Manitou Canyon (25 page)

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T
he lodge was a simple construction but sturdy and beautiful. It was built of honey-colored pine, and Cork was certain it was quite old. Inside, the main room was sparely set with furnishings constructed of the same honey-colored pine as the lodge itself: a divan, a couple of easy chairs, two small dining tables. A fieldstone fireplace dominated one of the walls. Two of the walls were hung with mounted trophies, big fish and wild game. On another wall hung a large map of a lake, the lake they'd landed on, Cork figured. According to the map, it was called White Woman Lake. The map was flanked by framed photos of fishermen holding their prize catches. Aaron was in many of these, sometimes in the background, sometimes standing shoulder to shoulder with the grinning fishermen. There was not the dank, musty smell that sometimes hung in the air of old lodges in the Northwoods. The place smelled clean and felt well cared for.

On their arrival, Indigo had given over authority to one of the two men who'd met them. Now this man—slender, pock-faced, intelligent-eyed, mid-thirties, Native—invited Cork and Lindsay to be seated on the divan. The other guy who'd been waiting on the dock, a good-looking young man cradling a rifle, stood nearby, managing to appear both passive and threatening at the same time.

“Where's our host?” the man in charge asked.

“Left him,” Cheval said. “In Gordonville. Along with Bird. The kid's hurt pretty bad.”

“No names,” the man said sharply. “And what about Mr. Gray?”

“He killed him.” Mrs. Gray nodded at Cork. “We had to leave him in the Boundary Waters.”

“You got rid of any identification, yes?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Good. Then we're still clean. I'm sorry about your—about Mr. Gray.”

Cheval went into the kitchen, and Cork heard the opening of a refrigerator door, then the closing. A moment later, the pilot returned, carrying a plate and gnawing on a leg of fried chicken. He sat at the table and ate and watched.

“Where's my grandfather?” Lindsay asked.

“You'll see him shortly,” the man in charge said. “First, I want to give you the lay of the land.”

He wore a down vest, fine quality, maybe REI or L.L.Bean, Cork thought. His boots were Gore-Tex. His onyx hair was pulled back in a long ponytail and held with a beaded tie. He wore gold wire-rimmed glasses, and Cork got a feel from him that was far more scholar than woodsman. A fire was burning in the fireplace. The man walked to it and turned back, so that he was framed in flames. An overly melodramatic move, Cork thought.

“Call me Mr. Fox,” the man said. “If we're to save the Manitou River, we don't have much time. Every minute, the water creeps higher behind that dam. They'll be able to start running those turbines pretty soon. We need to act, act now. Which is why you're here.” This last part was directed at Lindsay Harris.

“I don't understand,” she said. “What can I do?”

“Talk to your grandfather. Convince him to give us what we need.”

“And what would that be?”

“A way to get rid of the dam. We've asked him politely. And not so politely. But he continues to refuse to help us.”

“What do you mean ‘not so politely'?”

“Our well-being—yours, mine, his—is of little consequence in this. It's a cliché, I know, but the end justifies the means.”

“You haven't hurt him.” She looked at the young man with the rifle and said, “Tell me you didn't let them hurt him.”

She said this with such vehemence and in such a proprietary way that both Mr. Fox and the young man with the rifle made no immediate reply.

“Nothing's happened to him that he won't recover from. Nothing yet,” Fox finally said. “Whether it remains this way is up to you.”

“I want to see him,” Lindsay insisted. “Now.”

Fox nodded to the young man with the rifle, but the gesture was missed because the young man was staring at Lindsay Harris with a deep look of concern.

“Mr. Brown,” Fox snapped. “Fetch our guest. Lend him a hand,” he said to Cheval.

The pilot looked as if what he really wanted to do was tell him to go to hell, but he put the chicken leg down and followed the young man with the rifle from the room.

Fox looked to Cork and said, “You're mixed blood, I understand, part Anishinaabe.”

It wasn't a question and Cork gave no answer.

“Then perhaps you can understand the importance of what we're trying to accomplish here. Do you have any sense of what's going on?”

“You want to destroy the dam John Harris built,” Cork said. Then he added with a note of sarcasm, “Indigo, Brown, Gray? The others are just colors, just shades. But you, you're something else. Fox, the wily one, is that it?”

A faint smile came to Fox's lips, then quickly vanished. “That dam is a threat to a beautiful river, and an area sacred to the Odawa on White Woman Lake. It's understandable. The spirit here is profound and powerful.” He began to pace before the fire and speak as if lecturing in a college classroom. “From the first moment Europeans set foot on this continent, and every other, for that matter, they've acted as if the new land was theirs. By right of their superior God, their superior culture, their superior every
thing. They've justified their actions—theft, rape, slavery, murder, genocide—in a hundred ways. Our ancestors fought bravely but, in the end, fell before this white onslaught. We've been forced, like prisoners of war, onto small parcels of earth, slivers of what was once the land we shared with all other free creatures.”

