Tropic of Kansas

by Christopher Brown

  It didn’t.

  “Do you have food?” said Sig.

  “Do you have money?”

  “Some.” He checked his pocket to make sure he still had the sixteen dollars.

  The guy laughed at him. “You look a little lost, kid. And a little dirty. This isn’t that kind of community center, as most of the locals know. You just walk in off the portage or something?”

  Sig nodded.

  “Alone?”

  Sig shrugged.

  “Here,” said the guy, putting a glass of water and a menu down in front of Sig. “You want a grilled cheese or something I’ll hook you up. Then you need to get lost.”

  Sig took a long, thirsty drink, emptying the glass.

  The television was tuned to live footage from a recon team crossing the Iranian Blast Zone. The only person at the counter was another old white guy, down at the other end nursing a tablet computer and a tumbler of brown liquor on ice. The guy looked up from his screen and sized up Sig with the eyes of someone who saw the world in numbers and bodies. He went back to his drink.

  Three tables against the wall were occupied by a livelier crowd. Nine guys and two women, drinking and smoking, talking and laughing.

  And there was Merle. Mom’s old boyfriend, the guy that belonged to the wizard van, grown older and fatter, with gold jewelry over his shiny leather vest and a fancy black pearl snap shirt. Merle had his sunglasses on, even though it was pretty dark in the bar.

  “Hey, Bob!” yelled Merle to the bartender. “Can you switch to the hunting channel or something? I can’t stand all this war noise.”

  “No kidding, we got enough of that right here,” said one of Merle’s crew.

  “Planet Kitten!” said another one.

  They all laughed, except for Merle, who was staring at Sig.

  Merle took off his sunglasses and squinted. He got up and walked over, waving off two of his guys as they jumped out of their chairs to escort him. He came in real close. His eyes looked a little crazy. Bloodshot and wired.

  “What the hell?” said Merle, grabbing Sig by the shoulders. “I can’t believe it!”

  Sig fought the slight smile that worked its way into the corner of his mouth. He noticed the big automatic pistol Merle had under his belt. It matched his jewelry.

  “Where did you go, you little fucker?” said Merle.

  “North,” said Sig.

  “Shit,” said Merle. “I always knew it.” He put his hand on Sig’s shoulder. “You got bigger, boy. Still not as big as your dad.”

  “Where is he?” asked Sig.

  Merle let out a mumbled groan and hid behind his sunglasses.

  “Gone again,” said Sig.

  “Gone for good,” said Merle. “Guess you came here looking for him. He’s dead. But man, you should have seen him that night.”

  Sig stepped back. He felt another level of alone at the news, even if he wasn’t surprised. He tried to imagine what Merle was referring to. He had never known much about what his dad was up to. Maybe because half the time Mom was dragging Sig off to some political gathering as far as possible from wherever Dad was going, when she wasn’t dropping him off with strangers and calling them family.

  “Get this guy a beer, Bob,” said Merle. He looked at Sig. “Come on, kid, your dad wouldn’t want you to get all mopey.” He grabbed Sig’s beer and dragged Sig over to their tables.

  “Everybody, meet Siggy,” said Merle. “The Mexican Muskie’s boy, back from a long wander.”

  “You’re Clyde’s kid?” said one of the guys. “He always used to talk about you.”

  News to Sig.

  “Warrior just like dad,” said Merle. “Killed two cops before he turned thirteen.”

  “I remember your mom, honey,” said one of the women. She was older, with a beat-up leather jacket and hair turned mostly silver. “That sucked what happened.”

  “Yeah, I guess he gets it from both sides,” said Merle. “Even if he didn’t get any of Erika’s big blond hair.”

  Merle went to pat Sig on the head, but Sig pushed his hand away. Merle laughed it off.

  “Never seen green eyes like that on either side, though,” said the older lady, leaning in to look.

  Sig looked away, at the wall covered with photos. Some were old pictures of the band and life on the lake. Others were more recent. One showed Sig’s dad standing on top of a charred government SUV.

