Copper River (4 page)

C
ork heard the boy enter and quietly close the cabin door.

“I’m awake,” he said.

Ren paused and looked at him without emotion. Very Ojibwe, Cork thought. The blood of The People was evident in his fine black hair, high cheeks, dark eyes, latte-shaded skin. Ren said nothing but continued to the kitchen area, turned on the light, and sat down at the table. Carefully, he laid out the things he’d been carrying. A stack of comic books, a sketch pad, a box of colored pencils, a hard white lump that Cork couldn’t identify.

“What time is it?” Cork asked.

“Nine.”

The boy opened one of the comic books, then flipped back a page of the sketchbook. He selected a pencil, paused a moment, and began to draw.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She got a call. An elk ranch west of Marquette. Some kind of emergency.”

“And she asked you to sit with me again, is that it? Thanks.”

The boy remained intent on his drawing.

“What are you doing?” Cork asked.

“Nothing.”

“How do you know when you’re finished?”

The boy hesitated, thought that over, decided to smile.

“Did your mom tell you about me?”

“Not much.”

“You’ve got questions, I imagine.”

The boy finally looked up.

“You deserve answers,” Cork said.

Ren tapped the pencil top on the table a few times. “Who are you?”

“Your mother’s cousin. You visited my house in Minnesota once with your folks. You must have been seven or eight then. Do you remember?”

“I remember you arrested Dad.”

“I thought you might.”

“Made Mom mad, but it was a story Dad used to like to tell.” He thought a moment. “I remember two girls, older than me. One was blond and really pretty.”

“That would be Jenny.”

“The other one could play baseball as good as Charlie.”

“And that would be Anne. They’re both in high school. You probably don’t remember Stevie. He was just a baby. He’s seven now.”

The boy looked unsatisfied. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

“You meant who am I that somebody would want me dead?”

“Yeah, that.”

Cork worked on sitting up. Despite the painkiller Jewell had given him, his leg throbbed. He edged his way upright with his back against the wall. Finally he could look at the boy eye to eye.

“I’m Corcoran Liam O’Connor, sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota.”

“Oh. A cop.” As if, of course, that was all he needed to write Cork off.

Cork went on. “I was shot because a rich man has put a bounty on my head. Half a million dollars, as I understand it.”

Ren’s eyes opened like a couple of sunflowers. “Why?”

“He thinks I killed his son.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Will he come looking for you here?” He seemed less worried than curious.

Cork shifted his position a little, hoping to ease the pain in his leg. It didn’t work. “Men like him don’t soil their hands with the actual dirty work. That’s the reason for the bounty.”

Ren worked this over in his thinking, then his face went slack again. “So you’re the police.”

“You hold that against me?”

“You know how my father died?”

“I know.”

“The police murdered him.”

“Most police aren’t like that.” He tried to judge how the boy received his words, but Ren was a blank slate. “It’s hard for you, I know. I lost my father when I was your age.”

Again, a flicker of interest in Ren’s dark eyes. “Yeah?”

“He was the sheriff of Tamarack County, too. He was killed doing his duty, protecting people.”

“How?”

“Some men tried to rob the bank in town. My dad and two deputies responded. There was shooting. In the middle of it, a deaf old woman walked onto the street right into the line of fire. My father ran out to pull her to safety, took a bullet that probably would have hit her. He died on the operating table.”

“You’re trying to tell me all cops aren’t bad.”

“No. Just telling you about my father and me. I still miss him.”

Ren studied the sketch he’d begun in his pad. “What do you do when you miss him?”

“Try to remember that he’s never completely gone. He’s here.” Cork touched his head. “And he’s here.” He touched his heart. “Sometimes when I’m not sure what’s right, I find myself thinking,
What would Dad have done?
”

“Me, too,” Ren said.

“What do you do when you miss him?”

“What he taught me to do. Draw.”

“You’re an artist, too?”

“Not like him.”

“What are you working on?”

“It’s just a comic book.”

“You like comic books?”

Ren nodded.

“Me, too.”

“Yeah?”

“I used to anyway. I always knew when the new issues were due to arrive at the drug store and I’d head there right after school. I was a Marvel fan. The Fantastic Four were my favorites. They still around?”

“Yes.”

“Who do you like?”

“The Silver Surfer’s pretty awesome. I like Hellboy, too.”

“The comic book you’re working on, does it have a superhero?”

“His name’s Jack Little Wolf. But he’s really the reincarnation of a famous warrior named White Eagle.”

“What’s he like?”

“Jack’s an artist, kind of a quiet guy. White Eagle’s this awesome dude. He calls up the forces of nature. You know, wind and lightning, that stuff. Also animals. He’s, like, very psychic with animals. But he doesn’t realize he does all this. He has these blackouts and he doesn’t remember.”

“Disconnected from who he really is?”

“Right.”

“What triggers the blackouts?”

“Evil. He can sense it. He, you know, begins to tingle and stuff.”

“Lucky him. Been times I could have used that myself. May I see?”

