Copper River co-6 Read online

  He pulled the sheet away and swung his legs off the bunk. He gathered himself, stood, and took a step.

  “Oh, shit,” he groaned, then took another.

  His shoes sat beside the door. They were brown Rockports, the left one stained dark with blood. He gritted his teeth, knelt, and scooped them up. Outside, he plopped down on the cabin steps and tugged them onto his sockless feet. He looked toward the end of the lane where his car was parked behind the big shed. It seemed like a long way.

  In addition to Thor’s Lodge, the resort had six rental cabins staggered along either side of a central dirt access with enough room between each cabin to allow a vehicle to park. They were all the same design, one large square central room that functioned as a sitting area, kitchen, and sleeping quarters. Each cabin also had a small bathroom with a shower stall. The cabins had bunks and were typically rented by hikers or hunters or snowmobilers. Summers when Cork had visited with his mother, the cabins had been well maintained by Jewell’s father. Now there were signs of neglect. Spiderwebs in the window wells. Fallen branches and evergreen cones littering the ground. Brittle weeds creeping around the cabin steps. In such an environment, the wild things-coons and squirrels and snakes-would eventually make their homes.

  So much had been left undone because Jewell didn’t care, and because Ren, for all his fine qualities, was yet a boy. The work had been his father’s, and his father was gone for good.

  Cork picked up a long, thick branch that had fallen to the ground next to his cabin. Although a little crooked, it seemed sturdy enough for a walking stick. He started for the shed.

  The sky was a flawless blue, the air dead still, the late morning only just now crawling out from under the chill of the night before. The hardwoods were in full autumn glory and the Huron Mountains were like a stormy sea caught fire.

  Getting to the shed took a toll. The makeshift walking stick helped a little, but the torture of his leg sucked at Cork’s strength, gobbled his energy. Twice he stopped to rest on the steps of other cabins.

  During the second rest he heard a scream break from the woods south of the cabins. He scanned the tree line but saw nothing unusual. The scream came again, farther west. This time Cork realized exactly what it was. The cry of a big cat. Ren’s cougar. Circling.

  Cork had lived in the Northwoods most of his life. He understood the behavior of many of the animals of that habitat. Although he knew very little about cougars specifically, he was pretty certain of one thing: Like most wild animals, they were loath to approach humans or the dwellings of humans. Yet, here was a cat, a fierce hunter, deep in the territory of men.

  “So what are you doing here?” he whispered toward the woods.

  He put his weight on the walking stick and pushed himself up. Keeping an eye to the trees, he gimped his way to the shot-up Dart and reached for the door handle. He was startled to see recent scratches on the finish, four lines that ran from the driver’s side window down the door, spaced just right to have been put there by the claws of a big wild cat. He opened the door, and the smell of the blood poured out: his blood. He clicked the glove box latch and snatched the Beretta Tomcat. As he popped the clip to check the cartridges, the cougar screamed again.

  With the rosewood grip of the pistol solidly in his palm, he felt less vulnerable. That didn’t mean safe. Was it the smell of the blood that had attracted the wild cat? What did it take to stop a hungry cougar? He wasn’t just concerned about his own safety. He was also thinking what a tragedy it would be if he were, in fact, forced to shoot the animal.

  He started back to his cabin. As he neared Thor’s Lodge he heard the phone ring inside, and he thought maybe Jewell had finally got the message to call. He limped up the stairs, found the door unlocked, and went in. By the time he reached the phone, the ringing had stopped. Caller ID informed him that it had, in fact, been Jewell calling from her cell phone. He punched in her number.

  “Ren?” she answered.

  “It’s Cork.”

  “Where’s Ren? I got a message there was an emergency of some kind.” Her voice came to him across a sea of static.

  “He’s all right, Jewell. It’s Charlie. Or rather her father. He’s dead.”

  “Max dead? How?”

  “According to Ren, he was beat to death.”

  “How would Ren know that?”

