“Just lucky, I guess.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” I fired back.
“Okay then. It’s my totem spirit that guides me to them,” Running loftily responded.
What a handy-dandy shield to hide behind.
“And what is your totem spirit? Some ancient warrior with a fondness for bears?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but mine happens to be a grizzly.”
Running’s voice came close to a growl, sending a shiver rippling through me.
“Great. Then maybe your totem spirit can fill in some gaps. I understand you’ve been able to ascertain that exactly eighteen grizzlies have been killed so far this season. That’s quite a feat, considering there are never any carcasses.”
Game, point and match! I held Running’s stare without blinking. We sat in silence until Running was forced to acknowledge that I wasn’t about to back down.
“It’s because I receive a phone call each time,” he finally conceded.
Why the hell hadn’t he given me this information before?
“What does this person say when he calls?”
“He only gives a number. Nothing more. A number and then he hangs up.”
“What kind of number? A phone number? A lottery number? A social security number?” I prodded.
Running placidly sipped his coffee. I’d been warned that patience was essential when working cases on the rez. It’s part of the native culture to allow for loooonnnng periods of silence between question and answer. The only problem was that my own cultural gene was kicking me in the rear—good old New York impatience.
“Or maybe call this number for a good time?” I persisted, determined to get a reaction.
My tenacity paid off as Running’s almond eyes perused me in amusement.
“They’re just numbers, Porter. You know, like one, two, three, four, five. Each time he calls, the number goes up a notch.”
“Then how do you know it’s grizzlies that he’s referring to? For chrissakes, it could be the number of nuts a squirrel is burying outside this guy’s window that day!”
“I just know, that’s all. The numbers are said as a taunt.”
His totem spirit had probably told him that, as well. I was about to counter with a wisecrack when a huge man entered the Red Crow, flashed me a dirty look, and sat down in a booth with his back toward me. A circular pattern of eagle feathers was embroidered on the heavy woolen jacket, with the initials IBA woven beneath.
Running followed my gaze and quietly answered my unspoken question. “He’s a member of a group called Indignant Blackfeet Arise. They meet here regularly at the Red Crow.”
“Sorry to seem ignorant, but what kind of group is it?” They clearly sounded pissed off and ready to mutiny.
“Simply put, they believe the Blackfeet Nation should be allowed more autonomy than we’ve been given by the federal government. We’re considered to be a sovereign nation, yet when you throw in the array of legalistic mumbo-jumbo we’re forced to deal with, along with the gaping loopholes in treaties and agreements, we really don’t have much power at all. Our tribal council is constantly being dictated to by Uncle Sam, who controls the purse strings. Those in the IBA are angry about it and have had enough of this sort of treatment.”
The man must have overheard our conversation, for he stood up and lumbered toward us. Each of his footsteps carried the weight of an anvil, producing a thump that shook the floorboards. No less menacing was his scowl.
Standing well over six feet tall, his body was as solid as a tree trunk. Huge and round, his head sprouted a mane of long, heavy hair whose stiff ends touched the tops of his shoulders, while the skin on his face was as pockmarked as a peach pit.
“Hey, Running. Who’d you bring in here with you?” he demanded, making no pretense to be polite.
“This is Rachel Porter. She’s with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And this esteemed gentleman is Bearhead Come-By-Night.”
Bearhead sniffed at the air and then made a face, as if having caught a whiff of something rotten. “It just goes to show how little the federal government thinks of us. The new agent with the lousy Fish and Wildlife Service can’t even be bothered to come up to the rez himself. Instead he sends a lowly secretary in his place. If I were you, I’d ship her back to Missoula with a message that you don’t meet with the hired help. It’s a damn insult!”
I did a slow burn. “You might want to rethink your strategy, Mr. Come-By-Night. It just so happens that I’m the new Fish and Wildlife special agent, and this is my second visit to the rez.”
Bearhead swiveled his massive cranium in my direction and glowered. “Hell! You mean those sons-of-bitches in Washington foisted a woman on us?”
I could have used my own totem spirit right about then—one with a killer punch, capable of slugging this guy and knocking him out.
“First off, the Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t foisted me on the tribe. I’m the agent for the region. However, when an offense takes place on the rez that involves the Endangered Species Act, then it falls under my jurisdiction. That’s what I’m here looking into.”
“You don’t say. And just what kind of offense would that be?”
“Grizzlies are being killed on your land on a steady basis. Whoever is responsible can look forward to being thrown in jail and paying a large fine,” I bluffed, half-hoping the culprit turned out to be Bearhead himself.
He snorted in disgust. “You call that an offense? Stick around a while. We’ve got much bigger problems than a few dead bears to deal with. But then, what would you care if it doesn’t involve a stinking animal?”
I’d already felt guilty just driving through Browning, knowing that I had a job and a decent place to live. “Look, I’m aware that the reservation has problems with unemployment, but a crime has still been committed.”
