Purgatory Ridge (32 page)

“Dynamite,” Cork said. “Are they sure?”

“They seem to be.”

Schanno’s radio crackled. “Come in, Miss Muffet, do you read me? Over.”

Cork heard a voice he recognized as Agent Kay reply, “Loud and clear. What’s shaking?”

“They’re on the move again, headed your way. LeDuc’s not with them. He’s just standing by his pickup. He seems to be waiting.”

“Cordell’s team stays with LeDuc. You follow the others. “

“Ten-four.”

Kay’s voice again: “Earl, Schanno, did you copy that?”

Earl said he did. Schanno spoke into his mike, “We stay on this road and we’ll run into ‘em headlong in a few minutes. We need to disappear. Over.”

Kay was silent on her end of the conversation. Cork said, “Have them pull off at the old landing. It’s just ahead. The aspen will hide the cars.”

Schanno relayed Cork’s suggestion.

“That’s a ten-four,” Kay said.

They entered the turnaround at the landing, the same access that might have been used to take Jo and Stevie and the others off the lake after the kidnapping. An evidence team had got a tire imprint that indicated someone had been there recently, at any rate. They maneuvered until they were positioned to head quickly back onto the county highway, and they killed their vehicle lights.

“Dynamite and George LeDuc,” Cork said. “This isn’t adding up, Wally.”

“Take it easy, Cork. Let’s just see what develops.”

In less than five minutes, Broom’s pickup zoomed past, flying way over the speed limit. The dusty green van with its faded evergreen tree on the side was right behind it.

“Let’s give them plenty of room,” Kay said. Half a minute later, the FBI cars pulled out. Earl and Schanno followed.

Cork said, “The road’s always deserted this time of night. A caravan like this one they’re going to spot for sure no matter how far back we stay.”

“Not my call, Cork,” Schanno replied.

Cork could see the red taillights of the van and pickup less than half a mile ahead. The distance began very suddenly to increase.

“They’ve made us,” Kay said over the radio. “Hit your lights and make some noise. We’re going to bring them down.”

“This is Captain Lucky Knudsen. I’ve got a couple of
cruisers ready to move into a barricade position on your command, Miss Muffet. Over.”

“Do it, Captain.”

“Ten-four.”

From the radio came yet another voice Cork didn’t recognize. “Miss Muffet, this is Cordell.”

“What is it, Cordell?”

“LeDuc’s been joined by half a dozen men. They’ve piled into the back of his pickup and they’re on their way, heading straight for you.”

“Stay with them. We’ll be ready on this end. Over and out.”

A few minutes later, Cork saw the red-and-white blink far down the shoreline where the state patrol had established a position. Ahead, the van and the pickup slowed, then pulled to a stop a hundred yards shy of the barricade. The cars in pursuit closed in swiftly from behind and parked in a spread so that the two suspect vehicles were fully illuminated in the glare of eight headlights. The doors of the Luminas sprang open, and federal agents, weapons drawn, took up covering positions.

Special Agent Margaret Kay shouted, “This is the FBI. Exit your vehicles with your hands raised.”

After a moment’s pause, the door of Broom’s pickup swung open, and the big Indian emerged with his hands high and a sour look on his face. The driver’s door of the van also opened, and what appeared to be a rifle barrel jutted out.

“Drop your weapon,” Kay ordered.

“It’s not a weapon, you imbecile,” Joan Hamilton yelled. “It’s my cane.” She eased herself out and stood on the asphalt, leaning on her cane, her free hand lifted high.

Another figure slid carefully out of the van after her, his old hands raised toward the sky.

“Henry?” Cork uttered, dumbfounded to see Meloux there.

“Turn around and place your hands on your vehicles,” Kay commanded. “And keep them there.” When they’d complied, she called out sternly, “Brett Hamilton, step out of the van now.”

No one came forth.

“Tell your son to come out, Ms. Hamilton. We don’t want anyone hurt.”

“He’s not with us.”

“We know he is.”

“What you people know wouldn’t fill a thimble.”

Kay waved her agents forward. Two men approached the back of the van, weapons readied. When they popped open the rear doors, it was clear that Brett Hamilton was not, in fact, present.

Kay said, “Gooden, you and Stewart take Broom.”

The two agents moved to Isaiah Broom, who leaned with his hands on the cab of his pickup truck. They patted him down, then began to question him. Kay and the other agents walked to Joan Hamilton and Henry Meloux, Cork and Schanno following like shadows.

