Indian Killer (22 page)

“Ten seconds to air,” said the assistant.

Truck sipped at his coffee, wiped his face with his favorite handkerchief, and leaned toward the microphone.

“I’ve just received the disturbing news from my esteemed sources in the offices of the Washington State Patrol. It seems that the body of another white man has been discovered up on the Tulalip Indian Reservation forty miles north of Seattle. The details are sketchy, but authorities have identified the body as that of David Rogers, the University of Washington student who has been missing since he won two thousand dollars at a slot machine. The body was mutilated and dumped near the Tulalip Tribal Casino, the last place where David Rogers was seen alive. I know this is terrifying news, but I must inform you that the Seattle Police Department believes that a serial killer, known only as the Indian Killer, is responsible for David Rogers’s murder, as well as the murder of Justin Summers, the bartender whose bloody body was found in Fremont. Both David Rogers and Justin Summers had been scalped.

“And there is more. The police insisted I keep this quiet, but the time for silence is over. Just a few days ago, the Indian Killer mailed me a special package. Inside the package were a piece of Mark Jones’s pajamas and the Indian Killer’s calling card. Now, I don’t want to tell you what the killer sent me. But it’s proof of the Indian Killer’s existence. The Indian Killer has kidnapped and most likely murdered little Mark Jones.

“Citizens, I am deeply saddened by these murders. I extend my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the murdered men. And most especially, to the mother and father of Mark Jones. I think we should have a moment of radio silence in their honor.”

Truck pressed the mute button, sipped at his coffee, toked on his cigar, and watched the clock. A full minute passed.

“Citizens, I am outraged. What is our society coming to when good men cannot safely walk the streets of our cities? When a little boy can be taken from the safety of his own home? And you know these murdered men, this kidnapped little boy, were targets precisely because they were white. They were guilty of the crime of being white males.

“Yes, yes, citizens, I know, I know. What have I been telling you? Haven’t I told you that our current political climate, with its constant vilification of white males, would prove to be disastrous? White males built this country. White males traveled here on the
Mayflower
, crossed the Great Plains on horseback, brought light to the darkness, tamed the wilderness. This country exists because of the constant vigilance and ingenuity of white males.

“And, now, through no fault of their own, two men are dead, and a little boy is missing, because they were white. If two black men had been killed because of their race, this city would be in an uproar. If a black child had been kidnapped by a white man, the city would be up in arms. Citizens, there would be a candlelight march. Our liberal black mayor would have appointed a task force by now. Of course, he would have. This whole country cares more about the lives of young black teenage hoodlums than it does about law-abiding, God-fearing white men.

“And now comes the news that an Indian savage is killing white men. Have we somehow traveled back to the nineteenth century? Has some Godless heathen been kept on ice on the reservation for a couple hundred years? Did they thaw that psycho warrior and send him into the city to scalp white men? Citizens, I’m happy I am balder than Kojak and Yul Brynner combined.

“Seriously, citizens, I’m deeply, deeply saddened. But, I have to tell you, I’m not surprised by this turn of events. I mean, what happens to a child that is given everything he wants? That child becomes an aggressive, domineering brat. Well, citizens, we keep giving Indians everything they want. We give them fishing rights, hunting lands. We allow them to have these illegal casinos on their land. They have rights that normal Americans do not enjoy. Indians have become super citizens, enjoying all the advantages of being Americans while reveling in the special privileges they receive just for being Indians.

“And we give all this to them because we supposedly stole their land from them. Indians are living a better life than they ever did before. They have jobs. They have electricity and running water. They have God. Citizens, and this is a fact, there are more Indians living now then there were when Columbus first landed on these shores. It’s true, you can look it up.

“And despite all these special advantages, Indians still live in poverty. They live in filth, folks. Broken-down cars stacked in their yards. They have the highest infant-mortality rates. They have the highest rates of alcohol and drug abuse. Indians still get rickets, for God’s sake. We give them everything, and yet they cannot take care of themselves.

