Two Medicine (37 page)

“
You
were out in Browning tonight, trying to find out
about
her
,
weren’t you?” she asked bitterly. Before I could answer, she asked,
“Why do you fucking care so much about her?”

When I didn’t say
anything, she turned her gaze from me with disgust and leaned
forward again, rubbing her face in her hands. Her little blonde bun
of hair was shaking as she did so, her body was trembling
again.

“
I
talked to my mom tonight,” I heard her say, muffled in her hands.
“That fucking bastard has filed for a divorce. A divorce? After all
the shit
he
did to the family?” She looked back to me, angry but with a
trembling lip. “Men disgust me.”

“
Jesus, Katie,” I said
softly. “You’re all over the place. You need to get a grip on
yourself.”

“
Is this where you got a
grip on that girl?” She asked, patting the bed with a twisted
smile. She laughed and then got up and walked over to the dresser.
She grabbed the bottle and twisted off the top. It was like
watching someone slowly lose their mind in front of you, stage by
stage, one emotion at a time.

“
That’ll just make things
worse,” I said as I watched her. “Why don’t you just lay down and
we can talk tomorrow.”

“
So you can get a grip on
me?” She downed the rest of the whiskey and walked over to the door
and closed it, dropping the empty bottle in my waste basket. She
turned to me and pulled her shirt off. Her breasts were round,
firm, perfect, and she knew how pretty she was. I saw that she was
starting to unbutton her shorts; her eyes were glistening with a
watery glaze.

I walked
over
, picked up her shirt and handed it to
her. I felt a stirring, being so close to her, being so near her
nakedness and warmth, but at this moment I just felt sad for her –
knowing how she was going to feel tomorrow.

She paused and took the
shirt, watching me for a moment. Then she laughed and put it back
on, and walked over to the bed. “Figures,” she said, sitting down
heavily. “I know you think I’m crazy, coming in here like this; but
I certainly couldn’t go over there,” she pointed towards Ronnie’s
room.

I ran some water in a
glass from a pitcher I kept by the bed, and handed it to her. She
took it and drank deeply. “So I came over here and knocked, but
nobody was home. And I knew you were out there looking for
her.”

She pointed over at the
frame I had placed facedown. “And I thought, ‘that makes perfect
sense.’ You are obsessed with this girl you hardly knew, who you
just fucked,” she said the work harshly, like she it tasted bad to
her, “and then you spend all you time running around trying to
find… something… I don’t know what you are trying to
find.”

She shook her head with
frustration. “Men make no sense to me – always chasing the wrong
women and fucking things up where they live. And you of all people
should know better.”

I wasn’t sure why she
necessarily thought I should know any better, but I took the
compliment.

“
Believe it or not I
didn’t come to find you to fuck you,” she looked at me and smiled
sadly, “I just wanted someone to talk to, to tell you that my dad
had finally destroyed my family, once and for all. But then I saw
you were gone, I knew what you were doing, and I thought to myself
that it was high time I started fucking… since that’s all anyone
does around here.”

“
We also make pretty good
Huckleberry shakes, here,” I said.

She laughed inadvertently,
and then shook her head. “I’ll probably have to leave Two Med now
and go be with my mom.” She looked over at me again. “Why do men
pursue the women they do?

“
Love, sex, envy, a
thousand reasons,” I said. “With Alia, it just happened. Like it
was meant to be, as they say.”

She folded her arms and
stared back down at the floor. “I went down to the kitchen and
grabbed the first bottle of whiskey I could find, and drank it.
Then I got another, and I just drank that.”

“Jesus,” I muttered. She
was a light drinker at best. “You’re gonna feel horrible
tomorrow.”

“And then I took my shirt
off in front of you...” she said, pushing her face into her hands,
again. “Oh God,” she groaned.

I put my hand on her
shoulder, and then rubbed her back some more. “You couldn’t help
it,” I said. “I’m irresistible.”

She looked at me and then
smiled sadly. “The thing about you Will, is that you are a
dichotomy to me. You are like a brother to me in one sense, and
innocent and good, but in another you’re like this man who is
capable of anything, who can turn into a lover, a friend, a brother
and a stranger, one minute to the next.” she said.

“But mostly, you are a
damned good listener. And it’s a good thing, otherwise I would of
punched you in the face tonight for being a man – or fucked you for
being a man… Or both…

She smiled a little as she
looked down at her feet. “The thing about you is that I always feel
like I can tell you anything – like what I just said about fucking
you. And I’ve never told
anyone
about my dad’s stuff, but I trust you with it. You
just seem to really listen – to
think
about what I’m saying. Like
you’re analyzing it for me…” She trailed off, rubbing her face in
her hands again.

I thought about that for a
moment. “When I was a kid,” I said after a moment, “my mom used to
take me and my brother and sister down to the museum of ‘Old
Georgia;’ it was settlor stuff and Indian exhibits. We’d walk
around and see the covered wagons, somebody’s old wedding dress,
some Indian arrowheads and carvings... And it was the carvings that
always got me.

“I would stand and stare
at an ancient knife handle, for example, carved from a dogwood
branch, something like that. And I’d be drawn to it; my eyes would
focus in the whittling marks, and I remember that I’d be
captivated, imagining some Indian’s dirty, sooty hands working over
it, so long ago. As I stared at it I’d wonder what he did that day,
what he saw after he got up after working with the knife handle. I
imagined the knife handle bumping against his side as he walked,
strapped to his waist. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I kept
thinking of all the places that knife had been before ending up in
that case in Georgia.

