Manitou Canyon (29 page)

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he drills worked perfectly. The bits ate quickly into the rock and, with the extensions, reached a depth of five feet in less than ten minutes per hole. Harris guessed at the drill pattern.

“Look, I guarantee nothing,” he said to Fox. “A blast like this really needs to be well considered. There are dozens of factors that come into play.”

“We don't have time to consider dozens of factors,” Fox said. “This will have to do.”

Aaron, Cheval, and Cork took turns operating the drills, while Fox and Indigo oversaw everything with weapons at the ready in their hands. Harris marked each drill site and, along with Mrs. Gray, helped change bits and extensions as needed. When the holes were prepared, he packed the charges and connected the detonating wire.

“It's been a long time since I did this kind of hands-on work,” he said.

“Always good to know what guys on the front line have to do,” Indigo replied. And there was that hateful grin again.

When they'd prepared the wall on the west side of the dam, they moved all the materials and equipment to the east side and began there.

In what should have been a quiet interrupted only by the moan of wind, the screech of the drills was surreal and offensive. Rock dust mixed with the sweep of blowing snow, and in the glare that lit the dam, Cork felt as if he were in a vision of hell. He'd
been watching for an opportunity to make some kind of move, but Indigo and Fox were alert and careful and gave him nothing.

When the holes had been drilled and Harris had begun to ready the charges for that wall, Fox said, “O'Connor, Cheval, haul your drills back to the pickup. Indigo, you go with them. Harris, Aaron, you stay here with me and Mrs. Gray.”

Indigo waved his Glock and said, “After you, gents.”

Cork and Cheval hefted the drills onto their shoulders and marched off the dam, leaving Harris and Aaron with Fox to finish the blast preparations.

The labor of drilling had been hard, and Cork had worked up a sweat that soaked his clothing. Now the wind drove the cold across the rising lake and his body stiffened.

Cheval said, “I'm too old for this kind of work.”

Behind him, Indigo said, “You're just about as old as you're ever going to get, my friend.”

They were near the night watchman's pickup in the lot when Cheval slipped and fell. The drill tumbled from his grip, and he lay sprawled on the ground, holding his knee.

“Goddamn ice,” he said.

Indigo said, “Pick up the drill.”

“Twisted my knee,” Cheval complained. “Not sure I can even walk.”

“Get up and give it a try.”

“I need a hand up.”

“O'Connor,” Indigo said.

Cork lowered his drill and set it in the snow. He glanced at Indigo, whose eyes at the moment were intent on Cheval. The Glock was also aimed in that direction. Cork launched himself. But Indigo anticipated the move. He easily stepped clear of Cork's attack and stood grinning.

“I can read you like a book, O'Connor. You, too,” he said to Cheval. “I'd hoped to get those drills to the truck before I took you both out. Guess I'll have to finish that job. Just as soon as I finish this one.”

Indigo seemed to consider which man to shoot first. Before he could decide, a red blooming appeared in the center of his forehead just a split second in advance of the rifle report. The look on Indigo's face was of utter surprise. Then he collapsed, dropped like a rag doll, and lay with the back of his head exploded, his blood staining the snow.

Cork scanned the dark beyond the snowfall that was illuminated in the dam lights. A moment later, three figures emerged from the direction of the Yukon and the pickup parked along the road. As they neared, he recognized Lindsay. Then Isaac. And finally Bird, who was walking only with Isaac's help. In his right hand he held a scoped rifle. His face was pale and his features pained.

“I would have shot him sooner,” Bird said. “But you guys were in the way.”

“How'd you get here?” Cheval asked.

“I borrowed a truck in Gordonville,” Bird explained. “Found these two locked in the cooler at the lodge. They told me everything.”

The vehicle that had passed on the road, Cork realized.

“Where's Grandpa John?” Lindsay said.

“Still on the dam,” Cork told her.

“My uncle?” Bird said.

“With him. Fox and Mrs. Gray, too.”

Isaac looked at the drills on the ground. “You finished?”

“They're finishing now.”

