Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  Through Rosen’s account, Grace, Saul, and Stevie sat perfectly still, without expression, in a kind of solid silence, like those great stone gods of Easter Island. Only Grace’s knuckles, white from clutching the sofa arm, betrayed any emotion.

  The silence continued a few more minutes, until Cross Dog and Will returned. The policeman carried a brown grocery bag.

  “Two sets of uniforms,” he explained. “One clean, the other dirty. Could tell us something, though Will’s already told me enough.”

  Will stared at the floor, his body trembling.

  Blinking her eyes, Grace slowly looked up at her brother. “You mean, all that Mr. Rosen told us is true? You killed Albert Gates?”

  Something sounding like a broken string of beads rolled from his mouth. He coughed hard, then tried again. “I . . . I didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident.”

  Rosen said, “You hit him on the back of the head with a large stone.”

  Will’s foot began tapping uncontrollably. “He—he went all crazy when he found those nails under the bones. He knew I’d brung it there and figured out it was from his place . . . Hell, it was just like the other two he’d found years ago. Said I’d stolen his property and broken it all up moving it, that it mighta been his best specimen. Said I was gonna do time for this.”

  Wiping his eyes with his forearm, Will looked at his sister. “I was in jail once before. Gracie, you remember what I was like when I come out. I couldn’t stand goin’ back there. I tried talkin’ to him, makin’ him see how sorry I was, but he only got madder.”

  “Don’t,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I don’t even know how the stone got in my hand. I . . .”

  “Don’t.”

  “. . . just started hitting him.”

  “You bastard!”

  She was on her feet, slapping him hard across the face.

  “You were gonna let Father take the blame and make Stevie go half-crazy thinking his grandfather’s a murderer!”

  “I was scared, Gracie, scared to death!”

  Her arms beat against his chest. “You bastard!”

  “Gracie!”

  Then Saul stood between them. He said only, “This is not done,” then waited as Grace took a step back and dried her eyes.

  She glared at her brother, but slowly her eyes softened. Her hand reached tentatively to touch his arm. “Oh, Will.”

  The air shuddered in his lungs as, once again, he looked down at the floor.

  Rosen said, “You went up to the ridge, with Gates after you closed the gas station, around ten.”

  Will nodded, still not looking up. “Went up in his Caddy. He said if we ran into my dad, I was to talk some sense into him.”

  “So you must’ve killed Gates between ten-fifteen and ten-thirty. What then?”

  “I ran back to the gas station. I didn’t know what to do. I needed somebody to figure things out for me, so I called Pearl. She came up with the idea of her husband giving me an alibi. I drove home a little after eleven, changed clothes, and called Gracie at the police station.”

  “You had no idea that Gates was still alive, or that Stevie came up the ridge later?”

  “Christ no! I just got so scared. So damn scared.”

  Will sobbed, huddling in Gracie’s arms like the little boy that he was.

  Saul turned to Rosen. “I knew White Bear’s spirit was restless. Now I understand why. I’m going with Will. I want you to come with us. He needs a good lawyer.”

  The doorbell rang, and Grace hurried to answer it.

  “Will you come?” Saul asked.

  Before Rosen could answer, Grace returned with Jack Keeshin. She held his hand tightly. Keeshin unzipped his coat to reveal a cream colored fisherman’s sweater.

  “I understand Will’s being arrested for the murder of Albert Gates.”

  Jaw clenched, Cross Dog nodded.

  “It’s unbelievable. Look, Grace asked me to come along when you book him.”

  “We won’t be needing you.”

  Grace leaned against Keeshin. “Will can’t go through this alone. I want Jack there. Will’s got a right to a lawyer.”

  Her father said, “I’ll be with my son. Mr. Rosen will come along.”

  Keeshin asked, “Is that right, Nate?”

  Rosen glanced from Will to his father. “Sure.”

  “That’s awfully good of you. You’re certainly better at criminal law. And someone should stay with Grace.”

  Cross Dog pushed past them. “Let’s get going.”

  “Tom, can I talk to you and Nate for a minute?” Keeshin nodded toward the door.

