Lewis eyed Waaboo. “You the kid sees things?”
“You know he is,” Jenny said, and now she seemed ready to shoot the man.
Prophet held up the rifle he’d taken from Lewis and said to the others, “This isn’t the weapon that fired the shot at Waaboo this morning. That cartridge was a thirty-aught-six. This Winchester is loaded with two-seventies.”
Meloux said quietly to Lewis, “Your heart is a rage of hate. It has been this way for a long time.”
“The hell with you.”
“I wouldn’t speak that way to this man,” Prophet advised.
“What are you going to do about it, shoot me?”
“I’m guessing no one would miss you if I did.”
“I don’t want Waaboo here,” Jenny said.
She put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. “I want to stay.”
Meloux said, “Let him see this.”
“Henry…” Jenny began.
“He will learn something important,” Meloux said.
She didn’t seem happy, but she didn’t leave with her son.
“How did you find me?” Annie asked.
Lewis just smiled. He reminded her of a vicious dog baring its teeth.
“Your shoulder bag, Annie,” Prophet said. “May I see it?”
From the chairback where she’d hung it earlier, Annie lifted the embroidered shoulder bag she carried with her everywhere and handed it to Prophet. He spent a minute carefully inspecting it, then brought out an item that had recently become familiar to them all. An AirTag.
“He followed you,” Prophet said.
Annie eyed the little device and thought for a moment. “When I blacked out at Spirit Crossing.” She glared at Lewis. “You put it in my bag then, didn’t you?”
His predatory grin widened.
“How many?” Meloux asked.
“How many what?” Lewis replied in a snarl.
“How many spirits have you sent on the Path of Souls?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, old man.”
“Your heart is ice,” Meloux said.
“Windigo,” Prophet said.
The Mide nodded and said to Lewis, “It is a hunger, this thing inside you.”
“I know about the Windigo,” Waaboo chimed in. “It’s a cannibal giant with a heart of ice, Mishomis. It eats people.”
“It’s just a myth,” Jenny said.
Annie looked into Lewis’s eyes, deep wells of inhumanity. “No, Jenny,” she said. “It’s not just a myth.” Then she echoed Meloux. “How many?”
“You’ll never know.” And to Annie’s amazement, his grin widened even more, so that it became like a broad doorway into the hell of his soul.
Meloux beckoned Waaboo to him and put his arm around the little boy. “There is truth in our stories of monsters. And there is truth in our stories of heroes. The Creator does not allow one without offering the other to balance. You have the heart of a hero, Little Rabbit. Never forget that.”
“What do we do with him?” Prophet nodded toward the grinning monster in Meloux’s cabin.
Annie’s heart, hard as stone at the moment, had an answer. “Send him on the path to hell.”
Meloux had a different one. “We give him to those who see to the law.”
Prophet gave a nod. “But I’d rather not have to explain this and myself to the sheriff’s people. I’ll call the tribal police.”
LuJean Desjardins arrived in a tribal police Tahoe, accompanied by Officer Anthony “Zippy” Zuppardo. He was in his midtwenties, and although his skin was dark, it was the result of a summer tan. He had no Native blood in him at all. Still, Annie had heard from Daniel that he was a good officer and conducted himself well on the rez.
“I called Monte. Then I radioed the Tamarack sheriff’s office,” LuJean told them. “Deputies will meet us in Allouette and take custody of this scumbag.”
“We’ll need statements from everybody,” Zuppardo said.
