Tribal Ways (13 page)

He looked back at her. “I’m not asking you to agree with me. You asked a question. I’m trying to answer.”

“You’re not interested in persuading me?”

“Not really,” he said, turning back to the dishes. “We mostly look to help people who look to help themselves. Opinions don’t matter much one way or the other—actions do. Anyway, if people need to be talked into being free, what’s the point?”

“Hmm,” she said.

After a few moments she said, “You and your father should try to work things out. Seriously.”

He put the last dish in the rack, pulled the plug from the sink and, turning to face her, leaned back against the counter.

“Kind of ambitious given that he’s set on hunting me down.”

“But that’s all based on misunderstanding. The way—the way your whole relationship with him seems to be.”

He laughed. “Now you’re an authority on Ten Bears family politics?”

“I’ve met and spoken to you both,” she said. “I respect you both. And it doesn’t take any kind of expert to see what’s going on. It’s so obvious. Unless you’re too close to the situation to see it. And too blinkered by pride.”

“It’s not just pride. We’re, like, polar opposites, him and me. You know how I said earlier that some of us adapt too well to the white man’s ways? My father’s exhibit A. A classic case. Always making jokes and playing up to the white folks. Doing everything but tugging the forelock or strumming a banjo.”

“But your father uses his sense of humor, don’t you see? Whether it’s to fool suspects into underestimating him or showing up pompous whites without them even knowing it. It’s not any kind of self-abnegation. If anything it’s a kind of assertion of self.”

“Or passive-aggression,” he said mockingly, “or whichever shrink-speak catchphrase you care to use.”

“You’re both strong men,” she said. “You’re both looking for ways to face the future without losing your identity as individuals or as a culture. Your solutions aren’t all that different, really, if you just look at them. Even your political beliefs aren’t as far apart as you think.”

He gave her a skeptical look.

“Your father’s adopted the overculture’s ways,” she persisted, “but his outlook is wholly his own. Even his humor’s an Indian tradition itself. I don’t pretend to be an expert on Native American cultures any more than on your particular family. I do know enough Indians to know what kind of sense of humor so many share.”

“I’ve been a rebel all my life,” Johnny said. “I tried to fit in. That was part of what joining the Army was about. And what I learned from the Army was—I didn’t want to fit.”

“But you’re not a terrorist. I may not be onboard with everything you believe, or even do. But there’s no need for you and your father to be enemies or even at odds. It’s just such a waste.”

He shook his head. “No. We’re doomed to disappoint each other. That’s just the way it is. Good night, Annja. I’m going to bed.”

For a full minute she stayed alone in a kitchen dimly lit by the single fluorescent fixture over the sink.

“Why do I have this feeling,” she asked herself quietly, “that could have gone better?”

S
UNLIGHT LIT UP
the curtains of her bedroom and made a bright band across the top as a brisk, insistent knocking on the door roused her.

“Ms. Creed,” a feminine voice she didn’t recognize called. “You should probably come pretty quick. We got a situation.”

Snake, Billy and Ricky were in the kitchen when Annja entered. Billy was pouring coffee into mugs.

A small TV on the counter by the fridge was on. A glum-looking man in a tan trench coat stood in the right foreground. To the left, a block or two behind him, many vehicles with flashing lights surrounded a white building with a peaked roof standing well up above the budding trees.

“No change in the hostage situation in an Assembly of God Church in eastern Lawton,” he was saying into a mic.

Without conscious intent Annja accepted a steaming mug from Billy. She frowned. “This sounds bad,” she said, “but how does it concern us?”

“Comanche Star Casino opens today,” Snake said. “Do you believe this is a coincidence?”

“But what does a standoff at a church in town have to do with the casino opening twenty miles out in the county?”

The newsman was describing how no demands had yet been made by the hostage takers. Nor had they identified themselves when they had called an area radio station an hour earlier to announce that they had taken hostages.

“Now, we’re getting reports in the newsroom that there have been no indications of crimes or police pursuits taking place in the area that might have led fugitives to take innocent people hostage,” he said.

“As of now nothing is known except that the pastor, a maintenance man and two parishioners are being held captive by unknown gunmen. Or at least that’s all the authorities are telling us.”

“Good diversion,” Ricky said.