“I don’t really show it to anybody.”

“That’s cool.” Cork nodded toward Ren’s left. “What’s the white thing?”

Ren held up the hard lump. “A plaster cast of a cougar track I found outside.”

“A cougar? Here? You’re sure? Maybe it’s a bobcat.”

Ren stood and brought the casting to the bunk. “Too big for a bobcat. This one’s almost four inches across. And see the second toe, how it’s longer than the others? That’s like our index finger. It’s one of the characteristics of the cougar’s forepaw. I looked it up.”

“You have a dog, Ren?”

“No.”

“Cats?”

“No. I had a pet raccoon once, but I had to let him go.”

Although the idea of a cougar seemed pretty far-fetched to Cork, he wondered if he should be concerned. Most wild animals were careful to avoid humans. It would be very unusual for a predator as large and cautious as a cougar to prowl so near a dwelling, especially one without pets or small livestock to attract it. Still, if it was desperately hungry…

“Have you told your mom?”

“No.”

“Let her know, okay?”

“Sure.”

Cork, knowing boys, wondered if he actually would. He made a mental note to mention it to Jewell himself.

“What happened to your lip?” Cork asked.

Ren reached up and touched the puffed area. “Got into a fight. It’s okay.”

He started back to the table. Cork called after him. “Could you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“I need to call someone. My cell phone is still in my car, in the glove compartment. Could you get it?”

“Sure.”

Ren put the casting on the table and headed toward the door.

“Maybe you should take a poker, just in case you meet the cougar.”

Ren smiled big, then seemed to understand that Cork wasn’t kidding.

“I’ll be all right,” he said.

Cork was sure he would be, but he knew from his own mistakes that it paid to be careful.

Outside, a wind bullied its way through the pine trees, and a cloud scarred the face of the rising moon. Around the cabins, everything was dark. There was a yard light on a pole near Thor’s Lodge. When they’d had guests, Ren’s father kept the light burning until ten p.m. After that, he turned it off, believing that dark was one of the things people sought when they fled the city. Now the yard light was always off because the bulb had burned out and neither Ren nor his mother had bothered to put up a ladder to change it. The dark didn’t worry Ren anymore, but he used to be afraid at night. His father had tried to explain that the woods—the animals and trees and rocks and rivers and lakes—were family, Ren’s family, and that the wind was the breath of manidoog, spirits that watched over him and guided him. Ren liked hearing that, but he didn’t believe it, not in a way that dissolved his fear. He knew from the stories his great-grandfather told him that there were other spirits in the woods not particularly inclined to look kindly on him. The Windigo, for example, a horrible cannibal with a heart of ice.

After his father’s death, Ren had determined not to be afraid anymore. It was something that he wanted to do for his father. So he went out alone one night, far from the cabins, far from anyone who could come if he called out. He didn’t build a fire. He wanted to see the true face of the dark. It had been a night like this with a restless feel in the wind and strange sounds in the forest. He’d been afraid at first, terrified. But gradually he understood that the noises were simply the nocturnal prowling of small, harmless critters. Eventually the sky filled with the aurora borealis. Ren finally fell asleep on a bed of pine needles under a canopy of lights with the music of the woods all around him. He dreamed of a white eagle that night, dreamed the great bird carried him on a flight that left him breathless, and when he woke, he woke free of many burdens.

Ren stopped in Thor’s Lodge for a flashlight, and also for a walkie-talkie his mother had asked him to give to Cork so he could call them if he needed anything. Then he headed to the equipment shed. His mother had parked the man’s car behind the shed, hiding it from sight should anyone come calling. Ren hadn’t taken much notice of the car except that it was old and a yellow-green that reminded him of the color his urine turned whenever he ate asparagus. He tried the passenger side door. It was locked. When he went around the driver’s side, he saw the pocking of bullet holes, four in all. He gingerly lifted the handle, released the door. A smell rushed out at him, raw and unpleasant, like old meat. The dome light didn’t come on, so Ren used his flashlight. The beam fell across a massive black stain on the upholstery. The carpet was stained, too. The man’s blood, he realized.

Not
the man,
he told himself. Cork. It was Cork’s blood. Ren suddenly wanted to know how it felt to be shot, and wondered if it would be impolite to ask.

To get to the glove compartment, he would have to crawl across the bloodstain. The idea didn’t appeal to him. He opened the back door, climbed in, and slid to the other side. He reached over the passenger seat and popped open the glove compartment. He saw the cell phone immediately, and also saw that it was broken, a hole smashed through the middle. A bullet, Ren figured. Something else in the glove compartment caught his eye. A gun. A small stainless steel pistol with a beautiful polished wood grip. Sometimes the hunters who used to come to the cabins carried handguns along with their rifles, but they were ugly-looking things. Ren had never before seen a pistol so carefully crafted. He couldn’t resist touching it. The metal was cold against his fingertips. He was tempted to pick it up but thought better of it. He closed the compartment and started back.