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didn’t hear Jubal Little coming up behind him, but the big kid was suddenly at his side.
    “Mind if I walk with you?” Jubal asked.
    Cork shrugged. “I was thinking of going to Sam’s Place to get a burger.”
    “I could use a bite,” Jubal said.
    They walked a bit without talking. It was evening by then, the sky a gloomy gray-blue. The town was quiet, and their sneakers slapped softly on the pavement.
    “It was a good season,” Jubal finally said.
    “I wish it had ended better.”
    Jubal laughed. “It was just a game, and a pretty good one.”
    “I lost it for us.”
    “Bullshit. We had plenty of chances to win it. They just played a little better today. Next time it’ll be different.”
    “I hope so.”
    “You’re good,” Jubal said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
    When they got to Sam’s Place, Sam Winter Moon greeted Cork through the serving window with “Boozhoo,” a common Ojibwe greeting. “So how’d it go?”
    “We lost,” Cork said.
    “But we played a good game,” Jubal tossed in.
    “Well there you go.” Sam smiled at Jubal. “ Boozhoo. I’ve seen you around, but I haven’t caught your name.”
    “Jubal Little.”
    “Sam Winter Moon.” He stuck his hand through the open serving window, and Jubal took it. “Tell you what. Dinner’s on me today. What’ll you guys have?”
    They sat at the picnic table under a big red pine near the shoreline, and each of them ate a Sam’s Super and a chocolate shake.
    “What does boozhoo mean?” Jubal asked.
    “It’s kind of like saying ‘howdy.’ Sam thinks you’re Ojibwe. You look Indian.”
    In a way, Cork meant it as an opening, hoping Jubal might say something about his past.
    “You seem to know him pretty well,” Jubal said.
    “My father and him were good friends.”
    “I’m sorry about your father.”
    “Yeah, thanks.” Cork bit into his burger and swung his eyes out across the lake. The evening was windless, the water flat and empty.
    “I lost my father, too,” Jubal said.
    “When?”
    “Couple of years ago.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “You get over it,” Jubal said with an unconvincing shrug.
    Cork wanted to ask how it had happened but thought maybe that was stepping across a line.
    A car drove up to Sam’s Place, and a bunch of high school kids piled out. Donner Bigby was among them. Jubal stopped eating and watched the small crowd gather at the serving window and order. Bigby noticed them and said something to the others. A lot of eyes swung their way.
    Jubal said quietly, “Bigs ever bother Winona Crane and her brother?”
    “Not that I know of,” Cork said.
    “You fixed him pretty good that day in Grant Park.”
    Jubal eyed Bigby. “Guy like that, it’s just a matter of time before you have to fix him again.”
    Bigby and the others took their food and drove away. Cork and Jubal stood up from the picnic table and got ready to leave. The light was almost gone from the sky. A flight of Canada geese coming from the north swung in a loose V over Iron Lake and came to rest on the water, which was gunmetal gray and looked cold. It was nearing the end of October, and already Cork could sense winter in the air. But he felt a little better at that moment, a little more connected, and he knew it was because of Jubal.
    “I gotta get home,” Jubal said.
    “Me, too.”
    “I’m thinking of putting together a touch football game tomorrow. You interested? You could use the practice.” Jubal gave him an easy grin.
    “Sure,” Cork said. “Thanks.”
    In the dusk, they went their separate ways, Jubal to his fatherless home and Cork to his.

C HAPTER 6

    T he summer before Jubal Little died, Cork and several members of the Iron Lake Ojibwe had helped Rainy Bisonette build a tiny cabin of her own on Crow Point, thirty yards east of Meloux’s, set against a line of aspen that ran along the shore of Iron Lake. Before that, she’d slept on a cot in her great-uncle’s cabin. When she decided that she would stay with the