“They're really going to blow the dam?”

“They're going to try,” Cork said. “And if that dam goes, Gordonville goes with it.”

“That's not what we wanted,” Bird said.

“You may have to kill another man,” Cork told him.

“Fox?” The young man's face looked old and grim. “I can do that.”

“Then let's go.”

Cheval grabbed the dead man's Glock, and they moved care
fully toward the dam. The wind drove the snow in a shifting, blinding curtain before them. As they approached the place where the thick, horizontal concrete met the vertical east wall of the narrows, the three men and the woman still on the dam were revealed. Cork saw Harris place something on the dam wall and step back. Fox picked up the object.

“Do you think you can get a shot from here?” Cork whispered to Bird.

“I'll make it work,” Bird said.

“Not unless you have to. Stay here, all of you except Cheval. You come with me,” he said to the big pilot. “And bring the Glock.”

As they neared the men on the dam, Cheval asked, “How are we going to explain Indigo?”

“Probably badly,” Cork said. “That's what the Glock's for.”

When Fox saw them, everything about him went on alert.

“Indigo?” Fox asked.

Cork said, “Do you know about the Anishinaabe belief in the Path of Souls?”

“I know it.”

“Indigo's on his way.”

Fox considered this. “Makes no difference.”

“Oh, but it does,” Cork said. “Cheval.”

The big man showed the Glock.

Fox nodded but didn't seem concerned. “The detonator trumps all.” He held up his hand, and in it was what looked like a small electronic device. “You can't kill me quick enough. So, my question is this. Do we all go up with the dam?”

They stood a long moment, the only sound the moan of the wind as it pressed into the canyon. Then came the crack of the high-powered rifle. Simultaneously, the arm that Fox had lifted and that held the detonator jerked back and a great chunk of flesh and bone below the elbow vanished. Another rifle crack followed, and Fox dropped with a hole through his heart.

Before any of the men could move, the woman swooped down, snatched the detonator, and ran toward the other side of the dam.
Cork heard another crack of the rifle, but the woman kept on running. The next rifle shot brought her down but didn't stop her. She crawled to the cover of the wall that topped the dam, out of rifle sight, and moved into a sitting position.

“Run!” Cork cried.

They fled, ran clear of the dam and the eastern wall. Lindsay rushed out of the blind of snow and embraced her grandfather. Bird was beside her, and Aaron paused a moment to put a hand on his nephew's shoulder.

“We've got to keep moving,” Cork shouted.

When they reached the road and the parked vehicles there, they crowded together behind the pickup and peered over the bed.

“Maybe she's not going to do it,” Harris finally said.

“Or maybe she's dead,” Cheval offered.

In the next moment, they were both proved wrong.

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t was a wet snow and clung to their coats as they trudged along the road up the canyon toward the dam. Flakes caught on Rainy's lashes and melted and dripped into her eyes, now and again blinding her momentarily. The wind was powerful out of the west. The night was terribly dark. But for the beams of the flashlights that Constable Markham and Daniel held, it would have been impossible to see their way.

Henry plodded at her side. As she had so often, she marveled at her great-uncle's spirit, his perseverance, his silent determination, and even his calm, which came to her despite the fierce wind that blew against and between them. She took strength in his strength.

And all the while as she pushed forward, she visualized Cork waiting for her. Safe. Unharmed. She imagined embracing him, feeling that comfortable, familiar warmth envelop her. The grizzle of his unshaved face roughing her cheek. His lips, always a little chapped in winter, against her own.

“Can't be much farther,” Markham called over his shoulder. “Damnation, this is a long way on foot.”

“You okay, Uncle Henry?” Daniel said. He was ahead of them, walking beside Markham. He spoke loud to be heard above the wind.

“I have walked in worse,” the old man said. “And most days I still walk farther than I will this day. It would take more than a winter storm to hold me back, Nephew.”

The Mide stopped suddenly, and because of that Rainy did.
And then Stephen and Daniel. And finally Markham. The constable turned back and said, “What is it?”

Henry said, “Listen.”