“Unemployment?” Bearhead’s voice boomed. “Do you think that’s the worst thing taking place on this rez? There were thirty thousand crimes committed here last year. That’s more than three offenses per tribal member. We’re talking murder, rape, and robbery, not to mention drug dealing. And we aren’t allowed to handle the majority of it ourselves, due to a little something known as the Native American Major Crimes Act.”
Bearhead came close and got right in my face. “Instead of dealing with things in tribal court, our criminal cases require federal intervention. But of course that’s no problem, because we’ve been allotted a whopping three FBI agents here in Browning to handle it all. So, just what do you think happens?”
My guess was that it wasn’t going to be anything good.
“I’ll tell you. Things get swept under the rug, including the fact that people on the rez have begun to vanish. It’s always been said that if you want to get away with murder, just go to a reservation. Whoever coined that phrase knew what they were talking about. But then, we’re just a bunch of drunken Indians, so what the hell’s the big deal? Am I right?”
“I understand that Native Americans have a reason to be upset—”
Bearhead exploded. “That’s another thing I love about you white people! First we were redskins, then we graduated to prairie niggers. Now we’re called Native Americans. Once and for all, I am an Indian!” Bearhead bellowed the word as he pounded on his chest. “Why would I want to be called anything else, for chrissakes?”
I had the feeling it wouldn’t have mattered what I said at this point. There was no dealing with the guy.
Bearhead leaned in closer again, until our noses nearly touched. “As for that last Fish and Wildlife agent of yours, Carolton? He probably got exactly what he deserved. In fact, maybe you should think twice before going into the woods all alone.” He brought his lips close to my ear and malevolently whispered, “Watch out, or Old Caleb will get you!”
Bearhead pulled back with a sneer, then walked away and slammed out the door.
“I can see that making friends easily isn’t one of your better qualities,�
� Running observed dryly.
“Thanks for all your help and support,” I snapped.
“You need help, Porter? That’s something I wouldn’t have suspected.”
That did it. “I’m beginning to think you and your friend are as intolerant as the two of you accuse everyone else of being.”
Running threw his hands over his heart in mock alarm. “Hey, Porter, don’t take it so hard. Everyone starts at ground zero with me.”
“In other words, you’re just an obnoxious jerk to everyone.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Running smiled. “The other is to figure that I must be doing something right. After all, I’m one of the Indians that hasn’t yet vanished.”
Vanished. The word danced in the air like toxic fairy dust.
“Would you mind explaining that to me? Just what was Bearhead talking about?”
Running signaled for more coffee, and waited to speak until after it had been poured. “People on the rez are nervous about the fact that an increasing number of tribal members have been declared missing. It’s almost as if they’ve been vaporized. A lot of people are blaming it on the grizzlies, and that may be one of the reasons bears are being killed.”
“Do you mean that none of their bodies have ever been found?” I half-expected him to tell me that they’d been beamed up onto the mothership, along with all of the grizzly carcasses.
“No, some of them have turned up. But only their bones, and those were picked mighty clean. The problem is further compounded by all the Indian-upon-Indian crime on the rez.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of our tribal members is found dead with a hole in the back of his head, and the FBI immediately writes it off as drug-related. But there’s something else going on here, and no matter what the FBI says, it can’t be that easily explained away. That’s why the atmosphere on the rez is so tense right now. Sorry about what happened before, but I felt it was better just to let Bearhead blow off some steam.”
“Yeah, at my expense.”
“Better yours than mine,” Matt retorted with a disarming grin.
I found myself secretly beginning to like Running, though I’d be damned if I’d let him know it.
“Let’s go and I’ll show you where I found the cubs,” he suggested.
I was halfway out the door when a man rushed inside and roughly bumped against my arm.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and continued past without bothering to stop.
He took a seat at the table we’d just vacated, where he sat with his shoulders drawn and his back hunched. Most surprising of all, the guy was Caucasian.
“Who’s that?” I asked, after hopping into Running’s pickup.
Matt flicked a toothpick in his mouth. “That’s Doc Hutchins. He heads up Indian Health Services on the rez.”
I took another gander at the man who sat alone, purposely choosing not to look at anyone. Pale and gaunt, he was in no way a role model for good, clean living. In fact, Hutchins’s thinning hair and emaciated build gave him the air of a recuperating patient.
“He’s not exactly the type of person that I’d envision running a health clinic.”
Matthew shrugged. “Maybe not. But he does the job. Besides, it’s not as if we have a hell of a lot of choice around here.”
Running drove to my vehicle, where I grabbed my metal detector along with my investigation kit, and placed them in the back of his pickup. Then we took off.
Eight
The town of Browning became a distant grim memory as we headed toward the Rocky Mountain Front and Badger Two Medicine. Undulating primeval prairie rolled along, lazy as a sluggish river, its golden surface marred only by the occasional deep coulee.
“That’s what killed Custer, you know,” Running remarked as we passed by one of the ravines. “Those coulees can hide a lot of stuff. Like a group of angry Indians.”
Prairie slowly transformed into mountains heavily robed in cedar and ponderosa pine. I glanced up and spotted bighorn sheep, nearly invisible against patches of ice. Above the sheep were ridges whose rocky peaks stabbed at the sky like a knife. Then I spotted a group of quaking aspen bedecked with colorful rags, much like the cottonwoods along the road to Sally’s.
