Yokche:The Nature of Murder

by P. J. Erickson

  Bike week. Shanna’s alarm level went up another notch. She had heard about bike week. Who hadn’t? Drugs, sex and rock n’roll had nothing on bike week. She started cleaning up the breakfast dishes while Chase made his preparations, so distracted she forgot to give the tidbits to Jake who stalked off in disgust to watch his master. This was not going to be his day.

  Chase’s extra jacket fit Shanna reasonably well, causing her to wonder jealously who the previous wearer had been. She thought she looked cute in it. She’d never look like a biker chick but in one of his Harley tee shirts, a leather jacket and tight jeans she could stop traffic anywhere with the best of them. Chase handed her an extra pair of wraparound sunglasses telling her that they would be better than hers for keeping flying objects out of her eyes, including hair and wind.

  She watched as Chase packed some tools in his saddlebags, reluctantly deciding to leave the gun at home. He saw her looking and paused long enough to say, “the cops like to stop bikers and I don’t need to give them an excuse to take me off the road. We will probably be doing a lot of speeding and might collect a ticket or two.”

  Shanna absorbed this in silent trepidation.

  Finally they were ready. They started off slowly. Shanna held tightly onto Chase’s waist, but as they moved into traffic she relaxed a little and started to enjoy herself. She tried to be a good passenger, not moving around at all so that Chase would hardly notice she was there. Chase had told Shanna that he was going to start slowly so that he could check who was behind them and sure enough, there it was, a black Ford explorer. Chase had left the tag number with Annie’s office. He wasn’t hopeful it would give them any information but you never knew

 

  .

  Thirty-four

  They took a leisurely run up US 1 to Stuart where they stopped at the Harley shop for Shanna to get some boots. Mercifully, she was not one of those women who took forever to shop. She immediately saw the pair she wanted and Chase approved her choice as practical. She picked up a couple more tee shirts and wandered around a little, fascinated at some of the leatherwork on display.

  Chase topped up the bike and chatted with the owner while they waited. The two of them were outside looking at the other bikes, seemingly engrossed, but Chase was watching the road and nearby parking lots. He didn’t spot the Explorer but he knew it was there.

  “Do you see it?” Shanna had walked up behind him and caught him looking.

  Chase shook his head. Turning he looked her up and down. “Ready? From Stuart the ride is going to get tougher on you. I don’t normally like to ride I95 without a riding buddy, it’s dangerous even in a car, but we don’t have much choice. I need to make up some time and it will be easier to spot the tail. If you need a break just tap on my shoulder, okay?”

  Shanna nodded uncertainly and began putting on her helmet.

  Chase was well aware of the looks Shanna was getting from the other guys in the bike shop. He hoped they wouldn’t run into trouble in Daytona. He didn’t need to fight a dozen bikers for his lady. Shanna was pretty cool though. She might be intimidated but she didn’t show it and she seemed to have a knack for acting appropriately in any given situation. She was something else all right.

  A short time later they were on I95 and Shanna was holding on for dear life. The traffic was sparser north of Stuart and Chase was doing about a hundred miles an hour. He momentarily forgot Shanna in the joy of being back on the road with the wind in his face but he knew that passengers had a harder time.

  Harley made most of their bikes these days with the passenger seat slightly higher so that the person on the back, unless they were incredibly short, was riding higher than the driver and was not sheltered by his body.

  Chase knew that Shanna was taking a buffeting from the wind and was probably terrified by his speed but she was a trouper. She barely moved and gave no indication of being in any kind of distress. When he stopped sometime later at a rest stop Shanna climbed down stiffly. Chase could tell that she had gripped the sides of the bike with her thigh and calf muscles. It was an automatic reaction of new riders.

  When she took off her helmet, her hair was a plastered down sticky mess and her eyes were streaming. Her nose was reddened with the wind. She was a sorry sight and she was still beautiful. Although there were a few people in the rest area, Chase was loath to stop there long. Many people had been attacked in such places. He was worried that Shanna would not be able to make it. It was a long ride for a novice. He gave her no inkling of this, saying curtly. “We’ve a long way to go. If you’ve gotta pee, better hurry.”

