by Alex Archer
“You’re kidding.”
“Not a bit of it.”
“Okay, here’s something else I don’t understand,” Annja said. “Aren’t you supposed to be big on restoring your native traditions? And yet here you are trying to promote some pretty high technology.”
“Them high-and-wide old days on the Plains,” Billy said, “they’re gone forever, Annja. And we wouldn’t bring them back if we could.”
“I’m officially confused now.”
“We’re exploring,” Johnny said. “Experimenting. Trying to find the proper balance. Even that’s not the right word. What we’re working on is finding and making use of the best of the old and the new.”
“So we’re looking to maximize our advantages,” Billy said.
Annja cocked a brow at him.
“Don’t mind Billy,” Johnny said, helping himself to another slice of pizza. “He got himself a degree in economics a couple years back. Pretty much the only dude in the OU program to do it while working full-time as a fleet mechanic for a local trucking firm.”
Annja looked around at the dark, cheerful faces. “Is this some kind of PhDs-only motorcycle club?” she asked.
“Well,” Johnny said, “we are a motorcycle club. We all love to ride—love the sense of freedom it gives you. And freedom’s what it’s all about for us. But you’re right—that isn’t all we are.”
He picked up a napkin and dabbed grease from his lips. “I didn’t start the Iron Horse People, see. That was Billy, years ago. He started—you’d call it networking now—getting together with some like-minded people. People interested in getting off the grid. People interested in trying to build a society that’d work without involving the government at all.”
“In some ways the luckiest thing ever happened to us Comanches and Kiowa was getting screwed out of our reservations by the government,” Billy said.
“Reservations were always just a nice name for concentration camps,” Snake said.
“That’s true,” Billy said. “And reservation Indians have always been wards of the state. Any crazy-ass bit of social engineering theory that came up, they got force-fed like laboratory guinea pigs. They basically have no control over their own destinies. Their own lives. One week the official policy is to wipe out Indian culture and force everybody to be a fake white man. Next week suddenly they’re trying to preserve traditional ways. Only those ‘traditions’ are what some bureaucratic hobbyist in Washington thinks they are.”
He shook his big round head. “No wonder people take to the bottle so much.”
“What about the income from casinos? That seems to be making a lot of money for a lot of tribes,” Annja said.
“Which mostly winds up lining the pockets of the tribal governments,” Johnny said, “and their cronies.”
“Is that why you’re opposed to the new casino opening tomorrow? I mean, I’m not sure how much power the Comanche Nation government has, since they don’t have a reservation to administer.”
“Increasing income to the Nation from casino receipts can only centralize wealth and power,” Billy said. “Encourage people to support a sort of top-down model—those up top bestow largesse on those below. Saps the independence of the people, too. Makes ’em dependent. The polar opposite of what we’re about.”
“So you think it represents voodoo economics?” Annja asked.
“I thought it was more the way socialism works,” Johnny said. “The notion that concentrating wealth and power and calling it ‘the state’ will somehow help the masses.”
Annja shook her head. “This is all pretty wild. Half the time you talk like total radicals. Half the time you sound like some kind of militia types out of the nineties.”
The Iron Horses looked at one another and laughed. “Looks like you’re starting to catch on,” Billy said, helping himself to pizza.
AS IT GOT LATE the Iron Horse People began to drift away to wherever they’d lie low for the night. Because of their strong comradeship, which Annja found so appealing, they were willing to risk bunching up for limited periods of time. But they understood the value of dispersal—a single bad break wouldn’t wind up with all of them dead or behind bars.
When the crowd had thinned Annja went into the kitchen, where she found Johnny Ten Bears elbow-deep in foamy water.
“What kind of biker lord does the dishes?” she asked, propping her rump against the edge of the kitchen table.
“The kind whose turn it is to do the dishes,” Johnny said. “Anyway, you already know we’re not exactly an orthodox motorcycle club. And besides, the word lord sure doesn’t apply to me. The concept’s not part of South Plains Indian culture. You should realize by now these particular misfits are the very last people on earth who’d submit to any kind of lord.”
“What are you, then?”
He shrugged. “Speaker. Guide. It’s all by consensus. Persuasion. Everything is voluntary. That’s a tradition we definitely want to keep. Nobody has power over anybody else. Nobody wants it—nobody’d consent to letting anyone have power over them.”
“I can see why your ancestors had such a hard time adjusting to the European-derived overculture.”
“Well, some of us adapted way too well.”
“So, Billy didn’t resent your taking over as—whatever you are?”
“Oh, hell, no. I do take responsibility for keeping us together and seeing everybody’s cared for. Road boss is probably the best term for what I actually do. Billy’s good at doing things, and he’s more than a bit of a dreamer. A hell of a dreamer. But he isn’t fond of responsibility.”
“So how’d you get tied up with the Iron Horse People, anyway?” Annja asked.
“Well,” he said, setting another dish in the rack to dry, “I’ve known Billy White Bird my whole life. You probably noticed my father and I don’t see eye to eye. It’s always been like that, ever since I was little. He wanted me to play GIs and Nazis—I wanted to play cowboys and Indians. And have the Indians win. Billy was an old war buddy of his who turned into something of a surrogate father to me.”