  Cork explained. Every so often, because of the poor reception, he had to repeat himself. While he spoke, he gradually became aware of a sound from the rear of the cabin. A scratching.

  “I’m on my way now,” Jewell said. “I’m heading to Max Miller’s place.”

  “If they show up back here, I’ll call you.”

  He set the phone in the cradle and listened carefully. The sound had stopped. Quietly he hobbled toward the back rooms. He hadn’t been inside Thor’s Lodge in decades. It seemed more modern than he remembered-new appliances, fixtures-but it held the same feel of a place built with careful hands, an eye to the beauty of small detail, and a respect for the spirit of each rock in the foundation and every log in the walls and rafters. The two bedrooms in back were separated by a bathroom. To the right was Ren’s room, easy to tell from the Spider-Man poster on the wall. The room on the left had been the guest room where Cork’s mother stayed. Upstairs was a master bedroom and a large loft area where Cork, when he visited all those years ago, had slept on a cot.

  Standing in the narrow hallway, he heard it again, the scratching. It came from the back wall of Ren’s room. Cork had left his walking stick on the porch. Using the bureau, the desk, and finally the post of Ren’s bed to support himself, he laboriously made his way to the window where the curtains were closed. As he’d started across the room, he’d stepped on a board that gave a sharp creak, announcing his presence, and the scratching abruptly died. Now he stood at the window, the Beretta tight in his grasp, his ear cocked toward the wall as he listened intently for a sound that didn’t return. He reached out with his empty hand and slowly parted the curtains.

  A red squirrel clinging to the screen glared at him belligerently. After the bravado of a Mexican standoff, the little creature broke his stare, leaped to the ground, scampered to the nearest tree, and scrambled up the trunk.

  14

  Ren returned on his ATV in a cloud of dust and with the engine roaring, enough racket, Cork figured, to scare off even a hungry cougar. The boy stopped in front of the cabin and dismounted. He climbed the steps, his face heavy with so much concern for one so young.

  Cork stood at the door. “Where’s Dina?”

  “Coming in her own car.”

  Ren stepped past him into the cabin.

  “Your mother called,” Cork told him. “She’s on her way to Bodine. Why don’t you let her know you’re here?”

  The boy nodded. He didn’t seem eager to talk. As Ren picked up the phone, Cork heard another engine, much quieter than that of the ATV. He stepped outside. His leg throbbed, and he sat down and watched as Dina pulled up in a red Pathfinder.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  She sat beside him on the steps. “He was dead all right. Marquette County Sheriff’s people are working the scene.”

  “What happened? Any way to tell?”

  Dina rubbed her eyes in a tired way. “Hodder found him lying on Charlie’s bedroom floor. Like Ren said, somebody had bashed his head in with a ball bat. The bat belongs to Charlie.”

  “Where is she?”

  “AWOL.”

  “They think she did it?”

  “At the moment, they don’t have another suspect.”

  “Ren’s pretty quiet.”

  “A lot to process.”

  “Jewell’s on her way.”

  “I could use some coffee and a bite to eat. Think your cousin would care if I helped myself to something inside?”

  “Are you kidding? You just guided Ren through a tough situation. I don’t imagine she’d begrudge you anything. But then, I’m not exactly on her good side at the moment.”
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br />   “I’ll risk it.”

  Ren had gone to his room and closed the door. Dina found the coffee and started some dripping. She opened the refrigerator, pulled out a block of cheddar and what was left of a carton of eggs. Cork sat at the table, took the weight off his bum leg, and watched her prepare to scramble eggs and cheese in a small frying pan.

  While she worked, she asked, “What’s between you and this cousin of yours? Jewell.”

  Cork stretched his leg and grimaced. “We haven’t been on speaking terms for quite a while.”

  Dina opened a couple of kitchen drawers, located a grater, and began to shred the cheddar onto a plate. “Why’s that?”

  “I arrested her husband.”

  “No kidding? What for?”

  “Trespassing and disturbing the peace.”

  “A troublemaker?”

