Copper River Read Online Free PDF Page A

sometimes got worked up over stupid things.
    “Look. See it? Do you see it?”
    Stash pointed at something in the water, sweeping downriver in and out of the troughs of the cascades. Ren couldn’t, in fact, see it clearly because the light was so poor now, and the river had become a dark gloss of black and pale silver. Also, the fast water quickly carried away whatever it was that Stash had seen.
    “It was a body,” Stash said.
    “Bullshit,” Charlie said. “It was just a log or something.”
    “I’m telling you it was a body. I saw it when it went by.”
    “You mean like a dead person?” Ren said.
    “Yeah, man, a dead body.”
    Charlie shook her head. “Naw, if it was a body it had to be, like, a deer or something.”
    Stash turned on her angrily. “If you weren’t so goddamned slow you’d have seen it.”
    “Slow? Me?” Her fist exploded forward and caught Stash hard in the arm.
    “Owww. Damn it.”
    “That’s from my movie. Charlie Kills Stash .”
    Stash rubbed his arm. “I’m telling you guys it was a body.”
    “You’ve been watching too many old gangster movies, dude. It’s screwing with your head.”
    “That or the weed,” Ren threw in.
    “I’m going down there to find it.”
    “You do, and you’re walking home, Stash. I’ve got to split for the cabins. You want a ride, you come with me now.”
    “It was a body,” Stash said sullenly.
    “Yeah, well, now it’s in the lake, and you know what they say about Superior: it never gives up its dead. So whatever it was, it’s gone.”
    Stash stood looking downstream where a hundred yards away the pale river water met the deep blue of the great lake. “ ‘Oil and water are the same as wind and air when you’re dead,’ ” he said.
    Ren and Charlie stared at him and waited.
    “Humphrey Bogart. The Big Sleep, ” Stash said, disappointed. “Let’s go.”

6
    C ork heard the boy enter and quietly close the cabin door.
    “I’m awake,” he said.
    Ren paused and looked at him without emotion. Very Ojibwe, Cork thought. The blood of The People was evident in his fine black hair, high cheeks, dark eyes, latte-shaded skin. Ren said nothing but continued to the kitchen area, turned on the light, and sat down at the table. Carefully, he laid out the things he’d been carrying. A stack of comic books, a sketch pad, a box of colored pencils, a hard white lump that Cork couldn’t identify.
    “What time is it?” Cork asked.
    “Nine.”
    The boy opened one of the comic books, then flipped back a page of the sketchbook. He selected a pencil, paused a moment, and began to draw.
    “Where’s your mom?”
    “She got a call. An elk ranch west of Marquette. Some kind of emergency.”
    “And she asked you to sit with me again, is that it? Thanks.”
    The boy remained intent on his drawing.
    “What are you doing?” Cork asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “How do you know when you’re finished?”
    The boy hesitated, thought that over, decided to smile.
    “Did your mom tell you about me?”
    “Not much.”
    “You’ve got questions, I imagine.”
    The boy finally looked up.
    “You deserve answers,” Cork said.
    Ren tapped the pencil top on the table a few times. “Who are you?”
    “Your mother’s cousin. You visited my house in Minnesota once with your folks. You must have been seven or eight then. Do you remember?”
    “I remember you arrested Dad.”
    “I thought you might.”
    “Made Mom mad, but it was a story Dad used to like to tell.” He thought a moment. “I remember two girls, older than me. One was blond and really pretty.”
    “That would be Jenny.”
    “The other one could play baseball as good as Charlie.”
    “And that would be Anne. They’re both in high school. You probably don’t remember Stevie. He was just a baby. He’s seven now.”
    The boy looked unsatisfied. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”
    “You meant who am I that somebody would want me dead?”
    “Yeah, that.”
    Cork worked on sitting up. Despite