“I’m curious. That cloth must serve a purpose other than being purely decorative. What is it?”
Running hesitated, and I knew he was deciding just how much to tell me. “They’re pieces of clothing that we tie to trees when we make a vow. I guess you could say that they’re shrines.”
He turned his head to look at me. A sheer drop plunged off the road to our right, and my heart lurched sickeningly up into my throat. Running paid little heed, but continued to navigate as if by instinct.
“Some believe it’s where spirits reside, and that it’s bad luck for the cloth to be touched.”
I said nothing as my fingers gripped the seat tighter. Running took note of my reaction and a hint of laughter slipped out.
“In other words, don’t piss off a dead Indian. Or a live one either,” he advised and steered clear of the edge.
“I could say the same thing for wildlife agents,” I retorted, after regaining my breath.
Running swung onto a dirt road where the Chevy’s tires jostled along a conspiracy of ruts, before we finally came to a stop. I retrieved my metal detector from the cargo bay as he locked the vehicle. That done, we began to walk.
Before long, we were in the midst of an evergreen forest where the trees grew thick as hairs on a bear. If Running was following a trail, it wasn’t apparent. Any sign of a path was nothing more than a mere whisper. The only sound was the wind, which caused the pines to creak as they swayed. Some moaned, while others sighed in rhythm with the breeze. I didn’t need Running to tell me that this was a special place. I intuitively knew as I walked across a swath covered in golden leaves. As for Running, he made no sound at all. His feet seemed to magically float above a carpet of pine needles.
Matt noticed that I intently studied the way he moved, and he chuckled. “Sorry Porter, but it’s a trade secret. It’s what we call Indianing.”
Personally, I thought he was being a little too damn quiet; the last thing we needed to do was surprise a bear. But I guess my noise made up for the both of us. We finally stopped at a spot where fir trees huddled closely together.
Running’s voice broke the silence. “This is one of the areas where I found a pair of cubs. They were clambering over that log when I first saw them.”
I followed where his finger pointed while turning on the metal detector, and then began to scour the ground in search of a phantom bullet.
“How long ago was that?”
“Maybe three months,” Running responded.
The metal detector registered no hits, as silent as the woods around us.
“What say we head to the next site where there were cubs?” he suggested.
I turned off the detector, and we walked on.
“Sally tells me that you’ll be staying with her during your trips up here. She’s a woman with a good heart.”
“Yes. It’s very generous of her to open her home to me.”
“What I meant, is when it comes to animals. She’s determined to do whatever is necessary to end the war against wildlife.”
“You think there’s a war going on here?” I questioned, curious to hear his response.
“Don’t you? Eighteen grizzlies have been slaughtered on the rez so far this season. What else would you call it?”
Battle, war, slaughter, greed. Any of those words would do.
“Tell me, why is it that Blackfeet are so afraid of grizzlies that you don’t even have a word for them?” I asked.
Running took his time to reply, moving silently along the ground. “Have you ever seen a grizzly after it’s been skinned?”
I shook my head.
“Then let me enlighten you. It looks exactly like a man. That’s why to hurt one is considered bad medicine in the Blackfeet culture. It
can result in one of your relatives dying a terrible death. That gives the bears a great deal of power over us.”
“Then why aren’t you afraid to use the word grizzly?” It didn’t matter that I’d already received Sally’s version. I wanted to hear what Running had to say.
“I guess I became brainwashed by your culture,” he responded. “I went to college at Berkeley and then was in the military for a while. But that was a lifetime ago.”
“So why did you come back?”
“Because I can’t stand the apathy in your world. Besides, this is still the best place for a half-breed.”
An alarm bell went off in my mind. Sally had said the most likely candidate to kill a grizzly on the rez was someone of mixed blood.
“You’re an apple?”
Running swiftly turned to face me. “Where the hell did you learn that expression?”
My cheeks began to burn and I could have kicked myself in embarrassment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m just surprised.”
“Oh yeah? And what are you, Porter? A full-blooded pedigree of some sort?”
Running looked on in annoyance as I laughed. “As a matter of fact, I couldn’t be more of a mutt. I’m half Russian Jew and half Welsh.”
He reluctantly smiled. “Welcome to the melting pot. I believe it’s what’s known as being an American.”
We walked through a grove of aspen trees, whose leaves rained down upon us like a shower of burnished coins. Their delicate beauty made the next sight all the more jarring. Off by itself stood a tall ponderosa pine that looked as though Freddy Krueger had stopped by. Long slashes sliced through its reddish bark, creating a jagged jigsaw puzzle. The gouge marks rose ten feet high.
I warily approached and ran my fingers along the ragged scar tissue. These gashes were too deep to have been made by any human, they could only have been created by a creature of enormous power, determined to leave its mark.
Running reached up and grabbed what turned out to be a clump of matted fur. He held the dun colored hair toward me, and I took it from his hand.
A Killing Season Page 8
