Northwest Angle: A Novel
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About this ebook
During a houseboat vacation on the remote Lake of the Woods, a violent gale sweeps through unexpectedly, stranding Cork and his daughter, Jenny, on a devastated island where the wind has ushered in a force far darker and more deadly than any storm.
Amid the wreckage, Cork and Jenny discover the body of a teenage girl. She wasn’t killed by the storm, however; she’d been bound and tortured before she died. Nearby, underneath a tangle of branches, they also find a baby boy, hungry and dehydrated, but still very much alive. Powerful forces intent on securing the child pursue them to the isolated Northwest Angle, where it’s impossible to tell who among the residents is in league with the devil, but Cork understands that to save his family he must solve the puzzle of this mysterious child whom death follows like a shadow.
“Part adventure, part mystery, and all knockout thriller” (Booklist), Northwest Angle is a dynamic addition to William Kent Krueger’s critically acclaimed, award-winning series.
William Kent Krueger
William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember, This Tender Land, Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), and the original audio novella The Levee, as well as nineteen acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including Lightning Strike and Fox Creek. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.
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Reviews for Northwest Angle
191 ratings23 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5William Kent Krueger has developed another fine novel in "Northwest Angle." This is a story with picturesque settings, a suspenseful plot that is unpredictable and a message about life.Cork O'Connor takes his family on vacation on a houseboat. When a story develops, Cork and his elder daughter, Jenny, are separated from the other membersof the family. They end up on one of the many islands on the Lake of The Woods in Minnesota, on the U.S. Canadian border.Jenny arrives first and hears the faint whimper of a baby. Later, she discovers a body of a young woman who had been murdered. The woman showed signs of torture and Jenny assumes that the woman was the baby's mother.As Jenny and Cork ponder their rescue, they wonder who killed the girl and what to do if the killer returns.Not only a mystery, this is a story of good against evil. Cork's sister-in-law, Rosa and her husband have a strong faith but there are a number of times that these characters and others have to question that faith and God's purpose in what was happening in the story.The story is rich in American Indian history. Cork is part Ojibwe and can relate to other American Indians, however, Cork's son, Stephen, demonstrates his spirituality and communication ability wonderfully. The other American Indians seem to feel his spirituality and love of Indian history and traditions.I read the story compulsively and enjoyed the well described characters while wondering how they would escape their situation. The twis the author provided, added to the intelligence of the story and the satisfaction with the conclusion.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the 11th installment of the Cork O’Connor series, Cork takes his extended family for vacation on a houseboat on the Lake of the Woods. The plot is set in motion when a powerful storm, a derecho, shatters their plans. Cork and his daughter, Jenny, find themselves on an isolated island where they discover a cabin with the body of a woman who had been tortured and, hidden nearby, a baby. Then a man with a rifle comes to stalk them. Is he the killer of the woman seeking to cover his tracks? Is he after the baby that Cork and Jennie have rescued? Is there more? Of course there is: drug smuggling, a religious cult, Jenny’s bond with the baby and its effects on her fraught relationship with her boyfriend Noah and with Cork. The book delivers what I have come to expect from this excellent series: good plotting, vivid descriptions of minor characters, Ojibwe lore, evolving family relationships and the wonderful and wise Ojibwe Mide, Henry. In addition, threaded through this book is a discourse on the nature of religion. I am on to the next in the series, Trickster’s Point.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Another great book by Krueger. His writing is always so beautiful and I love the native Ojibwa wisdom and spiritual messages that run through his books. In this book detective Cork O'Connor must solve the murder of a young girl who has recently had a baby. Jenny, Cork's daughter, becomes attached to the baby but death seems to follow the child and Cork is determined to find out why. The author's characters always feel so real and his descriptions of the settings make you feel like you are there. The plot begins with a bang and kept my interest all the way through with plenty of action and suspense. I look forward to reading the next book in the series and I highly recommend this series to those who love mystery and adventure.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I believe this is the 11th book in the series. I've read the first 3 and the last 2. I think I am starting to get a bit bored with the series. I found this book rather lame. Cork and family are vacationing in the NWA when a violent storm blows through unsettling lives and the landscape. Cork and daughter Jenny discover a newborn baby and a dead body on a small deserted island. Suddenly they are being hunted (we are now at the 40% point in the book), some excitement and tension, but tons of description of the Lake of the Woods area. OK, then the good guys go after the hunter, and discover a band of Avenging God believers, and the identity of the hunter helped by a local deputy and a retired ATF(?) employee, one of whom is a secret bad guy. Everybody wants the baby though its not clear why, and even reflecting back after having finished the book, it's still not clear why. Anyway Cork is out to solve everything but can't seem to shake The Family. They are everywhere. Family members are being captured, held hostage, held hostage again, offering advice to the police, etc, and preaching a good bit about faith in each other and in God. A bit too Ozzie and Harriet for my taste. A happy ending of course, except for the ex-fiance.