Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (4 page)

Yeah, they were just dogs. But I showed no mercy. If they'd
been eating what Tommy told me-and I had no reason to
doubt him-there was no place for such animals to be walking
this Earth with humans.

Then I went to the place out behind the cow barn. I found
a shovel leaned against the building. Convenient. Looked well
used. It didn't take much searching. It wasn't just the softer
ground, but what I felt in my mind. The call of a person's murdered spirit when their body has been hidden in such a place
as this. A place they don't belong.

It was more than one spirit calling for help. By the time
the night was half over I'd found all of them. All that was left
of five Carlisle boys and girls who'd never be seen alive again
by grieving relatives. Mostly just bones. Clean enough to have
had the flesh boiled off them. Some gnawed. Would have been no way to tell them apart if it hadn't been for what I found in
each of those unmarked graves with them. I don't know why,
but there was a large thick canvass bag for each of them. Each
bag had a wooden tag tied to it with the name and, God love
me, even the tribe of the child. Those people-if I can call
them that-knew who they were dealing with. Five bags of
clothing, meager possessions and bones. None of them were
Chippewas, but they were all my little brothers and sisters. If
I still drew breath after that night was over, their bones and
possessions, at least, would go home. When I looked up at the
moon, her face seemed red. I felt as if I was in an old, painful
story.

I won't say what I did after that. Just that when the dawn
rose I was long gone and all that remained of the house and
the buildings were charred timbers. I didn't think anyone saw
me as I left that valley, carrying those five bags. But I was
wrong. If I'd seen the newspapers from the nearby town the
next day-and not been on my way west, to the Sac & Fox
and Osage Agencies in Oklahoma, the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, the lands of the Crows and the Cheyennes in Montana, the Cahuilla of California-I would
have read about the tragic death by fire of almost an entire
family. Almost.

I blinked away that memory and focused on the two men
who paused only briefly at the top of the trail and then headed
straight toward me where I was squatting down by the fire pit.
As soon as I saw them clearly I didn't have to question the
signal my Helper was giving me. I knew they were trouble.

Funny how much you can think of in the space of an eyeblink.
Back in the hospital after getting hit by the shrapnel. The tall,
skinny masked doctor bending over me with a scalpel in one hand and some kind of shiny bent metal instrument in the
other.

My left hand grabbing the surgeon's wrist before the sca-
pel touched my skin.

It stays.

The ether. A French accent. You are supposed to be out.

I'm not.

Oui. I see this. My wrist, you are hurting it.

Pardon. But I didn't let go.

Why?

It says it's going to be my Helper. It's talking to me.

They might have just given me more ether, but by then
Gus Welch had pushed his way in the tent. He'd heard it all.

He began talking French to the doctor, faster than I could
follow. Whatever it was he said, it worked.

The doctor turned back to me, no scalpel this time.

You are Red Indian.

Mais oui.

A smile visible even under the mask. Head nodding. Bien.
We just sew you up then.

Another blink of an eye and I was back watching the two
armed men come closer. The tall, lanky one was built a little like that doctor I'd last seen in 1918. No mask, though. I
could see that he had one of those Abraham Lincoln faces,
all angles and jutting jaw-but with none of that long-gone
president's compassion. He was carrying a Remington .303.
The fat one with the thick lips and small eyes, Heavy Foot for
sure, had a lever-action Winchester 30-06. I'd heard him jack
a shell into the chamber just before they came into view.

Good guns, but not in the hands of good guys.

Both of them were in full uniform. High-crowned hats, black boots, and all. Not the brown doughboy togs in which
I had once looked so dapper. Their khaki duds had the words
Game Warden sewed over their breast pockets.

They stopped thirty feet away from me.

Charley Bear, the Lincoln impersonator, said in a flat voice,
We have a warrant for your arrest for trespassing. Stand up.

I stayed crouching. It was clear to me they didn't know
I owned the land I was on. Not that most people in the area
knew. After all, it was registered under my official white name
of Charles B. Island. If they were really serving a warrant from a
judge, they'd know that. Plus there was one other thing wrong.

