JW returned to the trailer and thought over his plan. He knew Eagle zeroed out his safe dial when doing the combination. That meant if he could record it somehow, he should be able to crack it. He plugged the receiver in and listened on the earbuds to see if Eagle would open it to put the thousand dollars back, but just then he saw him step out onto the porch. He put the device away, disappointed.
As he and Jacob drove into town, JW endured a nonstop barrage of questions and observations about horses. Something had turned on inside the boy.
“When they’re grazing, why is it that if you step toward their flank from behind they move away, but if you step from in front they just lift their heads?”
“Because they can’t run backward. Coming from behind is running them off. From in front it’s either pushing them away or saying hello.”
“Can they really feel a fly?”
“Why do you think they flick their skin?”
“But—are they like people?”
“In a lot of ways,” he nodded. “They’re herd animals, so they’re social like us. If you can manage a horse, you can manage anybody. It’s all the same principles.”
The kid was out there in the pen every afternoon and evening now, and JW had noticed that the horse wasn’t planting his feet or pinning his ears anymore. He had heard the boy and his father arguing about how Jacob was skipping his homework in order to be with the horse, and how he was getting Ds in his classes. There was a way Eagle could check online to see the status of Jacob’s homework in every class, but by the time it was posted it was always too late to do anything about it. This constant struggle was driving Eagle crazy. JW made a mental note to keep what he heard over the bug about this and other topics to himself, so he didn’t give himself away. He had to focus on what he had to do.
It was nearly four by the time they pulled into the bumpy North Lake Feed Mill parking lot. The mill itself was a tall, galvanized steel building next to an old railroad spur. There was an old painted ad for Nutrena Feeds way up near the top. Around back, the tower spread out into a long, low L of garage doors into the warehouse. Across the lot was the North Lake Toro & Small Engine Repair. Together, the tower, the warehouse, and the Toro dealership made a big U around the potholed gravel lot. JW backed up to the concrete loading dock by the garage doors.
They both got out, climbed up onto the dock, and walked down to the back door of the mill. JW led the way through a back room, down a narrow hallway with offices and a small restroom on either side, and then into the store. It was full of hardware, traps, poison, hoses, cages, buckets, birdfeeders, and guns. A big window behind the counter looked over the parking lot and the truck scale outside. Manny Peltonen, the mill’s owner, was a thin bachelor of about fifty-five who wore striped engineers’ coveralls every day. JW grabbed a couple of Dorothy’s root beers from the bait cooler and went up to the counter to order the oats. Peltonen was in a good mood, bopping around behind the dusty counter. The register dinged and he handed JW his change.
“Let’s get her loaded up.” Peltonen led the way back to the loading dock. But then he noticed Jacob handling the merchandise.
“Can I help you?” he said. He was polite, but JW could sense an undercurrent of suspicion.
Jacob looked up and JW saw a different boy, as if through Peltonen’s eyes. His demeanor suddenly seemed surly. His court shoes, loosely tied. His baggy shorts. His loose-jointed, long-fingered movements.
“I’m okay,” Jacob said without making eye contact.
Manny stood for a moment, his eyes running from Jacob to the merchandise rack and back. JW realized what was going through his mind: he didn’t want to leave the suspicious Native American boy in the store unattended. “He’s with me,” he said.
Manny turned to look at him, his eyebrows furrowing and his face recoiling in surprise. “Him? Oh! Well, then let’s go get your grain!” His face immediately softened. He grinned, but his eyes lingered briefly on Jacob as he walked past. He led JW outside onto the loading dock. He strolled over to the open garage door.
“Be right back.”
Peltonen grabbed a sack dolly and disappeared. JW heard him throwing sacks, and then he reappeared, wheeling six fifty-pound bags of fourteen-percent-protein sweet feed, a mix of oats, cracked corn, pellet meal, and molasses. He parked the load behind the truck’s tailgate and helped JW swing the bags into the bed. As they worked, JW noticed Jacob loitering inside the big window.
“Got yourself a stall boy, huh?”
“Something like that.” JW watched as Jacob, unseen by Peltonen, stuck a pack of cigars into his shirt.
