The man was lean and hard and earnest. He’d come from common stock and risen out of the West Texas dust. He was clear-eyed about the contradictions of human nature and probably understood that inside the best of people there was always a war going on between the light and the dark, and that in anyone the tide of battle could shift at any moment, which meant trust was a dangerous thing. Parmer, Cork figured, would know when to trust. It didn’t hurt at all that he could buy half of Minnesota if it came to that.
“All right,” Cork said. “But you do as I say. Will that be a problem?”
Parmer grinned. “Not at all.”
Back at home, Cork called Rose. She answered in a voice pinched with concern.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
“Actually, no. Mal is in the hospital.”
“Is it serious?”
“He’s had a mild heart attack.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’s all right,” she said emphatically. “In church this morning, he complained of being short of breath and then of discomfort in his chest. He didn’t want to make a fuss, but I insisted we go to the emergency room. They diagnosed him there. He’s fine, really. They’re keeping him overnight for observation, but he should be all right to come home tomorrow.”
“Are you doing okay, Rose?”
“The worst was over before we really even knew what was going on. So, yes, I’m okay. We’ll need to take a look at all the contributing circumstances and make some changes in our lives, I think. Mal has been driving himself lately. So the first order of business will be for him to slow down. I’m going to sit on him if I have to.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No, Cork. And please don’t think about coming down here to help. Mal wouldn’t hear of it, and you’ve got plenty to keep you busy up there.”
“You’ll keep us posted?”
“Of course. I would have called, but I had my hands full.” She paused. “But you called me. Was there something you wanted to talk about?”
“No, Rose. Just… keeping in touch.”
They talked a minute or two more. Rose indicated she would call Jenny and Annie to let them know.
He hung up, aware that the option of sending Stephen to safety in Evanston was no longer available. He walked to the kitchen, stared out the window over the sink, and thought hard. The possibility that came to him was one he couldn’t arrange over the phone. It would require some travel, and he had less than two hours of daylight left. He wrote a note to Stephen, then hurried to his Bronco and drove north out of town.
A light shone through the window of Meloux’s cabin. Against the thin blue of the twilight sky, a thread of smoke rose up from the stovepipe that jutted from the cabin roof. The evening was still, and, except for the sound of Cork’s footfalls on the well-worn path through the meadow, Crow Point was quiet. As he approached the cabin, Cork heard Walleye begin to bark inside. A moment later, the door opened and Meloux stepped out. Along with him came the succulent smell of hot stew.
“ Anin, Corcoran O’Connor.” The old man greeted him without any hint of surprise.
“ Anin, Henry.”
“I have made stew. Will you eat with me?”
The old Mide seemed to have anticipated his visitor and his need, something Cork had experienced so often with Meloux that he didn’t question the old man’s prescient ability.
“Thank you, Henry. I’m starved.”
Meloux nodded and eyed him closely. “You have the look of a man hungry in many ways.”
Cork offered his host a pouch of tobacco, which the Mide accepted without a word, and they went inside.
It was squirrel stew. The old man had shot the animal himself. Even though Meloux was well over ninety, his hand was still steadier than those of many men half his age. The stew was full of wild mushrooms, wild rice, carrots, and potatoes, and was spiced simply with salt, pepper, and sage. Meloux had also made drop biscuits. They ate without speaking. In the corner of the cabin where Meloux had set a bowl for Walleye, the old mutt slurped with gleeful abandon.
When they were finished, the old man said, “Now we will smoke, and then we will speak of the reason you have come.”
From a deer-hide pouch hanging on the wall, the Mide took a stone pipe with a wood stem. He put two kitchen matches into the right pocket of his worn jeans and wrapped his gnarled hand around the pouch of tobacco Cork had brought him. He led the way to the fire ring beside the lake, where he opened the tobacco pouch. He pinched some of the contents and sprinkled it to the north. In the same way, he offered tobacco to the east, south, west, and finally let some of it fall into the center. Then he sat on one of the stumps that circled the ring, put a bit of tobacco into the pipe, and struck a match. As the mantle of night closed slowly around them, they smoked and then they talked.
Cork told Meloux of the things he’d discovered and what he suspected they might mean.
“Do you believe that your wife is still alive, Corcoran O’Connor?”
Cork shook his head. “For a little while, I entertained that hope. But I don’t understand how it could possibly be. No, Henry, she’s dead, but there’s more to her death than any of us know. I want to find the truth.”
“What will you tell Stephen?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“If you lie to him, he will know. If not now, eventually. I would think about what that means.”
“If I tell him the truth, he’ll want to help and I can’t let him. He’ll hate me for that as much as he would if I lied.”
“The truth, a man can deal with.”
“Stephen’s not a man yet, Henry.”
“He is not a boy either. If you treat him as a man, perhaps he will behave as a man.”
“If I were Stephen and I knew what I know, nothing in all God’s creation would stop me from going after the truth. Not even my father.”
They sat in silence. A half-moon had risen in the east and cast a silver thread across the black water of Iron Lake. Near Meloux, Walleye sighed deeply, the only sound.
“Bring him to me,” Meloux said. “Perhaps it is time to make a man of him.”
“Giigiwishimowin?” Cork asked. He was speaking of the old way in which an Anishinaabe boy became a man. It involved a vision quest that required a boy to go alone into the woods and to fast until he’d been given a dream, a vision that would guide him as a man for the rest of his life.
“Yes,” the old Mide replied. “The vision itself, if it is given to him, may help him to understand. And while he is seeking the vision, it would be a good time for you to do these things you must do.”
“If I don’t tell him the truth behind this, Henry, he may still see it as a lie.”
“And what is the truth behind this, Corcoran O’Connor? You want him to grow into his manhood, do you not?”
“Of course.”
“And you believe in the old way?”
“Yes.”
“Then the truth of this is that you want your son to become a man and you want this done properly, is that not so?”
“Yes, Henry, I suppose that is the truth.”