microphone, he saw two men and a woman, who he assumed must be the poets. They were middle aged, the woman possibly a bit older than the men, and they were all leafing through pages of text. One of the men had a ponytail and a neatly trimmed gray beard. Lance thought he looked like an artist. The other man looked totally normal, almost like a bank teller, while the womanwas thin and elegantly dressed. She didn’t look like any of the women that Lance usually associated with—women who, for the most part, were employed by the U.S. Forest Service. He was well aware that he didn’t fit in with the rest of the audience. No doubt he looked like he’d just climbed off a snowmobile, while many of the others wore clothing that looked homemade, even though it had probably been bought in a shop and for a higher price than all of the insulating, weatherproof, synthetic fibers in which he’d wrapped his body—from the underwear made of knitted polyester with a quick-dry function to the enormous thermal jacket he’d draped over the back of his chair.
Chrissy wound her way between the tables carrying a glass of Diet Coke and a mug with steam rising from it. There was something about the way she walked that seemed so respectful, almost as if she were stooping forward a bit so as not to disturb the others. She was by far the youngest person in the bar, and Lance thought that maybe he ought to feel proud of his niece. But he noticed that several people cast an inquisitive glance in her direction as she walked past in those strange black clothes of hers, with the heavy eyeliner and the black lipstick. So when she set the tea and Coke on their table and sat down, he instead felt embarrassed. Did they think she was his daughter?
“Do I really have to stay here?” he said.
She frowned as if she didn’t understand the question.
“How about if I run over to Lakeview and visit your grandmother in the meantime?” he went on. “Then I’ll pick you up afterward. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a bad idea, since nobody’s supposed to know that you’re here,” Chrissy pointed out.
For a moment Lance had totally forgotten about that. His shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Jeez, what a weirdo you are.” Chrissy shook her head.
Suddenly he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop laughing, so he stood up and gestured toward the men’s room at the other end of the bar.
“Hurry up, then,” said his niece. “They’re going to start soon.”
Having made his way across the room, Lance was relieved to be able to close the door behind him, safely out of view. Afterspending two months alone in a hotel room, he clearly wasn’t used to being out in public anymore. He sat down on the toilet, propped his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. A thin film of sweat covered his brow. It wasn’t simply because he was out of practice being in a roomful of people. There was everything else as well. For instance, the fact that he was lying to his own niece, whom he’d known all her life, making her think he was working undercover for the police, while in reality he was convinced she was living in the same house as a murderer. He thought about what she’d just told him about partying at the cabin. Her story fit with the discovery of the music magazine Darkside, which he’d found when he broke into their cabin in the summer. So Andy hadn’t been there at all on the night of the murder. What had he been doing the whole time until he picked up Chrissy from her girlfriend’s house in Duluth the next morning? All indications were that at some point, maybe around dawn, he had been standing in the ditch along the road outside Finland, holding a baseball bat and covered in blood. What had that boy said? That it definitely wasn’t an Indian they’d seen standing there? But it wasn’t that simple, because Andy and Lance were descendants of Knut Olson and his Ojibwe wife, Nanette.
He was about to go
Chrissy wound her way between the tables carrying a glass of Diet Coke and a mug with steam rising from it. There was something about the way she walked that seemed so respectful, almost as if she were stooping forward a bit so as not to disturb the others. She was by far the youngest person in the bar, and Lance thought that maybe he ought to feel proud of his niece. But he noticed that several people cast an inquisitive glance in her direction as she walked past in those strange black clothes of hers, with the heavy eyeliner and the black lipstick. So when she set the tea and Coke on their table and sat down, he instead felt embarrassed. Did they think she was his daughter?
“Do I really have to stay here?” he said.
She frowned as if she didn’t understand the question.
“How about if I run over to Lakeview and visit your grandmother in the meantime?” he went on. “Then I’ll pick you up afterward. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a bad idea, since nobody’s supposed to know that you’re here,” Chrissy pointed out.
For a moment Lance had totally forgotten about that. His shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Jeez, what a weirdo you are.” Chrissy shook her head.
Suddenly he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop laughing, so he stood up and gestured toward the men’s room at the other end of the bar.
“Hurry up, then,” said his niece. “They’re going to start soon.”
Having made his way across the room, Lance was relieved to be able to close the door behind him, safely out of view. Afterspending two months alone in a hotel room, he clearly wasn’t used to being out in public anymore. He sat down on the toilet, propped his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. A thin film of sweat covered his brow. It wasn’t simply because he was out of practice being in a roomful of people. There was everything else as well. For instance, the fact that he was lying to his own niece, whom he’d known all her life, making her think he was working undercover for the police, while in reality he was convinced she was living in the same house as a murderer. He thought about what she’d just told him about partying at the cabin. Her story fit with the discovery of the music magazine Darkside, which he’d found when he broke into their cabin in the summer. So Andy hadn’t been there at all on the night of the murder. What had he been doing the whole time until he picked up Chrissy from her girlfriend’s house in Duluth the next morning? All indications were that at some point, maybe around dawn, he had been standing in the ditch along the road outside Finland, holding a baseball bat and covered in blood. What had that boy said? That it definitely wasn’t an Indian they’d seen standing there? But it wasn’t that simple, because Andy and Lance were descendants of Knut Olson and his Ojibwe wife, Nanette.
He was about to go
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