Desolation Mountain

by Krueger, William Kent

“They’re actually orange now. And according to NTSB, there was no flight recorder on board.”

  Gerard ignored him, shook his head. “Someone thinks the Indians must have it.”

  “It was the Indians who searched the woods where the tail section of the plane broke off. So, yeah, maybe it’s the flight recorder they’re after. Or maybe it’s something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s the black box, Thorson. It holds the answers.”

  “Why would the Indians be hanging on to it?”

  “Leverage,” Gerard suggested. “Isn’t that what everyone wants in a negotiation?”

  “Who would they use this leverage on?”

  Gerard had no reply.

  “If it is the flight recorder, and if, as you say, it holds the answers, and if I’m able to get it for you—a lot of ifs, by the way—what will the people you’re working for do with those answers?”

  “Not my concern. Or yours.”

  “Just keeping the lid on things, is that what they’re paying you for?”

  “That,” Gerard said, “and making sure you stay in line.”

  Bo lifted the beer he was holding in a sign of peace. “No trouble here.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Did you get anything out of your interrogation of Stephen O’Connor?”

  For a moment, surprise showed on Gerard’s face, then the look vanished. He puffed on his cigar. “How’d you know about O’Connor?”

  “Part of what I’m being paid for, knowing that kind of thing.”

  “Just a curious kid. I reminded him that curiosity killed the cat.”

  “A lesson I’m sure he took to heart,” Bo said wryly.

  Gerard ashed his cigar and scraped off the ember along the deck railing. He put what was left in his shirt pocket. “I want to hear from you regularly, understood?”

  “I read you loud and clear, Colonel.”

  Gerard walked back through the cottage and out the front door. Bo remained on the deck, waiting for the sound of Gerard’s SUV to fade into the distance. On the lake, just beyond the mouth of the inlet, a boat drifted past, a man trolling. Bo considered what he might really be fishing for. In his life now, he never assumed that anything was what it seemed.

  He wondered, were Gerard’s men the ones hunting the Indians, or was someone else involved in this game? He shook his head at that thought. It might be deadly, but that’s what it was, a game. Like chess, only without the luxury of seeing the whole board or knowing all the players. NTSB. FBI. Gerard and his ghost command. Homeland Security? DoD? Maybe even NSA?

  What Bo told Cork O’Connor had been the truth. The government he’d worked for as a member of the Secret Service had never been of one mind. It was, and clearly continued to be, a fractured, barely contained conglomerate of little kingdoms, at war with one another just as often as they were at war with the enemies who threatened. In this isolated county in the North Country, who knew what kind of battle might result and which innocents might be caught in the crossfire?

  Bo finished his beer. The sun was dropping and there was still work to be done before the day ended.

  CHAPTER 20

  * * *

  Cork held out the baggie into which he’d put the expended cartridge Daniel had found at the Hukaris’ cabin. “Same MO as the Loves, Marsha. Shot dog, people missing.”

  The sheriff took the baggie and studied the contents. “Not a large caliber.” She looked up. “How’s the dog?”

  “He’ll make it.”

  “Any sign of struggle, resistance, a fight? Anything at all at the cabin besides the shot dog?”

  “Nothing obvious.”

  “So it could still be that Sue Hukari was having difficulty with the pregnancy and Phil took her somewhere to be seen. And . . .” She eyed the spent cartridge. “Someone’s got a jones on for shooting dogs in Tamarack County.”

  “Daniel checked at the clinic in Allouette and at the hospital here in town. They didn’t show up at either place.”

  Dross set the baggie on her desktop. “I know it doesn’t look good, Cork, but really, what do we have to go on? I need something more than shot dogs.”

  “I’m not asking you for help, Marsha. Just keeping you in the loop.”

  She walked to the window. The view beyond was one Cork knew intimately from his own tenure as sheriff: the park, Zion Lutheran Church, the businesses along Oak Street, everything festooned in the red and gold of autumn.

