08-A Thousand Bones, page 32
Joe surveyed the weed-choked meadow. A cemetery? But why here, in what seemed such a forsaken place?
“I expected—” Joe said, but then stopped. She shook her head slowly.
“Expected what?” Ahanu asked.
Joe looked around at the windswept dead grass moving like the waves down on the lake. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect the loneliness of it, I guess.”
Ahanu got to his feet, brushing the dirt off his hands. “There are more than two hundred of our people buried here. Men who fought in the Civil War, the World Wars. Other men, women, and children who never fought in any wars at all. Unmarked, forgotten, but not lonely.”
Joe looked down at the stone marker. “Did you know her?”
“Not well. We were of different clans, but I heard about her life. Her father was a white man, her mother Ojibwa. On this place where we are now there was once a village called Onominee. This is where her mother’s people came from long ago.”
“She was half white?” Joe asked.
Ahanu nodded. “Mary Trader walked in two worlds, and when she married a white man, she chose that world.”
“Then why is she buried here?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know everything,” Ahanu said. “I heard her husband was not good to her. I remember that she suddenly came back here one winter to see her mother and her brother. She brought two sons with her.”
“She died here,” Joe said.
Ahanu nodded. “An accident. The roads were icy. Their car went off the road near Omena. Mary and her brother were killed. There was a lot of talk at the time, because Mary’s husband did not come here to take her back downstate.”
“What happened to the boys?” Joe asked.
“Annie Redbird, Mary’s mother, took them in. I remember seeing the boys at Mary’s funeral. They looked very lost.”
Joe was staring at the stone marker, trying to imagine Ken and Roland at their mother’s funeral. They had been just little boys. Why the hell didn’t their father take them home?
“During the funeral, the older one walked away,” Ahanu said. “But the little one, he stayed and watched everything. I remember watching his face when they put Mary in the tree.”
Joe’s eyes shot up. “The tree?”
Ahanu pointed toward the aspens. “In winter, if the ground was too hard, the body was wrapped and hung in the fork of a tree until it could be buried later.”
Joe turned away. She had no sympathy. But a part of her could now understand. She could understand that somewhere in the sick, black swirl of Roland’s mind, flashes of memory and madness ignited and exploded, propelling him on his murderous path. Or maybe—and this was something that she didn’t want to think about—maybe it wasn’t something that could be understood. Maybe there was just something that could only be called pure evil. She didn’t want to think about it, because everything she had been taught, in school and at the academy, had made her believe that murderers were created. But that night in the woods, everything changed. She wasn’t so sure what she believed anymore.
“I know what happened to you.”
She looked back at Ahanu.
“I read the newspapers. I know what he did to you,” Ahanu said. “And I know you are trying to understand why. That is why you are here. That is why I came here, to help you.”
It took every bit of her will not to look away from Ahanu’s steady eyes. “I don’t think you can help me with that, Mr. Ahanu,” she said quietly.
“I am of the bear clan,” he said. “We are the healers of our people. I took some classes at the community college. In another place or life, maybe I would be a shrink with a nice office above a café on Front Street in Traverse City.”
She stared at him. He gave her that odd half-smile again. She laughed softly.
A chilling gust blew in, sending Ahanu’s trousers flapping. In the distance, the bare branches of the aspens clicked like old bones.
“Do you believe in good and evil, Mr. Ahanu?” she asked.
“My people believe everything is occupied by a spirit, every tree, every rock, every lake,” he said. “There are many spirits, from the great Manitou to the simple spirits that inhabit every animal. But good? That, like survival, is up to each man or woman.”
She nodded. “And evil?”
“The same. It is up to the individual.”
She came closer. “Tell me about the Windigo.”
Ahanu’s eyes were steady on hers. “Let’s walk,” he said.
They went back through the clearing and toward the lake. When they drew close to the edge, Ahanu stopped and turned to her. “I believe evil is up to the individual.”
“You already said that.”
“It is the same with the Windigo.”
“I don’t understand,” Joe said.
Ahanu looked out at the lake. “Some believe the Windigo was put on earth by the creator. Some believe the Windigo is dreamed into being. But most of my people believe the Windigo is one of us who has lost his way.”
Joe waited, impatient for information she could use.
“Life has always been hard for my people,” Ahanu said. “Through the centuries, we have needed great physical and mental discipline to survive in this land. When the lakes froze and food was scarce, we went hungry. The Windigo is a symbol of death stalking us during the long winters, a giant monster of cold and hunger. He represents our greatest fear, that any one of us may be forced by starvation to eat human flesh to survive. That any one of us, forced to live in the harshest winter without anything to sustain us, can turn into the monster.”
Joe let out a long breath.
“I don’t know if there is pure evil in this world,” Ahanu said. “But to me, the Windigo is very real, because he is the embodiment of everything we most hate and fear, those things that are made all the more ominous by their reality. Real or not, you ignore such things at your own peril.”
Joe turned away, looking out at the lake. The clouds had piled high, heavy with snow, iron-gray weights over the more fragile dove gray of the water.
