Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Not only in, but thinking if you do a good job out there, I’ll get you into my department.”

  That had never occurred to Clay. It had a good feel to it, though. There was something about the hunt that was getting into his blood.

  “Let’s get back to the autopsy,” Flannigan said, hardly pausing. “Those coin-shaped marks, what do you think?”

  “Same thing I think about the eagle feather. Big mystery.”

  “It’ll fall into place,” Flannigan said. “Just learn as much as you can and get into the killer’s mind. That’s what behavioral science is about. And you need to get there in a hurry.”

  “Hurry?”

  “Everything points to a first-time kill. Everything points to someone who enjoyed it. You guessed early it might be a serial killer in the making, one of the reasons I’m interested in having you in my department, Clay. This note and the obsessive jealousy backs you up even more. Whoever did this crossed the line. He’s not corning back, Clay, He’s out there and ready to do it again.”

  3:30 p.m.

  As if there weren’t enough to worry about, Nick thought, after dealing with Kelsie McNeill and her crush on him, there was still the bad news that Sonny had given him an hour earlier, that men from the sheriff’s department had come calling at the ranch to ask about Nick and his relationship to Doris Samson. Sonny’s advice had been to head into Kalispell as though Nick didn’t have anything to hide, but Sonny, Kick had decided, was thinking more about protecting his dream of the Native Sons uprising than protecting Nick.

  Cops would be easy compared to facing Kelsie and telling her it was going to end between them. Nick Buffalo went through the list of how stupid it had been, why it was time to end it, and how he was going to tell her. He hoped he would be strong enough to tell her fast and not get involved further with any of the things she had promised in her note he had found in his car, asking her to meet him that afternoon.

  He knew he had time to plan what he wanted to say. He was in no hurry – definitely in no hurry – so he’d keep the horse to a walk. On the unlikely chance James, Michael, or Lawson happened to be up in these hills, he’d say he was on his way to check the upper limits of the range for signs of grizzly, and he had his rifle in the saddle scabbard as proof. Nick figured if any one of them knew his true intentions, they’d hang him from the nearest tree branch. As fair and as blind to skin color as James McNeill was, his fairness probably didn’t extend to hired hands who played kissing games with his daughter.

  And that was the problem. They were just games.

  Kick’s gut ached to think of how stupid he had been. Sure, he knew why he’d first allowed himself the danger of spending time alone with Kelsie McNeill. She was white, and she was James McNeill’s daughter. There was power in that, wasn’t there, that a Flathead like Nick Buffalo, without the advantages of white skin, name, or money but simply on his own merits, could have someone like Kelsie McNeill? Of course, it wasn’t enough to think it possible; he’d had to let it go far enough to prove it, blocking Doris out of his mind by telling himself that no woman owned him.

  Plus Kelsie was beautiful. Doggone, she was beautiful. No man alive could watch her walk by and not snap his head for a second look. If Nick had first seen her at a rodeo dance, he would have guessed her to be his age, twenty, not sixteen. If he had first seen her at a rodeo dance, he might have chased her, instead of the other way around.

  Even in chasing him, though, she hadn’t been aggressive the way some women were. Instead, she’d been shy, hanging around him while he worked before finally suggesting they meet that night. Part of Nick’s excitement was in realizing that she herself didn’t realize what was happening, as if she had the equipment and the desire, but lacked the know-how.

  It turned out, though, her desire was different from the blood-quickening hunger he’d tasted with other women. During their first kiss, Nick had understood it was like a fairy tale to Kelsie – romantic longing, not the hardedged desire of the experienced rodeo women who slipped into the backseats of their cars with him at the end of dances.

  He’d not taken advantage of Kelsie’s innocence, That was how Nick appeased his guilt. He told himself he’d done the right thing. Anyone else would have tried to give her the know-how, trampled over her dreams for the ugliness of satisfying lust. Instead, Nick had held himself back, allowing her to feel joy in her tentative kisses and murmured puppy-love ramblings.