  “Something’s going on in our county, Cork, something big. I hate to admit it, but I’m feeling helpless against it. Alex Quaker paid me a visit just before you came.”

  “Should I know him?”

  “The number two man with the National Security Branch.”

  “Which is?”

  “Responsible for the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. A courtesy call, diplomatically letting me know that I wasn’t to interfere or involve myself in any way with the investigation of Senator McCarthy’s plane crash.”

  “Counterterrorism? So they think the crash wasn’t caused by pilot error?”

  “He didn’t say that. His explanation was simply that in these unsettled times and with someone as highly placed as a U.S. senator, eliminating terrorism as a possibility is essential. He was sure I understood. I told him that we would cooperate in every way we could. To which he said, and I quote, ‘Just stay out of our way.’ ” She turned back. “What I wanted to say to that imperious blowhard was, how would you like it if I invaded your backyard and told you to go screw yourself?”

  “Stephen got hauled in this morning and interrogated by someone who wasn’t FBI.”

  “Who?”

  Cork related Stephen’s story of the men searching the aspen grove on Desolation Mountain and of his questioning by the man called Gerard.

  “Military?”

  “Certainly military trained. And clearly with authority. But nothing to identify any specific branch.”

  The sheriff stared at the floor, thinking. “Ned and Monkey Love. Blessing. The Hukaris.” She lifted her eyes. “Daniel’s next, Cork.”

  “That’s what we figured, too.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Put Jenny and Waaboo in a safe place, so they’re out of harm’s way. That’s already happening.”

  “Daniel’s with them?”

  Cork shook his head. “I need him with me.”

  “Risky.”

  “Maybe so, but he understands.”

  “Does Jenny?”

  That was a question Cork left unanswered as he departed the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Office. It was late afternoon, the shadows growing long. He drove a couple of miles out of town to Olson Field, where, in a previously empty hangar, the experts from NTSB continued their business of sorting through the debris from the crash, looking for answers.

  Supposedly looking for answers, Cork thought. Because he’d come to understand that at this moment in Tamarack County nothing might be as it seemed. There was plenty of activity at the airfield, vehicles arriving, leaving, NTSB personnel perhaps, but hard to tell because nothing was identified except by government license plates. Cork parked near the airfield entrance and spent an hour writing down the vehicle plates as they passed.

  He was just about to wrap up when his cell phone rang. As soon as he answered, he heard the terrified voice of Beulah Love on the other end.

  “Someone’s after me, Cork. Help me. Please.”

  * * *

  She met him at the old Quonset hut, having kept to main, well-traveled roads, as he’d instructed over the phone. When he greeted her at the door, her face was ashen, her hands shaking.

  “They’re following me everywhere,” she said without preamble.

  “Sit down and tell me about it, Beulah. Can I get you something? Coffee?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” she said in a pitched voice. “Just get them off me.”

  “Sit down,” he said again
and pulled out a chair for her at the table. He sat, too, and leaned toward her. “I want to know everything. From the beginning.”

  “After you left this morning, I headed to work at the casino,” she began. “The whole way I had the feeling I was being followed.”

  “You spotted a car?”

  “No. Just a feeling. I told myself it was because I knew about Ned and Jameson and poor little Cyrus and I was being silly. But when I got to the casino, I spent a moment in my car, trying to pull myself together, and I saw this pickup truck drive in and park not far away. It just sat there. I finally got out and went into the casino. As soon as I was inside, I looked back through the glass doors. Two men got out of the truck and went to my car, Cork. Right to my car.”

  “Did they do anything to it?”

  “Not while I was watching. They started toward the casino and I took off, hurried up to the office.”

  “Did they follow you into the casino?”

  “I don’t know. I thought they would, but I didn’t see them. Like I said, I went straight to the office. But I couldn’t work. I couldn’t concentrate. So I left early. The pickup wasn’t there anymore.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “To church to practice on the organ. I hoped it might settle my spirit. But they followed me there.”

