Murder on the Red Cliff Rez (11 page)

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Authors: Mardi Oakley Medawar

BOOK: Murder on the Red Cliff Rez
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David held up a hand with two fingers upraised. “Twice.”
Michael's eyes bulged slightly. “Hey! No shit? How'd that work out?”
David cupped his hands around the Bic, lighting yet another cigarette. Blowing smoke, he said, “Pretty good.”
Michael was rapidly beginning to realize just how much he loathed Indian humor.
The silence returned and time dragged on. This, Michael determined, was the worst surveillance duty he'd ever pulled. Not only was he not told who they were tailing, they'd done most of the tailing in a car that couldn't outrun a duck. Now here he was stuck in the woods with bears
lurking behind every tree. What really began to gnaw was the mounting certainty that his chain-smoking Bear Clan Indian companion wouldn't necessarily feel compelled to jump in should a bear decide to maul anyone other than himself.
Oh, yeah. This is great duty. Mama, give me more.
Michael sat up straight the instant he saw the small distant glow; it lasted only one or two seconds, then was gone. As if this was the cue he'd been waiting for, David zipped up his jacket and opened the car door. The Toyota, along with its many other minuses, didn't have interior lighting. As David stepped out, he made a throwaway comment about bears looking for lunch. Then he was gone.
 
Benny was drying his hair with a hand towel and Tracker was so intent in what she had to tell him that when the passenger door suddenly opened, both of them started. Her eyes were as wide as saucers as David slid in, causing Benny to move further along the bench, squeeze in against Tracker.
After quickly closing the door, David said, “So how's it goin', eh?”
For several seconds, Tracker didn't remember to breathe. When at last the need overwhelmed her, she swallowed a great gulp. “Where did you come from?” she cried.
David used his thumb to point behind him, through the rear window. “Little ways down the road.”
“You followed me?” She sounded mortified.
“Yep.”
“Alone?”
“Nope. Super deputy's with me. But not to worry. He'll stay put. I think our boy's kinda afraid of the woods.”
Benny stared down at the damp towel in his hands, his expression utterly defeated. In a small voice he asked, “You gonna put the cuffs on me, David?”
David and Tracker made eye contact over Benny's bowed head. Without breaking that contact, he said, “I was thinking maybe we'd have a beer first.”
Benny immediately perked. “I'm starvin', ya know. Think maybe we could have that beer over in Cornucopia?”
David considered the request, thinking about the bar called Fish Lipps. Shaking his head he said, “Don't think that's such a good idea. Too many folks we know hang out in the Lipps.”
“What about C-Side?” Tracker suggested.
David put the kibosh on that one, too. “Naw, Chuck and Sig took off again for Delta. That means C-Side's gonna stay buttoned up for a couple of weeks.”
Benny was no longer meek natured. “But, man, I'm hungry. And I mean belly-snappin'-at-my-liver hungry.” He lip-pointed to Tracker. “This here girl not only ate most of my lunch, she had me hauling my sorry butt over some real bad ground in the middle of a mother of a storm. If you don't feed me, David, I'm gonna file a cruel and unusual on ya.”
David laughed. “Tell ya what, I'll spring for a big plate of nachos over at Jack's.”
Benny shook his head woefully, heaved a huge sigh. “I was hoping for a plate of bloody meat.” He sighed again. “But if all you've got is Jack's nachos … well, I guess I am your prisoner.”
“Hey!” David laughed again. “Ya think?”
Tracker started the truck as David hopped out. Just before
closing the door he yelled, “Don't drive too fast. I'll be following in the rollin' wreck.”
Nodding that she understood, Tracker slid the gears into first, setting off at a snail's pace for Washburn.
 
Michael was never so relieved to see anyone in his entire life. During the eternity he'd had to wait, he'd heard all kinds of noises beyond the Toyota's thin aluminum walls. Noises that had nothing to do with the lessening wind and rain. They were sounds made by mammals—big suckers, and every last one of them equipped with pointy claws and long sharp teeth. Michael now knew exactly what it felt like to be a slab of Spam in an easy-open can.
“Where the hell have you been?” he cried.
Sliding in and closing the door, David keyed the ignition. “Steady, boy. I'm here now, you're saved.” He took a quick look at the deputy. “You sound like you could use a drink.”
“Damn right I could,” Michael snorted.
“Will a beer do ya?”
“A six-pack would be better.”
David turned on the headlights as the car began its sluggish roll. “Then you just hang in there, chum. Tonto knows just the place.”
 
