When he finished, Anne whispered softly, “Amen.”
As they left Meloux’s cabin, Stephen grabbed a small pot from a set of cookware hanging on hooks in the wall. Anne gave him a questioning glance.
“To melt snow for water,” he explained. “To make the steam in the lodge.”
The stones were superheated by the time they returned to the fire. Stephen used the pitchfork to lift them out of the coals, one by one. He’d broken a branch from a small pine tree, and he asked Anne to use it to sweep the embers from each stone before he cradled it on the tines into the shallow pit at the center of the lodge. When it was done, all the stones were in place, he dropped the flap over the entrance. In the meantime, Anne had filled the pot with snow and put it on the fire.
From one of the pockets of his coat, Stephen pulled out a small pouch filled with tobacco. He took a pinch of the tobacco and dropped it into the fire both as an offering and so that the smoke would carry his prayers upward.
“I’m on my own for a while,” he said to Anne. “You can go on back to Rainy’s cabin and have some lunch while I do the first round of sweating.”
“When do you want me back?”
“Give me forty minutes.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She kissed his cheek. “Safe journey,” she said and left him.
Stephen took off his coat, shirt, shoes and socks, and pants and stood before the entrance to the lodge, dressed only in his T-shirt and boxers. He took the pot of water from the fire and lifted the flap over the entrance. Earlier, he’d laid a blanket inside, on the opposite side of the lodge. He slipped in and crawled clockwise until he reached the blanket, where he sat down. The stones had heated the small area intensely. He raised the pot, poured the melted snow onto the Grandfathers, and the steam rose up and filled the air around him.
Stephen breathed deeply and settled in to receive whatever might come to him. He had no idea what that was. If he’d known, he might have chosen a different path for himself that cold winter day.
CHAPTER 30
Cork had never visited Stillwater Prison, but he had a long and negative association with the dour facility. When Cork was thirteen years old, his father, who was sheriff of Tamarack County, had been shot and killed in a gun battle initiated by several convicts who’d escaped from the prison and had made a desperate, ill-considered run for Canada. His father’s death wasn’t, of course, the fault of the prison or the personnel there, but when he and Dross approached the complex, Cork felt a twist of his stomach, as if he was preparing to meet an old adversary.
From the front, Stillwater Prison resembled an austere school construction, the kind you might see in a yearbook from the 1940s, all no-nonsense red brick. If you looked beyond that to the yard, with its high walls and guard towers and barbed wire, there was no mistaking its true purpose. Despite its name, it was actually situated south of Stillwater, above the town of Bayport, set amid hills that climbed west of the Saint Croix River. Dross parked in the visitors’ lot across the street, and they both headed inside. They gave their names at the entrance checkpoint, passed through the security scanner, and were buzzed through the heavy metal door of the sally port. On the other side, a correctional officer, who introduced herself as Sergeant Nadine Jojade, waited. She escorted them to the third floor, where they were ushered into an office paneled in dark wood and tastefully carpeted. A woman sat at a large desk near the far window. Through the glass behind her, a line of barren trees was visible, and beyond the trees and the iced-over Saint Croix River rose the white hills of Wisconsin.
“Thank you, Nadine,” the woman said.
The officer left, closing the door behind her.
“I’m Terry Gilman.” The warden rose and came to greet them.
“Good morning, Warden. I’m Sheriff Marsha Dross, and this is Cork O’Connor.”
They all shook hands.
On a good day, Warden Gilman probably reached the midpoint of Cork O’Connor’s chest. She was slender, even a little fragile looking. She had curly hair the color of buckskin, which she wore short. At first glance, she might have seemed an odd choice to run a prison in which ninety percent of the inmates towered over her and, if they had the opportunity to sit on her, would probably break most of her bones. But from the moment he looked into her eyes and saw the assuredness of authority there, something cops and criminals both respected, he knew why she held the position.
She offered them a seat and asked, “Can I get you something? Coffee, water?”
“No, thank you,” Dross replied. “We appreciate you accommodating our request.”
Gilman sat in the chair behind her desk. “When I understood the situation, I wanted to be a part of this personally. I have a long-standing interest in Cecil LaPointe.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll explain that in a minute, but first I’d like to hear the whole story of what’s brought you here.”
Dross recounted all that had occurred in Tamarack County since Evelyn Carter had first gone missing. The failed search, the killed dog, the discovery of the bloodied knife in the garage of Judge Ralph Carter, the possible attempt on the life of Marlee Daychild, and Dexter’s head left on the table of Ray Jay Wakemup. She also explained her thinking about how Sullivan Becker’s hit-and-run accident was connected to this.
When Dross finished, the warden asked, “What do you know about Cecil LaPointe as an inmate here?”
“Except for the image that comes from a reading of The Wisdom of White Eagle, essentially nothing.”
“Let me enlighten you, then.”
She lifted a large photograph from where it lay on her desk and offered it to Dross. The sheriff took it and held it out so that she and Cork could view it together. It was an aerial photo of the prison complex. Smoke poured from one of the wings.
Cork said, “The riot?”
Gilman nodded. “Five years ago. Shortly afterward, the man who was warden at that time left and I took this position. Although the situation had been dealt with, feelings here were still pretty raw. Because I was absolutely determined nothing like that would ever take place in this facility again, I created a panel to investigate the causes. I had guards on that panel, correctional experts from the outside, and inmates. Cecil LaPointe was one of them.”
“Why LaPointe?”
“During the rioting, he was responsible for saving the lives of a number of inmates.”
“I heard about that,” Dross said. “But I don’t recall the details.”
“Some inmates tried to use the pandemonium inside to settle scores,” Gilman explained. “LaPointe’s influence, which is considerable among the population here, kept that from happening. He actually placed himself in harm’s way to protect some of the threatened inmates. Anyone else would probably have been cut down without a second thought. But there’s something about LaPointe that’s . . . well . . . different.” She smiled. “Which is why I wanted to talk to you before you see him. Have you had much experience with a prison population?”
“We see them a lot on the outside.”
“And you probably see them one or two or three at a time. When you put hundreds of them together, you multiply the individual dynamic a thousandfold. Do you remember watching those old cowboy movies where all the drovers are sitting around a campfire on a cattle drive and there’s a storm brewing and they’re holding their breath because they know that all it will take to make those cattle stampede is one wrong sound?” She let that sink in. “In his way, Cecil LaPointe has done more than his share to keep that wrong sound out of Stillwater.”