“Frisk them,” Kay ordered.

Cork stepped forward. “Henry—”

“Sir, step back,” an agent named Hauser instructed him.

“This man’s no criminal, for Christ’s sake.”

“Sir, I won’t ask you again.”

Schanno put a restraining hand on Cork’s arm. “Let them do their job.”

“What’s this all about?” Joan Hamilton asked.

“You were attempting to elude officers of the law.”

“We didn’t see you.”

“You can argue that in court. Where’s your son?”

“I told you, he’s not with us.”

“My people saw him.” Kay gestured to one of her men. “Brian, take Sweeney and Jensen and sweep the trees and brush along the roadside. He can’t have gone far. And be careful.”

“He’s not armed,” the Hamilton woman said, her voice betraying her concern.

“David, take Ms. Hamilton to the car and talk with her. Jeff, you’ve got Mr….” She glanced at Cork.

“Meloux,” Cork said. “Henry Meloux.”

She nodded and the agent drew Meloux aside. Kay went to the rear of the van and looked in. BCA agents Owen and Earl stepped up beside her, along with Cork and Schanno.

“I’d love to search it,” Kay said.

“The explosives in Broom’s truck seem good probable cause for the stop,” Earl offered. “And it was clear they were attempting to elude us.”

Gooden left off his questioning of Broom and joined the others at the back of the van.

“What’s his story about the dynamite?” Kay asked.

“He uses it in his business.”

“That’s true,” Cork confirmed. “He clears trees, blows a lot of stumps.”

“A strange hour to be blowing stumps,” Kay said.

Gooden went on. “He says he was going to use it to fight a fire that’s burning in those old pines, Our Grandfathers.”

Kay turned to Schanno. “Have you heard anything about a fire up there?”

“No.”

“Let’s see what the others have to say.”

They all told the same story. That Meloux had come to Joan Hamilton warning of a fire that threatened Our Grandfathers. They’d gone to Broom because he had the materials, equipment, and expertise to help. Finally, they’d enlisted George LeDuc to round up more hands to fight the blaze.

“It’s certainly consistent with everything we’ve seen,” Schanno observed.

“It might also be consistent with a conspiracy to plant more explosives in the name of Eco-Warrior,” Kay pointed out.

“So the pertinent question is whether there’s actually a fire burning in the area of Our Grandfathers,” Earl concluded.

Cork said, “If Meloux claims there’s fire, then there’s fire.”

“I’ll check with the Forest Service,” Schanno volunteered, and he headed back to his Land Cruiser.

Cork walked to the FBI car where Meloux was being held. “You okay, Henry?”

Meloux answered with a shrug, but he looked tired and sad.

“There’s fire, isn’t there, Henry?”

“Sometimes,” the old man said with a slow shake of his head, “I wonder what Kitchimanidoo can be thinking.”

Schanno returned and Cork followed him back to the van. “Nothing,” Schanno reported. “The Forest Service has had no reports of fire anywhere near those old trees.”

“All right,” Kay said. “Let’s search the van.”

Gooden and another agent put on gloves and entered the vehicle.

“Margaret,” one of Kay’s agents called from his
Lumina. “Cordell radioed. LeDuc’s truck is just down the road. It’ll be here in a minute.”

By now, Lucky Knudsen and his men had joined the gathering of law enforcement around the pickup and the van. Kay spoke to all the officers in a general caution. “This could get tense. I expect everyone to exercise reasonable restraint.”

Cork looked around him, and what he saw made him afraid. In the glare of the headlights that lit up only a small area of the night around them, a lot of people with guns stood together in a loose, unorganized confederation that represented the white man’s law. That they believed what they were doing was right didn’t offer Cork much hope. The truckful of Indians who were approaching undoubtedly believed that an important, perhaps even sacred, responsibility lay on their shoulders, and they, too, believed that right was on their side. He could feel the tension as the officers around him silently watched the headlights coming. And he couldn’t help thinking of that moment not very long ago at Burke’s Landing when Death, invoked by a misguided belief in righteousness, had stepped from behind a gentle curtain of morning rain and senselessly struck down two men.

LeDuc’s pickup slowed and stopped in the dark on the road fifteen yards back of the spread of cars that had penned in Broom and Hamilton and Meloux. As George LeDuc stepped from the cab, the FBI car that contained Agent Cordell’s team closed in from behind. LeDuc froze, blinking in the glare of their headlights, trying to make sense of the whole scene. Cordell and two other agents leaped from the car and leveled their weapons. The men in the back of the pickup—a half
dozen of them, all with the powerful upper bodies of men who logged timber—stood up, holding weapons of their own. Axes and chainsaws.

