Kevin Taylor

Coeur d'Alene Tribal Chairman Ernie Stensgar stood at Independence Point on a cool, overcast Tuesday morning and, with the waters of Lake Coeur d'Alene behind him, pledged $5 million in tribal money to address water quality issues. Stensgar challenged the Idaho and federal governments to match the $5 million, creating a fund assuring the lake remains healthy despite tons of toxic mining wastes that prompted the federal Environmental Protection Agency to declare the Coeur d'Alene Basin a Superfund cleanup site two years ago.

Cody Merritt was only 16, but he still got the tattoo; the same one worn by his dad and a shadowy group of his dad's pals. Merritt was so proud of the black rose tattooed on his upper arm that he had it touched up several times, even as the headless body of Carissa Benway lay in the forest east of Coeur d'Alene waiting and waiting and waiting to be discovered. The "brotherhood of the black rose" is a brotherhood of killers, police say, and at age 16 Cody Merritt earned his black rose tattoo by helping his dad, David "Coon" Merritt, lure the 14-year-old Benway to a campground in the Coeur d'Alene Mountains where the girl was raped, sodomized and beheaded. The elder Merritt was convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.

Wayne Meyer was standing on a crust of scorched earth under the strong slant of a hot evening sun, waving away a shower of bugs known as springtails that were shooting up from the ground like some weird reverse rain. Soot-covered firefighters were rolling up hoses, and others patrolled the perimeter, gooshing water onto isolated "smokes." Meyer knew this field of Kentucky bluegrass was going to burn; in fact, he expected to light it himself in a couple of weeks.

Nate Norman was two electronically locked doors away from an interview room in the Bonner County Jail Sunday evening, but through the intervening panels of bulletproof glass, he was smiling and waving as if he is just that nice kid from down the street. The 21-year-old Norman was about 45 hours away from being sentenced to federal prison as a drug trafficker. He figured he was facing 10 to 12 years, although his family expected far less. He was trying to get ready for it. Yet he still vibrated with the eager grin and jazzed body language of someone who had just had an excellent adventure and was happy to talk about it.

With the inaugural Hayden Air Show revealed to be deep in the red one month after the event, some three dozen creditors are wondering if they will get paid, and aerobatics fans worry the show may have crashed and burned. The Hayden Chamber of Commerce, which backed Thunder Over the Prairie, lists $238,000 in unpaid bills with only $55,000 in the bank.