The television screen was shattered. Dishes were smashed. Lamps had been slammed against the walls. The mattress on the bed had been sliced to shreds. The sheriff’s people had been out here after Kristi died and had found a supply of crystal meth and the disgusting photos and videos. They’d have been thorough, but not destructive in the way of the devastation Cork saw now, which seemed to him less the result of ransacking than anger. Blind, raging anger. Destruction for destruction’s sake.
“Don’t move.”
The instruction came at his back, and Cork obeyed.
“Morning, Ike,” he said.
“What are you doing here, O’Connor?”
“Looking for Lonnie. Mind if I turn around?”
“Holster that handgun first.”
Cork put the. 38 away.
“Okay, turn around,” Ike Thunder said.
Cork found himself facing the barrel of a shotgun. Ike held the stock snug against his right shoulder. The double hook at the end of his prosthetic left arm tugged at a couple of rings he’d anchored in the stock, giving him a firm grasp on the firearm.
“What are you doing here?” Thunder asked again.
“Looking for Lonnie.”
“You and everybody else.”
“Everybody else do this?”
Thunder’s eyes wandered over the destruction. “No idea who did it.”
“It wasn’t the sheriff’s people?”
He shook his head. “They didn’t leave it like this.”
“When did it happen?”
“Found it this way a couple of days ago.”
“Does Lonnie know?”
“I got no idea what that boy knows.”
“Why didn’t you report it to the sheriff’s office?”
“Think they’d care that Lonnie Thunder’s trailer’s been tore up? Hell, I figure it was Buck Reinhardt, come looking for Lonnie, sending him a message with all this mess.”
Cork thought the same thing. “Mind putting the shotgun down?” he said.
Thunder lowered the barrel. He stood in the doorway. Behind him, the sun broke through clouds and Thunder suddenly cast a shadow, longer than he was tall, across all the debris that littered the floor. Where the face of that shadow would have been was a broken picture frame that held a photograph of Lonnie, maybe twelve years old, grinning from ear to ear, standing beside a multiple-point buck he’d brought down. Ike stood beside him in the photo. Lonnie was already a head taller.
“Know where Lonnie is?” Cork asked.
“Haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks.”
“Would’ve been about the time Kristie Reinhardt died.”
“That’d be it.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Ike. Do you know where Lonnie is?”
“No idea.”
“Care to speculate?”
Thunder’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want with him?”
“He took a few shots at me last night. I’d like to talk to him about that.”
“Talk? Yeah, right.”
“Okay, I’d like to beat the crap out of him. Better?”
“Truer.”
“My boy was with me. He could’ve been hurt.”
Thunder’s left eye was artificial and it was fixed in a dead gaze off to the side of Cork’s face. His other eye showed just about as much emotion. “Lonnie shot but didn’t hit you? Must’ve had to be he didn’t want to. He’s a good shot.”
“He called me afterward.”
“Yeah? What’d he say?”
“Told me to quit looking for him. Told me next time he wouldn’t miss.”
“That’s more’n he’s said to me in six months.” Thunder slipped his hooks free of the rings on the shotgun and deftly scratched at the stubble along his jawline. “You were looking for him? Buck Reinhardt hire you to find him?”
“You know about Alex and Rayette Kingbird?”
“I heard about ’em. Heard Reinhardt was behind it. Hell, he’s probably the one did this.”
“It appears he’s got an alibi for the Kingbird killings.”
“Sure. He’s white and he’s rich.”
“I’d like to know where Lonnie was when those folks were gunned down.”
Thunder looked surprised, then perturbed. “You’re thinking Lonnie might’ve had a hand in that? He’s not the brightest spark from the fire, but he wouldn’t do something like that. Hell, he thought the world of Kingbird. All those Red Boyz did.”
“I’m thinking Alex was going to turn him over to the sheriff. Maybe hoping to keep the peace and take the heat off the Red Boyz.”
“They can handle the heat.”
