Purgatory Ridge

Cork felt a little uneasy being in Meloux’s cabin without the old man there, without his consent. But he also felt something prickling, an old cop instinct. He stepped to Meloux’s table, an ancient construction of birch. Laid out on the table were several large, soot-blackened stones.

“What are they?” Jenny asked.

“They’re madodo-wasinun. Stones for a sweat. You know that Henry Meloux is a mide.”

Jenny looked at him, not comprehending. “A mighty what?”

Cork smiled. “Not mighty-mide. One of the midewiwin. A member of the Grand Medicine Society. It looks as though Meloux has taken someone through a purification recently.”

“What for?”

“A sweat can be for a lot of reasons. Atonement, for example. To help a spirit return to a state of harmony.”

“Henry Meloux’s spirit?”

“Maybe.” But he wasn’t thinking at all that it was Henry. He was remembering the visit Joan of Arc of the Redwoods had made to Meloux only a couple of days before. Had she come seeking the old mide’s help? His guidance, perhaps, in her effort to atone? Atone for what? The death of Charlie Warren?

“What do we do?” Jenny asked.

“We go back home.”

He could tell from the look on her face that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but she accepted it. Maybe like him, she felt too beat to fight it anymore.

Outside, the clouds were moving east. The sky to the west had cleared and above Iron Lake stars were reappearing. Cork found the flashlight Jenny had dropped. He tried the switch, but the light didn’t come on. As they started back along the path, the moon slipped out from behind the bank of clouds and lit the way for them. It was moonlight, as moonlight had existed for millions of years, but it seemed, like everything else that used to be familiar, to have an eerie quality to it now. The ground was thick with melting hailstones, and when Cork reached the Bronco, he found its body pocked with dents. He started the engine and made a U-turn. Jenny switched on the radio. As they headed back toward Aurora, the news came on, and with it, a report that Forest Service authorities feared the lightning might have set new fires in the North Woods.

Cork shook his head. Henry Meloux had always told him that everything had purpose, that the Great Spirit oversaw all life with a profound wisdom. At that moment, Cork found it hard to believe. What in the hell could Kitchimanidoo be thinking?

32

SHE HEARD THE THUNDER coming from a long way off, and her first thought was Rain. She let herself imagine the feel of it, cool against her face, running down her festering back, quenching the fire there. She lifted her head, as if to greet the raindrops, and pain shot through the stiff muscles of her neck and shoulders.

Time and pain. They were two strands of what bound her. The hours dragged. Her body seemed to chronicle each minute with a new aching. She couldn’t sleep, refused to let herself. She needed to be aware, even if it meant feeling everything. She needed to believe something might break for them, even if there seemed nothing she herself could do. Vigilance and hope. What other allies did she have?

The thunder grew nearer, big cracks that sounded as if they were splitting the earth. Blind, she pictured the forest shattered where the lightning hit, the ground scarred black. It wasn’t a pleasant image and she tried to shake it. A strong wind rose in advance of the storm. She could feel the air pushed through the gaps in the old cabin, and she could hear the creak and groan of the trees as they bent. If there were rain, she knew it wouldn’t be gentle.

The storm overtook the cabin. Lightning flashed so brightly that even through the disgusting cloth across her eyes she could see the night illuminated. Immediately after each bolt, thunder made the ground tremble as if, compared with what the heavens wielded, the earth under Jo was nothing. The lightning seemed to strike all around the cabin, frighteningly close. Although she’d thought that after what she’d already been through, nothing could scare her further, she was terrified.

Between the claps of thunder, she heard a growing roar, like a huge wave sweeping toward her. A few minutes later, hail hit the cabin. The din as the stones pounded the old roof and walls was deafening. The end of the world would be no less terrible, Jo thought. As frightened as she was, her greatest concern was for Stevie, for whom even a normal thunderstorm was a nightmare. She longed to be holding him, comforting him.

God, she prayed, more desperately than she ever had, please help us.

And the hail left. As suddenly as it had come.

In the quiet that followed, she heard Stevie whimpering softly.

“Are you sleeping,” she hummed to him. She was relieved to hear his quivering little echo.