“You live here?” The woman across from him says.
“In the tavern?”
More laughter.
“No, Nordegg.”
“Nope, Rocky.”
“Figured.”
Nate notices the man diagonally across from him is glaring at him with an intensity that if he didn't know any better means he's either too drunk to realize he's staring like that, or he wants to take his head off. But then the man speaks, and when he does he sounds more lucid than the other two put together.
“You drove all the way out here this time of night to drink?” He says.
“You live closer?” Nate says.
“Not too far. On the rez here, but you knew that, didn't you?”
There's an indignation to the man's tone that throws Nate on his heels a bit. “I'm not sure what you're getting at,” Nate says.
“Yes you do,” the man says.
The man had him dead to rights.
“We may have got off on the wrong foot.”
“I don't think so.”
“I'm Nate.”
The man leans back in his chair and keeps glaring at him. A moment later he leans forward and extends his arm over the table while his two friends watch him with suspicion. “Leon,” the man says.
They shake hands.
“Pleased to meet you, Leon.”
“I doubt it.”
Jesus, Nate thinks as he sips from his glass, this guy is intense.
“I only sat here because it was the only open seat I could find.”
“Sit there all night if you want,” Leon says. “You own it all anyways, right?”
“You obviously have a problem with me,” Nate says, “I'm not sure why.”
“It's fine,” says George. “We can drink and have a good time.”
Nate notices Leon doesn't have anything in front of him. “Where's your drink, Leon?”
“I don't drink.”
“You come to The Hideout for the pleasing atmosphere?” Nate jokes. It causes the other two to laugh anyway.
“Something like that. I just find it funny you're here. And that you find yourself comfortable enough, you just come and sit down at our table. Like you own the place or something. Typical cop.”
“Whoa,” George says. “Leon, calm down.”
“No,” Nate says, “it's fine. Hey, man, I'm not a cop.”
“You kinda look like one,” the woman says.
“But, I'm not.”
“Cops say that too,” Leon says. “I wouldn't want Indians in here hearing that, would you?”
Maybe it was the booze getting to him already, but Nate felt emboldened by the spirit of the moment. “Why you gotta use that word?”
Leon raises his eyebrows. “What word, Indian?”
“Yeah,” Nate says. “That's a bad word.”
“When you use it maybe. Let me guess, you say native?”
Nate nods. “I used to.”
Getting into a conversation like this, in a place like this. Alarm bells begin ringing in his head.
“You're just like all the other whiteys now who say indigenous?”
“Isn't that what we're supposed to say?”
“You're not supposed to say anything. You think we care what you all call us?”
“Clearly you do.”
“Clearly you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.”
The woman leans over to Leon and says something to him that Nate cannot hear. The music isn't playing, but the chatter and laughter among the crowd is loud enough you have to strain your voice a little to be heard. Nate sees George make a gesture with his hands, an attempt to calm Leon down.
“Look man, I'm sorry, alright? I don't want any trouble.”
“That's all you see when you look at someone like me, isn't it? Someone with my skin. Trouble.”
“I have to tell you Leon, you're not giving me much of a reason to think otherwise right this minute.”
The comment seems to give Leon pause.
“I'm not trying to be rude,” Leon says.
“I understand.”
“No, you seem okay.”
“I am okay.”
“Even though you view us as a bunch of drunken check-cashers. A drain on the system. A bunch of welfare druggies strung out on The Rez. I know how cops talk about us. I know how a lot of people talk about us.”
“I'm not a cop though. But can I tell ya something?”
“Sure.”
“I used to be.”
This causes George to gasp while he reaches for a beer bottle in front of him and misses.
“I knew it,” Leon says. “Totally typical.”
“I'll admit to you as well, I've held a negative view of some indigenous people at different times.”
“Some?” Leon says. “Just some?”
“Okay,” Nate says, “a lot. I've had a lot of negative feelings to be honest. I've been to a lot of bad calls. A lot of violence.”
“That all comes from somewhere though,” Leon says, his tone calming a little. “You understand that? A culture of despair.”
“Despair,” Nate says, “I have to tell you I see it when I drive through some reserve communities.”
“This conversation is too deep for this place,” the woman across the table says, and she stands up. “You want another one, George?” George shakes his head, leans back and his eyes close. “What about you white boy?”