“I’d like to talk to Lonnie about it.”
“Seems like that’s something he definitely don’t want. Lonnie don’t want something, that’s all she wrote.”
Cork made a final appraisal of the destruction. “Whoever tore this place apart, they find Lonnie, it won’t be pretty.”
“Lonnie takes care of himself.”
“I hope you’re right, Ike. Mind?” He indicated he wanted to leave.
Ike Thunder moved back and Cork exited the trailer. Thunder followed him, swinging his stiff artificial leg as they headed back to the house.
At his Bronco, Cork said, “You’ve modified all your firearms for that hook of yours?”
“Yeah.”
Cork gave it a moment, then said, “Heard you were at the Broiler last night. Heard you showed up after the shots were fired over at Sam’s Place.”
“I got no idea when Lonnie fired them shots. Len Boudreau gave me a lift into town. Helped me deliver a cedar chest to Darwin Dassel, then he dropped me at the Broiler.”
“How’d you get home?”
“He had some kind of meeting at the fire hall, picked me up after.”
“Len, huh?”
“I got work to do,” Thunder said.
“I find Lonnie, want me to say hey from you?”
“You find Lonnie, you’ll have your hands too full to be doing much of anything ’cept saving your own ass.”
TWENTY-ONE
By noon the sun had come out and it was warm enough to have lunch outside. Annie and Cara Haines sat on the wall of one of the brick planter boxes that lined the entrance to Aurora Area High School. Five years earlier the district had consolidated with several of the smaller districts surrounding Aurora, and a new high school had been built. Annie hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but she understood there was a lot of discussion about the location of the building. The site that was finally chosen was a large meadow near the gravel pit at the edge of town. From the windows of the rooms facing west, the tall gravel conveyor was visible, rising from the pit like a long-necked prehistoric beast spitting rock. East, the view was of the parking lot in front of the school, and beyond that, the houses of Aurora, side by side, lining the streets that headed toward the lake nearly a mile distant.
“I’m thinking of going camping this weekend,” Cara said. “Maybe Slim Lake. Want to go?”
“I’ll be helping my dad at Sam’s Place.”
“Right. Fishing opener. My dad says your dad should wait to start the season.”
“Why?”
“All this trouble with the Red Boyz. The shots last night. He thinks folks will stay away from Sam’s Place for a while. Actually, he thinks I should stay away from you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s serious?”
Cara looked toward the parking lot where a group of guys were clustered around Gary Amundsen’s red ’67 Mustang convertible. Gary’s father owned Amundsen’s Auto Body, and both Gary and his father were car freaks.
“About nights, he’s serious. Once it’s dark, he doesn’t want me hanging with you. He’s afraid of what he calls ‘collateral damage.’”
“That’s so bogus.”
“I don’t know, Annie. What if we’d been with your dad last night?”
Allan Richards came out the front door with two
other boys. Richards was a tall kid with a bad complexion and an attitude to match. He tossed a green tennis ball in the air as he walked. As he passed, he glanced at Annie and Cara with a dismissive whatever look and headed toward the red Mustang. Annie didn’t pay much attention. She was trying to decide if she should be pissed at Cara or Cara’s father.
“Kind of a sunshine friendship,” she finally said.
“He’ll get over it. Give it a couple days. And we can, you know, still do the library and stuff.”
“What about Slim Lake? He was okay with that?”
“I didn’t ask him. Anyway, it would be away from town, away from your dad. Kind of out of harm’s way.”
Annie saw Uly Kingbird and Darrell Gallagher crossing the parking lot, coming from town. She’d been surprised to see Uly at school that week. She’d figured that because of the tragedy in the family, he’d be home for a while. But the Kingbirds, she remembered, were not a family that cried. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to him, but he seemed okay. Even though the temperature was easily in the high sixties, Gallagher wore his long black leather coat, a la Matrix. As they got nearer, Allan Richards pointed their way and said something to his buddies gathered around the Mustang. He started walking a course that would intercept them. A couple of the other boys trailed after him.
