Tribal Ways

by Alex Archer

  That surprised Annja. She would’ve thought that, good man though she knew the lieutenant to be, his warrior ethos would dictate his putting cop solidarity above all. Instead, he seemed committed, as she herself was, to justice as an ideal. Not another empty promise chiseled into the wall of a government building.

  She felt shame then at having underestimated the man, in even such a trivial way. It became easier likewise to understand how Johnny had misjudged him. He had grown up as the man’s son, after all, ensuring that in ways he understood him less than anybody, for reasons of rivalry and adolescent rebellion.

  As Tom, in fairness, had underestimated his son at least as badly.

  “As to what I’m doing here,” Montoya said, folding his hands on the desk before him after allowing her a moment to process his words, “I am assisting you and your comrades from the incident in Harding County. I might mention I am but one of a human wave of attorneys hurling themselves against the walls of this courthouse, by the way.”

  “Who’s paying for all this?”

  He laughed. “You’ve dealt with lawyers before, I take it? I donate my efforts. I have done well on investments made during a long and lucrative career, largely by ignoring the advice of pundits and advisers. As for the rest—some are likewise donating their time, as friends of Tom Ten Bears or simply of justice. And others constitute part of the truly imposing amounts of pressure being applied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorneys’ Office by the Oklahoma and New Mexico state governments, as well as half a dozen Indian tribes, to let you all go.”

  “Is there really even a chance of that?”

  “Oh, yes, Ms. Creed. What I might term a very good chance. If you agree to certain terms, which, I admit, you might find unpalatable.”

  “Winding up in a federal penitentiary for the rest of my life would be pretty unpalatable, Mr. Montoya. But I have to warn you—I’m not going to sell my friends for my freedom.”

  “Fortunately, I don’t believe it will come to that. Not if you agree to the terms I am about to convey to you. If not—” he shrugged “—then you may find yourself faced with such a dilemma.”

  “What’s the deal?” Annja asked, as much out of curiosity as hope. Once law enforcement got their jaws in you, she had observed, they tended not to let go until they could shake you into pleading guilty to something.

  “The Bureau and the Department of Justice find themselves in a most uncomfortable position,” he said. “To be perfectly blunt, stumbling late onto a slaughter of unquestionable criminals does not provide nearly the media extravaganza as actually slaughtering the aforementioned criminals in a shootout, broadcast throughout the world in real time. Especially since the media, contrary to the evident expectations of Special Agent in Charge Lamont Young, who commanded the operation, never showed up until well after the action had ended and you and your associates were on your way here.”

  “That puzzled me, too. Especially since we heard before we went in that the FBI had leaked the operation to the media, and the U.S. Attorneys’ Office—here, I guess—was hoping to avert a massacre that would play into the Crazy Dogs’ hands. We, uh—we had contacts of our own in law enforcement, you see.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, and his dark eyes twinkled as he nodded. “I know that very well, believe me. It turns out that Tom’s network has its tentacles in lots of unexpected places. A benefit of a culture that emphasizes strong bonds across extended families, I believe. It would appear that the media experienced certain technical difficulties. Including being mysteriously directed to the wrong location.”

  Annja laughed. It felt good to do that. Even if it made her feel as if she was being speared through the lungs.

  “So here’s what we find—fifteen more dead terrorists, nine dead civilians, a delightful and highly photogenic young Native American girl hostage released unharmed. And not a federal agent in sight until it was all over.”

  “And us no doubt facing a really remarkable array of federal charges,” Annja said.

  “Well, therein lies the rub. Technically, no doubt, laws were broken. Bent, at the very least. Now imagine, please, presenting defendants to a jury on the basis of crimes committed while combating terrorism, at substantial risk and cost to themselves and their accomplices, defeating those terrorists and returning young Allesandra Ten Bears safely to her mother. And you, as a prosecuting attorney, are asking these twelve good Americans to send those defendants to prison. Would you want to be that prosecutor, Ms. Creed?”

  She thought about it. Then she laughed until the pain in her chest stole her breath.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Indeed not. It’s a truism that jury behavior is unpredictable. And I daresay their reaction would be unpredictable. For example, would they settle simply for acquitting on all charges after seconds of deliberation, or would they physically chase the U.S. Attorney out of the courtroom in an attempt to lynch him? Or her.”

  All Annja could muster this time was a pained chuckle.

  “The Crazy Dogs Who Got Their Wishes to Die did a remarkably comprehensive job of fouling their own den,” Montoya said. “Some of them were rogue law-enforcement agents, members in full standing of the national security network who themselves perpetrated some of the most heinous acts of domestic terrorism in America’s history, and who came within a hair of taking top place almost within sight of the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing. There’s no better way to forfeit the sympathies of an American public who, for better or worse, tend to harbor strong prejudices in favor of the police.