  “That’s the Full Metal Armadillo he took out with a homemade grenade,” said Merle. “Crazy fucker crawled up on top of the goddam thing and dropped it through the hatch. They stopped sending their swamp drones in after that.”

  “They sent snipers instead,” said one of the others, a burly white guy with a shaved head and a golden earring. “Counterinsurgency squads and yahoo militia from Wisconsin. Your dad killed about twenty of those nimrods on their way out.”

  “It was more than that, Holt,” said Merle. “But how would you know. You were sleeping in that day.”

  “I was in Washington getting you more funding,” said Holt. “Benjy and Cottonmouth were the ones on that run.”

  Benjy shrugged. He had crazy wiry hair, light brown skin, and a thick wild mustache. Cottonmouth sat next to him, a severe-looking Indian with face tattoos, rough lines drawn in a complex geometric pattern, the kind some guys got to beat the facial recognition.

  “We got set up, man,” said Benjy. “Motherland mofos all waiting for us there at our drop spot. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your dad, kid.”

  “We’d all be evicted,” said Merle. “Or in the Supermax.”

  “More like the Island,” said Cottonmouth.

  Merle nodded, agreement in his crazy eyes, like the mental image made him even crazier.

  “Freaking Clyde,” said Benjy. “That was epic.”

  “That was definitely an epic quantity of shit you guys lost that night,” said another guy sitting back from the group in a chair pulled away from the table. Thirty-something white guy with short hair and a black technical jacket.

  “Thanks to your shitty intel, Dick,” said Benjy.

  “No shit,” said a woman seated behind Benjy. She was Ojibwe, a couple of years older than Sig, long black hair woven into tight punk braids bunched up on her head. She had a pocket knife out, carving new patterns into the already ornate design on the wooden stock of the old assault rifle that lay across her lap. “We should be doing this for ourselves. We call ourselves sovereign but we work for the Dicks.”

  “Without our help you would have all been relocated, Betty,” said Dick. “We’re the ones who brokered your deal to be left alone. Let you enjoy your private little slice of free borderzone. So we just ask for a little help with our other projects.”

  “The Dick is our corporate sponsor,” said Betty, looking at Sig. “Just flew in from Virginia.”

  “He’s confused,” said Benjy, laughing at Sig and smiling.

  “You wonder why the casino is closed,” said Merle.

  “Because it’s winter,” said Benjy.

  “Because we got a better business model,” said Merle. “Revolution!”

  “For profit, he neglects to mention,” said Betty, raising her eyebrows.

  “That’s not our only business,” said Benjy. “We have the native corporations, and the data center.”

  “And the bank,” said Merle. “Tribal bank, under our own laws. So we can hold people’s money—”

  “Hide Dick’s money,” said Betty.

  “Invest corporate money,” said Merle. “And loan it back out to make more. Helps pay for our projects.”

  “You all talk too much,” said Dick.

  “We’re recruiting,” said Merle. “Sig, what we’re doing is helping free Canada.”

  “Arming the people,” said Benjy. “Helping them do self-help.”

  “First peoples,” said Merle. “Helping them get real sovereignty, like we did.”

  “Like the Mohawks did first,” said Betty. “Got their own real country.
”

  “About the size of a small farm,” said Benjy, smiling. “The next one will be a lot bigger. Then we’ll move up there. Less polluted. Fishing’s still good.”

  “We can just merge,” said Betty. “Make an archipelago of nations.”

  “A what?” said Benjy.

  “A network,” said Betty. “Of free people. Helping share free information. Keep it growing. Restore our lands, take them back to wild.”

  Sig saw the bald guy, Holt, look over at Dick, the suit.

  “You probably know all about it, from traveling up there,” said Merle.

  Sig had seen a camp northwest of Flin Flon and come across signs of fighting. He didn’t know what it was all about, and had stayed clear.

  “It started out just smuggling people who wanted to get out of the States,” said Merle. “Then Dick and his guys told us how we could help deliver their loads to our cousins on the other side.”

