Page 15 of The River We Remember

“All right, then,” Graff agreed. “You have bedding for yourself?”

“A couple of blankets in the trunk of my cruiser. That’ll do.”

“What about dinner?” Asa said. “You’re going to get hungry.”

“One night without dinner won’t kill me.”

“Be happy to bring out a sandwich,” Graff offered.

“Just cover the jailhouse.”

Asa Fielding left first. After he was gone, Graff took a final look around and shook his head. “There’s a lot that’s not right here, Brody.”

“Tomorrow, we’ll see about sorting it out.”

Brody waited until both deputies were well away from Inkpaduta Bend, then he returned to the riverbank. He stood a long time looking over the items Quinn had left there. He went to his cruiser and took from the trunk the chamois cloth he used to wipe the vehicle dry whenever he washed it. He started with Quinn’s truck, wiping clean the door handles, the steering wheel, the dash, the whiskey bottle. He went to the riverbank and wiped down the tackle box, the Coleman lantern, and the handle of the fishing rod. He lifted the big shotgun from the middle of the great stain of blood and wiped that clean, too. Finally, he circled the whole scene searching in the wild grass for anything he might have missed. He found another empty pint bottle of Beam splashed with blood. He held it to the dying light and saw fingerprints all over the glass.

“God damn you, Jimmy Quinn,” he said.

He cast the bottle into the middle of the river, where the current snatched it away, and he stood watching as it filled with the tea-colored water of the Alabaster and sank utterly from sight.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN 1857, AN Indian named Inkpaduta led a small band of renegade Wahpekute on a bloody raid that began in Iowa near Spirit Lake and extended into what is now southern Minnesota. They killed many dozen settlers along the way and took four white women prisoner. They were believed to have camped several days on the Alabaster River, at the base of Fordham Ridge, hence the name of the point of land where Brody, more than a century later, lay on a blanket, his head cradled on a second blanket rolled into a makeshift pillow, and stared up at a black sky powdered with stars. It was a warm night, full of life. From the tall grass all around him came the chirr of spring field crickets. Tree frogs sang in the birches that lined the river. From high up Fordham Ridge came occasional yips and howls that he was pretty sure were coyotes. He was about as far away from another human being as you could get in Black Earth County, and he felt empty. This wasn’t a new feeling. It didn’t come over him suddenly just because he lay alone under such a vast night sky. Brody felt empty most of the time.

He’d never married, though he’d been in love. Once. Crazy in love. It hadn’t turned out well. Then he’d gone to war and had come back a different man, his heart scarred by wounds far worse than any love could deliver.

He’d been lying wide awake for an hour after hard dark when Hector, who’d been asleep in the grass nearby, lifted his head and gave a low growl. Brody put out his hand and stroked his dog’s back, which had gone stiff. “What is it, boy?”

Then Brody heard a noise, maybe the same one Hector had picked up. It sounded like soft crying, almost human. He strained to hear more clearly, but the noise was already gone.

Coyotes, Brody told himself. Coyotes that had come down to the river to drink.

Still, the land was mysterious. Two of the women taken captive during Inkpaduta’s raid had been killed by the renegades in their flight, and there were those who believed that at least one of the murders had taken place on Inkpaduta Bend. No one really knew the truth, but the story in Black Earth County was that you could sometimes hear the woman crying. And Brody thought that if one of those poor women had, in fact, met her end there, then who knew? Everything that died became a part of the earth where it lay, and maybe more than just flesh and bone was involved in that kind of transfer. Spirit, perhaps. If so, what kind of spirit resided in a place where brutal death had occurred? A soul that still wept? Brody wasn’t particularly superstitious, but he couldn’t help feeling that something was on that bend with him.

But in almost the same moment Brody thought these things, Hector growled again and was answered by the low, distant growl of a car engine as a vehicle slowly made its way along the grown-over lane that led to the tip of Inkpaduta Bend. Brody looked at his watch. The luminous face indicated ten forty-five. Graff? he wondered. Or Fielding? Some trouble?

He threw off his blanket and stood. Hector was already up on all fours, looking in the direction of the engine noise. The headlights cut a wide swath in the dark, and Brody saw night insects dart across the beams. He couldn’t tell the make of the vehicle yet but could see that it was a sedan of some kind. It drew up behind his cruiser. The lights died and the engine was turned off. The driver’s door opened, and a figure emerged, black against the paler dark under the stars.

“Hello, Brody.”

The voice was soft, melodious, playful, and Brody recognized it instantly.

“Hello, Garnet.” He didn’t bother to hide his pleasure.

“Brought you something,” she said, walking toward him through the high grass. When she was near enough that he could smell her perfume, she reached out her right hand, which held a paper plate covered in aluminum foil. “When you didn’t come down for the fireworks, I went to the jailhouse and found Connie Graff. He told me you were here and that you’d be hungry. I brought you some cold fried chicken and potato salad. Cookies, too. And I have a ham bone for Hector, if that’s okay.”

“Thanks.”

He took the plate, laid it on the hood of the cruiser. “Does Tom know you’re here?”

Tom was Brody’s brother, Garnet’s husband.

“After we packed up the picnic things at the park, I told him I wanted to stay behind and help the ladies’ auxiliary clean up their area. I kept the car, and he took the kids and your mom home in the pickup. He’s in bed by now, dead to the world.” She looked toward the river. “So, you found the place where Jimmy died?”

“Pretty sure.”

“How did it happen?”