Michael didn't recognize Tracker's parked truck as they passed it, David maneuvering the Toyota up the sloping dirt-and-gravel parking lot behind the Cantina del Norte bar. Michael had never been inside the Washburn watering hole simply referred to by the locals as Jack's. Until this very minute, Michael hadn't felt any deep inner longing to rub elbows with the locals. All he'd wanted was to serve
his time in law enforcement hell, then run like a scalded dog back to Madison. But today had been a pip. He hadn't been kidding about needing a six-pack. Seconds after David parked the car under a leafless tree—its branches clawing the top of the car like fingernails screeching down a chalkboard—Michael leaped out and slammed the door, going for all he was worth up the hill that ended at the bar's back door.
Tracker chose the table near the kitchen doorway. The bar was an honest-to-God ship's bow, complete with a carved wooden masthead—a woman in eighteenth-century dress, skirts billowing behind her, standing on the crest of a wave. Jack, the owner of the Cantina del Norte, had placed a black sombrero on the woman's head. Somehow the thing made her look, well, jaunty. As was usual for this time of day, the bar was packed. Jack, in his mid-forties and rakishly good looking, was behind the bar under the mizzenmast, standing in his typical pose: one leg raised, foot resting on the cooler. He was wearing a green Packers T-shirt, tan Bermuda shorts, and gray yachting sneakers. The weather just outside the barroom windows was cold and blowing, but the calendar on the wall above the cash register read spring. Jack preferred to believe in the things he read rather than in the things he actually experienced.
His smile seemed genuine, but his eyes were empty as he continually flicked the ash off a cigarette. From the other
side of the bar, the pub babble flowed. A longtime bartender, Jack knew just when to give a consoling nod during an all-too-familiar sob story, just when to laugh at a well-worn joke. At the moment the object of conversation in the bar was a retriever, the dog's owner taking a poll on whether the dog should be put down. Differing opinions were flying as Tracker and Benny slipped in through the back door, made their way along the curve of the bar and into the darker area of the barroom. The only soul to notice their entrance was Jack, his blue eyes coming alive with mild surprise as he lifted his chin—Jack's way of saying hello.
At the table bolted against the wall, Benny, still wearing his hood up, hiked himself into a chair. In the murky light provided by the long Miller Lite bottle lamp hanging over the only pool table, Benny looked like a ghoul. Just as Tracker sat in the other chair, Lois, a longtime employee of Jack's, poked her blond head out of the kitchen doorway, about to yell at Jack. Before Lois could let fly, Tracker hurriedly ordered a large platter of del Norte's infamous black bean nachos and two regular Millers. Lois signaled the okay on the nachos, but she testily yelled the beer order over to Jack. Without so much as a turn of his curly head, and still managing to seem immersed in the discussion about the dog, he drew out the cans of brew, popped the tops, and walked to the end of the bar. Setting the cans on the counter, he hollered, “Here ya go, Track.”
She left Benny at the table, going to fetch the beers just as Jack sauntered back to his place. Tracker wasn't what anyone would call a del Norte regular, and whenever she deigned to put in an appearance Jack ordinarily would give
her his full attention. But at the moment he was concerned about the retriever's owner. The man was getting loud, drowning out the three TVs and the jukebox (on which someone had punched the gravelly voiced Rod Stewart). Not even combined could the Weather Channel (first TV), a CNN talking head's account of some disaster or other (second TV), an announcer baying, “Emily Hewitt, come on down!” (third TV), and Rod screaming and shouting his juked sexual excitement for Hot Legs equal the din created by one thoroughly inebriated Wisconsin duck hunter.
“Fuckin' dog! Cost me three hundred bucks an' all the damn thing does is dig up gophers and chipmunks, leaving me to beat off the mean and the quick ones. What I oughta do is shoot the sucker, then go after the little bastard that stuck me with him. Kinda teach both of 'em a lesson, ya know?”
Jack kept a baseball bat under the counter but preferred diplomacy over the St. Louie swing. “Hey, I'm widchew, chum.” The man sipped his beer, anger momentarily cooling, and Jack, foot once again propped on the cooler, watched him.
 