Annja could hear others coming in. Obviously the safe house was an emergency mustering point for the Iron Horses. She felt a spike of alarm.

“Is it a good idea to bring everybody here?” she asked. “I mean, the police and Feds are going to be made berserk by this. If this place is compromised, wouldn’t it give the Dogs and the FBI the Waco-style extravaganza they both want?”

They looked at her. “Not bad for a white chick,” Snake said.

Johnny came in, smelling of cold air and outdoors. “She’s right,” he said. He was in an elevated mood; color glowed on his cheeks and his eyes shone like obsidian chips in sunlight. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I put out word to gather the tribe. Well, we’ll use the chance to make sure everybody who’s here is on the same frequency, wave off the rest and split up again.”

He sat down in an incongruously prim-looking wooden kitchen chair. It was painted white, with colorful flowers.

“You’d think I’d be mindful of the dangers of clumping up, especially since our whole thing is decentralization,” he said. “Not to mention I’ve spent three years fighting people we were never able to win any kind of lasting victory over precisely because they didn’t centralize. They didn’t depend on chains of command—didn’t have a single head we could chop off.”

“Human tendency’s to seek comfort in one another’s company in trying times,” Billy said. For once his manner seemed serious. It made him look older than his usual mad-goblin humor did. “Even us crazy-individualist Plains warrior types. No harm done, Johnny. Feds’ve got their hands full right this minute, even if somebody drops a dime on us. So pat the brothers’ and sisters’ cheeks and send them on their way with a glad heart.”

Johnny grinned and nodded. He got up and went out. Annja observed how the others watched him with a look of reverence. Even the hardcase Snake. Johnny had just done what no conventional leader or commander would—admitted a mistake. To an outsider. And it hadn’t diminished his standing in the eyes of the club a bit. Meanwhile Billy, who’d dropped his clown mask to play the wise elder, was nodding to himself with a smile of pleasure, as if he’d invented Johnny.

Interesting, she thought, and sipped her coffee.

A moment later she heard many powerful V-twin engines roaring alive outside. Johnny came back in. “Okay. We’re not all sitting like ducks on a pond now, anyway. They’ll spread the word to everybody else to stay sharp and wait for the word to move.”

“How will you get the word out?” Annja asked.

“Boys and girls’ll go deliver the word in person, as much as they safely can,” Billy said. “Beyond that, we got us walkie-talkies.”

“But the Feds can listen in on that.”

“Might be a little tricky with the encryption Snake set up on our sets,” Billy said. “Anyway, even if they crack the crypto—well, let’s just say them Navajos weren’t the only code talkers in World War II, even if they do get all the ink.”

Annja stared at him. Then laughed. And quickly sobered.

“But it’s not like they can’t find Comanche speakers around here, either,” she pointed out. She hoped the obvious example—Lieutenant Tom Ten Bears, OHP—didn’t have to be enunciated.

“Do you think we’re total idiots?” Snake asked. “We’ve been playing this game awhile, even if the stakes have started rising dramatically.”

“Our Ms. Creed doesn’t like to take things for granted,” Johnny said, pulling a chair around backward and sitting down facing her with his arms across the bowed wooden back. “Do you, Annja? She wanted to make sure we had it covered.”

“We got code phrases and such in Numunu,” Billy said. “Same thing the code talkers from all the Nations did in World War II, in case the Japs caught Indians and made them translate. ’Course, they never caught ’em carloads of Comanches the way they did them poor Navajo fellers in the Philippines.”

“That was MacArthur’s fault,” Johnny said.

“True enough.”

“So what can we do about this?” Annja asked. It was seeming less and less likely to her that this hostage taking was coincidence, the more she thought about it. “We—you can’t very well go out and try to throw a cordon around this new casino. The cops would scoop you up like a bunch of tadpoles in a net.”

“I think she’s getting the hang of our folksy Western metaphors, Johnny,” Billy said.

“We can wait for what happens next.” Johnny seemed supercharged, more truly alive than she had yet seen him. It made him more even magnetic. Like he needs that, she thought.

“Then what?” she asked.

He grinned like Billy. “It depends,” he said.

Johnny, Snake, Billy, Ricky and Annja remained together in the kitchen. Johnny cooked a breakfast of eggs, ham, hash browns, wheat toast. It wasn’t exactly a demanding menu but he did it to perfection, while keeping up a high-energy stream of banter with his companions. Annja guessed that anything he did, he’d make sure to do it well.