  “Surviving members of the group have admitted to engaging in the abduction, torture and murder of various important personages with the Comanche Nation, not to mention a young female reporter and her African-American cameraman, which hasn’t endeared them to the Numunu people, nor Oklahomans in general. They have even been accused of luring in a number of noted radicals—black, Latino and antiglobalist activists wanted for a whole spectrum of terrorist acts themselves—and murdering them in some abandoned training facility outside Lawton. That’s turned the left and the radical community against them. At this point, the Dog Society could actively improve its image by enlisting Osama bin Laden.”

  Annja nodded. “I see. But what exactly are you offering me, Mr. Montoya?”

  “The same thing all your associates are being offered. That includes the members of the Iron Horse People Motorcycle Club, as well as a number of acquaintances of the late—and, might I add, highly decorated and widely respected—Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer and homicide investigator, Thomas Ten Bears.”

  “All right. I’m listening.”

  “You sign an agreement jointly presented by the Justice department and the Department of Homeland Security, undertaking never to speak, publicly or privately, about the events of the past few days or indeed anything concerning your interactions with the Dog Society, the late Dr. Michel and the kidnapping and rescue of Sallie Ten Bears. Should you all agree to and sign this document, the events will then be classified as secrets vital to national security. If subsequently you do speak of it, you will vanish from the face of the earth instantaneously. I cannot sufficiently emphasize that, regardless of the legalities involved, that will happen.”

  “I believe it,” Annja said. “But what do we get?”

  “Agreement not to prosecute you or your friends for any acts in any way connected with the events. Any acts, in any way connected. And please believe me, Ms. Creed, when I tell you that this is not an empty promise nor a trick, the way so many plea deals offered to accused persons turn out to be. Notwithstanding the enormous public and official support you and your associates enjoy, the blunt truth is that if the Bureau had not determined that this course was in its own best interests, it would never have assented.”

  “But that’s a cover-up,” she said, sitting up straighter. “Of fairly massive proportions.”

  “Yes to the first,” he said. “The second—not so much.”

&nbs
p; She frowned and shook her head.

  He laughed again. “From what I have been able to learn about you, Ms. Creed—and I am thoroughly impressed by it—you are far too intelligent a human being to be surprised by that.”

  She sighed. “Well. I can’t argue with you in this case.”

  She sat for a moment without speaking. She would’ve liked to be able to say she was mulling his proposal over. The truth was she was nodding off to sleep.

  She caught herself as her chin dropped toward her clavicle. “I suppose this includes anything pertaining to the skinwalker—to Dr. Michel?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Doug Morrell will digest the lining of his own stomach. He’s my producer on Chasing History’s Monsters. But he can deal. Do you happen to know what’s been learned about him, by the way? Uh, Dr. Michel, not Doug.”

  “I can tell you such of it as will eventually be released to the media by the Bureau. It seems agents have gotten their hands on Dr. Michel’s journals. He describes everything in what I am told is blood-chilling detail. His sympathy for the plight of Native Americans, his hatred of U.S. cultural imperialism within its own borders as well as abroad, his growing fascination with the Navajo wolf life-way. Plus the horrid rituals, involving much torture, rape and murder whereby he made himself a witch and skinwalker.”

  Montoya shook his head. “He seems to have come to believe that a sufficient amount of killing would make him immortal.”

  “From the amount of gunfire he took before he went down,” Annja said, “it almost seems he was on to something.”

  “The chief medical examiner who examined his body made a similar comment off the record, I’m given to understand. Here’s an interesting detail. It turns out Dr. Michel was a veteran of the French paratroops, with a certain amount of combat experience, largely in Africa. He only entered medical school after his discharge. He was a skilled martial artist and a fitness fanatic.”

  “That would explain his strength and speed,” she said. But not all of it. And far from everything. She shook her head to clear from behind her eyes the vision of slavering wide-open jaws with nothing remotely human about them. And those blue self-luminous eyes.

  “The FBI claims the madman used a classified hallucinogenic military gas, akin to BZ, an agent whose use the U.S. abandoned years ago. He would open canisters upwind or throw grenades loaded with the gas to put his victims in a mild hallucinatory state. One in which they might be receptive to perceiving him as a man-wolf or an actual wolf.”

  “Huh,” Annja said. That struck her as far-fetched. Yet she couldn’t help recalling the recurrent sense of wooziness and light-headedness she’d experienced, near and inside the derelict ranch house.

  And really, is it nearly as far-fetched as the alternative? she asked herself. Like, he really was a werewolf?

  “Agents say they shot a large if scrubby wolf-dog hybrid near the ranch house. They had the impression it had been following Michel. It attacked as technicians were removing the body. They theorize he must’ve trained the animal to help in his murders.”

  He leaned back, clasping his hands and tapping the tips of his forefingers together.

