Tamarack County: A Novel Part 23

Stephen breathed deeply and settled in to receive whatever might come to him. He had no idea what that was. If he'd known, he might have chosen a different path for himself that cold winter day.

CHAPTER 30.

Cork had never visited Stillwater Prison, but he had a long and negative a.s.sociation with the dour facility. When Cork was thirteen years old, his father, who was sheriff of Tamarack County, had been shot and killed in a gun battle initiated by several convicts who'd escaped from the prison and had made a desperate, ill-considered run for Canada. His father's death wasn't, of course, the fault of the prison or the personnel there, but when he and Dross approached the complex, Cork felt a twist of his stomach, as if he was preparing to meet an old adversary.

From the front, Stillwater Prison resembled an austere school construction, the kind you might see in a yearbook from the 1940s, all no-nonsense red brick. If you looked beyond that to the yard, with its high walls and guard towers and barbed wire, there was no mistaking its true purpose. Despite its name, it was actually situated south of Stillwater, above the town of Bayport, set amid hills that climbed west of the Saint Croix River. Dross parked in the visitors' lot across the street, and they both headed inside. They gave their names at the entrance checkpoint, pa.s.sed through the security scanner, and were buzzed through the heavy metal door of the sally port. On the other side, a correctional officer, who introduced herself as Sergeant Nadine Jojade, waited. She escorted them to the third floor, where they were ushered into an office paneled in dark wood and tastefully carpeted. A woman sat at a large desk near the far window. Through the gla.s.s behind her, a line of barren trees was visible, and beyond the trees and the iced-over Saint Croix River rose the white hills of Wisconsin.

"Thank you, Nadine," the woman said.

The officer left, closing the door behind her.

"I'm Terry Gilman." The warden rose and came to greet them.

"Good morning, Warden. I'm Sheriff Marsha Dross, and this is Cork O'Connor."

They all shook hands.

On a good day, Warden Gilman probably reached the midpoint of Cork O'Connor's chest. She was slender, even a little fragile looking. She had curly hair the color of buckskin, which she wore short. At first glance, she might have seemed an odd choice to run a prison in which ninety percent of the inmates towered over her and, if they had the opportunity to sit on her, would probably break most of her bones. But from the moment he looked into her eyes and saw the a.s.suredness of authority there, something cops and criminals both respected, he knew why she held the position.

She offered them a seat and asked, "Can I get you something? Coffee, water?"

"No, thank you," Dross replied. "We appreciate you accommodating our request."

Gilman sat in the chair behind her desk. "When I understood the situation, I wanted to be a part of this personally. I have a long-standing interest in Cecil LaPointe."

"Oh?"

"I'll explain that in a minute, but first I'd like to hear the whole story of what's brought you here."

Dross recounted all that had occurred in Tamarack County since Evelyn Carter had first gone missing. The failed search, the killed dog, the discovery of the bloodied knife in the garage of Judge Ralph Carter, the possible attempt on the life of Marlee Daychild, and Dexter's head left on the table of Ray Jay Wakemup. She also explained her thinking about how Sullivan Becker's. .h.i.t-and-run accident was connected to this.

When Dross finished, the warden asked, "What do you know about Cecil LaPointe as an inmate here?"

"Except for the image that comes from a reading of The Wisdom of White Eagle, essentially nothing."

"Let me enlighten you, then."

She lifted a large photograph from where it lay on her desk and offered it to Dross. The sheriff took it and held it out so that she and Cork could view it together. It was an aerial photo of the prison complex. Smoke poured from one of the wings.

Cork said, "The riot?"

Gilman nodded. "Five years ago. Shortly afterward, the man who was warden at that time left and I took this position. Although the situation had been dealt with, feelings here were still pretty raw. Because I was absolutely determined nothing like that would ever take place in this facility again, I created a panel to investigate the causes. I had guards on that panel, correctional experts from the outside, and inmates. Cecil LaPointe was one of them."

"Why LaPointe?"

"During the rioting, he was responsible for saving the lives of a number of inmates."

"I heard about that," Dross said. "But I don't recall the details."

"Some inmates tried to use the pandemonium inside to settle scores," Gilman explained. "LaPointe's influence, which is considerable among the population here, kept that from happening. He actually placed himself in harm's way to protect some of the threatened inmates. Anyone else would probably have been cut down without a second thought. But there's something about LaPointe that's . . . well . . . different." She smiled. "Which is why I wanted to talk to you before you see him. Have you had much experience with a prison population?"

"We see them a lot on the outside."

"And you probably see them one or two or three at a time. When you put hundreds of them together, you multiply the individual dynamic a thousandfold. Do you remember watching those old cowboy movies where all the drovers are sitting around a campfire on a cattle drive and there's a storm brewing and they're holding their breath because they know that all it will take to make those cattle stampede is one wrong sound?" She let that sink in. "In his way, Cecil LaPointe has done more than his share to keep that wrong sound out of Stillwater."

Dross said, "Do you have any idea why Evelyn Carter visited him?"

"None."

"Had she ever visited before?"

"We have no record of a previous visit."

Dross said, "If LaPointe has been a model prisoner-"

"And then some, apparently," Cork threw in.

"Why hasn't he been granted parole?" Dross continued.

"In the early years, whenever he came before the parole board for consideration, the princ.i.p.als in the adjudication of his case-the judge, the county attorney, the sheriff-strongly recommended that parole be denied."

"Their reasons?"

"They contended that he represented a continued threat."

"And the board believed them?"

"In the early years of his eligibility, that was apparently true. Then it became a moot point."

"Why?"

"He stopped requesting parole consideration."

"Because he knew he had no chance?"

"That's something maybe you should ask him." She held up a copy of The Wisdom of White Eagle. "Have you read this?"

