Boundary waters co-2

by William Kent Krueger

  After a quarter mile, she came to an old yellow pick up, leprous with rust, that had been parked to the side of the road. From the pines beyond came the song of the chainsaw, the sound rising and falling as the teeth bit through timber. Forty yards into the trees, Shiloh found a short man with a thick gray beard, dressed in biballs and a red flannel shirt, his hands covered with brown leather gloves. He was cutting a small, felled pine into sections. He concentrated on his labor and didn’t see her at first. When he did, he eyed her a while before killing the engine.

  “Yah?”

  “Could you help me?” she asked.

  “Well, young lady, dat all depends. What ya need?” The saw hung heavy in his right hand, and the muscle of his forearm humped along the bone solid as a small rock ridge.

  “You see,” she said, “I’ve been lost a while. I need a ride.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I can pay,” she offered.

  “Pay? If ya got money, then I’m Jiminy Cricket.” He shook his head and ragged teeth smiled through his beard. “Ya look like somethin’ a bear sharpened his claws on. Pay, ya say? I’ll take ya, but I won’t take none of your money. Where ’bouts is it you’re goin’?”

  She told him.

  He lifted a metal thermos and started toward the road. “You Indian?”

  “Part Anishinaabe,” she replied. “The best part.”

  “Me, I’m Swedish and Finn. Da worst of ’em both, my wife says. Nils Larson.” He shoved the thermos under his arm, pulled off his glove, and offered his hand.

  “How do you do, Nils.”

  “Didn’t catch your name dere.”

  “Just call me grateful,” she said.

  Nils Larson dropped her off at the trailer of Wendell Two Knives. True to his word, he refused to consider payment. She’d told him nothing of her ordeal. She was safe now. Soon enough, she would have to deal with Wendell’s murder and the murder of Libbie Dobson, offer the police the information the man called Charon had given her, provide a description, do all she could to see that the murderer was caught. But for now, for just a little while, she wanted to think of nothing.

  In Shiloh’s heart, Wendell’s place was heaven’s doorstep. She walked down the dirt drive. The birches along the way had been thick with summer green when she’d last seen them, and the air had smelled of honeysuckle. Now, all the limbs were bare and what Shiloh breathed was the smell of wet earth and decaying leaves. But everything was heaven to her still. She went to the shed and tried the door. It opened easily. Wendell had told her he didn’t believe in locks. On the rez, nobody did. The red Mercedes was there, fine dust powdered evenly over the finish. Around it hung the tools of Wendell’s craft-handsaws, planes, mallets, wood chisels, and buckets-all of it steeped in the scent of evergreen pitch. She crossed to a shelf along the wall, reached into a tin can spattered with dried paint, and pulled out the keys to the car.

  She crossed the yard. The grass was still a deep green. Down a gentle slope on her left, cornflower blue behind a line of cedars, lay another lake, the one called Iron. She mounted the two steps to the door of the white trailer home. Out of habit born of a lifetime of cultural hammering, she knocked politely. Did she expect Wendell to answer? Something in her resisted still the idea he was gone forever, and she waited, as if a few breaths of time would make a difference. But nothing would, not for Wendell, not ever. Finally, she stepped in.

  The trailer had a large main room separated from the kitchen by a counter. A bathroom and bedroom were down a short hallway. The place was clean, well kept, the furniture simple. A soft brown sofa, a green easy chair, a television, a table with a couple of chairs where Wendell ate. White curtains, glowing with sunshine, hung in the windows. A compact metal fireplace with a glass door stood in one corner. It was what Wendell used for heat when his propane burner was on the blink. Next to it sat a wood rack that held a few logs and kindling.

  She hadn’t grieved for Wendell. There’d been no time. At the moment, she didn’t feel sadness. In fact, what suffused all her being was a profound sense of relief and a deep gratitude at still being alive. In this place that reflected Wendell’s spirit so evidently-right down to the birch-bark lampshade and the smell of sawed wood that had come to be like perfume to her-she still felt wonderfully safe. Grieving would come, she knew, in its own time. Right now, she was too damn tired.