  The three men walked into the hallway. The way Cross Dog slouched, looking away from Keeshin, reminded Rosen of a pitcher about to be yanked from the game.

  Keeshin lowered his voice. “I must admit being less worried about Will than about the effect his arrest will have on the rest of the family, especially Grace. She’s going to work in a few hours. I don’t think she could stand having her brother in a jail cell a few feet away. Tom, I know the weather’s bad and the highway’s rough going, but would you consider taking Will into Deadwood? Won’t he have to be brought there tomorrow anyway?”

  The policeman finally made eye contact. “I’d already decided that. You’re not the only one who . . . Forget it.” He turned back to Will. “C’mon.”

  Saul, Will, Cross Dog, and Rosen bundled into their parkas and gloves. Grace and Keeshin stood together, arms intertwined.

  Keeshin said, “I’m going to stay a few minutes, then go back home.” To Grace, “I’ll stop over later at the station.”

  The men barely heard his last few words, as Cross Dog had already opened the door and stepped outside.

  Keeshin’s vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee with bear coat chronicle lettered on both front doors, was parked beside the Blazer. Cross Dog handcuffed Will from behind, then put him into the back seat of the Blazer, tossing the bag of clothes into the cargo space. Saul sat beside his son. The policeman and Rosen closed their doors almost simultaneously, and the four-by-four moved slowly up the ridge.

  Lifting his receiver, Cross Dog called in. “Wendy, I’m going into Deadwood. I’ll call from there. Oh, Will has to cancel his date tonight. Something came up.”

  “Oh yeah?” Wendy said. “You tell him he’s in big trouble.”

  Will looked out the window. “Christ, Tom, it’s a helluva night for a ride up to Deadwood. Nobody’ll be on the road. Ain’t nothing out there for the next thirty miles.”

  “I been through worse. Your old man practically lives outdoors year-round. Just like our grandfathers. Ain’t that right?”

  Saul replied, “Our grandfathers also died in the snow. Remember what happened after Wounded Knee. That was a bad day for the Lakota.”

  “Seems like there’s been a lot of them since then.”

  Will asked, “Tom, what’s gonna happen to me?”

  “I don’t know. It sure ain’t good—you killing Gates, not to mention messing with Judge Whistler’s wife. All I can promise you is a fair trial. Maybe there’ll be a change of venue, get you outta Bear Coat. Whaddya think, Mr. Rosen?”

  “I think it’s a good idea.”

  Will sniffled. “It was an accident, Tom, I swear it was.”

  “You better act real sincere at the trial and hope for an all-woman jury.”

  They topped the ridge, and, looking through the policeman’s window, Rosen saw the murder scene—the snow-covered sweat lodge near a smaller mound containing the remains of White Bear. The cold and snow made the ridge seem clean, even antiseptic. Did any trace of Gates’s blood remain, or had it seeped underground and been transformed into the earth itself, like the bloodstone that made the chanunpa and brought life to the Lakota?

  The Blazer crunched down the ridge along a road Cross Dog must have sensed rather than seen. Snow crept across the headlights, but the sky continued to clear, and the broken houses of Tin Town shone pale in the moonlight, as if only tricks
of the imagination.

  Glancing at the two men behind him, Rosen suddenly realized that father and son hadn’t spoken directly to one another since Will’s arrest. At either end of the seat, they stared straight ahead; each might just as well have been alone. Like the great chasm between Rosen and his father. It could just as well have been the two of them sitting there. No—he shook his head—it wasn’t the same, not at all. His father would never have come.

  The Blazer jiggled over some rocks, then bounced onto the main highway. Straightening the wheel, Cross Dog accelerated slightly to face another endless tract of snow. Although the engine throbbed as it picked up speed, the Blazer seemed only to move in place. The scenery remained the same, or rather, there was no scenery. Only the frozen air and a wind too solid to move against.

  Watching the truck’s long, black shadow sweep across the snow, Rosen remembered the Bergman movies he and Bess had seen in college. This could have been a scene from one of them—travelers riding in silence, each hiding his own secrets, long, black shadows gliding far ahead into a land as vacant as their hopes. Was this a dream? He rubbed his eyes.

