Cork brought up the rear, his wounded leg ready to buckle. He concentrated all his efforts on moving the leg forward, carrying him carefully and quietly toward Ren. They had no plan, which was a problem, but there was no time for planning. The light was fading and dark was the worst enemy of all. They had to rely on Charlie to guide them, and then they would have to improvise. In this, he trusted Dina. At that moment, there was no one he would rather have as a partner.
Charlie raised her hand and stopped. Her head turned slowly right, then left. Had she made an error? Were they off track? Charlie turned to them, a pained expression on her face. She was uncertain.
They were near where the trees edged the old resort. If the man’s plan had been to shoot Cork, then he’d probably set himself up just inside the tree line. This was a delicate moment. They were close enough to give themselves away easily, but still not certain of the exact location of Ren.
He touched Dina’s shoulder and pointed for her to move right. He indicated he would go left. She nodded and signaled for Charlie to come with her. They separated and crept away twenty yards, then waited. Cork slipped left the same distance. On his signal, they moved forward again. With luck, he hoped Ren and his captor would be caught somewhere between them. Cork walked on the outside of his soles, an old stalking technique he’d learned hunting that allowed him to move silently. All his senses were focused on the woods around him as he sought to pick up anything out of place. A trickle of sweat crawled down his face like a spider. Suddenly he walked into the unmistakable aroma of barbecued meat. There was almost no wind, just enough to carry the tangy scent. From which direction? He bent and cracked open a milkweed pod, plucked a piece of fluff from inside, let it go. The fluff drifted lazily northwest. The man and his barbecue were somewhere southeast. Cork adjusted his line and crept ahead.
Ten seconds later the silence around him was shattered by a scream that was followed by a thrashing in the underbrush and the grunting of a desperate struggle. Cork abandoned stealth and rushed ahead, afraid for Ren.
In the dim evening light, Cork stumbled onto a nightmarish scene. On the ground a man wrestled to free himself from the grip of a cougar, whose powerful jaws were locked on the back of his neck. The man flailed and screamed, but the cougar, larger and heavier, held tight. A few yards away Ren hung from the branch of a tree, his wrists high above his head, his feet just inches off the ground, his eyes wide as he watched the horror of the attack.
Cork swung the Glock toward the struggle on the ground, but the two figures were so tightly enmeshed, he couldn’t risk a shot.
Dina and Charlie appeared beside Ren. Dina sighted down the barrel of her carbine but didn’t fire.
The cougar, intent on its kill, hadn’t seen the others arrive. Cork raised his Glock and fired into the air, hoping to distract the beast, to startle it into breaking off its attack. The cougar spun, teeth bared.
Cork, Dina, and Charlie all held dead still, but at the sound of the gun, Ren had begun to kick his legs wildly, crying out through the tape over his mouth a muffled “No!” It was a plea, Cork understood, not to kill the animal.
All that movement, which Ren meant to save the wild cat, in the end spelled its doom. The cougar, confused and threatened, focused on Ren and his wild legs. The animal’s ears lay back. As it gathered on its haunches, Dina moved instantly between Ren and the cat.
The animal launched itself and Cork fired twice.
The cougar cried out like a kicked housecat, turning awkwardly in midair as if its internal gyroscope had been destroyed. It fell far short of Dina and Ren and lay on the ground, stunned. After a moment, it tried to struggle to its feet but, failing, became still. For a minute, the quiet of that small circle of woods was broken only by the animal’s labored breathing.
The man groaned and rolled onto his back. “Help me,” he rasped.
“Keep him covered,” Dina told Cork.
She wrapped her arms around Ren and lifted him free of the branch. Charlie already had her pocket-knife out and she cut the tape from his wrists. He pulled the strip off his mouth and the first thing he said was “We’ve gotta save the cougar.”
“I’m hurt,” the man on the ground pleaded.
“Cover me,” Cork said to Dina. “I’ll pat him down.”
“Fucking gun’s in my belt,” the man said. “Take it. Just get me to a hospital.”
