They’d been driving half an hour and were approaching the northern edge of the Iron Lake Reservation where it butted against the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Cork turned off onto a road that was barely wide enough for the Pathfinder. A few hundred yards farther, the road skirted a long narrow lake that ended at the base of a ridge covered with jack pine. A ragged thread of wood smoke climbed the face of the ridge.
“Stone built his cabin himself, where he could see anyone approaching from a good distance away,” Cork said. “The land on either side is mostly marsh, so it’s almost impossible to come at it on foot. And directly beyond that ridge is the Boundary Waters. He’s got himself a decent stronghold.”
“Boundary Waters?”
“The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Over a million acres of forest along the Canadian border. On the other side is the Quetico, another wilderness just as large. Easy place for a man to lose himself, on purpose or not.”
Cork pulled into the clearing where Stone’s cabin stood, and he saw Will Fineday’s old Dodge pickup parked behind Stone’s new Land Rover. Both vehicles were covered with a thick coat of red dust.
The two men faced each other in the open in front of the cabin. Fineday gripped a tire iron in his huge hands. Stone, shirtless, held an ax. Fineday didn’t look when Cork pulled up, but Stone’s dark eyes flicked away for an instant.
Stone was smaller, but where Fineday had gone to fat, Stone was smooth rock under taut flesh. He wore his hair long, tied back with a folded red bandanna that ran across his forehead. He was handsome, and there was a certainty in his face, particularly his eyes, that most men found intimidating and women, Cork had heard, found exciting.
Near Stone was a flat-topped stump that he used as a chopping block, and around the stump lay sections of split birch waiting to be gathered and stacked. Stone’s chest glistened, and the bandanna was stained dark with sweat. It looked as if Fineday had interrupted preparation for a winter supply of wood.
Cork walked to the men slowly.
“Will, Stone, what’s going on?”
“None of your business, O’Connor,” Fineday said.
“Looks to me like you’re both ready to let a little blood, and that is my business. This have anything to do with Lizzie?”
Fineday didn’t answer, but he said to Stone, “Let her go, or I swear I’ll kill you.”
“You think I’m keeping her here against her will, Will?” Stone laughed at that, the ax held easy in his hands, the split wood on the ground around him like killed things. “Why don’t I just call her out here, then, and let’s see.” He yelled her name over his shoulder.
They all waited. The sun was high and unusually hot. The drone of blackflies, an oddity for so late in the season, filled the quiet. The insects lit on Stone’s bare, salty skin and crawled over his hairless chest and shoulders. He seemed not to notice, although blackflies were vicious biting insects, one of the worst scourges of the north country.
“Lizzie,” he called again, more harshly this time. “Get your ass out here, girl.”
The door opened slowly and Lizzie Fineday stepped out. She wore a bright blue knit sweater and wrinkled khakis. Her hair snaked across her face, wild. She hung back in the shadow of the cabin, smoking a cigarette. She stared at her father, then at Cork, as if she didn’t quite understand their presence.
“Lizzie, you come on over here. I’m taking you home,” Fineday hollered.
He took a step toward his daughter, but Stone moved to block his way.
“Ask her, Will,” Stone said. “Stay right where you are and ask her if she wants to leave.”
Fineday gave him a killing look. “Lizzie, you come home with me. You come home now. You hear?”
“You want to go home with him, Lizzie?” Stone asked.
The young woman smoked her cigarette, finally shook her head.
“See?” Stone said to Fineday. “If that’s what you needed, you have it. You, too, O’Connor. She’s not a minor. She makes up her own mind. She wants to stay, she stays.” He finally shifted his gaze from Fineday and spoke to Cork directly. “Unless you have a warrant of some kind, it’s my right to ask you to leave.”
“Lizzie,” Cork called to her, “I’d like you to step out into the sunlight so we can see you clearly. Do you understand?”
She didn’t react immediately, but eventually she took a step forward into the light.
“Are you feeling all right?” Cork said.
She carefully drew the hair away from her eyes and nodded slowly.
“You see?” Stone said.