Rainy heard nothing but the cry of the wind. She closed her eyes, blocked out her other senses, and turned her whole self to listening. Then she heard it, too. A great rumbling from up the canyon, distant at first but growing louder with every second. It was preceded by a torrent of wind more violent than anything the storm had yet produced, as if something huge and terrible was approaching and pushing the air before it. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the face of Markham, illuminated in the glow of the flashlight. His eyes were huge and white and filled with terror. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

It was Stephen who spoke for him, spoke for them all. He said simply, “Oh, shit.”

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he ground shook as if in an earthquake. The concussive effect was a hurricane wave that rocked the pickup and hit Cork's eardrums like blows thrown from a heavyweight. His face was peppered with a shotgun blast of hot grit. The night became instantly black, and for a moment, he thought he'd been blinded. Then he realized it was simply that the lights, which had illuminated the dam, had gone dark.

A roaring filled his ears. He wasn't certain if it was the effect of the blast or the sound of water rushing from the new lake down the canyon. In his mind's eye, he could see the deadly torrent, a great churning, uprooting trees and tossing boulders about like toy blocks. If it was the roar of water and John Harris had been correct, Gordonville and anyone between it and the dam stood no chance.

A flashlight came on. Aaron swung the beam across them all. He said something, but his words were lost in the terrible roar. He showed the light on his face and mouthed:
Are you okay?

They all nodded, then Cork asked, “The dam? Is it gone?” Except, he couldn't hear his own voice.

Aaron shook his head and gave an exaggerated shrug.

Cork took stock of everyone around him. They all stood as if paralyzed, their eyes glazed. In the glow from the flashlight, their faces looked as if they'd all broken out in some terrible rash. His own felt abraded and tender from the blast of grit.

Aaron touched his arm and jerked his head in the direction of the dam.

Cork nodded and followed him, and the others fell in behind. The explosions had spread rock debris across the parking lot, and they walked carefully among great rugged chunks of stone. Aaron swung the beam of the flashlight across the pickup that had been parked there. The glass had been blown out of every window. In the pickup bed lay the night watchman, covered in dust and grit, still unconscious, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. They moved on and came to where the eastern wall of the narrows had collapsed. A mountain of rubble blocked their way, and somewhere under it lay the crushed remains of Robert Baker, the man who'd called himself Fox. Aaron shot the flashlight beam toward the body of the dam beyond, but the swirl of dust was too thick to be able to see if the whole structure still stood intact.

The roaring in Cork's ears had begun to abate, and as he made his way with Aaron and the others over the rubble, he could hear, faintly, the clatter of rocks as they tumbled away underfoot. Aaron played the light beam across the whole of the concrete edifice. Enough dust had settled to see what they'd all been wondering about. The dam across the narrows still held. Aaron swung the light toward the block structure of the power house below. It lay buried under tons of rock now. The surface of the Manitou River glinted in the light beam. The water was mud brown from the dirt and dust that it carried, but the flow was neither more nor less than it had been before.

Together, they walked to the edge of the west wall debris, making their way among big chunks of fragmented gneiss. Like Fox, Mrs. Gray was somewhere beneath all that tonnage of shattered stone. The great pouring of concrete under Cork's feet felt remarkably stable, and he had two reactions to that. One was relief that nothing would immediately threaten Gordonville and the people there. But the other was a profound sense of failure and, with it, sadness. What the dam had been meant to do, it still would, eventually. Caldecott's Highland Mine would get its electricity. And the great efforts of Aaron and the others to save what they loved would be in vain.

He finally heard the first voice since the explosions had deafened him. It was Bird.

“All for nothing,” the kid said.

“No,” John Harris told him. “The dam's been compromised. It didn't give way today, but it might tomorrow or next week or a month from now or a year. Even the greed of powerful people can't change that.”

“Can they reinforce it or maybe even rebuild it?” Aaron asked.

“They'll want to try,” Harris said. “There's a lot of money involved. But I swear to you, I'll do my very best to see that doesn't happen.”

Lindsay looked lost. “What do we do now?”

