by Nya Rawlyns
“How’s he doing?” It was Ted Sorenson.
“Probable concussion. Bruises.” Josh pinched Marcus’ elbow. “Puncture wound in his neck.” Marcus touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip. Josh’s mouth twitched. “Oh yeah, and he bit his tongue.”
Ted paused for a tick, then asked, “Is he able to give a statement?”
“Uh, hello, I’m right here. I’m not exactly incapacitated.”
Frowning, Josh hissed, “That’s up for debate, Colton. Only a moron goes after a gang of drug dealers in the middle of a torture session, unarmed, and... and...” He kicked the tire and limp-marched toward a cluster of cops and reporters.
Ted observed Josh leaving in a snit, then turned to Marcus. “He’s right, you know. You damn near got yourself killed. What the hell were you thinking?”
That was two what the hell were you thinking jabs in one night, though Josh had been a little more emphatic, adding fucking hell to up the ante.
Oh yeah, gambling problem for sure.
Keeping one eye on Josh, Marcus filled in the blanks as best he could while Sorenson took notes. The state cop tapped his pen on the edge of the pad, his eyes scanning for details he might have missed.
As an afterthought, the trooper said, “You’ll have to go into Laramie to give your statement.” Pursing his lips, he stared down at Marcus, asking as if it was an accusation, “And tell me, why are you here?”
Why indeed? The problem was, Marcus had lost track of the excuses they’d been offering to all and sundry. The last thing he wanted was to implicate Petilune, despite the fact Dee and his cronies were under the impression the child had knowledge of... whatever. That her brother had seemed anxious to keep her out of it might, or might not, be a useful lead to pursue, if indeed that was the right word.
That led him to ask, “How are the Goggles kids? I couldn’t see shit with my face buried in the dirt. All I heard was that asshole beating the crap out of someone. Then he decided I was fair game. After that, I honestly don’t have a clear recollection of what was going on.” He shuddered. “Last I remember was the guy called Dee telling one of the other ones to ‘get rid of that one.’ At that point I figured it was lights out for me.”
“What did you do?”
“Do?” Marcus snorted. It hurt his chest. “Well, I’m proud to say I did not mess my shorts.” Wrinkling his nose he did a sniff test and grunted, “...much. After that I heard sirens. Might have blacked out. Anyways, next I knew I woke up here, with Foxglove giving me hell.”
Since there was no sign of Kit and Petilune, Marcus assumed, when Josh yelled for the boy to leave, that meant the kid had also snagged Petilune and whisked her away somewhere. He wished Sorenson would hit the road and leave him alone. The questions about what had happened after reinforcements arrived were burning a hole in his gut.
If Petilune was still at risk, he needed to know that. And not in the morning after he was sent home from another overnight in the hospital. Where the heck had Kit taken the girl? Not to her mother’s, that was for sure. Maybe the store since the boy staked it out on a regular basis, but Marcus had locked it up tight, though the kid had waltzed in uninvited that first night, so who knew?
What he wasn’t happy about was Petilune being alone with anybody under the age of forty, or male.
Except for me...
I’m not a pervert lecher, am I?
EMTs approached with a gurney and inquired about additional injured. Sorenson pointed to Marcus. “Check him over first.”
“First?”
Sorenson snarled, “We got us a parking lot full of kids flying high. I have no idea what the hell they got their hands on, but whatever it is, it’s not good.”
That sparked a memory. “Dee handed that young couple a bag of pills.” He shut his eyes and concentrated. The light had been so poor it was hard to recall details, but he was pretty sure the pills hadn’t been white. He groaned from the effort. “Sorry, all I know is that they looked dirty, like maybe tan or brownish.”
“Those kids have a name?”
Marcus shook his head no. “They weren’t from our end of the valley. I might be able to pick them out...”
One of the EMTs said, “We got parents coming to pick kids up. Most of them are already gone. Only the worse off are being held for observation. We came back just in case.” He looked at Marcus. “If you’re okay, sir, we’ll head on over and see if we’re needed across the road.”