“If you come with us, I promise nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt her here,” Stone said, then called out, “Lizzie, you want to go with these folks, you go.”
She blinked in the bright sunlight but she did not move.
Fineday gripped the tire iron and cocked his arms like a batter in the box. “Stone, you fucking son of a bitch.”
“Will Fineday,” Cork said, “you’ve been asked to vacate this man’s property. You’ll do that or I’ll arrest you for trespassing.”
“He’s got my daughter, goddamn it.”
“Your daughter is here of her own volition. You heard her as clear as I did. Let it go, Will. Leave her be.”
“Lizzie,” he tried one last time, but his daughter turned away and went back into the cabin.
“Come on, Will,” Cork said. “You need to leave. We all do.”
Fineday stormed to his truck and sped down the narrow lane.
“I’m looking for a way to come back, Stone,” Cork said.
“You find it, I’ll be here.” Stone lifted his ax and went back to chopping wood.
In the Pathfinder, Dina said, “Prison tattoos?”
She was speaking of the designs on Stone’s upper arms and chest.
“Yeah,” Cork said. “Inked them himself. The feather on each arm recalls the eagle feathers on a warrior’s shield. The bear over his heart is because he’s Makwa, a member of the bear clan.”
“I’m sure I saw a thunderbird, too.”
“You did. Bineshii. Thunderbird was one of the six original beings that came out of the sea to live with the Anishinaabeg. Unfortunately, every Shinnob that Bineshii looked at died, so Thunderbird was sent back to the sea.”
“A Shinnob-killer. Interesting choice for a tattoo.”
“Isn’t it?”
Fineday was waiting for them where the road met the county highway. He stood with his legs spread, the long scar that cleaved his sandstone-colored face white as jagged lightning.
“He hurts her, and he’s not the only one I’ll come after,” he said as Cork got out of the Pathfinder.
“At the moment, Will, the law’s on his side.”
“The white man’s law. When did it work for me?”
“What’s she running from? What’s she afraid of? Help me with that and I can take her away from Stone.”
“She’s running from nothing.”
“She just likes Stone’s company, is that it?”
“I’ll get her myself.”
“He’ll be watching for you. And think about this. You try something, it’s not only Stone you’ll have to deal with, it’ll be me as well. Wouldn’t you rather have me on your side?”
“Fuck you, chimook.”
Fineday spun away, climbed into his truck, and slammed the door.
“I’ll be around to talk to you again, Will, you can bank on it. In the meantime, stay away from Stone.”
Fineday sped off, kicking up a tail of dust and gravel.
“Did he call you a schmuck?”
“Chi-mook,” Cork said, enunciating each syllable. “Ojibwe slang for white man. Not complimentary.”
“But you’re part Ojibwe. Doesn’t that count?”
“When people are pissed at me, I’m not Ojibwe enough for the Ojibwes, and not white enough for the whites,” Cork said.
25
Jo had spent the d
ay calling clients, judges, rearranging court dates, appointments. Everyone understood, she told Cork. She’d washed clothes, packed, helped the girls and Stevie get ready to travel. Cork promised to call the high school and Stevie’s teacher and explain the children’s absence.
Dinner was a subdued affair: ham and cheese sandwiches, Campbell’s tomato soup, chips. They talked quietly about Chicago, seeing Rose and Mal, visiting Northwestern and maybe Notre Dame. No one said a word about the dynamite in the Bronco. Afterward, they played a game of Clue. Stevie won, although Cork and probably everyone else knew a couple of turns earlier that it was Mrs. White in the study with the candlestick.
Cork read to Stevie, something he enjoyed doing. The book was Hatchet, about a boy lost in the wilderness who uses his own wiles and strength of character to make his way back to safety. Stevie’s dark brown Ojibwe eyes locked on the ceiling as he imagined the scenes painted by the words, saw the story playing out in his mind. Eventually, his eyelids began to flicker, and when they’d closed for good, Cork kissed him good night on his forehead and turned out the light.
As he came downstairs, there was a knock at the front door. Cy Borkmann.
