Luckily, Gabe was in his garage and had the starter Keoman's truck needed in stock. Near twilight, Keoman pulled into the driveway of his old log home and slammed on the brakes just in time.
The roar of pain filled his head soundlessly but viciously. He clamped both hands at his temples and gritted his teeth. After a few seconds, his moan of agony burst free, filling the cab of the truck with the resonance of his torture. Even the pressure of his palms against his head hurt. He jerked them free and fumbled in the door pocket for the pills and water bottle. He swallowed two pills and leaned against the headrest, waiting for relief.
White flashes exploded behind his closed eyelids and disintegrated into dripping runs of colors. Violent hues: angry yellow, gray-green, virulent red. Each color stabbed new pain into the portion of his mind where it flowed.
"Midé Manido," he pleaded quietly so as not to make the pain even worse with the sound of his voice. "Please. Please make it stop."
His Great Spirit didn't answer. He'd never answered even once since these debilitating episodes began in the hospital. He'd gone to Gagewin, the tribal Grand Midé, for help, but no ceremony alleviated the agony that struck with scarce warning. Keoman had even returned to the doctor in Duluth, gone through every one of the tests she recommended. She found nothing. No lingering trauma from the severe head injuries he'd suffered in the wreck last December, which the sadistic monster that prowled the Northwood had caused. No tumor shading silently larger and larger in the recesses of his brain. No blood disease, and he'd given numerous vials without complaint, hoping for an answer. Needing an answer he could understand, even if it meant looming death.
This existence, never being able to sleep or relax, living on the edge every second, waiting for the next episode, wasn't life. It was facing his mortality every waking moment.
Finally the excruciating throbbing eased. Keoman squinted his eyes at first, allowing his vision to adjust to the daylight brightness through his windshield. He'd learned before not to push it, not to open his eyes in relief when the pain suddenly ceased — or when it slowly weakened. He never knew which way each instance would end, only that it would eventually.
Had always so far, anyway. One of these times it might not. Should that happen, he faced a descent into madness. Or, given his recent experiences, a further descent.
Perhaps this pain was, as one doctor had suggested, psychological. If so, it sure as hell felt real.
If his mind sank into insanity, that would help explain his loss of contact with the other side, his spiritual side. For damn sure, his deteriorating relationship with the Neris Lake townsfolks didn't help. Keoman wasn't sure how much longer he could handle being ostracized by those unaware of his undercover work before he spent so many long, unconscious weeks in the hospital.
Why had he ever agreed to try to help the sheriff and the tribe uncover the drug pockets on their land? Too many now believed he had turned rogue, became involved in activities totally against what he had stood for all his life. The truth hadn't been revealed even to explain the money found in his Jeep after the wreck. His work was compromised now, although the investigation was ongoing in an attempt to salvage it, and no one would give him even an estimate of when his name would be cleared.
Instead of getting out of the truck to walk into his cabin, where it would take a good half hour after he turned up the thermostat for the heat to penetrate, he reached for the pickup's heater control. He was always freezing after these episodes.
One thing the intense pain had done was wash the face of that small, unknown child out of his mind for the moment. Now the memory descended full force once more. Who had done such horror to an innocent one?
The woman at the clinic had been a surprise. He'd gathered from Daisy before he left that Dr. Channing Drury had visited the clinic on an unannounced preliminary trip to see if she was interested in joining Dr. Silver's practice.
She would make a nice addition to the scenery in town. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, her body cared for as though she kept her health in mind. The dark auburn hair might have been more reddish in her youth. Her eyes were emerald, a different shade of green than he had seen before.
Keoman frowned. He'd noticed the agony shadowing Dr. Drury's eyes when she looked at the child. It appeared to be more than a doctor's care for her patient. The woman's grief went deep, perhaps a remembrance of something personal. While he watched her care for the child despite her hidden sorrow, a different awareness from his concern over the little girl emerged, one that made a man want to comfort a woman who needed his care.
When Dr. Drury unwrapped her on the exam table, Keoman studied the tiny face closely, yet no recognition stirred. No one on the reservation had reported a lost child. Keoman would have heard. Word of something like this would spread like wildfire in a drought-stricken summer. Not all their tribal members lived on the reservation, though. In fact, only a small percentage made their homes on the old land, land that was theirs by right but for which they'd had to petition the whites to regain true ownership.
Sheriff Hjak might know. Keoman was sure someone at the clinic had notified him by now. He had Hjak's cell phone number. However, if he was at the clinic discussing the child, the sheriff wouldn't appreciate Keoman calling.
Keoman stared down at the truck's console, where he kept his own stupid cell phone, the one a friend had pushed on him when he found out Keoman didn't have a land line in his house. With a grimace of distaste, he retrieved it and dialed.
"Yes?"
"Are you where you can talk?" Keoman asked.
"A minute."
A few seconds later, Gagewin said, "Go ahead."
"I just left Neris Lake. I've had another … episode, but that's not why I'm calling. I—"
"Are you all right?" Gagewin broke in.
