“My heart told me it was time.” The old man laughed. “It gave me a good kick in the ass.” He went quiet again, then asked a question that must have been heavy on his mind for seventy years. “Leonard Wellington said it was your mother who told him about Maurice and the gold. I never wanted to believe it.” He turned his head and looked to his son. “Do you know the truth?”
“No,” Wellington said. “I’m sorry.”
I stood up. “I think I’ll call it a night.”
I left them on the dock. Inside, I looked back through the clear glass of the sliding deck door, toward the lake. Against the reflection of moonlight off the water, the two men stood talking. It had taken seven decades for this to happen. For a lot of people, that was more than a lifetime. I had the feeling that for Meloux and his son, a new and remarkable kind of life had just begun.
I went up to bed and lay there thinking that sometimes stories did have happy endings.
The problem was that this story wasn’t over.
FORTY-EIGHT
I woke to Schanno pounding at my door. The sun was up, already high. A cool breeze lifted the curtains on the window. I figured I’d opened my eyes to a good day.
“We’re waiting for you downstairs,” Schanno said when I swung the door wide. He was dressed in clean khakis and a white short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar. He looked very Ivy League and refreshed.
“We? Meloux’s up, too?”
“He says he never went back to sleep after you left him alone with Wellington. He spent the night talking with his son, then reading Maria’s journals.” Schanno’s face held a look of warm affection. “He’s something, that guy. Wellington’s brother is here, by the way.”
“Rupert?”
“Does he have another I don’t know about? Yeah, Rupert. And Benning’s fixing us up some breakfast, so get your ass down there, son. Time’s a wasting.”
I splashed my face with cold water, ran a toothbrush across my teeth, threw on the clothes I’d worn the night before, and joined the others downstairs. They were gathered in the shade of the umbrella table on the rear deck, drinking coffee that smelled like it came from caffeine heaven.
“Mr. Wellington,” I greeted Rupert, who accepted the hand I offered. “This is a surprise.”
“Mr. O’Connor,” he responded cordially. He wore jeans, a light blue polo shirt, and expensive Gore-Tex hiking boots. He appeared tired, especially around the eyes.
Meloux sat next to his son. I thought he’d look happy, but in the Ojibwe way, his face betrayed no emotion.
“Sit down, Cork.” Henry Wellington indicated the empty chair. “Would you like some coffee?” He poured me a cup from the white ceramic pot on the table. “Breakfast should be ready soon.”
“You flew up?” I asked Rupert. I used my cup hand to wave toward the floatplane tethered to the dock.
“I did.”
Henry Wellington flicked a deerfly from the table. “In his younger days, Rupert was quite a bush pilot.”
Rupert shrugged off the compliment. “It didn’t compare with being an honest-to-god war hero like Hank, but it had its moments.”
“When are you going to let go of that, Rupert? How many times do I have to tell you I don’t feel any glory in what I did.”
“Right,” Rupert said. He gave his brother a little smile, tight-lipped and unpleasant.
“Let’s not get into any of that sibling stuff in front of guests, all right?”
“Sibling?” Rupert’s tone was one of mock surprise. “We have different mothers. And according to your mother’s journals, we have different fathers as well.”
“Come on, Rupert, we’re brothers. We were raised that way.”
Rupert shot him an obviously angry look. “You knew, what, forty years ago that my father wasn’t your father? When exactly did you plan on telling me? A deathbed confession?”
Wellington took a deep breath. “I didn’t see any reason to tell you. What difference would it have made?”
“You always made decisions without talking to me.”
“I’m ten years older than you. Sometimes decisions had to be made, and you simply didn’t know enough to be able to contribute.”
“Do you think I know enough now?”
“I would never have turned the reins of Northern Mining over to you if I didn’t think so.”
“Northern Mining,” Rupert snarled. “Do you ever read the correspondence I send? Do you even care?”
“I’m finished with that part of my life.”
“Right. You live the pure life of the ascetic now. How utterly noble. So tell me, since you’ve stepped back from any responsibility for the company, do I get to make the decision about what to do with the information Mr. Meloux has offered us about Dad?”
“I think what we do is obvious, don’t you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“I think, at the very least, there’s a lot of restitution to be made.”
“Restitution?” Rupert seemed genuinely surprised. “To whom?”
“For starters, the families of the two men who died up there at the ruins of the old cabin. And we need to check the documentation on mineral rights to be certain Leonard didn’t actually jump a claim.”
“Ancient crimes, Hank. It’s like giving the descendants of African slaves restitution for what was done to their ancestors. It solves nothing. It absolves no one. But, hell, it’s easy for you to propose, I suppose, considering that Leonard Wellington wasn’t your father. Think of me for just a moment, Hank. For once, think of someone besides yourself.”
“You’re proposing what? That we ignore the truth and go on as if nothing ever happened?”
“Hank, how do you know that what he’s said is true? You told me not half an hour ago that there’s nothing in your mother’s journals that corroborates what he accuses Dad of doing.”
“I didn’t tell you everything, Rupert. Yesterday, he showed me irrefutable, fourteen-carat proof. Look, I understand that this is going to be hard, especially for you, but we don’t have a choice. I mean, these men here, they all know the truth. Even if I agreed with you, what would you propose to do about them?”
Rupert swung his eyes slyly across Schanno and me. “It’s my firm belief, gentlemen, that everyone has a price. Am I correct?”
It was Schanno who broke the embarrassed silence that followed. “You may know business, Mr. Wellington, but you’re no judge of men.”
Rupert settled his gaze on me. “He speaks for you?”
“He took the words right out of my mouth,” I said.
“Very well.” He offered that unpleasant smile again. “I think you’re about to find I’m not such a terrible judge of men after all, Mr. Schanno.” He lifted his hand and gave a little wave toward the house.
Benning stepped out, and he wasn’t alone. Dougherty was with him. They didn’t bring us breakfast. They carried a couple of high-caliber automatics.
“Dougherty?” Wellington said.
“He flew up with me,” Rupert said. “I dropped him off on the other side of the point before I taxied here. He hiked in.”
Wellington addressed Benning and Dougherty. “What’s the idea with the weapons?”
“You’ll have to ask the other Mr. Wellington,” Benning replied.
“I’m asking you.”
“As their employer?” Rupert laughed. “I told you everyone has a price, Hank. I bought these men from you a long time ago. Morrissey, too. In fact, they haven’t really worked for you since almost the beginning.”
Wellington again addressed the two men from Manitou Island. “Is that true?”
Benning shrugged. “He says shoot, we shoot. Nothing personal.”
Wellington faced his brother. “And are you going to say ‘Shoot’?”
Rupert drummed his fingers on the table, as if considering. “Maybe not. We’ll see.”
I was trying to figure out a move, some way of distracting Benning and Dougherty. Without obviously turning my head, I checked the field of fire from the deck. If one of us was able to make it to the ground and run for cover, could he reach the woods without being cut down by the automatics?
Rupert laughed.