William Kent Krueger Reader's Companion by William Kent Krueger

Author:William Kent Krueger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2011-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWO

Renoir DuBois kept his heart in his bedroom closet, hidden in a Nike shoe box.

There was an agate he’d found on the shore of Lake Superior when he was very young, the image of a wolf so clear on its smooth surface that it seemed etched by a purposeful hand. In the totemic system of the Anishinaabeg, Ren was Ma’iingan, Wolf Clan, and he believed the stone was a sign of some kind whose full meaning he would someday understand.

In the box there was also an eagle feather given to him by his great-grandfather, who told him this story: A certain man spent his whole life searching in vain for an eagle feather, which would signify his great wisdom. He paid no heed to the needs of his family or relatives or other people. Finally he gave up and said to the Great Spirit, “I have wasted my life searching for the eagle feather. Now I will spend my time helping others.” As soon as he said this, a beautiful eagle flew overhead and a feather gently drifted down.

There was a small figure of the Marvel Comics character Silver Surfer, one of Ren’s all-time favorite superheroes. His best friend, Charlie, had spotted it at a swap meet in Marquette and had given it to him for Christmas.

There was the skull of a vole, small, delicate, perfect, that Ren had discovered in the meadow south of the cabins one summer afternoon. Only the skull, no other bones. So that it would not be crushed by his other treasures, he kept it in a tiny box that had once held one of his mother’s necklaces. Sometimes he opened the necklace box and spent hours drawing the skull in minute detail, imagining as he did so what kind of world such a small brain and perspective would see.

There was a newspaper article, which his mother did not know he had, cut from the Billings Gazette, about the murder of his father, and also the long, celebratory obituary that had been printed in the Marquette County Courier.

The most precious item in the box was a drawing his father had given him, done on a plain sheet of notepad paper, the kind kept by the phone to write messages. It had been created on a good day, Ren recalled, an August day. They’d spent the morning putting a new toilet in one of the cabins, and his father had talked while he worked, offering Ren his understanding about Kitchimanidoo, the Great Spirit, about life, about art. He’d said, as he put the wax ring in the flush hole and settled the porcelain bowl on top, that life was a reflection of the Great Spirit, and that art was a reflection of life. All of them were simpler than people imagined. At lunch in the main cabin, which was called Thor’s Lodge, he’d illustrated his point with a pen-and-ink drawing—two long arcs, a few easy loops. “What is it?” he’d asked Ren. Though nothing connected in a way that completed the image, Ren saw it was a bear.

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