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NORTHWEST ANGLE by William Kent Krueger, the next book in his Cork O’Conner series, is a great thriller, maybe the best in the series. OK, so far I’ve read only two books in the series. But it’s still true: this book is a grabber.The O’Conner family, including Cork’s sister-in-law and her husband, are vacationing on a houseboat in the Northwest Angle. While Cork and his daughter Jenny are taking a smaller boat to pick up Jenny’s boyfriend, a violent windstorm (Derecho) blows Cork overboard and strands Jenny on one of about 1000 islands in the Northwest Angle. While Jenny searches for shelter, she finds a baby boy and the body of his mother. She had been tortured and murdered. And the murderer wants that baby.Where would this book series be without Cork, right? Somehow, he makes it back to Jenny. Now the two of them do their best to avoid the murderer’s bullets and keep themselves and that baby alive.Eventually, the whole family gets involved in the quest to save that baby and keep themselves safe from the murderer. It’s an edge-of-your-seat thriller—even after Jenny, along with her brother and boyfriend, takes the baby to their all-knowing old Indian friend, the medicine man Henry. Henry is a recurring character in this book series.It makes sense to take the baby to Henry. He lives deep in the woods in Tamarack County, far from where the murderer might find the baby. But I expected the action to slow and the story to get corny at this point, with Henry’s usual secretiveness and Indian ceremonies. But, even though it’s a little corny when Henry seems to EXPECT Jenny’s arrival and when his niece, who wants to become a medicine man, herself, comes up with a magic brew for Jenny, the action doesn’t stop or pause here. Instead, they find that they can’t hide. And Henry comes across more as a wonderful old man than as a magic Indian. (I do wonder, though, how his guests, particularly the baby, could have slept outside without being eaten up by mosquitoes. They are, after all, in a woods in Minnesota. I think too much.)While this is going on, Cork is still in the Northwest Angle investigating a group of religious fanatics who live on one of the islands there. He becomes curious about them when they are questioned about the baby’s murdered mother, who used to live on the island with them. They seem to be not entirely forthcoming, and Cork wonders if they are hiding something.What a great thriller this is, marred only by the corny way Henry solves matters for all involved. That includes, even, the Tamarack County police when he ends a hostage situation by holding his hands over fire and daring someone else to do the same.In spite of Henry, THE NORTHWEST ANGLE has convinced me to find the earlier books in the series. I already read two and found a third. You’ll probably want to do the same.I won this book from Atria Books' Friday Giveaeway Facebook contest. This is an honest review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For the last book in the O'Connor series, I made a comment in my review that while I enjoyed the book, I was disappointed that the story did not feature any other members of Cork's family. Well for this book, Cork's entire family plays a role from the first page to the last and I was excited for it. Krueger has really figured out a style of writing that perfectly blends plot, characters, and setting in a way that I truly enjoy. Highly recommended series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After all that has happened in the last two years, Cork decides to take his O’Connor brood on a trip to the Northwest Angle, a clutter of 14,000 islands between Minnesota and Canada. This brood includes Rose, Cork’s sister-in-law, and her husband Mal. While showing his oldest daughter, Jennifer, an island Henry Meloux had introduced to Cork in his youth, they stumble onto an abandoned cabin containing the body of a young woman. Outside in a basket is an infant just weeks old. The point of view jumps from Cork to Jenny or Rose since each is in a different location after a storm separates them. It is difficult for Cork and Jenny to get off the island after a furious storm wrecks their boat and armed men return to the island obviously looking for something or someone. A religious cult inhabits another of the islands and it appears they are practicing more than religion. This installment is more about Rose and her husband Mal, a former priest. This family reunion seems like a religious sabbatical as many references to religion are made. A number of times it is mentioned how Rose and Mal had always wanted to have a baby but it just wasn’t in the cards so when it came to finding a home for the abandoned infant, I was surprised that it wasn’t Rose and Mal who ended up adopting him. Jenny’s boyfriend joins the family late and it is clear he and Jenny are having problems. Cork isn’t sure who to trust and once the baby’s father is located, the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place. I was thrilled when Henry’s niece, Rainy, makes an appearance after her introduction in the previous book. She appears to be bonding with Cork’s family as well as Cork himself. Krueger has always been one of the best at sense of place as well as weaving Native American culture into his series. As with his past books, he doesn’t disappoint.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5During a houseboat vacation on the remote Lake of the Woods, a violent gale sweeps through unexpectedly, stranding Cork and his daughter, Jenny, on a devastated island where the wind has ushered in a force far darker and more deadly than any storm. Amid the wreckage, Cork and Jenny discover an old trapper's cabin where they find the body of a teenage girl. She wasn't killed by the storm, however; she'd been bound and tortured before she died. Whimpering sounds coming from outside the cabin lead them to a tangle of branches toppled by the vicious winds. Underneath the debris, they find a baby boy, hungry and dehydrated, but still very much alive.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good read, and liked the Lake of the Woods setting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5William Kent Kreuger's mystery series featuring Cork O'Connor seemed, in my mind, to start out relatively slowly. I felt that it wasn't until his fourth or fifth book that he really hit his stride. I'm very thankful that I had bought up his complete series before beginning to read them (based on an enthusiastic review I read of a later book).. otherwise I might have given up on the series early on and missed some really great stories. And in hindsight even the early books have a great deal to offer. The novels are set in rural, northern Minnesota for the most part with the action shifting to The U.P. of Michigan in one story and to Wyoming in another. Mr. Kreuger gives Cork O'Connor a family life that is anything but 'storybook'. From one end to the other this is a loving, but modern family, with real life modern problems that they do manage to get resolved. Fairly early in the series, the stories begin increasingly encompassing Cork's and his family's Native American connection to good advantage!This is a very good and satisfying series which I gobbled up faster and faster towards the end. Now I have to sit and eagerly await the next Cork O'Connor adventure. This is a series where the books could be read as stand alones, but for maximum enjoyment I would strongly recommend reading them in the order that they were written.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Much of the action in this book takes place away from the usual Aurora, Minnesota setting. Cork and his family are in Lake of the Woods, a large lake between Ontario and Minnesota that contains 14,552 islands. Cork and Jenny are out traveling in a small boat when a violent wind (known as derecho) sweeps through, leaving chaos and devastation in its wake and Cork and Jenny stranded on a small island. Jenny finds a cabin on the island that contains the body of a young woman who has been murdered, and a tiny baby hidden away. Before rescue can come an unknown man with a rifle arrives on the island.