Game wardens don't serve warrants, I said.

They said he was a smart one, Luth, Heavy Foot growled.

Too smart for his own good.

My Helper sent a wave of fire through my whole leg and I
rolled sideways just as Luth raised his gun and pulled the trigger. It was pretty good for a snap shot. The hot lead whizzed
past most of my face with the exception of the flesh it tore
off along my left cheekbone, leaving a two-inch wound like a
claw mark from an eagle's talon.

As I rolled, I hurled sidearm the first of the baseball-sized
rocks I'd palmed from the outside of the firepit. Not as fast as
when I struck out Jim Thorpe twice back at Indian school.
But high and hard enough to hit the strike zone in the center
of Luth's face. Bye-bye front teeth.

Heavy Foot had hesitated before bringing his gun up to his
shoulder. By then I'd shifted the second stone to my throwing
hand. I came up to one knee and let it fly. It struck square in
the soft spot just above the fat man's belly.

Ooof!

His gun went flying off to the side and he fell back clutching his gut.

Luth had lost his .303 when the first rock struck him. He
was curled up, his hands clasped over his face.

I picked up both guns before I did anything else. Shucked
out the shells and then, despite the fact that I hated to do it
seeing as how guns themselves are innocent of evil intent, I
tossed both weapons spinning over the edge of the cliff. By the
time they hit the rocks below I had already rolled Heavy Foot
over and yanked his belt out of his pants. I wrapped it around
his elbows, which I'd pulled behind his back, cinched it tight
enough for him to groan in protest.

I pried Luth's hands from his bloody face, levered them
behind his back, and did the same for him that I'd done for
his fat buddy. Then I grabbed the two restraining belts, one in
each hand, and dragged them over to the place where the cliff
dropped off.

By then Luth had recovered enough, despite the blood
and the broken teeth, to glare at me. But Heavy Foot began
weeping like a baby when I propped them both upright at the
edge where it wouldn't take more than a push to send them
over.

Shut up, Braddie, Luth said through his bleeding lips, his
voice still flat as stone. Then he stared at me. I've killed people worse than you.

But not better, I replied.

A sense of humor is wasted on some people. Luth merely
intensified his stare.

A hard case. But not Braddie.

Miss your gun? I asked. You can join it.

I lifted my foot.

No, Braddie blubbered. Whaddaya want? Anything.

A name.

Braddie gave it to me.

I left them on the cliff edge, each one fastened to his own
big rock that I'd rolled over to them. The additional rope
I'd gotten from my shack insured they wouldn't be freeing
themselves.

Stay still, boys. Wish me luck.

Go to hell, Luth snarled. Tough as ever.

But he looked a little less tough after I explained that he'd
better hope I had good luck. Otherwise I wouldn't be likely to
come back and set them loose. I also pointed out that if they
struggled too much there was a good chance those delicately
balanced big stones I'd lashed them to would roll over the
edge. Them too.

I took my time going down the mountain-and I didn't
use the main trail. There was always the chance that Luth
and Braddie had not been alone. But their truck, a new '34
Ford, was empty. An hour's quiet watch of it from the shelter
of the pines made me fairly certain no one else was around.
They'd thoughtfully left the keys in the ignition. It made me
feel better about them that they were so trusting and willing
to share.

As I drove into town I had even more time to think. Not
about what to do. But how to do it. And whether or not my
hunch was right.

I parked the car in a grove of maples half a mile this side
of the edge of town. Indian Charley behind the wheel of a new
truck would not have fit my image in the eyes of the good citizens of Corinth. Matter of fact, aside from Will, most of them
would have been surprised to see I knew how to drive. Then I
walked in to Will's office.

Wyllis Dunham, Attorney at Law, read the sign on the
modest door, which opened off the main street. I walked in
without knocking and nodded to the petite stylishly dressed young woman who sat behind the desk with a magazine in her
nicely manicured fingers.

Maud, I said, touching my knuckles to my forehead in
salute.

Charles, she drawled, somehow making my name into a
sardonic remark the way she said it. What kind of trouble you
plan on getting us into today?