Cork pulled the gun, a nine-millimeter Ruger, from the man’s belt and ejected the clip. He went over the rest of his body but found no other weapon and stepped back.
“The cougar,” Ren repeated, edging near the downed animal.
“Stay back,” Dina said firmly.
“But it’s going to die.”
Dina put the Motorola to her lips. “Jewell, do you read me?”
“I’m here. What’s going on? What were those shots?”
“Ren’s safe, but we need you up here and bring your medical kit.”
“It’s not Ren?”
“No. A couple of wounded animals. A cougar and a rat.”
“Ned’s here. He’s coming with me.”
“I’ll meet you at the cabins and guide you over.” She lowered the walkie-talkie.
“I’ll go,” Charlie offered. “I’m faster.”
“All right,” Dina said. “And, Charlie? You did a good job today.”
The girl flashed a big smile and was gone, bounding swiftly and gracefully toward the distant cabins.
“You okay, Ren?” Cork put his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
“Yeah, I guess.” He sounded distracted, his attention focused on the wounded wild cat.
Dina walked to the man on the ground, looked down at him, and shook her head. “Vernon Mann.”
“You know him?” Cork asked.
“ ‘The Mann who would be king,’ we used to call him when I was with the feds. He was DEA back then, full of delusions of grandeur. Went private like me. Not nearly as good or as principled, however. Still overachieving, Vern? You’re way outside your comfort level here, schmuck, but I bet for five hundred thousand dollars you’d slit your own grandmother’s throat.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mann said.
“On second thought, you’d probably do it for a lot less. Who clued you in, Vern?”
Vernon Mann didn’t answer. Dina bent down, drew him up roughly into a sitting position.
“Let me take a look at those cougar wounds,” she said.
Mann leaned forward slightly.
“A couple dozen well-placed stitches and you’ll be fine, Vern.”
Cork couldn’t see exactly what Dina was doing, but Mann suddenly arched his back and screamed in pain.
“So how ’bout it, Vern? How’d you find us?”
“All right, all right,” he cried. “I got a buddy at the Sun-Times. Somebody called him from up here looking for information about O’Connor. He called me. I did some digging, came up with a relative, Jewell DuBois.”
They heard the vehicles rumbling up the lane to the cabins. Through the trees, Cork saw the Pathfinder and Hodder’s Cherokee stop where Charlie waited. Jewell jumped out, ran to her Blazer, and grabbed her medical bag from inside. Hodder joined her. They spoke briefly with Charlie, then followed her at a jog toward the trees.
The moment she saw Ren, Jewell wrapped him in her arms. The boy didn’t pull away from his mother’s public display of affection.
“Can you save it, Mom?” he asked, nodding toward the downed cougar.
“Hell, what about me?” whined Vernon Mann.
“Relax,” Dina told him. “You’ll live. And, Vern, I heard Michigan prison food isn’t all that bad.”
Ren started toward the cougar, but his mother put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to try to sedate him. Then we’ll see.”
As Jewell opened her bag, the cougar’s rasping breathing ceased and a terrible moment of quiet followed.
“No,” Ren cried. He tried to move toward the animal, but Dina held h
im back.
“Don’t go near him, Ren,” his mother ordered. “Don’t anybody go near him. Let me check him first.”
Cork watched Jewell approach carefully. He still had the Glock trained on the animal. It was a beautiful creature of sand-colored fur and strong muscle. Its eyes were open. Cork, who’d hunted all his life, knew the dead look in them, but he found himself hoping he was wrong, that Jewell would discover some sign of life.
She stayed clear of the big paws and the long teeth and gingerly touched the animal’s side near its haunch. Her hand drifted slowly up the sleek body, pausing here and there to feel. She drew a stethoscope from her bag, slipped it under the front leg, and pressed it to the cougar’s chest.
Cork glanced at Ren. The boy stood rigid, waiting. His eyes, which had already seen so much horror, were half-closed in anticipation of the truth.
