Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir)

by Sarah Cortez;Liz Martinez

  There was an almost eager look on his weaselly face as he took the paper and pen from my hands. That look grew calmer and more superior as he wrote. Clearly, he knew he was a being of a different order than common humans. As far above us as those self-centered scientists say modern men are above the chimpanzees. Like the politicians who sent in the federal troops against the army of veterans who'd camped in Washington, D.C. this past summer asking that the bonuses they'd been promised for their service be paid to them. Men I knew who'd survived the trenches of Belgium and France dying on American soil at the hands of General MacArthur's troops.

  The light outside faded as the sun went down while he wrote. By the time he was done he'd filled twenty pages, each one numbered at the bottom, several of them with intricate explicatory drawings.

  I took his confession and the pen. I placed the pad on the desk, kept one eye on him as I flipped the pages with the tip of the pen. He'd been busy. Though he'd moved on beyond Indian kids, his tastes were still for the young, the weak, those powerless enough to not be missed or mourned by the powers that be. Not like the Lindbergh baby whose abduction and death had made world news this past spring. No children of the famous or even the moderately well off. Just those no one writes about. Indians, migrant workers, Negro children, immigrants ...

  He tried not to smirk as I looked up from the words that made me sick to my stomach.

  Ready to take me in now?

  I knew what he was thinking. A confession like this, forced at the point of a knife by a ... person ... who was nothing more than an insane, ignorant Indian. Him a man of money and standing, afraid for his life, ready to write anything no matter how ridiculous. When we went to any police station, all he had to do was shout for help and I'd be the one who'd end up in custody.

  One more thing, I said.

  You have the knife. His voice rational, agreeable.

  I handed him back the pad and pen.

  On the last page, print I'm sorry in big letters and then sign it.

  Of course he wasn't and of course he did.

  Thank you, I said, taking the pad. I glanced over his shoulder out the window at the empty sidewalk far below.

  There, I said, pointing into the darkness.

  He turned his head to look. Then I pushed him.

  I didn't lie, I said, even though I doubt he could hear me with the wind whistling past his face as he hurtled down past floor after floor. I didn't kill you. The ground did.

  And I'd delivered him to the police, who would be scraping him up off the sidewalk.

  Cap back on my head, brush and paint can in hand, I descended all the way to the basement, then walked up the back stairs to leave the building from the side away from where the first police cars would soon arrive.

  I slept that night in the park and caught the first trolley north in the morning. It was mid-afternoon by the time I reached the top of the trail.

  Only one rock and its human companion stood at the edge of the cliff. Luth had stayed hard, I guessed. Too hard to have the common sense to sit still. But not as hard as those rocks he'd gotten acquainted with two hundred feet below. I'd decide in the morning whether to climb down there, so far off any trail, and bury him. Or just leave the remains for the crows.

  I rested my hand on the rock to which the fat man's inert body was still fastened. I let my gaze wander out over the forested slope below, the open fields, the meandering S of the river, the town where the few streetlights would soon be coming on. There was a cloud floating in the western sky, almost the shape of an arrowhead. The setting sun was turning its lower edge crimson. I took a deep breath.

  Then I untied Braddie. Even though he was limp and smelled bad, he was still breathing. Spilled some water on his cracked lips. Then let him drink a little.

  Don't kill me, he croaked. Please. I didn't want to. I never hurt no one. Never. Luth made me help him. I hated him.

  I saw how young he was then.

  Okay, I said. We're going back downhill. Your truck is there. You get in it. Far as I know it's yours to keep. You just drive south and don't look back.

  I will. I won't never look back. I swear to God.

  I took him at his word. There's a time for that, just as there's a time when words end.

  Eastern Woodlands, Canada

  frosty halo circled the moon. It was going to snow. Eight inches by morning, the 6 o'clock forecast had predicted. Heather hoped it would hold off until they got wherever they were going. So far, the roads were bare.

  "Turn right at the crossroads," Don said.

