Jeremiah’s Revenge

by Sandra Brannan

  Streeter swiped his fingers through his hair. “I think that’s what shook me up the most. It’s disturbing, and I recognized the signs of shock, even though now she’s free from his abuse.”

  “Like I said. Only two things you need to work the rez: Do your job. Don’t take it personally. You’ve forgotten both.”

  “Actually, I haven’t forgotten. I do my job and take the impacts on victims incredibly seriously after tragedies like this.”

  “Which is why you burnt out on IC so quickly.”

  Streeter was tired of arguing. He knew that it was Roger who’d stayed too long, becoming cynical and jaded.

  They drove into the center of Pine Ridge Village toward Oglala Lake.

  Roger asked, “Want to grab a snack first?”

  Streeter glanced at his watch. He hadn’t eaten anything since early this morning. “Sure.”

  Roger pulled the bureau-issued Ram Charger into the empty lot of Cubby’s and pulled up to the gas pump. A Plymouth full of teenagers drove by with all the windows rolled down. The car was rumbling from the methodical Native chant blaring from the radio, which was tuned to 90.1 FM KILI radio station.

  Roger nodded toward the boys who each nodded once in return.

  One boy in the back seat lifted a finger as a wave goodbye to Roger.

  As the car turned the corner and slowly crept out of sight, Roger let out the breath he’d been holding. “I can’t stand the uneasiness that has settled on this town ever since Long Soldiers was beaten and Two Bears was killed. It used to be more peaceful.”

  “They’re just a bunch of kids,” Streeter said and pointed up the empty street.

  Roger replaced the fuel hose into its designated slot. “Same bunch of kids who I found spray painting that graffiti all over the Billy Mills Hall after one of the community wakes last year. They were all strung out on something. I wanted them to repaint the hall, but Wayne told them all to go home and get cleaned up or he’d throw them in jail overnight with the drunks.”

  “They looked clean to me just now, but maybe I’m losing touch.”

  “Actually, they are clean,” Roger said, walking toward Cubby’s. “Completely drug-free, thanks to Two Bears.”

  “He made the difference?” Streeter asked.

  “Big difference,” Roger said. “He turned a bunch of these kids’ lives around. He’ll be missed—just like you and me, right?” Roger winked.

  They entered the convenience store and perused the shelves for snacks. Roger patted his expansive girth, “I’m getting old. If it wasn’t for all the preservatives in the processed foods I eat, I’d probably be falling apart.”

  Tribal criminal investigator, Howard Walking Crane, darted from the bathroom and nearly toppled Roger.

  Roger straightened his crooked glasses. “Whoa, Howard. Where’s the fire?”

  “Sorry, Roger. Got a call. Got to go.”

  “What’s up? Do you need help?” Streeter asked.

  Walking Crane, a man in his early forties with a shaved head and black rimmed glasses similar to Roger’s, was a rather slovenly man. His disheveled appearance was by no means indicative of his competency as the tribal criminal investigator, however. During the two short days he’d been working the reservation with Roger, Streeter had found Howard to be very proficient and competent.

  Howard tucked in his shirt. “I just got a call. There’re two men up at Oglala Lake. The woman who called said that she thought one of them had killed the other with a hammer. We’d better check it out. I radioed Vern and Wayne. They’ll meet us down there. Come along.”

  Roger exchanged a glance with Streeter. “We were just heading that way. We’re right behind you.”

  Within minutes, the three men arrived on the grassy banks of Oglala Lake.

  Several small houses and a few trailers scattered the landscape. West of the last house on the dirt road, beyond the abandoned cars and deserted furniture strewn in the grassy fields, an infrequently traveled, barely visible trail wound around the banks of the lake.

  The caravan of three cars bumped across the overgrown trail leading to the uninhabited bank, where the two men had last been seen according to reports.

  Streeter glanced over his shoulder through the rear window. “Wayne and Vern are behind us. Guess Howard’s leading us into uncharted territory.”