“He’s dead,” Jewell pronounced at last.
The boy broke.
It wasn’t just the cougar, Cork told himself. It was the strain of all that had gone before. Ren knelt and sobbed bitterly over an animal he’d never seen before.
“You killed it,” he accused, his dark eyes attacking Cork. “You murdered it.”
Cork lowered the gun that had been trained on the cougar. “I’m sorry, Ren.”
“It’s not right,” Ren insisted. “It’s not right.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” Jewell said.
“Dude,” Charlie jumped in, “that thing was going after you and Dina. I don’t care how beautiful it was, I’d rather have you alive any day, dork.”
Ren gently stroked the still, tawny body. “It’s so beautiful.” He shook his head. “Everything dies.” It sounded like a hopeless truth.
“You didn’t,” Charlie told him. “And here I am.”
Ren stood up, tears trailing down his cheeks. He turned away and ran toward the cabins.
“Ren,” Charlie called.
“Let him go,” Jewell said. “He’ll be all right.”
Cork watched him stumble away. “Jesus, I feel like a murderer.”
Jewell put her hand on his arm. “Give him some time. He’ll understand.”
Ned Hodder said to Charlie, “Where were you hiding?”
“In one of the summer homes on the river. I broke in. I guess I’m in trouble, huh?”
Hodder gave it almost no thought at all. “Under the circumstances, I think we can square things pretty easily.”
Jewell closed her medical kit. “Ned, would you call DNR and let them know what we’ve got here. Have them pick up the cougar’s body.”
“And how about getting a fucking ambulance for me?” Vernon Mann cried.
Cork’s leg finally gave out. He sat down with his back against the tree where Ren had hung. Dina sat beside him.
“I guess we’re even,” she said.
“Even?”
“I saved your life, now you’ve saved mine.”
Cork heard sirens coming from the direction of the Copper River Club: the state police responding to Hodder’s call.
“We’re not done yet,” he said.
Dina closed her eyes and tilted her head as if listening to a distant song. “I know.”
49
By 9:00 P.M. the authorities were gone. The state police had taken custody of Gary Johnson. They also took Vernon Mann to be treated for his wounds from the cougar attack, then to be booked. Olafsson headed back to his office in Marquette looking weary at the prospect of the paperwork ahead of him but buoyed by his understanding of how all the tragic events in his jurisdiction were tied together. He’d even agreed to allow Charlie, for the moment, to stay with Jewell while things got sorted out legally. Two officers from the Department of Natural Resources had taken the dead cougar away. Ned Hodder stuck around.
Jo had called to let Cork know she and the kids were safe. They were all at the duplex with Rose and Mal. Boomer Grabowski was there, too. He was just as big as she remembered him.
“What are you going to do?” she’d asked. “You’re not going to just hand yourself over to Lou Jacoby?”
“I don’t know yet, Jo.”
“The police can help, can’t they?”
“If Jacoby wants me dead or my son or the pope for that matter, he’s got the money to make it happen despite the police. At this point, there’s only one way to deal with Jacoby.”
“Cork, I know you’re angry, but listen to me a moment.” She was struggling to remain calm, he could tell. Probably she was fighting back tears. “The Jacobys have hurt us enough. I can live with the rape and everything else that’s happened. I can’t live without you. Come home, sweetheart. We’ll think of something together.”
“I can’t do that, Jo.”
“Is Dina there?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me talk to her, okay?”
He gave Dina the phone. She listened and nodded. “That makes two of us. Don’t worry, Jo. He’s sometimes a little too noble, but he’s not dumb. We’ll see you in the morning, I promise.”
She handed the phone back to Cork.
“I love you,” Jo said. “I miss you.”
“I know. Same here.”
“Then come home.”
“Kiss the kids for me,” he said.
He had hung up before Jo could say more. For a while after that, he didn’t talk to anyone.
