“And then tell him if he trespasses again, we’ll have him arrested,” Cork growled.
Jenny left and came back a few moments later. “It’s Mr. Crane.”
“At the patio door?” Then Cork understood. Willie had probably parked on Willow Street, just as Cork had, and come through the backyard to avoid any reporters who might still be lurking out front. He left the kitchen table and met his visitor on the patio.
Without preamble, Willie said, “She wants to see you.” Shewanseeyou.
“Where is she?”
“I’ll take you.”
Because he couldn’t trust his left leg to do what most people’s legs did naturally, Willie drove a Jeep Wrangler modified with hand controls for braking. Because he used it often to get himself into remote areas of the backcountry where he shot the photographs that had built his reputation, the outside of the Wrangler was layered with caked mud. Willie Crane was one of the most admirable men Cork knew. Despite his cerebral palsy-or maybe because of it, Cork sometimes thought-Willie had a long list of remarkable accomplishments to his credit. He’d written articles and provided photographs for National Geographic, Audubon, National Wildlife, Outside, and dozens of other periodicals. He’d produced several collections of his own essays with accompanying photographs. He had a small gallery in downtown Saint Paul, which, like the Iron Lake Center for Native Art, featured not only his own work but the work of many Indian artists. He was painfully aware of his speech difficulty and never spoke in public, but through his writings, he’d become a strong and respected voice for habitat preservation and wildlife conservation.
They headed toward Allouette, but half a mile outside town, Willie turned onto a narrow gravel road, and Cork knew they were going to his cabin. Years before, Willie had built a little place on the far eastern edge of the reservation, nestled against a small lake. The cabin was simple, built of logs and surrounded on three sides by aspens. When they pulled up, Winona’s Ford Ranger was parked in front, and light poured from the interior of the cabin. They got out, and Cork followed Willie inside. It was a cozy place, an open area that doubled as living room and kitchen, with a closed door off either end of the room. The place smelled of spiced tea and, more faintly, of photographic chemicals. When the photography world turned digital, Willie had stayed with film. He did his own processing in a darkroom behind one of the closed doors. Because Cork had been here before, he knew that the other closed door led to Willie’s bedroom.
“Nona?” Willie called. He received no answer and started toward the bedroom door. He said to Cork, “Wait here.” Waiere.
Willie kept the cabin neat, and he’d decorated the walls with framed prints of some of his award-winning photographs. Many were landscape shots that captured beautifully the dramatic interplay of light and wilderness. Others were of wildlife-moose and deer and bears and eagles and osprey and lynx and foxes-all caught unawares and in such a natural state and so clearly that Cork had the sense he was looking at them through a window and they were just on the other side of the glass, breathing.
Willie returned. “She’s not here.”
“Her truck’s here,” Cork pointed out.
“The fire ring, maybe,” Willie said.
They went out the way they’d come in and around to the back of the cabin. Because of the overcast, there were no stars, no moon, and the night was pitch black. But in the faint light that fell through the cabin windows, Cork saw a narrow path. He followed Willie’s clumsy feet along the path to the lakeshore. From there, he could see the fire, a small dance of light in the lee of a rock that stood a dozen feet back from the water and was as big as a buffalo.
When they reached the fire ring, only a few flames were still licking at the night air. A blanket that looked of Navajo design lay rumpled on the ground next to the ring, as if thrown there in haste. Winona was nowhere to be seen.
“Nona!” Willie called toward the woods. Then he turned and cried toward the lake, “Nona! It’s Willie.” He waited and finally turned to Cork. “She’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of whoever it was that killed Jubal Little.”
“Why?”
“She knows things, things about a lot of powerful people.”
Of course she did. No one was closer to Jubal Little than Winona Crane. They’d been lovers forever. He told her everything.
“She’s not afraid of me, is she?” Cork asked.
“When she gets like this, she’s afraid of everyone. Nona!” Willie shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cork. I don’t know where she’s gone.”
“That’s okay. Mind if I stay a little while, just in case she comes back?”
“Okay, I guess. But when she gets like this…” Willie gave a shrug. “I’ll wait at my cabin.”
As the sound of Willie’s awkward feet retreated, Cork turned and scanned the lake that, in the inky dark of the starless night, appeared to be nothing but a black hole. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew the far shoreline was unbroken forest, and not far beyond that began the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. For a hundred miles north, there was nothing but thick woods and clear water.
He didn’t believe Willie Crane, didn’t believe that Willie had no idea where Winona might be hiding. The real question was, Why had Winona fled? What was she really afraid of? It might well have been, as Willie said, that she knew things that made her dangerous to powerful people. But it also might have been because she’d finally grown tired of the way Jubal treated her, and she’d used an arrow to free herself from the prison of that relationship forever.
Cork circled to the far side of the fire, sat, fed a few sticks of wood to the dying flames, and thought about Winona. She was fifty, old by some standards, but a more handsome woman he’d never seen. Her hair was long and black and, in sunlight, shone like obsidian. Her face was finely boned and ageless. Her skin was a soft caramel color. Her eyes were light almond, and whenever she’d looked at him, there was a gentle intensity so compelling that, even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t look away. She gazed at people as if she saw their souls and understood everything, good and bad, about them.
The truth was that he’d known Winona Crane all his life, and he had never not been in love with her, just a little.
CHAPTER 18
What happened the night of the homecoming dance changed Winona Crane.
She’d always been outgoing and clearly not afraid to take a walk on the wild side. After the attack, however, she withdrew from the world. For a while, she simply disappeared. She didn’t come to school or to Sam’s Place or into Aurora at all. Cork knew she was still on the rez; Willie Crane told him that, but it was all Willie would say. Cork’s mother, who had relatives in Allouette, told him a bit more. Winona had become deathly afraid. She didn’t want to see anyone, yet the idea of being left alone terrorized her.
“Is she getting help?” Cork asked, trying desperately to think of something, anything, he might be able to do for her.
“Henry Meloux,” his mother replied.
Two days later, Cork borrowed his mother’s car, picked up Jubal Little, and they drove north out of Aurora until they came to the double-trunk birch that marked the beginning of the path to Crow Point.
Jubal had changed, too. The death of Donner Bigby had done that. He was still remarkable in all the ways people in Tamarack County had come to expect, yet Cork, who was his closest friend, recognized a difference. It was as if, when he climbed down from the top of Trickster’s Point, Jubal had simply kept going and climbed right into himself. When he and Cork were together, Jubal was often silent. Cork had no trouble with silence-it was an Ojibwe virtue he admired-and he didn’t push his friend.
The day was sunny but cool. The forest floor was covered with fallen aspen leaves, and it seemed to Cork as
