store. We talked for a good hour. I challenged him on the whole drug thing, told him the Red Boyz were a blight on the Anishinaabe name. Accused him and his gang of preying on the weakness of others. Know what he said? Said the Chippewa Grand Casino did the same thing, just had the power of law behind it, and law didn’t make a thing right. Had himself a point there, I suppose. This was before anybody knew what Lonnie Thunder had been up to with those young Shinnob girls. Kingbird got pretty quiet after that. You know he’d been seeing Henry Meloux?”
Meloux was a Mide, a member of the Grand Medicine Society, a healer of the body and spirit. He was god- awful old and lived by himself in an isolated cabin far north on the rez. He was also a man Cork respected and loved above all others.
“I had no idea,” Cork said.
“You want to know the truth, once you got past all the things you think about gangs, Alex Kingbird had a lot to recommend him. Shame he wasted it on the Red Boyz and the likes of Lonnie Thunder.”
ELEVEN
For an hour and a half in the afternoon, Annie played softball at the high school field. It wasn’t a scheduled practice, but many of the girls from the team liked to get together this way on the weekends. They were leading the division and wanted to keep their edge. Besides, they all loved the sport and loved each other and loved being young and totally free on a warm May Sunday.
They finally broke up and went their separate ways. Annie walked toward home with Cara Haines, who played first base. Cara was like a grasshopper, with a slender body and long arms and legs. Normally Annie had to walk double-time to keep up, but as the two girls made their way together through Aurora, they moved slowly and hardly spoke.
They were seniors, with graduation less than a month away. In the fall, Cara was going to college at Concordia, in Moorehead, Minnesota. Annie was going to college, too, although that hadn’t always been her plan. Before she entered high school and softball became one of her greatest passions-maybe her greatest-she’d intended to become a nun. It had been a clear vision for her since she was very young. By her sophomore year, however, both her love of softball and her growing interest in boys had blunted her sharp resolve, and her intentions had altered slightly. She’d decided that she would first go to Notre Dame, pitch for the Fighting Irish, and then, perhaps, give herself over as a bride to Christ. Unfortunately, Notre Dame hadn’t offered her an athletic scholarship, but the University of Wisconsin had. So at the end of August, Annie was headed to Madison, and the question of what path lay beyond that, spiritual or otherwise, was put on hold.
The two young women had spent their lives in Aurora, had followed the same streets, passed the same houses, taken for granted all the details that had outlined and helped define their existence. College didn’t mean they were traveling to the ends of the earth, but they weren’t just leaving Aurora, either. They were leaving their childhoods behind. Something important was ending, and often these days Annie found herself trying hard to notice everything about her hometown, to gather up all the small perfect pleasures and store them in her heart.
“I got a job this summer,” Cara said. They were walking past the shops on Oak Street, most of which were closed on Sunday except in the summer-tourist season.
“Yeah? I thought you were going to work with me at Sam’s Place. I already told my dad you would.”
“My uncle has this friend who runs some kind of outfitter thing in Montana, near Glacier. He’s giving me a job.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know exactly. But it’s Glacier. I was there a couple of years ago. It’s awesome.”
“So when do you take off?”
“The day after graduation. Unless we make it all the way to the state championship. I’ll stay for that.”
Annie had the sudden, sinking feeling that they were already drifting apart. “It’s all going to change, isn’t it,” she said.
“Don’t go all sloppy on me.”
Annie stopped and stared down Oak Street where the concrete was shaded by all that was familiar: Pflugelmann’s drugstore, the tall clock tower of the county courthouse, the old Rialto theater, Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler, and the dozens of other shops and alleyways and street corners that were already beginning to feel lost to her.
“Sometimes I think all I want is for nothing in my life to change, ever,” she confessed.
Cara turned and gazed down the street in the direction from which they’d just come. “I guess I know what you mean. But we’ll be back. You know, Thanksgiving, Christmas. And, hey, we can party without the whole town knowing every detail.”
Annie laughed. “I’ve seen you when you drink. Girl, you’re so loud the whole frigging state can hear you get crazy.”
From up ahead came music in a familiar style. Annie recognized the pluck and strum of Uly Kingbird on his guitar. She spotted him sitting alone at the top of the county courthouse steps. His eyes were closed and he seemed lost in his music.
“Come on,” Annie said, and started toward Uly.
Cara held back. “Oh, God. You heard what happened to his brother?”
“Of course.”
“Look, I don’t know him. He’s always creeped me out. What am I supposed to say?”
“It’ll be all right. Come on.” She crossed the street. “Hey, Uly,” she called from the bottom of the courthouse steps.
He opened his eyes and stared down at her. His fingers kept working the strings. It sounded familiar, but Annie didn’t recognize the tune. It sounded like it might have been Bob Dylan, whose music Uly loved, partly because of the connection with the Iron Range. Maybe a Dylan tune Uly had rearranged.
“I heard about your brother,” Annie said. “I’m sorry.”
Beside her, Cara said, “Really sorry.”
Uly sang, “And now you’re gone forever and now you’re gone for good.”
“Are you okay?” Annie asked.
Uly sang, “You’ve taken that long lonely walk into that dark wood.”
“Look, if you need to talk or anything-”
Uly strummed a sudden, harsh cord, cutting her off.
“Jeez,” Cara said. “She’s just trying to be nice.”
“I’ll follow you there someday,” Uly sang. “The choice it isn’t mine. I can see the end a’coming like a freight train down the line.”
Cara grabbed Annie’s arm. “You’re not going to stick around for this, are you? Let’s get out of here.”
Annie shook off her hand. “I’ll go when I’m ready.”
“Fine. I’ll walk home alone.”
“Fine.”
Cara spun away and crossed the street in long, angry strides.
Annie turned back to Uly, whose fingers never left the strings of his guitar.
“Is that Dylan?” she asked.
“Does it matter?”
Annie climbed the steps and sat beside him. “You okay?”
He stopped playing and put a finger below his right eye. “See any tears?” He struck a stage smile. “Military family. We don’t cry.” He strummed a couple of chords, then shook his head. “Alex was a lot older than me. We weren’t what you’d call close.” He looked away from her. “You’re welcome to stay, but I don’t really feel like talking now.”
She sat with him and he bent to the music as if nothing existed but the song.