  “God damn it,” Roger said quietly. “I thought those two were supposed to have checked this situation out before now.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Streeter said as he craned his neck to see around Howard Walking Crane’s pickup truck in front of them. Streeter jerked his head to the right and pointed out his window. “There’s one of them.”

  “We might be coming into something hot.” Roger honked his horn lightly and waved to Howard, who was looking at them in his rearview mirror.

  Streeter pointed to the bank of the lake.

  Howard bolted from the truck and slowly made his way to the staggering man. Just as they arrived and parked their cars, the tall, staggering Lakotan dropped to his knees in the thick grass. Streeter and Roger exited the Ram Charger to follow Howard, both with their pistols in hand. Wayne and Vern stopped their vehicle, got out, and joined them.

  The only thing the five men could see of the man kneeling in the grass by the lake was his head. They approached him cautiously with their weapons drawn but not leveled.

  Howard called out to the man, “Toníktuha he?”

  The man’s head turned in their direction. His ruddy face was soiled and drenched with sweat. His eyes were barely open as a result of alcohol consumption and the swelling from being punched in a recent brawl. He stared at the five approaching men as if he were trying to get them in focus and having a difficult time doing so.

  Howard quietly spoke over his shoulder to the other four men. “It’s okay. I don’t think he’s quite with us at the moment.” Then, he called to the man in the grass, “Could you do me a favor, and show me your hands?”

  “Huh?” the large man in the grass grunted in confusion.

  “Put both hands in the air, will you?” Howard repeated, slowly inching closer to the man on his knees.

  Confused, the man lifted both hands slowly into the air. In one hand, he gripped the handle of a heavy sledgehammer and in the other, the neck of an empty bottle.

  Roger slipped his pistol back into his holster.

  Streeter whispered, “What are you doing?”

  He answered with a shrug.

  Howard called, “What happened to your friend?”

  The man looked down at the grass in front of him and answered in a slurred voice, “Uh … don’t know. He hasn’t moved much lately. Think he might have … had one too many drinks or … or something.”

  “Or something,” Howard repeated with disgust.

  The five men surrounded and closed in on the kneeling man. After a few minutes, they were all staring down at the bloodied man lying in the grass.

  Roger muttered curses under his breath when he recognized his face.

  Howard Walking Crane knelt beside the kneeling man. “What’s your name, young man?”

  “Kyle,” the dazed man said as he stared down at his buddy in the grass.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Jimmy.”

  Jimmy Blue Owl lay in the grass, very still. His nose had been smashed to bits. Beyond his swollen lips and gaping mouth, the bloodied gums where teeth had once been were oozing. The unconscious man’s breathing was gurgled and fading. He was still alive, but barely.

  Howard carefully tilted the unconscious man’s head to the side to allow the drainage from his swollen lips to spill onto the ground, rather than down his throat. “What happened to Jimmy?”

  Kyle shrugged. “Fell asleep or something.”

  Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Roger gave Streeter a sideways glance and smirked. No one had to hear Kyle explain that he had smashed his friend’s face with the sledgehammer. The wounds were obvious. Kyle als
o didn’t have to explain that he and his friend had been drinking.

  Checking the unconscious man’s pulse, Howard looked at Vern. “Call Benny and have them send over the paramedics.” Then, he asked Kyle, “Why’d you hit him?”

  Kyle narrowed his eyes and looked at his friend lying on the ground. In an angry huff, he ripped off the blue bandana that encircled his head. “He wouldn’t give me my bottle back.”

  As Vern made his way back to the tribal patrol car to radio for help, the others said nothing as Jimmy’s pulse grew reedy and weak.

  Vern returned. “I just heard. Todd Long Soldiers died.”

  Streeter exchanged a glance with Roger, who said, “Damn it.”

  The sun beat down on the men from the late afternoon sky. The horse flies buzzed around Jimmy’s limp, unconscious body. Howard swiped the air around his broken and bleeding nose and mouth to discourage them from landing.