Nate nods, points to his glass. “Another Jack and Pepsi,” he says. He hands her a ten dollar bill.
As she disappears into the crowd, Leon speaks up again to be heard. “Despair comes from a terrible system. A system your people built.”
“I know it.”
“You say you know it,” he says, “you all say you know it. But you don't live it.”
“You want me to feel bad because people on the reserve don't take care of their shit?”
“See?” Leon says. “It's ignorance like that. It's frustrating. You think people living in despair just go out of their way to not take care of the things that surround them?”
“Seems that way.”
“What you don't understand,” Leon says, “is it's easy for someone outside of where we live to point a finger and tell us how we should be doing things. It's easy doing that.”
“Doesn't make it any less true.”
“Yes, but just the act of you doing that is part of what keeps my people down.”
“What? How?”
“You see this?” Leon clutches his arm, digs his nails into his flesh. “I can't take this off. This skin. The way I look. Who my ancestors were. It's who I am. It's not a costume. It's not a piece of furniture. It's not a style. It's not a position. It's me. When you point a finger, you're not writing a fuckin' movie review. You're not telling your friends about a song that sucks. You're talking about me. You're telling me that me as a human being isn't good enough. You're telling me that you know better than I do about how to live. How to exist. Do you have any fucking idea how condescending that is, or how it breaks your soul?”
Nate doesn't know what to say.
“Imagine I looked in on everything you did in your life and had an opinion about it. All the time. No matter where you went. Everything down to the level of how you even breathe. Imagine it. Wouldn't you feel self-conscious? Wouldn't you feel worthless and guilty all the time? Even when you weren't doing anything wrong in that moment, and you were just… existing? You're telling me living with that everyday of your life wouldn't drive you to some fairly shitty behaviors? Wouldn't have you thinking about hitting the bottle to try and escape and forget?”
The woman whose name Nate still didn't know arrives back at the table with drinks. He thanks her and doesn't bother asking for change, not that there would've been much.
“I have to tell you, Leon,” Nate says, “I've never thought of it that way.”
“You never do,” Leon says. He leans back in his chair. “I give you props though for listening. A lot
of guys would've just got up and left, or tried to start something. The way of the fist, right?”
“Can I just say though, that you are-”
“Wait,” Leon says, “let me stop you right there. I know where you're about to go. And what you were about to say is pretty racist.”
“What was he gonna say, Leon?” The woman asks.
“He was about to tell me I'm pretty well spoken for an Indian. Am I right, Nate?”
Nate sips from his drink and doesn't bother to reply.
“Don't even get me starts on the education system on this reserve, let alone any others,” Leon says.
“So, what do you do?” The woman asks Nate.
“You never did tell me your name,” he replies to her.
“Sonja.”
“Nice to meet you, Sonja. To answer your question, I'm a private investigator.”
“Oh, cool.”
“Is that the real reason you came out here?” Leon asks. “You working on something in this area?”
“Actually, since you asked. I'm trying to find out what happened to those American girls. I'm sure you guys heard about it.” He looks beside him at George who appears to be fully asleep, his head hung back, his mouth fully open, the noise of the crowd easily ignored.
“Those three white girls on Highway 11,” Leon says. “Yeah, that's been everywhere. All over the news for a long time.”
“Did you know them?” Sonja asks.
“No,” Nate says, “nothing like that. I was hired by one of the mothers. Wants me to find her daughter, or at least find out what happened to her.”
“You come to The Rez for that?”
“No, not specifically. I'm just here to drink.”
Sonja laughs and raises her glass to him.
“But, you think someone around here had something to do with whatever happened to those girls?” Leon says.
“I didn't say that. I mean, this is close to the spot where they went missing, so it might make sense to look around here. Unless-”
“Unless what? Here we go. Spill it.”
“Whoa,” Nate says, “hold on. I was just gonna ask if you guys had ever heard anyone say anything about those girls.”
“Typical,” Leon says. “Had to be the Indians that did it.”
“Hold on, man, I didn't say that.”
Sonja shakes her head. “I heard on the news they arrested the guy they think did it anyway.”
“Someone from here?” Leon asks her.
“No, some white dude.”
“Surprising.”
“So, you solved it,” Sonja says with a smile at Nate. “We can drink to that.”