He stopped, turned, and faced Cork and Lindsay Harris as if they were seated at desks and taking notes. He spoke in a dramatic and practiced way.

“But we're fighting back now, meting out a justice that white laws refuse to offer, protecting Grandmother Earth from the rape caused by white greed, bringing a sense of power and purpose back to our people.”

“What do you call yourselves?” Cork asked.

“We have no name. We have no real body. We have only purpose. And,” he said, “we have technology.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and held it up as if it were an exhibit at a trial. “The white man's technology turned against him.”

“You're going to blow up the dam with a cell phone?” Cork said.

“We've stockpiled enough explosive here to take out a city block,” Fox said, slipping his cell phone back into his pocket. “What we need is someone who understands that dam intimately to tell us where and how to plant it.”

“My grandfather,” Lindsay said.

“We could have pulled in another dam engineer, I suppose. But we liked the poetic justice of this,” Fox said. “It will be a dam Harris both built and destroyed.”

“He hasn't given you what you need,” Cork pointed out.

“He will,” Fox said. “We have leverage now. One way or the other, we'll get what we want from him.”

Cheval and Brown returned holding a tall, grayed figure between them. The man was blindfolded. They walked him to one of the easy chairs and let him fall into it. He was a powerful man physically, but he sat with his head down, his chin resting against his chest. His face was a mottle of bruises, his lips split and with clots of blood stuck to them like black leeches.

“Oh, Jesus,” Lindsay said when she saw him. “You bastards.”

“He's suffered nothing he won't recover from,” Fox assured her. “Yet.”

At the sound of his granddaughter's voice, John Harris slowly raised his head. “Lindsay?”

“Grandpa John,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Give them what they want,” she said. She scooted forward, trying to get nearer to him. “Please just give them what they want.”

He shook his head slowly. “Thugs.”

“In our view, Mr. Harris, you're the thug. You helped destroy sacred things.”

“Wasn't my intent.”

“You knew the Odawa here objected to the dam. And you knew why.”

He breathed a deep, ragged sigh. “I've already told you. I didn't know these things until after construction of the dam had begun. Then it was too late, out of my hands.”

“We've covered this ground before and it gets us nowhere. That's why we've brought your granddaughter here. We need to move forward quickly.”

A log on the fire popped with sudden force, and it was like a gunshot in the room. Cork felt them all flinch, including himself.

“What do you think you're going to do?” Harris said. Although his voice was weak, there was profound menace in his tone.

“Whatever we have to,” Fox told him. “I'd prefer not to harm your granddaughter, but if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do. Or rather,” he said, nodding toward Indigo, who stood off to the side with his hands behind his back in a kind of military stance, “that's what I'll have my friend here, Mr. Indigo, do. You know firsthand how he operates.”

“You touch her, and I'll kill you.”

“There's no need for any more violence. Just tell us what we want to know.”

“If I could give you what you want, you'd have it already,” Harris said.

Fox said, “We've brought someone else. Someone from your past. Mr. O'Connor, say hello.”

Cork thought he would not. Fox nodded to Indigo, who took the Glock from his shoulder holster, walked to Cork, and hit him with the butt upside his head. Cork's vision went bright with fireworks. In a moment, he could see again, but now he had a headache and a loud ringing in his left ear.

“Mr. O'Connor?” Fox held out a hand, indicating Harris.

Cork said, “Hey, Johnny Do.”

Harris turned his head, as if to hear better. “Corky? Corky O'Connor? Is that you?”

“Mr. O'Connor accompanied your granddaughter into the Boundary Waters in an attempt to locate you. We've brought him here for a reason.” He nodded once again to Indigo.

Indigo holstered his Glock, pulled Cork roughly to his feet, marched him to the fireplace, and stood him beside Fox.

“Boyhood friends, I understand,” Fox said.

He untied John Harris's blindfold. Harris blinked at the light and cleared his vision.

Fox said, “Mr. Indigo, will you demonstrate why Corky is here.”

Cork didn't see the blow coming. Indigo's fist plowed into his stomach. Cork doubled over and fell to his knees.

“God, no,” Lindsay cried and tried to rise.

“Sit down, Miss Harris,” Fox commanded. When she obeyed, he said to Brown, “See to it she stays there.”

The young man stood next to her. She glared up at him, and he reacted as if she'd slapped him.

Cork saw all this. Even with his head and gut hurting, his mind went on working, putting pieces together.

“If you continue to give us nothing, we'll kill him. Then we'll do the same to your granddaughter, but only after she's endured even more pain than you have.” Fox let that sink in. “We're not
cruel people. This is not how we would prefer to operate. But it's what we're willing to do, if we have to.”

