Manitou Canyon (30 page)

C
HAPTE
R
58

T
he wedding took place on a surprisingly warm Saturday in mid-November. The ceremony was held at the O'Connor home on Gooseberry Lane. It was a small affair, with only the immediate family and closest friends in attendance. Daniel's sisters and brother had come from Wisconsin. Leah Duling was there, of course. Father Green from St. Agnes shared the duties of presiding with Henry Meloux.

The house had been decorated with daisies, Jenny's favorite flower. Everything smelled of sage and cedar. Annie O'Connor had returned for the ceremony. When she'd learned about everything that had happened, she'd forgiven her siblings for keeping her in the dark, but she'd made it clear that if they ever did something like that again, she'd stake them both over an anthill and cover them with honey. She and Stephen smudged the guests as they arrived, offering them each a daisy to hold during the nuptials.

Jenny wore a simple white dress, which she'd embroidered herself with little butterflies around the hem. Daniel was dressed in dark pants, a white shirt, and a vest decorated with beautiful beadwork, a gift from his family.

Mal had arrived the day before, and Rose sat with him, holding hands. Her heart was filled to overflowing with gratitude. Her prayers had not been in vain. Everyone she loved had returned home safely. When it was time, she and Mal stood and came forward as sponsors for Jenny, as was the Ojibwe tradition. Rainy and Leah stepped up for Daniel. Rose stood with tears running
down her cheeks as Jenny and Daniel exchanged the vows they'd written. Father Green delivered a blessing and then Henry spoke. His words were Anisihinaabemowin. Rose had no idea what he said, but it flowed like music from Henry's lips, and it was clear from the effect that it had on Jenny and Daniel and Rainy and many of the others that it was beautiful and meaningful. Then Meloux spoke in the language that Rose and the others who were not Anishinaabe could understand.

“This is what I have told them. Go now together into the world and embrace the life the Creator has always imagined for you. And remember the gifts of the Seven Grandfathers. These will help guide you to a good life, which we call
bimaadiziwin
. Teach your children these gifts, and their children, so that they are never forgotten.
Minwaadendamowin,
which is respect.
Debwewin,
which is truth.
Aakodewewin,
which is bravery.
Nibwaakawin,
which is wisdom.
Miigwe'aadiziwin,
which is generosity.
Dibaadendiziwin,
which is
humility.
Zaagidiwin,
which is love. Hold these gifts in your hearts, Jennifer O'Connor and Daniel English. And may this life you create together only add to the beauty of this world which Kitchimanidoo has imagined for us all.”

At the end, Rainy and Rose, with the help of little Waaboo, placed a colorful wedding blanket around the couple, and Jenny and Daniel kissed. With that, they were wed.

There was to be a big reception at the community center on the Iron Lake Reservation. Everyone on the rez had been invited, and lots of folks from Aurora were coming. There would be Ojibwe drummers and a band made up of Daniel's friends. When he wasn't dancing, he planned to sit with them and play his accordion.

Rose couldn't have been happier if she'd given birth to these children herself. But there was an edge to her happiness. She'd always been regular as clockwork, but her period was late. She'd also been having trouble sleeping and had begun to put on a little weight. These were all, she knew, classic symptoms of menopause. The end had finally come to any hope for having a family of her own.

As the house began to empty, she spotted Henry Meloux standing alone near the closed patio door, watching her with a curious look on his face. He inclined his head, and she walked to him. He reached out and took her hands. His old palms were warm and wrinkled, but she could feel great strength there. He looked deeply into her eyes.

“Something has changed about you,” he said.

The old Mide missed nothing, she thought. “I'm entering my change of life, Henry. Menopause.”

The old man shook his head and smiled so large and beautiful and radiant that his whole face was like a second sun. “I do not see an ending. I see a beginning. I believe that you and your husband will return here within the year.”

“For something special?'

“A naming ceremony.”

“A naming ceremony? For a new child? Jenny and Daniel's? That's wonderful news, Henry.”

“Not theirs.”

She studied the old man's shining eyes and suddenly she understood. She was afraid to dare that it might be true. Yet, she had never known Henry to be wrong about a thing like this.

“It might be a good idea to tell your husband,” the old Mide suggested.

In a daze of happiness, she turned. As if her feet had wings, she flew to Mal.