Josh returned and gave Sorenson a look Marcus couldn’t interpret. “If you’re done here, I need to get Marcus back.”
“Not quite.” Sorenson consulted his notepad. “You said you saw the two Goggles boys, is that right?”
“Like I told you before, I really didn’t see anything. I did a face plant in the dirt and that’s pretty much where I stayed. I heard Jackie Goggles, the guy called Dee and another one speaking, but other than that there’s no way I can say with any certainty that there were more than those present.”
He’d been told both of Petilune’s brothers had been tied to the goal post. Jackie was in fair shape, but his brother Joey had suffered broken ribs and jaw so that probably explained why he hadn’t been a chatty-cathy.
Out of curiosity, Marcus asked, “How many of the others did you round up?”
Sorenson considered whether or not to answer, looking from Josh to Marcus. Finally he said, “Besides the two Goggles kids, we got two of the drug dealers. One slipped past us. We’re still looking.”
Josh reminded Sorenson, “There were four that Sunday. One driver. Three in the parking lot.”
Marcus bitterly spat, “Great, two got away. I’m betting Dee was one of them, the bastard.”
Snapping his notebook shut, Sorenson gave Marcus a penetrating stare, then asked, “You sure about the Goggles brothers being the only two...” he stumbled over the word, then found his politically correct version, “...Native American males? You didn’t see any one else?”
Josh stepped between Marcus and Sorenson. “He already told you a dozen times, he didn’t see anything.” He turned to Marcus, then back to the trooper. “Tell the PD we’ll be in sometime tomorrow if Marcus is up to it. He’ll give his statement then.”
The cop asked, “You going to be at the store, Mr. Colton?” There was a not-so-subtle emphasis on the ‘mister’ and Marcus had no idea what to make of it.
Josh offered Marcus a hand, pulling him up and then steadying him. As he closed the van’s rear doors, he said in a tight voice, “Marcus will be at my place. You have my number if you need anything.” Turning his back on the trooper, Josh led Marcus to the passenger side, helped him into the seat and made sure the seat belt was fastened.
As Josh pulled into traffic, Marcus asked, “You want to tell me what the hell that was about?”
“Nothing.” Short, sharp, to the point. Definitely a don’t fuck with me now.
Chewing his bottom lip and trying to ignore the ache in his jaw, Marcus begged, “Please tell me you know where Petilune is.”
Josh flicked a glance in Marcus’ direction. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Chapter Sixteen
Fallout
Still chewing nails in irritation, Josh deliberately kept his eyes on the road and off Marcus. That the man had been incredibly foolish—jumping in where he had no business being—was bad enough, but the fact he could have ended up dead rocked Josh’s world.
He partially blamed himself for that state of affairs. If he hadn’t collared Kit just outside the locker room and wasted time trying to shake information out of him, he might have gotten to Marcus sooner, before the man decided to be a hero. But he hadn’t, and to make matters worse, what little information he’d been able to squeeze out of Kit was nothing more than the obvious crap they already knew or had guessed.
One thing that had proven useful was being able to see the kid up close in the light. Maybe useful wasn’t quite the right word. Enlightening might be better.
The boy was h
ardly a boy. He’d been wearing leather biker pants and a leather vest with fringes. He gave the impression of being skinny and weak, but that was an illusion. The muscles in his arms and shoulders were long and ropey, the veins prominent. On his right arm was an intricate design Josh was unfamiliar with, possibly a tribal pattern. Or it might be a gang emblem. He didn’t ask, but it did raise some flags, so he filed that away for later.
Being in such close proximity, Josh sensed the kid was deadly fast and lethal in a way that growing up on a rez might encourage. The level of crime, drug abuse and general poverty that places like the Wind River Reservation were so notorious for might also extend to wherever Kit had once called home.
The other red flag was the brief glimpse of scarring on the back of the boy’s neck, something the long braid usually hid. The raised ridges ran diagonally from his right ear, the lines roughly parallel like a bullwhip might make when applied with force. Tension between whites and the young bucks was a fact of life, and how it played out was often brutal and inhumane. Hate crimes, abuse at home... there were a hundred reasons for someone like Kit to end up with the short end of the stick.