“Would you give money to a four-year-old and tell her to feed herself, clothe herself, buy a house, pay bills? Of course not. Yet we give millions and millions of dollars to these Indians and expect them to know what to do with such wealth. Then when we, as tax-paying citizens, complain about such a waste of our tax dollars, the Indians call us racist. They whine about their treaty rights. They wave their flimsy little treaties around. Well, I’ve got a piece of paper to show those Indians. It’s called the Bill of Rights and, citizens, it doesn’t say one word about special rights for Indians. It’s says that all men are created equal. All men, not just Indians.

“Calm down, citizens, calm down. I know how you feel. I know you’re upset. You have every right to be upset. I’m upset. We have coddled Indians too long and we’ve created a monster. We share the responsibility.

“It’s true, citizens, it’s true. We should have terminated Indian tribes from the very beginning. Indians should have been assimilated into normal society long ago. We should have given them every chance to become fully productive members of our society. Yet we allowed them to remain separate. In fact, we encouraged their separation from the mainstream values and culture in this country. That separation created poverty. It created drug abuse and addiction. It created misery and anger. It created this Indian Killer. Now, I believe we should find this Indian Killer, give him a fair and speedy trial, and then hang him by the neck until he is dead.

“Yes, citizens, to paraphrase one of our great military leaders, Philip Sheridan, the only good Indian Killer is a dead Indian Killer.”

L
ESS THAN AN HOUR
after Truck Schultz phoned Aaron Rogers and personally told him about the discovery of his brother’s body, Aaron, Barry Church, and Sean Ward were cruising downtown Seattle, looking for Indians to attack. Aaron and Barry had both tossed baseball bats into the truck before they left the house. Each of the three had a ski mask shoved into his pocket.

“Let’s do it for David,” Aaron said to his housemates, pounding the steering wheel of his Toyota 4Runner as he cruised through downtown Seattle. On any given night, a couple dozen Indians usually staggered through the downtown streets. Aaron had often seen them. Homeless drunks. Men and women. Sitting in their own vomit. Rotten faces, greasy hair, shit-stained pants. Aaron had always been disgusted before. Now he felt a hate that made his chest ache. Sean and Barry scanned the streets. Other college kids on the street walked from bar to bar, laughter and conversation. A small crowd gathered outside the Elliott Bay Book Company. Couples slowly strolled past dark windows of stores.

“Where the fuck are they?” Aaron was screaming now, his face red with frustration.

“I’ve seen Indians up by the Seattle Center,” said Barry. “On Queen Anne Hill.”

Cornelius and Zera, homeless Indians, huddled together in a doorway across the street from a Blockbuster Video on lower Queen Anne Hill. The doorway was a good spot, kept warm by the furnace beneath it. Fairly safe, too, in a busy neighborhood. Cornelius and Zera had spent a year of nights in that doorway.

“You warm?” Cornelius asked Zera.

“Warm enough,” she said. But she was shaking, and Cornelius pulled her closer. They’d been together for five years and had spent half of that time homeless. The other half, they’d shared and been evicted from three apartments. Money and jobs were seasonal. Cornelius, a Makah Indian, was a deep-sea fisherman, a job that would have kept him away for months at a time, and he just didn’t want to leave Zera, a Puyallup. She was manic-depressive and simply couldn’t take care of herself. So Cornelius worked as a manual laborer, losing the job whenever Zera showed up and terrorized customers and managers, or when he missed work to search for her after her latest disappearance. She’d been hospitalized three times and Cornelius had always missed her so much he couldn’t sleep. He would just walk around the hospital, one or two hundred times a day, until she was finally released.

“You warm now?” Cornelius asked.

She nodded her head, but he knew she was lying. He offered her a drink of coffee from the thermos. He’d always leave the empty thermos at the back door of the nearby McDonald’s, and Doug, the redheaded night manager, would secretly fill it again with leftover coffee. Small kindnesses. Cornelius also had a loaf of bread he’d bought with money he’d made selling
Real Change
, the newspaper written and distributed by the homeless. He took out two slices, jammed them together, and offered it to Zera.

“Hey, look,” he said. “A jam sandwich.”

She laughed, took the sandwich, and swallowed it down.