  Light glinted in the rearview mirror. Looking back, he saw a pair of headlights rapidly approaching. He was glad to have another car on the road, but it was moving too fast, as if chasing them. Cross Dog noticed it too, his head swiveling from the rearview to the sideview mirror. He edged the Blazer to the right.

  The other car kept honking its horn, shattering the air like icicles. It was another four-by-four, and as it passed the Blazer, Rosen saw bear coat chronicle printed on its side.

  “Keeshin’s Cherokee!” Cross Dog said. “Maybe Grace is with him. If she gets hurt . . .!”

  Its rear end wobbling, the Jeep slipped off the highway and pancaked a full circle, jerking to a stop. Cross Dog hit his brakes, letting the Blazer slide like a runner into home plate. Then he backed up until even with the other vehicle. Keeshin was already out of the truck, trudging toward the Blazer.

  Cross Dog opened his door. “You son of a bitch!”

  Keeshin said, “Easy, Tom,” in a voice more chilling than the frigid air. “Keep coming, but very slowly. I’ll take that.” He glanced inside. “You too, Nate. Come around here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I want to show you.”

  As Rosen opened the door, his briefcase fell into the snow. He began to retrieve it, when Keeshin said, “Leave it. Hurry up.”

  Tightening his hood, Rosen walked around the truck. The other two men were standing apart—too far apart. He didn’t understand why, until he saw the gun in Keeshin’s hand. The butt end of another one, Cross Dog’s, stuck out from the lawyer’s pocket.

  Keeshin shivered violently. “Over there by Tom. Saul, you and Will come out too. Hurry up, it’s damn cold out here. For Chrissakes, I’m from southern California.”

  The other two men stepped from the car and stood beside Keeshin.

  “Where’s the key to the handcuffs?”

  Cross Dog’s jaw was set tight, but Will said, “In his right coat pocket.”

  “Get the key, Nate.”

  “What are you—”

  “Just get the key, before my finger spasms on the trigger.”

  Reaching into Cross Dog’s pocket, he saw the policeman frown and his eyes, two hot coals, stare into Keeshin.

  “Good, now unlock Will’s handcuffs.”

  Again Rosen did as instructed.

  “Will, the key’s in my Jeep, along with $150. That’s all I had with me. Take off.”

  Will looked at his two free hands, then at Keeshin. “You mean I can go?”

  “Yes.” Keeshin gave a short hard laugh. “And hurry up, before we all become statues of the Snow Queen.”

  Rosen said, “He won’t make it past Deadwood.”

  “Oh, yes he will. I’m babysitting you until he does.”

  “This isn’t one of your games, Keeshin.”

  Cross Dog took a step forward. “Is she in the car?”

  “Who? You mean Grace? Of course not. You think I’d involve her in something like this? I just couldn’t let her brother be convicted of murder. I couldn’t put her through another trial. You can understand that.”

  Rosen shook his head, and, despite the freezing cold, sweat slid down his back. There was something terribly wrong.

  Will beamed. “Thanks, Jack. I’ll never forget this.”

  He looked at his father and the smile faded. Turning away, he ran to the Cherokee, slowly pulled onto the road, then continued toward Deadwood.

  After the Jeep was out of sight, Keeshin took a step back toward the Blazer. The other men began to follow, when he shook his head.

  “Move back.”

  When they kept coming, Keeshin aimed his gun over their heads. The shot cracked like a whip. “Get back!”

  The men did as they were told.

  “I’m going now.”

  Rosen shook his head in disbelief. “You’re leaving us out here to die.”

  “Probably. The odds of anybody coming out on this deserted road in the next hour or so—before you freeze to death—are negligible. But like any gambling, there always is that element of chance.”

  Cross Dog glared at the other man. “You’d better kill me now.”

  Keeshin slid into the car and started the engine. “No, I wouldn’t want to do that.” He began to pull away. “You see, Nate was wrong. It is a game.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Gripping his briefcase while standing stiffly against the wind, Rosen looked up and down the empty road. Just as, when he was a law student in Chicago, he’d wait impatiently on the station platform for the “El.” First he’d hear the distant rumbling, then its doors would slide open, and he’d huddle under the heat blowers all the way downtown.

