Owl Dreams

by John T. Biggs

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Stealing a car was hardly any crime at all in Archie Chatto’s judgment. It was a complete mystery to him why the police should take such an intense interest in what really amounted to enhanced borrowing.

  “Christians talk a lot about sharing,” he said, “but there is precious little Christian charity when it comes to sharing automobiles.” Archie knew this for a fact because of his recent experience at borrowing a vehicle from the parking lot of the United Pentecostal Church in Durant.

  “Should have been safe during church service.” He’d heard the congregation shouting, “amen,” and “praise the Lord,” while two members of the assembly laid out prophecies in forgotten languages.

  Archie had always respected the charismatic Christians, but now he had his doubts. “Talking with God is just about the best distraction you could ask for.” But the owner of the automobile noticed right away, the very moment Archie drove it off the lot. The whole thing was a source of bitter disappointment.

  “Not like he wouldn’t get it back.” Archie had taken more than a dozen automobiles during the frustrating search for Marie. He had left almost every borrowed vehicle in a relatively convenient location.

  “Only one was wrecked, and that was mostly the owner’s fault.” He had left the others just as he had found them, sometimes even a little better.

  “Filled some with gasoline,” he said. “Didn’t change the radio stations or leave cigarette burns in the upholstery. Ran one of them through a car wash after a particularly dusty ride.”

  The meticulous maintenance of stolen vehicles was a matter of pride for a modern renegade Apache. When Archie borrowed an automobile, he gave it the same degree of care his ancestors had provided for stolen horses. Living off the land was a tribal tradition that the civilized community, whether Caucasian or Native American, couldn’t seem to grasp. “It’s the teenagers, the vandals, and the joy riders who’ve given car

  thieves a bad name. It’s a doggone shame.” Owners just naturally assumed the worst about the men who took their cars without permission. They never saw the bigger picture. The only automobile Archie damaged in a four-county crime spree had been the one taken from the church parking lot.

  “All because of the owner’s obsession with private property.” If he’d been concentrating on his prayers, he wouldn’t have called cops until after the service.

  “He was watching through an open window, keeping one eye on Jesus and the other on his 2004 Buick Regal.” Archie had been forced to end an extended chase by leaping from the speeding vehicle into Lake Texoma.

  “Right off Highway 70. It was a long, dangerous fall to the water.” The police were so impressed they hadn’t fired a shot. Archie figured them for Indian cops. “Even the civilized tribes know acts of bravery when they see them.”

  He escaped without a scratch, borrowed another vehicle from an unlucky bass fishermen, and met up with Robert, Sarah, and Big Shorty at Bob’s Lake Country Motel, just outside of Kingston.

  “It’s a damn shame about hypocrisy,” Archie said. “Jesus would tell you that if he was here.”

  Everyone was frustrated that the search for Marie was taking so long. Sarah wondered if it might be time for an anonymous call to the authorities.

  “Waste of time,” Robert told her. “They don’t do Be-On-the-Look-Outs for non-criminal crazies. It interferes with quality time at Daylight Donuts.”

  Sarah knew he was right. A missing mental patient was out of sight and out of mind as far as the police were concerned. Not a problem unless they were actually recovered. Marie went missing regularly during Sarah’s childhood, and the police had never found her unless her current boyfriend was a “person of interest.”

  Who could blame them? The police had murderers to find and rapists and kidnappers. Not to mention speeders. Normal lawbreakers had understandable motives. They left clues. Locating Marie was like getting a fix on one of those small, almost imaginary subatomic particles that governments spend fortunes trying to find.

  Sarah thought of it as the Marie Uncertainty Principal. You could sometimes find out where she was, and you could sometimes find out what she was doing, but you could almost never do both. The math and science were just too complicated. Conditions in Marie’s sphere of influence were always in a state of flux. By this time, Hashilli might be her new love interest. He was a man, after all, and Marie was notoriously good at manipulating men.

  “Even if she is no longer his prisoner, even if she’s now calling all the shots, that doesn’t mean she’ll contact me.” Sarah relied exclusively on prepaid cell phones. Her number changed with every new contract. Marie had never been sufficiently motivated to learn any of them.

  “Even if she knows my number, she might not think to call, especially if she is in a new relationship.”

  Archie’s frown deepened at Sarah’s suggestion.

  “Her history with men is pretty consistent,” Sarah said. “Time and close proximity are the only two things she requires for a romantic adventure.”

  Mom is a skank, Sarah thought, but could not bring herself to say, especially in Archie’s presence. Marie had devoted her life to the search for the ideal man. She’d started at the bottom, gradually worked her way up, but was still in the slime layer. At this point, Sarah’s mother didn’t have a high opinion of men, but that didn’t mean she’d given up.

  “Marie loves you, Archie. But you aren’t with her now. There’s no telling what she’ll do.”

  He didn’t speak for several seconds. Sarah searched his face for some insight into his thought process. Not a twitch. He didn’t swallow. He didn’t blink. Had she ever seen him blink?

  “Things are different now.” Archie’s mouth moved, but the rest of his face remained solid as a bronze casting. “She’s tasted a warrior’s love. Marie will never settle for less again.”

  Sarah had heard it all before; she didn’t bother to object. Her mother’s lovers had the single-minded devotion of heroin addicts. They wouldn’t mend their ways until they hit rock bottom. And rock bottom was Archie’s home.

  “Don’t waste time considering the impossible,” he told her. “We still need to visit the casinos.”

  Sarah said, “By we, you mean everyone but you.” She knew Archie had been saving the gambling establishments for last. Casinos used sophisticated security. Federal and state bureaucrats were involved in every aspect of management. They communicated regularly with police departments and other casinos. High risk for a wanted felon under the best circumstances, and now local authorities knew Archie was in the area. But there was no help for it. They’d lost Marie’s trail at Stringtown and couldn’t pick it up again.

  “When a team of hunters can’t find fresh tracks, they spread out and search for droppings,” he said.

  Archie used way too many fecal metaphors, Sarah thought, but she agreed with his premise. She and Robert would cover Stringtown, Grant, Broken Bow, and Idabel. Robert could flash his badge and ask questions. Eventually, the casino management would tumble to the fact that he was a fake cop, but Indian gaming was on tenuous ground in the state of Oklahoma. They wouldn’t be quick to call attention to themselves by verifying detective Jerald Daugherty’s credentials.

  Archie and Big Shorty would cover the casinos at McAlester, Pocola, and Durant. Shorty would ask the questions. The police were well aware that Archie was in the area, and they would have sent his photograph to every casino security team by now.

  “I don’t dare show my face again in Bryan County,” he told Big Shorty. “I wouldn’t go near the casinos if you didn’t need a driver.” There was no getting around the fact that Big Shorty couldn’t work the brakes or accelerator pedal of a stolen car with his stump pads.

  Archie wasn’t worried about being recognized as long as he stayed in the car.

  “Every curious eye will be fixed on you,” Archie said. “No one will pay any attention to your humble chauffeur.” Not many double amputees walk into the casinos
on stumps, so Shorty’s enquiries wouldn’t be exactly discrete, but people would tell him what they knew.

  “You’ll scare the hell out of them,” Archie said. “No one will gamble while an African god is thumping across the floor. They’ll answer your questions just so you’ll leave.”

  Big Shorty started to insist he was no kind of African god, but was distracted when a hummingbird flew through the open motel window and hovered over his shoulder.

  “Grandpa. You’re a long way from the cemetery.”