  He deserved some credit for that, didn’t he? Nick knew a lot about women, how what they often wanted was the strength and roughness promised by his almost savage features and their image of him as a cowboy and rodeo bull-rider. Since the time he was old enough to drive, plenty of white women had found ways to throw themselves at him. He knew what pleased them. Yet walking alone with Kelsie among the trees at night – older, experienced, aflame with the effect of her kisses as he’d been – he’d nobly restrained himself for the sake of her innocence and feelings.

  What had it got him?

  Doris, dead.

  If he’d gone into Kalispell that night and met Doris, she would still be alive. Instead, he’d kept walking with Kelsie, unsure of how to get away gracefully.

  The worst part was, the instant Kelsie had nuzzled in close to his neck and lifted her lips to his, he’d pictured Doris. In that moment, the intense guilt of being in another woman’s arms – something that surprised him because he’d happily played around on all his previous girlfriends – had led him to another surprising realization.

  He loved Doris deeply. They’d only been together a month, hardly enough that people knew they were an item. Beyond soul-searching kisses, they hadn’t done anything serious physically – Doris said she was through with that, and maybe that was one of the reasons he’d fallen for her...

  As Nick rode his horse beneath the sharp, blue sky, following the gurgling of a mountain stream up a valley toward distant peaks, whiskey-jack jays flitted in nearby thickets, calling alarm in their peculiar raspy cries. Another man might have gloried in the beauty. All Nick could think of was Doris: her insistence on candles set in empty wine bottles whenever they sat on her apartment couch at night; her pride in that couch and the other used furniture she’d bought with cash earned by tips at the restaurant; how the candle shadows flickered on her face and how she kissed – wordlessly, soft, and slow – with her eyes closed in that candlelight.

  He’d betrayed her. Because Doris was dead, he’d never have a chance to make it up to her. He’d never be able to tell her about his love for her.

  The way Nick felt, no amount of sunshine and blue sky would lift the grayness from his soul. No amount of salt would add taste to his food. And no amount of prayer to a God he wasn’t sure existed would erase his guilt.

  At the very least, though, he was going to end it with Kelsie, even with the risk that she might get so upset she’d run to her father, who would fire him – or worse. In this valley, he might get rednecks running him off the road or beating him up once they knew about this. Or maybe some white judge would find a way to throw him in jail. He’d done absolutely nothing to Kelsie except fumble through a few kisses, but maybe he’d get accused of worse.

  The day before – knowing of his decision to tell her it had ended and merely delaying the unpleasant task – Nick hadn’t been worried about Kelsie taking it wrong. The note from her that he had found sticking out of his car ashtray in the morning, though, made him wonder now.

  She’d probably copied some of it from one of her romance books. It was steamy, among other things telling him to meet her at Mad Dog’s cabin because it was so far away from anyone that she’d be able to cry aloud her ecstasy at their lovers’ reunion and they would have the entire afternoon to satisfy each other’s longings.

  Nick had had to find Sonny in the equipment shed and ask him what ecstasy was – without telling him why, of course. If it meant what Sonny said, even allowing for his tendency to exaggerate, Nick guessed Kelsie was intent on turning her desire into
know-how in a big hurry.

  Well, not with Nick Buffalo. A simple kiss had brought him more grief than he wanted to face again in his life. Besides, as a way to make it up to Doris, Nick was swearing off women for as long as he could manage it.

  Mick rode slowly around a final bend. It didn’t surprise him to see Kelsie’s saddled horse nearby, hobbled and grazing in the meadow grass on the bank above the stream.

  Nick looped the reins of his horse over a tree branch. There was no sense unbridling the horse, he thought. He wouldn’t be at the cabin long, just enough to tell Kelsie it was over before it got started.

  Nick approached the low, square doorway of the cabin.

  “Kelsie?” He called her name softly, as if he were afraid his voice would carry several miles down to the McNeill ranch house and James would know he was meeting Kelsie in daylight.

  “Kelsie?”

  Nick didn’t like the black interior of the cabin. He’d heard all the stories about it being haunted by Mad Dog, how people had found him hanging inside.

