Ré banged his fist on the horn once, then signaled for Alex to get back in the car.
“Come on, man,” he said, voice thick and weary. “There’s something I gotta do.”
Cold Water wasn’t that big. Two main streets that met in a T, with the Ohneganohs River cut right through the middle, dividing east from west. Shops and some apartments lined those streets, feathering out into tall Victorian-era houses and pre-fab sprawl the farther it all got from the river.
There was a ridge along the western edge, with a private woodland and a fancy boys’ school. Stretching off to the east were mostly farms and factories. There just wasn’t a lot of ground to cover, not that many places to hide.
How hard can it be to find one little kid?
There were some pretty fancy houses on the west side of town—people there had money—but a friend of Ivan’s likely wasn’t one of them, so Ré stuck to the east end. The tracks, the park behind the Olympia. All the places he and Shaun used to hide before they’d scrounged up the money for cars and the world had opened wide.
Not much had been said between him and Alex after he’d barfed all over the road. Ré had dropped him at Sunny’s house and didn’t wait for her to open the front door.
Finally, just as the sun dipped to the western ridge, throwing gold and black all over the patched pavement, Ré spotted him. That kid Ivan had pointed out. Mark. He was skating the parking lot at the boarded-up Dairy Lakes under the bridge with six or seven other kids Ivan’s age.
Ré swung the car around and pulled into the lot, suspension bouncing like a show pony, kids leaping out of the way like bowling pins.
Even though some of them had known Ivan for years—and by association, his older brother, Réal—they still looked a little scared when he leaned out the driver’s window.
“You,” he said, pointing to the kid he was after.
Mark looked up through his thick, black waves of hair. “What’s up, Ré?”
“Get in the car. I gotta talk to you.”
He glanced at his friends. “Why?”
Ré said, “Come on. I won’t bite.”
Mark threw another look at his friends, who shrugged or stared, eyes round. He kicked up his skateboard, grasping it by the trucks. In a pinch, Ré knew, it was a pretty solid weapon, but Mark wouldn’t need it. It wasn’t going to be that kind of conversation with Ré Dufresne.
Ré backed out of the lot the second the passenger door slammed, wheeling around onto the street again and back down toward the docks.
“What’s up, man?” Mark repeated, flicking the hair out of his eyes. He gripped the “oh shit” handle in one hand, the other wrapped around the nose of his skateboard. As always, Ré drove a little too fast.
“I got a problem,” Ré said. “And I think you can help. But I need to know if I can trust you.”
“Okay.” Mark sounded surprised, nervous. “You can trust me,” he said.
They swerved to avoid a pothole, jostling Mark in his seat. Ré saw him squeeze everything a little tighter. “I mean it, man,” he warned. “What I’m going to tell you, it cannot get out.”
“I swear, Ré.” Mark’s voice was soft. “I swear on my life.”
Réal just shook his head. Kid doesn’t even know what that means yet. He looked back at the road and sighed, shoulders sagging a little.
Then he spoke. “Ivan told me your mom is a healer, a Midewikwe. Is that true?”
Mark just shrugged.
“And your sister, Holly?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Mark said. “Why?”
They’d reached the end of Mill Street, and Ré nosed the Buick through the rusty gates and out onto the dockyards, going slower now, dust kicking up all around them, stones pinging off the belly of the car. He squeezed the wheel in both hands. “So what about you?” he asked. “Are you a healer too?”
Mark opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He blinked at the road ahead.
“’Cause I got a problem,” Ré went on. “I need a Midewikwe, but I can’t talk to your mom. And I can’t tell your sister. And you can’t either.” The ropy muscle standing out on Ré’s bare arms suggested what might happen if Mark told anybody at all.
Mark was silent for a minute, and then he shook the hair from his face again, half glancing at Ré. When he spoke, his voice was low. “Yeah, man. I can do it. What do you need?”
The road ran out beneath them and Ré slowed to a stop, throwing the car into Park and turning it off in one well-worn action. He got out and walked around to the front of the car, leaning back against the hood. After a second, Mark mirrored him, leaving the skateboard on the seat.
Réal glanced at the younger boy, folding his arms across his chest. He still didn’t feel ready to say it out loud. To make it real.
“If I tell you this,” he said very quietly, “and you tell a single soul, I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you, man. I’m not even joking.” Mark stiffened at the words, and Ré continued. “And I will know it’s you, ’cause you will be the only person on this good earth who knows what I’m about to say.”
Mark held up his right hand. “I swear, Ré. Not a word.”
Réal took a deep breath. He looked out over the black river toward the empty pier on the other side, sunlight sliding away into evening. The boy’s oath didn’t feel nearly rock-solid enough.