  She touched the brake. Signs nailed to a tall post pointed to cottages east, west, and straight ahead. Some signs were too faded to read, but on others Heather could make out the lettering: Brad & Judy Smith, The MacTeers, Bide-a-wee, The Pitts.

  "Are we going to one of those?"

  "No. Our sign fell off years ago. I know the way."

  The ruts were four inches deep. Frozen mud as hard as granite. Wilderness crowded the road. The bare twig ends of birch and maple trees and the swishing boughs of spruce, fir, and balsam brushed the Mustang's sides.

  The track was getting worse. Heather leaned forward, high beams on, studying the ruts. "Are we nearly there?"

  Don's lighter flared. "Ten minutes."

  "There hasn't been a turnoff for half a mile."

  "That's right. We've passed Mud Fish Lake. That's as far as they've brought the hydro. Osprey Lake is next."

  "Does anybody live there?"

  "There used to be Ojibwas, but we cleared them out years ago. Now it's just cottagers in summer."

  "What about winter?"

  "There's a permanent village at the far end of Osprey Lake. Maybe fifty people. What's left of the Ojibwas."

  The car jolted in and out of the ruts. She pulled the wheel to the right to miss a rock outcrop twenty feet high. Just in time, she saw a tree with a two-foot-diameter trunk lying across the track. Heather braked hard.

  "Shit!" Don said.

  "What now?"

  "We walk." He picked up the gym bag and opened the car door.

  She wasn't dressed for this. Pant boots with three-inch heels, jeans, and a leather bomber jacket. Walking bent over, hugging herself for warmth, Heather couldn't see any path. Don walked purposefully. She stumbled after him.

  Heather tripped. Don didn't notice; he kept on moving. She struggled to her feet, tripped again. The heel of one boot had snapped off. On her knees, she fumbled amidst the pine needles lying on the frozen ground. When she found the heel, she shoved it into her jacket pocket and lurched after Don.

  The cottage's tall windows were what she saw first, a dull gleam of glass facing the lake. Trees and shadow obscured the rest of the structure. Behind it rose a wooded hill.

  "Here we are," Don said.

  "How do we get in?"

  "There's a key."

  He disappeared into a grove of evergreens and emerged with a key in his hand. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, motioning her to follow.

  "It's colder in here than it was outside," she said.

  "That's because you expected it to be warmer."

  Don set down the gym bag and pulled out his lighter. Its brief flare revealed a massive stone fireplace. He stepped across the room, lit a candle that stood on the mantel.

  The room came more clearly into view. Open rafters. Walls paneled with wide boards. Pictures on the walls. A plank table and half a dozen wooden chairs. A cluster of tubular furniture with loose cushions.

  "Hasn't changed," he said.

  "Since when?"

  "Eight years ago. The last time I was here."

  "Who owns it?"

  "My grandfather's estate."

  So that was the connection. A loser like Don had summered here as a child. It didn't fit.

  "This way," he said. She hobbled after him into a room at the back. He closed the door. "If we stay here in the bedroom, nobody out on the ice can see a light."

  "Who's out there to see anything?
"

  "You never can tell."

  "At 4 in the morning when it's ten below?"

  A squall of wind rattled the windows.

  She looked around. There was a double bed with an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, and an open closet with wire hangers on a rod.

  He set down the candle. Pulling two sleeping bags from the closet shelf, he thrust one at her. The fabric was riddled with tiny holes.

  "You take the inside," he said.

  "Okay." Why the inside? Because it would be harder for her to escape? But she wasn't going anywhere. Not tonight.

  Heather spread out her sleeping bag but made no move to get into it.

  "What are you waiting for?"

  "I need to go to the bathroom."

  "Bathroom!" he snorted. "There's a privy outside, if it hasn't fallen down."

  "Where?"

  "Up the hill. I'll show you."

  She limped after him back to the main room.

  "Did you twist your ankle?" he asked.

  "Thanks for finally noticing. The heel broke off my boot."

  "Huh!" He started to laugh, and then seemed to change his mind.