I had begun to worry that I would get bored with Cork and Jenny stuck on an island for most of the book. I should have trusted the author better by now. He doesn’t let the story slow or become stagnant, but gradually builds suspense to its natural explosive conclusion. I liked how the author bookended the story with Cork’s original concern about his family, and the reaffirmation of that family at the end. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I have read the Cork O’Connor series in chronological order over the last several years and by extension, have watched his family grow and develop. The previous book, “Vermillion Drift” was missing something and until reading this book, I wasn’t sure what it was. Krueger once again relies heavily on the family aspect and we see Cork’s kids as young adults. Rose and her husband Mal are also present.” Vermillion Drift” with the absence of family now works better for me in hind sight as a transitional work following Cork’s arc into his middle 50s and preparing (possibly) to move on after his wife’s death. “Northwest Angle” describes the beautiful country of the Lake of the Woods very well as well as the freak storm conditions that actually passed through the area several years ago. Excellent fast read that makes me want more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good entry for an excellent series. William Krueger continues to explore the wild and beautiful lands of Northern Minnesota and the intriguing culture of the Anishinaabe Tribal world. Strong characters are made stronger as his children mature and step forward in his plot casting. He uses a derecho storm, as a starting point as it blasts its way through an intended idyllic lake cruise, to pitch Cork and his family into danger and a compelling mystery.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When the O'Connor's go on a family trip things go very wrong.
I didn't find the twist very surprising. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5a good enjoyable read in this family saga what's next.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic. It doesn't matter if one reads these stories out of sequence, the principal characters just grow and become friends you always want to have. Each saga is impossible to put down.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I liked the Native American parts of this story, the rest left me somewhat underwhelmed. I was looking for a bit more suspense.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Set on the Lake of the woods in the boundary waters the story first shows us the terrible destruction of a strom called a Drecho. The strom reveals a baby and murdered woman to Jenny who takes it on herself to protect and care for the baby. She and her family soon find themselves targeted by a group of religious fanatics preparing for an end times they anticipate. Surprising things are revealed about everyone involved including the old mide Henry Meloux. The end when it comes is intensely heart warming.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A refreshing change from the dark and grim topics of the previous two books! Still life-threatening situations that seem impossible to escape, but somehow, the right things eventually happen.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5About halfway through I had things pretty well figured out. Not exactly, but not too far off either. But I still enjoyed it. Krueger has built these characters so well that I feel as if I know them, which keeps me going through the series. I'm going to be very sad when I reach the end!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There was so much to question in this book. Each book in the series gives more definition to several characters and while Jenny, Cork’s daughter falls front and center in Northwest angle, I was disappointed in her portrayal. Her words and thoughts became redundant as the mystery moves forward. Rose’s character is given a larger thought process but there are no surprises, just more of the woman we have come to know from previous installments. Krueger is a master at describing the scenery and temperament of the land and waterways of Minnesota bordering the Canadian provinces. His thoughtful introduction of the ways and customs of the Ojibwa nation is always welcome and informative. The harrowing encounters were well written and the ultimate new resolution of the O’Connor family allows the series to continue. While not my favorite it was nevertheless a much appreciated addition to the series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really like this guy, I did wind up reading this one out of order. Now I gotta go back and get the others read!!!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I am a huge fan of crime stories, full of mystery, police officers and detectives that have to find the murderer, and that they use different methods for getting out the truth. So when I saw this book it caught my attention immediately.This is the first novel I read by William Kent Krueger, so I didn't know anything about his writing style, and logically this is the first novel in the Cork O'Connor series I read, so at the first time I didn't know the characters (This is the twelfth book in the series) but the good thing about the story is that you end up knowing all the characters, their relationships and a little bit about their story, so you can read it as stand-alone book. The plot at the beginning is surprising and unusual, especially because the first part of the story takes place on an island, where the main characters Cork and his daughter Jenny find in a cabin a murdered woman and an abandoned baby. And suddenly they find themselves in an extreme situation of live-and-death. I admit that I loved that part and that I really enjoyed it, and also when the author shows us some customs and words of the Native Americans of that specific zone, like the Ojibwe. But after some pages, that originality starts decreasing and the plot ends up becoming into something predictable and boring. In particular those scenes with Jenny and the baby, which at the very first moment were very sweet, but then they became repetitive and predictable; with all the characters repeating all the time that she needed to give the baby to the authorities, etc.I enjoyed this book, is not the best, but you can try it and maybe you'll like it better. The story is good, but I was waiting for something more stunning and not a drama about children, family relations and religion with just a little bit of mystery. However, I really liked Krueger's writing style, so I hope to read something else by this author.