  “There remain a number of loose ends that I admit puzzle me. For instance, all the wounds inflicted by the skinwalker were consistent with canid teeth and natural claws, not just some. The late Dr. Michel displayed a fortitude worthy of Rasputin simply to survive as long as he did, much less inflict such frightful wounds as the ones he did on Mr. White Bird in that condition. Even extreme fitness and berserk fury can only account for so much. And Mr. White Bird’s knife, with which you claim to have finally dispatched the murderer—a feat of truly epic courage, I have to say, Ms. Creed—fails to match the wound that took his life.”

  He drew a deep breath and sighed. “But these ends, I fear, must remain forever loose. They are the very sort of thing the Bureau has agreed it would be in the national interest to just forget about. If you sign the agreement, that is. Will you?”

  “Answer me one more thing, if you will, Mr. Montoya.”

  “If it lies in my power and will not subject me to extraordinary rendition, of course.”

  “Just how on earth can they can possibly explain all this away?”

  He smiled.

  “The federal government employs a good many public relations professionals tasked to provide just such explanations, Ms. Creed,” he said. “Believe me, they have most extensive experience.”

  Epilogue

  The wind was rising as Annja walked out of a northern exit of the federal courthouse. Its cool caress was welcome on her face, and it felt good as she filled her lungs with it. It even smelled good to her, full as it was with the fumes of just-past-rush-hour exhausts. Because it smelled of freedom.

  I didn’t know if I’d ever breathe free air again, she thought.

  With the muted growl of a powerful V-twin engine a big Indian motorcycle prowled around the corner of Third Street onto Marble, the back street onto which Annja had emerged. The sun, swelling and reddening as it sank behind the skyline of Albuquerque’s modest downtown, gave glowing life to its red-and-cream paint job.

  The motorcycle pulled to a stop at the curb in front of Annja. Illegally, on the wrong side of the street right behind the federal courthouse. Of course.

  Johnny Ten Bears turned to look at Annja. Bending his head forward he pushed a pair of sunglasses down the narrow bridge of his nose.

  “They just cutting you loose?” he asked.

  “You mean they let you go before me?” she demanded, in partially mock outrage.

  He shrugged. He wore a black leather jacket over his colors, she saw. “Hey, you’re the famous media personality. You’re a lot bigger threat to the FBI’s rep than some Injun scooter-trash outlaw like me.”

  “You have an inflated estimate of my importance,” she said with a laugh.

  “Not for my family and me,” he said seriously. “Either my blood family or the Iron Horse People.”

  “Thanks. And thank you for your help with…everything.”

  He looked at her. She looked at him. The sun continued to set.

  “Why not climb on?” he asked, patting the leather-covered seat behind him.

  “What happens then?”

  “We ride away and live happily ever after.”

  She laughed. It still hurt.

  “You think things can possibly go that simply for either one of us?”

  “Hell, no. But a body can always hope. So how about it, Annja? Climb on behind me?”

  She drew in a sharp breath.

  “Thanks,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “But I think not. I guess I’m not the kind to ride behind anyone.”

  He sighed and slumped slightly. George Abell had given him a far more brutal battering than the false werewolf had given her. Yet he wore his hurts, physical and spiritual, even more lightly than she did. Even though she knew how deeply he grieved for his lost brothers and sisters. And for his father, lost, regained and lost again.

  “You’re right, I guess,” he said. “Problem is, we’re both pretty dominant type personalities, no?”

  “Yes,” she said, slumping with relief so dangerously that she had to snap herself back upright, almost to attention. One way or another she was going to collapse soon. She’d rather do it in the hotel room bed the U.S. government was buying her for the night than on the sidewalk outside the federal courthouse.

  “It’d be great at first,” she said. “I know that. But give us a few weeks—”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’d be all up in each other’s faces.”

  “Six months for sure.”

  “If that.”

  “Scrapping.”

  “Fighting.”

  “Arguing about nothing.”

  “Right,” she said. “You know how it goes.”

  “’Fraid that I do.”

  “So.”

  “So.”

  Someone walked past her with long confident st
rides. Mostly stifling an urge to jump, Annja looked around to see Snake heading toward Johnny and his vintage ride. The side of her exotically beautiful face was a big green bruise. Her colors were bulked out by the inflatable body cast that stabilized her broken ribs. Her left arm rode in a camouflage sling. Heaven knew how she’d gotten ahold of that. The skinwalker’s assault had broken her ulna.

  At the curb she stopped and looked back. “You’re pretty good for a white girl, Creed,” she said. “But one day you have to learn—sometimes even a warrior woman’s gotta know when to ride behind her man.”

  She swung aboard the bike. Behind Johnny. She carefully wound her arms around his own bruised and battered torso. Johnny shrugged and gunned the engine.

  “Happy trails, Annja,” he said. “See you.”

  She raised a hand.

  “Bye,” she said in a small voice.

  With a snarl of the powerful engine Johnny and his warrior woman rode off, into the wilds of downtown Albuquerque, and the red eye of the setting sun.

  And Annja, bemused, was left alone.

  Again.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6057-7

  TRIBAL WAYS

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Victor Milán for his contribution to this work.

  Copyright © 2010 by Worldwide Library.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.