Fox Creek Quotes
"It is not a secret language. You need to quiet all the other voices in your head and listen."
"Like I told you, they’re with Henry. He’ll do everything he can to keep them safe."
"You’ve been here so many times you can find your way back blindfolded."
"There’s no one who knows those woods better than he does."
"Avoid soft soil and try to leave no tracks. Step over the underbrush, not through it."
"Despite his age, Henry keeps them all moving quickly."
"The land through which they travel was shaped aeons ago by both massive volcanic upheavals and the relentless scrape of glaciers."
"Rainy has often thought there could be no more beautiful place in the world."
"They are hungry, and I think they will not stop until they have tasted blood."
"Like a beautiful face, snow can hide much beneath it."
"If we are lucky, Niece, they will see that even rabbits have sharp teeth."
"Humans are far too focused on doing and not enough on being."
"Despite their firepower, their sat phones, their ruthlessness, they are the ones at a disadvantage now."
"My heart is still beating and my mind is still clear."
"It’s those still in front of us I’m worried about."
"We’ve done everything we can for the moment."
"They are so tired that for a long while none of them speak."
"But it’s a sense of having been adopted by it rather than born to it."
"They’re tired. I could see that in the signs they were leaving before the storm hit."
"I want to be a part of this important hunt."
"The early light of the day colors everything blue."
"No one that old can hold up long under the kind of hardships he and the two women are facing."
"We’ve lost them," Morriseau finally says.
"Cork pulls out the topographic map he’s brought and on which he’s been keeping track of their progress."
"Meloux has been traveling through this wilderness his whole life."
"The wilderness is a patchwork of stark shadows and pale white."
"Then he comes to the footprints in the snow, two sets of booted feet."
"Every life must end, but a world without Henry Meloux is a world Cork doesn’t want to begin to imagine."
"The terrain is a rugged sculpting of ridges, marshes, and streams coursing with the runoff from the snowmelt."
"Cork stands atop the ridge, trying to put the pieces together."
"He feels as if he’s trying to breathe underwater."
"The day is warming quickly, however, and the snow is turning to slush under his feet."
"She understands what he’s saying, that if the men somehow pick up their trail, they will see the soaked earth that holds their prints."
"She remembers that when she was a child and Henry would come to visit, the women of the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation spoke among themselves of how handsome he was and how magnetic and mysterious."
"Rainy can see that her great-uncle has been following deer trails."
You did not come from nothing," Henry says. "You came out of the heart of the Creator.
"In dreams, LeLoup sees a man in the clearing of a forest transform into a huge beast and begin a battle with another beast that was its twin."
"LeLoup takes another look at the topo map."
"Less than a mile away lies the lake, an oval that in its opalescence does, in fact, resemble the eye of a fish."
"LeLoup watches as the search plane circles, then heads south and out of sight."
"As he stands pissing onto the snow, he gazes up at the stars."
"But there is a deeper part of him that is more than willing to embrace the beauty of the story."
"In five minutes, LeLoup is kneeling behind a stand of tall ferns, studying the scene around the dying fire."
"Stephen pours from the pot on the coffeemaker."
Stephen sees it immediately. "The lines on our map. So many of them connect to First Nations reserves."
"Stephen and Belle watch the men get into their black sedan and drive away in the long, orange slant of the late afternoon sunlight."
"The day has grown warm, a dramatic contrast to twenty-four hours earlier, when the snowstorm swept through."
"The sun has dropped low in the western sky and the shadows in the woods are slanted long."
"He plans to retrieve it as soon as he’s able, or to send someone for it later."
"He’s gone two miles following the trail the others have broken along Fisheye Creek."
"Cork plods south toward the Iron Lake Reservation."
"The two shots he heard continue to echo in his head."
"We were after the Morriseau woman. You were just in the way."
"Niece, I will not tell you again. Lower your rifle. This man is no threat."
"If you stop pointing that rifle barrel, I’ll explain."
"It’s what I do," LeLoup replies. "Or did."
"A mercenary," she says as if spitting phlegm.
"But it’s important enough they’re willing to kill to get to him."
"I know my true name," he finally tells them. "But I don’t know what it means."
"I always feel as if I am walking a spider’s thread."
"We need to get you back to Aurora. You have to tell our sheriff what you know about all this."
"Stay with Azevedo, Cork. I don’t want you walking blindly into some disaster."
"I’m not waiting another night to find Rainy and Henry."
"Waiting to see clearly the path he was meant to walk."
"I’ve heard you wore a badge once. True?"
"I’ve been tracking you for days," he says, his cheek against her hair.
"We’ll pick up the trail tomorrow and follow it."
"I’m looking for Lou Morriseau. I’m a friend."
"You’re thinking we stop here for the night?"
"This business is deadly serious. Monte was one of the casualties."
"I do not have any news to share with you."
"Enough to pull back the curtain they’ve been hiding behind."
"Maybe if we can get all this out in the open, maybe we can get enough people angry and CATIE can be stopped."
"We know that Tanya Baptiste isn’t your real name, but no matter. We’re going to make sure that the photo I just took gets circulated among all the reserves in Canada."
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
"Just human beings not listening to the best part of their hearts."
"I’ve been thinking. If I go to the university next fall, is there any chance you might still be in the Twin Cities?"
"If that is what you choose to do with your time, blind fox."
"I did not mean to cause you concern. I only wanted to be certain."