Thunder Bay Read Free

finally relented.
    “Do you know what’s wrong?” I asked.
    “His heart,” Wrigley said. “I suspect an occlusion, but we need to run tests to be sure. Only a few minutes, all right? He needs his strength.”
    Meloux lay on the bed, tubes and wires running from him every which way. It made me think of a butterfly in a spider’s web. I’d never seen him looking so frail, so vulnerable. In his day, he’d been a great hunter. Because he’d saved my life, I also knew him as a warrior. It was hard seeing him this way.
    His brown eyes tracked me as I came to the bedside.
    “Corcoran O’Connor,” he whispered. “I knew you would come.”
    I pulled up a chair and sat beside him. “I’m sorry, Henry.”
    “My heart.”
    “The doctor told me.”
    He shook his head faintly. “My heart is in pain.”
    “The doctor suspects an occlusion. A blockage, I think that means.”
    Again he shook his head. “It is sadness, Corcoran O’Connor. Too heavy for my heart.”
    “What sadness, Henry?”
    “I will tell you, but you must promise to help me.”
    “I’ll do what I can, Henry. What’s the sadness?”
    Meloux hesitated a moment, gathering strength. “My son.”
    Son?
In the forty-some years I’d known him, I’d never heard Meloux speak of a son. As far as I knew, no one had.
    “You have a son? Where?”
    “I do not know. Help me find him, Corcoran O’Connor.”
    “What’s his name, Henry?”
    Meloux stared up at me. For the first time I could ever recall, he looked lost.
    “You don’t know his name?” I didn’t hide my surprise. “Do you know anything about him?”
    “His mother’s name. Maria.”
    “Just Maria?”
    “Lima.”
    “Maria Lima. How long ago, Henry?”
    He closed his eyes and thought a moment. “A lifetime.”
    “Thirty years? Forty? Fifty?”
    “Seventy-three winters.”
    Seventy-three years. My God.
    “It’s a big world, Henry. Can you tell me where to begin?”
    “Canada,” he whispered. “Ontario.”
    I could tell our conversation, spare though it was, was draining him. I had three pieces of information. A mother’s name. An approximate year. And a place to start looking.
    “Have you ever seen your son, Henry?”
    “In visions,” Meloux replied.
    “What does he look like?”
    “I have only seen his spirit, not his face.” A faint smile touched his lips. “He will look like his father.”
    “He’ll look like his mother, too, Henry. It would be nice to know what she looked like.”
    He motioned me nearer. “In my cabin. A box under my bed. A gold watch.”
    “All right.”
    “And Walleye. He will be alone and hungry.”
    “I’ll take care of Walleye, Henry.”
    Meloux seemed comforted.
“Migwech,”
he said. Thank you.
    Outside the room, LeDuc was waiting.
    “What did he want, Cork?”
    “He’s worried about Walleye,” I said. “He wanted me to take care of the dog.”
    The rest had been told in confidence, and I couldn’t repeat it. Nor could I say what I really thought. That what Meloux was asking was nothing short of a miracle.

FOUR

    G eorge LeDuc dropped me back at Sam’s Place. Jenny was there, looking pale, but she seemed to be doing fine. Several customers stood lined up at the serving window. I pulled her aside for a moment and asked how she was feeling.
    “Okay now.” She offered me a brief smile. “Customers,” she said and turned back to her window.
    As they went about their work, I filled the girls in on Meloux, what I could tell them anyway, and asked if they’d hold down the fort while I took care of what the old man needed. Jenny said she’d call in Jodi Bollendorf, who wasn’t on the schedule that day but would be glad to help.
    I hopped in the Bronco and headed home.
    My house is on Gooseberry Lane, a quiet street of old homes, mostly two-story wood frame. We don’t have fences, though often lilac hedges or shrubbery serve that purpose. I grew up on Gooseberry Lane, a child in the house where I’ve raised my own children. Until