  “Not exactly. It’s kind of a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Cork settled back. “Daniel was adopted, but it wasn’t a pleasant childhood. He didn’t know anything about his real parents. All you had to do was look at him to know there was a lot of Indian in him. After he and Jewell got married, he tried to find his mother. Turned out she was a Shinnob.”

  “Anishinaabe. Ojibwe, right?”

  “Same thing. She was from L’Anse, the reservation on the Keweenaw just the other side of the Huron Mountains. She’d passed away by then, but Daniel got in touch with her people. Not long after that, his grandfather, an old guy named Jacob Harker, came here to live with him and the family for a couple of years. Daniel told me it was a kind of watershed experience. He discovered a way of looking at things that made sense to him. The problem was that he’d found something Jewell didn’t have any interest in sharing. I gather it was a sore point in their marriage.”

  “What about the arrest?”

  “Seven, eight years ago, not long after Daniel’s grandfather passed away, they came for a visit to Aurora. Daniel was a quiet guy. I liked him. While they were visiting, a situation developed. A group of Shinnobs from the Iron Lake Reservation blocked access to a stand of virgin white pines scheduled to be cut by a logging company. The Anishinaabeg called the trees Ninishoomisag, which means ‘Our Grandfathers,’ and considered them sacred. Daniel joined the protestors.”

  “And you arrested him for that?”

  “Not for that. And not just him. A fight broke out between some of the Ojibwe and some of the loggers. That’s when I made the arrests.”

  “On both sides?”

  “Both sides.”

  “You say this Daniel wasn’t a hothead?”

  “Not at all. It was just the circumstances. But after that he became more and more involved in the wider Indian community and concerns, and in exploring his own Indian identity. I used to think Jewell resented the fact that I arrested her husband. Now I think it was because the arrest sent him in a direction she didn’t want to follow.”

  Dina put the pan over a low flame on the stove and dropped in a pat of butter. She cracked the eggs into a bowl, and added water, salt, and pepper. “How’d he die?” she asked. She began to beat the mixture with a fork.

  He watched her work, admiring how she suddenly seemed as at home in the kitchen as she’d been in the deep wilderness only a few days earlier, sighting her rifle on the heart of a man intent on murdering him.

  “He’d become a pretty well-known artist with his photography and painting,” Cork said. “A few years ago, there was a brouhaha down in Wisconsin over tribal hunting and fishing activities. Whites felt the Ojibwe had overstepped their bounds. The Ojibwe believed they were exercising their rights under the terms of treaties the government had signed. There were some violent confrontations. We had pretty much the same situation in Minnesota.”

  “Seems to me I remember reading about it in the papers.”

  “Daniel documented the confrontations, took some pretty damning photos that captured the anger and violence, especially on the part of the whites involved. Got national exposure. After that, he received requests from a lot of tribes all over the country who were deep in conflicts of one kind or another. He traveled a good deal, helping wherever he could. Another huge issue between him and Jewell.

  “A little over a year ago, he agreed to document a standoff that had developed between the Shoshone in Montana and a mining company, something to do with coal reserves that ran under tribal land. He flew to Billings and was met at the airport by one of the tribal members who was supposed to drive him to the site. It was getting dark. On the way, a red and white begins to flash behind them. They pull over. Four men in khaki uniforms approach, ask them to step from the vehicle, then proceed to beat the crap out of them. The Shoshone survived. I understand he has a metal plate in his head. Daniel was in a coma for several weeks. Never came out of it. Jewell finally made the decision to pull the plug. The men responsible were never identified.”

  “That’s pretty tough.”

  “Jewell’s still taking it hard. Ren seems to have rebounded better.”

  Dina put the eggs in the pan on the stove and began to work them with a spatula. “For a guy who hasn’t seen his cousin in several years, you know a lot.”

  “It was in all the papers. And I keep abreast in other ways, through relatives.”

  A couple of minutes later, Dina transferred the eggs to a plate. She poured herself a cup of coffee and joined Cork at the table. She’d just seated herself when Ren stepped from his bedroom.