* * *

Cork stood alone in the kitchen. He'd stepped away from the gathering, not at all certain if he wanted anyone to see his face, his eyes especially, which were blurred with tears.

November,
he thought. For much of his life, it had been a month full of nothing but loss and darkness and despair. But this day it was different. November had changed. Or maybe it was him. He wondered if this had been Jenny's intention all along. To offer him something different, something hopeful in a month that so often had felt hopeless. He would ask her, when the time was right.

It had been a remarkable month. The viability of the Manitou Canyon Dam was being officially reviewed. True to his word, John W. Harris was very public in his condemnation of the project. That his own granddaughter had been a part of the plan to render the dam inoperable was huge news, and the world seemed to be listening. But as Harris had said amid the swirl of dust atop the dam, there was such big money involved that it would be a battle, and God alone knew who would prevail. He'd secured the best legal defense possible for his grandchildren, and for Isaac McQuabbie, all of whom had been released on bail. If the media reports were any gauge, popular opinion was falling hard on Lindsay Harris's side and the side of the White Woman Lake Odawa.

Chief Aaron Commanda and his nephew Bird had vanished. No one in Saint Gervais had the slightest idea what had become of them. Or at least that's what the Odawa there were telling the investigators from the NSCI and CSIS. Everyone in the settlement swore that Andre Cheval had not been absent at all the day the dam had been attacked. Down in Gordonville, no one could say conclusively that the floatplane they'd seen when Aaron had brought his nephew into the clinic belonged to Cheval. As far as Cork knew, neither the NSCI nor the CSIS had been able to find evidence nailing Cheval to any involvement in the Manitou Canyon Dam Affair, as the media had dubbed it.

Ben Trudeau, who'd been indicted on several charges, had maintained his silence in regard to any part he might have had in the kidnappings. He was being represented by a Cherokee attorney who had a reputation for finding a way to clear her clients' names. The attorney was mute, of course, about who was footing the bill for Trudeau's defense.

As for the others who'd been involved, Cork had learned a good deal about them. Robert Baker, a.k.a. Mr. Fox, had been a kind of golden boy in the First Nations community. He'd been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and was a member of the Canadian Bar Association. Before joining the faculty of the McGill Law School, he'd been involved in a number of high-profile uphill legal battles, working to protect the rights of First Nations people. Cork understood why, in the end, dynamite must have seemed like a quicker solution.

As for Indigo, his real name was James Sparrow. He'd been a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, decorated during his service in Afghanistan, but mustered out as the result of an altercation with a Canadian Army officer that had involved a young Afghan woman. Sparrow's defense had been that he was protecting the woman. The officer had contended that he'd been the one to intervene to prevent Sparrow from sexually assaulting her. Instead of taking the case to prosecution, the military had simply made it go away by discharging Sparrow for misconduct.

Mrs. Gray's real name was Mona Fournier, and Mr. Gray—Flynn—had truly been her brother. Everything Fox had said about her family and the hundreds of other First Nations people of Fort Saint Antoine poisoned by the spill from Caldecott's West Caribou Mine was true. Cork, who'd fought so hard on so many occasions to protect his own family, couldn't find it in his heart to condemn these people for the bitterness that had led them to be a part of the Manitou Canyon Dam Affair.

Krystal Gore, the dealer who'd been instrumental in the payoff to Trevor Harris, had been granted immunity in return for her testimony in the case. She and her daughter had been sequestered somewhere secret, and Cork had been led to believe they would enter the witness protection program to keep them safe from the Warrior Cohort.

He'd been staring at the linoleum, lost in his thinking. He looked up and found Henry Meloux standing in the doorway, studying him patiently.

“What is it, Henry?”

“For several winters, the worry I have felt for you has been heavy on my heart. That weight is gone now. You finally understand what it is that offers you peace as
ogichidaa
.”

Cork thought about this and decided it was true. “I learned something from Aaron Commanda. He's also
ogichidaa,
Henry. I saw him give everything he could in order to stand between evil and what he loved. He accepted that the rest was out of his hands.”

“To have tried and been true in your heart, that is all any human being could ask of you or that you could ask of yourself. I am proud of you, Corcoran O'Connor.” The old man smiled broadly. His eyes might even have been a little wet. “I will leave now,” he said, “and go dance and make a fool of myself, because that is what joy is for.”