“Just wanted to let you know that we’ll have someone posted out on the street all night,” Cy told him.
“I never authorized that,” Cork said.
“Nothing needs authorization. We’re all off-duty. Just wanted to make sure everything here is secure until your family’s off safe and sound.”
Jo came to Cork’s side and said, “Thank you, Cy. And please thank the others for us.”
He smiled a little shyly. “Sure. Look, you all sleep well, okay?” He tipped his ball cap and lumbered down the front steps toward the curb where his truck was parked.
With Stevie in bed, the girls probed Cork for information on the dynamite and the rez shooting. He wished he could offer them something substantial-anything-but he admitted he had nothing.
It was after ten when he got the call from Simon Rutledge.
“I’m at the sheriff’s office in Carlton. I’ve been down here all day. I think I might have something. My cohort in St. Paul called me, and guess who just happened to visit Lydell Cramer at the hospital yesterday. His sister. It seemed a big coincidence that each of her last visits preceded a threat to your safety, so I decided to reconnoiter her farmhouse. There’s a good-sized barn, but there aren’t any animals around. I watched a couple of guys go in and out of that barn all day long, one of them always sporting what appeared to be an assault rifle. I did some checking with the police in Moose Lake and found out Lydell’s sister lives with a guy name of Harmon LaRusse.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Exactly. Turns out the Carlton County Sheriff’s Department has a big file on him. On Cramer’s sister, too, and the other guy out there whose name is Carl Berger, an ex-con with a pretty long history of drugs and violence. Sheriff’s investigators have had them under surveillance for a while, after a neighbor complained he’d been threatened. An IR thermal scan of the barn showed a lot of heat. Which might have been understandable if there’d been livestock inside.”
“An indoor marijuana operation.”
“Bingo. A big one. That’s why I’m at the Carlton County sheriff’s office right now. For the last couple of months, they’ve been putting together everything they need for a good bust. They’ve been holding off, thinking they might be able to intercept a sale. When I explained my concern about a possible connection with your incident on the rez, they agreed to go ahead ASAP. They’re hoping for a no-knock first thing in the morning, if you’d care to be here.”
“Got a go time yet?”
“Not until they’re sure they’ve secured the warrant. Want me to call?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Simon. Good work.”
“That’s why I get the big bucks.”
Cork hung up and turned to find Jo watching him. “What’s up?”
He told her.
“You think this woman and Moose LaRusse might be responsible for the shooting and the bomb?”
“It’s certainly a possibility we can’t ignore.”
“Oh God, I hope it’s them and that you get them.”
“I still want you away from here until we’re sure. Besides, the girls are looking forward to visiting college campuses.”
She put her arms around him, pressed her cheek to his chest. “I hate leaving, thinking you might still be in danger.”
“I’ll be fine. I am fine.”
He locked the doors, checked the windows, turned out the downstairs lights, and briefly moved aside a curtain. Out front, Cy Borkmann sat in his truck drinking coffee from his big silver thermos. Upstairs, Cork looked in on his daughters, who were in their rooms, in bed but not yet asleep. He talked with each of them awhile, kissed them good night, then went to his own room, where quietly and rather gently he and Jo made love. For a long time after that, he lay with his wife in his arms. They’d never finished their talk about her past with Ben Jacoby, but at the moment it didn’t matter. Cork knew that despite every threatening thing, past and present, he was the luckiest man on earth.
26
In the early morning shortly before sunrise, Jo drove toward a blood-red streak of sky, carrying away in her Camry everything that was most important to Cork.
After they’d gone, he approached Howard Morgan’s Explorer, parked at the curb where Borkmann’s truck had been the night before.
Morgan stepped out and stretched. “So they’re off,” he said.
“Thanks, Howard.”
“No problem. Good to see them go. Safer, I mean.”
“I know what you mean. Be glad to fix you some breakfast.”
“Thanks, but I’ve been thinking for the last couple hours about a stack of blueberry pancakes at the Broiler. Then I got a bed that’s calling my name.”
Cork went back inside, pulled down a bowl from the cupboard, shook in some raisin bran. He was just about to pour in some milk when Rutledge called.