  “You saw them?”

  “After I parked and went inside, I looked out the front window, just to be sure. The pickup drove past.”

  “The same vehicle, you’re certain?”

  “It looked the same, big and black.”

  “Did it stop?”

  “Just drove past. I kept watching, but it didn’t come back. I was scared, so I didn’t stay at the church. I started home, but I stopped at the IGA to pick up a few things first. When I got inside the store, I checked the parking lot, and within a minute, that black pickup was there, parked a couple rows away. That’s when I called you.”

  “What did these men look like?”

  Her eyes went distant as she concentrated. Then she shook her head. “Just men.”

  “How were they dressed?”

  She looked down at her hands, which had stopped shaking. “Jeans,” she said vaguely. “Flannel shirts. Down vests.”

  Which could have described half the male population in Tamarack County.

  “White, not Native?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see any firearms?”

  She hesitated. “No. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t going to hurt me.”

  “You’re safe now, Beulah. Coming to me was a good move.”

  “Who are they, Cork? What do they want with me?”

  “I can’t tell you who they are yet. But I think they’re looking for something they believe Ned or Jameson might have. Because you’re family, I think they’re surveilling you, hoping your brother or nephew might try to contact you.”

  “What can I do? Where do I go? I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Is there someone on the rez you can stay with?”

  Her eyes wandered the room. She looked back at Cork, clearly at a loss. The boarding school experience had killed the Indian in her, and she’d burned too many bridges on the rez. Ned and Jameson were her closest kin. She had nowhere to go.

  “Let me make a couple of calls,” Cork told her. “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”

  She gave him a silent nod.

  “How about a Waaboo Burger?” To her blank look, he said, “A bison burger. It’s good.”

  In Sam’s Place up front, he gave Judy Madsen the order. Judy had been with Cork forever, and she sometimes stepped in to manage when none of the O’Connors were available. “Getting low on the bison patties,” she informed him. “That Waaboo Burger’s a winner. Will you or Stephen or Jenny be working tonight, or should I bring in some other help?”

  They settled things, and Cork returned to Beulah and made a phone call to Sarah LeDuc.

  “I have a favor to ask.” He explained the situation. When he’d finished, he turned to Beulah. “I’m going to take you back to Allouette, but you won’t be alone there. Sarah has agreed that you can stay with her.”

  Beulah looked even more concerned. “Won’t that put her in danger?”

  “I don’t think you’re actually in any danger, Beulah. They’re just watching you, hoping to catch Ned and Jameson.”

  “What if I hear from Ned?”

  “Let me know. But don’t try to meet him or Jameson anywhere, okay?”

  She needed no convincing.

  Outside in the parking lot, Cork did a cursory check of Beulah’s car, looking for a tracking device the men might have planted. He found nothing obvious but knew that didn’t necessarily mean the car was clean. He led the way out of Aurora, Beulah following. He watched the road behind, keeping an eye out for the black pickup, or any other vehicle that might be tailing them. He was pretty certain that despite his best efforts, whoever it was tracking Beulah would know where she’d gone. What he’d told her was what he believed to be true, that she herself was no immediate danger. She would only be in trouble if she had contact with Ned or Monkey.

  In Allouette, they parked in front of the Mocha Moose. The coffee shop closed at two every afternoon, but Sarah was waiting and she opened up for Beulah. “Boozhoo,” she said in greeting.

  “Thank you,” Beulah replied, almost in tears. “Thank you, Sarah.”

  Cork stood in the doorway. “If you have any concerns at all, call me. I mean immediately, Sarah.”

  “I’ve got this, Cork.” Sarah gestured toward the outside world. “Go do whatever you have to do.”