Charlie had disappeared into Ren’s bedroom, and the sound of their voices occasionally drifted through the cabin. They knew about the horror at Calvin Stokely’s cabin and were processing it, Cork guessed. He drank strong black coffee from a mug, preparing himself for the long drive ahead. Dina sat on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, the firelight etching shadows across her face. Ned and Jewell sat on the sofa, almost touching.
“It’s time,” Cork said at last. He took a final gulp of coffee and set the mug on the table.
“I’m going with you,” Dina said.
“We’ll be walking into a real mess.”
“Like we haven’t already?”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re leaving?” Charlie stood near the kitchen. Cork hadn’t heard her come in. She was staring at Dina, looking worried. “For good?”
Dina got up slowly. “For a while.”
“But you’ll come back?”
“You want that?” Dina asked.
Charlie looked down at her hands and spoke softly. “Yeah.”
“When this business down in Illinois is finished, I’ll come back.”
Charlie raised her eyes, hopeful. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“How’s Ren?” Cork asked.
Charlie shrugged. “You know.”
Jewell stood up. “Let me have one last look at that leg, Cork. In the bedroom.”
She got her medical bag and Cork followed her to the guest room. She closed the door. He dropped his pants and sat on the edge of the bed. She knelt and examined his wounds.
“The new stitches are holding,” she said. “No infection. Let me clean them again, then promise me that when you get to Chicago you’ll see a physician.” She opened her bag.
“I’m sorry, Jewell. I was wrong coming here,” Cork said. “I thought it would keep my family safe and wouldn’t threaten you and Ren. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“I don’t mind how it’s worked out.”
“We were lucky.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I don’t think so. I believe we were guided by a wiser hand than we realized.”
He winced as she took a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide and wiped away ooze that had crusted over the line of stitches. “I’ve got a friend, an old Ojibwe Mide named Henry Meloux,” he said.
“Meloux? My mother used to talk about him. Fondly.”
“A wise man. He told me once every falling leaf comes to rest where it was always meant to.”
“You haven’t come to rest yet.” She finished with his wounds and laid her hand against his cheek.
“You’ll be careful?”
“Of course. And I won’t be alone.”
“Dina.” She seemed comforted by that. “When it’s done, let me know that you’re safe. And, Cork, let’s be family again.”
“We never stopped.”
She closed her bag. Cork hiked his pants up and they returned to the main room.
Ren was waiting. “I didn’t mean to be, like, such a . . . you know.”
“It’s okay,” Cork told him. “I feel bad about killing the cougar, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant saving you.”
The boy thought about it. “I guess that’s being a man, huh?”
“I don’t know about that. It’s what I’d do, is all.”
“If it was you, I guess I’d do the same.”
Cork put his hand on Ren’s shoulder. “I’m sorry my situation got you in serious trouble. I made a mistake, a pretty big one.”
Ren waved off the apology. “It’s okay. I just wish you didn’t have to go.”
“But you understand?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be back. A lot, I promise.”
Ren tried to smile. “You want to see something?”
“Sure.”
He led Cork to his bedroom and picked up the big drawing pad from his desk. Cork studied the fine line sketch of Ren’s hero White Eagle swooping out of the sky over a rocky shoreline that was clearly a Lake Superior landscape. He was pleasantly surprised by the figure of White Eagle, whose face now very much resembled Daniel DuBois, Ren’s father.
“He would have liked this,” Cork said.
The boy held the drawing in his hands and nodded. “I know.”
* * *
When the Pathfinder was loaded, they gathered on the porch of Thor’s Lodge.
Ren stood next to Dina, eyeing her shyly.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said. He handed her a rolled page from his sketchbook.
Looking over her shoulder, Cork saw that it was the drawing Ren had done of a cougar with Dina’s face. The boy had managed to make her seem mythic, a creature both wild and lovely. Cork thought Ren had captured her spirit beautifully.
Dina looked down and her face grew soft in a way Cork had not seen before. “It’s the nicest gift anyone’s ever given me, Ren.”
The William Kent Krueger Collection 2 Page 97