more aspen.
“Interesting country,” Dina said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
He could have told her. How the Canadian Shield, the stone mass that underlay everything there and broke through the thin topsoil in jagged outcroppings, was the oldest exposed rock on earth. How the glaciers two miles thick had crept across this land over the centuries, scraping everything down to that obdurate rock and leaving, as they receded, lakes as numerous and glittering as the stars in the night sky. How the land was still lifting itself up, released from the weight of that continent of ice, rebounding, a living thing unimaginably patient and enduring.
“It’s pretty,” Dina said. “If you like trees.”
“You don’t?”
“A city girl. I spent a lot of summers at Camp Wah-kee-shah, though. That’s Wah with a soft a.”
The windows were open, and the wind ruffled her hair, loose strands drumming her cheeks like tanned, restless fingers. Cork thought again what a remarkably pretty woman she was.
“Me and a bunch of kids like me, Jewish mostly, sent to camp to be out of our parents’ hair.”
“You didn’t come away with an appreciation of nature?” he asked.
“Not at all. But I can braid a pretty mean lanyard. You were a Chicago cop for a while. What brought you back here?”
“This is my home.”
“A lot of people leave home at the first opportunity and never look back.”
“You, for one?”
He waited but she never replied. The wind smelled of pine sap and of the yellow dust the Pathfinder kicked up. The road cut through an open area blanketed with purple fireweed, the first thing to grow after a burn. Ahead of them, the sky filled in the gaps between the trees like blue water. Except for the road, the land felt untouched.
“There are problems in a small town, sure,” Cork said. “You can’t have a thought without everybody knowing it. If your family doesn’t go back a few generations, you can spend your whole life here and still feel like an outsider. The nearest foreign film is five hours away. And yeah, the kids leave as soon as they can, go to college, into the service, whatever. But a lot of them come back eventually. Why? It’s a good place to raise a family, a good place for kids to grow up.”
“And that’s important?”
“Are you married?”
“I was. At the moment, no.”
“Any kids?”
“Just little old me.”
“It might be tough for you to understand.”
Dina was quiet for a bit, then said, “I understand.”
They came out on County 33, half a mile south of the North Star Bar. Cork turned onto the asphalt road.
“I’m going to stay with the car,” Dina said. “I’d just as soon keep our relationship out of the limelight. Out here anyway.”
“Don’t want to kill the potential of the push-up bra?”
“Or any of my other tricks,” she said.
“Other tricks?”
“Don’t ask.” It sounded like a wisecrack, but she didn’t smile. “If Lizzie’s there, let me know. Maybe I’ll come in anyway.”
Cork pulled into the dirt lot and parked away from the half dozen vehicles already there, dusty in the morning sunlight. Inside, it felt like a dark cave. Johnny Cash was on the jukebox. Cork didn’t see Lizzie Fineday or her father. Leonard Trueur was tending bar. He was a heavy man, slow, with fat hands and fingers, a shuffle for a walk. It was still early in the day and the bar wasn’t crowded. A couple of Shinnobs Cork didn’t recognize sat at a table under an old neon sign that said Hamm’s. They weren’t talking. Maybe they fell silent when Cork came in, but they also had the look of men who didn’t say much anyway. Three others played pool in the corner, ball caps shading their faces. They glanced at Cork. He knew them. They went on with their game.
“ Boozhoo, Leonard,” Cork said, stepping up to the bar.
Leonard wiped the bar, a needless thing because at the moment no one sat there. In fact, the rag looked more in need of a good cleaning than the bar top.
“I’m looking for Will.”
Leonard watched his fat hand moving the dirty rag and shrugged.
“Is he around?”
“Nope.”
“Where is he?”
“Dunno.”
“Lizzie here?”
“Dunno.”
“Think I’ll go up and knock,” Cork said.
Leonard didn’t offer an objection, and Cork headed toward a door to the left of the bar that opened onto a steep stairway leading to the second story. At the top of the stairs was a small landing and another door, this one closed. Behind it were the rooms where Will Fineday lived with his daughter. Cork knocked, put his ear to the wood, knocked once more, very hard. Finally he turned away and went back down.
The music had stopped. The men under the Hamm’s sign hadn’t moved. At the pool table, two men held their cues while the third hunched and lined up a shot.
“You guys seen Will or Lizzie?” Cork asked.
“Ain’t seen shit, cousin,” said Dennis Finn, the one bent over the green felt.
“How about Moose LaRusse?”
“The Moose? Thought you had him doing a stretch in Stillwater.”
“He was here yesterday.”
“News to me, cousin.”
Cork looked to the other men, but no one met his gaze.
“Migwech,” Cork said to Leonard, who was still working the rag over the bar. Thanks. He walked back out into the sun.
He stood with his back to the bar, thinking. A couple of crows hopped around the Dumpster at the side of the building, looking for a way to an easy meal. A moment later, the door behind him opened, and Ernie Champoux, one of the men at the pool table, stepped out. He lit a cigarette, blew the smoke into the windless air. Champoux was a hard man, but his dealings with Cork had always been reasonable.
“Stone,” Champoux said. Then he said, “Moose, him I ain’t seen.”
That was all. He went back inside.
Cork walked to his vehicle and got in.
“Lizzie not there?” Dina said.
“No.”
“You find out where?”
“Maybe.” Cork started the car and pulled away from the bar. “We’re going to see Stone.”
They drove awhile before Dina asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“An investigation on the reservation.”
“I do most of the law enforcement work on the rez myself.”
“Why?”
“My grandmother was true-blood Iron Lake Ojibwe. Things tend to go a little smoother because of that.”
“What I mean is, I thought reservations were under federal jurisdiction.”
