Two Medicine (29 page)

“
Just a place to get some
info...” I muttered as I reluctantly got out.

I wasn’t against
going to strip clubs from time to time in the past
to be honest, in fact I had been to some in Atlanta that were
pretty damn wild, and had had a quite a few rousing times with
Scott or some old friends out on a bender – but that was my old
life. Not here, not in Montana, not at the “Candi Store”… not
during the day. And being in Browning I couldn’t imagine what kind
of strippers I’d see inside this place...

As I meandered across the
hot gravel parking lot towards the door, I pictured Sky Lake, the
flowing meadows baking in the sun, waves of movement as wind
brushed over them. And here I was, walking across a dirty parking
lot towards a titty bar in the middle of the day. My spirit reached
the bottom and I felt my investigatory enthusiasm leaking away as I
made my way towards my destination.

As I approached the
mournful building, I saw that the door was actually two, large,
leather-covered doors painted a bright red, under a little awning.
There were only a few cars around the place besides Thunderbird’s
bike, and were probably just the employees’ I presumed. I swung
open the door and walked inside.

Inside the doorway
to the Candi Store there was a hallway that turned
to the right and opened up to a bar area. It was very dark inside –
darker than the VFW bar even. I walked into the bar room, which was
one square room with a bar on my left side against the wall, and a
pool table and juke box on the other side. The usual bar décor was
there: neon signs, Budweiser mirror, and the lights were dimmed
down low. At the far end of the room, the wall opened up and a
larger room lay beyond with a stage that ran out into the middle of
the room, like a model’s runway, and some tables and chairs
scattered around. Music was blaring from the speakers in that dance
area. I saw another bar on the far wall in that room too, and since
nobody was at the bar where I was at, I walked through to the back,
looking out of the corner of my eyes for any strippers on the
stage.

The stage was empty but I
could see some near-nude girls hanging at the bar, with a couple of
patrons. One guy had long hair and was pretty chunky and had to be
Thunderbird – the very man himself.

The two stripper girls
noticed me first and looked me up and down as I walked over. Some
young guy was bartending, wearing a black “Candi Store” logo
t-shirt with a big lollipop image above the name. The girls both
had on lingerie panties, and one had a lacy bra on, the other was
topless and had medium sized boobs that sagged a little, but
otherwise weren’t all that bad... These were the “day shifters,” I
reflected, so these schmucks at the bar should be happy with what
they got.

I sat down next to the
long haired guy and it was indeed Thunderbird; he was busy
scratching off some silver ovals on a lottery ticket “scratcher”
game with a quarter, and had a big pint of beer in front of
him.

“
Hey Thunderbird,” I said,
trying to sound causal – no big deal, just dropping in to the Candi
Store for a little R&R…

He looked up at me with a
friendly smile, but seemed to not recognize me.

“
It’s Will? From the Two
Med store?” I said.

His face lit up. “Ooooo
yeah!” he said. “Big Will!” He shook my head heartily and beamed at
me, slapping me on the back heavily. “You come here
too?”

I glanced around the bar
for a second. “Uh, no… first time. I actually came to talk to
you.”

“What about?” he
asked.

“Well it’s kind of
private, can we talk somewhere?” I looked around the bar again. The
two strippers had gone back to talking to the bartender, but the
topless one was eyeing me and was probably wondering if we wanted
some company.

“Sure!” Thunderbird said,
and grabbed his beer and lottery scratcher and slid off the
stool.

“Tammy! We’ll be over
there,” he said to one of the strippers, the one with the bra,
sloshing his beer a bit as he indicated a table in the middle of
the room. Tammy just nodded and went back to her conversation with
one of the other guys at the bar.

We sat down and he asked
me if I wanted a beer.

“No, I’m good,” I
said.

“Well what can I do for
you Will?” he asked, setting his elbows down on the
table.

“It’s about Alia, her
murder,” I said.

His eyebrows rose.
“Really!” he said in a whisper, “what about it?”

He acted almost childlike,
with his strange enthusiasm with seeing me, with his dramatic
whispering, but I wondered if he was playing some kind of game with
me, if he was actually sharper than this and just faking this
innocent act for some purpose I couldn’t see.

I didn’t recall a whole
lot about our first meeting at the Two Med store, only that he left
me with the impression that he was a little crazy, but not any
crazier than a half-dozen other eccentric visitors to the
campground I’d already met that summer.

“Well,” I started in
reluctantly, “I don’t think much is happening to investigate her
murder. I worried nobody’s gonna find out who killed her, But
Thunder. She was found horribly beaten and battered to death,
alone, and nothing seems to have come of the BIA’s supposed
investigation or the tribe’s – if there was any
investigation.”

He just looked at me
blankly, so I continued. “That means nobody’s gonna pay for what
they did to her. And, Thunderbird, it means there’s still a
murderer out there, and this could happen again to some other poor
girl.” I paused for a moment, not sure what to say next.

“
And… she deserves more,
you know? I mean you knew her – don’t you agree? She was a great
person who was savagely murdered, and…” I faltered.

Thunderbird nodded with a
concerned look on his face, but didn’t say anything in return. His
eyes looked like they were tearing up, but it was hard to tell in
the dim light. As the music continued to blare from the speakers, I
continued. “Everyone around here seems to either not give a shit or
not want to ignore it – shove it under a rug – which makes me
wonder even more who did it. I couldn’t even find out where her
funeral was, or who even found her body.”

“
Sky found her,”
Thunderbird said.

I was lost for a second,
not sure if “Sky” was a person or what it meant…

“
What?”

“
Sky came across her early
in the morning. Sky told the rangers first thing.”

“
Who’s Sky?” I
asked.