“Hey, Red Boy,” Richards called. He was still tossing his tennis ball.
Uly kept walking, as if he hadn’t heard.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.” Richards stepped in front of Uly and Gallagher, blocking their way. “You deaf or just stupid?”
Uly said, “I’m just going inside, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay.” Richards grinned and glanced back to see if the others around Amundsen’s Mustang were watching. “I think you should take the day off, because the truth is, I can’t stand being in the same building with you.”
He tossed the ball at Uly. It bounced off his forehead and Richards caught it. Uly tried to move past, but Richards stepped in his way.
Gallagher said, “Why don’t you just leave him alone.”
Richards turned and bounced the ball off Gallagher’s forehead in the same way he’d done it to Uly. “Why don’t you make me, freak-boy.”
Gallagher made no move against Richards, just stood silently with his hands in his long black coat.
“Go on,” Richards said to Uly. “The Red Boyz aren’t welcome here.”
“I’m not one of the Red Boyz.”
“Know what we do to Red Boyz around here? Open ’em up with buckshot, that’s what.”
He popped the ball off Uly’s forehead again. This time Uly followed it back. He tackled Richards. Together they fell backward and ricocheted off a green Taurus wagon, knocking the side mirror from its mount. They hit the pavement with Uly still in Richards’s grasp. The car alarm on the Taurus began to bleat mercilessly. Richards was taller and heavier, but Uly was all rage and he wrapped up the bigger boy in the furious hug of his arms as they wrestled. Annie leaped from the planter box and raced toward the Taurus. The Mustang crowd came, too. They formed a loose circle around the two kids writhing on the asphalt. Annie moved to intervene, but Gary Amundsen blocked her way.
“Let them finish it,” he said.
“Get out of my way, Gary.”
Annie tried to move around him, but Randy Shaw slipped next to Amundsen and stood with him shoulder to shoulder, forming a human wall.
“You heard him,” Shaw said. “It’s between them.”
Annie tried once again to maneuver around them, but Shaw reached out and shoved her roughly back. Anger flared red in her vision. She responded to his shove with one of her own, far fiercer than his had been. He hadn’t expected it. His eyes showed his surprise and he stumbled backward and fell over Uly and Richards. As he went down, he hit his head on the door handle of the Taurus. He came to rest in a heap on top of Richards, who’d finally managed to pin Uly beneath him. For a moment it was chaos on the ground as they all fought to separate.
Then Amundsen yelled, “Hey, stop it, you guys. Randy’s bleeding bad.”
Shaw seemed confused. He reached a hand to the back of his head, and when he brought it around in front so that he could see, his face went white. His palm and fingers were dripping red.
“Jesus,” he said. “Oh shit.”
Uly and Richards separated and stood up. Shaw struggled to stand and finally found his feet. He turned the back of his head toward Amundsen. “Dude, is it bad?”
“I can’t tell, Randy. There’s too much blood.”
Amundsen was right. Blood welled up bright crimson through Shaw’s blond hair and fell in huge drops onto the black asphalt. Annie’s rage vanished, replaced by a terrible fear.
“Break it up, guys! Break it up!” Mr. Bukoski, who taught math, shoved his way through the circle of boys. He was more Mack truck than man, and he was the school’s head football coach as well. “Let me see.” He took a good look at the back of Shaw’s head, his fingers sifting through blond hair and blood. “Might take a stitch or three, but you’ll be fine. Here.” He yanked a folded handkerchief from his back pocket and put it over the wounded area. “Hold that there. Come on.” With his bloody hand on the boy’s shoulder, he turned Shaw toward the school. “Kingbird, Richards, O’Connor. I want you in the office. Now. And that’s my car. Somebody’s going to pay for a new mirror.”
Annie trooped with the others behind Mr. Bukoski and Randy Shaw. When she passed Cara, who still sat on the planter box, Cara mouthed, You were awesome, girl. Annie made no reply and followed the others into the dark of the school building.
