Read Online Trickster's Point by William Kent Krueger - Free Book Online Page B

.” He shook his head.
    “Night-vision goggles?”
    “Maybe,” he said. “Or a nightscope of some kind mounted on the bow. They have them. But think about the wind. It’s stiff this morning, but it was even stronger last night. It would take a phenomenal bow hunter to pull off that shot. Even Jubal Little, who was the best I ever saw, would have been hard-pressed.”
    Rainy looked up at the slant of snowflakes the wind was shoving out of the sky. “We should take a look pretty quick, shouldn’t we?”
    There was a path from Meloux’s cabin to the rocks, and they followed it. As they walked, Cork studied the ground, which was worn bare from the passage of countless feet, but he saw nothing of interest. The path cut through the rocks, and as soon as they were on the other side, Cork and Rainy were hit by the smell of char. Black ash lay deep inside the stone circle of the fire ring, and around the circle sat sections of wood cut for sitting. It was an area that had a sacred feel to Cork. He’d seen great healing occur there. But it was also a place that, on more than one occasion, had been the scene of violent death. Meloux consecrated and reconsecrated the ground, and Cork had come to accept that it reflected the way of life as Kitchimanidoo had created it, of dark side by side with light, of peace cheek and jowl with conflict.
    Almost immediately he found something.
    “Here,” he said, pointing to the rock outcropping on the east side.
    Rainy looked where he’d indicated but shook her head. “I don’t see anything.”
    Cork ran his index finger along a faint line of dirt across the slope of a rock. “A boot left this. My guess would be as someone climbed to the top for a shot at your door.”
    Cork ascended the outcropping, looking for another sign.
    “Anything?” Rainy called from below.
    “No.” He came back down.
    “How can you be sure it was left last night?”
    He took off his glove and touched the line of dirt. “Still damp,” he said. He turned. “There’s going to be evidence of that boot somewhere on the ground.”
    Rainy said, “I see all kinds of tracks here.”
    “Old tracks,” Cork said.
    Beyond the fire ring, a dozen yards to the west, lay the shore of Iron Lake, which was lined with aspens whose branches had gone bare with the season. The lake surface was choppy in the wind, and the low clouds seemed to breathe gray into the water. Cork walked to where fallen aspen leaves covered the lakeshore.
    “Here,” he said and knelt. “Do you see?”
    Rainy stood beside him and looked at the short stalk of wild oat that he indicated. “It’s broken,” she said.
    “Broken in one place, yes, but creased in two others,” Cork pointed out. “The stalk broke under the weight of the boot, which forced it down. Then the boot pressed it into the ground and created these two creases on either side of the sole. The distance between the two creases gives us an indication of the width of the boot. It’s good sized. Makes me think it’s a man.”
    “How do you know that’s not an old track?”
    “Damp dirt on the stalk, just like on the rock over there.” Then Cork nodded toward the lake. “And you can see faintly where his boots have pressed into those fallen aspen leaves.”
    Rainy said, “He came from the lake.”
    Cork nodded. “Probably by canoe, since we didn’t hear a motor.”
    “But you heard him speak in the woods before you got here.”
    Cork shrugged. “Maybe Henry was right and that was a manidoo. But it’s more likely that whoever it was knew I’d be coming here and arrived ahead of me and hid until I came down the trail and then followed me. It’s someone who knew I’d come here.” He nodded with a grudging admiration. “A good hunter knows the pattern of his quarry.”
    “So, someone who knows you well?”
    “Not necessarily. We haven’t been exactly covert in our relationship, Rainy. It’s pretty common knowledge, at least on the rez. And long before you came