Book preview
Northwest Angle - William Kent Krueger
PROLOGUE
He woke long before it was necessary, had wakened in this way for weeks, troubled and afraid. A dull illumination came through the houseboat window into the cabin he shared with his son. Not light exactly. More the promise of light. False dawn, Cork O’Connor knew.
He threw back the thin sheet, slipped quietly from his bunk, and stepped into the long central hallway of the houseboat. The air was still, which was odd on the vast lake where they lay anchored. No sound of birds either, no early morning chatter, and that, too, was strange. He walked down the hallway, past the room where his sister-in-law and her husband slept, past the rooms of his two daughters, onto the stern deck with its swim platform. He stood at the railing, looking across water as black as engine grease. The moon hadn’t set yet but was so low and wan in the western sky that what light it gave was almost useless. There were stars, so many they felt like a weight pressing down on him. East, where dawn was still more dream than reality, he could see the dimmest outline of an island against a gray that ghosted along the horizon.
He lowered his head and stared at the water.
He should have been happy. He’d planned this vacation with happiness as the goal, and not his happiness alone. He’d conceived of this family gathering, bringing close to him everyone he loved, in order to make them happy, too. They hadn’t been together, all of them, in almost two years. Not since Jo had been laid to rest in the cemetery in Aurora. In his imagining, the gathering would be the ticket to finding happiness again—his and theirs—and the houseboat would be the way. But like the false dawn, the trip had promised something it had yet to deliver, and day after day, he found himself waking troubled and restless.
The problem was simple. He’d always thought of his family as if they were part of a tree he’d planted long ago. The tree had grown and flourished, and just being in its shade had been such a great joy. But it seemed to him that, with Jo’s death, the leaves had begun to fall away—his daughters gone to lives of their own and his son soon to follow—and he was afraid that, no matter what he did to save it, the tree would die. An irrational fear, he knew, but there it was, pressing hard upon his heart, whispering to him darkly in these lonely moments.
He heard a loud yawn behind him. Uncertain if his face might give away his concern, he didn’t turn.
Dad?
his son asked from the houseboat doorway. We’re going fishing, aren’t we?
You betcha, Stephen.
Good. I’ll get dressed.
When he was alone again, Cork took a deep breath, pulled himself together, and turned from the black water to meet the day.
At his back, his fear went on whispering.
ONE
Later, when it no longer mattered, they learned that the horror that had come from the sky had a name: derecho.
At the time, all they knew was that the day had begun with deceptive calm. Rose was up early, though not as early as the men, who’d risen at first light and had taken the dinghy across the broad channel to fish. She made coffee and sat on the deck of the houseboat and said her daily prayers while a bright lemon sun rose above the lake and islands. She began with a prayer of thanksgiving for all she had—especially her husband and her family—then, as always, prayed mostly for the people who, in life, despaired. She prayed for those whom she knew personally and for the greater multitude she didn’t. At last, she said her amen and gave herself over to the pure pleasure of the still morning.
Anne was up next and then Jenny, and the three women sat in deck chairs on the forward platform, sipping coffee, talking quietly, watching the sun crawl the sky, waiting for the men.
When she heard the dinghy’s old outboard cutting through the morning calm, Rose got up and said, I’ll start the potatoes.
Anne stood up, too. Let me give a hand, Aunt Rose.
No,
she said. You and Jenny sit. Talk. It’s what sisters should do. You almost never see each other these days.
She went to the galley to prepare breakfast. She planned to roast potatoes with onions and red peppers and tomatoes. She thought she would scramble eggs with chives and cream cheese. She would slice melons and strawberries and toss them in a bowl with plenty of fat blueberries. And there would be, she was almost certain, fresh fish to fry.
She heard the men as they pulled alongside and tied up to the houseboat and clambered aboard. She heard Cork say, Beer and pretzels,
and she hoped he wasn’t talking about breakfast.
Mal stepped into the galley, smiling hugely, and held up a stringer full of fat yellow perch. The hunter home from the hill,
he said.
You shot them?
Rose replied. Not very sporting.
Mal kissed her cheek and started toward the sink.
Uh-uh,
she said. Those get cleaned on deck.
She took him gently and turned him toward the door. When you have them filleted, bring them in and I’ll fry them up.
Stephen came in and went straight to the canister Rose had filled with chocolate chip cookies the day before. He took a handful and said, Okay, Aunt Rose?
Don’t spoil your breakfast.
Are you kidding? I could eat a moose. Can I have some milk, too?
