“Evil spirit.” Cork translated the Ojibwe word.
Meloux nodded. “Powerful. Very powerful,” he cautioned. “It is this that has brought you to me?”
“Maybe so, Henry.”
“What do you need?”
“Information. There’s a woman missing. Noopiming,” Cork said, using the name the Anishinaabe gave to the Boundary Waters area. Inland, in the woods, up in the north. He waved a hand in that direction. “A Shinnob guided her in. This man comes and goes there often. I think the woman may be in some danger and I need to find her guide.”
The old man put his cigarette down, sipped his coffee, and passed a little gas. In the corner, Walleye growled in his sleep.
“I have heard that Wendell Two Knives visits there often.”
“Wendell Two Knives.” A good name to hear. A good man. And it made sense. Wendell Two Knives was of the Wolf Clan. Ma’iingan.
“This majimanidoo is puzzling,” the old man said. “Even cedar smoke does not make him clear to me. Be careful, Corcoran O’Connor. Be especially careful of the water. Pay attention to the wind that blows across the water. It can tell you much.”
“What comes, comes.” Cork finished his cigarette in a final, pleasing lungful of smoke. “Isn’t that what you said?”
“Okay advice for an old man like me. But if I was you,” the midewiwin cautioned, “I would keep a barking dog.”
8
S HE WATCHED THE WANING MOON RISE above the rock wall at the end of the long, narrow corridor that held the lake. That’s east, she thought. It was a pathetic little piece of information, but with everything so uncertain, that one solid fact was reassuring. Far enough east, she knew, and she would hit Lake Superior and civilization. How far and how long it would take if she were to attempt it were mysteries to which she had no clue.
Wendell had left her a map, a complicated thing, black and white with confusing lines and rings all over it. Nothing like a road map. You might as well give me a book in Chinese, she’d said, laughing. He’d tried to explain to her the lakes, the portages, just in case. She’d pretended to listen.
Stupid, stupid, she thought of herself now. You never listen to the right people.
Somewhere on the cliffs along the shoreline far down the lake, an owl called. She tried to pierce the darkness to see where. The light of the moon gave the gray rock of the corridor a bleak, haunted look. The color reminded her of gravestones. Death was something she’d thought about a great deal alone in those woods. She’d examined carefully the time she tried to take her own life. Wrapped deep in the scent of pine and the sweet smell of the lake water, with the wind and the birds giving her music, her suicide attempt seemed bewildering, like the action of a stranger. Wendell told her the woods could heal if she let them. In that, as in everything, he’d been truthful.
You should have listened more, she thought bitterly, remembering the map. She’d been so careful to make sure no one knew where she was going. She’d been so clever, so complete in her escape. In a way, she realized, she’d dug her own grave.
Then she remembered something Wendell said to her near the end. She’d walked with him down to the lake to see him off. He’d talked of her mother that visit, of the things he remembered about her. They were good things, and she’d been grateful to hear them. Before he’d shoved off in his canoe, he’d said, “We don’t die. In the things we pass on to our children, we go on living. There’s a lot of your mother alive in you.”
Thinking of that, she pulled herself together and pushed away her useless recriminations. She couldn’t sit and wait for Wendell forever. Her food was low. Soon the snow Wendell feared would come. She would have to think of a way out on her own.
From its hidden place in the rocks, the owl called again: Who.
The woman drew herself up in the darkness. Me, she thought. Shiloh .
9
Cork took the long way home through the Iron Lake Reservation, where he stopped at the mobile home of Wendell Two Knives. Wendell didn’t answer his knock. Cork checked the door. Unlocked, as he suspected it would be. The Anishinaabe did not believe in locking doors. He called inside. No response. He checked the trailer briefly but found nothing that caused him concern. On the back of a car-wash receipt, he wrote his phone number. Call me, he added. Urgent. Cork O’Connor. Then he put the note on the door with a bit of silver duct tape from the toolbox in his Bronco.
He left the reservation and drove around the southern end of Iron Lake toward Grandview. Will Raye opened the door as Cork approached along the flagstone walk.
“What’d you find out?” Raye asked.
“I think I know who guided Shiloh in. A man named Wendell Two Knives. A good man.”
“A good man,” Raye nodded gratefully. “That’s something.”
“I stopped by his place tonight. Nobody home. I left a note for him to call.”
“If he doesn’t?”
“I’ll head over first thing in the morning.”
“We’ll head over,” Raye said.
“Not a good idea,” Cork told him. “On the rez, people tend to be suspicious and tight-lipped around strangers.”
“She’s the only family I have, Cork. I can’t just sit here and wait.”
Once again, Cork found himself imagining what it would be like if he were in Raye’s shoes and it were Annie or Jenny out there.
He relented. “All right. If Wendell calls, I’ll let you know. Otherwise I’ll be here at eight-thirty to pick you up.”
“Thank you.” Raye looked out at the night beyond Cork. “What if he’s not there in the morning?”
“Then I think we try his nephew Stormy. If anybody would know where Wendell is, it’s Stormy Two Knives.”
Raye slumped against the doorjamb, as if the waiting had already exhausted him.
“Get some sleep if you can,” Cork advised.
It was late by the time Cork returned to Sam’s Place. He got himself ready for bed, turned out the lights, and lay down. He lived in one big room in the back of the Quonset hut. Simple amenities. A kitchen area with a gas stove, old refrigerator, sink. A small table and two chairs Sam Winter Moon had made of birch wood. A single bed. A writing desk and three shelves of books. A small bathroom with a toilet and shower stall. Everything smelled of french fries and grilled hamburgers. A couple more weeks and he’d probably close up for the winter, something he wasn’t looking forward to. He liked the business. He liked it a lot. It was easier pleasing customers than it had ever been pleasing voters when he was sheriff. A bad hamburger was a simple thing to get rid of. A bad law was something else. He loved having the girls help him. And he liked the fact that he was self-employed. He could close up shop any time he wanted and just go fishing. Or searching for a lost woman.
He thought about the woman in the Boundary Waters. Whether he liked it or not, she was his concern now.
It was going to be hard to sleep. In the days when he smoked, this would have been the time to light a cigarette. Instead, he got up, put on a pot of coffee, and sat down at the birchwood table with Elizabeth Dobson’s diary in front of him. He went over everything carefully. What he noted most significantly was that there was a great deal missing. Whole days. Whether Elizabeth Dobson had decided not to confide in her diary in those times or
