William Kent Krueger - Copper River: A Cork OConnor Mystery

For all the help Im given when writing a book, a simple thank-you never seems enough, but Im hoping it will do.

To Michelle Basham I offer not only my thanks for her guidance in understanding the tragic situation of the lost and forgotten children alone on Americas streets, but also my profound admiration for her own unselfish efforts to establish Avenues for Homeless Youth (formerly Project Foundation).

Thanks to Barbara Klick of the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Clinic, who gave me a lot of wonderful information and insight into the working life and ethics of veterinarians.

Thank you to the people of Marquette and Big Bay, Michigan, who told me stories only the locals know.

As always, I owe a huge debt to the members of Crme de la Crime for their support, encouragement, camaraderie, and critique. You guys are the best.

Finally, should you ever find yourself in St. Paul, Minnesota, be sure to stop by the St. Clair Broiler, where this and every book that bears my name has been written. Beneath the historic neon flame youll find good coffee, great food, and the comfort that comes from the company of truly fine folks.

H enry Meloux, the old Ojibwe Mide, might tell the story this way.

He might begin by saying that the earth is alive, that all things on itwater, air, plants, rocks, even dead treeshave spirit. In the absence of wind, the grass still trembles. On days when the clouds are dense as gray wool, flowers still understand how to track the sun. Trees, when they bend, whisper to one another. In such a community of spirits, nothing goes unnoticed. Would not the forest, therefore, know that a child is about to die?

She is fourteen years, nine months, twenty-seven days old. She has never had a period, never had a boyfriend, never even had a real date. She has never eaten in a restaurant more formal than McDonalds. She has never seen a city larger than Marquette, Michigan.

She cannot remember a night when she wasnt awakened by nightmares, some dreamed, many horribly real. She cannot remember a day she was happy, although she has always been hopeful that she might find happiness, discover it like a diamond in the dust at her feet. Through all the horror of her life, she has, miraculously, held to that hope.

Until now.

Now, though she is only fourteen, she is about to die. And she knows it.

Somewhere among the trees below her, the man she calls Scorpio is coming for her.

She cringes behind a pile of brush in the middle of a clear-cut hillside studded with stumps like gravestones. The morning sun has just climbed above the tops of the poplar trees that outline the clearing. The chill bite of autumn is in the air. From where she crouches high on the hill, she can see the gleam of Lake Superior miles to the north. The great inland sea beckons, and she imagines sailing away on all that empty blue, alone on a boat taking her toward a place where someone waits for her and worries, a place she has never been.

She shivers violently. Before fleeing, she grabbed a thin brown blanket, which she wrapped around her shoulders. Her feet are bare, gone numb in the long, cold night. They bleed, wounded during her flight through the woods, but she no longer feels any pain. Theyve become stones at the end of her ankles.

In the trees far below, a dog barks, cracking the morning calm. The girl focuses on a place two hundred yards distant where, half an hour earlier, shed emerged from the forest and started to climb the logged-over hillside. An hour after dawn, Scorpios dog had begun baying. When she heard the hungry sound, she knew hed got hold of her scent. What little hope shed held to melted instantly. After that, it was a frantic run trying to stay ahead.

Scorpio steps from the shadow of the trees. Hes like a whip, thin and cruel and electric in the sunlight. She can see the glint off the blue barrel of the rifle he cradles. Snatch, his black and tan German shepherd, pads before him, nose to the earth, tracking her through the graveyard of stumps. Scorpio scans the hillside above. She thinks she can see him smile, a gash of white.

There is no sense in hiding now. In a few minutes, Scorpio will be on her. Grasshopper quick, she pops from the blind of brush and sprints toward the hilltop. Her senseless feet thud against the hard earth. She lets the blanket fall to the ground, leaves it behind her. Starved for sunlight, the skin of her face and arms looks bleached. Beneath her thin, dirty T-shirt her breasts are barely formed, but the small, fleshy mounds rise and fall dramatically as she sucks air in desperate gasps. Behind her, the dog begins a furious barking. He has seen the prey.

She crests the hill and comes to a dead end. Before her the ground falls away, a sheer drop two hundred feet to a river thats a rush of white water between jagged rocks. There is no place left to run. She casts a frenzied eye back. Scorpio lopes toward her with Snatch in the lead. To her left and right, there is only the ragged lip of the cut across the hill.

Only one way for her to go now: down.

The face of the cliff below is a rugged profile offering hand-holds and small ledges. There are also tufts of brush that cling tenaciously to the stone, rooted in tiny fissures. She spies a shelf ten feet below, barely wider than her foot, but it is enough. She kneels and lowers herself over the edge. Clinging to the brush and the rough knobs of stone that punctuate the cliff, she begins her descent.

The rock scrapes her skin, leaves her arms bleeding. Her toes stretch for a foothold but, numbed, feel almost nothing. Weakened by an ordeal that has gone on longer than she can remember, her strength threatens to fail her, but she does not give up. She has never given up. Whatever the horror in front of her, she has always faced it and pushed ahead. This moment is no different. She wills a place to stand. Her feet find support, a few inches of flat rock on which she eases herself down.

Come on, sweet thing. Come on back up.

Scorpios voice is reasonable, almost comforting. She lifts her face. Hes smiling, bone-white teeth between thin, bloodless lips. Beside him, the dog snarls and snaps, foam dripping from his purple gums.

Hush! Scorpio orders. Sit.