  The trailer was chilly, holding in the cold of the last few days. Wendell, even when it was warm, laid a fire in the fireplace most evenings. He’d told her that he’d spent so much time around a campfire, the smell of wood smoke was almost as essential to him as the air itself. Shiloh put kindling and wood in the fireplace and lit a fire. Now the place seemed well and truly full of Wendell.

  She checked the refrigerator, took out bologna and bread, and wolfed a dry sandwich washed down with a Coke. She caught sight of herself in a small mirror that hung on the wall and she nearly leaped back in horror. Her hair jutted out in short, ragged splashes. Her face was smeared with mud and charcoal. She looked down at her hands. Grime had worked under the fingernails, giving her five black crescent moons on each hand. A grout of dirt filled the creases at her knuckles. The lines of her palms were black as poisoned veins.

  She went to the bathroom, the first indoor plumbing she’d seen in weeks. She ran water in the sink until it was hot, then took the soap from the small green dish and began to scrub. The hot water felt wonderful. It ran down her cheeks, long hot fingers stroking her neck. She glanced at the tub only a few feet away. A hot shower called to her like a lover. She hesitated. Ten minutes, she thought, no more. What difference could this small indulgence make? She quickly stripped off her clothes and dropped them where she stood. Reaching into the glass shower stall, she turned the water on and adjusted the knobs until hot vapors filled the air. The water startled her when she stepped in, the heat nearly unbearable. But she quickly settled into the liquid luxury she’d forgone so long, let the water run hot over every part of her, lifted her breasts to the stream, opened her mouth and took it in, joyously filling her senses.

  So enraptured was she that there was no way she could have heard the front door opening.

  47

  The morning began with a beautiful sunrise and went sour from there.

  Jo had been drinking coffee in the kitchen waiting for toast to pop up when the phone rang.

  “Jo. Wally Schanno.”

  His voice was beveled with caution, and Jo felt sick to her stomach. “What is it?”

  “We-uh-we just got word from the search plane.” He held up a moment, as if he’d come to a big jump he wasn’t sure he could make. “They’ve spotted two bodies.”

  “Two bodies.” Jo repeated the words, although she’d heard them well enough. Her mind was trying not to see the image the words conjured. “Do they… know who?”

  “Not yet.”

  Her throat had closed. She could barely swallow, and when she spoke again, it was in a hoarse whisper. “Are you at the department?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  She hung up and slowly turned. Jenny stood near the refrigerator, her eyes afraid. “Two bodies? Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Jo answered automatically. “It’s nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Rose was in the doorway, listening, too. Jo glanced at her, trying to decide if between them they could dull the cruel, sharp edges of the truth. Rose shook her head.

  “Would you get Annie?” Jo asked her sister. “Let Stevie sleep.”

  Rose came back with Annie. Annie had a hairbrush in her hand, half her red Irish tangle brushed smooth. She glanced at Jenny and, as if it were contagious, Jenny’s worry appeared on Annie’s face. “What’s going on?”

  “Sit down,” Jo said. “Both of you.”

  She related the salient events of the past few days, and when she was finished, the girls sat motionless and silent.

  “Isn’t there anything someone c
an do?” Annie finally blurted.

  “They’re doing all they can right now,” Jo said.

  “Those two bodies?” Jenny asked.

  “They don’t know yet. I’m going down to the sheriff’s office now.”

  “What can we do?” Annie asked.

  “I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.”

  “We can pray,” Rose suggested.

  Jenny stared at the tabletop. “I’m not going to school.”

  “All right,” Jo said.

  “Mom?”

  “What is it, Annie?”

  “Does Dad know there are, like, these other bad guys out there?”

  “I don’t know what he knows. But I’ll tell you this: If I were Shiloh, I’d want someone exactly like your dad out there trying to help.”

  “I know he’s going to be okay,” Annie said.

  “How do you know?” Jenny shot back.

  “I just know.”