  The back door was to the right of the fireplace. Don pulled the bolt. "Straight up the path."

  Through the darkness Heather could see a shed. That must be it. She scrambled up the path on hands and knees. When she reached the privy and pulled on the latch, the door fell off, knocking her backwards.

  She pushed the door aside and hauled herself to her feet.

  No time to be squeamish. Heather pulled down her jeans and panties and lowered her bottom over the hole in the board seat. Gasping at the blast of frigid air, she imagined monsters with icy fingers reaching up from the dark lagoon.

  When she returned, Don was sitting on the side of the bed, smoking.

  "How do you like our privy?"

  "The door fell off and knocked me over."

  "Is that right? When I was a kid, I thought the privy was haunted. I never went there at night."

  "First time I ever heard of a haunted privy."

  "Family secret. When my grandfather dug the pit, he uncovered a skull and a bunch of bones. Old Indian grave. There were arrowheads and shell beads and a clay pipe."

  She shuddered. "Under the privy?"

  "It wasn't a privy then."

  "All the same, he should have put it someplace else."

  "Anywhere on that hillside would have been the same." He tossed his cigarette on the floor and ground it out.

  Heather kicked off her boots, crawled into the sleeping bag, and pulled up the zipper. She didn't stop shivering until her body heat had finally warmed the narrow space. That was when the smell took over. Mouse dirt and mold. Her throat tickled and her breath wheezed.

  Don went outside, but not for long enough to go up to the privy. When he returned, he pinched out the candle and lay down.

  The mattress sagged. Heather had to hold on to the edge to keep from rolling into the hollow in the middle. Sometime during the night, gravity won. Her grip on the mattress loosened, and she woke up to feel Don's body against hers. Then she went to sleep again.

  The mattress creaked. Heather half opened her eyes. It was morning. Don was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette.

  "Are you awake?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Look out the window."

  Rising on one elbow, she peered through the dirty glass.

  Snow filled the air with feathery clumps. It would already be over the tops of her pant boots, and it was still falling.

  "Do you know how to light a Coleman?" Don asked.

  "A what?"

  "Jeez! Don't you know anything? It's a stove. It's for cooking."

  "You mean there's food?"

  "Look in the kitchen."

  "Where's the kitchen?"

  "In a three-room cottage, you should be able to find it."

  She unzipped her sleeping bag and crawled past him. Christ, it was cold! With the sleeping bag draped over her shoulders, she tottered into the main room. The gym bag was no longer there.

  Daylight brought to life the pictures hanging on the board walls. Some were the usual Canadiana: water, rocks, and trees. Others were blown-up snapshots of people having fun. A laughing girl in a canoe. A raccoon accepting food from a woman's outstretched hand. A boy holding up a string of fish. She took a second to observe the boy. A skinny kid with narrow shoulders and fair hair. He might have been Don at twelve or thirteen.

  He came up behind her as she studied the picture.

  "Is that you?" she asked.

  "My kid brother."

  "I never heard you mention him."

  "He's dead."

  "Oh. Sorry."

  The kitchen was a narrow room with a door at the far end and a window that overlooked the lake. On the counter was a chipped enamel sink with a rusty hand pump mounted beside it. Also on the counter stood a metal object that looked like a hotplate crossed with a barbecue.

  "That's the Coleman," Don said. He fiddled with a knob and flicked his lighter. A ring of blue flames spurted.

  "Cool. But what's there to cook?"

  He pointed to a row of large, dusty jars labeled with masking tape, all empty except for Sugar, Rice, Flour, and Macaroni.

  "That's it." He picked up a pail. "I'm going outside to get snow we can melt for water."

  "Doesn't the pump work?"

  "Jeez, at ten below?"

  Heather boiled rice for breakfast. Don smoked right through the meal. After eating, he brought in logs from the woodpile outside the back door and lit a fire in the big stone hearth. Heather stretched out her hands to the warmth.

  "Enjoy it while you can," he said. "When the snow stops, I'll have to put out the fire. Smoke from the chimney is a dead giveaway somebody's here." He dragged a chair to the hearth and settled himself.