  “And bring special goodies back,” said Betty. “You gotta join us!”

  “What’s in it for them?” said Sig, pointing at Dick and Holt.

  “Water,” said Merle.

  “For his frackers and factories,” said Betty. “And rich fuckers who take long showers.”

  “Don’t forget the golf courses,” said Dick, not quite chuckling. “We pay market. And we buy mineral rights, too.”

  “Can he come with us?” Betty asked Dick. “I’ll lay off you for a week.”

  “Make it a month and we can give him a tryout,” said Dick. “But he needs to understand that, in this business, there are rules. Rules you need to follow if you don’t want to end up dead. Discretion, honesty, and loyalty. Don’t talk, don’t steal, and don’t cheat us. No freelancing we don’t know about.”

  “He looks pretty reliable to me,” said Benjy. “Definitely got the don’t talk part down pretty good.”

  “I’ll show him around,” said Betty. “He’ll open up.”

  8

  They went for a walk along the water.

  When Sig said how quiet it was, Betty told him how the loons had been decimated by the cleaning agents they dumped in the lakes to try to kill the invasive aquatic plants that had gotten so out of control over all these freaky warm summers. Sig looked out over the dark water beyond the frozen-over part and wondered if any fish were left hiding in the stillness below.

  Then a bunch of the guys came out and started tearing around on ice bikes, making enough noise for a race track, so Betty and Sig walked back into the woods.

  They talked about kids Sig remembered from when he was a kid, and which ones were dead. Betty asked Sig about how his mom died, and whether he wanted to kill more cops because of it. Sig said it wasn’t like that anymore.

  She asked him if his dad was really Mexican, and Sig told the story how his grandpa, Clyde’s dad, joined the Army and brought a wife back from Tijuana. They both died before Sig showed up. Betty said that made Sig a real mutt.

  Sig asked more about these border runs they went on. Betty told Sig a secret. How she, Merle, and Benjy had a side deal. Bringing back illegal information to sell to underground networks. Sig asked how you smuggle information. Betty said depends what kind.

  Sig asked Betty about the information carved on her gun. She called it her Kalashnikov, which she said was the name of the guy who invented it, and said how she liked the way it sounded. The carvings were images of all the animals she had hunted with it, and the imaginary animals that she associated with her dead friends. She said her grandpa had taught her how to carve, and when they went back to her cabin she showed him the special knife she used for that, and then they spent a sleepless night showing each other their scars, some of which were from other knives.

  He still wasn’t ready to tell her his own secrets.

  9

  Sig slept most of the next day. Betty’s bed was small but super-cozy, with clean sheets, a down comforter, thick wool blankets, and a huge pillow. She had a shortwave radio that played music from Tibet that sounded like sad old ghosts. She had teas that made your toes warm and your hair feel different. When she undid her hair, he could have sworn it had more wool than all of her blankets, but softer, and blacker, the color of a world without light. She made Sig wonder why he had spent most of the last six years sleeping alone in the woods.

  Betty knew how to tune the radio so she never heard any news, except when she wanted to hear the worst news of the wars so she could get motivated to go try to make things better in her own destructive, acting-out way. She told Sig how she thought they should be arming other Americans to change things on this side of the border. Sig said guns never did any good, but they all already had them anyway. Betty insisted that wasn’t true anymore, that they only issued guns to the people who joined the patriot militias, and the militiamen went around confiscating regular people’s guns when they weren’t busy hunting terrorists.

  Sig told Betty how he wanted to make money so he wouldn’t have to sleep outside and have a big house like the ones he had broken into in the Canadian cities. Betty laughed for a long minute and said maybe they could give him a job at the bank if he didn’t mind wearing office clothes. She told him how most of the people at the bank and the data center were other Dicks who commuted from Virginia, and how she thought they were all about hiding money inside numbers and codes. Even if they had to hurt other people to do it.