“
A local girl – a friend
of mine,” he answered. “She lives in Browning; she’s
Blackfoot.”

“
She found Alia in the
woods?” I asked, wanting him to be perfectly clear.

He nodded, “Uh huh.” I
waited for him to say more, but he didn’t, just kept
nodding.

“
What was she doing out
there in the middle of the night?” I asked.

“
Sky?” he shrugged, “I
don’t know.” He looked as if the question had never occurred to
him. “You should ask her,” he said.

“
Where does she
live?”

“
She lives with a boy
named Clayton,” he said.

My face fell, and I felt a
shock at the same time. “Clayton Red Claw?” I asked, frowning back
at him.

Thunderbird’s face grew
concerned, mirroring mine almost. “That’s her necklace, isn’t it?
Alia’s?” he asked. He was staring at my neck and it made me
uncomfortable.

I had never taken the
necklace off since I had first put it on the morning after my night
with Alia, so I rarely noticed it anymore. His question surprised
me and I reached up and felt the metal arrowhead.

“
Yea, it is. She gave it
to me before… before she left.”

His face became more
serious. “It doesn’t have any
power
, you know, that
necklace.”

I looked back at him,
confused and worried at the same time; his tone concerned me. “I
didn’t think it did.” But then I added, “Except as a reminder of
her.”

He shook his head, “Her
spirit is with you; I can tell… it’s troubling you, her spirit is.
She won’t let you rest, will she?” He voice became lower, more
secretive, and he looked honestly concerned as he said this, his
eyes staring into mine. The music of the bar was fading away as I
listened to his words.

“
She has
a strong spirit, that one,” he continued. “And now it’s with you,
and it’s making
your
spirit upset.” He nodded and then reached down to
this side where he had a fanny pack attached, almost hidden by his
big belly and stretched, black t-shirt. “I’m going to give you
something that
does
have power, Will. Your spirit needs it – to fix what’s wrong.
Your spirit must put her spirit out – you can’t carry two spirits,
Will.”

He handed me a little ball
of black leather string, and tied to it were some beads.

“
Beads are very powerful
to native peoples,” Thunderbird said. “You wear it, and you’ll be
at peace.” He nodded at me with assuredness as he handed me the
item.

I stared down at the little
beaded leather string he had given me. “I don’t
want
to be at peace,” I answered
quietly, not even realizing that I was speaking out loud. “I want
her spirit with me.”

Thunderbird shook his head
slowly. “No you don’t.”

I stared back at him,
unable to take eyes off him. The noise of the bar had faded to
nothing.

“
You can’t have two,” he
said quietly. “People that have two spirits go crazy.”

I found myself outside the
strip club afterwards, standing outside the leather door and facing
the sunset, not sure what had transpired – or even what I had
accomplished. Despite the bizarreness of the interview, however, I
felt encouraged by the fact that I had found out who had actually
discovered Alia’s body.

But the conversation with
Thunderbird overall left me unsettled, like I had a new problem to
content with – some ungraspable problem. I shook my head and
wondered what I had, in fact, really accomplished today. But I kept
the necklace, and wrapped it around my wrist, tying it off tightly.
Just in case.

Before I left
the club Thunderbird had told me that he would
drop by the store in the next couple days, to talk more. I didn’t
know if that would achieve anything further, but I didn’t
object.

I called Greg’s office
number at his house to see about a ride, but nobody picked up the
phone. I looked back at the club and at the old Harley, but didn’t
want to ride with Thunderbird all the way back. I thought about
calling Ronnie at the store where Greg had dropped the car off, but
I figured Ronnie would for sure want to go back into the strip club
if he came all the way here; and I wasn’t willing to hang out in
there with Ronnie and Thunderbird together by any means – that was
scene I just couldn’t take at the moment.

So I started walking. It
was walkable, technically, from this side of Browning to Two Med;
and as I walked I thought more about what Thunderbird had said. I
looked at the leather on my wrist and felt the beads rolling over
my skin. They had a smooth, cold feel; and it brought me a calm
feeling as I felt them rolling over my wrist. But that could have
just been power of suggestion, I told myself.

I had grown up a casual
Christian in a Christian household, as I mentioned, and I believed
what the Christian faith teaches, at least I tried to hold on to a
childhood belief, but religious teachings always came hand-in-hand
with doubts for me; constant skepticism and nagging doubts as to
whether it all was just fairy tales made up by men over history for
various man-made schemes and purposes.

Nevertheless, I had always
been sensitive to and greatly affected by spiritualism of any
stripe – as a kid and as an adult. And this necklace “with power”
that Thunderbird had given me was no different and his words to me
about “two spirits” at odds with each other had affected me indeed.
But this time it was different; this beaded leather rope was a
totem of a spiritual belief that came with a uniquely personal
touch – it was specifically and only meant to deal with Alia’s
spirit and mine – no soul saving or all-inclusive message for the
world’s salvation here. And that was different – religion to me had
never been so personal and so specific as this little band of
leather on my wrist. But I still wasn’t sure of what to make of the
whole experience.

And I for sure didn’t know
anything about Alia’s spirit or soul, I wasn’t even sure that kind
of thing existed; but I
had
felt different since she died,
hadn’t I
? Not just mourning and loss,
I felt… altered. Katie had sensed it. Maybe she wouldn’t sense it
now that I had my beads on... that would be an interesting test, I
mused as I walked down the road.

I shook my head and told
myself I was going crazy. But as I walked, I pictured Alia’s little
spirit walking besides me on the road – a see-through version of
the little beautiful girl I had fallen in love with, walking
silently next to me. The image made me feel at peace, to picture us
holding hands as we strolled down the desolate highway together. I
imagined what she would have said about the Candi Store, and I
smiled at the thought.