"Yes. Forget that. I found a small, maybe two- or three-year-old little girl in a drainage ditch along Harbor Avenue. She was nearly dead. May have died by now. I rushed her to the clinic."
"Who? No one has reported a child missing."
"I didn't recognize her."
"What…?" The Grand Midé cleared his throat. Something like this would upset even this stoic Elder, who had been privy to many hideous occurrences in his life. "What do you think happened to her?"
Keoman took a deep breath. "She only wore a pair of panties."
"Manido." Then Gagewin cursed. "Does the sheriff know?"
"I assume the clinic called him. That would be procedure."
"I'll put the word out here. See if we can identify her. In the meantime … I was just getting ready to contact you, too. Something's happening, and I'm calling a gathering for this evening."
"Something?" Keoman repeated.
"It's … we'll talk tonight. Same time, but at my house."
Keoman sighed in defeat before he even tried to refuse to attend. "I'll be there."
He disconnected the cell phone and leaned against the headrest again. Maybe he should start drinking. Maybe that would pollute him enough physically and mentally that things wouldn't matter any longer.
~~~~
The snow storm was worsening, but Keoman had attended so many gatherings that he could have found the driveway to Gagewin's in a blizzard. The Grand Midé's house was isolated, though not purposely. Gagewin's family had owned this sixty acres of land for generations. Keoman had heard the story of how they had come to live here, part of the tribal history protected and saved for all Ojibway descendants who cared to honor their ancestry.
The man who originally claimed the homestead in the early 1880's was a white man, the son of a fur trader from France. The fur trader's son had come to the area to see the world his father had told him about. He fell in love with the land and life, ended up in the Northwood, and staked a claim on a hundred and sixty beautiful acres of wilderness north of Neris Lake, the lake the town that grew up here was named for. The man had never married, but lore indicated he was in love with a Native American woman, one of Gagewin's many times great-grandmothers — who was already married to a Native American man. The settler's will left the land in three parcels to the woman and her two sons. Back then, as the story went, it was hard for a Native American man to lay title to property, let alone a woman, white or Indian. However, the men in Gagewin's family managed the trek through the legal system.
Keoman drove down a path through blue spruce on both sides of the drive until the large two-story log cabin came into view. The original one-room structure remained, isolated from the main house and set off from other outbuildings, which included a garage, a large barn for storage for snowmobiles and boats, and a kennel for the sled dogs Gagewin raised. Earlier heads of the family, and now Gagewin, used the old cabin for private business.
Several of the dogs always ran loose, and three of them met Keoman's pickup, their barks setting off the unlucky dogs still in the extensive kennels, until the uproar echoed in the still air. Keoman followed the snow-covered driveway on around the house. The dogs kept pace, their noise accompanying him.
At this time of year, the huge pines and birch sheltering both cabins were covered in white. Even in early April, months-old snow still blanketed the far northland and warm days were yet a remembered hope. Once in a while a nice day would tempt everyone with the promise of an early spring, an infrequent enough occasion to savor every minute to the hilt.
He parked in the midst of several other pickups, SUV's and even snowmobiles. Many of the tribal members used their snowmobiles for shorter travels, both to conserve gas and because they enjoyed that mode of travel in the winter. Some of them even bought and trained Gagewin's dogs, then used them for winter transportation or traveled down the shore of Lake Superior to enter the Beargrease sled dog race in late January or early February. None would travel by sled dogs to Gagewin's, though. The huskies and mixed breeds were notorious for fighting with dogs outside their own teams, and there were important things to discuss rather than waste time separating bad-tempered dogs.
On the porch, Keoman kicked the snow off his boots, then walked into the cabin without knocking. He was part of this group, although he'd wished more than once he could resign. He should have been more comfortable here. At least, these men and women knew why he was living a half-lie life outside this room. Still, although he had taken on the mission agreeably at first, his resentment had grown during the months of tedious undercover work.
And now, with the episodes of pain, bordering on blackouts … more to the point, his burgeoning fear of a blackout descending at a time it might endanger him….
One of the few women in the group met Keoman as he came in the door.
"Hello, Grandmother," Keoman reverently greeted Nodinens, a scrappy Elder who was the main keeper of tribal history and ancestry. She would probably be called a computer geek in the white world, and one of the snowmobiles outside was hers.
"Keoman," Nodinens replied, concern in her chocolate eyes. "I wish you would come by sometime. I have not seen you in ages."
If a visit was all she wanted, Keoman would have been completely agreeable. However, there was more, and right now, he wasn't ready to get into that with this woman. Although Nodinens was as honest and compassionate as anyone Keoman had ever known, she could be a bit pushy at times. His short temper might antagonize her and lose him a valued member of his dwindling circle of friends.
"I'll come as soon as I can," he promised. And he would. When he could.
"You are the last to arrive," Gagewin said from his place at the head of the table. "If you want anything to eat or drink, get it, so we can start."
"I'm fine." Keoman walked over to the table and took his regular chair, a few spaces down from Gagewin. Someone had already set bottles of water at each place, and Keoman sighed. That indicated it would be a long, involved meeting.