Taken together, the visual cues reinforced Josh’s feeling that the boy was running. But the real kicker was in the boy’s eyes. Deep-set, hollow and dark, they told a story Kit simply could not hide, hard as he tried. Somewhere along the way, the teen had traded his soul for his ticket out, casting aside trust. But not honor. His protectiveness for Petilune, the fact he’d enrolled in school and pretended to fit in spoke to his wanting or needing to be close to her. Where that urge or instinct came from, Josh couldn’t say for sure. Whatever the reason, there was no doubt the girl was his Achilles heel. Josh would bet his life on it.
Eventually he would have to discuss his musings with Marcus. That wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to. Marcus would recognize, as did he, that Petilune had become a pawn in a game that, after the evening’s festivities, had revealed itself to be deadly.
When the truck bounced over the cattle guard as Josh swung a hard right onto the dirt lane to the ranch house, Marcus grunted and fisted his hands. Josh immediately slowed down, taking the ruts carefully lest he jostle the man any more than necessary. When it’d been a choice between hauling Marcus to the hospital for a likely overnight stay and bringing him back to his place to take care of him personally, it had been no contest.
Marcus’ words that night, his desperate plea with a raging inferno consuming everything around them, those words haunted Josh’s every waking minute now that he understood what it meant to teeter on the precipice of losing someone you cared about.
...don’t leave me alone again...
Josh had spent most of his adult life living the axiom it’s complicated, but lately he’d come to appreciate that though it might be true, the events twisting their lives into a stew of violence and fear had also clarified how he viewed what was important. Becca and the girls, the ranch, the town and its people—they’d all given him reasons to push through and overcome his circumstances. They mattered. That was the easy bit. What wasn’t so easy was having to bury a very private part of himself from public view. He’d learned to live in that skin—maybe not comfortably but well enough to get by most days—but when Marcus admitted he’s not my type either...
God damn, at that moment, all bets were off. He never realized how much he’d needed to give himself permission to be who and what he was. Marcus had taken the ultimate chance, risked a potentially damaging revelation, to say... this is who I am. Josh’s own slip of the tongue, one he struggled to hide in jest, was countered by trust and hope and an invitation. If he wanted it.
Did he?
Marcus asked, “That your bike?” and pointed toward the dark shape of a Hog low rider propped next to the front porch.
Jerked out of the noisy clutter in his head, Josh replied, “Not mine.” He pulled into his usual parking spot alongside the house and killed the headlights. Reaching into the glove box, he extracted his 9mm Glock 19, chambered a round, and then set the pistol on the seat next to his thigh.
As he opened the driver side door, Marcus plucked at his shirt sleeve. “Hold on, cowboy. I think I see who the bike belongs to.”
The ranch house was typical of others in the valley—single story rough cut lumber with a wraparound porch and steps leading up wherever an entryway was situated. It was snugged low into a stand of trees to block the ever-present wind. After she fed the horses, Becca usually left on an outdoor flood at the barn and the porch light at the front door. For some reason, the house and barn were dark, the pines cutting out all ambient light from a crystal clear but moonless sky.
Two figures sitting on the back steps, one lower than the other, were barely visible. Soundlessly Josh and Marcus slid off the bench seat and left the doors slightly ajar. Josh tucked the weapon in the crook of his back and paced slowly toward the strange tableau.
Petilune was on the lower step, her petite frame folded into a ball as she wrapped the skirt portion of her dress around her legs, forehead buried in her knees. She was keening a cry of despair, the likes of which made Josh’s blood run cold. Marcus placed a hand on his arm as if to steady himself.
The boy was speaking to the girl, the words indistinct. They moved closer, Josh wondering why Kit hadn’t acknowledged their presence. Not a twitch, not a glance in their direction. He ignored everything but the young girl trapped between his thighs. As they got closer, Josh made out fine movements—Kit fondling Petilune’s fine blonde hair, pulling it down in a combing motion, using his fingers to separate the strands into sections.