  The pungent odor of alcohol, spent body fluids, and blood wafted thickly through the intense heat. Tribal Investigator Wayne Garnett took two steps back from the group and turned his back on the men to clear his lungs. Kyle broke the silence by chuckling and holding his empty bottle high in the air above his head in victory. His slurred words were loud and proud. “He wouldn’t give it back, but I got it back. I got it back, all right.”

  Roger shook his head and mumbled more curse words. Streeter walked toward the lake and watched for the arriving paramedics.

  Knowing it was far too late for Jimmy Blue Owl.

  HORRIFIED ABOUT WHAT I’d learned so far, I needed more on Coyote Cries.

  So on Friday, I decided to return to work to search all the bureau files that hadn’t been scanned, looking for everything and anything related to Coyote Cries: the case files, the newspaper articles, the court transcripts.

  I even read every word of Jeremiah Coyote Cries’s deposition. And Streeter’s.

  My heart ached for him.

  The ringing of my phone nearly sent me sailing out of my chair. I glanced at the clock. It was already 1:30, and I hadn’t even stopped for lunch. According to Laurie’s reconnaissance, Streeter’s plane would be arriving in a few hours. I had to finish all of this, put everything back in its rightful place, and archive the files down in storage. He didn’t need to know anything about my snooping.

  Or my visit to the correctional facilities yesterday with Mully.

  He’d only worry.

  “Agent Bergen,” I said, answering on the third ring.

  The man announced himself as the warden for the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution. “Are you Special Agent Liv Bergen who visited us yesterday?”

  My mouth went dry, remembering the stonewalling I had received from several of the staff yesterday. All I wanted were answers. I got a few—confirming that Buffington’s story had misrepresented much about prison life for Jeremiah Coyote Cries.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “And you work with Special Agent Streeter Pierce?”

  “I do, but he’s away from the office until Monday.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m talking to you. We have a letter personally addressed for him,” the man announced.

  “For who? Special Agent Streeter Pierce?” I was confused. Admittedly I didn’t understand the parole process. “From Coyote Cries?”

  The man said, “Yes, for Pierce, but not from Coyote Cries. It’s from another inmate who was found murdered in his cell a week ago. And we’re just now disposing of his personal effects.”

  “Was he a friend of Coyote Cries?” I asked.

  “They were friends,” the man admitted. “And when we cleaned out his cell, we found a sealed envelope addressed to Agent Pierce with a handwritten letter inside.”

  I thought about what he was telling me. “How do you know it was handwritten?”

  “Because we opened it. We always do that,” the warden said, unapologetically. “Anyway, are you sending someone down to retrieve it or would you like us to scan and email?”

  “Both, please. I’ll send a runner into Littleton. But if you could scan and email me the letter as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it.”

  “On its way,” the warden said and hung up.

  I called Bessie and relayed the request that we send a runner. I’d leave the letter on Streeter’s desk and explain everything on Monday. Until then, why worry him?

  He didn’t need to know.

  Within seconds, I had a handwritten letter on lined legal paper, several pages long, addressed to Streeter Pearce—name misspelled—signed by a man named Mort Dillinger.

  The letter was documentation of Jeremiah Coyote Cries’s prison confession: a story he entitled “The Beheading—A Near Complete Victory.”

  My stomach lurched.

  I wasn’t sure if I could read this—let alone share it with the man I loved about the woman he loved.

  The story’s preface explained that Dillinger’s letter was documentation of what Jeremiah Coyote Cries had told him while they were incarcerated. And that if anyone was reading this letter, it was likely that Dillinger had met his demise, probably because of Coyote Cries.

  Jeremiah had explained to Dillinger that a beheading in the Bible signified a complete victory over the enemy and that the Bible was riddled with just such examples of why this style of execution was so important and popular.

  Then Dillinger went into great detail about an enemy Jeremiah had called “New Guy” and how New Guy had destroyed his life.

