The William Kent Krueger Collection #4

by William Kent Krueger

  “What are you doing?” Bigby said.

  Cork’s heart was stomping around in his chest, and he couldn’t swallow, nor could he speak. But he could still move, and he gave Jubal a decisive nod.

  “Little, I’m telling you—” Bigs began.

  “Ends, five and out. Quick right fake, on two,” Jubal called. “Let’s go.”

  They broke from the huddle. Cork saw the Blue Devils crowding the line of scrimmage, expecting a run, but their safeties were in a prevent formation, defending against the long pass. The area between, as Jubal had probably expected, was wide open. Cork set himself on the line, drier of mouth than he’d ever remembered. Jubal crouched under center and called out the count. The ball was snapped, and Cork gave a quick head fake to the end who guarded him, then broke toward the sideline. He looked back over his right shoulder, just in time to see the ball spiral toward him with a grace he would never forget. He opened his palms like cradles, and then it was in his hands, and he wrapped his arms around it and locked it against his chest and turned up-field. He saw the two safeties moving to intercept him and could sense, galloping hard at his back, the end who, for a fateful fraction of a second, had bought Cork’s feint. Cork ran as he’d never run before. At midfield, the nearest safety angled toward him, and Cork veered straight at the kid. An instant before they collided, he danced right and spun and shed the arm tackle, and ran on. At the thirty-yard line, he heard a grunt as the end behind him launched himself in a last, desperate effort to grasp an ankle. Cork stumbled but didn’t go down. He saw the goal line, twenty yards ahead, and the second safety running an arc that would cut him off well before he scored. There was no feeling left in his legs, no strength. He ran on wooden stumps that barely supported him and that had no trickery left in them at all. He would, he knew absolutely, come up short.

  And then a figure flew past him, fleet as a deer or the dream of a deer, and a mud-covered body threw a block that toppled the Blue Devil safety, and Cork loped untouched across the goal line, and the game was theirs.

  He turned in the end zone and watched Jubal Little disentangle himself from the safety and rise, exhausted. Across a ground as brutalized as a battlefield, their eyes met.

  In his life so far, Cork had never known a finer moment. And in that moment, he thought that he would never know a better friend.

  * * *

  The trouble began at the homecoming dance on Saturday night.

  The music for the dance was provided by a group who called themselves the Wild Savages. It was Willie Crane’s idea and his energy that had brought the group together; Winona provided most of the vocals. Willie played lead guitar and Indian flute. Two other guys from the rez—Andy Desjarlais and Greg “Hoops” LeBeau, playing bass guitar and drums, respectively—completed the ensemble. They did covers of recent tunes—“Good Lovin’,” “Hanky Panky,” “Surfer Girl,” “Hang on Sloopy”—but they also slipped in some of their own compositions, which tended to rely heavily on Willie’s flute playing and the driving beat of Hoops’s drums, so that an Ojibwe sensibility came through clearly. In the North Country of Minnesota, the Wild Savages had a following and had become a popular choice for school dances.

  The dance was held in the high school gymnasium and was a pretty good affair, especially because praise continued to rain down on Cork for winning the game the night before. He knew it hadn’t been just him; it was Jubal’s calling of the play and it was Jubal’s delivery of the ball that had made the difference. But Jubal was content to step aside and let Cork shine in the spotlight. Which was the kind of thing Jubal often did, and not just for Cork. He generously gave away the glory others desperately dreamed of having and shamefully coveted. The reason may have been that glory came to him so easily; but Cork chose to see something Ojibwe in his best friend’s behavior. His generosity of spirit was the kind valued by Henry Meloux and Sam Winter Moon, and Cork believed that, although Jubal wouldn’t admit it, more and more he was acknowledging and embracing the Indian side of his heritage.

