Purgatory Ridge (33 page)

“Not these people,” Cork said. “And certainly not Henry Meloux. Wally, you want to hold onto Joan Hamilton,
fine. Even Isaiah Broom. But for Christ’s sake, let the others go. While they sit here, Our Grandfathers burn.”

“Damn it, Cork, I talked to the Forest Service—” a tired Schanno began to argue. He was interrupted by Agent Kay, who stepped into the room.

“Ms. Hamilton is ready to make a statement. However, she’s asked that the two of you be present.” Her eyes moved between Lindstrom and Cork.

“Did she request an attorney?” Schanno asked.

“She’s waived her right to counsel. Gentlemen, if you’d come with me.” Kay led the way.

Joan Hamilton sat erect at a small table in the room the sheriff’s department used for serious questioning. It was wired for sound and had a two-way mirror set in one wall. Cork had lobbied for the money to create the room during his tenure as sheriff. Although the funds had been allocated, he’d lost his job before construction began. When he stepped in with Lindstrom and Kay, it was the first time he’d set foot there, and he was struck by how cold and sterile the bare walls felt. Joan of Arc was staring at her hands clasped near a microphone in front of her on the walnut table. Her eyes lifted when Cork came in, but nothing else about her moved.

“Sit down,” Kay said to the men. When they had, she instructed Joan Hamilton, “Please state your name for the record.”

“Joan Susan Hamilton.”

Her voice was far more subdued than the time Cork had heard it challenging Lindstrom from atop her van as she shouted into a bullhorn.

“Ms. Hamilton, do you wish to have legal counsel present during your statement?”

“No.”

“Are you giving this statement of your own free will and under no duress?”

“Yes.”

“Go on, then.”

“They told me about your families,” she said to Cork and to Lindstrom. She fell silent and stared again at her hands. Eventually, she took air in deeply and confessed, “I am Eco-Warrior. I admit that. No one else knew, not even my son. I acted entirely alone. But I had no part in the taking of your wives and your children. Someone has used Eco-Warrior as a cover. I swear this to you.”

Cork said, “If you are Eco-Warrior, you’re responsible for Charlie Warren’s death. Why should we believe that you wouldn’t kidnap our families?”

“Charlie Warren was an accident. A terrible accident. I intended to attack the mechanisms responsible for the destruction of the trees. Machines, not people.”

“Am I a machine?” Lindstrom asked caustically. “You nearly killed me at the marina.”

“That wasn’t me. After what happened at the mill, I realized Eco-Warrior was a mistake and I decided that was the end. I thought about issuing a statement denying the incident at the marina but figured it wouldn’t do any good.”

“You still haven’t given us a reason to believe you,” Lindstrom said.

“This hip of mine that is such a torment.” She touched herself there. “Despite what you may have heard, that wasn’t my doing either. Someone tried to kill me. One of the big lumber companies, I believe. Or maybe several acting together. I know how awful it is to be the victim of violence. I would never target a human
being that way. You must believe that I had nothing to do with what’s happened to your families.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Cork asked.

“To free you, so that you can look in a more fruitful direction. I’m a mother. I know what it is to worry about my child.” Although she remained rigid and erect, something about her seemed to have given in, given up.

“Is that all?” Lindstrom asked.

“Yes. I wanted you to know. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

Kay said, “I’m going to need a more formal statement. Gentlemen, I believe you’ve heard what you need to.” She opened the door for them.

In the hallway, they were joined by Schanno, who’d been watching through the mirror. “What do you think?” the sheriff asked.

Cork said, “She always struck me as a pretty tough cookie, but she seems to have broken pretty easily.”

“The feds have her dead to rights now on the mill bombing,” Schanno pointed out.

“What about the kidnapping?” Lindstrom asked. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

Schanno shrugged. “A good liar can make you believe the sun is blue. She knows she’ll be charged in Charlie Warren’s death. If she is, in fact, responsible for the kidnapping, maybe she’s stalling, hoping to use the whereabouts of the hostages as leverage in bargaining with Kay.”

“And if she’s not responsible?”

“Then someone else is.”

“And we’re no further than we were before. Wonderful,” Lindstrom said bitterly.