  In his early teens, Jeremiah had started a profitable business that made him a millionaire by the time he was twenty-one. The success had afforded him riches, power, and women beyond his dreams. As he grew, he learned. And the respect of his people for his ability and brilliance expanded beyond his wildest dreams.

  Until New Guy.

  Then the people of his community had turned on him. They believed the fork-tongued New Guy who spread rumors about him. His business dipped. Customers not only stopped buying but demonized him. His employees sought other opportunities—with his competition.

  And when New Guy trumped up phony charges against him, he had to choose between losing the business he loved and turning the reins over to a partner while he served time. Times were desperate, and he had to make desperate choices.

  Dan Alcott became his partner.

  He grew to loathe Alcott even more than he had when they competed. But not more than New Guy, because everything was his fault.

  As his empire began to crumble, he decided to destroy everyone who’d become an obstacle in his journey to success before he was incarcerated. So he acted fast and did what he had to do. He admitted to nothing—except complete victory over his enemy, New Guy.

  He described to Dillinger how he had stalked his prey for days, waiting to catch New Guy unaware, to slice his throat, hold his severed head high, and holler a battle cry for all his enemies to hear. But on that final hunting day, the day he had planned for so long, he’d been forced to make adjustments.

  He watched as New Guy’s bride steadied the grocery bag on her knee while she fished for the apartment key in her jeans pocket. She pushed the door open and grabbed the bag from her knee. She was making dinner for them. He would be home soon.

  He followed her inside. Silently. Patiently.

  The pale blue and silver streaks of dusk painted the empty living room—across the kitchen cabinets and down the dark hallway. New Guy’s wife stood just beyond the kitchen, down the hall in the quiet apartment.

  He held his breath, listened to the sounds of emptiness, and pressed himself inside the coat closet in the entryway while her back was turned. Then he peeked through the open door.

  They were alone.

  The woman let out a sigh and made her way quickly across the living room to the kitchen. She dumped the grocery bags on the counter and snapped on all the lights in the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway.

  He imagined that she was scared and thought the light would scatter any bogeymen.


  She was wrong.

  She busied herself by unloading her bounty and storing everything away. She hummed. Perhaps silence screamed constant reminders of her solitude.

  She was preparing homemade soup for New Guy—vegetable soup.

  He saw the bottle of cheap champagne she’d bought. Were they celebrating New Guy’s arrest of a Top Ten fugitive? Probably.

  But she had no clue he was already out on bail.

  Her excitement grew as several people called to pass on their congratulations to New Guy. She replayed dozens of messages from the day. She chopped vegetables. She smiled, sang, and sipped champagne. And prepared their meal.

  Their last supper.

  He waited for what seemed like hours. He’d have to report soon or give up his bail money, which he’d worked hard to earn.

  He checked the time and watched as she cut celery.

  His patience with New Guy was wearing quite thin. The man was ruining his plan. He’d have to go soon.

  She chopped the last of the celery and threw the pieces into the boiling water.

  Time’s up for New Guy. On to Plan B.

  The closet door creaked when he opened it. The wife stopped cutting vegetables and glanced up. She’d heard him. She’d held her breath. Listened.

  She closed her eyes. He remained still.

  Eventually, she let out a long, quiet breath and started to hum again, chopping the carrots more vigorously. As she scraped them into the pot of water, he crept up behind her on the soft carpet.

  He’d moved quickly toward her. She gripped the knife, and her body stiffened.

  “You’re Streeter Pierce’s wife?” he’d asked, in a low, emotionless voice.

  She’d whirled around to face him, the knife gripped tightly in her right hand.

  “What do you want?” she’d asked.

  Not a puddle of tears, but rather a pillar of strength. This is going to be fun, Coyote Cries remembered thinking. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. He remembered she had crouched like a cougar preparing to pounce in a ready stance, gripping the knife tightly in one hand. She was trying not to panic. He was trying not to laugh at her.