  “Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Your kolache and latte. They’re still out in the ATV. I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it. I’m fine.” She gave him a bright smile.

  “Thanks,” Ren said.

  “For what?”

  “Being there with me. You know. At Charlie’s. With the police and all.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  Cork said, “Ren, your cougar’s back.”

  The boy’s eyes grew big, like dark mushroom buttons. “You saw it?”

  “No, I heard it. I had a sense it was circling the resort.”

  Dina looked up from the forkful of eggs about to disappear into her mouth. “Circling? As in stalking?”

  “I don’t know cougars,” Cork replied. “What I know about most wild creatures, really wild, who’ve had any exposure to humans is that they’ll do their best to stay clear of us.”

  “Why wouldn’t the cougar?” Dina asked.

  “Hunger would be my first guess.”

  Ren shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t think it would have any trouble finding food in the Hurons.”

  Cork shrugged. “Then maybe its environment’s been invaded or threatened.”

  Dina sipped her coffee. “What animal would threaten a cougar?”

  “Us. Humans,” Ren said. “Boy, a cougar. That would be something to see.”

  “Unless it was coming at your throat,” Dina pointed out.

  “I don’t think anyone should wander far from the cabins,” Cork said.

  Ren nodded vaguely, but Cork saw the boy’s eyes stray to the window and wistfully study the distant wooded hills.

  The rattle of suspension came from the resort road, and a minute later Jewell pulled her Blazer to a stop behind Dina’s Pathfinder. Through the screen door, Cork watched her leap out and bound up the steps to the cabin. She came in, went straight to Ren, took his head in her hands and looked deeply into his face.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  She hugged him and kissed the top of his head. Ren glanced at Cork, then Dina. His face flushed from embarrassment at his mother’s display of concern.

  “Where’s Charlie?” Jewell asked. She released him from her embrace and held him at arm’s length.

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t there.”

  “Providence House, you think?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Providence House?” Dina said.

  Jewell seemed to notice her for the first time, and not with
pleasure. “You’re Cork’s friend.”

  “Dina Willner.”

  “Mom,” Ren said as he edged between Jewell and Dina, “she, like, went with me and talked to the police and all. She was great.”

  Jewell’s dark Ojibwe eyes held for an icy moment on the other woman. “Thank you.”

  “This Providence House. What is it?” Dina asked.

  Ren leaped in. “A place where Charlie sometimes stays. It’s in Marquette.”

  Dina sipped her coffee. “You neglected to mention that to the police, Ren.”

  “If Charlie’s there, I didn’t want them finding her. I mean, Jesus, they think she killed her dad.” Ren looked up at his mother. “Could we see if she’s there? You know, call or something?”

  Jewell put a light, protective hand on her son’s shoulder. “I’m sure they won’t give out information over the phone, Ren. But maybe if we went in person.”

  “Could we?”

  Jewell glanced at Cork, and he realized that she was seeking his advice.

  “If she’s there, she’s safe,” Cork offered. “Once you know that, you can decide the best course of action. And maybe help her decide, too. I’d recommend she talk to the sheriff’s people, but that’s up to her.”

  Ren seemed momentarily troubled. “But if she doesn’t want to talk to them, that’s okay, right?”

  “She could be what’s called a material witness,” Cork told him. “That makes it tough. If you know where she is and you don’t tell the police, they could charge you with a crime. Me, I’d find out if she’s there. Wouldn’t you like to know she’s safe? Then you can decide what to do.”

  “Mom,” Ren said. “We’ve got to go.”

  “All right. Wait for me in the Blazer.”

  Ren darted out without saying good-bye. Jewell delayed her own departure.

  “You’ve been walking on that leg?”

  “Yeah. Too much probably.”

  “If you want a cane, I’ll get you one.”

  “Thanks.”

  She went to the guest room and came back with a wooden cane, the handle carved in the shape of a wolf’s head. “Daniel made this.”