Only the Dead

by Vidar Sundstøl

  I lift the fur rug and peer underneath. My God! I’m completely naked. Now I’m never going to reach my uncle’s place. I can’t walk naked through the woods or I’ll freeze to death. But where are my clothes? I can’t go searching for them, not naked as I am. Then the man comes over to me and places his hands on me. One hand on each shoulder. I try to resist, but he presses me back down to the ground, as if I were a child. I have almost no strength. All I can do is stay lying here until he gives me my clothes back. I have to trust that he’ll give them back. Because he’s just trying to help me, isn’t he? If it weren’t for him, I’d be dead.

  He’s talking to me. I think it’s English, but I don’t understand a word. His face looks filthy with grease and soot from the fire. He’s holding me down just by pointing at me. Without even touching me. I can’t get past that finger of his. It’s impossible to move it aside. It’s the darkest finger I’ve ever seen. He keeps on pointing as he uses his other hand to search for something. Now I feel how cold it is in here. The cold is biting into my naked skin. The Indian has found what he was looking for. Again he bends over me. In his hand he’s holding something that looks like a bunch of straw or hay. That’s right, it’s dried grass, I can feel it now. He presses it against my chest and starts rubbing very hard and fast. The only thing that happens is that I feel even colder. I’m shaking all over. My body rises in an arch, with only the back of my head and the heels of my feet on the ground. I turn to ice. Soon I’ll shatter into a thousand pieces. But he just keeps rubbing harder and faster, and the surface of my skin starts to warm up. My body is not arched, after all. I’m lying on my back just like before. The Indian has pulled down the fur rug and is rubbing my thighs. I can’t manage to lift even a finger. I just lie there naked under the heathen’s hand. Surely it must be a sin, what he’s doing. And I’m lying here with everything exposed. But he pretends not to see it. Rubs the bunch of hay hard and fast along my thigh. I notice a prickling and stinging sensation. And now he continues down my legs. My calves and feet. Rubs me all the way down to my toes. And under my feet. Then he starts on my chest and shoulders again. My arms still feel cold. But now he starts working on them, and they begin to prickle and sting too. His expression is solemn. I feel a warm gust of air blowing over my naked hips. It’s heat from the fire.

  5

  ANDY SCREWED THE CAP BACK ON and put the milk bottle inside the backpack, which was propped between his feet. He blew on his coffee and cautiously took a sip before setting the cup in the holder between the seats.

  They had driven down to the other parking area, the closest one to Baraga’s Cross. Now they were both sitting in Lance’s Jeep. The temperature was starting to feel more comfortable with the engine idling. They had parked with their backs to the lake. From where they were sitting, they could see along Baraga Cross Road, which led up to Highway 61. About four months ago Lance had stood here with Sheriff Bill Eggum and the two police officers Sparky Redmeyer and Mike Jones, speculating about whether the murder of the Norwegian tourist was the first homicide to occur in Cook County.

  That was when the link between Swamper Caribou’s disappearance and the murder of the Norwegian canoeist Georg Lofthus had come about—when Lance decided to find out if there had ever been a murder committed here in the past. He was the one who made the connection, because he was the only one who knew the truth about the two cases. Not to mention that in both instances the murder had been committed by someone in his own family. If it was true Swamper Caribou had been killed, that is.

  Lance took a few sips of coffee and set his cup back in the holder, next to his brother’s. He still had the feeling there would be no “after the hunt.” Not even another drive. Because what were they supposed to do? If they shot a deer, would they then head home to Lance’s place and cut up the carcass the way they usually did? With dried blood on their hands? What would they say to each other? Or, if this drive also proved fruitless, would they stand next to their vehicles and talk a bit morosely about how strange it was not to have shot a deer? Then agree to try again the following weekend? He didn’t think any of this seemed likely. He felt that it couldn’t possibly happen. It was like watching a movie he’d seen many times before and trying to imagine that this time the ending would be different. Yet he knew there was only one ending to the movie. It was impossible to believe the story would suddenly change. And it was just as impossible for Lance to picture an ending to this day. Any end at all.

  “So, how shall we do it?” Was there something threatening about Andy’s voice?

  “Do what?”

  “You want to do the drive this time?”

  “Sure. All right,” replied Lance.

  “In which direction?”

  “I don’t know . . . Is there any wind to speak of?”

  “A few gusts here and there, but it’s impossible to predict where they’re coming from.”

  “So where do you want to take up the post?”

  “Somewhere near here. The terrain is more rugged over by the Temperance.”

  “But it’s really dense birch forest.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a clear stretch along the shore. I can stand over there.”

  “That’s close to . . .”

  “Does it matter?” Andy took a gulp of coffee.

  “No.”

