CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By the time I came to, Agent Long had called Agent Fleury. He said he’d be there in an hour.
“Call him back and tell him to meet us down at the Glasgow Inn,” I said. “We need to have that drink, at least.”
So she drove me down to the Glasgow and I introduced her to Jackie and Vinnie. I asked about Vinnie’s mother and was glad to hear she was feeling a little better. Then we had some real Canadian beer and when Fleury got there, I made sure he had one, too. When they were ready to leave, I came out to the parking lot and I took Agent Long aside for a moment.
“Sorry about the clumsy pass,” I said to her.
“That’s all right,” she said. “You’re in a compromised state. Maybe next time it’ll work out a little better for both of us.”
“You’ll come back up here sometime?”
“Maybe. Or maybe you can look me up if you ever get back to Detroit.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, “but on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“We can do dinner, but promise me one thing. No movie.”
She laughed at that. “It’s a deal.”
“Okay then, take care of yourself, Agent Long.”
“Call me Janet.”
She kissed me on the cheek and got in the car. Agent Fleury was already behind the wheel. I waved to them as they took off.
Then I went back inside and collapsed by the fire.
“I suppose you’ll be expecting me to bring your dinner to you,” Jackie said.
“You are a perceptive man.”
He walked away swearing at me. Things were already feeling normal again. The snow would finally melt for good. The summer would come. It would last for what would feel like five minutes, then the air would turn cold again. The lake would turn back into a monster. The snow would come to bury us and once again we’d ask ourselves why we lived up here. But we wouldn’t leave.
None of us. Not Jackie, not Vinnie, not Leon, not Chief Roy Maven. Not me.
We would never leave this place.
The next morning, Vinnie came to the cabin early. He didn’t knock. He just came in and made himself at home.
“What’s going on?” I said, moaning as I turned over the wrong way.
“We’ve got lots of work to do today.”
“That’s what you think. I’m not doing anything.”
“Okay, so I’ve got lots of work to do today.”
“Vinnie, what are you talking about?”
“We’re reclaiming your first cabin, Alex. You’ve avoided it long enough.”
“No. Forget it.”
“You can’t stop me,” he said. “That’s the genius of my plan. You can complain all you want today, but in the shape you’re in? What are you gonna do, kick me?”
“Vinnie, I swear to God…”
“I’m starting right after breakfast. With or without you watching.”
I finally got myself out of the bed. “You’re serious.”
“Absolutely.”
“Then give me a little more time,” I said. “It’ll take me at least an hour just to get dressed.”
I insisted on being the one to actually open the door. This was the cabin I had helped build myself, all those years ago, my father and I working side by side. Now there was a sad, stale odor in the air as I took my first step back into the place. I had moved out everything I could carry. The bed was unmade. The table was empty. The refrigerator and stove unplugged. The woodstove needed cleaning.
There on the floor. The stain.
“What first?” Vinnie said, stepping in right behind me.
I couldn’t help thinking of Chief Maven, and everything he had done to reclaim his own house after what had happened.
“Only one place to start,” I said. “The floor.”
“How are we going to clean it?”
“We’re not. We’re gonna burn it.”
A few hours later, we had about a hundred square feet of floor torn out. When I say we, I mean Vinnie. He pulled it out, slat by slat, and stacked it outside. When that entire section of the house was stripped down to the subflooring, we piled up the slats into a big teepee and filled the interior with wadded-up newspaper. Vinnie put some sage in with the paper. I didn’t have to ask him why. I knew it was one of the four Ojibwa medicines.
Before I lit the match, I took one of the slats of wood and I rubbed the spot where the blood had seeped in forever. I said good-bye to Natalie Reynaud one more time. I kissed the wood once and then put it back on the pile. I lit the match and stood back to watch it all burn. I could smell the sage mixed in with the paper and the pine.
When it was all done, I stood there watching the embers for a long time. Vinnie came up to me finally and stood next to me.
“Feel better?” he said.
“It helps, yes. Thank you.”
“You know what you really need?”
“What’s that?”
“A sweat.”
I looked at him.
“Tonight,” he said. “As soon as the sun goes down.”
“Can I bring somebody else? Somebody who needs it even more than I do?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you at sunset.”
I probably wasn’t supposed to be driving yet, but what the hell. I drove to Sault Ste. Marie, all the way to the river, to the City-County Building. I parked outside the front door and went in. The receptionist tried to say something to me, but I walked right by her. Down the hall, to the one office in the middle of the building with no windows. I opened the door without knocking.
“McKnight!” he said, the phone in his hand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
That look on his face, it was just like old times.
“Hang up the phone,” I said. “Get your coat.”
“Have you lost your mind? Can’t you see I’m working here?”
“I’m still recovering, Chief, so I can’t pick you up and carry you. Get your ass out of that chair and let’s get