As Aaron piloted his truck through lower Queen Anne in search of Indians, he brooded about David. Frail David Rogers with his lopsided grin. Always reading some damn book or another. Loved Hemingway’s Nick Adams, the monosyllabic hero with the monosyllabic name. Nick. The first man, the essential man, the genesis of man. Adams. Everything that David was not. In high school, David tried to play football and made the team as a fourth-string receiver. He cheered on Aaron, the toughest linebacker in the league. Aaron had wanted to play college football at the University of Washington, one of the best programs in the country, but they hadn’t been interested in him. He was too small for Division I, the recruiters told him. Junior college would be best, the coaches told him. But Aaron would not accept anything less than UW, so he enrolled anyway, and David had followed him. Aaron hadn’t made it halfway through the first day of football tryouts when some behemoth knocked him unconscious and out of contention for a roster spot. After that, Aaron and David had grown even closer. More than brothers. They moved in with Sean and Barry, studied hard, and were well on their way to graduation when David disappeared. Aaron thought of his father, who was probably driving to Seattle right now.

“Fuck,” Aaron cursed while Barry held his baseball bat tightly. Sean was getting more nervous than angry. He’d never seen Aaron, who had quite a temper anyway, look so furious. Aaron had been on a short fuse since David had disappeared, and Sean could understand that. Hell, he missed David, too, but he was gone and there was nothing they could do about it. Maybe they thought they could do a lot about it, like beating the shit out of a few Indians with blunt instruments. Perhaps baseball bats. Sean shook his head. It was all getting out of control.

“They’re hiding,” Sean said. “We’re not going to find them now. Everybody must know about the Indian Killer.”

“We’ll find them,” Aaron said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Sean.

Before Aaron could respond, Barry shouted and pointed up the street at two Indians sleeping in a doorway. Aaron smiled. He slipped a ski mask over his face, as Sean and Barry did the same.

Cornelius was watching Zera sleep. She spent most of her waking hours in a struggle for emotional balance, and it showed in her face. Deep wrinkles, haunted eyes, sudden gestures and unpredictable movements. In sleep, she relaxed, sometimes smiled, and Cornelius thought her beautiful. Sleep is a little piece of death, he thought, and Zera found some peace in that temporary afterlife. He was busy looking at her while she slept when the truck pulled up to a sharp stop near the doorway.

“Hey, you fuckers!”

Three men in ski masks, white, purple, and blue, jumped out of the pickup. Two of them, white mask and blue mask, held baseball bats. Purple mask was empty-handed.

“Wake up, wake up!” Cornelius yelled as he shook Zera awake. They both struggled to their feet.

“Fucking drunks! Fuck you, fuck you!”

The man in the white mask advanced with his baseball bat. He was obviously the leader. For some reason, Cornelius held out the thermos as an offering. He looked down at his outstretched hand and couldn’t believe what he was doing.

“I don’t want your booze!” shouted white mask as he swung the bat and smashed the thermos out of Cornelius’s hand.

“Home run! Home run!” shouted blue mask. He came forward, swinging his bat as if he were a baseball player warming up. Purple mask stayed back.

“Come on, come on, you fucking Indian,” said white mask. He jabbed his bat into Cornelius’ belly. Zera was trembling beside him.

“We don’t want no trouble,” Cornelius said. “We’ll leave.”

“Go back to where you belong, man!” shouted blue mask. “Get the fuck out of our country, man!”

A crowd had gathered, though no one in it seemed eager to interfere. God, I hope somebody called the cops, thought Cornelius. When he flexed his hand, the pain told him white mask had broken it into pieces. Cornelius was still debating his options when Zera made her decision and tackled blue mask. Before Cornelius could react, white mask broke Cornelius’s jaw with a wicked swing of his bat.

“Get her off me! Get her off me!” blue mask shouted as Zera tore at his face. As purple mask tried to pull her off, white mask savagely beat Cornelius. Five, ten, twenty swings of the bat. Four cracked ribs, punctured lung, various contusions and abrasions, concussion.

Purple mask had pulled Zera off blue mask, who had smashed her across the face with his bat. The amount of blood shocked blue mask. He stepped back.

“Payback, motherfucker, payback!” shouted white mask. He kept swinging the bat at Cornelius, might have beaten the life out of the Indian, if purple mask had not pulled him away.