  The crime scene was a couple of hundred yards inside the birch forest. The young Norwegian had been found lying on the ground, naked and with his head bashed in. Flies had flown into Lance’s mouth as he stood over the body. Afterward, when he was in the parking lot with Sheriff Eggum and his men, he’d had a strange feeling that both the site and the dead man somehow belonged to him, and that every time someone took a picture of the corpse or jotted down something in a notebook, they were taking something away from him personally. He paused to mull this over, but he no longer had that same feeling. Now he thought about the crime scene as a place he had no desire to revisit. A cold place. Above all, cold. Even though it had been hot when he stood there in the summer. He clearly remembered how the drops of sweat had run into his eyes.

  It was the last place he ever wanted to set foot again, but would he even recognize the spot amid all those stunted birch trees? Except for the fact that it was the setting where he’d found the dead man, there was nothing special about the place. By now all traces of the crime would have long since vanished, and without them, it would be difficult to find the precise location. Yet Lance thought he’d sense it if he accidentally found himself at that same spot. How could he not? It was there that he first came into contact with what would change everything he’d ever known. He imagined that he’d notice it because of a sudden drop in temperature. As if he were stepping inside a small, isolated pocket of cold.

  “Sure?” said Andy.

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’ll drive the Jeep over to the Temperance and park there, okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then wait fifteen minutes before you start the drive.”

  “Fine,” said Lance.

  He bit into his sandwich. It had dried out, and the food seemed to swell in his mouth as he chewed. Finally he had to force himself to swallow the big lump of bread, which hurt as it slid down his esophagus.

  “Mind if I turn on the radio?” he asked.

  “Go ahead,” replied Andy.

  The radio was tuned to Minnesota Public Radio, as usual. It was the program Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!—an informal contest in which the listeners and a panel of guests in the studio tested their knowledge about the news stories of the past week.

  “Which song was chosen the ‘saddest love song of all time’ by NPR’s listeners?” asked the moderator.

  Lance switched off the radio.

  “Do you know the answer?” he asked.

  Andy didn’t reply, just sat and stared out the side window.

  “The saddest love song of all time?” Lance repeated.

  “Have you ever gone swimming in the lake?” asked Andy wi
thout turning around.

  “In the lake? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Me neither. Isn’t that strange?”

  “The water never gets warm enough.”

  “But still,” said Andy. “Think of all the other places we’ve gone swimming. In small lakes and rivers. But never in the big lake that’s been right in front of us the whole time.”

  Lance turned the radio back on, but they were done with the saddest love song of all time. Now they’d turned to politics. Something about proposed legislation in the Senate. He switched it off again.

  “I think maybe it’s because the lake is so big,” said Andy. “When you live your whole life next to something that big . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well . . . in the end you don’t really see it anymore.”

  “No, it’s because of the temperature of the water,” Lance said. “It’s as cold as ice.”

  He thought about the lake beneath the moon, on that night long ago. How many times had he seen Lake Superior in the moonlight? Hundreds of times, no doubt. Then what was so special about that particular memory? Of course it happened to be an early memory—he couldn’t have been more than ten at the time—but that wasn’t what made it special. Nor the fact that all three of them had been there together, because that wasn’t so unusual, especially in the woods or out in the fields. No, the memory must have simply risen up from the deep, so to speak, where it had lain dormant and unnoticed for years, presumably ever since his childhood. Suddenly he had recalled how they stood there together, looking at the lake off in the distance. A huge, metallic, shimmering surface under the moon. Endless. And that was what Dad wanted, he thought now. He wanted us to remember it sometime in the future, when we needed it. That was why he took us there. But the memory hadn’t come back to Lance until today. So it must be today that he needed to remember it. Inside the dark tunnel where he and Andy were the only living things.

  Andy said something, barely audible over the sound of his lips moving and his breathing, as if thoughts were leaking out of his mouth without him noticing.

  “What did you say?” asked Lance.

  “Huh?”

  “You said something.”

  “Unh-uh.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Lance took another bite of his dry sandwich. Drank some coffee.

  “Do you remember Debbie? The girl I dated a long time ago?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Debbie Ahonen, from the town of Finland? Twenty years ago.”

  “Oh. Vaguely.”

  “She moved to California with a policeman from . . . somewhere or other. I met her again this past summer. She got divorced and moved back here.”

  “Huh.”

  “Now she’s living with Richie Akkola.”

  “Old Richie who owns the grocery store?”

  “And the gas station.”

  “But he’s gotta be—”

  “At least seventy. I know. Debbie’s mother is sick, and Akkola’s been helping them out financially.”

  “Are you saying that . . . that she . . . ?”

  “There you have the saddest love song of all time,” said Lance.

  “If that’s what you think, then you don’t know much about love.”

