EQMM, March-April 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You were his girlfriend,” Sara noted.

  "Things were different back then,” Mrs. Stanton said. “The hippie movement was in full flower-power. Girls would bang any boy with long hair five minutes after meeting them. That's what revolution meant to most of us—sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. We thought we could change the world, bring on the Age of Aquarius. And we did, eventually.

  "Most of the things we were fighting for—ending the war, ending the draft, women's rights, gay rights, ecology—are all part of the mainstream now. Thankfully, without the bloody revolt Red Max was preaching. But the world changed us, too. We got older, had kids of our own, and presto, we turned into our parents. Straight citizens with families and jobs and mortgages. And if Red Max Novak walked through that door this instant, I might not know him."

  "So you have no idea what happened to him afterward?"

  Dawn hesitated, clearly deciding how much to tell them. “I know that his escape was a setup, if that's what you're asking, Sara. My father and some of his friends put up the money, but afterward, he and my brother Joel had a terrible fight about it."

  "About the jailbreak?"

  "Partly that, I think. After my father arranged to pay off Sheriff Kowalski, he came to Joel for help. But something went wrong."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know, but it must have been serious. A year later, my father had a coronary. He was hospitalized for weeks before he passed on. But Joel never visited him. After that argument over Red Max, they never spoke to each other again. Ever."

  * * * *

  Joel Kennedy, of Stanfield, Kennedy, and Bauer, attorneys-at-law, had a third- floor corner office with his name on the door in a century-old Main Street office complex, a block from the harbor yacht club.

  If he was surprised by Sara's visit, in the company of two construction roughnecks, he hid it well. He seemed more curious than concerned.

  Tall and slender, with crisp, dark hair and a sunlamp tan, Kennedy wore a three-piece pinstripe that probably cost more than Shea's truck.

  "My sister called ahead to warn me you were coming,” Kennedy said, waving them to maroon leather seats facing his ornately carved desk. “She needn't have bothered. With all the talk about the memorial, I've been doing a lot of thinking about those days, lately. Maybe it's time to clear the air, get it off my chest. What do you want to know?"

  "What can you tell us about the jailbreak?” Sara asked.

  "Which one?” Kennedy smiled, bridging his narrow fingertips. “At the time, with the police blaming SDS and the Weathermen for breaking Max out, most of my friends thought the break was a freaking miracle, proof of revolutionary solidarity, the brotherhood of the working class.” He shook his head ruefully.

  "It was all nonsense, of course. Max Novak talked a good show, but one night in that jail and he was threatening to drag us all down with him if somebody didn't get him out. The sheriff contacted my father, Dad called a few friends, and they arranged for the famous Christmas breakout. But not by revolutionary action. They did it the old-fashioned American way. They bought it."

  "And you knew about it at the time? How?"

  "They asked me to help. After the escape, Max was too hot to hide. His face was all over the news, he had to get out of the country right away. Our little anti-war cell had been running an underground railroad, smuggling draft evaders into Canada. We thought it was a big secret, but somehow my father knew about it, and so did his friends. When he asked for my help, it was the most disillusioning experience of my young life."

  "How so?” Shea asked.

  "Because I realized the whole thing was bogus. We were preaching power to the people, but all Max managed to do was blow up some poor working stiff. Revolution was just a game we'd been playing. And our parents weren't really the enemy, they'd just been humoring us. Like the kids we were back then."

  "Dawn told us you and your father had a terrible row. Is that what it was about?"

  "No,” Joel said flatly. “She shouldn't have told you about that."

  "But she did,” Sara said simply. “It's time for the truth now, Joel. You said they asked for your help. Did you help them?"

  Kennedy sighed. “I didn't have much choice. I knew a Métis who was smuggling dope down from Canada. We'd been paying him to take draft evaders along on the return trip—"

  "Métis?” Sara asked.

  "Half-breeds, sort of,” Puck explained, “Métis are part French Canuck, part Cree or Odawa, claim to be descendants of the original French voyageurs. Great woodsmen, most of ‘em.

  "My father offered the Métis, Bobby Roanhorse, five thousand dollars to smuggle Max across the lake into Canada. But there was a problem."