Special Agent Margaret Kay called out, “This is the FBI. I want you men to empty your hands.”

None of the Anishinaabeg made a move to comply. Cork recognized them all. Jesse Adams, Hollister Defoe, Bobby Younger, Dennis Medina, Eli Dupres, and Lyman Villebrun. All were loggers, either independent contractors or working for the Ojibwe mill in Brandywine, and all of them lived on the rez. More importantly to Cork, they were all good men with families.

“I’m George LeDuc, Chairman of the Iron Lake Tribal Council,” LeDuc shouted, angrily standing his ground.

“I know who you are,” Kay said. “And I repeat: You men in the truck, empty your hands.”

“The hell we will,” Bobby Younger hollered back. “You put down your damn guns.”

“Look at them,” Cork said to Kay. “Those aren’t weapons they’re holding. They’re logging tools, for Christ’s sake.”

“Cork? Is that you?” George LeDuc yelled.

“It’s me, George. Just be cool.”

“What’s going on?”

“Stay back, Mr. O’Connor,” Kay ordered.

Cork ignored her and strode into the beam of LeDuc’s headlights. “Where were you headed, George?”

“Our Grandfathers. Word is there’s a fire burning up there, and we intend to put it out.” LeDuc peered beyond Cork. “We could use Isaiah there, and that Bobcat of his.”

“Have your men empty their hands and we’ll talk about it,” Kay offered in a stern voice.

Cork walked near to LeDuc.

“A lot of badges, Cork. What the hell’s going on?”

“A big misunderstanding, George. I think the men should put down those saws and axes; then we can talk and clear this whole thing up and you can be on your way.”

LeDuc’s face was still taut with anger, but his dark brown eyes offered Cork their trust. He gave a nod. “Put ‘em down, guys,” he said over his shoulder.

The truck bed rumbled with the clatter of sharp, heavy tools laid to rest. The federal agents, who didn’t yet holster their firearms, moved in.

Kay approached LeDuc. She flashed her ID and said, “I’m FBI Special Agent Margaret Kay. We have reason to be concerned about the explosives Mr. Broom is transporting in his truck.”

“He uses dynamite all the time,” LeDuc replied. “Everybody knows that.”

“Agent Kay,” Gooden called.

She held up a hand to LeDuc, a sign to wait, and she went to the van. Gooden showed her something, and she called BCA Agent Mark Owen over to confer. After that, she spoke briefly with Earl and Schanno. When she returned to where LeDuc and Cork waited, Agent Owen accompanied her. “Show them,” she instructed him.

Owen held up a clear evidence bag. It contained a small length of iron pipe capped at one end. “We found this in a hidden compartment built into the floor of the van. There’s more. Powder, fuse, detonators, airplane glue. Everything necessary to construct the kind of bomb that killed Charlie Warren.”

Kay cast a grim eye on Cork and LeDuc, then she called, “Cordell, read them their rights and bring them all in.”

• • •

“They must have a sick kind of radar.”

Lindstrom stood at the window in Wally Schanno’s office looking down at the parking lot. The media were gathering, newspaper and television journalists. Schanno had two deputies out front to keep them at a distance.

Lindstrom shook his head. “They’re like bugs that feed on misery.”

LeDuc and the men who’d been with him in the pickup had been put in a large holding cell. Isaiah Broom, Joan Hamilton, and Henry Meloux had been separated from the others and were being questioned individually by the FBI. An APB had been issued on Brett Hamilton, who hadn’t yet been apprehended.

A big metal thermos sat on the sheriff’s desk, and Lindstrom and Schanno held mugs full of coffee. Cork, who felt as if he’d talked LeDuc into that jail cell, was angry. “Wally, George and those men had nothing to do with anything, and you know it.”

“It’s out of my hands,” Schanno replied. “This is a federal investigation now.”

“This county’s on the edge of something tragic. Pulling in those men may be all it will take to push everyone, white and red, over the line.”

Lindstrom turned from the window. He’d come from Grace Cove as soon as he’d received word. He looked drawn out, beaten down. “They were helping Broom and the Hamilton woman. The evidence in the van is pretty damning. Maybe they did have a hand in the bombings, Cork. Maybe they took our families. People can fool you.”