“I’m sure Agent Kay will keep the pressure on her. We’ll find out soon enough if there’s more to know.” Schanno couldn’t disguise that he was more hopeful than certain. “In the meantime, Karl, maybe you should go back out to your house and stick by the phone. Just in case.”

“What about Meloux and LeDuc and the others?” Cork asked. “You’re not going to hold onto them, are you, Wally?”

“I don’t know, Cork. Seems to me they were clearly involved with Broom, who, don’t forget, was carrying a significant amount of explosives in the back of his truck. There’s still the question of why they tried to elude us.”

“The fire,” Cork said vehemently. “They were trying to save Our Grandfathers.”

“The Forest Service says there’s no fire.”

“I told you, if Meloux claims there is, then there’s fire.”

“There’s fire,” Deputy Marsha Dross said, striding toward them down the hallway. “We just got word. A big blaze is heading right toward Our Grandfathers. The Forest Service has a crew on its way up there right now.”

Schanno gave Cork a look of apology. “I’ll tell you what. Isaiah Broom stays for a while. That man still worries me. But I don’t see any reason to hold onto the others. Let me talk to the feds. Then you can take Meloux home, all right?”

“Thanks, Wally.”

Cork and Meloux slipped unaccosted through the media people outside. The reporters were looking for the face of authority—Schanno or some other law enforcement
officer—or for the face of tragedy—a glimpse of Joan of Arc of the Redwoods. When he reached his Bronco, Cork felt as if he’d escaped a nest of snakes.

“You okay, Henry?” he asked when they got inside.

“Why would I not be okay?”

“I know that wasn’t a picnic in there. I hate the thought of them throwing you in jail like that.”

“A lot of good Indians spend time in white men’s jails, Corcoran O’Connor. Not many get out so quickly.”

“You knew, didn’t you, Henry?”

“What did I know?”

“That Joan of Arc killed Charlie Warren. That’s what she came to see you about the night Stevie and I were with you on Crow Point.”

“She came to see me because Charlie Warren was dead, yes.”

Cork could feel that Meloux had made a subtle sidestep. Cork held off starting the engine and looked keenly at his old friend. “She confessed to the bombing, Henry. Even though it was an accident, she did kill Charlie Warren. Didn’t she?”

“In a meadow, sometimes, I will see a killdeer flutter across the ground very near me, pretending her wing is broken. She does this, places herself in danger, for the best of reasons.”

“To draw you away from her nest,” Cork said. He thought about it a moment. “Are you saying Joan of Arc is protecting her son?”

“I am only telling you about a bird.”

“The sweat. That wasn’t for her. It was for her son.”

The look Meloux offered Cork was really a question.

“I was at your cabin this evening,” Cork explained. “With my daughter. Looking for you. Hail hit and
Jenny and I took shelter inside. I saw the
madodo-wasinun
on the table. The stones for the sweat. I didn’t mean to trespass.”

“I do not have a lock on my door because there is no one who is not welcome. Why were you looking for me?”

Cork told the ancient
mide
about the kidnapping. He confessed to feeling helpless and hopeless.

“I am sorry,” the old man said. “That is a heavy burden to shoulder.” He was quiet for a moment. “What did you expect me to do when you came to my cabin?”

“I don’t know, Henry. It’s just that whenever I talk to you, things seem clearer.”

Meloux nodded and thought for a while. “I do not have any answers. I will tell you what I would have told you at my cabin. You have a choice, Corcoran O’Connor. You can keep company with despair, or you can choose a different companion.”

“I’m tired of despair, Henry.”

“Then abandon it.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Cork turned himself over to his trust of Meloux. And almost immediately he felt something vital flowing back into him. He got out of the truck and began to pace the parking lot, unable to contain his energy. The old man stepped out and watched him.

“What about the Hamilton kid?” Cork said, mostly to himself. “If he was responsible for the mill bombing, could he have done the other things, too?”

“I think he is not yet a man in many ways,” Meloux said. “To steal women and children is no small matter. That takes a dark heart and the balls of a warrior.”

Cork stopped. “Hell Hanover.”

“The scribbler?”