  "It was already late December,” Puck said. “And Lake Huron froze over early that year."

  "Roanhorse said going by boat was impossible, they'd need a snowmobile. So my father arranged for one, a brand new Polaris 340 from Hal Jensen's dealership."

  Sara nodded. “Another name on Kowalski's list. Do you know if they made it to Canada?"

  "They must have,” Joel said carefully. “Max held a press conference to condemn the killings at Kent State. It was televised."

  "And a million people saw a man in a ski mask,” Sara said. “But that's not what I asked, exactly. Do you know if they made it across?"

  Joel looked away, taking a long ragged breath, and let it out slowly.

  "No, I don't know. But to be honest, I very much doubt it. As we were putting together the final arrangements, my father confessed that he'd promised Roanhorse an extra ten thousand to be sure Max never made it off that ice."

  "Dear God,” Sara said softly.

  "He did it to protect us,” Joel pleaded, “I realize that now. Max had already tried to sell us out, he'd do it again in a heartbeat the next time he got jammed up. We were just kids, but we could have gone to prison for years, for believing in an unpopular cause and Red Max Novak. My father recognized the danger to us, so he . . . did what he had to. To save us."

  "What did you do about it?"

  "I warned Max. I whispered to him, just before they set off."

  "How did he react?” Puck asked.

  "He said it didn't matter. That he had to get to Canada and the Métis was his only chance to make it."

  "Are you sure he understood you?” Sara asked.

  "He understood, all right. Because I did more than just warn him. I . . . “ Kennedy swallowed. “I slipped him a gun."

  "Sweet Jesus,” Puck said softly.

  "I had to,” Joel said. “They meant to kill him, forgodsake."

  "And did they?” Puck pressed. “Do you know what actually happened?"

  "I truly don't. Max supposedly appeared at that press conference, but I have serious doubts it was actually him. The Weathermen could have staged that show for their own reasons, and who knows what the FBI was up to in those days? All I know for sure is, a year later Bobby Roanhorse came back to Port Martin. And my father paid him his blood money. Ten thousand dollars. And nobody's seen Red Max Novak since the spring of nineteen seventy."

  * * * *

  "Maybe you'd better sit this one out, miss,” Puck suggested. “I've worked with a lot of Métis over the years, and most of ‘em are fine people. But if this dope dealer did Novak in back then and we show up asking questions . . . “ He broke off when Sara glanced at him curiously, as if wondering what language he was speaking. And he realized he might as well be talking to the wall.

  Shea kept his eyes focused on the road. They were a dozen miles out of Port Martin, following Joel Kennedy's directions. The gravel track skirted the shore of Burt Lake, a spot infamous to Native Americans. A nearby Ojibwa town was burned to the ground by local authorities during the Great Depression. Families turned out into the snow in the dead of winter. To forage, or starve.

  Even now, with the afternoon light fading into the forest, the land had a somber edge, still brooding over ancient injustices.

  The Roanhorse Tree Farm bac
ked up to the edge of a section of National Forest. Thousands of acres of rough country, uninhabited and untouched for a hundred years.

  The tree farm wasn't much better. Rows of ragged spruce and jack pine, poorly shaped and trimmed, fit only for replanting along roadways, or to shield landfills.

  The house looked abandoned. A ramshackle, two-story saltbox a century old and showing every day of it. Flaking, chalky whitewash, eyeless windows with shades pulled down. The only signs of habitation were cords of firewood neatly stacked on the sagging front porch. And animal pelts drying on stretch racks against the railings, filling the air with the redolence of wildness and putrefaction. Nature in the raw.

  Sara knocked on the door. No answer. “Mr. Roanhorse?” she called.

  "Out back."

  They followed the echo around the side of the house.

  Bobby Roanhorse was splitting wood, his double-bitted ax ringing as he put his back into every swing. He was working stripped to the waist, wearing leather gloves, army fatigue pants tucked into high-top logging boots, a shaggy mane of raven hair, shot with gray, loose around his shoulders. He looked wild and surly and hard, his dark eyes unreadable behind thick brows.

  "I only sell trees wholesale,” he said. “I don't do no business with the public."