* * *

Rainy saw her great-uncle come from the kitchen in a kind of haste, which was odd for the old man. She was concerned, and she went to the kitchen to see what might have happened. She found Cork there.

“I just saw Uncle Henry hurrying away.”

“He's going to dance,” Cork said with a smile. “That's all. Us, too, I hope.”

“He's okay? You're okay?”

“The best.”

She kissed him. “I could have told you that. In fact, I have. You just haven't heard me.”

“I hear you now. So, as I understand it, Leah is staying on at Crow Point. Henry is her life now.”

“That's the plan,” Rainy said.

“And what about you? Two women out there seeing to one man's needs? Sounds to me like a recipe for disaster.”

“I'm going to give her my cabin. Although it was never really mine to give. It's been a good place for me, but I guess it's time I moved on.”

“Where? You haven't talked to me about this.”

She laid her head against his chest. She could hear his heart.

“You've been a little busy lately. And I haven't come up with a good plan. I could live with my daughter in Alaska, I suppose, until I've figured things out. I don't see her or my granddaughter enough.”

Cork lightly kissed her hair. “There's something I've been thinking about. But, like you say, I've been kind of busy, so I haven't had a chance to talk to you about it.”

“What's that?”

“I've been thinking you could stay here. With us.”

“That would certainly get a lot of tongues wagging.”

“Not if you were my wife.”

She looked up into his eyes. “Is that really what you want?”

“I wouldn't ask if it wasn't.” He studied her and his face clouded. “It's not what you want?”

“There is so much about me you don't know, Cork.”

“I know what's important to me. I love you, Rainy. Isn't that enough?”

She could have argued, because in her head she wasn't at all certain of the answer to that question. Instead, she spoke from her heart. In the sunlight of a November afternoon, with the last sounds of the wedding party still filling the house on Gooseberry Lane, she said to the man who loved her, “Yes.”

C
HAPTE
R
59

C
heval's de Havilland Beaver, fitted with skis now instead of pontoons, touched down on the snow of a clearing deep in the Manitou Highlands. The sun was a great, blinding face of light beaming down out of a sky so clear and blue its beauty was almost painful to behold. The Beaver taxied toward the edge of the thick alpine forest where Aaron Commanda and his nephew Bird stood awaiting his arrival. The trees wore a mantel of clean white, and in the hills of the highlands the snow was already calf-deep.

Cheval brought the plane to a stop and killed the engine. He got out and greeted Aaron with a bear hug, then gave Bird the same.

“What's the word?” Aaron asked.

“The river's got an indefinite reprieve,” Cheval reported. “The Caldecott Corporation's probably going to throw money at everyone and everything, but nothing's moving forward at the moment.” He grinned at them. “If this was the old days, Caldecott would have a bounty out on your heads. As it is, you're the folk heroes of the moment.”

“Folk heroes?” Bird said, and smiled as if this pleased him greatly.

“There's a defense fund being put together for you,” Cheval said. “And get this, John Harris has contributed a hundred thousand to it. He says he'll give more if needed.”

“They'll have to find us first,” Aaron said.

Cheval looked at the hills, an inviting mottle of green needle and white snow that stretched unbroken as far as the eye could see. “I wouldn't mind staying here with you for a while. There are a lot of people, strangers, in Saint Gervais these days.”

“Things will settle down,” Aaron said. “Maybe then we'll come back. In the meantime, Bird has his rifle and the woods are full of game.”

From the plane, they unloaded two big Duluth packs filled with supplies.

“This is the last load I'll be bringing in now. But I put a sat phone in one of those packs,” Cheval said. “Use it if you need me.”

“You should go,” Aaron said. “Dark comes early now.”

They waited as Cheval taxied across the clearing and lifted off. They stood watching until the plane was no larger than a tiny chickadee held in the vast palm of the sky. Then Aaron shouldered a pack, and Bird shouldered the other, and they began to snowshoe back through the forest the way they'd come.

The trail led them to an old cabin on a high ridge, one that Aaron's grandfather had built. Below them lay the Manitou River, silver in the sunlight, threading its way among the hills of the highlands. Gazing down at that broad, clear run of water, which had been there since long before human memory, Aaron understood what his ancestors must have felt when they first stumbled upon it: the spirit of the Great Mystery in everything it touched. He felt, as they must have felt, the deep certainty of that spirit in his own body, in every breath, every thought, every heartbeat. And he was grateful beyond words.