“Oh,” Annja said. She wanted to encourage him to open up, but didn’t feel she could say something like, “I see.” Because she wasn’t sure she did.
“When I got back from my second tour in the ’Stan I was pretty messed up. Not physically—I was lucky that way. Not even psychologically, like so many of the people I served with. That’s one place a lot of us Indian types have an advantage. Comanches are still a warrior culture. We know what we’re getting into.”
“So how were you messed up, then?”
He shrugged. “Morally, I guess. Let’s just say it turned out we weren’t fighting for what I and most of my buddies thought we were. And I began to see how that reflected a country that had turned into something other than what I thought it was. Except, as I started to study a little deeper, I came to see maybe there hadn’t been such a big change, after all—that the country wasn’t about things like freedom and opportunity and tolerance that we’d always been taught it was, and never had been. That it was all a bill of goods we were sold so we’d line up and turn into obedient little consumers and conscripts.”
“That seems like kind of an extreme reaction.”
He looked back at her. “I’m not asking you to agree with me. You asked a question. I’m trying to answer.”
“You’re not interested in persuading me?”
“Not really,” he said, turning back to the dishes. “We mostly look to help people who look to help themselves. Opinions don’t matter much one way or the other—actions do. Anyway, if people need to be talked into being free, what’s the point?”
“Hmm,” she said.
After a few moments she said, “You and your father should try to work things out. Seriously.”
He put the last dish in the rack, pulled the plug from the sink and, turning to face her, leaned back against the counter.
“Kind of ambitious given that he’s set on hunting me down.”
“But that’s all based on misunderstanding. The way—the way your whole relationship with him seems to be.”
He laughed. “Now you’re an authority on Ten Bears family politics?”
“I’ve met and spoken to you both,” she said. “I respect you both. And it doesn’t take any kind of expert to see what’s going on. It’s so obvious. Unless you’re too close to the situation to see it. And too blinkered by pride.”
“It’s not just pride. We’re, like, polar opposites, him and me. You know how I said earlier that some of us adapt too well to the white man’s ways? My father’s exhibit A. A classic case. Always making jokes and playing up to the white folks. Doing everything but tugging the forelock or strumming a banjo.”
“But your father uses his sense of humor, don’t you see? Whether it’s to fool suspects into underestimating him or showing up pompous whites without them even knowing it. It’s not any kind of self-abnegation. If anything it’s a kind of assertion of self.”
“Or passive-aggression,” he said mockingly, “or whichever shrink-speak catchphrase you care to use.”
“You’re both strong men,” she said. “You’re both looking for ways to face the future without losing your identity as individuals or as a culture. Your solutions aren’t all that different, really, if you just look at them. Even your political beliefs aren’t as far apart as you think.”
He gave her a skeptical look.
“Your father’s adopted the overculture’s ways,” she persisted, “but his outlook is wholly his own. Even his humor’s an Indian tradition itself. I don’t pretend to be an expert on Native American cultures any more than on your particular family. I do know enough Indians to know what kind of sense of humor so many share.”
“I’ve been a rebel all my life,” Johnny said. “I tried to fit in. That was part of what joining the Army was about. And what I learned from the Army was—I didn’t want to fit.”
“But you’re not a terrorist. I may not be onboard with everything you believe, or even do. But there’s no need for you and your father to be enemies or even at odds. It’s just such a waste.”
He shook his head. “No. We’re doomed to disappoint each other. That’s just the way it is. Good night, Annja. I’m going to bed.”
For a full minute she stayed alone in a kitchen dimly lit by the single fluorescent fixture over the sink.
“Why do I have this feeling,” she asked herself quietly, “that could have gone better?”
SUNLIGHT LIT UP the curtains of her bedroom and made a bright band across the top as a brisk, insistent knocking on the door roused her.
“Ms. Creed,” a feminine voice she didn’t recognize called. “You should probably come pretty quick. We got a situation.”
19
Snake, Billy and Ricky were in the kitchen when Annja entered. Billy was pouring coffee into mugs.
A small TV on the counter by the fridge was on. A glum-looking man in a tan trench coat stood in the right foreground. To the left, a block or two behind him, many vehicles with flashing lights surrounded a white building with a peaked roof standing well up above the budding trees.
“No change in the hostage situation in an Assembly of God Church in eastern Lawton,” he was saying into a mic.
Without conscious intent Annja accepted a steaming mug from Billy. She frowned. “This sounds bad,” she said, “but how does it concern us?”
“Comanche Star Casino opens today,” Snake said. “Do you believe this is a coincidence?”
“But what does a standoff at a church in town have to do with the casino opening twenty miles out in the county?”
The newsman was describing how no demands had yet been made by the hostage takers. Nor had they identified themselves when they had called an area radio station an hour earlier to announce that they had taken hostages.
“Now, we’re getting reports in the newsroom that there have been no indications of crimes or police pursuits taking place in the area that might have led fugitives to take innocent people hostage,” he said.
“As of now nothing is known except that the pastor, a maintenance man and two parishioners are being held captive by unknown gunmen. Or at least that’s all the authorities are telling us.”