  He’d never heard Andy talk that way before. There was something unnatural about it. His brother had already turned his face away and was again looking out the side window. Was it the lake he was staring at? Lance would have to roll down his window and stick out his head if he wanted to see the lake. Although he could see it in the rearview mirror, but only a thin sliver of the water. As was so often the case, the lake looked gray and cold. He thought about what Andy had just said, about swimming in Lake Superior. Who the hell would ask a question like that? Have you ever gone swimming in the lake? That was something only tourists did. North Shore folks drowned in the lake, if they didn’t dream of walking on the bottom of it. With 1,332 feet up to the surface. Bones of ice. That’s the stuff we’re made of, he thought. That was what his father had once said when they were talking about Thormod Olson who fell through the ice and survived a night in the woods in wet clothes and with the temperature way below freezing. That’s the stuff we’re made of.

  Andy hadn’t moved. He was sitting there in silence with his face turned away. Lance didn’t know what to say. He thought the word love was still hovering inside the car. Of all the things his brother might have said, it was the word love that made it so difficult for Lance to say anything else.

  “Well,” he said. “I guess we should . . .”

  Andy didn’t reply.

  Lance stuffed the last of his sandwich in his mouth and proceeded to chew. He had a feeling it was important to refuel.

  “But that’s how it’s always been,” said Andy.

  “What do you mean?” asked Lance, his mouth full.

  “What you said about the lake. You’ve always thought you know more than anybody else, but the truth is you know less. At least about things that matter.”

  Lance was just about to tell him to shut up, but he changed his mind. Maybe it would be smart to see where this led. He deliberately stared straight ahead and didn’t say a word.

  Andy let the silence go on for a while. Then he said, “All that history stuff, for instance . . . You seem to think it makes you a big shot, or something. But the truth is that people are laughing at you, Lance. That’s why you never hear anything worthwhile—because nobody tells you anything. They laugh at you instead.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you should know . . . that you’re trampling around in people’s lives without paying any attention to them. Without even realizing what you’re doing. That’s the sort of thing you just don’t seem to get. You don’t see who people really are. Or what’s really going on.”

  “So what’s really going on?”

  Andy turned and looked Lance in the eye. “People are living their own lives,” he said. “That’s what’s going on. And it’s none of your business. You have no right to go trampling . . . to go stomping around . . .”

  “I’m a police officer,” said Lance.

  “You’re a joke.”

  “I’m a police officer, and that actually does give me certain rights. And obligations.”

  “A police officer? You’re the guy who picks up the empty bottles left behind after other people’s parties. That’s basically what you’ve always done.”

  “Well, at least I’ve always picked up after you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Like with Clayton Miller.”

  Andy sat up with a jolt, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

  “Clayton Miller? What does he have to do with anything?”

  “The kid you almost killed? I was the one who stopped you. If it weren’t for me, you would have—”

  “That old story?” said Andy. “We were just fighting. That’s all.”

  “I saw you—”

  “So what?”

  “It’s no good trying to talk your way out of it. I was there. I saw what you’ve got inside of you. So don’t come here and talk to me about empty bottles, because I’m the one who’s always cleaning up your shit.”

  They were glaring at each other now. For a moment Lance thought Andy was going to punch him. He could feel the adrenaline race through his body. His hands were shaking.

  “You don’t know shit,” said Andy.

  “You already said that.”

  “But let me tell you one thing,” his brother went on. “If you really want to play at being a cop, don’t do it with your own family.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You broke into my cabin. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

  “Not that bullshit again.”

  “Don’t you think I realized it was you from the very beginning?”

  Lance made a point of not shifting his gaze, but his face felt
unnaturally tense.

  “It was one thing when you said you tried to find the key first. But when I got inside . . . I could tell it was you from a mile away. Just from how the place was halfheartedly vandalized.”

  “I’m not the only one who knows where you used to keep the key,” said Lance. “What about Chrissy? She’s seventeen now. Isn’t it more likely that some kids, including your daughter, broke the cabin window because they didn’t find the key where it was supposed to be? And then later on the party got out of hand?”

  “Sure, and that’s why there were no broken beer bottles or puke,” said Andy. “But you didn’t think of that, did you? You should have thrown up in a few places before you left. Or peed on the floor. But you’ve got no talent for that kind of thing. You have no idea how to get shitfaced.”

  “But I know she was there,” said Lance. He no longer cared how this was going to end.

  “Bullshit! We both know you were the one who did it.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I was the one who broke in, but that’s not what I’m talking about now.”

  Andy smiled warily.

  “I know Chrissy was there with you . . . on the night of the murder.”

  Andy’s expression changed without warning. His face suddenly turned ashen. He looked like he wanted to say something. He opened his mouth several times, but not a sound came out.