Kit murmured, “It’s okay, Zahgidiwin.” The sound became a croon, an echo of okay okay okay that lingered on the still air.
Josh debated joining the teens on the steps, but instead chose a spot where he could observe and listen, but not so close as to threaten. He leaned against the porch and beckoned Marcus to join him.
Though Kit’s voice and words were soothing, the set to his shoulders and the way he’d braced his feet on the lower step spoke to anxiety and tension. Josh had a hard time making out the boy’s features. His hair, usually pulled into a tight, long braid that fell nearly to his waist, instead swung loose, masking his features. It seemed wrong...
With quick, bird-like movements, Kit wound the fine strands of Petilune’s blonde hair into a tight braid, gathering strays as he worked the design into a skull-hugging, neat sculpture. Unlacing a few of the strands, he twisted and shaped them into a natural band.
Marcus hissed in Josh’s ear, “He’s the one who’s been doing her hair. Damnation.” Josh heard the irritation in Marcus’ voice, but had no idea where it came from or what it meant. He wasn’t even sure why Kit was playing hairdresser when the girl was clearly having a meltdown.
I want just one damn thing to make sense tonight. Is that too much to ask?
It was Marcus who put it together. He hissed, “Jesus Christ, they cut it off,” the words finally jogging the pieces into place.
Closing his eyes, Josh thought back to Kit bolting out the door and him following as fast as he could. He’d lost precious minutes trying to scan the parking area and the clusters of teenagers, the endless beat of the bass from inside and a trills of laughter distracting him until a scream armor-pierced his concentration.
When he’d finally rounded the corner and come onto the playing field, nothing had registered in his consciousness except the man on the ground and three figures converging on Kit.
Get rid of that one...
After that it was a blur until the wail of sirens on fast approach penetrated through the fog that threatened to engulf him. Wake up, wake up. He’d grabbed Kit and pulled him off the last one standing. There’d been a knife. A throaty grunt. Kit running. Boots thudding the hard ground, shouts, and someone helping him lift Marcus onto his shoulder. A go, get him the fuck out of here and then the eerie emptiness of gazing down the dark well.
The big one, the one who’d stood to the side,
just watching as Josh had waded into the bastards beating the Barnes boy into a pulp... That one. He’d taunted, held something up to Kit’s retreating back—the back that was bare, the long braid gone. It’d been meant to emasculate. White men scalped red men in the ultimate act of humiliation, rendering the enemy dead in spirit and no longer in control of his own life.
Petilune sobbed, “It’s gone. It was so beautiful and now it’s gone. Why, Kit, why?”
Kit gently cupped the girl’s chin and turned her face toward his. “Yours is prettier, Zahgidiwin.” He brushed his lips against her forehead, then looked up at Josh and Marcus. “Isn’t she pretty?”
Josh moved to stand in front of the teens. Bending down, he whispered, “Petilune was the prettiest girl there,” and stroked the girl’s cheek, wiping away the tears. To Marcus he said, “Why don’t you take Petilune inside and give her something to drink. I’ll be along in a couple minutes.”
He and Kit watched Marcus gather the girl in his arms. He held her like Josh cradled Maudie, with exquisite gentleness and care. He maneuvered the kitchen door open, a light flickered, then steadied, bathing the Giniw teen in stark relief. Josh eased down next to him and stretched his long legs toward the ground.
Josh asked, “Does she understand what happened?”
Kit leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “A little. Maybe. I dunno.” He shook his head in frustration. “She thinks it’s her fault, what happened tonight. That she did something wrong.”
“How the hell does she figure that?”
“Thank her fucking brothers. They had her wound up tighter ’n a drum by the time I got there.”
Josh asked, “You didn’t pick her up?”
Kit barked a laugh. It was rough and raw and filled with bitterness. “You’re joking, right? Me arrive on her doorstep like a goddam suitor?” Scrubbing his thighs with his palms, he swore softly under his breath, then said, “I’ve got history with those assholes. I stay as far away from them and that whore of a mother as I can.”