  He left the two women, knowing they would go to the living area above the coffee shop, which Sarah had occupied alone ever since her husband was murdered. This thought caused Cork’s mind to leap back to the memory of his first wife, Jo, whose death had been caused by the same men who’d killed George LeDuc. For a moment, everything inside him tensed, and he was suddenly uncertain in his belief that Sarah and Beulah weren’t in any real danger. How could he know that for sure?

  On the other side of Manomin Street, the main route through Allouette, was the little gallery where Harmon Goodsky showed his photographs and those of other Native artists. Cork crossed the street and entered the gallery. A small bell above the door rang, but no one came forward immediately. Then a young man stepped from behind the curtains across a doorway that led to the back area of the gallery.

  “Anin, Winston,” Cork said in greeting.

  Winston Goodsky, Harmon’s grandson, was fourteen years old, willowy in the way of youths. He was a shy boy, one who didn’t often lift his gaze from the floor. In his hand, he carried a framed photograph.

  “Anin, Mr. O’Connor,” the boy replied, studying the wood planks at Cork’s feet.

  “Is your granddad around?”

  “In back. In the darkroom.”

  Goodsky was a photographer of the old school. He still used film in all his work.

  “What do you have there?” Cork asked, indicating the photograph the boy held.

  “Nothing.” The boy hid the framed photo behind his back.

  “Nothing?” Goodsky limped in from the back room. Although he towered over his grandson, he was still bent, resembling an old tree about to fall.

  Like many Native children, Winston was being raised by a relative, not his parents. His father was in prison, his mother long dead from a drug overdose. Harmon Goodsky was his legal guardian. Cork knew that with the cancer eating him up inside, Goodsky worried about what would happen to Winston when he was gone. There were other relatives, but Social Services was bound to step in, and who knew what might be the final determination and in whose hands Winston might end up. If it was foster care, then Cork knew Goodsky had every right to be gravely concerned.

  “Show him your work, Winston.”

  Without lifting his eyes, the boy offered up the photograph, a lovely shot of a single aspen leaf fallen on the ground. The leaf was gold-orange
, the color of a ripe peach, cut evenly by deep veins, and framed dramatically by the dark soil beneath it. Cork had seen this leaf a million times across decades of autumns, but the photograph made him realize that he’d never taken the time to look closely, to appreciate fully the beauty in that simple image.

  “I try to get him to use a good thirty-five-millimeter, like my Nikon, but he’s all into digital,” Goodsky said.

  “It’s a great picture, Winston.” Cork handed it back.

  “And we’re going to put it up.” Goodsky took the photograph from his grandson’s hand, walked to an emptied place on the wall, and hung it. “There, right next to some of my best work.”

  “It’s not as good as yours,” the boy said quietly.

  “It’s promising,” his grandfather said. “And it’ll sell, mark my words. Something you need, Cork?”

  Cork glanced at Winston. “Could we talk in private?”

  “How about you start us some dinner?” Goodsky said to his grandson. “There’s leftover meat loaf and some scalloped potatoes that can be heated up. Maybe a can of peas along with it.”

  The boy disappeared through the curtains. Cork heard his steps as he climbed the stairway to the second floor, where he and his grandfather lived.

  “So, what’s up?” Goodsky asked.

  “Some trouble. Beulah Love is staying across the street with Sarah. Somebody’s been following her and she’s scared.”

  Goodsky scowled. “Following her? Who?”

  “Don’t know that yet.”

  “Why would anyone follow Beulah? You’re sure she’s not imagining things?”

  “I think it has something to do with Ned and Monkey, some people who are trying to track them down.”

  “Why would anyone be after Ned and Monkey?”

  “Again, I’m not sure. But I think Beulah isn’t imagining things.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Keep an eye on Sarah’s place. If you see anything that seems odd, strangers hanging around maybe, give me a call. Will you do that?”

  “That’s it? Why don’t I just go over and take care of them myself?”

  Before the cancer began chewing him alive, Goodsky could have handled almost anyone, even a couple of anyones. Cork wasn’t sure what Goodsky was or wasn’t capable of now.