“A friend? You mean the Gallagher kid.”
“They’re friends, Will.”
He whirled away, tornado dark in his mood, and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shower.”
He was gone a long time, over an hour. Lucinda put Misty in the crib, then sought Will, who was sitting on the bed in their room, staring at the wall.
“Will?”
He looked up, startled.
“I want to speak with you,” she said.
He stood and turned away from her. “I’m not going to talk about it, Luci.”
“Please, Will.”
Now he spun back. “Don’t you ever go poking your nose in my business again.”
“Poking my nose? I was trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
She flung open the gate to her own anger, something she almost never did. “Then what am I here for, Will? What am I even doing in your life?”
“You’re my wife.”
“And what is that? Wife. Tell me what you think I should do as your wife. Am I here to help you? Comfort you? Or just to feed you and clean up after you? What, Will? Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I have no idea.”
“You…you’re…,” he sputtered. His Ojibwe eyes as he stared at her were like shells over hard nuts. For a moment Lucinda was afraid that for the first time in all their years together, he was going to hit her. Instead, he looked down at the floor, and she saw all the iron go out of him. “I don’t know what to do, Luci.”
“Oh, Will, talk to me. Please.”
He lifted his face, full of desolation, and spoke barely above a whisper. “It was Uly.”
“Uly? What do you mean?”
“When you told me the Dragunov was missing, I checked the security tape. He’s there, Luci, on the tape. He’s helped me at the shop a hundred times. He knows where I keep the spare keys. He knows the code to disable the alarm. He came into the shop, took the Dragunov, and that night Reinhardt was killed. He helps me test my custom rifles. He’s an excellent shot. It was Uly, Luci. Uly killed the man he thought shot his brother.”
“And that’s why you lied? To protect Uly? You were going to take the blame?”
“We already lost Alex. I couldn’t let them take Uly, too.”
“Oh, Will, Will.” She crossed to the corner where he stood like a child lost in the dark. She took him in her arms.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Will. We’ll figure out something.”
It was an unusual moment, delicious in a way, comforting Will, something she hadn’t done for a very long time. In her mind she cast about for a way to save her only son and wondered why she didn’t feel fear or panic or share Will’s miserable despair. Instead calm had descended and with it the absolute belief that she could find a way for them out of the dark. In that moment, she felt strong enough for all of them, all of those she loved.
The doorbell rang. Will tensed and pulled away.
“I’ll get it,” she said.
It was Cork O’Connor and with him was George LeDuc, whom she’d met at both the visitation and the funeral for Alexander and Rayette. Cork said, “Good evening, Luci. Is Will home?”
“Yes, but I think he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
“It’s important.”
“I’m here,” Will said at her back. He took her hand and stood beside her.
Cork said, “Could we talk out here, Will?”
“All right. Wait inside, Luci.”
He joined Cork O’Connor and George LeDuc on the porch, and Lucinda busied herself in the kitchen, making decaf coffee, thinking perhaps their visitors might stay for a few minutes after they’d talked with Will, though honestly she didn’t want them there. She didn’t want anything to break the connection she’d made with her husband. Finally Will came back in, alone.
“What did they want?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He held out his hand and said, “Come and sit with me, Luci. Just sit with me awhile on the porch.”
For a moment, she didn’t move.
“You asked me what I wanted you to do as my wife. Right now I just want you to sit with me. Would that be all right?”
They sat on the porch steps looking at the night sky, and although they didn’t talk, and the question of what to do about Uly was still before them, unanswered, there was something magnificently hopeful about staring into the dark together.
FORTY-TWO
In the gray that preceded the Sunday dawn, they gathered at the mission, arriving in dusty pickups and SUVs. Arthur Villebrun drove up in his rusted, misfiring ’87 Impala because, he explained, his wife needed the truck to go to Eveleth for their niece’s First Communion. A couple of the men had handguns that previously they’d fired only in target practice, but most brought the rifles they used for hunting game. As day broke over the clearing, they stood next to the cemetery behind the mission, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts that George LeDuc had brought from the Mocha Moose. A few of the men smoked while they waited for the Red Boyz. No one said much. They’d greeted Will Kingbird and told him he was welcome, and though their faces gave nothing away, their eyes lingered a long time on the rifle that hung from a strap slung over Will’s shoulder, a Winchester Stealth painted in camouflage and with a powerful Leupold scope.
Tom Blessing’s black Silverado was the last vehicle to arrive. The others had come from the west, from the direction of Allouette, but Blessing drove in from the east, from the bog country. As the Silverado approached, a red dawn began to bleed into the clouds along the horizon behind it. Cork watched the pickup come across the clearing where the meadow grass stood so high that he couldn’t see the wheels, and for a brief time it looked to him as if Blessing was guiding a small ship across a dark green sea.
Red sky at morning, he thought.
Half a dozen young men were hunkered down in the bed of the pickup, and when Blessing parked, they all stood up with their rifles in hand and stared mutely down at the older men already gathered. Blessing got out of the cab and walked to where LeDuc and Cork stood together. Blessing looked as if he’d aged lately, from the weight of many pressing concerns.
“Everyone here???? he asked.
“We are now,” LeDuc said.
“All right then. Follow me.”
“Hold on a minute. I think something needs to be said.”
Lester Neadeau called out, “You’re already head of the tribal council, George. No need for speechifying.”
The men laughed.
LeDuc said, “I’ll keep it short.” He looked over those gathered beside the cemetery in the half-light of a day yet to break. “A lot of years ago, when I was no older than most of you Red Boyz, I fought in Korea. Dennis and Jack there, they both fought in Vietnam. Harvey served in the Gulf War. And Will Kingbird, hell, is there a continent you haven’t fought on? In these wars, in far-off places, we risked our lives for our country. The fight today is for our people and the land of our people. In the days of our grandfathers, there was ceremony before a battle. I don’t know what it was. A lot’s been lost over the years. But we haven’t lost our spirit, I can tell you that. We haven’t lost our courage. And we haven’t lost our knowledge of who we are.” He stood tall and he strode among the men, looking into the face of each one. “We are The People,” he finished and lifted his rifle above his head. “We are
