumps that barely supported him and that had no trickery left in them at all. He would, he knew absolutely, come up short.
And then a figure flew past him, fleet as a deer or the dream of a deer, and a mud-covered body threw a block that toppled the Blue Devil safety, and Cork loped untouched across the goal line, and the game was theirs.
He turned in the end zone and watched Jubal Little disentangle himself from the safety and rise, exhausted. Across a ground as brutalized as a battlefield, their eyes met.
In his life so far, Cork had never known a finer moment. And in that moment, he thought that he would never know a better friend.
The trouble began at the homecoming dance on Saturday night.
The music for the dance was provided by a group who called themselves the Wild Savages. It was Willie Crane’s idea and his energy that had brought the group together; Winona provided most of the vocals. Willie played lead guitar and Indian flute. Two other guys from the rez-Andy Desjarlais and Greg “Hoops” LeBeau, playing bass guitar and drums, respectively-completed the ensemble. They did covers of recent tunes-“Good Lovin’,” “Hanky Panky,” “Surfer Girl,” “Hang on Sloopy”-but they also slipped in some of their own compositions, which tended to rely heavily on Willie’s flute playing and the driving beat of Hoops’s drums, so that an Ojibwe sensibility came through clearly. In the North Country of Minnesota, the Wild Savages had a following and had become a popular choice for school dances.
The dance was held in the high school gymnasium and was a pretty good affair, especially because praise continued to rain down on Cork for winning the game the night before. He knew it hadn’t been just him; it was Jubal’s calling of the play and it was Jubal’s delivery of the ball that had made the difference. But Jubal was content to step aside and let Cork shine in the spotlight. Which was the kind of thing Jubal often did, and not just for Cork. He generously gave away the glory others desperately dreamed of having and shamefully coveted
. The reason may have been that glory came to him so easily; but Cork chose to see something Ojibwe in his best friend’s behavior. His generosity of spirit was the kind valued by Henry Meloux and Sam Winter Moon, and Cork believed that, although Jubal wouldn’t admit it, more and more he was acknowledging and embracing the Indian side of his heritage.
Donner Bigby came late to the dance and with the smell of alcohol on his breath. He brought a date, Gloria Agostino, who’d graduated a year before and worked in the office of the logging operation Bigby’s father owned and who had always had a slightly tarnished reputation. At ten o’clock, the Wild Savages took a break and everyone left the dance floor and hit the long tables where there were cookies and punch. To the dance, Jubal had brought Judy Petermann, a cheerleader, a sweet girl with the kindest smile imaginable. She was clearly taken with him-what girl wouldn’t be? — but Jubal, though polite, didn’t seem especially interested. Girls fell all over him, yet Jubal didn’t seem to notice anyone in particular. Cork had come to the dance stag. Lately, he’d been dating Winona Crane, something his mother wasn’t particularly happy about. Winona had a reputation. But for Cork, who’d loved her forever, it was like finally reaching the promised land. He didn’t delude himself. He understood Winona didn’t feel about him the same way, but-he knew this was pathetic-he was willing to take whatever she offered him.
Jubal left Judy Petermann in the gymnasium talking with one of her friends and drinking punch while he and Cork went to the restroom. In an alcove off the hallway, they found Winona and Willie, cooling themselves in the breeze that blew from an opened exit door. Winona was just downing something from the palm of her hand, which she chased with a quick swig from a bottle of Coca-Cola. She smiled at them, her dark eyes incandescent.
“Great game yesterday,” Willie told Cork, though it came from his mouth sounding more like gray game yeday.
Cork said, “Thanks, Willie.”
“You were amazing,” Winona said and gave his shoulder a gentle punch.
Which was a sisterly gesture from a young woman Cork still hoped might someday see him differently. Since those days when he and Willie and Winona used to hit Sam’s Place after school, Winona had changed a good deal. She’d grown more striking in her beauty, but she seemed more and more to be riding a self-destructive current, which was not unusual for Ojibwe youth raised on the rez. Cork was afraid for her, but he had no real way of influencing her differently. Even Willie, who despite all his own hardship, did his best to protect her, had told Cork he felt helpless most of the time. Winona did what Winona wanted to do. That’s all there was to it.
Jubal leaned easily against the wall beside her, grinned, and said, “That’s my man.”
Winona glanced at Jubal, and then her gaze jumped away, as if she couldn’t look long on that too handsome face. “You were pretty good yourself,” she said to him, though her words seemed to be addressed to the floor.
It was the dance Jubal Little and Winona Crane had been doing for years. Those times they were together, the electricity between them crackled. Yet they both seemed intent on keeping their meetings to a minimum. To Cork, it appeared as if they were both terribly afraid-not of each other but of what might be created if they ever allowed themselves to touch. He loved Jubal and he loved Winona and he hated that attraction, which was so obvious between them.
“Fuck you” came another voice, this one from outside the open door. A moment later, Donner Bigby stepped in from the night. Behind him, but still in the dark beyond the door, stood Gloria. “Fuck you both. I was the one who got us there.”
Jubal pushed from the wall and turned to Bigby, who held a small silver flask in his hand. “We got there as a team, Bigs.”
“You got there on my back. Then O’Connor makes one play, and he’s the big hero,” Bigby responded. He gave Cork a killing look.