“This man who killed, this man who hurt you. You think this man is a Windigo?” Ahanu asked, his words torn away in the wind.
“I think he thinks he is,” Joe said.
“Then that is how you fight him.”
Joe looked at Ahanu. “How?”
“If he is a Windigo, he hates what he is, and a part of him wants to die. If he is a Windigo, he won’t die by his own hand.”
Joe took a step closer. “Then how?” she asked.
“He can be killed only by a worthy opponent, a warrior brave. Only a warrior can put his evil spirit to rest. And he will seek out that warrior brave to do this for him, seek out the warrior who will kill him and burn his ashes so he can never come back. That is what he wants. That is the peace he craves.”
Joe shook her head. “This man killed two cops and ran. That is not a man who wants to die.”
“I read in the newspaper that he killed his own brother,” Ahanu said. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“I can only guess what is in his mind now. Maybe when he killed his brother, he crossed a line he did not want to cross.”
Joe considered this. “Just like the Windigos cross a line that must not be crossed when they cannibalize.”
Ahanu nodded. “He is alone now. Winter is coming.”
Joe fell quiet.
“He must confront the worthy warrior,” Ahanu said. “And that is you.”
Joe’s eyes shot up. “Me? Why me?”
“You survived.”
Joe took a few steps away, turned, and looked down at the lake far below. “What do I do?” she said.
“Nothing,” Ahanu said. “He will find you.”
47
His feet were numb, but he didn’t move. If he did, he might disturb the branches, and if she was watching from the cottage window, she might see it and sense he was out here.
She might be able to do that now. Feel his presence. As the others could when they were hanging there in the darkness, calling out to him. As his mother could that day when he had stood under the big tree and stared up at her.
Don’t be sad, my son. I will always be with you.
Roland cupped his hands and blew into them. His eyes moved to the back door with its empty deck and the snowcapped evergreens that surrounded the cottage. Nothing was moving, and he looked back at the door, trying to will it open.
If she didn’t go to bed soon, he would have to come back tomorrow. He needed her in bed, relaxed and unarmed, because he knew he couldn’t let her get to her weapon. If she did, he might have to shoot her, and that wasn’t the way this was supposed to happen. He needed her alive for a while.
Roland glanced down the road, worried someone would see the truck parked in the trees. It was the dead man’s truck. He had driven it down from Canada, amazed that the men at the border didn’t see much difference between Roland’s face and the blurry bearded man pictured on the driver’s license. More amazed that he had made it all the way across the Mackinac Bridge from the Upper Peninsula without so much as a look from the state trooper who passed him, chasing someone else.
Finally, he had snuck a look at himself in the rearview mirror. He was shocked at the gray in his beard and hair and how sunken his face looked. He was different. He must be different for them not to see. Maybe he was even invisible now.
He concentrated on the drawn curtain of the bedroom window.
Turn off the lights and go to bed, bitch.
A silhouette paused behind the curtain. He knew it was her. Recognized the thin, long body and the ponytail. Then a second silhouette moved across the window. Roland jerked to attention, his head clicking with possibilities about who the other person could be. But then he realized it was another woman. Shorter. Fatter. And no threat.
He settled back against the tree, his mind starting to wander again, strange images drifting through his head. The woman and how she had looked hanging in the tree. Kenny lying in the snow, staring up at him with dead, accusing eyes. The way his father had looked that day at the cabin. Hating him, even in death.
His mother…
He didn’t have much of her in his memory anymore.
Roland dug down into his pants pocket, his stiff fingers coming out with a small wad of old tattered cloth. He set it in his palm and unfolded it carefully. It was too dark to see clearly, so he touched the strands of black hair with the tip of his finger, stroking them tenderly. He had taken the little bundle that morning so many years ago, stolen it from her body before they put her in the tree. He had kept it with him for his whole life, bringing it out to stroke the hair whenever he needed to feel her presence.
The lock of hair seemed thinner now, and he wondered how the hairs disappeared when he kept them wrapped so carefully in the cloth for so long. But maybe the lock of hair grew thinner with each life he took. Maybe that was how his mother stayed with him, giving a part of herself to those who hung in the trees as she did.
The bark of a dog drew his head back to the cottage. He quickly refolded the cloth and stuck it back in his pocket. The back door opened, washing the snowy yard with a long slant of yellow light.
A big dog bounded onto the deck, first barking and jumping, then running off into the yard. The woman closed the door, killing the light. The dog stopped halfway to the trees, nose tipped to the icy air.
No. No!
The dog came toward him, a suspicious tilt to its head, a small baring of its teeth. Then a low growl rolled through the darkness.
No, goddamn it. No!
Roland slipped behind the tree, but the dog followed, lunging at him, then jumping back, every bark growing more fierce.
God…God…
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t shoot the damn thing—the woman would hear. But he had a knife, and he started to reach for it when the dog jumped at him again, its teeth ripping into his sleeve.
He worked the knife free, pressing himself back against the tree, throwing his arm up in front of his face, because he knew wolves always went first for the face.
It came at him again, snarling, growling, its teeth sinking into his hand, tearing at the flesh.
Roland choked back a cry of pain. He thrust the knife into the hard muscle of the dog’s shoulder.
It yelped and jerked away crazily, crying as it jumped and twisted through the snow, spraying blood. Then the dog was gone, staggering into the black trees, its whimpers hanging in the air behind it.
Roland looked down at his shredded hand, then pushed off the tree and started to run.
“How long has Chips been out?” Florence asked.
Joe looked up from her book, then to the clock. It had been twenty minutes. Usually in this weather, he was back in seconds, scratching at the door to get back in.
“Want me to see if he’s by the door?” Florence asked.
Joe pushed up off the sofa. “I’ll get him.”
She turned on the deck light and opened the door. The cold air rushed in around her, and she gathered her robe tighter as she stared out. The backyard was silent and empty, Chips’s paw prints visible in the snow.
“Chips!” she called.
Nothing.
“Chips!”
Joe took a step onto the deck, scanning the yard, trying to see into the deep shadows of the trees, trying to hear something besides the wind moving in them.
“Chips!”
Still nothing.
She needed to go look for him. He could be caught somewhere, or, God forbid, some animal could have gotten him. She went back to the living room and picked up her revolver off the counter, flipping open the cylinder to make sure it was loaded.
“Joe? What is it?”
She slipped on her boots and grabbed a parka and a flashlight.
“Wait,” Florence said. “Let me come with you.”
“No, stay here. Lock the door.”
Joe moved quickly to the deck, pulling the door shut and waiting until she heard it lock behind her before she clicked on the flashlight and shined it into the woods. The dark trees shifted with the wind, and she couldn’t tell if the movement she was seeing was real or her imagination.
She lowered the flashlight beam and followed the paw prints. They trailed deeper toward the trees, and she paused again, alert for any sound, her eyes scanning the darkness.
“Chips!”
She followed the paw prints across the yard, her pace slowing as she neared the trunk of a large pine.
Dark droplets.
She took two more steps, then stopped, trying to hold the flashlight steady as the bright white circle moved over the trampled snow.
Blood.
Paw prints.
Footprints. Large. A man.
She lifted her gun and spun, unsure where to point the flashlight or aim the gun, seeing nothing but the moving darkness.
She had to find Chips. She leveled her gun, moving it in a wide arc as she edged away from the blood and followed the smeared paw prints deeper into the trees. Every nerve in her body was drawn tight, her eyes flicking from Chips’s prints to the blackness of the forest and then, oddly, up into the branches, part of her expecting to see a body.
Then she heard something. First a whisper that grew to a soft whimpering that moved through the trees like the wind.
Chips.
Shivering, wet, and bloody, he lay sprawled in a puddle of pink snow. He looked at her, eyes liquid, belly heaving.
She knelt down next to him, then looked back to the yellow lights of the cottage. She started to scream for her mother, but she couldn’t risk bringing her out here.
She took one last look around the trees, then worked her arms under Chips, keeping her gun in her hand. He was heavy and wet, but she managed to get him up against her. As she staggered back to the cottage, his breathing grew labored and shallow. She kicked at the back door.
“Ma!” she screamed. “Ma, help me!”
Florence threw open the door. “What’s the matter? Oh, Jesus…what?”
Joe pushed inside, almost stumbling as she set Chips down on the kitchen table. “Get me a blanket. We’re taking him to the hospital.”
“Did an animal get him?” Florence asked.
Joe grabbed a towel and pressed it to the bloody hole in the fur. “No, there was someone out there.”
Florence handed her a blanket, and Joe moved Chips so she could wrap him. He was looking up at her, his eyes dark with fear.
Florence pulled on her jacket and turned, looking at Joe. “Are we safe leaving?”
Joe held out her revolver to her mother. “Can you shoot this?”
Florence took the gun. “Damn right.”
“I’ll carry Chips,” she said. “You go first, and take the flashlight. Check the yard, then the Jeep before you get in.”
Florence opened the front door and went outside, Joe close behind her. There were no footprints in the snow in the front yard and none around the Jeep.
But as Florence drove down the narrow country road, Joe noticed tire tracks about a half-mile from her cottage. It looked as if someone had driven off the road and parked in the trees. But there was no car there now. He was gone.
Mike stared at the bloody ground, then ran the flashlight beam back to the far trees. Joe’s phone call had gotten him out of bed, and he wore jeans and his sheriff’s parka thrown over an old flannel shirt. His face was slashed with shadows, his eyes jerky as they scanned the trees.
“He’s gone, Mike,” she said.
Mike glanced back at the ground and nodded slowly, as if he knew that but still couldn’t shake the idea of a man in the darkness aiming a shotgun at them.
They heard a door close, and they both looked to the cottage. Holt was walking toward them, his own flashlight beam jumping across the ground ahead of him. He stopped and blew out a cloudy breath. “Your mom says to tell you the vet just called,” he said. “Chips is going to be okay. And he said you were right. It was a knife wound.”
Joe looked away, running a hand over her face.