He left with the cookies and a plastic tumbler filled to the brim. Moments later, Rose heard him talking with his sisters on deck and laughing.
The rented houseboat had a table large enough for all of them to gather around, and they ate amid the clatter of flatware against plates and the lively symphony of good conversation. Anne and Jenny offered to clean up, and they gave Stephen a hard time until he agreed to help. Mal showered, then Cork, and afterward both men settled down to a game of cribbage. The kids finished the dishes, put on their swimsuits, and dove into the lake. Rose set a deck chair in the shade under the forward awning of the houseboat. She sat down to read, but her mind quickly began to wander.
Nearly two years had passed since Jo had been lost in the Wyoming Rockies. Nearly two years dead. And Rose stilled missed her sister. Her deep grieving had ended, but there was a profound sense of something lacking in her life. She had taken to calling this the Great Empty. The kids—kids
she thought them, though Jenny was twenty-four, Anne twenty-one, and Stephen almost fifteen—splashed and laughed in the water, yet she knew that they felt the Great Empty, too. Cork never talked about his own feelings, and Rose understood that the avoidance itself was probably a sign he was afflicted as well. She wished she knew how to help them all heal fully. In the days when he’d been a priest, Mal had often dealt with death and its aftermath, and he advised her that healing came in its own time and the best you could hope for was to help ease the pain along the way.
And does everyone heal in the end?
she’d asked her husband.
Not everyone,
he’d said. At least, not in my experience.
She watched the kids in the water and Cork at the table slapping down his cards, and she breathed in the pine-scented air above that distant, isolated lake, and she prayed, Let us heal, Lord. Let us all be whole again.
In the early afternoon, Cork said, It’s time, Jenny.
She looked up from the table where she’d been writing, put the pencil in the crease between the pages, closed her notebook, and stood.
How long will it take?
she asked.
Less than an hour, if we go directly. But today we’re going to make a little side trip.
Where?
You’ll see.
Her father liked mysteries, large and small. She understood it was part of what drew him through life, the need to find answers. In a way, it was also what drove her, but they went about it differently. He’d been a cop most of his life and now he was a PI. She, on the other hand, was a writer.
Stephen came from the galley, one hand filled with potato chips. Can I go?
Not this time,
his father said. Jenny and I have things to discuss.
Things to discuss, she thought. Oh, God.
Ah, come on,
Stephen said.
Cork shook his head. Oz has spoken. But if you want to help, go fill the motor on the dinghy with gas.
I didn’t say I wanted to help. I said I wanted to go.
And now you’re going to help,
Cork said. He turned to Jenny. Wear your swimsuit and bring your camera.
Why?
You’ll see.
Mysteries, she thought with a silent sigh. But maybe, if they were interesting enough, they would keep her father away from the things he wanted to discuss.
Early September. The air thick on the lake and the sky a weighty blue. The weather, he’d been told, was unusual for that time of year so far north. Hot beyond anyone’s memory. Usually by the end of August fall was already solidly in the air. But not this year. The intense heat of the afternoon was bearable only because of the wind generated by the dinghy speeding over smooth water.
Though they were in Canada, Cork knew he could just about throw a stone onto U.S. territory. They were on the Lake of the Woods, a body of water roughly eighty miles long and sixty miles wide, containing over fourteen thousand islands. That’s what he’d been told in Kenora, anyway. The lake straddled the U.S.-Canadian border. Border? Cork shook his head, thinking how easily that international marker was crossed on this lake. There was no line on the water to delineate one nation from the other. Kitchimanidoo, the Creator, had made the land a boundless whole. It was human beings who felt the need for arbitrary divisions and drew the lines. Too often, he thought, in human blood.
He held the tiller of the little Evinrude outboard, guiding the dinghy southwesterly across broad, open water toward a gathering of islands humped along the horizon. In the half hour since they’d left the houseboat, he hadn’t exchanged a word with Jenny. Which, he strongly suspected, was just fine with her.
The lake was beautiful and, like so many things of beauty, deceptive. The water that day was like glass. The vast size of the lake suggested depth, but Cork knew that beneath the tranquil surface lay reefs and rocks that in the blink of an eye could slit a hull or chew the blades off a prop. He’d been using GPS to follow the main channel between the islands and had been keeping a good speed. But south of Big Narrows he swung the boat west out of the channel, slowed to a crawl, and entered an archipelago composed of dozens of islands, large and small. The shorelines were rocky, the interiors covered with tall pine and sturdy spruce and leafy poplar. Cork eased the boat patiently along, studying the screen of the Garmin GPS mounted to the dash, into which he’d downloaded a program for Lake of the Woods. The water was the color of weak green tea, and he told Jenny, who sat in the bow, to keep her eyes peeled for snags that the GPS couldn’t possibly indicate. After fifteen minutes of careful navigation, he guided the dinghy up to the rocky edge of a small island. He eased the bow next to a boulder whose top rose from the water like the head of a bald man, and he cut the engine.
Grab the bow line and jump ashore,
he told Jenny.
She leaped to the boulder, rope in hand.
Can you tie us off?