The television kept up its own stream of excited non information. Apparently nothing more was being heard from hostage takers or hostages. Though nothing was said explicitly Annja and the rest got the strong impression the authorities were trying to prepare themselves to rush the place.

“They like to negotiate when they can,” said Angel, who came in at midmorning. “Good PR. Even makes sense if they can resolve it that way. Less risk of what they call collateral damage.”

“Though they seem to care less about that every day,” Billy said.

“True. But here at home, anyway, they’re still shy about pulling really scaly stuff in view of the whole world, which any media situation like this is these days. But it also makes them crazy when they can’t get anybody to talk back to them. Can’t negotiate one-way.”

“Most likely,” Johnny said, “there’s all kinds of feuding all the way up the law-enforcement ladder about whether to pull elements off the Casino for this. Even postpone the opening.”

He was truly enjoying himself, Annja could see. He thinks we’re about to see action, she thought. And he loves it.

She couldn’t honestly say she didn’t feel the same way. She still wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But she was personally going nuts sitting still and not being able to do anything.

“Nation won’t let them put off the grand opening,” Billy said. “Got too much riding on it—money, reputation. They’ll take it all the way to the top if they have to. And no politician’s so highly placed he or she’ll turn down nice gifts of Indian-casino cash.”

Johnny held up a big hand. “Wait,” he said sharply.

“We’re getting reports now of an explosion near an elementary school in Lawton,” an older reporter was saying on the screen. He had piercing blue eyes, silver-white hair shellacked into unlikely waves and a voice like molten amber. Apparently the station’s big gun had been rolled out to break the new development.

“Holy shit,” Ricky said. “Let me go check the police scanner.” He disappeared through the rounded archway of the door to the rest of the house.

As the group sat and listened tensely in the kitchen more information filtered in from various sources. The story played out that a car had exploded and burst into flames on a side street a half block away from the school. The students had been inside at classes; there were no reports of injury.

“Why would the Dogs take so much trouble to avoid hurting people if they’re starting a terrorist campaign?” Annja asked.

“It’s smart,” Angel said. “They want to frighten people and shake up the authorities without making everybody hate them. Killing kids will pretty much unify the country against them.”

“Speaking of the old militia types,” Billy said, “not that I knew any. They used to say after the Oklahoma City bombing that if McVeigh hadn’t blown up those kids at the daycare in the Murrah Building he’d have been considered a national hero. Now, I’m not saying I agree with that, but they did have a point.”

“And even setting off a bomb
near
a school will freak everyone out completely,” Snake said. “No matter what’s going on elsewhere the pigs have to respond to this one. Big-time.”

“So,” Johnny said. “
Two
diversions. That’ll shake everybody’s shit loose.”

“Except the Dogs’,” Snake said coolly.

“Look, I’m as skeptical of the authorities as anybody else,” Annja said. “But won’t they see these have to be diversions, too?”

“Oh, hell, yes, Annja,” Billy said. “Even Lamont sees that.”

“Even if they recognize it’s a feint, what else can they do?” Johnny asked. “As Snake says, threatening a school’s the thermonuclear option. The authorities have to jump all over it.”

“So now what?”

“Dog Soldiers’re about to make their move,” Billy said, draining his fifth mug of black coffee. “We sit tight and hope to spot it in time to put a stick through their front spokes.”

“How’re you going to do that if—”

“You were going to ask, ‘if the Feds can’t?’” Johnny laughed. “What did I tell you? Nothing happens in Indian country—”

“That people don’t know about. Yeah. But you guys had no clue about that terrorist confab at the training center,” Annja said.

“The Dogs were being ultra-hush-hush about that. And we weren’t looking for it. This is the Dog Society making its big play—whatever it was they wanted those other radical fools to jump in on. It’ll be public, splashy, and we’re on full alert for whatever it turns out to be.”

“Like the government, we got eyes and ears everywhere. Only ours are human,” Billy said. “Advantage—us.”

“He’s right,” Snake said. She seemed amused.

And as if cued Ricky appeared in the doorway. He held a small yellow push-to-talk radio to his ear.

“I think we got a hit.”