Dearly Departed by David Housewright Page A

sighed audibly and looked back at the saloon. She knew she was going to have to deal with Johannson’s boy sooner or later. But not today. Not alone. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
    “Yes, I’m hungry,” I told her.
    “Good, you can buy,” she said, leading me across the street to a restaurant called The Height.
    “The height of what?” I asked sarcastically.
    “The height of fine cuisine,” the deputy replied. “People in the Cities aren’t the only ones who like to eat well.”
    The restaurant was spacious and brightly lit. The furniture was obviously well cared for, and there was nary a deer rack in sight. The deputy led us to a table in the corner from where she could watch the door, the bar, and the stage. A rugged-looking thirty-something playing a twelve-string acoustic guitar rehearsed a Blind Lemon Jefferson song from a stool on the stage. I was fairly amazed to hear the blues in Deer Lake and told the deputy so.
    “We have music, too,” she informed me.
    I listened to him pick, a Native-American so far removed from his ancestors, from Crazy Horse and Red Cloud and Roman Nose and all those other badass warriors who would have pushed the White Eyes back into the sea if only they had better weaponry, that he could have dropped the Native, hyphen and all, and no one would have noticed. Except him. His name was Lonnie Cavander, and Deputy Rovick informed me that his greatest disappointment in life was that he was not allowed to carry a feathered war lance wherever he went. Instead, he settled for a buck knife the size of a buffalo horn.
    “A blues-playing Sioux,” I marveled.
    “Dakota,” Rovick corrected me. “Dakota means friend or ally . Sioux is what the Europeans called the Dakota. I don’t know what it means. Snake or something like that. Anyway, Lonnie isn’t a Dakota. He’s an Ojibwa. Chippewa to the uninformed.”
    I listened to Lonnie Cavander practice, and when he finished the song I applauded. He smiled at me and nodded.
    “Do you know any T-Bone Walker?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “You have to be electrified to play Walker. Only way to get those wails. How about this?” he said and started playing a complicated riff that danced on the edge of my memory until I shouted out, “Charlie Patton!”
    “Man knows his blues!” Lonnie shouted back.
    I was so engrossed in the song that I didn’t notice the waitress until she was at the table and Deputy Rovick said, “Hello, Ingrid.” I looked up to find a woman with shoulder-length blond hair that had the effect of motion, sunset blue eyes, and skin the color of buttermilk. Of course her name was Ingrid. What else could it be?
    Ingrid reminded us that The Height wasn’t open for dinner yet but would be in a half hour if we cared to wait. We did, and she suggested the walleye special in a warm, pleasing manner that made her seem even more physically attractive than she really was, which is saying quite a lot. If she had recommended roadkill and a side of tree bark, I would have gobbled it up.
    “Coffee?” she asked.
    “Yes,” I answered.
    “Leaded or unleaded?”
    “Leaded.”
    “Good for you,” Ingrid said. “We take the fun out of everything these days. We take the caffeine out of our coffee and the sugar out of our chocolate and the alcohol out of our beer and then pretend we enjoy it. If something is unhealthy, we should stop using it altogether, not ruin it.”
    “I agree,” I said a little too enthusiastically.
    “Well, of course you do,” Ingrid told me and smiled. I watched her as she walked across the restaurant, pausing first at the stage to give Lonnie a listen, her eyes closed to the music. I believe we all eventually reach a peak, a time in our lives when we are as smart and quick and strong and beautiful as we will ever be. Some of us reach it when we are in high school or college, others in middle age, still others just before they are ready to give it up. If we’re lucky the peak will last a year or