She slid a few feet down the side of the boulder and leaped nimbly to shore, where she tied the boat to a section of rotting fallen timber.
Cork stepped to the bow, leaped to the boulder, then to shore.
Got your camera?
he asked.
Jenny patted her belt where her Canon hung in a nylon case.
Okay,
Cork said. Let’s take a hike.
The island was nearly bare of vegetation and was dominated by a rock formation that rose conelike at the center. Cork led the way along the rock slope, following the vague suggestion of a trail that gradually spiraled upward around the cone. All around them lay a gathering of islands so thick that no matter which way Cork looked they appeared to form a solid shoreline. Between the islands ran a confusing maze of narrow channels.
Where are we?
Jenny asked.
Someplace not many folks know about. Probably the only ones who do are Shinnob.
He used the word that was shorthand for the Anishinaabeg, the First People, who were also known as Ojibwe or Chippewa. Anishinaabe blood ran through Cork and, therefore, through his daughter Jenny.
On a map, this island doesn’t have a name,
Cork said. But Shinnobs call it Neejawnisug.
What does it mean?
I’ll tell you in a minute.
They reached the top, which was crowned by a great white stone that looked as if it had been cleaved by an ax. The southern side was rounded and pocked, but the north side was a solid face ten feet tall. It lay in full sunlight, golden, and when Jenny saw that glowing face of rock, her eyes went large.
Pictographs,
she said. They’re beautiful, Dad. Do you know what they mean?
Cork studied the figures painted in ocher that covered the face of the stone.
Henry Meloux told me they’re a kind of invocation to Kitchimanidoo for safety. He said the Anishinaabeg who drew them were being pursued by Dakota and had come to hide. They left the children here, and that’s why they call it Neejawnisug. It means ‘the children.’ They left the women, too, and went off to fight the enemy. They trusted this place because there are so many islands and so many channels that it’s almost impossible to find your way here.
You found it easily enough.
"When I was sixteen, Henry brought me. Giigiwishimowin," Cork said.
Your vision quest,
Jenny interpreted.
By then it was no longer a common practice among the Ojibwe,
Cork said. But Henry insisted.
Why here?
He never told me.
Did you receive your vision?
I did.
Jenny didn’t ask about her father’s dream vision, and if she had, he probably wouldn’t have told her.
Have you been here since?
Never.
How did you find it so easily? I mean, after so many years?
I spent a long afternoon coming here with Henry. He made me memorize every twist and turn.
That had to be forty years ago. A long time to remember.
You mean for an old man.
I couldn’t find my way back here.
If it was important, I bet you could.
Jenny snapped photos of the drawings on the stone and, for a long time, was silent. And did Kitchimanidoo hide the children successfully?
she finally asked.
I don’t know. Nor did Henry.
He could see her mind working, and that was one of the reasons he’d brought her. Unanswered questions were part of what drove her. He was uncertain how to broach the other reason he’d asked her to come.
God, it’s hot,
Jenny said, looking toward the sun, which baked them. Not even a breath of wind.
Dog days.
Not technically,
she said.
Technically?
He smiled. So when are dog days? Technically.
"According to the Farmers’ Almanac, the forty days from July third through August eleventh."
He shook his head. You’re way too precise in your thinking. Your mom, she was the same way.
Jenny brought her gaze to bear on her father. She was a lawyer. She had to be precise. Legal strictures. I’m a journalist. Lots of the same strictures apply.
She looked away, down at the water a hundred feet below. Mind if I take a dip before we go on?
No. Mind if I join you?
They descended the cone and retraced their path to the boulder where the boat was secured. They’d worn their bathing suits under their other clothing, and they quickly stripped. Jenny slipped into the water first and Cork followed.
The lake had been warming all summer, but even so it still held a chill that was a wonderful relief to the heat of the day.
So?
Cork said, in clumsy opening.
His daughter turned her head to the sky and closed her eyes and lay on her back, so that her ears were below the surface and she could pretend not to hear him.
I just want to know one thing. And I know you can hear me.
It starts with one thing,
she said with her eyes still closed. It ends up everything. That’s how you operate.
Old dog, old trick,
he said, waited a moment, then repeated, So?
She righted herself, treaded water, and gave in. All right, what do you want to know?
Are you going to marry him?
That’s a complicated question.
I think the question is fairly simple.
Well, I can’t answer it.
Because of you or him?
It’s a decision we’re both involved in.
You’d tell your mother,
he said.
She wouldn’t put me on the rack.
Have I?
You will if you don’t get an answer.
I suppose you’ve talked to Aunt Rose.
She didn’t reply, but her silence itself gave him his answer.
But you won’t talk to me.
There are things women understand, Dad.
There are things fathers should be let in on. Look, I don’t know why you can’t give me a straightforward answer, and that’s what concerns me.
There are issues we need to settle first.
Children?
Ah, children,
she said, as if she suddenly understood. That’s why you brought me here to show me those pictographs. This is all about children, isn’t it?
Not completely. But you indicated there are issues,
he said. And I’m betting that’s one. He doesn’t want them, does he?
Maybe it’s me who doesn’t.
Is it?
Again, her silence was his answer. You’ve been down this road before, Jenny.