  Donner Bigby came late to the dance and with the smell of alcohol on his breath. He brought a date, Gloria Agostino, who’d graduated a year before and worked in the office of the logging operation Bigby’s father owned and who had always had a slightly tarnished reputation. At ten o’clock, the Wild Savages took a break and everyone left the dance floor and hit the long tables where there were cookies and punch. To the dance, Jubal had brought Judy Petermann, a cheerleader, a sweet girl with the kindest smile imaginable. She was clearly taken with him—what girl wouldn’t be?—but Jubal, though polite, didn’t seem especially interested. Girls fell all over him, yet Jubal didn’t seem to notice anyone in particular. Cork had come to the dance stag. Lately, he’d been dating Winona Crane, something his mother wasn’t particularly happy about. Winona had a reputation. But for Cork, who’d loved her forever, it was like finally reaching the promised land. He didn’t delude himself. He understood Winona didn’t feel about him the same way, but—he knew this was pathetic—he was willing to take whatever she offered him.

  Jubal left Judy Petermann in the gymnasium talking with one of her friends and drinking punch while he and Cork went to the restroom. In an alcove off the hallway, they found Winona and Willie, cooling themselves in the breeze that blew from an opened exit door. Winona was just downing something from the palm of her hand, which she chased with a quick swig from a bottle of Coca-Cola. She smiled at them, her dark eyes incandescent.

  “Great game yesterday,” Willie told Cork, though it came from his mouth sounding more like gray game yeday.

  Cork said, “Thanks, Willie.”

  “You were amazing,” Winona said and gave his shoulder a gentle punch.

  Which was a sisterly gesture from a young woman Cork still hoped might someday see him differently. Since those days when he and Willie and Winona used to hit Sam’s Place after school, Winona had changed a good deal. She’d grown more striking in her beauty, but she seemed more and more to be riding a self-destructive current, which was not unusual for Ojibwe youth raised on the rez. Cork was afraid for her, but he had no real way of influencing her differently. Even Willie, who despite all his own hardship, did his best to protect her, had told Cork he felt helpless most of the time. Winona did what Winona wanted to do. That’s all there was to it.

  Jubal leaned easily against the wall beside her, grinned, and said, “That’s my man.”

  Winona glanced at Jubal, and then her gaze jumped away, as if she couldn’t look long on that too handsome face. “You were pretty good yourself,” she said to him, though her words seemed to be addressed to the floor.

  It was the dance Jubal Little and Winona Crane had been doing for years. Those times they were together, the electricity between them crackled. Yet they both seemed intent on keeping their meetings to a minimum. To Cork, it appeared as if they were both terribly afraid—not of each other but of what might be created if they ever allowed themselves to touch. He loved Jubal and he loved Winona and he hated that attraction, which was so obvious between them.

  “Fuck you” came another voice, this one from outside the open door. A moment later, Donner Bigby stepped in from the night. Behind him, but still in the dark beyond the door, stood Gloria. “Fuck you both. I was the one who got us there.”

  Jubal pushed from the wall and turned to Bigby, who held a small silver flask in his hand. “We got there as a team, Bigs.”

  “You got there on my back. Then O’Connor makes one play, and he’s the big hero,” Bigby responded. He gave Cork a killing look.

  “You won,” Winona said. “Isn’t that what’s important?”

  “Who asked you, bitch?”

  “Don’t call her that,” Willie said.

  “Doan caw her at,” Bigby mimicked.

  “Just leave,” Jubal suggested evenly.

  “Fuck if I will.”

  Cork stepped next to Jubal, and together they filled the alcove as they faced Bigby. At that same moment, Mr. Hildebrandt passed alo
ng the main hallway. He taught English and was the assistant football coach and one of the chaperones at the dance. He was big and broad, a lot of power and authority contained in his frame. He glanced into the alcove, took in the body language of Cork and Jubal and Bigby, and must have understood immediately what was going on. He approached them.

  “What’re you drinking there, Donner?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Bigby said and slipped the flask into his back pocket.

  Hildebrandt nodded, considered all the young people in the alcove, then said, “Why don’t you go on home, Donner?”

  “I don’t want to go,” Bigby snapped.