  As if sensing his thoughts she looked up at him from the careful knee bends she had been doing with a rueful grin. “I’m not sure what hurts most, my butt or my legs. Do I get beyond the point of pain and go on to numbness?” Although half joking, Shanna was evidently hoping that this was indeed the case. Chase could guess she was worried that if her pain turned to muscle cramps she would have a seriously bad time.

  Chase knew where she was coming from and something more. In other days he had ridden many a lady on the back of his bike. It was an old joke among bikers that if there was a reluctant chick you particularly wanted, you took them for a ride on an older bike. The vibrations just about drove them crazy. Chase had also been mean enough to deliberately ride some of them like he was now riding Shanna.

  Like horse riding, bike riding could cripple you if you weren’t used to it. Shanna, of course, being the lady that she was, had so far made no mention of the other sensation the bike was inducing in her but Chase thought that her eyes looked slightly crossed and she certainly looked incredibly sexy, rumpled as she was.

  Chase had not prepared Shanna for a couple of other things either. Being Bike Week, there would not be a hotel room to be found in all of Daytona. That meant they would have to rough it at a campsite without a tent or they would have to find some friends and bunk in their room. So far, the weather had been okay, although the sky was overcast, but it always rained on Bike Week, it was only a matter of time. They might be facing a night on the ground in the rain unless they stayed up all night.

  Sure enough, they had been back on the road for about another hour when the rain started. Visibility went down to almost nothing and they were soaked to their skins in seconds. Chase was forced to slow down but he stubbornly would not stop. He had spent many years riding in this type of weather and Shanna would just have to deal with it. She did. No protest came from the back of the bike but Chase knew she was aware of just how dangerous this situation was. Finally, as they were pulling into the outskirts of Daytona the rain stopped.

 

 

  Thirty-five

  Joe put the finishing touches to his temporary chickee. There were regular homes and trailers on the site but for this occasion, traditional chickees with cypress log frames and palmetto thatch roofs were generally favored by the men.

  The Green Corn Dance was the Seminole tribe’s most important festival. It was held each year, in the Spring, in a wooded area in Osceola County that covered over two thousand acres. The site was secluded and any hapless wanderer who chanced upon the location was warned away with an escort to ensure that they left. All the clans attended the Green Corn Dance and each year a different clan acted as host and became a welcoming committee to the tribal members who traveled from other villages.

  Today the men and older boys would fast to purify themselves. Tomorrow, after greeting his fellow clan members and renewing old acquaintances, Joe would gather with the other men and they would sit and drink the black drink, cassina, to continue the purification process while they held discussions.

  While the men purified themselves, the women held a little ceremony, ritualistically putting out the fires in their homes to symbolize the casting out of the old. Then they and the children would visit with the other clans, clean their homes and prepare the feast, which would be made with the new crops after the kindling of the new fire.

>   The men would be hungry after their fast so the women were busy preparing fry bread, corn, swamp cabbage, turtle, deer, wild boar and their traditional corn drink, sofkee. They bustled to and fro, carrying supplies in their colorful sweetgrass baskets. As a rule, Seminoles did not subscribe to the white man’s three-meal-¬a-day diet. They ate when they were hungry and there was always a pot of hot soup or sofkee on the fire all day for this purpose. Feast days were different. There would be no pizza and hot dogs here.

  Joe had earned a special honor this year. He was to be a bundle carrier but he was troubled. He could not put this business of Sophie out of his mind, though he had started his fast earlier than usual. For the next few days he could do nothing. He was now all Indian and must concentrate on being so. The fasting and meditation would not only purify his soul but clear his mind. Perhaps, if he concentrated hard enough, a vision would come.