  “Oh, I suppose God talked to you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Girls,” Jo said. She took them both in her arms, felt their fear as she held them, and knew it was her fear, as well. “I wish I could say everything’s going to be fine, but nobody knows. Rose is right. Praying is good. Holding on to each other helps, too. We’re a family. We all need to be together in this, okay? We need to be there for one another.” She kissed the tops of their heads. “I have to go to the sheriff’s office. Don’t worry about school today. I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.”

  Wally Schanno hadn’t received any additional word when Jo reached his office. The bodies had been spotted on a point of land on a southeast arm of Wilderness Lake. The search plane was going to attempt a landing and investigate. The helicopter, which had one of Schanno’s deputies on board, was proceeding there as well.

  “Have you told Agent Harris or Nathan Jackson?” Jo asked.

  Schanno said he had.

  “I’ll phone the Benedettis.”

  Angelo Benedetti took the call. “Where are you?” he asked after she’d explained the situation.

  She told him.

  His end of the line was quiet. She wasn’t sure if he was waiting for her to say something more. Then he surprised her by asking sincerely, “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be better when I know what’s happened up there.”

  “Sure.”

  She heard him turn from the phone and speak briefly in response to a voice in the background.

  “I’m coming down there,” he said to her.

  He showed up fifteen minutes later, was buzzed through the security door, and was escorted to Schanno’s office. Just as Benedetti entered, Deputy Cy Borkmann rushed in behind him. “S-and-R on the air, Sheriff.”

  Schanno hurried to the dispatch desk where Borkmann had been monitoring the frequency used by Search and Rescue. Jo and Benedetti were right behind him. The airwaves crackled with static. Borkmann said, “They’re standing by.”

  Schanno took the mike. “This is Sheriff Schanno. Do you read me? Over.”

  “Loud and clear, Sheriff. This is Dwayne.”

  “What’s the situation up there?”

  “We’ve ID’d the bodies from their driver’s licenses. Roy Alvin Evans and Sander Carlton Sebring. According to their licenses, they’re residents of Milaca. From the looks of their gear, I’d say they came to fish.”

  “How’d they die?”

  “Gunshot wounds to the chest on both of ’em. The cold makes it hard to tell, but I’d say they’ve been dead a while. Looks like they got snowed on after they died, and the snow’s pretty well melted off ’em now.”

  “Any sign of Cork and the others?”

  “Negative. But someone’s made sure the canoe these guys came in wasn’t going to take them or anybody else out of here. Big hole’s been punched through the hull from the inside. What do you want us to do, Sheriff?”

  “Stand by,” Schanno said into the mike.

  He stepped to the wall where a map of Wilderness Lake and the surrounding section of the Boundary Waters had been posted. He ran his finger over the map and tapped the place where the bodies had been discovered. His finger moved slowly southeast, following a blue line that indicated a river. He nodded to himself and lifted the mike back to his mouth.

  “Schanno coming back at you, Dwayne. Do you read me? Over.”

  “Still loud and clear, Sheriff.”

  “This is what I want you to do. You stay with the bodies and keep the scene as undisturbed as you can. Get the plane back in the air and have it head down the Deertail River. That’s the start of the circle route out if any of these people are coming out where they put in. Once the plane hits the Deertail Flowage, have it head west to do another flyover of Embarrass Lake. You copy all that?”

  “Ten-four, Sheriff. Over and out.”

  Schanno’s gray eyes offered Jo a look of relief. “Not Cork or the others.”

  Jo sat down and let out a deep breath. “I want to say thank God, but those two men may have families, too.”

  Benedetti asked Schanno, “Do you think it had anything to do with Shiloh?”

  Schanno let out a short, bitter laugh. “Since that woman went out there, people have been doing nothing but dying. Yeah, I’m sure it has everything to do with Shiloh. I just don’t know what.” He turned to Borkmann. “Give Hans Friedlander a call. See if he’d be willing, at county expense, to fly his float plane out to Wilderness Lake with a couple of deputies aboard. If he agrees, you and Dross take the evidence kits and get out there to give Dwayne a hand with the crime scene. And tell Les to give Gus and Jake a call to come in. I’m running out of officers.” Schanno rubbed his temples. “I’d better give Harris the word.”