“My mom would finally look
around for me and see me just standing in front of the display
case, just staring, motionless, like I was in a trance.” I looked
down at Katie and smiled at the memory. “She started calling me
‘the professor’ after that. She said I was always analyzing
everything too much.”

Katie smiled back at me,
and she fixed her hair back up in a bun. “Well I trust you,
Professor. And I’m sorry I called you ‘disgusting’
earlier.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said.
“Men can be disgusting.”

I watched her for a
moment. “That’s why I ‘care so much,’ as you said – about Alia –
because I loved her and I can’t imagine not knowing who did it to
her. I have to know… I have to know.”

Katie reached over and
grabbed my hand. She squeezed it, her hand still hot and flushed.
“I never told you this, but Ronnie said something about Alia before
she was killed, after he saw you with her.

I stared at her. `“What
did he say?”

“
He said she was mixed up
in some bad stuff and was probably going to end up dead. I didn’t
think anything of it, just more of his BS I thought, until she did…
wind up that way.”

“
Why the hell didn’t you
tell me that before?” I asked.

She shrugged and brushed a
strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “I don’t know… Maybe I was
worried it would start some trouble between you and Ronnie. I like
you guys here; you’re both like my brothers. Even if Ronnie is
trying to sleep with me all the time and I’m making drunken passes
at you…” She smiled at me but I didn’t hear the joke. My mind was
running through all the various possibilities of why Ronnie would
have said that. My thoughts kept returning to Clayton and Jake –
Ronnie and Alia and those two where the whole story – I was sure of
it. I just had to put everyone in their proper places that night
and it would all come out. A rush of energy shot through me. I knew
that Ronnie had some things to tell me.

I walked Katie quietly
back to her room, and before she slipped into bed she kissed me on
the cheek. “I love you, Will,” she said, “Like a brother – don’t
worry. Find out who killed Alia, for all of us women who have been
fucked around by men.”

Men may be disgusting at
time, I thought as I walked back into my room, but women were an
enigma, and just as hazardous in their own, secretive, impactful
way.

Thirty

A few more days went by at
work as I fell back into the routine of the store once again. I
kept my questions for Ronnie in reserve for the right time when I
could question him in private. I also resolved to visit the diner
and keep pressure on Sky until she told me everything she knew
about that night. I hadn’t heard from Greg since out last talk, and
I wondered if I ever would again after his last move to get the
police file. I assumed that I was just going to have to carry the
torch alone, from now on.

Larry was still grossly
hostile towards all of us, continuingly finding fault with our
cooking, our stocking, cleaning, or our coming up short or over on
the register, even Ronnie got a good share of it now. None of us
knew what was going on with him, but he seemed to be losing his
mind. The vibe of the entire store was seriously off, as Larry
created misery wherever he was. For my part, I was unsure how to
deal with Ronnie, or what to say, after our talk. Also, Katie was a
little standoffish with everyone in the store since her drunken
episode, which still embarrassed her I figured. Even Phyllis was
moody and distant lately, and rarely came downstairs to work in the
kitchen anymore.

One day at lunchtime
Thunderbird showed up again. I was on kitchen duty and Katie was
cooking, which normally would mean that we were behind and there’d
be a line for food. But this day had been slow, and we were caught
up.

Thunderbird sidled up to
the counter with a big grin and said, “Hey Big Will!” He had on a
bright red bandana rolled up into a headband, his long hair flowing
down wildly underneath it. He was otherwise dressed in his usual
black t shirt and old shorts. His thick, hairy calves ended in old
and worn leather hiking boots.

I looked at him and
considered that he had the kind of face that always looked like he
was smiling, even when he wasn’t. “Smiling eyes,” one might say. He
kind of brought in a sense of endless cheerfulness with him, a kind
of buoyancy against a tide of melancholy, which we sorely had been
needing in the past few days.

“
Hey Thunderbird.” I said,
glad to see him “How you been?”

“
Oh just great, Will, just
super! The earth has been smiling on me man, just smiling.” He
said.

“
Good.” I said, not really
wanting to get into all the mumbo jumbo with him, but still glad he
was there. “You want something to eat?” I asked him.

“
Nah, man. Hey I was
wondering if you had time to step out in a bit, get outside and do
a quick walk about. I got a few things to tell you.” He
said.

This sounded concerning,
and I didn’t really want to get caught up in more of Thunderbird’s
spirituality and oddness – I just wasn’t in the mood for it. But it
had been a few days since I had officially done anything in my
so-called “investigation,” so I agreed and told him I had a lunch
break in an hour.

“
Great!” He said, and
grabbed his small day pack off the counter where he had slung it
down. “I’ll be outside – I got the teepee set up in camp. Just come
and find me!”

He stomped out the door,
his long hair flowing in the wind that came through the screen
doors.

When my break
came, I went out the front of the store and walked
down the gravel road that led through the camps. I eventually
spotted Thunderbird’s teepee, which wasn’t hard because it was
taller than other tents and had a bright green pointed top painted
on, and I found him sitting in the shade of the tent and talking
with some family that had no doubt wandered by.

He was always talking to
someone, it seemed – always engaging someone in conversation. It
was so foreign to me, as someone who often was alone and on my own,
to imagine always talking to someone. But Thunderbird was that way;
he needed to be with people, I could see that. Maybe that was why
the council had labeled him their “communicator” – although I still
had my doubts about that, and still had a difficult time taking him
seriously.

I still had kept the
beaded necklace around my wrist; and I could remember the influence
of his statements to me about Alia’s spirit, or at least how it
made me feel. But even the effect of that experience was now
wearing a little thin; and all I could really see now was that it
had at least started me off on my quest to find her killer, if
nothing else.