The hood pushed back against his shoulders, Benny assaulted the platter of nachos, shoveling loaded tortilla chips into his mouth at high speed. Tracker took a long pull on her beer. A million questions banged around inside her head, but she knew Benny wouldn't be ready to talk until he'd eaten himself full. Then, too, it was best to wait for David. Being in the del Norte and waiting for David struck her with such a sense of déjà vu that her stomach began to
pitch like a herring boat caught out in a Superior squall. This little table in the Cantina was exactly where it had all happened: their fight, the big bust-up.
Non-Indians labor under the misconception that a male Indian's war cry is a bloodcurdling whoop. Indians know better. Know that any male Indian finding himself stuck in deep do-do bellows the fabled four words:
Baby, let me 'splain!
David had done a lot of explaining that night, most of it down on his knees begging her to believe him. Tracker hadn't then, still didn't now.
As she was thinking of the devil, he walked in through the back door; trailing after him was the Bayfield County deputy. David paused behind the bar, speaking to Jack. Evidently he was asking about her because Jack, with a toss of his head, indicated where she could be found. David mouthed his thanks. As he came toward her, time blurred. Tracker was struggling to breathe when he came to stand in front of her, both hands shoved deep inside jeans pockets. Then he was asking a question she'd heard many times before.
“You okay on smokes, babe?”
Tracker could only stare up at him, shake her head. David turned, going to the cigarette machine. She watched, eyes misting, as he fed the machine quarters, punched her brand. Meanwhile, Michael, on the other side of the table, slid into the vacant high chair, nodding to the man beside him.
“Hey, how's it going?”
“Everything's all right.” Benny shoveled more food into his mouth.
David went to the bar, retrieved two cans of Leinenkugel, came back to the table, edged into the chair next to
Tracker, and shoved one of the cans across to Michael, who picked it up and proceeded to chug it down. Tracker's hands shook as she opened the cigarettes, pulled one out, leaned into the flame David offered. She inhaled, then blew smoke toward the ceiling. In the low-key Chippewa way of doing things, she began a conversation with a topic certain to ease the moment.
“Heard you got a new rifle.”
David made himself more comfortable, his shoulder pressing against hers. “Oh, yeah? Who told you about my new rifle? Your dad?”
Tracker shrugged. “He mentioned you'd been going to the sand pit. I put it together the reason had to be a new rifle. Your old one hasn't needed to be sighted in since …” Her voice trailed off as she feigned trying to remember. She snapped her fingers as if it had suddenly come to her. “Oh, yeah. Since I was at school in the Cities and you were running around behind my back with Sharrie Du Bois.”
David pulled a face, drank some of his beer. The moment dragged. Then, elbows braced against the tabletop, his face inches from hers, he began speaking as if he hadn't heard the dig. “I got a .270 New England with a Swift 1.5 X 4.5 variable scope. I'm using 130-grain rounds.”
Tracker nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It'd be better if I could sight in the son of a bitch. Even at a hundred yards and with the crosshairs bang on, the sucker shoots high right.”
“Too high for a shoulder?”
As this was Tracker of innumerable neck shots asking, David fiddled with the baseball cap on his head, sounded a derisive laugh. “Duh!”
Michael, not a subsistence hunter, was bored. The first
thing he'd learned after being assigned to the backwoods was that when one was bellying up beside a roadhouse sweetie, the jeans-and-flannel-wearing femme fatale invariably asked, “What do you shoot?” Michael left the table, going for the bar and another round of beers.
Benny pushed the cleaned platter away, leaned forward. Lip pointing in the direction of Michael's back, he said, “He don't know who I am?”
David didn't bother to hide the smirk. “Not a clue.”
Benny eased against the chair's backrest, propping an elbow on the edge of the table. Thoughtful, index finger slowly rubbing across chin, Benny drawled, “Well, damn, this is different.”
David, exhaling a long plume of smoke, laughed, “Kinda thought you'd like it.”
The effect of the beer and the familiar circumstance were beginning to make Tracker feel a bit too warm all over. Before she found herself yielding to the temptation of slipping her arm through David's, she leaned forward, spoke to Benny. “Let's take him through the mystery of the log barge.”
“Are you back on that?” David yelped.
Tracker slapped David's arm and snarled, “Will you please just give me five damn minutes?”
David flashed his killer smile. “Okay, babe. I'd be more than happy to give ya four hours, but if all you're needing is five minutes, I swear to ya, honey, I'll be as quick as I can.”
Irked, Tracker slapped his arm again. Watching them, Benny smiled.
 