Nothing we can't handle.

Why does that not make me feel reassured?

Then we both laughed and I thought again how if she wasn't
Will's wife I'd probably be thinking of asking her to marry me.

What happened to your cheek? Maud stood up, took a
cloth from her purse, wetted it with her lips, and brushed at
the place where the bullet had grazed me and the blood had
dried. I stood patiently until she was done.

Thanks, nurse.

You'll get my bill.

He in?

For you. She gestured me past her and went back to reading Ladies' Home Journal.

I walked into the back room where Will sat with his extremely long legs propped up on his desk, his head back against
a couch pillow, his eyes closed.

Before you ask, I am not asleep on the job. I am thinking.
Being the town lawyer of a bustling metropolis such as this
tends to wear a man out.

Don't let Maud see you with your feet up on that desk.

His eyes opened at that and as he quickly lowered his feet
to the floor he looked toward the door, a little furtively, before
recovering his composure. Though Will had the degree and
was twice her size, it was Maud who laid down the law in their
household.

He placed his elbows on the desk and made a pyramid
with his fingers. The univeral lawyer's sign of superior intellect and position, but done with a little conscious irony in
Will's case. Ever since I had helped him and Maud with a little
problem two years back, we'd had a special relationship that
included Thursday night card games of cutthroat canasta.

Wellll? he asked.

Two questions.

Do I plead the Fifth Amendment now?

I held up my little finger. First question. Did George Good
retire as game warden, has the Department of Conservation
started using new brown uniforms that look like they came
from a costume shop, and were two new men from downstate
sent up here as his replacement?

Technically, Charles, that's three questions. But they all
have one answer.

No?

Bingo. He snapped his fingers.

Which was what I had suspected. My two well-trussed
friends on the mountaintop with their city accents were as
phony as their warrant.

Two. I held up my ring finger. Anybody been in town asking about me since that article in the Albany paper with my
picture came out?

Will couldn't keep the smile off his face. If there was such
a thing as an information magnet for this town, Will Dunham
was it. He prided himself on quietly knowing everything that
was going on-public and private-before anyone else even
knew he knew it. With another loud snap of his long fingers
he plucked a business card from his breast pocket and handed
it to me with a magician's flourish.

Voila!

The address was in the State Office Building. The name
was not exactly the one I expected, but it still sent a shiver
down my spine and the metal spearpoint in my hip muscle
twinged. Unfinished business.

I noticed that Will had been talking. I picked up his words
in mid-sentence.

... so Avery figured that he should give the card to me,
seeing as how he knew you were our regular helper what with
you taking on odd jobs for its now and then. Repair work, cutting wood ... and so on. Of course, by the time he thought to
pass it on to me Avery'd been holding onto it since two weeks
ago which was when the man came into his filling station asking about you and wanting you to give him a call. So, did he
get tired of waiting and decide to look you up himself?

In a manner of speaking.

Say again?

See you later, Will.

The beauty of America's trolley system is that a man could
go all the way from New York City to Boston just by changing cars once you got to the end of town and one line ended
where another picked up. So the time it took me to run the
ten miles to where the line started in Middle Grove was longer than it took to travel the remaining forty miles to Albany
and cost me no more than half the coins in my pocket.

I hadn't bothered to go back home to change into the
slightly better clothes I had. My nondescript well-worn apparel was just fine for what I had in mind. No one ever notices
laborers. The white painter's cap, the brush, and the can of
Putnam's bone-white that I borrowed from the hand truck in
front of the building were all I needed to amble in unimpeded
and take the elevator to the sixteenth floor.

The name on the door matched the moniker on the
card-just as fancy and in big gold letters, even bigger than
the word INVESTMENTS below it. I turned the knob and
pushed the door open with my shoulder, backed in diffidently,
holding my paint can and brush as proof of identity and motive. Nobody said anything, and when I turned to look I saw
that the receptionist's desk was empty as I'd hoped. Five
o'clock. Quitting time. But the door was unlocked, the light
still on in the boss's office.