See? Right there.
She lifted her arm and pointed an accusing finger at him. Water dripped from the tip in crystal pearls. That’s why I don’t talk to you.
It was only an observation.
It was a criticism, and you know it.
I didn’t mean—
I’m finished swimming. Let’s go.
He’d blown it. In his imagining, the discussion had gone differently, had ended with them understanding each other, touching heart to heart in the way they used to when she was much younger. Instead he watched her breaststroke away from him to the dinghy, leaving him feeling stupid and treading water.
They threaded their way out of the convoluted gathering of islands. Jenny sat rigid in the bow, fiercely giving him her back. As soon as they hit the open water of the main channel, he headed the dinghy again toward the southwest.
When he saw the sky there, he was, for a moment, stunned breathless.
Dad?
Jenny said from the bow. She’d seen it, too, and she turned back to him, fear huge in her eyes.
Good God Almighty,
he whispered.
TWO
Rose was in the middle of rolling a piecrust. She’d promised pie for dessert that night, and the kids had volunteered to hunt for blueberries. Though it was late in the season, weeks past the normal time for harvesting berries, at every place the houseboat had anchored so far, they’d had luck with their picking. It had to do with the unusual heat, Rose speculated.
Behind her, Mal came into the galley and encircled her waist with his arms.
They’re finally gone,
he said.
Let me wash my hands.
Rose lifted them so that he could see they were covered with flour.
No time. They’ll be back before you know it.
He turned her, kissed her long but delicately, and said, And besides, the smell of piecrust is very sexy.
They made love in their cabin. Afterward, she lay cradled in the crook of Mal’s outstretched arm.
The houseboat was lovely, but there was no privacy. It was a rare pleasure to have the boat to themselves. There was something about this untamed country that stirred the wild in Rose. She smiled, thinking how odd it was to her now that before Mal had come into her life she’d seriously considered joining an order. When she first met him, he’d been a priest, a cleric stumbling in his belief and assigned to a small parish in the great North Woods of Minnesota. Rose had fallen in love with him; terrible events had followed, events not his doing or hers, nor was their love the cause, but in the end, Mal had chosen to leave the priesthood. He hadn’t turned his back on the Church. He’d simply opened his heart to Rose. Something she thanked God for every day.
Mal kissed her shoulder. They’ll be coming back soon.
They’re such good kids,
she said.
The best.
They’re grown now.
Not quite, but growing.
I remember when they were small. Yesterday, it seems.
Nature of the beast. We all grow up.
He spoke softly into her ear. Do you miss them being small and needing you? Are you thinking we should try again ourselves?
She smiled. We just did.
You know what I mean.
She knew. The thermometers. The graphs. And the specialists.
I’m forty-four years old,
she said. I think at this point it’s a miracle I’m willing to leave in God’s hands. They’ll be coming back soon. We should get up.
She moved to rise, but Mal held her down for a moment, gently.
I love you, Rose,
he said. I’ll give you anything in the world that I can.
He looked so deeply, so seriously into her eyes that her heart melted all over again. You’ve already given me the best thing, sweetheart.
And she kissed him a very long time to let him know how much she appreciated the gift that was his heart.
She dressed and stepped out onto the platform of the bow, looking north across the little bay to the tip of the island where Anne and Stephen had swum to search for blueberries. She didn’t see them. Still hunting, she thought. Her husband came to her side, and they stood together, and then she turned and looked to the southwest.
She gave a little cry and said breathlessly, Oh, Mal.
He looked there, too, and uttered in disbelieving horror, Sweet Jesus.
The formation stretched from horizon to horizon, a mountain of dark cloud. The leading edge was rounded, like a bow drawn taut. Or, Cork thought later in his recollections, like a great plateau in the sky, shaped by forces so enormous he couldn’t even begin to imagine the scope of their power. The monster rose from the earth itself, straight up tens of thousands of feet in a sheer, curving wall the color of sooted stone. Behind it, there was no sky, only that great unstoppable body of storm. Lightning rippled along the top of the formation and struck deep inside in angry flashes that made the cloud, in moments of brilliance, seem almost translucent. The great plateau of the storm swept toward them with unbelievable speed. Before it, the lake was a swell of turbulent water. Cork understood that in only a few minutes all hell would hit them, hit them there in the open in their flimsy dinghy.
He swung the tiller, and the boat dug a deep, curling trough in the green water. Jenny gripped the bow and bent low as if to make herself more aerodynamic, although it could have been that she was simply cowering in the shadow of what was about to strike. Cork shot back toward the narrow channel where, only a minute before, they’d emerged from the gathering of islands. The outer islands were small and provided little protection. He hoped there was enough time to get well inside the archipelago. Full throttle, he cut along channels where the possibility of submerged rocks had, earlier, made him proceed so carefully. Desperately, he scanned the shorelines ahead, searching for some inlet that might offer the hope of shelter.
The beast struck before he could make them safe.
* * *
They were in one of the wider channels. Jenny was looking frantically forward. Ahead and to the left, she saw a small landing between two outthrusts of stone. Before she could turn to tell her father, the wind hit her as if someone had swung a telephone pole. She flew forward and smacked her head against the prow. She was stunned but still fully aware of the danger and held to the gunwales for dear life. She fought her way back onto her seat, but an instant later the dinghy swung sharply right, and again she was almost thrown overboard.
