In the light of the lantern on Meloux’s table, they waited. Broom didn’t return. Cork finally lifted the lantern and went to the door. The big Shinnob lay on his back at the edge of the meadow, passed out.

“What do you want to do with him, Henry?” Cork asked.

“Let him sleep for a while. Then I will talk with him.”

“He may be just as belligerent when he wakes up,” Cork said.

Meloux replied, “He would not have been a problem except my niece was less than hospitable. She spoke to him harshly.”

“Jesus, Uncle Henry, a drunken maniac breaks into your cabin waving a rifle and you treat him like an honored guest.”

“It is my cabin. If I choose to treat him that way, it is my right. And, Niece, until you spoke, he did not point his rifle at anyone.”

“Oh, Christ,” she said and turned away.

Meloux asked her, “Will you build a fire in the ring? Corcoran O’Connor will help you. If Isaiah Broom wakes, I will bring him there.”

Rainy stormed down the path toward the fire ring at the edge of the lake. Cork took the Maglite from his back pocket.

“I think it would be safer if I stayed here with you,” Cork said.

“I am not afraid of Isaiah Broom.”

“It’s not Broom that has me worried, Henry.” He glanced down the path where the angry woman had gone.

In the dark, he saw the old man smile.

TWENTY-EIGHT

He offered his flashlight. She refused.

“I don’t need your help,” Rainy said as she gathered cut wood from a box near the ring. “I know how to build a fire.”

“Fine,” Cork said. “I’ll just stand here and watch.”

The moon gave only a faint definition to things. The tall outcroppings that isolated the ring were the color of pencil lead. The ground was a gray pool of bare dirt, the fire ring a black hole of ash. The lake a dozen yards away was like mercury, a dark liquid silver. The woman, as she moved from the woodbox to the fire ring, was an angry obsidian blur.

Cork said, “He can be hard to understand sometimes, but in my experience, he’s usually right.”

She dropped a load of wood inside the ring. “Jesus, the man was drunk. He was waving a rifle, for Christ sake. And I’m supposed to say ‘Mi casa, su casa’?”

“Henry’s casa actually.”

She bent and spent a minute arranging the wood. Cork could hear the snap of kindling.

“Damn it,” she said.

“What?”

“I didn’t bring any matches.”

“Me either.”

“I need to go back to the cabin.”

“Why don’t you relax for a little bit? That was pretty intense stuff back there.”

She stood a moment, outlined against the dark silver of the lake, then sat on the ground not far from Cork.

He studied the stars and let a minute pass.

“Why did Broom come to Henry?” he asked.

“People come to Uncle Henry all the time. They think he knows everything that happens on the rez.”

“He probably does. Why did you come to Crow Point?”

“I told you. The family’s worried about Uncle Henry.”

“No, I mean why you? Of all the family, why you?”

“For one thing, I’m a public health nurse.”

“Summer off?”

“Funding cut. I’m between jobs at the moment.”

“For another thing?”

“My children are raised and gone. I have no one who depends on me being there every day.”

“Not married?”

“Divorced. A long time ago. Are you always this nosy?”

“Inquisitive. Goes with my job.”

“And your nature, I’d say.”

Cork heard the flap of big wings overhead. Rainy looked up startled.

“An owl,” Cork said. “Should I be worried about Henry?”

Rainy didn’t answer immediately. She continued to look up where the owl had flown and where the stars were legion.

“The shaking? The tiredness? They’re symptoms,” she said. “Of what, I can’t say. There are dozens and dozens of diseases or conditions that could cause it. If it were something like multiple sclerosis, I’d expect to see problems with his vision and maybe numbness or tingling in his limbs. He claims to be fine. If it’s the result of a stroke, then it was a mild one. But even so, I’d expect to see, oh, I don’t know, muscle weakness or numbness or maybe some disorientation. Maybe it’s simply a neurodegenerative situation of some kind. Old age, basically. But he’s not showing any other symptoms, so I don’t know. Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem much concerned.” A loon called from the lake, and Rainy turned her head. “It’s lovely here,” she said.

“Not a bad place for a man to live. And to die, when that time comes.”

“That time will not come soon, Corcoran O’Connor.”

They hadn’t heard the old Mide’s approach, but Meloux stood not ten feet away. He came now and sat with them.

“I thought you were going to build a fire, Niece.”

“I didn’t have matches, Uncle Henry.”

“Just as well,” Meloux said. “I think Isaiah Broom will not wake until morning. And I think I need to sleep. Thank you for your help,” he said to Cork.

“You want me here when Broom wakes up?”

“He will wake in sunshine and hungover. He will not be in the mood for confrontation. He will want to be quiet, and I think he will listen.”

“What will you tell him?”

“What I tell him will be for his ears only, Corcoran O’Connor.”

In the dark, Cork leaned nearer the Mide. “I’ve found a few answers, Henry, but I still have a lot of questions. I think you can help me.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“All right. Forty years ago, it went like this. I think that the Vanishings began with Leonora Broom. I think she confronted Indigo about what he’d done to her son and Broom killed her and put her body in the Vermilion Drift. Maybe he’d killed before or just had the deep desire to kill, I don’t know, but murdering Isaiah’s mother set him off that summer for sure. Next it was Abbie Stillday, a girl everybody knew was leaving the rez sooner or later. And then it was the vulnerable ones, the ones easily preyed on. Somewhere along the way, Broom brought Monique Cavanaugh into it. Or maybe it was just the evil of these two people that somehow brought them together. Broom snagged the victims and he and Monique Cavanaugh both …” Cork searched for the right word.

Вы читаете Vermilion Drift
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату