Purgatory Ridge

Cork sat on the ground to the right of Meloux. “Henry, I came to ask you about Charlie Warren. You know what happened at Lindstrom’s mill.”

“I know.”

“The authorities are thinking Charlie was responsible, that somehow he was the victim of his own bomb. I don’t believe it for an instant, but I can’t figure what he was doing out there.”

Meloux added the ash from his cigarette to the ash at the fire’s edge. “I knew Charlie Warren all his life. He was a strong spirit, a good man. I also think he would not do this thing.” A loud pop from the fire sent sparks outside the stone circle. Meloux watched them closely until they died in the dirt.

Night was coming on. A yellow haze nested in the trees to the east, the rising moon. Stars seemed to have popped out in the sky as sudden as the embers that burst from Meloux’s fire. Cork saw that Stevie was more interested in Walleye than in the deepening dark. There was something about fire, he knew, and the company of men that had for centuries chased away the monsters of the night.

Meloux spoke again. “I’m an old man. I don’t sleep like I used to. Sometimes the tree frogs and me, we talk all night long. I don’t mind being alone with the tree frogs. But some men need other company. Charlie Warren liked company. He also liked checkers, and checkers a man cannot play alone. Sometimes Charlie Warren shared his nights with a friend whose name is Jack Daniel. I would think about these things, Corcoran O’Connor.”

Walleye suddenly stood, shrugging off Stevie’s hand. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. He went rigid and a growl rumbled in his throat as he watched the place where the path from Meloux’s cabin threaded between the tall outcroppings of rock. Stevie’s own dark eyes, frightened now, looked there, too.

The woman paused as soon as the firelight hit her, and she held still between the rocks, leaning on her cane.

“Anin, Henry Meloux,” she said.

“Anin,” Meloux replied. “I have been waiting for you.”

Her surprise showed. “You knew I was coming?”

He beckoned her. “Sit.”

She walked forward, using her cane at every step of her right leg. She sat on a section of saw-cut pine situated across the fire from Meloux. It was only then that Cork realized Meloux had subtly choreographed the movements of his guests so that the pine section would be vacant when the woman, who could not easily sit on the ground, arrived.

Meloux spoke to Walleye, Ojibwe words, and the dog returned to the dirt and again cradled his head on his paws. Stevie, looking tired, laid himself against the big hound, who seemed not at all to mind the weight of his small companion.

“You know who I am, then,” the woman said.

“I know. Joan Hamilton. Some, I’ve heard, call you Joan of Arc of the Redwoods. That is not a bad name to be called.”

Joan Hamilton looked down at Stevie, whose eyes were drifting closed. Then she stared long and hard at Cork.

“Corcoran O’Connor,” Meloux said.

“We’ve met,” she said. “In a way.”

Meloux’s eyes went from one to the other, taking in what was between them. “Not a good way, I think.”

“His business was disrupted yesterday morning. I suspect he blames me.”

“Your presence has disrupted a lot of businesses,” Cork said.

“Not intentionally. That man-you called him Erskine, I think-started it.”

“That man has a family, a mortgage, bills,” Cork told her. “The trees are his living. I’m not saying he was right, but I can understand why he was angry.”

“You worry about one man. One family. I’m worried about the world.”

“I think you should worry a little about the kid.”

“Kid?”

“The young man who was about to paint Erskine’s knuckles with his blood.”

“My son, Mr. O’Connor.”

“Your son? You seemed pretty willing to let Erskine manhandle him.”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you.” She laid her cane across her knees. It was carved of some dark hard wood that reflected the firelight as brightly as if it were on fire itself. “For two reasons I didn’t interfere,” she went on suddenly. “My son is a man now, not a kid. He wouldn’t have wanted me to step in. This was something that, as a man, he needed to deal with. Also, he’s a soldier, in his way, and as a soldier he will sometimes be hurt. He knows that.”

“Spartan,” Cork said.

“You disapprove. That’s because you don’t understand this situation as we do. I’ve seen the greatest trees on earth brought to the edge of extinction, not just by greed but by complacency. We’re killing the earth and ourselves with it. This is war, Mr. O’Connor, and what we’re fighting for is nothing less than our survival on this earth.”

The Army of the Earth, Cork thought, remembering the militant environmental group Eco-Warrior claimed to be a part of, and he studied carefully the woman on the far side of the fire.