Aaron said, “I'll drive down to Gordonville and report what's happened, alert them to the danger.”

“No, I'll do that,” Cork said. “The rest of you might want to go back to the lodge and get your stories straight. And think about a lawyer. The questioning by the RCMP is bound to be brutal.”

Aaron considered Cork's offer and said,
“Migwech.”

They returned to the parked vehicles. Cheval gave Cork the keys to the pickup truck. “What will you tell them about us?” the big man asked.

“I've been thinking about that,” Cork said. “I believe that I'll tell them the truth. Or as much of it as a man who's been blindfolded can.”

“We didn't blindfold you,” Isaac said.

Cheval laughed. He clapped Cork on the shoulder, a blow from a gentle bear. “You're a good man, O'Connor.”

Cork turned to Harris. “You have some decisions to make, Johnny Do.”

Without hesitation, Harris replied, “Like you said, Corky, what can a blindfolded man tell them?”

Bird limped to Cork. “I'm sorry about . . . everything. It wasn't anything personal, you know.”

“I know.”

The kid reached out and offered his hand. Cork took it easily.

Aaron accompanied Cork to the pickup.

“It's not over,” the chief of the White Woman Lake Odawa said.

“Until we walk the Path of Souls, it never is.”

“The canoes I left in the Boundary Waters. I wouldn't be unhappy if you retrieved them and kept them.”

“I'll do that,” Cork said. “But only until you're ready for them to come back to you.”

“Migwech, niijii.”
Thank you, my friend.

They shook hands. Cork got into the pickup and headed down the road that followed the canyon.

* * *

The figures emerged from the whirl of snow, trudging along at the edge of the pavement. Cork saw the beams of their flashlights first, then their bodies, brilliant in the headlights. He was absolutely amazed to see the faces of Stephen, Rainy, Daniel, and Henry. With them was a man sporting a walrus mustache and an RCMP cap.

Cork brought the pickup to a stop and stepped out. Because they were blinded by the headlights, they couldn't see him until he came forward. When she recognized who it was, Rainy's face lit up with a radiance that filled Cork's heart with a great, burning love. She ran to him, threw her arms around him, and planted a long kiss on his lips. She pressed her cheek to his face, and he could feel how rough his unshaved cheek was against the welcome softness of her own. She pulled back and looked at him, and her eyes were full of tears.

“I'm okay,” he said. “Really.”

She touched his face. “Good. Because you look like hell.”

The others surrounded him and hugs were exchanged, then Cork faced Meloux. The old man studied him head to foot, his dark eyes unreadable.

“You were the last person I thought I'd see here,” Cork said.

For a long moment, the Mide didn't speak. Then: “You are different. Have you lost something?”

Cork laughed. “Almost my life, Henry.”

“No, Corcoran O'Connor.” The old man sounded satisfied. “That was gone from you for a while, but I think you have found it again.”

They introduced Constable Markham and explained their presence. Cork told them about the dam.

Markham said, “I could have sworn I heard a flood coming down the canyon. Then nothing happened.”

“Might have been the echo and re-echo of the blasts,” Cork said. “Or maybe it was the whole damn canyon shifting. Who knows?”

“I'm going to have to commandeer that vehicle you're driving, O'Connor. I'm still going to White Woman Lake, see if I can secure things before that deployment from Thunder Bay arrives.”

“You won't have any trouble there,” Cork said. “I'll come along, if you don't mind.”

Daniel raised a hand. “Us, too. Otherwise, we're stuck in a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere.”

“Might as well. We've come this far together,” Markham said. “I'll drive, though. In the back of the pickup, everybody. Except you, old-timer. Why don't you sit up front with me? It'll be rough going.”

Cork thought the Mide might say something that would put Markham in his place. Instead, Meloux smiled graciously and said, “You are kind.”

Markham shrugged, but it was clear he was pleased. “I try to be. Doesn't everybody?”

Cork sat in the pickup bed and snuggled against Rainy.

“Not everybody,” he said quietly. “But enough.”