From the Tales of Saint Anthony, the Johnny Holiday Mysteries
These short stories follow the lives of people who populate the fictional city of Saint Anthony (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and make their appearance in the first Johnny Holiday novel, The...
Waiting at the casino for the storm to pass, waiting for the ferry driver at Big Island, who did not have the courage to brave the rough waters.
It had been an exceedingly slow drive through the downpour from Excelsior to Saint Anthony.
Now he was waiting again...and the evening was getting late.
Ivan, who people called "The Wolf," was pensive.
He didn't like waiting. He was a man of action, but he never questioned the boss's orders; whatever else he was, The Wolf was a good dog. He was obedient to his master.
Karl Thorrson had told him to retire to the house in Tangletown, a sleepy neighborhood with lovely cottages on the southside of St. Anthony. The home was on the banks of the narrow rivulet named for the maiden Minnehaha, made famous by the poet Longfellow in his epic The Song of Hiawatha.
The Wolf was fond of reciting it.
His Norwegian grandfather had taken an Ojibwe bride when he came to Minnesota, and he believed the blood of hero's flowed through his veins.
The Wolf was a killer; he inspired fear in others, but there were few people who would have called him heroic...none in fact, but a wolf did not concern himself with the opinion of sheep, he told himself when the disparity came to mind.
The Wolf sat in the parlor .
The storm was chaotic, and he didn't like it. Weather like this was not good for business, it gave the pimps and hustlers who worked under him an excuse to cheat, he knew that business would be down, but revenue would be down even more.
Tonight his patron had sidelined him, telling him that he would go alone to the Round-Up to conclude his business with the owner. The one-eyed giant told him that he wanted to take care of the matter himself, that he would not even bring his ordinary muscle, the Ingelson brothers with him.
The Wolf never questioned Karl Thorrson, and he knew that his patron did not require anyone's protection, it was the appearance that mattered. Even a man like Karl Thorrson benefitted from the projection of force. Both he and the Ingleson brothers represented that force, along with the dozens of other gunmen that did their bidding throughout the city, and they all benefitted from appearing with their patron in public, it bolstered their authority as well. But there was nothing to be done about that now, so he sat in the parlor watching for a break in the clouds or some hint of the moon...waiting for the rain to stop.
The Wolf was pensive; he didn't like waiting, he was a man of action.
He looked out of the windows, out toward the creek; he could not see it through the rain, but he focused on his breathing and allowed his mind to hover over the flowing water, to enter the stream and flow with it: from Tangletown up-to its headwaters at Lake Minnetonka, then down-stream over the great waterfall, to the Mississippi river, to New Orleans, to the Gulf of Mexico and the wider world beyond.
He found a place of stillness in the current, and quietly recited Longfellow's poem.
By the shores of Gitche Gumee
By the shining big-sea water
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
O'er the water pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset...
The Wolf waited for his patron's call.
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