the darkness I came from. We’ll never see one another again.” Something sharp and pointed entered his words as he finished, “I’ve given you your life once already.”
“Let’s go,” Cork ordered.
Charon/Milwaukee didn’t move. His face lost any trace of reasonableness. He narrowed his gaze and a deep line appeared between his eyes like a sudden streak of war paint. “If you don’t back down now, this is what will happen. I’ll kill you, and after I kill you. I’ll return to that trailer and kill everyone in it. Is it worth that risk to you?”
Cork was silent.
“I thought not.” Charon/Milwaukee smiled, but almost sadly, as if the victory had been a cheap one. “Then it’s good-bye, O’Connor.”
He took a step backward, still smiling. He turned toward the canoe. As he pivoted, he made his move quickly, diving left, rolling on the soft pine needles that covered the ground along the shoreline, reaching for the automatic stuffed in his belt under his vest. Cork didn’t fire until the moment the man called Milwaukee and Charon came up to one knee and braced to shoot.
The bullet from Wendell’s rifle blew off most of Charon/Milwaukee’s left hand. It plowed a wide, messy path through his chest and exited his back along with large splinters of his shoulder blade. The force knocked him backward. He lay on the ground, his arms spread wide, his face turned toward the sky. The automatic had fallen near his feet, unfired. With difficulty, Cork worked another round into the chamber of Wendell’s rifle. Carefully, he approached the downed man.
Charon/Milwaukee’s eyes were open. The hard brown, Cork saw, was flecked with gold. He was still breathing, small gasps that sounded like hiccups. Cork bent to him and said, “I’ve hunted all my life. One good shot is all you ever get.”
Charon/Milwaukee tried to speak, but he seemed to be addressing someone behind Cork, above him. Cork almost turned to see who it might be. Then the hiccuping stopped, and the brown eyes became sightless as a couple of marbles.
Cork’s legs gave out and he sat down hard. His shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch. Whatever it was that had sustained him was gone. His ability to focus, to think at all, had fled. If the dead man had risen up like Lazarus from his pine-needle bed, Cork wouldn’t have been able to lift a finger to defend himself. He was empty.
He barely turned when he heard the crackle of twigs breaking underfoot. He saw George LeDuc come from the trees cradling a rifle. George knelt beside him. When he spoke, his breath smelled of spearmint gum. It was like the scent of an angel.
“You okay?”
Cork nodded.
“That him?” George pointed the rifle muzzle at the body.
A thought crept out of the haze in Cork’s mind, a clear wonderment. “What are you doing here, George?”
“Woman came into the store, used the phone to call the sheriff. Seemed like somebody should get here quicker’n they could.”
Cork looked at him dully. “The others?”
“They’re fine. Up at Wendell’s trailer. Jo wanted to come, but I put my foot down. Wasn’t sure what I’d find out here. Come on. Can you walk?” He offered his hand.
As they approached the trailer, the whine of sirens rose from the distance. The trailer door opened and Jo rushed into the sunlight.
“He’s okay,” George called out to her as she came.
“Thank God.” She put her arms around Cork.
“Gently,” he cautioned, although her arms felt good.
In a moment, two cars from the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department skidded onto Wendell’s drive and kicked up dirt and gravel as they sped toward the trailer. Behind them came the blue Lumina and the Lincoln Town Car.
Wally Schanno bounded out. “You okay?”
“Alive anyway.” Cork gestured toward the trailer. “Some folks in there need help. Get an ambulance.”
Schanno hollered instructions to a deputy in the other car. He took inventory of Cork. “You look like you could use some medical help, too.”
“At this point, Wally, I’m just happy to be alive. There’s a body down at the lake. George can show you where. Not one of the good guys.”
The big man Joey approached them, carrying Vincent Benedetti in his arms. “My son?” Benedetti asked.
“Inside,” Cork said. “He’ll be fine.”
“And Shiloh?” Nathan Jackson came up beside Joey, Harris right behind him.
“She’s in there, too. Unharmed.”
Cork and Jo followed them inside. Schanno went to check on Arkansas Willie, who sat hunkered in a corner, holding his knee and looking like a trapped varmint. The others went directly to where Shiloh sat on the floor next to Angelo Benedetti.
“Shiloh,” Angelo said, gesturing toward the man in Joey’s arms, “meet your father.” She looked up, confused. Then Benedetti waved toward Nathan Jackson. “And… meet your father.”
Nearly a dozen bodies were packed into the small living room of the trailer home. Cork backed out, and Jo with him. “Let them sort it out,” he said.
Schanno accompanied them. “We’re going to need a full statement, Cork.”
“First we’re getting him to a doctor,” Jo said. “He may have a broken collarbone.”
“Want to wait for the ambulance?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I’ll take him.”
They walked away from the trailer. Across Iron Lake, through the cedars near the shore, over grass still greening under the October light, came a breeze that smelled of the North Woods. Of evergreen and deep, clean lakes. Of sun-warmed earth. Of desiccated autumn leaves. Of the cycle of dust to dust. Of things seen and half seen, things unseen but sensed. Fragrances that had gifted Cork all his life, that had become as common to him as the scent of his own body. Pay attention to what blows across the water, Henry Meloux had advised Cork early on. In his wisdom, the old man had offered more than just a warning about the coming of the majimanidoo, and Cork found himself taking in the air with a renewed sense of wonder.
“You’re grinning like this was Christmas morning,” Jo said.
“Am I?”
“I’d have thought you’d be in a lot of pain.”
“You hurt long enough, you almost forget it’s there.”
“I know.” She stopped walking.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I was just thinking. You’ll need some tending while that shoulder heals. Why don’t you come and stay with us.”
The smile on her lips seemed as delicate as a snowflake and as easily melted.
“You mean… at the house?”
“Yes.” The breeze pushed a wisp of yellow hair onto her forehead. She swept it back with her small hand. “You can stay in the guest room to begin with. We could see how things go while you heal. While we all heal.”
It was a day of miracles. Of two suns. One crowning a cloudless sky and the other rising new in Cork’s heart.
“Hey, Cork!” Schanno called to him. “If I want to reach you, where will you be?”
For a moment, Cork was lost in the blue of Jo’s eyes. Then he answered, “Home, Wally. I’ll be home.”
EPILOGUE
In his forecast based on the coats of muskrats, Charlie Aalto had been correct. Two days before Halloween, a