  "We didn't come to buy trees, Mr. Roanhorse. I'm Sara Jacoby, the city manager at Port Martin. We're here to talk about Max Novak."

  Roanhorse paused in mid swing, then straightened slowly, looking them over. Coldly. Like a cougar eyeing game that had strayed onto his hunting grounds.

  "Who are your friends, lady? Some kind of cops?"

  "We're working men, like you,” Puck said. “I'm Paquette, he's Shea. Our crew is handling the construction at Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street."

  "The freakin’ hippie memorial?” Roanhorse spat, resting the ax head on the log. “I seen about it on the TV. So? What do you want with me?"

  "We know you were involved in the Christmas break,” Sara said. “We'd like to know what happened."

  "You'd like to know?” he mimicked her sarcastically. “Why? What's it matter after all this time?"

  "We're building a monument to those years, Mr. Roanhorse, and you were a part of them. The monument will be here long after we're gone. We'd like it to be true."

  "Truth?” Roanhorse snorted. “I seen a movie once, lady, some punk asks Jack Nicholson for the truth. Know what Nicholson says?"

  "He says, ‘You can't handle the truth,’ “ Shea said. “But he tells it anyway."

  "That's right.” Roanhorse nodded, looking away, over his wasted acres. “He does tell it, doesn't he? It's almost funny. For years after it happened, I expected the law to come for me. I laid low out here, waitin’ on ‘em, always watchful. And after a while, waitin’ and hidin’ were all I knew. When I heard about the nineteen sixty-nine museum, I thought somebody might come around. Or the cops would, finally. Seems like I've been waiting for you people most of my life."

  "We're not the police, Mr. Roanhorse, and we already know much of the story. We know the breakout was rigged, and you were hired to guide Max Novak across the ice to Canada. All we want to know is what happened."

  "Fair enough,” he said, smiling faintly, “here's the truth. See if you can handle it. You gotta understand how it was in them days. Back then, being Métis was almost the same as being black. People treated me like dirt. Except for the hippies. Freaks didn't mind hangin’ with me, sharin’ their dope, their women. It proved how emancipated they were."

  "And you resented it?"

  "Hell no, I grew up in foster care, lady, no family. Drifted down here, livin’ hand to mouth, peddling weed and speed to stay afloat. I'd take any friends I could get. Even punk-ass college kids who wanted a half-breed mascot."

  "So you weren't political?"

  "Dead wrong. All Native Americans were political back then. American Indian Movement. Alcatraz, Wounded Knee. There was serious shit in the wind, those days. Revolution. I was Métis but I could spout the rhetoric with the rest, power to the people, all that nonsense. But when the trouble with Red Max Novak came up, I found out real quick where my place was."

  "How do you mean?"

  "I was strictly the hired help. They offered me five thousand bucks to sneak that dirtbag egomaniac across the big ice into Canada. Five grand was a lot of bread in those days, but they had no idea what they were asking. Even with a snowmobile, it's more than a hundred miles across territory rougher than the back of the moon, and just as empty."

  "But it can be done,” Puck offered.

  "Sure it can. My people have been crossing that lake for ten thousand years. For five grand I would've carried Max Novak across on my back whistlin’ Dixie all the way."

  "Yeah?” Shea said. “And what would you do for an extra ten grand?"

  "Ah, so you heard about that part.” Roanhorse nodded. “The blood money."

  "We know Joel Kennedy's father offered you money to kill Max Novak,” Puck said bluntly. “Is that what happened?"

  "Not exactly. Joel comes to me, begs me to help his friend, like we're all buddies, revolutionary brothers, you know? Then his old man tops Joel's offer with another ten. He asks me to do murder. For money. Like I was some kind of animal."

  "And did you?” Puck asked.

  "Jesus, Pops, you just spit it out, don't you?” Roanhorse grinned wolfishly. “Hell no, I didn't do it. I'm not a damn savage. I'm Métis, Cree Nation. The first Americans. Besides that, Max Novak was one desperate sonofabitch, paranoid as hell. He was packing a gun and I wasn't. I figured earning the five for getting him to Canada would be money enough."

  "What happened?” Sara asked.

