Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “I’m Clay Garner,” he said to them both. “Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. McNeill said I’d be able to find –”

  “Show us your badge,” the older one said. “Like on television. You know, how that Zimbalist stooge does his authority thing and scares all the bad guys.”

  “Are you Johnny Samson?" Clay asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you must be Sonny Cutknife. I kindly request you to shut your mouth.”

  “Free country. Isn’t that the way you European colonists want it? Free for you to take? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, man. I don’t have to shut my mouth for anyone. ’Specially no European.”

  Clay thought through his options. Because the last few days had been so frustrating, he was tempted to reach into his suit jacket, pull his pistol free from his shoulder holster, press it against Sonny’s nose, and cite federal regulations about obstruction of justice. While that might shut Sonny up, it might not, and either way would show as much weakness as making another futile request for cooperation.

  Clay noticed the younger one, Johnny Samson, was sweating freely, like maybe he’d been doing most of the work while Sonny took it easy. Maybe the kid didn’t share Sonny’s bad attitude. Should he appeal directly to the kid?

  No, Clay decided. Don’t make the kid choose between a show of support for Sonny or for an FBI agent. Sonny would definitely come out ahead, and Clay wouldn’t have a chance to ask his questions.

  “I’m here,” Clay said, forcing himself to speak in a relaxed tone so there would be no hint of challenge in his voice, “because George Samson sent me here looking for his grandson.”

  “We don’t need your help, man,” Sonny spat. “I’ve seen what you FBI pigs did at Wounded Knee. We –”

  “You talked to my grandfather?” Johnny asked.

  “Twice,” Clay said, grateful the kid had spoken. The first time had been the brief interview before Doris Samson’s death. The second time had been after, an interesting hour at Samson’s hillside cabin, plenty of it in shared silence. Many of the questions Clay had wanted to ask about Doris, however, he hadn’t felt comfortable inflicting on the gentle old man.

  “You talked to him up at the cabin?” Johnny asked.

  “Yes. He’s hoping I’ll be able to help the local authorities look into the murder of your sister.”

  “Did he invite you inside?”

  “Yes,” Clay said. “He has a wonderful collection of books. Your grandfather is a remarkable man.”

  And a remarkably astute man, Clay thought. He’d foreseen the sheriff’s lack of interest and been politically smart enough to find a way to apply pressure through Clay’s involvement.

  “Grandfather doesn’t invite anyone inside unless he respects that person,” Johnny said.

  “Man,” Sonny said, “this dude is white. Don’t that tell you anything?”

  “My grandfather didn’t notice his color,” Johnny said. “Probably because this dude didn’t notice my grandfather’s color. That tells me plenty.”

  Sonny opened his mouth to try another tact then realized he was losing ground, so he shrugged and lit another cigarette.

  Clay saw Sonny’s work gloves on the ground. He shucked his jacket, setting it on the hood of the truck. Then he grabbed the gloves without asking permission, slipped them on, and pulled two fence posts from the truck bed. He dropped them on the small pile beside the truck.

  Johnny grabbed a couple and did the same.

  “1 know your grandfather raised you and Doris,” Clay said. “Taught both of you until you each had high-school diplomas.”

  “Boarding school wasn’t right,” Johnny said. “He’d heard too many bad stories about them.”

  “And Doris moved into Kalispell two years ago, right?”

  “Right. She worked as a waitress at Clem’s Diner, a pancake house.”

  Clay pulled a fence post and handed it to Johnny, who in turn twisted and dropped it on the pile on the ground. When Johnny straightened, Clay had another one ready to pass along.

  “Did you stay close?” Clay asked. “Even with her in town and you still with your grandfather?”

  A small spasm of grief on Johnny's face gave Clay all the answer he needed. How could he now ask the kid the same questions he had avoided with the grandfather?

  “She was my sister. Our parents died in a car wreck. All I had was her and Grandfather."

  Clay passed him another fence post, then another. He waited five fence posts, giving Johnny time to shake off the tears that had threatened his eyes.

  “She have a boyfriend?” Clay asked

  “I think she was trying to stay away from guys,” Johnny said. “She started going to church and everything.”

  “Can you think of anyone she might have seen lately?” Clay asked. “Or anyone who was interested in her? Interested in a good way? Interested in a weird way?”

  “Nick –” Johnny started to say.

  “Johnny,” Sonny warned. “This dude is from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He’s got no business poking around with us.”

  Clay decided this would be a good time to change directions. He’d already learned plenty. There was someone named Nick, and Sonny didn’t want it discussed. Clay decided he’d wait until he could talk to Johnny without anyone else around.

  Clay tossed the gloves back to Sonny and walked to the front of the cab for his jacket. He didn’t put it on, but reached into the vest pocket and pulled out a business card.

  “If you remember anything else, call this number and leave a message. I’ll get back to you.”

  He tossed the card onto the front seat of the cab, There was no sense in giving Sonny a chance to refuse or drop the card.

  8:07 p.m.

  “What’s troubling you?” George Samson asked his grandson.