  Jo used the phone at the dispatcher’s desk to call home. “Rose? It wasn’t Cork.” There was a slight catch in her throat, and she saw Benedetti smile sympathetically. “Tell the girls, all right?” She listened and replied, “Two fishermen, it looks like. Sheriff Schanno doesn’t know how it’s related.” She shook her head. “No, no word about the others yet. I’ll keep you posted, okay?” She hung up, stepped out of the dispatch area, and started slowly for Schanno’s office. “You look tired,” she said to Angelo Benedetti, who walked at her side.

  “I didn’t sleep much last night. Too worried. That’s a new one for me. I didn’t eat any breakfast either. The truth is I’m starved and tired and I’d kill for a cup of good coffee.” As soon as the words were out, he grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

  “That’s all right,” Jo said.

  In the doorway of Schanno’s office Benedetti stopped. “Have you eaten?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “Would it be inappropriate, Ms. O’Connor, to offer to buy you…” He checked his watch. “Brunch?”

  “I appreciate the thought, really, but I’d rather not leave.”

  “Sure, I understand.” He glanced around the department. “Maybe there’s a vending machine where I could get us a couple of Twinkies and the battery acid that passes for coffee?”

  Jo smiled. “There’s a good coffee place two blocks down. The Moose Juice. Cappuccino, latte, whatever you’d like. And delicious bakery goods.”

  “Great. Can I get you something?”

  “Latte, made with skim. And a scone. Thanks.”

  “A scone? It’s yours, whatever it is. Sheriff?”

  Schanno looked up from a map on his desk. He reached down and lifted into view a big metal thermos. “Got everything I need right here, thanks.”

  “All right, then. I’ll be back.”

  Schanno’s eyes trailed Benedetti out of the department. When he looked back at Jo, she asked, “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Nor do I. But that’s not what I asked.”

  Schanno thought it over. “He stands by his old man. He doesn’t back down easy. If he were Lutheran, I guess he’d be just fine.”

  Deputy Borkmann stuck his head in the door
. “Sheriff? Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a reporter for the Duluth Register-Guard on the phone. Says he’s got word that the country singer Shiloh’s lost up here and we got us a manhunt mounted to find her. He wants to talk to you.”

  Schanno took a deep breath. “Patch it through.” He looked at Jo like a man about to eat raw squid. “It’s starting.”

  Fifteen minutes later, as Schanno appeared to be winding up his conversation with the Duluth reporter, Borkmann thrust himself into the doorway, looking excited. Schanno said, “That’s all I’ve got to say at the moment,” and hung up quickly. “What’s up?”

  “Search plane’s spotted smoke from a campfire on the Deertail just above Hell’s Playground. Guess the trees made it hard to see but it looked like several people. On the second pass, a man and a boy come out waving their arms. Appeared to be Stormy and Louis.”

  “Any sign of Cork?” Jo asked.

  “Like I said, search plane reported several people at the campfire in the trees. No reason for all of them to signal the plane. I’d say we found ’em.” He offered a reassuring smile.

  “Get on the radio to Dwayne. Have the helicopter pick them up.”

  “I already did.”

  “Wally, may I use your phone?” She felt like Christmas had come two months early.

  “Be my guest,” Schanno beamed.

  Rose wept at the other end of the line when Jo gave her the news. Jo hung up and said to Schanno, “Now Sarah Two Knives.”

  When Sarah didn’t answer her phone, Jo grabbed her coat. “I’m going out to the rez. Sarah needs to know. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “They’ll practically be home by then,” Schanno said. Relief filled every hollow of his long, gaunt face.

  Angelo Benedetti pulled into the parking lot just as Jo stepped from the building. He got out carrying two lidded hot cups and a white bakery bag.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “They’ve found the men. I’m on my way to tell Sarah Two Knives.”

  “Mind if I come along?” Benedetti gave a nod to the items in his hands. “I’ve got breakfast.”