 
“Puttin' Frenchette on the logging recovery deal was like lettin' the fox guard the chickens,” the stranger at the table was saying.
Michael carefully placed the beers on the checkerboard sized table. He had to be careful. His hands were small for a man's (his worst physical flaw in his view), and the table was already littered with two full ashtrays, a platter, and four empty beer cans. As soon as he put the beers down, the stranger hooked one and kept right on talking. Michael eased into the chair as the pair across from him grabbed beers for themselves without bothering to acknowledge his efforts.
“Here comes the best part,” Tracker said to David.
The noise level in the bar rose another decibel. The volume of Benny's voice did not rise with it. He simply leaned forward more, the remaining three leaning in with him, four heads meeting at the center of the tiny table.
“All the bullshit Frenchette laid out during his campaign on putting a stop to the salvaging was just that. I told anybody who'd listen that the man was crooked as a hound's hind leg. But hell, he won tribal chair anyway, so I says to myself, okay, that's that. How much harm can the man do in a two-year term? But if what Tracker seen out in the Raspberry's got anything to do with Frenchette, then that man's found a way to hurt us all pretty damn bad.”
“You think that recovery operation's gonna hurt the tribe?”
“Dumb question, David,” Benny sneered. “Means you know beans about how this land of ours got stripped down to nothing much more than little pissant birches and tags. Them ain't trees, they're friggin' weeds. What we got now
ain't nothing like the forests our grandfathers used to walk and hunt in.”
Benny was becoming loud, attracting undue attention. Tracker reached across and touched his hand, flicking her eyes in the direction of the men seated at the bar, who were blatantly eavesdropping. It hadn't been too long ago that men exactly like the ones now in the Cantina were contesting Indian claims on the grounds that Indians already had too many rights. Benny took the hint and lowered his voice.
“The thing you're missin',” he continued, addressing David, “is that right now ain't the time to recover so much as a sunken toothpick. The weather's all wrong and the lake's a bad, bad lady in the spring. So those boys gotta be recovering something that ain't sunk. I got a good guess on what that is, and it ain't in the bottom of nothing.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” David cried.
Benny squirmed in the chair, came in closer, his voice low. “I'm talking about the old growth stand just shy of Raspberry that's—”
David's temper blew. “Oh, come on! I know that stand. Hell, everybody knows that stand. It's sacred, Ben. Nobody, and I mean nobody, would ever dare touch it.”
“Oh, yeah?” Benny's tone was a dare. “How do you know? Have you been out there lately? Do you know anybody that has?”
“No,” David said tersely. “Have you?”
“Nope. But that's where me an' Track were headed when you popped in on us. An' that's where we'll go right now if you can put off arresting me for a couple more hours.”
Michael's ears suddenly perked. “Arrest you! Arrest you for what?”
Benny offered his hand to Michael, his expression and voice deadpan. “I'm Benny Peliquin. Thanks for the beer, eh.”
 
Tracker was fighting back laughter as they all piled into her truck. The deputy was so near hysterical she wouldn't have been at all surprised if David suddenly wrestled him to the ground and wedged a tongue depressor inside his mouth. There was only one jump seat and floor space in the back. Michael and David ignored the jump seat, both choosing instead to sit on the floor with their legs tucked against their chests.
“We have our own way of doing things,” David said.
“Yes,” Michael countered, “but there is this tricky little item known as following procedure. You show me anywhere in the regs where it states a murder suspect has the right to scarf nachos and beer and I'll eat the damn page!”
Silence reigned while David tried to make himself more comfortable in the confined space. Then Tracker and Benny heard David say in a musing tone, “You're kinda an anal guy, aren't ya?”

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