  “Kelsie?”

  The voice that replied did not come from the interior of the cabin. Nor was it Kelsie’s.

  “Drop to your knees.”

  Nick half turned. A thunderclap roar deafened him. It took the acrid smell of gunpowder for him to realize the person behind him had fired a shotgun.

  “Next shot is in your back. Drop to your knees.”

  Nick lowered himself, wincing at the pain of a rock pressing against his kneecap.

  “Now on your stomach.”

  Nick knew that voice. It was such a surprise, he felt his first chill of fear, “I don’t get it,” Nick said, on his belly with his face pressed against grass. “You? Why? I mean, how many years have we been friends?”

  “Hands on your back.”

  Nick hesitated. This was getting serious.

  The kick into his side came without warning. It was vicious, rib cracking.

  “Hands on your back.” As brutal as the kick had been, there was no excitement in the voice. That scared Nick more than the kick. He lifted his hands and put them on the small of his back.

  He felt a cord being slipped over his wrists and tightened, looped in the knot rodeo riders use to hogtie a calf in roping competitions.

  “Lift your feet.”

  Again, Nick hesitated. The next kick took him across the jaw.

  He leveraged his feet upward, hurting his bruised knee as he pressed more weight on it.

  After his ankles were trussed, he was rocked by a few more kicks in his ribs.

  “My little note made you pant like a dog in heat, didn’t it, Nick Buffalo? Thought she was calling for you and you came running. Thought she was yours, didn’t you, Nick Buffalo?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Nick said, suddenly crazy with hope that this would become a good beating and nothing else.

  “No?” The voice was softer. “Not what I think? Listen to me, Nick Buffalo. What I think over the next couple of days is going to matter very much to you. I have a secret little place nearby, a place where no one will find you even if they’re looking. Your life is my power. Doris took two hours to die. 1f I do it right, you’ll take two days.”

  4:01 p.m.

  The extension phone in Russell Fowler’s garage rang. He ignored it. Let the wife answer. She wasn’t doing anything except putting a big dent in the couch cushions as she cheered on Phil Donahue.

  Yeah, Fowler told himself, he was in a bad mood all right. He had done the fie1d work to get seven sets of fingerprints. Each set had a corresponding name. Wayne Anderson, the banker. Judge Thomas King. Both councilmen. And his most recent prints, Lawson McNeill and Rooster and Frank Evans. It couldn’t be, he thought; no prints in front of him matched the print on the beer can that, in turn, matched the partials on the corkscrew.

  Impossible. There had only been those seven men at the campfire. Fowler himself made eight, and he didn’t need to fingerprint himself to know he wouldn’t match the mystery prints.

  So what on earth was going on with –

  He cursed the ringing phone. Why didn’t Thelma answer? How was a man supposed to concentrate?

  “What?” he snarled, grabbing the receiver off the hook.

  “Hey, Russ,” Fowler recognized the voice. It belonged to Tad Weslo, the portly administrative assistant at the courthouse who was on the verge of retiring. Tad loved trying to make inside straights and always bet as if he had; he hadn’t yet figured out the weekly gang had long ago caught on to that bluff and loved it.

  “Tad,” Russ acknowledged.

  “You sitting on a cactus? Or Thelma got you cleaning silverware?”

  “I’m not in a joking mood.”

  “Like I said, cactus or silverware?”

  “I’m in the garage, Tad. Cut to the chase.”

  “Got the carb apart again? I told you a dozen times to flat out buy a new one. No man needs the aggravation of trying to –”

  “Tad.”

  “Almost sounds like you want me off the phone, Russ.”

  “I do, Tad. Thelma is dancing in front of me. She’s wearing boa feathers, and she’s real frisky.”

  Tad cackled. “Only if that’s Donahue’s latest advice. Thelma was over the other day, and that’s all she and the old lady talked about for two hours. I swear, a hundred million woman in this country have dropped everything to turn on the television to watch that man. Economy grinds to a halt for one hour every day. No work gets done; no shopping gets done. And you should watch the show, see some of the things we get blamed for. Like they figure it’s impossible for the rest of us men to be aware of their feelings. Stupid broads, they –”

  “Is this about tomorrow night’s game? You deciding to hold on to your money and stay home?”

