Meloux nodded, then added, “If it does not eat us all first.”
THIRTY-FOUR
After visiting Meloux, Cork took an old logging road east, one that didn’t appear on any map. He made his way to County 15 on the far side of Iron Lake and drove to Allouette, on the rez. He stopped at LeDuc’s store, spoke briefly with George, then walked across the street to the large community center, which housed the tribal offices, the community health program, several meeting rooms, a gymnasium, and a recreation room. The Red Boyz could often be found at the center, shooting pool or shooting hoops. Cork checked the gym, which was being used at the moment by Ani Sorenson, who coached the Iron Lake Loons, the girl’s basketball team for the rez. She was taking a number of adolescent girls through drills. Basketball was serious business in the Indian community, and although the season was officially over, Sorenson and the girls kept working on their game. In the recreation room, he found Benny Fullmouth all alone, shooting pool. Fullmouth was twenty years old. He’d dropped out of high school at sixteen and spent the next couple of years getting into trouble-a lot of it triggered by drinking-and heading toward serious jail time. As far as Cork knew, Fullmouth had been clean since joining the Red Boyz. Like all the other gang members, he wore his hair long. At the moment, it was held back with a red bandanna tied around his head. When Cork walked in, Fullmouth glanced up from the table then completed his shot. In the quiet of the room, the crack was like a rock splitting.
“ Boozhoo, Benny,” Cork said.
“What do you want?” Fullmouth circled the table, studying the placement of the balls.
“Five minutes.”
“I’m busy.”
“You talk to me, it might help nail the person who killed Kakaik.”
Fullmouth leaned down to eye an angle. “Somebody already took care of that.”
“I don’t think Buck Reinhardt killed Kakaik.”
“Right.”
“Buck had an alibi, one that’s standing up. He wasn’t anywhere near the rez the night Kakaik and Rayette were killed.”
Fullmouth bent, laid his cue across the bridge of his hand, and shot. The cue ball struck the seven and sent it popping into the corner pocket.
“I want one thing from you, Benny.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Tell me who Kakaik was.”
Fullmouth gave him a look that said Cork was an idiot and went back to studying the table.
“You cleaned yourself up when you joined the Red Boyz, Benny.”
“What of it?”
“Was it Kakaik who made you do that?”
“It’s what you do when you become one of the Red Boyz.”
“Must’ve been tough. How’d you manage it?”
Fullmouth drilled the side pocket with the next shot.
“He made you go through giigiwishimowin,” Cork said.
Fullmouth straightened up. “If you already know the answer, why ask the question?”
“You had a vision?”
“Yeah, I had a vision. And it won’t do you any good to ask.”
“It made you one of the Red Boyz.”
“It made me ready to be one of the Red Boyz.”
“Kakaik did the rest?”
“Look, what he did was help me see that when I was a kid, I thought only about myself. If I was going to be one of the Red Boyz, I had to think about The People.”
“That’s what the Red Boyz are about? The People?”
“We’re about warriors. We’re about brothers. Hell, the Red Boyz are better than brothers. Kakaik asked me to be one of them. He asked me.”
“And what are the Red Boyz about, Benny?”
“About purifying. Ourselves and the rez.”
“The tribal council doesn’t look on the Red Boyz too kindly.”
“All they care about is fucking with the BIA and keeping the casino running. That’s got nothing to do with being ogichidaa.” Which meant being a leader, a protector of the people and the land. “Kakaik was a great ogichidaa.” Fullmouth threw his cue on the table and tore open his shirt. He thrust his left shoulder into view. A scar, a branded R, was burned into the skin. “He gave me this when I became one of the Red Boyz. If he’d wanted me to cut off a finger, too, I’d’ve done it.”
“Do all the Red Boyz go through giigiwishimowin?”
“You can’t be one of us if you don’t.”
“Do you all seek the vision in the same place?”
Fullmouth looked at Cork suspiciously, but finally said, “Yeah.”
Cork said, “Let me guess. You go out from Black Duck Lake. And when you return, he brands you, and you become one of the Red Boyz.”
From Fullmouth’s reaction, Cork could see that he’d guessed correctly, and he understood now why Blessing had made the pilgrimage to the lake after Kingbird’s funeral. To the Red Boyz, it was a place of power.
“Your five minutes are up.” Fullmouth headed to a soft-drink vending machine.
“What about Lonnie Thunder?”
“He isn’t one of the Red Boyz.” He fed a dollar into the machine and looked over his choices.
“He says he is.”
“Fuck what he says.”
“What did Kakaik think of Thunder?”
“That he could help the son of a bitch.”
“Is that why he asked Thunder to be one of the Red Boyz?”
“He didn’t. Waubishash wanted Thunder in. They’re cousins.”
“I know.”
Fullmouth poked a button and after some internal clunking, the machine delivered a twenty-ounce plastic bottle of Sprite. He pulled out the bottle and shook his head. “Thunder, he wanted to be one of us for all the wrong reasons.”
“Which were?”
“He’s big, likes to throw his weight around. He thinks that’s what we’re about. That and dealing dope.”
“You don’t deal?”
Fullmouth unscrewed the cap on the Sprite, took a long sip, and followed it with a loud burp. “No, man. Staying pure, that’s what the Red Boyz are about. And helping other Shinnobs to stay pure. We find someone dealing on the rez, we don’t mess around. We kick ass.”
“Lonnie was dealing. And he was doing worse than that with young Shinnob girls. How come you didn’t kick his ass?”
“We didn’t know anything about that. Even Waubishash won’t take his side now.”
“You’d kick his ass now?”
“Up to me, we’d cut his balls off and stuff ’em down his throat. Nothing but trouble comes from him. But he’s done that bug thing.”
“Bug thing?”
“Found a rock somewhere and crawled under it.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be shooting pool right now.”
