Vermilion Drift

Worse, they’re stupid. And even worse, they don’t listen to their hearts. In my heart, I know that Naomi is in grave danger. Cork is sick with worry. He’s so fond of Naomi. And he’s angry with Liam for suggesting the girl has run away. He’s vowed that if Liam doesn’t find her, he will.

July 10, 1964

It’s been two weeks and Naomi is still missing. Liam has called authorities in the adjacent counties and in the Twin Cities. He’s gone to Crosby to question Naomi’s father, Corbett, whom we all called Fisheye when he was a kid because of his bulgy eyeballs. He’s turned into a hard-drinking man, and he claims ignorance and innocence. Liam doesn’t trust him, but he can’t break Fisheye’s story. I think Liam still believes that Naomi simply ran away, but he’s doing his best, what he calls “due diligence,” to make sure he’s covered every possibility. A lot of white folks in Tamarack County think he’s on a wild-goose chase and wasting both his time and public funds. He may be blind sometimes and stupid in the way of men, but he does listen to his heart. And in his heart he’s committed to being a good and fair officer of the law, and that means doing everything he can to give Naomi Stonedeer a chance to be found.

Cork remembered that time. He remembered it differently, though. In his own recollection, his father was too cautious, too lax. Cork wanted him to crack someone’s head, Corbett Stonedeer’s for sure, to get answers. He recalled that, when his father finally brought an official end to the search, there’d been an angry confrontation. It was in the evening, on the front porch, when, long after dinner had gone cold, his father returned from the last day of that futile effort. Cork didn’t recall now his exact words, but in no uncertain terms, he’d called his father a fraud. Liam O’Connor had stood there, taller by two heads than his son, and heard him out. And when Cork’s frenzied sputtering had come to an end, his father had said—this, Cork remembered icy word for icy word—“I’ve done my level best. That’s all I ask of anyone. That’s all I expect anyone to ask of me.” He’d moved toward the door, but Cork had blocked his way. His father had reached out, firmly threw his son aside, and gone in. For days after, they barely spoke to one another.

July 17, 1964

It hurts them both, I know, this silence. They walk past each other like strangers. Worse, like enemies. I’ve tried to mediate, but they hold to their anger fiercely. Liam refuses to discuss it with me. Cork listens but doesn’t really hear. He’s still a child, and his silence is understandable. Liam’s refusal, that’s just plain stubbornness. But, oh, he cares about his son’s opinion of him. He loves Cork so much.

Cork put down the journal and stared at the far wall. Of course his father loved him. He knew that. And he’d loved his father. Their anger had passed eventually. Hadn’t it?

August 12, 1964

Fawn is missing. We’re all frantic. God, what’s happening here?

That was the final entry of that particular journal volume. One line on the page, and when Cork turned that page, there was nothing more. But at one time, something more had been there. There’d been more pages. It was clear from the neat slivers left attached to the binding that someone had, very carefully, cut those pages out.

EIGHTEEN

Cork rummaged through the journals until he found one that began with the earliest date following the final entry of the volume whose pages had been removed.

September 17, 1964

Fall is here and everywhere I look I see blood. It’s in the color of the sumac and the maple leaves and the sky at sunset and at dawn. Henry Meloux is helping Hattie and Ellie and Mom and me. Liam walks like a man made of stone, cold and hard. Cork, ever the quiet, watchful child, sees and wonders but does not ask. Thank God.

Cork scanned the other entries for September of that year. No mention of the missing five weeks between August 12 and September 17. No indication of what had occurred in that time, though he knew of two things from his own recollection and from the collective recollection of Tamarack County. The search for Fawn Grand was futile. And another woman had vanished, a white woman: Monique Cavanaugh.

It was nearly 2:00 A.M., and he was tired and confused. He turned out the lamp on the desk and headed for the door. Trixie rose from the carpet where she’d been sleeping and followed him upstairs. He readied himself for bed, laid himself down, and stared at the ceiling where light from the streetlamp outside, shattered by the leaves of the elm on his front lawn, lay scattered like shards of broken glass. His mind was a muddy swirl of too little information and too many questions. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to sleep. But before he knew it he was dreaming.

His father stands at the edge of the flat rock, and behind him is the thunder of water. It seems familiar, this landscape. Mercy Falls, Cork thinks, watching from only a few feet away. There’s laughter at his back. A party perhaps. He considers turning to see, but he can’t take his eyes off his father, whose own eyes are locked on Cork. Is it anger in them? Disappointment? Confusion? Cork can’t tell. His father opens his mouth as if to speak and at the same moment steps backward, losing his balance. He flails his arms, fighting to right himself, and Cork, in a terrible panic, reaches out for him, but his arm is not long enough, and his father plummets, vanishing into the gray mists of the falls.

And then it happens again. The whole scene replays. Only this time Cork stands outside the dream, watching himself in it as it unfolds. He sees, as he always does in this nightmare revisited, that his father does not simply lose his balance. He sees that it is his own small hand, reaching out, that pushes his father backward, sending him—surprised? disappointed? angry?—stumbling over the edge into oblivion.

The next morning, he was waiting at the door to the Aurora Public Library when it opened at 9:00 A.M. Maggie Nelson swung the door wide and greeted him with a smile. He went immediately to the cabinets that contained the microfilm archives of the Aurora Sentinel, which was the town’s weekly newspaper. They also contained archived material from the Duluth News Tribune and several newspapers from the Twin Cities. He spent the morning reading every account about the investigation of what the reporters had dubbed “the Vanishings.”

The reportage was basically the same in all of them. The Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department was stumped. They’d asked for assistance from the BCA and later the FBI. The authorities believed—were certain—that foul play was involved, but they couldn’t find any evidence. The victims had simply vanished, as if into thin air. There was no mention of the priest at St. Agnes and, except for Corbett Stonedeer, no indication of any suspects or persons of interest. The families were interviewed extensively, and their pain came through. Until Monique Cavanaugh disappeared, the white community of Tamarack County had been concerned mostly about the money and resources the sheriff’s department was expending on the search for the two Ojibwe girls. The predominant white sentiment seemed to be that most likely the girls had simply fled the abominable conditions of the Iron Lake Reservation. The Ojibwe community was more tight-lipped, but those who spoke for the record had nothing good to say about Cork’s father, whom they accused of being less than diligent in his investigation of the missing girls. Cork recognized the names of those quoted. Percy Baptiste. Bob Fairbanks. Arthur Skinaway. Shinnobs for whom, no matter what a chimook did, it was no good. The way the news stories were structured, however, made it sound as if the whole of the Anishinaabe people were aligned against Cork’s father.

Once the white woman—a rich white woman—vanished, the white community’s concern over misused law enforcement resources seemed to vanish as well.

Cork didn’t know much about Monique Cavanaugh or the specifics of her disappearance, nor was he able to glean much from the newspaper coverage.

Monique Cavanaugh had been the only child of Richard and Agnes Goodell, wealthy Bostonians. She’d been raised much abroad and was well educated. She had apparently met Peter Cavanaugh in Boston while she was briefly home visiting her parents, and Cavanaugh was conducting business with Richard Goodell on behalf of the New York City office of Great North. They married a very short time later. They’d had two children, Max and Lauren. When Thomas Cavanaugh, Peter Cavanaugh’s father, fell ill, the son moved his family from New York to Minnesota