  Joe stayed aloof from the others and watched as the youngsters drove off in their swamp buggies to go mudding, then he took some of the black drink and entered his chickee. He would fast alone until tomorrow. When the shaman tribal elders met to elect officers, then and only then would he leave his chickee.

 

 

  Thirty-six

  Shanna knew she didn’t have that special gene that speed freaks had and thus would never be completely comfortable racing against death. Nevertheless she had been exhilarated flashing by everything else on the road at breakneck speed on their iron horse, her life in Chase’s hands. For a little while she had forgotten herself and her fears and felt the freedom of riding in the wind. This one joyous act defined the biking community and molded them, each in a different way.

  Shanna trusted Chase implicitly, which she told herself wryly, was not smart. She ought to know better given her age and what she did for a living. Chase did something strange and evidently violent in foreign countries for a living that he didn’t want to talk about. Chase had been practically born on a bike. He was therefore, by definition a dangerous animal and outside of her scope of experience. Just because he was a man who could walk in all societies and appear to be civilized didn’t make him so. She was now on her way to Bike Week with a man she hardly knew. She must be out of her mind. She had never done such a stupid thing before, but she was having a great time, sore muscles and all.

  By the time they pulled into Daytona, Shanna thought she could not stand another minute on the devilish contraption between her legs. She was so intent on enduring the pain in her cramped muscles that they had gone several blocks before she noticed her surroundings. Shanna had never been to Daytona before so she didn’t know what it looked like but they had been riding down a main thoroughfare next to the beach and now pulled onto Main Street. Shanna’s mouth dropped open. Never in her life had she seen anything like this. The street was a solid mass of motorcycles, leather, denim and chrome. Bikes lined the street four deep. The humanity that massed on the sidewalks consisted entirely of bikers. Tattooed bikers, long-haired bikers, bald bikers, Santa Claus bikers, old, young crippled, strong, poor, rich, blue collar, professional, all bikers.

  Many of the women rode their own bikes. They were beautiful machines of every color. Shanna saw one girl on a pink Harley with matching pink leathers. Another rode a turquoise bike. Another, very Indian-looking girl was riding a Harley painted in Native American designs. She was wearing face paint and her leathers matched her bike. Later, when they stopped, they met a beautiful tall willowy girl who had been a Vietnam nurse and had built her bike herself, dedicating it with a brass plaque to her dead husband.

  Chase found a parking space and they staggered into Boot Hill Saloon, at least Shanna did. She followed close behind Chase, almost but not quite tugging on his belt. There were wall to wall bodies all in black and leather. They all seemed about seven feet tall. Looking up she saw the ceiling was covered in dollar bills interspersed with every conceivable size and style of bra. None of them looked too clean. Everywhere she looked girls were taking off their shirts to expose their breasts, urged on by some lusty admirer. They strutted around to raucous encouragement from the cheering section.

  Shanna clutched her jacket close and shrank into the farthest corner of the bar where Chase had miraculously found a table. She almost panicked when he left to get a couple of beers. Looking around she noticed that none of the men were getting their own drinks. The women were getting them for their men. Oh god. Chase would expect her to get the next drink and she would have to, for appearance’s sake.

  Hurting, exhausted, totally intimidated for once in her life, Shanna’s chin went up and her spine straightened. Careful girl, she told herself. You’re biases are showing. Coeds from the best families take their clothes off at Spring Break. This is just another party hyped up with drink and drugs. No force on earth was going to make her take off her shirt in this crowd, but other than that, she could handle it. She was here now and she would trust her man to get her through. If he didn’t she would deal with that too.

  Shanna had noted that although there were no tourists or residents present in the area, there were police. They were quietly minding their own business, being polite and friendly but they were all around ready for trouble. She hoped Chase didn’t revert totally to what he called his biker attitude. He had told Shanna that he was getting older and mellower now, but occasionally the biker did get out. Usually it was when he was out with the boys.