  “Nope.”

  Tad had this aggravating habit of letting a person know he held a secret then forcing it to be dragged out of him.

  “What then?”

  “Got a call today.”

  “Yeah?” Fowler ground his teeth. Tad wouldn’t call unless he had something of interest. It just seemed a man had to pay more than it was worth to get it. “From who?”

  “Some starched collar on the East Coast. A muckity-muck from the FBI.”

  "Yeah?” Fowler didn’t want to betray the interest that had bumped his pulse rate.

  “Wanted me to search the files. Gave me the names of about two dozen men. Told me he needed to know if any had faced local criminal charges.”

  “Yeah? Tad, this carb, it’s all over my workbench. Maybe tomorrow night you can fill me in on the rest.” Fowler hoped he hadn’t pushed so hard his bluff was obvious.

  “I don’t know, Russ. It just seemed strange, especially when I figured something out later.”

  Fowler grinned. Tad remained true to form, showing the inability to read people, an inability that got him invited back to the card table week after week.

  “See,” Tad continued, “I knew a couple of them by name. They all work at the McNeill ranch. So I gave Randy a call over at motor vehicles, fed him the names. Turns out every single one of them call James McNeill boss. What do you think is happening out there?”

  “Probably nothing, Tad.” On his own end of the phone, despite his casual response, Fowler was frowning in concentration. This didn’t look good. “I’ll keep my ears open. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.” In a dry voice, Fowler added, “After all, you’re good at keeping a secret.”

  “Town this small, you got to,” Tad said, taking it seriously. “Rumors can do pretty bad damage, you know.”

  Fowler shook his head at Tad’s opinion of himself. The rumor would probably reach James McNeill by dinnertime.

  Fowler managed to cut his good-bye down to a couple of minutes. When he hung up the phone, he stared at the fingerprint cards.

  What was going on at the McNeill ranch?

  Fowler gave it some thought. Hoover’s boy was mounting some kind of investigation that covered the hired hands
at the ranch. Had the rookie made a connection of some kind to Lawson McNeill and his involvement in the group? Had he learned something about Doris and the stag party? Or, worst of all, had he somehow learned something about the train derailment?

  Either way, it bothered Fowler – almost as much as an unidentified fingerprint on the beer can matching the one on the corkscrew.

  Well, Fowler told himself, he wasn’t imagining the matched prints, so there had to be an explanation. The conclusions he could draw for certain were that the same person who had once touched the beer can from the campfire had also once handled the corkscrew. He knew for certain that person was not one of the men at the campfire. So this person had handled the beer cans before it reached the campfire.

  This was getting complicated. Fowler would have to find out who’d brought the beer that night and work backward from there. Worse, it didn’t seem like the payback would be worth the work. If it wasn’t one of the seven who had killed Doris Samson – it mattered far less; while Fowler would not mind putting the case to rest, he wouldn’t lose sleep if he never did catch whoever had killed Doris

  Samson. Just a Flathead Indian, right?

  He sighed. He wasn’t ready to give up yet. First thing he’d have to do was dust the remaining beer cans. The other night, he’d stopped as soon as he’d found a print to match the corkscrew print. He’d have to keep looking; if he found a ninth set of distinct prints on the cans, it might prove his theory that the murderer had handled the beer cans before they reached the campfire.

  1n the meantime, he had the FBI to worry about. The kid was sharp; there was no telling where he was headed. He’d have to assign one of the deputies to dog Clay Garner, keep tabs on him, and report back.

  Nor would it hurt to rain on the FBI parade. If rumor was going to reach James McNeill anyway, Fowler might as well get credit for it.

  Fowler picked up the telephone and dialed a number he knew from memory. “James,” he said to the answering voice. “Russ Fowler here. Look, there’s something you should know about...”