  But there was no train coming—no tracks, no buildings or great skyline in the distance. Only the dark sky that fitted over the white enameled plain as if both were parts of some great machine. Even the moon and stars seemed frozen in place. His boots felt tight in snow heavy as cement, and the bitter wind lacquered his face.

  It would be all right; it had to be all right. Rosen remembered the stories his grandfather had told of the family walking through Poland after thieves had taken their horse and wagon. How cold it had been—the men had to chip the ice from their beards, while his grandmother wrapped open books around her legs to keep warm. Yet, God had kept them in his hand, until they reached their cousins’ shtetl.

  Having saved his family, God could save Rosen now. He could do anything—part the sea, send angels down ladders. Hadn’t he even stopped the sun for Joshua? Rosen looked into the sky. If only it were the sun and not the moon, hard as a nickel-plated disk. If only it were the sun.

  Standing a few feet away, Saul True Sky too was looking at the moon. His face was smooth and impassive as the moon’s. Then the old Indian slowly turned and, boots crunching in the snow, moved closer. He said nothing, but there was a softness in his silence, the only softness Rosen could still feel.

  “Here, over here.”

  Saul wasn’t speaking, but the words were so clear, they could’ve been whispered in Rosen’s ear. Looking around, he saw Cross Dog across the road, about fifty yards into the field.

  Waving his arm, the policeman said again, “Over here.”

  So far away, yet so clear, like a whisper. As a little boy, Rosen had watched his brothers play telephone with a string stretched between two tin cans. He’d race from one end of the alley to the other and listen as Aaron and David sent messages. That was how Cross Dog sounded. In weather so bitterly cold, that’s how everything sounded.

  Taking his arm, True Sky led Rosen from the road. The field wasn’t quite as smooth as it seemed. Cross Dog was on his knees, scratching with his hands like a dog against a snow-covered structure that appeared to be an igloo. At first Rosen thought it might have been a sweat lodge, but bits of brown and black, pushed from the hole Cross Dog was digging, revealed that it was an old
haystack left over from harvest time. In a few minutes he had scraped away enough for the interior to resemble a small tent, piling loose hay on the bottom.

  “All right, inside.”

  Rosen found it difficult to bend. Finally he fell forward and let the two men drag him between them. He set his briefcase in front of the entrance and, using both hands, crossed his legs.

  It was better inside the haystack; no wind, and the two bodies pressing against him brought some life back into his arms. As the three men slowly exhaled, their breath sparkled like delicate crystal, only to shatter silently upon their laps.

  True Sky cleared the brittle hay from a small piece of earth. “All this is Inyan—rock. Without this there is nothing. From Inyan came good but also evil. His youngest son Iya brings the cold down from the north. He’s the one killing us.” The Indian flattened one gloved hand upon the ground, as if feeling for a pulse. After a minute he added, “I’m old and ready to meet my grandfathers, but I’m sorry, lawyer, to bring you here. I’m sorry you’re gonna die.”

  Cross Dog shook his head. “We’re not gonna die. Not till I catch up to that son of a bitch. I’m not gonna let him get away with this. I’m not gonna let him get his hands on her.”

  “You would’ve made a great warrior if only, as a boy, you had cried for a dream. To talk with the Spirits, to have flown with them and seen our grandfathers. You need to have flown.”

  “The only thing I need to do is see Keeshin one more time.”

  The Indian began chanting something softly, while Rosen closed his eyes and saw himself standing before his father. He wanted to think of his mother and her warm, soft hands but couldn’t, as if the cold had seeped into even his memory and had frozen his father’s image in place.

  That night so long ago, he’d been lost in the snowstorm and they’d all searched, no one daring to tell his father, who was at prayer. When the neighbor boy finally brought Rosen home, how his mother had hugged him, setting him beside her with hot tea and all the cookies he wanted. Neither of them remembered the lesson he was supposed to have done, until his father came home. How he’d looked at his son, his eyes arched in disappointment.