In Fox, Cork saw a reveling in power, which was the demon that always accompanied ultimate authority. In Indigo, he saw a cold detachment that would allow him to do anything to another human being.

“We will kill them, Mr. Harris,” Fox asserted. “First your childhood friend, which is the whole point of his being here. Then your granddaughter.”

Harris looked at Cork, who despite all the years that had intervened, could still see the face of the teenager he'd known and had looked up to on Gooseberry Lane. Whoever John Harris had become as a man, that admirable kid was still there somewhere.

“You don't believe me,” Fox said. “Mr. Indigo, shoot O'Connor.”

Indigo drew out his Glock and put it to the back of Cork's head.

“No,” Lindsay cried and tried to rise.

“Restrain her, Brown,” Fox snapped.

The young man blocked her way and shoved her down.

“You bastards,” she shouted. “You lying bastards.”

“Shoot him,” the man said again, calmly.

Later, Cork would think of what happened next not as luck but as the deft and benevolent hand of Kitchimanidoo at work.

The door of the lodge burst open, and Aaron strode into the room, a rifle in his hands.

“Put that gun away, Indigo,” he ordered. “Or I'll shoot you where you stand.”

C
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A
aron's shoulders were dusted with snow, and snowflakes clung to his hair and lay melting on his face. The rifle in his hands was aimed directly at Indigo's chest. Cork looked up at the man who held the Glock to his head. Indigo's eyes were intense, excited. Cork understood that this kind of confrontation fed something in him. He was not a warrior, not like Aaron. Not like Cork. Not
ogichidaa
. Indigo was
majimanidoo
. A devil who thrived on cruelty. Among all the people of the earth, regardless of the color of their skin or their language or their culture, devils like this walked.

“Do as our host has asked, Mr. Indigo,” Fox said. “Put your firearm away.”

The gunman didn't immediately obey. He faced off with Aaron for a good while before he let a smile play across his lips.

“Sure,” he said. “For now.”

He slipped the Glock into his shoulder holster. As soon as this was done, Aaron took three long strides across the space that separated them and swung his right fist into Indigo's jaw. The man fell back against the stone of the fireplace. He quickly returned to his feet in a stance prepared for battle. But once again, he faced the barrel of the rifle Aaron held.

“You left me,” Aaron said.

Indigo stood tensed, assessing the situation, the rifle, the man who held it. Finally he relaxed. “I had a job to do,” he said. “How'd you get here?”

“Borrowed a truck. I have a lot of friends in Gordonville.”

“Borrowed a rifle, too, looks like. The kid?”

“He'll be fine.”

Fox said, “I've been told about Bird. I'm glad to hear he'll be okay. As I understand it, the same can't be said of Mr. Gray.” He sounded detached. Academic. As if the dead man were something he'd just erased from the blackboard.

Aaron glanced down to where Cork still knelt on the old floorboards. “Get up, O'Connor.”

Cork got to his feet.

“Over there.” Aaron nodded toward the place on the divan next to Lindsay Harris.

Cork went and sat down.

“You were going to kill him?” Aaron asked Fox.

“That was my intention. The object lesson we'd all discussed. And,” Fox said, his voice piqued with irritation, “we'd all agreed on. When you went to fetch Miss Harris, you were fully on board with sacrificing O'Connor, if necessary.”

“I didn't know him then.”

“That makes a difference?”

“All the difference in the world.”

Fox nodded, thought over this turn of events, and said, “So, what do you propose now?”

“Let them talk.”

“There's been nothing but talk. Too much of it. We need to act.”

“Let them talk,” Aaron said again. “Alone.”

“You think it will make a difference?”

“We won't know until we give it a chance.”

Fox's eyes moved over them all, assessing every variable of the equation he was putting together in his head. Finally he said, “Very well. Your way first.” He leveled a menacing look at Aaron. “Then mine.” He gestured to Indigo. “Take them to Mr. Harris's room.”

Cork rose from the divan. Lindsay started up, and Brown reached down to help her. She glared at him, and he drew his
hand back as if he'd been burned. John Harris tried to rise, but his battered body failed him. Cheval left the table, slipped his meaty hands under Harris's arms, and helped him stand. Then he guided Harris away, and Cork and Lindsay followed. Indigo brought up the rear.

They walked down a short hallway to an opened door. Cheval helped Harris inside and sat him on the bed. Cork and Lindsay entered, and Cheval cut the tape that bound their hands. Then the pilot backed out and joined Indigo in the hallway.

“Don't try to climb out a window,” Indigo warned them. He gave a little grin, as if he hoped that was exactly what they might try to do, and he closed the door.

Lindsay went to the bed and carefully assessed the damage that been done to her grandfather's face. “Oh, Grandpa John. I'm so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Harris replied.

That's when Cork said, “On the contrary, Johnny Do, I think it's all her fault.”