Dad!
she cried, turning her face into the raging face of the wind.
Her father was no longer at the tiller. The stern of the boat was empty. Without any hand on the throttle, the little kicker engine was winding down, threatening to die. Jenny bent low into the gale and clawed her way to the back of the dinghy. She grasped the tiller of the outboard and gave the engine gas and tried to bring the boat about and find her father. A useless maneuver, she quickly discovered. There was no way she could put the boat crosswind and not be swamped by the waves, enormous even in that channel. And if the waves didn’t get her, the wind was strong enough to lift her, boat and all, and throw her easily against the cliff face that loomed to her right.
Then the rain hit, a downpour pushed horizontal by the fury, threatening to drown her.
She had no time to think. She simply fought to survive. She gave the boat full throttle, shot from the channel, and curled into the lee of the starboard island. A great pine toppled almost directly in her path, and she swerved; the hull scraped wood and the props cut branches. She shot forward, the wind cupped her, and the boat tipped; she swung left, and the wind was again at her back, waves sloshing over the stern. Across the channel where she now found herself, she spotted a beach of small rocks at the base of a tall outcropping capped with cedars. The opening was only slighter wider than the dinghy was long, but she launched the boat straight for it and onto the rocks of the tiny inlet. She heard the rending of the hull and the grind and pop as the propeller blades were sheared off by stone.
She leaped from the boat, and the wind immediately knocked her over. On all fours, she crawled into the shelter of the outcropping. The island was forested with pines bent by the force of the wind, their crowns pushed almost parallel to the ground. She heard an explosion like a shotgun blast very close. A second later, she watched the trunk of a hundred-foot-tall pine snap in two. Rain continued in horizontal sheets. Mixed with it were hailstones that hit the beach like rocks from a slingshot. Jenny pressed against the solid body of the outcropping, grateful for the little haven. Then she heard a deafening crack directly above. In the next instant, a cedar that had crowned the outcrop fell. It hit near her feet. The whipping of its branches lashed her, and she pressed still harder to the wall.
Through the mesh of the cedar boughs, she could see the dinghy. Each sweep of the waves forced it higher and higher onto the rocks and more and more into the rage of the wind. It was finally lifted off the ground, outboard and all, and thrown a dozen yards, where it slammed against a shattered pine trunk and lay in a crumpled mess.
Thunderclaps came one after another and with them the explosion of tree trunks, until the sound was like the discharge of batteries in a heated battle. Rain fell so thick that everything beyond the inlet became a blur. Water poured over her, not only out of the sky but also down the face of the rock, and she sat helpless in the deluge.
A quarter of an hour into the storm, she saw movement near the broken hull of the boat. Frantic motion. She thought it must be someone caught in the storm, and for a brief, almost joyful moment, she hoped it was her father. She rose almost fully upright and saw that it wasn’t a human being at all but a gray wolf running round and round in blind terror. As she watched, a broken section of evergreen as large as a canoe fell from the sky and crushed the animal. Jenny crouched again and tried to hold to hope for her father’s safety.
For nearly an hour, the world was in upheaval, then as suddenly as it had come the storm passed, the rain turned to drizzle, and the lake lay in a stillness like death.
Jenny stood slowly. The water had calmed. Far to the west, she saw blue sky.
She looked inland at the island where she was now stranded and gasped. The place was devastated, blasted, the forest that had covered it nearly obliterated. The great majority of the trees had been toppled and their trunks lay in jumbled masses on the ground. The ragged tops of stumps jutted up among them, the wood deep at their center exposed, white as bone.
Except in photos of war, Jenny had never seen such destruction. She edged her way from behind the fallen cedar and crossed the rocky beach of the inlet. The smashed boat was pinned beneath a long section of pine that she couldn’t have budged even if she’d wanted to.
At her back, she heard a pitiful whining. And she remembered the wolf. She made her way to where she’d seen the animal go down and began pulling away evergreen branches. Near her hands came a sudden, vicious snarling, and she drew back. More carefully, she removed the remaining cover.
The gray wolf lay under the broken section of pine trunk that had plummeted from the sky. His eyes were milky red. His mouth, as he snapped at her, was a bloody foaming. His front legs fought for purchase, but his hindquarters were absolutely motionless.
Jenny guessed that the poor creature’s back had been broken. Probably his insides were a mess. She knew what she should do but couldn’t bring herself to do it.
I’m sorry,
she said and turned away.
She stared across the channel at the maze of islands and realized with a note of panic that she had no idea from which way she’d come. Everything looked the same, none of it familiar. In which channel had she lost her father? If she began to look for him, where would that be?
Dad!
she screamed. Dad, where are you?
Behind her the wolf let out a groan that ended in a high-pitched cry. She could hear his painful, labored breathing.
Dad!
she yelled again, so loud it threatened to tear her throat.
The only sound in return came from the suffering wolf at her back.
Tears welled up, of frustration, of fear. She wiped them away and turned around. She found a