  In the face of the kid’s anger, Hildebrandt brought out his coach’s voice. “Go home, Donner,” he ordered. “Go home now.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “What did you say? No, don’t repeat it. Bigby, you’re out of here. And don’t bother suiting up for practice on Monday. Men like you I don’t need playing for me.”

  Bigby looked as if he was contemplating taking a swing at his former coach. Then his eyes, burning through a thin alcoholic haze, passed over Cork and Jubal and Willie and finally Winona, and he didn’t have to say what he was thinking. He turned and rejoined Gloria outside, and as they vanished into the night, Cork heard him say, “Let’s blow this shithole.”

  When they were gone, Hildebrandt breathed deeply and nodded as if he’d simply finished a rational discussion in which a rational decision had been reached and said, as if nothing extraordinary had just transpired, “Winona, Willie, you guys are great up there. Love the music.” He headed back to the gymnasium.

  The alcove was silent for a long moment afterward, then Jubal shrugged. “Guess that’s that.”

  “You think so?” Winona said. Her eyes were focused beyond the open door, as if she knew absolutely that the darkness there hid demons.

  * * *

  What happened later that night, Cork didn’t learn about until the next morning. He was at the breakfast table in the kitchen, dressed for Mass at St. Agnes and working on a bowl of Wheaties, when a knock came at the front door. He found Deputy Cy Borkman standing on the porch, hat in hand.

  “Your mom home, Cork?” the deputy asked.

  “No, she’s already gone to church, Cy. What is it?”

  “Well, it’s really you I want to see. Mind if I come in?”

  They sat in the living room, and Borkman told him about Winona Crane. She and her brother had been packing up their equipment after the dance. By then, the only vehicles left in the school parking lot were the janitor’s station wagon and the Cranes’ old pickup. They had almost everything stowed in the bed of the truck when Willie remembered that he’d left his hat, a fine black Stetson with a band that Winona had braided for him and that was adorned with an eagle feather, an item sacred to the Anishinaabeg. He went back into the building. The hallways were mostly dark by then. Willie made his way to the gymnasium, but the lights were off, and he couldn’t see well enough to locate his hat. He went in search of Mr. Guerrero, the janitor, whom he found in the basement, adjusting the furnace for the night. Together they returned to the gym and located the hat, which was under the bleachers and, to Willie’s great dismay, had been stomped flat. The braided band had been ripped into pieces, and the eagle feather was gone. Mr. Guerrero was sympathetic but needed to close up, and he accompanied Willie to the school door. Ruined hat in hand, Willie crossed the parking lot to the truck where he’d left his sister. But Winona wasn’t there.

  Willie called for her and got no answer. He made his way back to the school as quickly as his awkward legs would carry him, and he pounded on the door until Mr. Guerrero opened up again. Then he explained his situation. Mr. Guerrero went to his station wagon and took a flashlight from the glove box, and together he and Willie began to search the grounds.

  They found her lying on the torn and muddy football field, found her because they heard her crying. When Mr. Guerrero shone his light on her, they saw that she’d been beaten. They saw something else in that hard circle of light, something that Deputy Borkman refrained from mentioning but that Cork heard about later. Winona, that night, had dressed in a denim skirt whose hemline she’d embroidered herself with clan images: a bear, a crane, a loon, an eagle, and others. When her brother and Mr. Guerrero found her, she no longer wore the skirt.

  “Did she see who did it?” Cork asked, his gut gone hard as a fist.

  Borkman shook his head. “Too dark. And she was attacked from behind. Whoever did it hit her several times, and she doesn’t remember much after that.”

  “You know who did it,” Cork said.

  “No, son, we don’t. Do you?”

  “Donner Bigby,” Cork said.

  “His name’s been mentioned,” Borkman acknowledged. “And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We understand there was some kind of altercation at the dance last night and that you were involved.”

  “Nothing happened,” Cork said. “Except Bigs got thrown out of the dance. You should talk to Mr. Hildebrandt about that.”

  “We have. You didn’t see Donner Bigby come back to the dance?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t lurking around somewhere.”

  “Gloria Agostino says he wasn’t. She says they left the school grounds and Donner was with her until well after one o’clock.”