“They’re good for that,” Peltonen went on, his back still turned to the boy. “Just keep ’em away from your liquor cabinet, ay?”
Peltonen winked at JW. He set a catch on the feed dolly so it wouldn’t tip and they tossed the last of the bags into the pickup bed. JW nodded and smiled thinly as Jacob wandered casually out.
“Thanks,” he said. Jacob came over and the two of them got in the truck and pulled out.
JW handed a Dorothy’s to Jacob and opened the other. He took a long sip. The soda had been created by a woman who lived alone like some Finnish Maderakka on an island in the Boundary Waters. In winter, she harvested lake ice and stored it draped in sawdust. In summer, she used it to cool the brew she sold to paddlers. She had no power, no water, and no neighbors. Surrounded by two million acres, she was arguably the most isolated woman in America, a goddess of the lakes. She was gone now, but Dorothy’s root beer had become an iconic drink of the Northland.
“Thanks,” said Jacob, and twisted the top off.
JW thought about what had just happened as he drove down the side streets, heading for the highway, the dream catcher swaying. The cigars were faintly visible through Jacob’s shirt. He pulled over and shifted into park. Jacob looked up at him.
“What’s up?”
He shut the engine off. “What the hell was that all about?” he asked.
“What?” Jacob was confused and defensive.
“You like cigars?”
“No.” He looked offended now, but JW could see an artery thumping in the side of his neck.
“Really.”
“They’re in your shirt. Right there.”
He reached over and tapped the box through the fabric. Jacob swatted his hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.” He looked away out the window, busted and humiliated. JW shook his head.
“Look, I’m not gonna waste your time tellin’ you ’bout right and wrong. But I think you’re stronger than that—actually, I know you’re stronger than that. I’ve seen it.”
Jacob looked down. He fumbled and almost dropped the bottle, but quickly caught it, then had to slurp up the foam from the top.
“You don’t have to act out people’s stereotypes,” JW continued. “Those stupid kids or that asshole in there. You’re smarter than them. Beat their expectation. Fight it. There are plenty of other places where people don’t think like this …”
“Like where?”
JW sighed. “Just take my word for it. Look, you do what you want. Maybe you want this kind of life. But if you want to give those cigars back, I’d be proud to stand beside you.”
Jacob looked up at him, his face full of worry.
A few long moments later they stepped back into the feed store. Beyond the glass case full of hunting knives, Manny was reading a newsletter on bedding plants.
“You’re back! Did you forget something?”
“No,” replied JW.
He turned and saw that Jacob was petrified, with no idea what to say or how to broach the subject. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“My friend Jacob here’s got something to say.”
Jacob set the cigars on the counter.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was a mistake.”
Manny looked at the cigars, then back at Jacob. His wrinkled watery eyes became small and hard. “You stole those from me.”
“He decided to bring them back,” said JW.
Manny saw the firm expression on JW’s face and registered the tone in his voice. He looked back at Jacob, his expression now somewhat cowed. “I could call the cops right now and have you arrested. They’d throw you in jail,” he said.
Jacob stared at the floor. The thin wooden planks had been worn bare long ago. “I know,” he said, his voice barely audible.
Manny looked back at JW. “You put him up to this.”
“No sir, it was his decision. But I’d say it’s a pretty honorable thing when a guy admits what he’s done and owns up to it himself. Wouldn’t you?”
Manny stared into his eyes for several seconds, then looked at Jacob and nodded toward the door. “Get out of here.”
They drove back through the side streets in silence and turned onto the main highway. Jacob spent most of the ride picking at the label of his root beer bottle. Finally, JW reached over and shook him by the shoulder.
“Stop it!” Jacob protested, stifling a grin. Wind blew in through the open windows.
“You did a really good thing there,” JW said. “I’m really proud of you. It’s tough to be your own man.”
“Okay, enough,” said Jacob, but then he smiled and laughed awkwardly. “Come on! I mean it!”
JW smiled and took a long draught of his root beer as they drove out among the farm fields. The warm fall breeze blew in through the windows, ruffling their hair, and outside combines spewed yellow streams of grain into their wagons. He turned on Clapton, and for a brief moment, he didn’t have a care in the world.