  "The big ice is treacherous that early. Floes shift, ice bridges collapse. One wrong step can drop you into a hundred feet of water so cold you sink like a rock. And we had to travel by night, no lights. With a snowmobile, I figured we could make it in two, three days. But the trip was even rougher than I expected."

  "Let me guess,” Puck said. “Poor Max had an accident?"

  "You've got it exactly backwards, Pops. I'm the one who took the fall. Dropped a runner through an air pocket, dumped the damn snow machine. We went flyin’ across the ice, which was lucky because the snowmobile broke through the ice, disappeared in half a second, leavin’ us stranded about halfway across."

  "How far out?” Puck asked.

  "Maybe fifty miles, give or take. No way to be sure. And I was in rough shape. That damn machine rolled on my leg, broke it. Tough luck, Max says. But since the revolution was more important than either of us and I obviously couldn't keep up, he'd have to leave me. Which he damn well did. Pulled his gun on me, took my compass, took the water and food from my backpack, then headed north on his own."

  "Do you know what happened to him?” Sara asked.

  "Lady, I had other things to worry about, like dragging my ass across fifty miles of ice on one leg with no water and no compass. The only break I got, other than my leg, was a clear sky so I could navigate by night. From the stars, I knew I was closer to the Upper Peninsula than Canada, so I turned west. Crawled four days, maybe more, I lost track. A trapper found me. An Odawa. I stayed with his family a few months. Healed up."

  "And Novak?” Sara asked.

  "Yeah, that's really the bottom line for you people, isn't it? What happened to the great Red Max? Truth is, I'm not sure. I know they claim that was him at the press conference later that spring, but..."

  "But?” Shea prompted.

  "Even with food and water, it was a damned long hike across that ice."

  "You made it.” Puck pointed out.

  "I'm Métis.” Roanhorse shrugged. “Max Novak was a city boy, didn't know squat about surviving on that ice. He should have thought of that before he left me to die. My guess is, he likely drowned or froze to death the same night he ditched me. But the God's truth is, I don't know what happened to him. And don't much care. Screw Max Novak. And the rest of you, too."

  "Interesting sto
ry,” Puck said, “but you left out the part where you came back. And collected Kennedy's blood money."

  "You're right, I did. But not for killing Max Novak,” Roanhorse said grimly, peeling off his gloves. To reveal blunt paws with stumps in place of fingers. Sara gasped.

  "Frostbite,” Puck said softly.

  "I can barely hold a salt shaker, mister, or work a cell phone. That sonofabitch destroyed my hands, my whole life, really. As for Kennedy's blood money, I earned every cent of it. I've said my piece, told you the flat-ass truth. Now I'm done with it, and with you.” Roanhorse shifted his ax to port arms, hefting it in his maimed paws. “Unless you people want to buy some trees, you'd best get steppin'. I've got work to do."

  * * * *

  They made the long drive back to Port Martin in silence, each of them lost in thought. Sorting out the bits and pieces of the puzzle, trying to reshape it into a new reality.

  "Do you believe him?” Sara said at last.

  "Yeah, I do,” Puck said. “What he said lines up with the rest of it. Besides, he's Métis. I wouldn't question his word lightly. What did you make of him?"

  "The same,” Sara nodded. “I think Max Novak almost certainly died on that ice through his own selfish stupidity. You were right about him all along, Mr. Paquette. I was wrong, and I apologize. My God, what am I going to tell the council?"

  "How about nothing?” Shea offered. “We've heard some interesting stories, but we don't actually know anything."

  "We know Red Max escaped by bribery, not daring."

  "But the important thing is, he did escape,” Puck said. “His vanishing act made him as famous as Jimmy Hoffa or Judge Crater. And this monument isn't about the real Max, anyway, only his legend and those times. Nineteen sixty-nine. The Days of Rage. To remind folks that if things get too far out of whack, wild-eyed psychos like Red Max start coming out of the woodwork."

  "But the tunnel—"

  "Leave the tunnel to us,” Shea said. “The place is so overbuilt it's practically a fortress. We can brace the beams and take a short section out. Tourists will be able to crawl through it without ducking their heads."