  Sig asked her how much they made for smuggling information. She told him. It was a lot. Could be a couple thousand for a good load. Sometimes it came in little plastic boxes, other times in notebooks, once in big reels of tape.

  When they took another bath in her old tub Sig told her about the detention facility in International Falls and how he escaped when he heard they were going to send him to Detroit. She said if you think that sounds bad you should see the one they built in New Orleans.

  No, she hadn’t been.

  She said Benjy told her that was where the smuggled information was supposed to end up. How you could get paid a lot more, full price, if you took it all the way there.

  And that’s when they decided they would hit the road together, and go there, to New Orleans. Follow the Mississippi all the way down. Take as big a shipment as they could put together. Maybe they could get a canoe. See if they could help the cause when they got there. Sig told her how he was worried about getting arrested again but she said it’s easy to sneak around if you know how and he agreed. Then she hugged him again and said how excited she was and started working on her pack list.

  It wasn’t long after that when Benjy came around and told them Merle needed them to come help him make a run after dinner.

  10

  They rode snowmobiles up the old portage, seven miles from the big lake to the ruins of Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. They kept the guns and contraband up there in a camouflaged shed in the woods. The snowmobiles were special—superlight and quiet—paid for by Dick. Moving fast out on the open snow, they looked like they shifted from shiny black to the soft blue glow of the moon.

  The section of the border that ran along the rez was one of the only stretches that hadn’t been fortified. Betty acted like it was a point of pride—like it symbolized their hard-won freedom—but from Merle you got the sense it was more like the price of it.

  They were eight—Sig and Betty, Benjy, Cottonmouth and Merle, and three younger guys Sig hadn’t seen before. They loaded the guns into lockers, then tied the lockers down to the snowmobile trailer sleds, and put north. They carried extra fuel. Merle sent Sig and Betty ahead without trailers on the two smallest snowmobiles as scouts. The pair throttled full up the frozen river, looking at each other and at the way ahead, scanning the eerie tree line on either side, watching the sky when they could remember to.

  They must have gone more than twenty miles through the luminous snow. A small aircraft flew over low at one point, but they were pretty sure it didn’t see them. They rode up the river until the ice stopped and they had to continue on the right bank to a spot just s
hort of where the concrete and metal bridge crossed over.

  Merle and the guys caught up, then held back while Betty and Sig checked it out.

  Betty had told Sig how they exchanged the lockers for duffel bags stuffed with English and Canadian cash money that they could exchange for American chits at black market rates. Or just use—most people were happy to take Queens. Benjy had told them they’d make three hundred bucks each. Betty and Sig figured that was enough to outfit their trip. Not counting the extra stuff Betty said she expected to get from her guy.

  They stowed their rides and hiked up toward the road, staying under the tree cover and trying as best they could to walk on old snowpack where the icy crust was thick enough not to crunch underfoot. Betty had her Kalashnikov slung tight with the hand-tooled leather strap she’d made. Sig had Kong’s knife in its sheath, and the old revolver Benjy loaned him under his belt at the crook of his hip. The metal was cold.

  They crawled up the traverse to where they could see the scene on the road.

  They heard the vehicle idling before they saw it. Betty tapped her penlight three times and the vehicle flashed its headlights back. It was an old blue van, the kind that didn’t have any windows on the sides.

  “Come on,” said Betty, leading Sig out from the trees onto the road. As she stepped forward, she turned and whistled a jay call in the direction of downriver.

  The two-lane bridge had low concrete walls on either side. There was no snow, just a few patches of ice and some dirty pack on the shoulders. You could hear the cold river running over the engine noise of the van. Sig looked down to the left, trying to see the guys through the trees. Then the driver turned on his headlights and blinded them. Sig blinked. The driver pulled forward and backed the van up so the rear end was facing them. Another guy opened the back doors from the inside to take on the cargo load.

  “Hey, girl,” said the guy as he stepped out of the van and onto the pavement. It was hard to make out his face in the dark. He had glasses on and a ball cap, and wore a black shell, work pants, and boots.