sex with the Reinhardt girl and used them to get what he wanted from those others. He didn’t know how to walk the path of the warrior and he jeopardized us all. He wouldn’t turn himself in and he threatened he’d tell everything he knew about the Red Boyz if Kakaik tried to turn him over. Killing him was the only answer.”
“So he killed himself?” LeDuc looked unconvinced. “How?”
“Kakaik offered him a choice, gun or knife. The gun had one bullet in it. We were all there, all the Red Boyz. Lonnie knew he was a dead man. He took the knife and cut his own throat.”
“While you all stood there and watched?” LeDuc’s position shifted and his face dropped into shadow. “Watching a man die-a cousin-that’s not an easy thing.”
Blessing looked full into the sun, but he didn’t blink. “When he died, I had more respect for him than any time when he was alive. He finally acted like a warrior.”
“What did you do with his body?”
“Threw it in a bog.”
LeDuc glanced at Cork. Cork said, “Who killed Kingbird?”
“If I tell you, I’m a dead man.”
Cork moved close to Blessing and leaned near the man’s face. “It was the Latin Lords, wasn’t it, Tom?” From the look in Blessing’s eyes, he could tell that he’d hit the mark. “Was it about the drugs?”
Blessing was silent. The wind picked up suddenly, and the smell of char and ash from the burned ruins blew over them all. Against the hard blue sky, a hawk rode the current, its wings slicing the air like knife blades.
“They killed him because Kakaik was no longer one of them,” Blessing said. “He was one of us.”
Cork said, “The Lords sent him out here to help control the drug traffic, didn’t they? To deal with the competition and extend the pipeline. That’s why he created the Red Boyz. But in the end, his loyalty was here, with you.”
Blessing gave a nod. “He wanted to end the drug connection. He thought it weakened us, dishonored us.”
“And the Latin Lords weren’t happy?”
“They sent men to talk to him.”
“Talk?”
“We spent Saturday afternoon with them, Kakaik and me. I thought there was an understanding. I thought they left. Then they came to me the next morning, after Kakaik was killed. They said I was the head of the Red Boyz now, like it was something that was theirs to offer.”
“How many were there?”
“Two.”
“Their names?”
“Manny Ortega and Joey Estevez.”
“You knew them before?”
“Ortega’s the Latin Lord we always deal with. He’s like a businessman. Comes in from Chicago. Estevez comes with him, brings muscle. He was trained by Los Zetas, the assassins of the Mexican cartels. He’s death in a pair of lizard-skin boots.”
“An enforcer. How’d they get here?”
“The way they always do. In a floatplane.”
“That landed at Black Duck Lake?” Cork said.
“Yeah.”
“Isolated. And let me guess, the drugs are warehoused somewhere out there? They deliver and you distribute?”
Blessing nodded.
“Where?”
“All over, but mostly little places no bigger than a fart, kind of towns people think of as safe.”
“Good money in it?”
“You got no idea.”
“But Kakaik was going to end the deal, so the Latin Lords killed him and put you in charge.”
“They said if I got any ideas like Kakaik had, I’d end up the same way. They said wouldn’t I rather be rich and alive.”
“You shot at me and my son and pretended to be Thunder. Why?”
“I didn’t shoot at you. If I shot at you, you’d be dead. I just shot. I was trying to scare you off. I didn’t want you poking around on the rez. I figured it was safe putting the blame on a dead man.”
“What about Reinhardt? Why shoot at him?”
“I was hoping to put a little fear in him, too. And, hell, that was just the kind of stupid thing Lonnie would do.”
He was probably right, Cork thought. “The Red Boyz have anything to do with the shooting in the Buzz Saw parking lot?”
“That wasn’t us,” Blessing replied.
Cork nodded. For the moment, he’d let it lie. “You said the Latin Lords come in a floatplane. How do they get around from there?”
“They keep a Tahoe parked at the warehouse.”
“You have any proof it was these men who killed Kakaik and Rayette?”
“I know it was Estevez. He was always looking at Kakaik like he’d love to cut him into little pieces because Kakaik wasn’t afraid of him.”
“The sheriff’s people are going to want proof.”
“Sheriff’s people?” LeDuc said. “This is rez business.”
“Hold on, George,” Cork began.
LeDuc cut him off. “You believe he’s telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then Shinnobs will handle this.”
“It’s too big, too dangerous.”
“I’m not giving you a choice.” LeDuc squared himself in front of Cork. “In this, you are Anishinaabe or you are white. You can’t be both.”
LeDuc’s face could have been cut from sandstone and his eyes carved from agates. He and Cork were old friends, but in this business LeDuc was ogichidaa, protector of his people and their land. Cork understood this, but for him it was not a question of being Shinnob or white. It was a concern that arose from an ingrained and deeply felt respect for the law, something as much a part of who he was as the color of his skin or the mixed blood that ran through his veins.
“If we try to handle this on our own, George, and it goes south, the consequences could be enormous,” he argued quietly. “Good men here could be killed. Or just as bad, they could become murderers.”
“A man who kills a murderer is not himself one.”
“That’s not how the law will look at it, George.”
“White man’s law. This is our land, and our laws decided things here a long time before white people came.” LeDuc was not angry, but his voice had the sharp edge of a honed knife. “Go now or stay. The choice is yours, Cork. If you go, you go without shame. But if you stay, you are one of us and you are with us in whatever we decide. I will discuss this no more.”
Cork turned from LeDuc and studied the faces around him. He knew these men, respected them, and would have been proud to stand with them. He knew no better than they did the end of this affair. There was enormous risk involved and these men were prepared to accept it. Cork knew that stepping back was the safe thing to do. But he also knew that he could not.
“Anishinaabe indaaw,” he said to LeDuc. I am Anishinaabe. I am one of The People.
LeDuc gave a nod, almost imperceptible, and it was done.
Cork faced Blessing again. “If you wanted to talk to these men, they’d come in on the floatplane and dock where the Tahoe is parked?”
“Yeah.”
“What if they thought you were going to be as difficult to deal with as Kakaik?”
