toward his friend. Broom grabbed it, and Willie shouted for him to hold on. He swam them both near enough to shore that his feet found bottom, but by then Broom had taken in so much water and was so exhausted that the oar slipped from his hands and his body slid below the surface. Willie dived after him, wrapped his hands around fistfuls of Broom’s T-shirt, and dragged him to solid ground. He dropped him in the wash of the waves and saw that the boy’s chest had ceased to rise and fall. He cocked Broom’s head back, locked his lips against Broom’s blue lips, and breathed life back into his friend.
It was a remarkable story, but when the Aurora Sentinel reported the incident, a lot of white folks in Tamarack County refused to believe it, refused to accept that the Indian kid they sometimes spotted limping down Center Street, and who was incomprehensible when he tried to talk, could have performed such a physical feat. But Cork believed it. He believed it because he knew the heart within Willie Crane, and he believed it because he knew that friendship, true friendship, was the stuff of miracles.
Cork got out of his Land Rover and headed into the Mocha Moose. Except for Broom and Crane and Sarah LeDuc, the coffee shop was empty. There was music playing over the sound system, and Cork recognized the flute work of Bill Miller. Sarah smiled from behind the counter and greeted Cork with “Boozhoo.”
“ Boozhoo, Sarah. Quiet today,” he said.
“Monday afternoon. Always quiet. Can I get you something?”
“A small dark roast.”
“Regular or decaf?”
“Regular. Never understood the point of drinking coffee without caffeine in it. Like drinking nonalcoholic beer.”
Broom and Crane had been talking before he came in, but with his appearance, they’d lapsed into a watchful silence.
Cork got his coffee and paid. Then he strolled to the table where the two men sat. “I was just on my way over to your place, Isaiah. Mind if I sit down?”
“Heard the cops tossed your house this morning,” Broom said.
Though uninvited, Cork pulled a chair from another table and joined the men. “They were respectful,” he said.
“Find what they were looking for?”
“You’ll have to ask them, Isaiah. I left before they finished.”
“You okay?” Willie asked. U-k?
“I feel like I’m in a vise at the moment, Willie, and the jaws are closing. Thanks for asking.”
Willie said, “I should get back to the business. Unless you want to talk to me, too.”
“No, it’s Isaiah I came to see.”
“All right.” He nodded to Broom. “Seven?”
“I’ll be there,” Broom said.
Willie scooted his chair from the table. He got up and limped out, the sound of his gait like uneven drumbeats on the old wooden floorboards.
“Seven?” Cork asked.
“Tribal Council’s holding a meeting to talk about this sulfide mining thing,” Broom replied. “Some guy from that mining company is gonna try to convince us they’ll tear up the earth safely. Kinda like Custer saying all he really wanted to do was have tea with Sitting Bull. What did you want to see me about?” He lifted his mug, sipped his coffee, and his dark eyes watched Cork closely.
“I asked you yesterday where you were on Saturday. You treated it like a joke. It’s no joke, Isaiah. Where were you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Sam Winter Moon taught me how to hunt in the old way. He taught a lot of Shinnobs, including you. He also taught me how to make my own arrows, which is something I still do. I know that you do, too.”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Do you splice your fletches?”
“Yeah.”
“And the pattern?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Sam made his arrows using two different colors of fletching, red and green. They were round-back, with a left-wing offset. When I asked him why he used that pattern, he told me it was out of respect for the man who’d taught him. Cat-Eye Jimmy LeClair. When Cat-Eye died, Sam began using his pattern as a sign of respect and to preserve his memory. When Sam died, I began making my arrows using Sam’s pattern, for the same reason. Respect and memory. I’m just wondering if you might have done the same thing. What fletching pattern do you use?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Humor me and just answer the question.”
“I feel like a rabbit looking at a snare here, O’Connor, so I think I’m going to keep that information to myself.” Broom glanced at the clock on the wall. “And we’re finished talking here. I’ve got to see somebody in Yellow Lake about a tree they want me to carve.” He stood up and turned away to drop his mug off with Sarah as he left.
Cork watched him go.
Broom was a good Shinnob in every way. Unlike Lester Bigby, whose emotions were tattooed all over his face, Broom gave away nothing. But all that meant to Cork was that he’d have to keep digging.
After he left Allouette, Cork drove east on a road that wound for nearly two miles through a mix of marsh and popple. He came to a dirt track that split off to the right and that was marked with a sign, beautifully carved and lacquered, and into which were wood-burned the words CHAINSAW ART. He drove a short stretch, into a clearing, and pulled to a stop in front of the home of Isaiah Broom. It was a cabin of Broom’s own design and construct, not large but sturdy, built of honey-colored pine. Next to it stood another structure, almost as large but of flat-board construction, which, Cork knew, served Broom as both garage and studio.
Over the years, Isaiah Broom had tried his hand at a lot of occupations, mostly associated with heavy labor. He’d logged timber in his early years, worked on road crews laying down steaming asphalt in summer, when the days were straight out of a pressure cooker, mopped hospital floors, and finally settled on tree and stump removal. Mostly, he’d eked out a living, and what was left after he’d fed and clothed himself (never very well) he’d spent in advocacy on behalf of his people. He was known on the rez as a rabble-rouser. He considered himself a skin’s skin. He could quote at length Russell Means and Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt, Chief Joseph and Black Elk, James Welch and Sherman Alexie. He’d been on the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, which had culminated in the taking of the BIA office in Washington, D.C. He’d twice marched across the continent in support of the sovereign rights of indigenous people, first in 1978, on what the American Indian Movement called the Longest Walk, and again thirty years later, on the Longest Walk 2. Whatever else he might think of Isaiah Broom, Cork respected the man’s dedication to the principles he advocated.
Isaiah Broom’s star was on the rise because of his ability to find, in a great chunk of wood, the spirit inside it that sought form. That was Broom’s explanation for his art, anyway, which amounted to taking large sections of tree trunk and, using mostly a chain saw, creating remarkable sculptures. He’d begun this art because his tree and stump removal business gave him easy access to the raw material, and he’d never married and so had a lot of time on his hands. Even after he’d made a name for himself, he still cut trees, but he did so only for those who wanted a part of the tree left standing and hewn into an image. On the front lawns of a number of the finer homes in Tamarack County what had once been an oak or elm or linden tree a hundred feet tall was now a ten-foot bear or an Ojibwe maiden or eagles standing guard over an aerie or a winged serpent, courtesy of the skilled hands of Isaiah Broom.
Willie Crane was pretty much directly responsible for the recent widening recognition of Broom’s art. He showed the sculptures at the Iron Lake Center for Native Art, and also at the gallery he owned in Saint Paul, and he’d introduced Broom to influential patrons. Thanks to Willie, those hands and arms, which most of his life had so confounded Isaiah Broom, had become not only the way he expressed what was deepest in him but also the manner in which he earned his living.
Cork walked across a patch of ground covered with wood chips and sawdust where, in the summer, Broom