“Good diversion,” Ricky said.
Annja could hear others coming in. Obviously the safe house was an emergency mustering point for the Iron Horses. She felt a spike of alarm.
“Is it a good idea to bring everybody here?” she asked. “I mean, the police and Feds are going to be made berserk by this. If this place is compromised, wouldn’t it give the Dogs and the FBI the Waco-style extravaganza they both want?”
They looked at her. “Not bad for a white chick,” Snake said.
Johnny came in, smelling of cold air and outdoors. “She’s right,” he said. He was in an elevated mood; color glowed on his cheeks and his eyes shone like obsidian chips in sunlight. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I put out word to gather the tribe. Well, we’ll use the chance to make sure everybody who’s here is on the same frequency, wave off the rest and split up again.”
He sat down in an incongruously prim-looking wooden kitchen chair. It was painted white, with colorful flowers.
“You’d think I’d be mindful of the dangers of clumping up, especially since our whole thing is decentralization,” he said. “Not to mention I’ve spent three years fighting people we were never able to win any kind of lasting victory over precisely because they didn’t centralize. They didn’t depend on chains of command—didn’t have a single head we could chop off.”
“Human tendency’s to seek comfort in one another’s company in trying times,” Billy said. For once his manner seemed serious. It made him look older than his usual mad-goblin humor did. “Even us crazy-individualist Plains warrior types. No harm done, Johnny. Feds’ve got their hands full right this minute, even if somebody drops a dime on us. So pat the brothers’ and sisters’ cheeks and send them on their way with a glad heart.”
Johnny grinned and nodded. He got up and went out. Annja observed how the others watched him with a look of reverence. Even the hardcase Snake. Johnny had just done what no conventional leader or commander would—admitted a mistake. To an outsider. And it hadn’t diminished his standing in the eyes of the club a bit. Meanwhile Billy, who’d dropped his clown mask to play the wise elder, was nodding to himself with a smile of pleasure, as if he’d invented Johnny.
Interesting, she thought, and sipped her coffee.
A moment later she heard many powerful V-twin engines roaring alive outside. Johnny came back in. “Okay. We’re not all sitting like ducks on a pond now, anyway. They’ll spread the word to everybody else to stay sharp and wait for the word to move.”
“How will you get the word out?” Annja asked.
“Boys and girls’ll go deliver the word in person, as much as they safely can,” Billy said. “Beyond that, we got us walkie-talkies.”
“But the Feds can listen in on that.”
“Might be a little tricky with the encryption Snake set up on our sets,” Billy said. “Anyway, even if they crack the crypto—well, let’s just say them Navajos weren’t the only code talkers in World War II, even if they do get all the ink.”
Annja stared at him. Then laughed. And quickly sobered.
“But it’s not like they can’t find Comanche speakers around here, either,” she pointed out. She hoped the obvious example—Lieutenant Tom Ten Bears, OHP—didn’t have to be enunciated.
“Do you think we’re total idiots?” Snake asked. “We’ve been playing this game awhile, even if the stakes have started rising dramatically.”
“Our Ms. Creed doesn’t like to take things for granted,” Johnny said, pulling a chair around backward and sitting down facing her with his arms across the bowed wooden back. “Do you, Annja? She wanted to make sure we had it covered.”
“We got code phrases and such in Numunu,” Billy said. “Same thing the code talkers from all the N
ations did in World War II, in case the Japs caught Indians and made them translate. ’Course, they never caught ’em carloads of Comanches the way they did them poor Navajo fellers in the Philippines.”
“That was MacArthur’s fault,” Johnny said.
“True enough.”
“So what can we do about this?” Annja asked. It was seeming less and less likely to her that this hostage taking was coincidence, the more she thought about it. “We—you can’t very well go out and try to throw a cordon around this new casino. The cops would scoop you up like a bunch of tadpoles in a net.”
“I think she’s getting the hang of our folksy Western metaphors, Johnny,” Billy said.
“We can wait for what happens next.” Johnny seemed supercharged, more truly alive than she had yet seen him. It made him more even magnetic. Like he needs that, she thought.
“Then what?” she asked.
He grinned like Billy. “It depends,” he said.
Johnny, Snake, Billy, Ricky and Annja remained together in the kitchen. Johnny cooked a breakfast of eggs, ham, hash browns, wheat toast. It wasn’t exactly a demanding menu but he did it to perfection, while keeping up a high-energy stream of banter with his companions. Annja guessed that anything he did, he’d make sure to do it well.
The television kept up its own stream of excited non information. Apparently nothing more was being heard from hostage takers or hostages. Though nothing was said explicitly Annja and the rest got the strong impression the authorities were trying to prepare themselves to rush the place.
“They like to negotiate when they can,” said Angel, who came in at midmorning. “Good PR. Even makes sense if they can resolve it that way. Less risk of what they call collateral damage.”
“Though they seem to care less about that every day,” Billy said.
“True. But here at home, anyway, they’re still shy about pulling really scaly stuff in view of the whole world, which any media situation like this is these days. But it also makes them crazy when they can’t get anybody to talk back to them. Can’t negotiate one-way.”