  Heather looked at her surroundings. The dark blue seat cushions were stained. Dirty white stuffing bulged from their burst seams. Dust covered everything.

  "Doesn't anybody ever come here?" she asked.

  "A guy from the village checks every so often."

  "I mean come for a vacation."

  "Not anymore."

  "Why not?"

  "There was an accident." He paused, shook his head. "Sooner or later the place will be sold. My dad and uncle are suing each other over the estate. Both their lawyers told them to stay away." His lank hair fell across his eyes, and he pushed it back irritably. He hated questions, but if she didn't ask, how would she find out anything?

  "What are you going to do about the car?"

  "Nothing, right now."

  "You can't just leave it there. It's covered with DNA."

  "I'll figure out something."

  She suspected that Don hadn't a clue what to do next. They were both in a bad spot. But Don's was worse. What would he face if he got caught? Life? Twenty-five years? That was his problem. She wasn't the one who had killed the Paki. Her smart idea was to turn herself in.

  All this trouble to steal a few lousy bucks from the till of a corner store. Why had she let him talk her into it? Why was she such a fool?

  Heather sat in front of the fire on a love seat with dirty cushions and stared at the flames. Don was dozing in his chair with his skinny legs stretched toward the fire.

  This might be a good time to do something about her boots. She pulled the broken heel from her pocket. To make the two heels match, all she needed was a knife. This would be simple. She stood up, wincing when her feet met the cold floor, and carried her boots into the kitchen.

  Don sighed, shifted in his chair.

  In the drawer that held the cutlery, she found a knife with a saw-toothed blade. That should do. Holding the unbroken boot firmly against the countertop, she started to saw. The knife squeaked as it chewed.

  Don must have heard. He bounded across the floor.

  "What are you doing?" His fingers squeezed her wrist so tightly she dropped the knife.

  "Fi
xing my boots."

  "Leave them."

  "I want to walk like a normal person."

  "You aren't going anywhere." Wrenching one arm behind her back, he propelled her to the love seat and dumped her onto it. "If you're thinking of running away, forget it." He stalked back to the kitchen, picked up her boots, strode across the room, and hurled them into the fire.

  "No!" she yelled. Jumping up, she made a dash for the fire place tongs. Before she could fork her boots from the fire, Don grabbed her shoulders. He held her fast while tongues of blue and green flames licked the leather of her boots. The soles peeled away from the vamps, and the heels sweated beads of glue. He didn't let her go until two charred lumps were all that remained.

  Morning sunshine sparkled on the lake. Around the cottage, evergreen boughs bent under their burden of snow. Don put out the fire.

  "We're going to freeze," Heather whimpered.

  "The fireplace will hold heat for a couple of days."

  "And then we'll freeze." The food wouldn't last more than a few days anyway. Freeze or starve. What difference did it make?

  She padded across the cold floor to the windows. Now that the air was clear, she could see the village at the end of the lake, smoke rising from snow-covered roofs. There was a tiny island in the middle of the lake. The only tree on the island was a dead pine. A rough platform of sticks balanced on the top, capped with snow.

  "What's that thing on the dead tree?"

  "Osprey nest."

  "You're kidding."

  "Why should I be kidding? This is Osprey Lake. Ospreys live here."

  "It doesn't look like they live here now."

  "They fly south for the winter."

  "They're not so dumb. At least they're smarter than the people in those houses, stuck up here in the snow. What do they do all winter long?"

  "They tend their trap lines. Except for Rosemary Bear Paw. She's a bootlegger. When we were kids, she supplied its with smokes and liquor. She never asked questions. Never told secrets. Her house was painted blue."

  "Why blue?"

  "So people would know which house was hers. There are no street addresses up here, you know."

  This was interesting. Rosemary Bear Paw must own a snowmobile. What would she charge for a lift to ... where? Huntsville? Anywhere with a bus station. Heather had ninety dollars in her wallet. Would that be enough?