They waited in an oak grove a quarter mile north of the farmhouse. Four cruisers, an unmarked Suburban, twelve deputies, two DEA agents, Undersheriff Jeff McGruder, and Sheriff Roy Killen. Cork and Rutledge were there, too. The sheriff’s people wore midnight blue Kevlar vests and camouflage outfits. A couple of the deputies smoked. They all watched the sheriff as he held the field glasses level on the farmhouse. They should have gone in before this-they all knew it-but Killen had decided to wait. The problem was the mist.
The farmhouse was an old white structure with paint flaking off in leprous patches, a sagging front porch, and a satellite dish on the roof. Across the yard stood the barn, in far better shape than the house and painted a new dark red. Cork had been told that there were empty animal pens, but he couldn’t see them because of the mist.
The buildings stood a quarter mile off the road, in a field long fallow, full of thistle and timothy gone yellow in the dry of late autumn. The mist did not quite touch the ground and reached only a couple of dozen feet into the air, so that everything about the scene seemed to exist in colored layers. Far away were the yellow grass, the gray mist, the blue sky. Nearer, the russet oak leaves, the midnight blue vests, the camouflage outfits. Enclosing it all was the waiting.
Killen didn’t like the idea of going in with the mist still thick. He couldn’t see the farmhouse yard at all. Someone looking out a second-floor window could spot the cruisers coming and take up a hidden position in the yard. He didn’t want to risk his people. Better, he’d decided, to let the mist burn off. So they waited.
Traffic picked up on the rural highway that ran past the oak grove, many of the cars heading to a small white church built among Norway pines just visible in the distance. Around the church, the mist had already vanished, but it still hung thick over the fields and the farmhouse and the red barn.
After a while, Killen spoke to McGruder and the two DEA agents, then approached Cork and Rutledge.
Killen was near sixty, with freckles across
his forehead and age spots on the back of his hands, retirement not many years away. “I don’t know what it is with this fog but we wait much longer and the whole damn world’s going to know we’re here,” he said. “We’re going in. You two stay back. This is our business.”
He went to his deputies, who’d stopped talking and had thrown down their cigarettes when they heard what Killen had said to Cork and Rutledge.
“All right, let’s do it. Just like we talked about, boys. Quick and simple. Everybody do their job.”
They moved to the cruisers, and as the doors shut, popping like muted gunfire, Cork heard the bell in the little church steeple to the north begin to ring, clear notes that carried far in the morning air.
An unmarked Suburban went first. It stopped at the chained gate that blocked the access to the farmhouse. A deputy leaped out, split the chain with a bolt cutter, swung the gate wide. A couple of seconds later the cruisers sped through, hauling ass down the dirt lane, disappearing into the gray mist.
The dogs had already given the bust away. They began to bark as soon as the cruisers turned off the highway. Cork and Rutledge, staying far back on the lane as they’d been instructed, heard the dogs going crazy as the mist ate the cars. A few moments later, gunfire erupted. From the rapid crack of the first weapon, Cork knew it was a heavy automatic of some kind. Shotgun blasts boomed from a second-floor window, something Cork and Rutledge could see above the top of the mist, and immediately the boards around the window frame exploded in chips and splinters as the deputies returned fire.
Rutledge drew his sidearm. “I can’t just stand here and do nothing.”
“If you’re thinking of going into that mist, Simon, I’ve got to tell you it’s a bad idea. Way too confusing. Your Glock’ll be no good at a distance, anyway.”
“I have to do something,” Rutledge said. He swung out of the vehicle and ran.
Cork jumped out, too, calling after him, “Simon!” but the BCA agent had already vanished into the mist. “Shit,” he said. He popped the tailgate open and pulled his Remington from its cradle. He grabbed several slugs, jacked five into the chamber, stuffed a few more into the pocket of his windbreaker. He stood by the Pathfinder, resisting the temptation to move forward, although every impulse pushed him in that direction. He waited, as Killen had told him to do, while the gunfire became sporadic and the sound of the automatic weapon ceased.
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