When she got the call, Lucinda was in the middle of changing Misty. She lifted the baby, whose bottom was clean but still bare, from the changing table and carried her to the phone in the hallway. Aurora Area High School, the caller ID indicated. Her thought was that Uly had forgotten something important and wanted her to bring it, a request he’d made occasionally in the past.
When the principal explained to her what the situation actually was, she assured him that her husband would be there soon. She called Will.
“It’s Uly,” she told him. “There’s been some trouble at school. A fight. A boy was hurt.”
“Uly do the hurting?” He sounded almost hopeful.
“I don’t know. Can you go? I have the baby.”
“I’ll take care of it, Luci.”
She spent the next hour and a half worrying. A call from school hadn’t been uncommon with Alejandro, but Ulysses never got into trouble. He was too quiet, something Will complained about. It was true that Uly didn’t talk much. He lived inside himself. But his father was the same way.
She’d just put Misty down for a nap when she heard the car pull into the drive and the thump of car doors slamming. She reached the kitchen just as the side door opened and the two walked in. Ulysses came first, looking sullen, as always. Behind him, Will didn’t look too upset.
“Go on to your room. I’ll let you know what I decide,” he said to his son’s back.
“Yes, sir.”
Uly skulked past his mother without looking at her.
“Are you all right?” She reached out and held him back gently with her hand. She looked into his face. “You’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” He didn’t pull away, but waited until she’d removed her hand, then moved on.
With an old, familiar hurting in her heart, she watched him leave her.
Will took off his jacket and hung it neatly on a hanger he kept on a peg near the back door. He never tossed his coat over the back of a chair, never left his shoes in the living room, and he never suffered this kind of laxity in others. His military training.
“He’s been suspended for the rest of the week,” he said. “I’m hungry. What do we have for lunch?”
“What happened?”
“He got into it with a couple of other boys. One of them ended up with a bloody head.”
“Bad?”
“Looked worse than
it was. Head wounds are like that.”
“Two boys? He was fighting with two boys?”
“The principal couldn’t get a straight story from anybody, so what really happened is still unclear. They were all suspended. Including Anne O’Connor.”
“Annie? What did she have to do with it?”
“Not sure. Like I said, the kids were all pretty tight-lipped.” He opened the refrigerator and peered inside. “How about heating up some of that leftover lasagna?”
“You told Uly you’d let him know what you decided. Decided about what?”
“Appropriate punishment.”
“Punishment? He’s been suspended, isn’t that punishment enough? And I know Uly. Whatever happened, he didn’t start it.”
He spoke with his head deep in the refrigerator. “There are rules, Luci. One of the rules is that you don’t get into trouble at school.”
“But you’re happy he fought back.”
“Of course I am. Someone attacks, you have to respond. If you don’t, you lose respect and it’s important that the enemy respect you.”
“Enemy? Will, these are just high school kids. And this isn’t a war.”
He pulled out the pan of lasagna, folded back the aluminum foil that covered it, and sniffed. “Life is war, Lucinda.” He held out the pan for her to deal with.
TWENTY-TWO
Cork drove across the rez to the old mission, a small one-room building in the middle of a large clearing. The mission, nearly a hundred years old, had fallen into disrepair, but several years earlier a priest known affectionately as St. Kawasaki had spent a lot of his own time and resources to restore the structure in order to celebrate Mass there periodically. Most Shinnobs on the rez who were Catholic were used to driving to St. Agnes, in Aurora. They always appreciated, however, a service in their own community.
Behind the mission, bordered by a wrought-iron fence, was a cemetery begun when the mission was first built. It was an assortment of gravestones, chiseled markers, crudely wood-burned plaques, and crosses. There were also a number of grave houses, which were low wooden structures built over the burial plots, an old Ojibwe tradition. Two open graves lay waiting to be filled. On the following afternoon, the bodies of Alexander and Rayette Kingbird would do the filling.
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