Dross said, "Yes." Cork only nodded.

The warden opened the book, at random, it seemed, and read aloud: "Anger, hate, jealousy, envy, fear. Fill your pockets with these heavy stones and you spend your life trying not to drown. Throw them away and you float. The great current of life simply sweeps you up and carries you joyously to the place you were always meant to come to. Make no mistake, you will arrive there either way, through struggle or surrender. But one is the way of pain, the other of peace." She closed the book. "I find that whenever I'm feeling a little lost, particularly here"-she indicated with a wave the prison around her-"reading some of White Eagle's wisdom helps." She laid the book back on her desk. "Shall we?"

They stood, and the warden walked ahead of them to lead the way.

"We'll be going directly to our infirmary," she said. "That's where LaPointe spends most of his time now."

"He works there?"

"He's a patient."

"What's wrong with him?" Cork asked.

She looked at him, as if surprised by his ignorance. "He's dying, Mr. O'Connor."

CHAPTER 31.

Nothing came. Stephen's body dripped salt water from every pore, and he tried to keep his mind clear in order to receive whatever might be delivered to him. He'd partic.i.p.ated in many sweats, and he knew it was useless to attempt to force anything. That was, in one way, the point of a sweat. To relax, to release, to remove the barriers of thought, expectation, desire. To be. And because this was never an easy thing, he understood that it sometimes took several rounds of sweating to melt the natural human resistance to the influence of the Great Mystery.

At first, his mind was filled with anxiety. The idea of confronting the majimanidoo of his nighttime vision was a little frightening, and yet he believed it had to be done. His brain worked at digging the image from his memory, the form that lurked in the dark under the elm tree. In his mind's eye, he saw only the black shape with its two eyes glowing red as hot coals. This was a conscious experience, not a visceral thing, and the image itself didn't elicit a strong emotional response. He was trying too hard, he knew. He wasn't letting go. After half an hour, he could feel the lodge cooling, much more quickly than normal, the result of the bitter temperature outside. He crawled clockwise around the pit where the Grandfathers lay and pushed out through the heavy flap of blanket over the entrance. He found Anne feeding the fire.

"Success?" she asked.

"Nothing yet," he said. "Would you pull out the Grandfathers and put them back on the coals to heat? I'm going down to the lake to refresh."

"Refresh?" His sister cast a skeptical eye on the frozen lake.

"I'll only dip a moment," he told her.

He walked barefooted through the deep snow that lay between the sweat lodge and the lake, his body trailing steam in the frigid air. Not far to the east, a small stream fed into Iron Lake. It issued from the ground very near to the sh.o.r.eline, ran only a short distance, and was called Half-Mile Creek. Because the stream maintained its temperature over that brief run, it didn't freeze, even in the most bitter of winters. Where it spilled into the lake, there was always a half circle of open water twenty yards across.

The bottom was sandy there, the water crystal clear. When Stephen waded in, the cold of the lake gripped him, as if trying to squeeze the life from him. He plunged himself under and felt the cold wring from his body the lethargy caused by the heat in that first round of sweating. He drank the water, and a fine, refreshing chill ran all the way through him.

By the time he returned to the sweat lodge, he was shivering. Anne had placed the Grandfathers on the coals of the fire, and she had two warmed blankets waiting for him. She wrapped him in these and offered him dry wool socks for his feet and a wool cap, and they sat together in the afternoon sunlight and talked while the Grandfathers heated for the next round of sweating.

Anne said, "I've read of certain monks who mortify themselves daily by bathing in ice water."

"Daily?" Stephen shook his head. "Whatever floats your boat. You wouldn't do that, would you?"

"I don't think I'm strong enough. I also think it's misguided."

"Why?"

"I think the divine is in the everyday." She was silent a moment, staring into the fire, which popped and crackled and sent hot sparks flying onto the snow, where they died in little hisses. With a tired sigh, she added, "And there's enough pain just in living."

The sun was low and directly behind Anne. Stephen had to squint whenever he looked directly at his sister. She sounded so defeated, so lost, that he felt his heart squeeze as if it had taken its own plunge in ice water.

"You seemed so happy when you left to join the order," he said.

"I was. And mostly I've been happy. It's just . . ."

"Just what?"

"I was happy when I was sure it was what I wanted."

"But now there's Skye."

"And now I understand the full measure of what I might be giving up, Stephen." She pulled a piece of loose bark from one of the logs they'd brought to feed the fire and tossed it into the flames, which consumed it greedily. "I don't know if I'm strong enough."

"How would you feel if you gave it all up for her? Would that make you happy, Annie?"

"I don't know." She took a deep breath. "Probably not."

"If she really loved you, wouldn't she understand what she's asking you to do?"

"She understands, Stephen. And she's not being selfish in this. She wants me to be happy as much as you do."

"And she thinks she's the way."

Anne looked up at the cloudless blue of the sky. "Maybe she is. Who knows?" She laughed and glanced at her brother. "h.e.l.l, maybe I should do a sweat. Maybe the answer would come to me."

"Or maybe it'll come to me," Stephen said and offered her a smile. "Maybe I'll get a twofer out of this one. I think the Grandfathers are ready."

He lifted the stones with the tines of the pitchfork, and Anne brushed them clean of embers. He settled them one by one in the pit in the center of the lodge. When they were all inside, he backed out, dropped the entrance flap, and turned to his sister. He found her eyeing a wooded island far out in the frozen lake.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I thought I saw something."

"What kind of something?"

"An animal."

"It's the Northwoods. We have lots of animals here."

"Actually, I thought it might be a person."

"We have those, too," Stephen said. He was chilling quickly. "I need to get inside the lodge, Annie. You might as well go back to the cabin."

"Half an hour?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be back." She leaned and kissed his cheek. "Good luck."