“You won,” Winona said. “Isn’t that what’s important?”
“Who asked you, bitch?”
“Don’t call her that,” Willie said.
“Doan caw her at,” Bigby mimicked.
“Just leave,” Jubal suggested evenly.
“Fuck if I will.”
Cork stepped next to Jubal, and together they filled the alcove as they faced Bigby. At that same moment, Mr. Hildebrandt passed along the main hallway. He taught English and was the assistant football coach and one of the chaperones at the dance. He was big and broad, a lot of power and authority contained in his frame. He glanced into the alcove, took in the body language of Cork and Jubal and Bigby, and must have understood immediately what was going on. He approached them.
“What’re you drinking there, Donner?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Bigby said and slipped the flask into his back pocket.
Hildebrandt nodded, considered all the young people in the alcove, then said, “Why don’t you go on home, Donner?”
“I don’t want to go,” Bigby snapped.
In the face of the kid’s anger, Hildebrandt brought out his coach’s voice. “Go home, Donner,” he ordered. “Go home now.”
“Fuck you.”
“What did you say? No, don’t repeat it. Bigby, you’re out of here. And don’t bother suiting up for practice on Monday. Men like you I don’t need playing for me.”
Bigby looked as if he was contemplating taking a swing at his former coach. Then his eyes, burning through a thin alcoholic haze, passed over Cork and Jubal and Willie and finally Winona, and he didn’t have to say what he was thinking. He turned and rejoined Gloria outside, and as they vanished into the night, Cork heard him say, “Let’s blow this shithole.”
When they were gone, Hildebrandt breathed deeply and nodded as if he’d simply finished a rational discussion in which a rational decision had been reached and said, as if nothing extraordinary had just transpired, “Winona, Willie, you guys are great up there. Love the music.” He headed back to the gymnasium.
The alcove was silent for a long moment afterward, then Jubal shrugged. “Guess that’s that.”
“You think so?” Winona said. Her eyes were focused beyond the open door, as if she knew absolutely that the darkness there hid demons.
What happened later that night, Cork didn’t learn about until the next morning. He was at the breakfast table in the kitchen, dressed for Mass at St. Agnes and working on a bowl of Wheaties, when a knock came at the front door. He found Deputy Cy Borkman standing on the porch, hat in hand.
“Your mom home, Cork?” the deputy asked.
“No, she’s already gone to church, Cy. What is it?”
“Well, it’s really you I want to see. Mind if I come in?”
They sat in the living room, and Borkman told him about Winona Crane. She and her brother had been packing up their equipment after the dance. By then, the only vehicles left in the school parking lot were the janitor’s station wagon and the Cranes’ old pickup. They had almost everything stowed in the bed of the truck when Willie remembered that he’d left his hat, a fine black Stetson with a band that Winona had braided for him and that was adorned with an eagle feather, an item sacred to the Anishinaabeg. He went back into the building. The hallways were mostly dark by then. Willie made his way to the gymnasium, but the lights were off, and he couldn’t see well enough to locate his hat. He went in search of Mr. Guerrero, the janitor, whom he found in the basement, adjusting the furnace for the night. Together they returned to the gym and located the hat, which was under the bleachers and, to Willie’s great dismay, had been stomped flat. The braided band had been ripped into pieces, and the eagle feather was gone. Mr. Guerrero was sympathetic but needed to close up, and he accompanied Willie to the school door. Ruined hat in hand, Willie crossed the parking lot to the truck where he’d left his sister. But Winona wasn’t there.
Willie called for her and got no answer. He made his way back to the school as quickly as his awkward legs would carry him, and he pounded on the door until Mr. Guerrero opened up again. Then he explained his situation. Mr. Guerrero went to his
station wagon and took a flashlight from the glove box, and together he and Willie began to search the grounds.
They found her lying on the torn and muddy football field, found her because they heard her crying. When Mr. Guerrero shone his light on her, they saw that she’d been beaten. They saw something else in that hard circle of light, something that Deputy Borkman refrained from mentioning but that Cork heard about later. Winona, that night, had dressed in a denim skirt whose hemline she’d embroidered herself with clan images: a bear, a crane, a loon, an eagle, and others. When her brother and Mr. Guerrero found her, she no longer wore the skirt.
“Did she see who did it?” Cork asked, his gut gone hard as a fist.
Borkman shook his head. “Too dark. And she was attacked from behind. Whoever did it hit her several times, and she doesn’t remember much after that.”
“You know who did it,” Cork said.
“No, son, we don’t. Do you?”
“Donner Bigby,” Cork said.
“His name’s been mentioned,” Borkman acknowledged. “And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We understand there was some kind of altercation at the dance last night and that you were involved.”
“Nothing happened,” Cork said. “Except Bigs got thrown out of the dance. You should talk to Mr. Hildebrandt about that.”
“We have. You didn’t see Donner Bigby come back to the dance?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t lurking around somewhere.”
“Gloria Agostino says he wasn’t. She says they left the school grounds and Donner was with her until well after one o’clock.”
“She’s lying.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out here, Cork.”
“It was Bigs,” Cork said angrily.
“Careful there,” Borkman said. “We don’t want to go accusing anyone without proof. After he left the dance, you didn’t see Donner Bigby again last night?”
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