Page 6 of God’s Country

“What about the other kid?”

“Nels could only save one of us.”

“So tragic,” Mal said.

“You saw your death,” Stephen said. “What did you see?”

“I’ll keep that one to myself. But if what I saw was the truth, I don’t die of a heart attack in the Boundary Waters. Okay?”

Stephen said, “I never heard you talk about this drowning kid before.”

“Not something I like to remember.”

It was a dark story and put us all in a somber mood. We were pretty quiet the rest of the way to Crow Point.

The two boys had reached Henry long before we arrived. The old man sat on the wooden bench in front of his cabin, the boys seated on either side of him. The sun was low in the sky, its rays long and slanting so that the Mide and Waaboo and Luke were all bathed in soft gold light. Prophet, Henry’s constant companion on Crow Point, was nowhere to be seen.

“Boozhoo, Henry,” I greeted the old man. I gave him an offering of a pouch of tobacco, which he set beside him on the bench.

“Mishomis knew we were coming,” Luke told us with amazement.

“He always does,” I said.

Henry leaned in to Mal’s son and said, “When this forest speaks, I listen, Makoons.”

“Makoons?” Mal said.

“It’s the name he gave me,” Luke said with obvious pleasure. “It means ‘little bear.’ Like Waaboo means ‘little rabbit.’ ”

“Makoons.” Mal gave a nod of approval.

“Sit,” Henry said, motioning toward the ground in front of his bench.

We sat, Mal, Stephen, and I. Our backs were to the setting sun and our shadows stretched out and touched the bench where Henry sat. His face, full of wrinkles as numerous as lines on a road map, glowed in all that golden light.

“So.” That was all. Henry was never one to waste words.

“I had a vision, Mishomis,” Waaboo burst out.

“I had one, too,” Stephen said. “Almost the same as Waaboo’s.”

“Tell me,” Henry said.

Waaboo related his vision, and Stephen did the same. I admit that although I’d already heard both these accounts of my chest being ripped open and my heart torn out and eaten, these new tellings in Henry’s company had a more chilling effect. For some reason, the visions felt more real to me.

For a while, Henry said nothing, which wasn’t unusual at all. For a man who was well over one hundred years old—no one, not even Henry, knew exactly how much beyond that century mark—he seemed to look at time as if he still had a huge storehouse of it. He closed his eyes against the gold light, and I thought he might actually have fallen asleep. Then his dark brown eyes opened.

“We are liars, all of us,” he said. “Sometimes to others, but more often to ourselves. The truth can seem to be covered in quills like a porcupine and we simply cannot swallow it. Then it is up to others, those whose love can stand the pain, to see the truth. Perhaps this is the reason for the visions.”

“Then my heart is in trouble?” I asked.

The old man was quiet again, until Waaboo said, “Please, Mishomis, tell us that Baa-baa will be okay.”

The old man smiled at my grandson. “Only the Creator knows this for sure, little rabbit.”

Then he looked at me. By then the sun had sunk below the distant treetops, and Crow Point had slipped into the blue-gray shadow of the pines. I felt a chill that wasn’t from the coming of evening.

“There is another possibility, Corcoran O’Connor,” Henry said.