  George sat in his rocking chair on the porch of the cabin, sipping hot tea, watching the last of the sun streak the horizon clouds. Johnny sat on the floor of the porch, his back against the railing. He had not spoken in twenty minutes.

  “What’s troubling me? How can you ask that, like maybe you’ve forgotten Doris,” Johnny replied angrily. “Someone took her away. First my mother and father. Now my sister. What is the fairness of that? To them – or to me.”

  “I have not forgotten Doris,” George said gently. Although he didn’t share Johnny’s anger, he understood it. “I grieve her death deeply. Nor have I forgotten your mother and father. Remember, I, too, lost what you lost.”

  “And you think it’s fair?”

  “Is this something you are telling me,” George said, “or asking me?”

  “Asking,” Johnny said with sudden challenge. “You tell me how you can sit there and drink tea. Me, I want to kick in doors and break windows.”

  George considered his answer carefully. He knew Johnny well. The boy would listen, but he would not blindly accept. George also knew Johnny was like a young wolf – restless. He was still polite and respectful; by schooling him at home, George had kept him from running with the wilder boys on the reservation. But Johnny was growing restless, as he must, simply because he was reaching adulthood. George had no intention of trying to chain his grandson. Nothing could stop the boy from roaming on his own – George had smelled the liquor and seen the pain of a hangover on the boy’s face after his trip into town. George had not reproved his grandson, for there were difficult lessons he would have to learn, and all George could do was trust he had managed to help the boy build a strong foundation to help him make his own decisions.

  “I will try to answer,” George finally said. “But you must understand, first of all, I will answer from my faith, which may not seem like a practical answer, but unless faith can be applied to practical matters, it is useless.”

  “White man’s faith,” Johnny sneered. “Small enough to fit into a building one day of the week.”

  George had taken Johnny and Doris to church every Sunday until each reached their sixteenth birth
days then allowed them to decide for themselves. After not attending for years, Doris had chosen to return. On Johnny’s sixteenth birthday, he, too, had chosen not to attend. Would he return? George believed it futile to force religion on a person, and up to this evening, he had waited until Johnny wanted to discuss his decision, thinking Johnny would not be open to listening unless he wanted to listen.

  “Truth is blind to color, Johnny. And many whites are blind to the truth of their faith, which is why they rely on a church building to shrink the truth to something they can control. But that has nothing to do with faith.”

  “Our ancestors found faith outside the church,” Johnny said. “That should be good enough for me.”

  George was glad for the implications of Johnny’s statement. Despite Johnny’s silence on this subject since announcing he would not be attending church, the boy had been thinking and questioning. It was far better that the boy be searching than to accept life as something that merely consisted of what was visible.

  “Our ancestors worshiped creation, which is understandable,” George said. “It is a reflection of the creator and as such cannot help but be glorious. But it is merely a reflection. I choose instead to worship the creator.”

  “A creator who stands aside while someone murders my sister.”

  Again, George took time to form his answer. He felt Johnny was on the cusp, ready to turn away from a spiritual search. George doubted anything he said could convince Johnny tonight, but George wanted the boy to continue searching and wanted to give the boy something to consider as he searched.

  “Johnny," George said, “nothing I say will make sense unless you believe we are eternal beings. It is one or the other. Your body carries an eternal soul, or it does not. I believe it does.”

  Johnny shrugged.

  “If you want to think of this world as a place that was intended for your happiness, or even to be fair to you, this world will always disappoint you. If you think about it as a brief apprenticeship to your eternal journey, that the situations and events in this world are meant to train and correct you for eternal life, you will never lose hope or peace, even during the most unhappy moments.”

  Another shrug.

  George set his tea down and leaned forward. “If half the people in a building expect it to be a luxury hotel, they will grumble their entire stay. The half who correctly view it as a prison – which this body and earth surely are for your soul – those people will be grateful for the small, unexpected comforts they find during their stay. If you think this world is meant to train you, in the end, what seems ugly and painful about this world strengthens you. Johnny, I take hope and peace in understanding that pain molds me for eternity. On the other side, I will look back and not remember the pain. Like having a tooth pulled, Johnny. Even in this life, the sensation of pain is long forgotten in the relief that follows.”

  Johnny said nothing.

  George realized that words, any words, were hollow against the memories of Doris and the horror of how she had died. For George, however, he would have been infinitely more inconsolable without the understanding and peace that faith gave him. This was what he wanted Johnny to possess.

  George did not want to preach – that might push Johnny away – but he had one more thing he wanted to say. “Johnny, I can tell you words all evening, and they will be like bothersome rain pouring down on your shoulders. Your life lies ahead of you, and I feel I can teach you nothing, for living seems to be a matter of corning to realize ancient truths that are so simple they seem meaningless when spoken. They seem like meaningless platitudes to those who have not had the experiences to teach them those truths. You, like every new generation, must learn these truths as if you are the first to learn it. All I can ask is that you keep searching, remembering that each choice you make leads you closer or away from your eternal God. It is like good or evil. A good man becomes practiced in choosing good. An evil man has made so many choices to the bad, that he can no longer recognize good. Can you promise me to remember every choice you make matters on your journey?”