  “She’s lying.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out here, Cork.”

  “It was Bigs,” Cork said angrily.

  “Careful there,” Borkman said. “We don’t want to go accusing anyone without proof. After he left the dance, you didn’t see Donner Bigby again last night?”

  “No.”

  “Ken Hildebrandt told us that Winona Crane was involved in the altercation with Bigby. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did Bigby make any threats against her?”

  “Not directly, but she was scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “That he might do something.”

  “Because of something he said?”

  “No, he’s just that kind of guy.”

  “Did he make threats against anyone?”

  Cork thought back and couldn’t remember Bigs saying anything that was actually threatening. “He called Winona a bitch.”

  “But he didn’t threaten her, or anyone else?”

  Cork was forced to shake his head no.

  Borkman stood up. “All right, Cork. Thanks for your help.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’ve got a few more people I’m supposed to talk to. The sheriff’s out interviewing people, too. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

  After the deputy left, Cork called Jubal’s house. No answer. He ran upstairs, changed his clothes, wrote a note to his mother explaining that something had come up and he’d miss dinner and not to worry about him. He was just opening the front door when Jubal pulled up in his mother’s rusted Pontiac. He got out and met Cork on the sidewalk.

  “You hear?” he asked.

  “Yeah. A deputy was just here.”

  “The sheriff himself came to my house,” Jubal said. “I told him it was Donner. He said Donner had an alibi.”

  “Gloria Agostino.”

  “I told him she was lying,” Jubal said.

  “Did he believe you?”

  “Who knows? But I’m not waiting. I’m going to find Bigby now.”

  “I’m going with you,” Cork said.

  They piled into the Pontiac and headed to Donner Bigby’s house, which was a mile or so outside of town on the Old Soudan Road. It was a big place, perched on a slight hill, surrounded by woods. There were a couple of ceramic deer in the front yard and a nice flower bed that had already been cleared down to the topsoil in preparation for winter. Bigby’s mother opened the door. She was older than the mothers of most of Cork’s friends. She looked frail and worried and wary.

  Jubal took the lead and lied his ass of
f, telling the woman that they were Donner’s friends from school, and they were trying to put together a game of touch football at Grant Park that afternoon. She seemed relieved and told him that Donner was gone.

  “Rock climbing,” she said.

  “That’s right.” Jubal nodded as if he should have known. “He’s a Crag Rat.” That was an organization in Aurora made up of guys who liked to climb. Bigs aside, they were an okay bunch.

  “You don’t happen to know where he’s climbing,” Jubal said, smooth as ice cream.

  “Someplace that sounds like . . .” She thought a moment. “Tracker’s Point, I think.”

  “Trickster’s Point?” Cork said.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Jubal said with a parting smile.

  They went back to the Pontiac, and Cork said, “She didn’t seem so bad. Bigs must’ve got all his asshole genes from his old man.”

  The day was sunny and warm, and the air was heavy with moisture that still lingered from the storm two days earlier. They went in the long way, hiking five miles on the trail off the county road. There was only one car parked at the trailhead, and they both recognized the silver Karmann Ghia that Bigby had been driving since he got it as a present on his sixteenth birthday. They double-timed it along the trail, where Cork saw boot prints that had been left not long before. They arrived at Trickster’s Point to find Bigby already halfway up the formation, working without the aid of ropes or pitons, in the full light of the sun, which had climbed nearly straight overhead. They had to shade their eyes against the glare when they looked up at him and hollered his name.

  Bigby secured his position with both feet and the firm grip of his right hand, then hung out a bit from the rock and looked down at them with a shit-eating grin.

  “What do you know? It’s Chip and Dale. Looking for acorns?”

  “Looking for you, you son of a bitch,” Cork spit out.

  Bigby shrugged. “Found me. Now what?”

  “Now you come down, and we talk about Winona.”

  “Winona? The squaw girl? Why talk about her?”

  “You know why,” Cork said. “Come on down. Or is it just girls you like to beat on?”