“He’s more than that, Henry. And he threatened Jo already.”

“I have heard he is a man who loves weapons.”

“Why do you say that?”

“These woods have been friendly to the Anishinaabeg for a very long time. These woods see everything and speak to a man who knows how to listen.”

Cork puzzled a moment. “Are you talking about the cache of weapons the Minnesota Civilian Brigade hid? Do you know where they are?”

The old man gave a slight shrug.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything, Henry?”

“It was a business between white men. Now it involves you and Jo O’Connor and little Stephen.”

Full of gratitude, Cork faced Meloux. “Henry—” he began.

The old man cut him off. “It is time we acted.”

“We?”

Henry Meloux grinned. “A good fight is something I have always loved.”

“I think we may need some help in this, Henry.”

There was a commotion at the front door of the sheriff’s department. LeDuc and the Ojibwe loggers from the rez wordlessly shoved their way through the reporters and headed toward the far end of the parking lot where LeDuc’s towed pickup had been left.

Meloux eyed Cork and nodded approvingly. “I think Kitchimanidoo is finally listening.”

F
OR
J
OHN
L
E
P
ERE
, the drive to Purgatory Ridge was like a slow trip to hell. He had a lot of time to think, and what he thought was that no matter how he looked at it, he was screwed. They were all screwed. The O’Connor woman had seen his face, and it was obvious she’d recognized him. As he negotiated the dark, winding highway that led to the north shore of Lake Superior, his own thinking was taking a lot of twists and turns, trying to find a way that could keep things from ending badly. Was there a way to deal with the O’Connor woman, to strike a bargain that would avert disaster? No matter how he looked at the situation, no matter how he imagined Bridger and himself playing things out, it seemed clear that someone had just rolled snake eyes.

Christ, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to have been. Bridger had planned it so carefully. A quick, clean snatch of the Fitzgerald woman and the boy. Hostages for no more than a couple of days. Hooded the whole time so they would be blind to their captors. No one would get hurt. And even if they did (Bridger had put it to him), did LePere really care? Had the Fitzgeralds cared when Billy and twenty-seven other good men lost their lives in a storm churned up by the Devil himself? Had they even noticed?

Bridger had laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “The scheme is very clever, very clean and very safe. I promise, Chief.”

Except Bridger hadn’t counted on the O’Connor woman and the boy. He hadn’t known about the diabetes. He couldn’t have predicted the fire. All his life, LePere had been offered nothing but disappointment and despair. Why should this situation be any different?

When he finally turned south onto Highway 61, he saw that although the sky above Lake Superior was clear, the brightness of the moon and stars was drastically cut by the high smoke from all the fires. The whole world was burning, it seemed to him, and it was only a matter of time before everything around him was turned to ash.

Beyond the lighted tunnel that ran under Purgatory Ridge, LePere turned onto the narrow lane that led through the poplars down to the cove. He pulled up to the old fish house and parked. He dropped the tailgate, lifted the door of the camper shell, and shined the beam of his flashlight inside. The women and the boys were huddled together, pressed up against the cab, eyeing him as if he were a monster about to gobble them up.

“You’ll be safe here.” They inched forward. He cut the tape that bound their ankles, and he helped them down from the bed of the pickup. “This way.” He opened the door of the fish house, turned on the light, and ushered them inside.

The fish house was ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. Waist-high tables were built against the long sides. The floor was solid maple planking with a drain dead center. There was a washbasin and cupboard at one end and half a dozen built-in shelves at the other. Three days before, after he’d found the fish house broken into and his equipment destroyed, he’d installed bars over
every window and put a new heavy-duty lock and hasp on the door. He’d cleaned out the useless materials from inside, so that except for a couple of empty wooden crates and a few items on the shelves, the fish house was bare. There was plenty of room for his “guests.”

“Sit on the floor,” he said.

The Fitzgerald woman tried to speak through the tape over her mouth. LePere pulled the tape off.

“Scott needs food.”

“You gave him the insulin,” LePere said.

“He needs food now.”

LePere had to admit the boy didn’t look so good. “Anything special?”

“Fruit. Or peanut butter and jelly on bread. Sweetened cereal. Almost anything.”