“Was anyone else hurt?”

“Only Lewis.”

“Thank God for that. Are you all right?”

“Just tired.” His eyes were still on the horizon. “Tired of the cruelty in how we treat one another.”

“Not everyone is cruel, Dad. You’re not.”

“Maybe I am without knowing it. Maybe everybody is.”

“That’s part of being human, isn’t it? And that’s why there’s forgiveness.”

He gave a little laugh. “This from my daughter who shunned the nunnery.”

“I wanted to kill Lewis today,” she confessed. “I didn’t feel an ounce of forgiveness in my heart.”

“And now?”

She shrugged. “Now I just feel guilty for hating him.”

“I learned some things today about Lewis. He grew up surrounded by cruelty. Enough that maybe I can understand how he became so warped.” He still held her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Maybe understanding is the beginning of forgiveness?”

“I’ll still have to work on that.” She shifted in the swing and the chains that held it gave a little squeal. “Do you know who killed him?”

“I think it was Mathias Paavola. And I believe Paavola was involved in killing Fawn Blacksmith and Olivia Hamilton. I think there may be others he’s killed.” He shook his head. “How Paavola’s soul could get that evil, I have no idea.”

Headlights tunneled through the gathering dark on Gooseberry Lane. Rainy pulled into the drive, and Stephen and Belle pulled in beside her. They all walked toward the front porch, looking every bit as tired and weighted as Annie’s father had looked.

“Hard day at Spirit Crossing?” Cork asked as they mounted the porch steps.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Rainy leaned to him and gave him a kiss, then studied his face in the gloom of the evening. “You look beat, too.”

“A lot to share.”

Maria opened the screen door and stepped out. “I thought I heard voices. I have prepared dinner. Are you hungry?”

“Bless you,” Stephen said. “I could eat a moose.”

CHAPTER 35

Night came to Crow Point with the songs of crickets and tree frogs and the silent splash of stars across the sky. Meloux had asked Prophet to build a fire in the ring behind the rise of the outcrops where the old Mide often gathered those who’d come seeking his advice or his shelter. They’d smudged with sage, and now Daniel sat with Jenny and Waaboo and Prophet and Meloux, all of them aflame with the dancing light of the fire.

“It is hard, this work you do, Daniel English,” the old man said.

“Sometimes it feels pointless, Uncle Henry, like I’m trying to hold back a river. Bad just keeps coming to our people. I think about Fawn Blacksmith and Crystal Two Knives and God knows how many others who may have been murdered by the likes of Lewis and Paavola. It makes me angry and sad, and I sometimes feel so helpless.”

“Yet you continue to do what you can.”

“What else is there?”

Jenny put her hand on his knee. “I love that you keep trying. I love that you care. About me and Waaboo and all the others who need protecting. You are ogichidaa.”

In the language of the Ojibwe, that word meant warrior, or one who stands between evil and his people. Daniel had heard it applied to Jenny’s father on several occasions. Now the word lay on him, and he felt it like a weight on his shoulders.

Prophet said, “The Creator cuts the road through the forest and we follow it. We stumble, we doubt, we sometimes curse the journey that’s been laid out for us, but there’s a reason for the path our reluctant feet follow.”

“You sound like Henry,” Jenny said.

“I take that as a compliment. Although one of the things I’ve learned in my time here is that I need to speak less and listen more.”

Waaboo said, “I like the stories you tell me.”

“What stories?” Daniel asked.

“Based on Jack London, mostly,” Prophet said. “There’s a storyteller for you.”

“Are we safe now?” Jenny asked.

Daniel knew what she meant. Safe now that Adrian Lewis was dead. “Mathias Paavola is still out there. I’m pretty sure he was the one who shot at Waaboo.”

His son looked up at him, eyes burning with light as from a fire. “I’m not afraid.”

“I know you’re not. But until we’ve got Paavola in custody, we need to be sure you’re safe.”

Meloux said, “The woods have been quiet. But we will listen carefully.”

“Will you stay?” Jenny asked.

“Tonight,” Daniel said. “Tomorrow, I need to help find Paavola.”

“How will you do that?”

“I’m not sure.”

Waaboo said, “He has a troubled heart.”

They all looked at the boy, who was staring into the fire.

“How do you know that?” Jenny asked.

“I felt it in the cabin.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before this?”

“I felt a lot in the cabin. It was hard to sort out.”

“Troubled how?” Daniel asked.