  “Doris is dead,” Johnny replied. “I can promise you I will remember that.”

  Johnny rose abruptly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and without saying good-bye, marched down the porch steps and away from the cabin.

  George lifted his cup from the porch floor and held it without drinking until long after the tea had turned cold. He, too, could not forget that Doris was dead.

  11:59 p.m.

  "Mommy kept you safe all night, didn’t she?”

  The boy shivered. He hadn’t slept at all. He was afraid she would roll over and crush him. Her perfume had made him want to throw up, but he could not imagine how angry she would become if he did that. So he had tried to breathe through his mouth the entire night and had curled himself into a ball, trying to become smaller and invisible. Worst of all, he could not forget the kitten.

  “Little Bobby, did you hear your mommy’s question?”

  The boy stared at his feet.

  She lifted his chin, and he was forced to stare into her face.

  “Now you will be gone for a while, Little Bobby. But I don’t want you to cry. Mommy will miss you too. But Mommy will be waiting here for you.

  “My real mommy is coming to get me,” the boy said. “I’m going home today.”

  “I’m your real mommy.”

  “No. My real mommy –”

  She squatted, held his shoulders, and gazed straight into his face.

  “Little Bobby, you must keep our love secret.”

  “My real mommy loves me.”

  “Little Bobby, you must keep our love secret.” She repeated as she straightened his collar. As she spoke, her tone of voice remained calm and affectionate. “If you tell our secret, whoever hears that secret will die. Do you understand? Do you remember what happened to the little kitten? If you tell someone our secret, that will happen to them too.”

  The boy nodded. He knew what dead meant.

  The Watcher walked among the hillside trees beneath clear skies and a half moon, remembering the woman and what she had taught him by example with the kitten.

  The power of death was the best lesson he could have learned from her. The threat of death could make people do what you wanted them to do. It was an even greater power when you went beyond the threat and were able to give or take life by your own decision.

  The woman had taken the kitten’s life, by her choice, and later he had done the same to other animals. He could let them live it he decided or make them die. And when he killed them, he felt the surge of power fill his veins, as if their life power was transferred. into him.

  Then he had begun to wonder what it might feel like to take life when a person could beg to keep it. The animals had said nothing. They hadn’t known the Watcher had the power of choice. A person would know, and the person’s fear would confirm the Watcher’s power.

  And he had been right in his guess. Seeing the final spasm of the woman in room had given the Watcher a surge of power infinitely more thrilling than any of his earlier experiments.

  The Watcher was glad he’d had the foresight to take photos. Just looking at them returned to him the tremors of that surge of power. He especially liked the photos of him and the woman together. Behind him, in the hills where he traveled more comfortably at night than during the day, he had a special place to keep those souvenirs.

  He would take another souvenir that night. Not a photo, but something more special. From her, the one he loved.

  It would be a thrill, wouldn’t it, standing above her and knowing her life was in his hands? He smiled at the thought of his power, and his teeth gleamed in the moonlight like those of a wild animal. He broke into the clearing above the ranch house and held himself perfectly still as he waited for signs of any trouble.

  The cattle were silent in the corral. The dog wouldn’t be a problem. Aside from the buzzing of mosquitoes around his head, there were no sounds.

  The Watcher
took his first step toward the ranch house. It would take cunning and skill to get into her bedroom without waking anyone. But that was all part of power, wasn’t it? And wasn’t power the real way to love?

  Day 4

  7:28 a.m.

  Kelsie woke with a slight headache and sunlight across her face. She frowned. She was almost certain she had closed the curtains the night before. Maybe her father had slipped into the bedroom earlier and opened them. With his wry sense of humor, he would find it an amusing way to tell her to quit wasting the day.

  She sat up in bed, stretched, and yawned into awareness. As she woke, all the fears and worries and guilt she’d carried with her into fitful sleep returned in a tumbling flood. All she could think about was the reason that Doris Samson had been killed.

  At lunch the day before, it had come up in conversation with the McNeill men, the murder she had read about in the papers. There were plenty of rumors already that it had not been typical. Michael had commented that Nick Buffalo had been real quiet all morning – with Lawson laughing and pointing out that must have been some kind of quiet because Nick never said much any way. Nick Buffalo? This coming in a thoughtful question from their father, who looked up from buttering a slice of bread. Michael had gone on to explain he’d heard Nick was sweet on Doris and how choked up Nick must be about the entire situation. Sonny Cutknife had let it slip that Nick felt it was his fault because he had been catting around somewhere instead of meeting Doris that night like he’d promised her. At that point, all three had stared at Kelsie because she’d been pouring coffee into her cup and was still pouring as coffee overflowed onto the table.

  As they stared, Kelsie thought all three would read guilt on her face. Instead, their father had commented sharply to the boys that the lunch table was no place for talk about murder. Lawson had rushed to get a dishtowel to mop up the spilled coffee. And Kelsie had smiled a weak apology as the full impact of the news filled her with horror.