  Perversely, Shanna realized that one of the things that attracted her to Chase was his somewhat chauvinistic and sexist attitude. Tired of the wimpy yuppies she encountered who didn’t seem to have a preference for sexual gender, she found Chase’s macho attitude refreshing. It was nice to know that you were with a man, and despite growing up with women’s’ lib, Shanna’s tastes were solidly old-fashioned. It was nice to know that Chase would protect and bully her.

  She preferred to call it courtly protectiveness but looking around her she realized that had she and Chase met ten years ago, they would not have even spoken to one another. She would not have been wild enough for him and he would not have been interested in anything other than this wild bunch of women who walked around half nude at a nod. Shanna suspected many of them were dancers. She had heard that strippers usually had bikers as mates.

  Chase arrived back with the beers and she gulped hers gratefully. Perhaps this place was easier with a buzz on. Shanna thought by this time her eyes must be permanently round and was, in fact, grateful that someone had not accosted her for staring at them. The bar was huge and extremely noisy since they were now well into the afternoon and the revelers had obviously been partying since early in the day. Shanna had a mind to ask Chase why there did not appear to be any small, skinny bikers, but decided this was not the place.

  Chase polished off his beer in two gulps. “Finished?”

  Chase was now acting very much like a biker and Shanna had not yet forgiven him for his insensitivity but she was not of a mind to argue with him now. She nodded meekly. “Did you see anyone you know?”

  “No, and no one seems to be tailing us either but we need to get a place to stay for the night. Let’s get out of here.” Abruptly, Chase bulled his way through the crowd.

  Shanna followed, glad she was spared the ordeal of having to fight her way through the crowd to the bar.

  They returned to the bike and headed north out of town. After they had been riding for a while they stopped at a fenced area called the Iron Horse. This place was even more bizarre. It was mostly an outside bar. There were Harleys hanging from the trees, and a Honda burning in a barbecue pit and over by the entrance was a coffin with a life-like looking dead biker in it.

  Again, the place was huge, noisy, crowded and again Shanna edged close to Chase. She didn’t want to make him look bad but she was not going to get lost in this place either. In the middle of the area was a tattoo parlor and next to it a young girl was displaying her body on one of those space machines that revolved around with you in the middle. The
smell of grass hung heavy over everything. It was dark now. This time Chase actually told her to hang onto the back of his belt and not to stray. Again Chase got the beers and finally he made contact with a group of friendlies.

  A couple that Chase knew slightly were sitting at a long table in the small interior section of the bar and they made room for Shanna. Behind the table was a brick wall, each inscribed with the name of a biker and the date on which he had died. Shanna had not missed the number of men walking around with noticeable limps. The wall was testimony to the danger of their lifestyle. She sat down gratefully, but not for long. The couple had not seen any of the club members and were themselves staying in an already overcrowded motel room.

  It looked like a campsite was their only option. Back on the bike they got and out into the night. Finally, when Shanna thought she could stand it no more, they turned into a campground area about twenty miles from town where Chase had stayed once before.

  “We’re in luck.” Chase came striding back from the registration office. “They had one cabin left.”

  Shanna looked around. The place was a sea of metal lit by flickering campfires, but she saw a restaurant and mercifully Chase walked her over there before they went on to the cabin. They managed to get a surprisingly good meal, which Shanna scarfed in a hurry. Afterwards she sipped her coffee in silence, waiting for Chase to notice her displeasure with him. He did not. He lit a cigarette and ignoring Shanna, started a conversation with the guys at the next table.

  Shanna sat seething until Chase was ready to go. She would have left but didn’t know where to go which irritated her even more but once they got to the cabin Shanna’s good humor returned. “Oh. It’s adorable. I’m full and I’m tired and I can't wait for a nice comfy bed.”

  Chase gave her little grin as he opened the door and waved her in. No sheets, blankets, pillows nothing. Shanna rounded on him, tired, cranky and ready to explode.

  Chase shrugged. “It’s the only thing they had. Campers are expected to bring their own gear.”