“I didn't solve anything,” Nate says. “I'm still not convinced the police got the right guy.”
“Too white?” Leon says.
Nate smirks at the comment and takes another drink. “You've really got it out for white people, hey?”
“Wouldn't you? You should know, the cops in Rocky have a whole other side hustle going on. Stealing people off this reserve.”
“Stealing people?”
“Stealing children more like,” Leon says. “You probably think I'm bullshitting.”
“I don't know.” Nate struggles to process what Leon's just told him. He spins back to the murdered girls case. The other thing, whoa. “Anyway, I guess this means neither of you have heard anything.”
“I know I haven't,” Sonja says. “Leon, what about you?”
He shakes his head. “Not that I'd share it with you if I had.”
“I understand.”
“You don't, but okay. Look deeper, my friend.”
Then a thought occurs to Nate, just as the speakers overhead roar to life with a Brooks and Dunn tune drowning everyone out. “Hey,” he shouts to the other two. “You guys ever hear of someone named Romy?”
“What?”
“Romy!”
A look of surprise hits Sonja's eyes. “I know him!”
Nate's stomach jumps. “You do? You know someone named Romy?”
“Romero,” she says, “yeah, he's friends with a friend of mine. How do you know him?”
“Do you know his last name?”
Leon voices his objection to Sonja saying anything, but she ignores him. “Loonskin,” she answers. “He lives on the reserve here.”
“You have his address?”
“Address? You mean house number?”
“Yeah.”
“No, sorry. I'd give you his phone number if I had that too, but I don't. Actually, I think I used to have it, but I lost it some time ago.”
“This helps me. Thanks!”
“Helps you how?”
Nate doesn't bother to answer that. Instead, he leans closer to her with another question. “Do you know if Romero drives a truck?”
Sonja laughs. “Everyone drives a truck.”
Good point.
“I'm looking for a specific type,” Nate says. “An older style pickup. A two-door, one with an eight foot bed. The long kind.”
Sonja shakes her head. “I don't know, sorry. I don't think so though. I don't think I've seen a truck like that around here. I'm not sure.”
Nate glances over and sees Leon has gone back to skulking in his seat. He appears disgusted with Sonja for answering his questions. Nate takes that as his cue to leave. Please let me get out of this place in one piece. See, it's thoughts like that which make you racist.
And he does get out in one piece. But, not without downing three shots at the bar before leaving. And he notices a few wary glances from some big dudes on his way out the door. He manages to stagger over to his car. You're a lightweight, he tells himself. You haven't had that much. If you get busted for drunk driving back to Rocky though, you're in serious trouble then.
Hands at ten and two. He repeats it over and over. Then his warped thoughts keep sliding back to Eve and his little girl. Tears come easily and he eyes the black abyss to the right of his car that he knows signifies a steep drop off the side of the highway. Certain death. Just do it and get it over with. Jerk the wheel to the right. Do it. Do it. Come on you fucking coward!
He shoots his eyes back to the dim headlight beams shining out from the front of his car ahead of him on the road. I don't have it in me to end it, he thinks. Not yet. It'll come.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Crisp mountain air fills Nate's lungs as he rolls down from the second floor of the Red Line and out to his Taurus in the parking lot. He sees Tammy behind the counter at the front office and gives her a wave, hopes she doesn't come out and give him grief about being behind on the rent yet again. He thumbs another Cream from the bottom of the bottle and plants it on his tongue. A half-crushed bottle of stale water helps him wash the pill down. He snuffs in the cool late August dew and spits out a wad of phlegm before settling behind the wheel and heading west out of town once again.
No hangover, thank God. Please don't let me run into Sonja or George or their surly friend, Leon, in my travels. That's all I ask.
He heads out on the highway bound for the reserve, with more questions than answers, and high hopes of finding that truck Brian at the tire shop surmises is the type he'd be looking for from the photos Roger Dolomski sent.
About ten miles out from The Rez, he gets it in his head the Buffalo Pass Community Health Center is the best place to try first. It's always a common gathering place where you can talk to a lot of locals at one time. He hopes maybe he'll see that old pickup there too.
You never know where luck will take you. Hell, if he hadn't been at The Hideout in Nordegg the night before, he wouldn't know anything at all about this Romy character.
At the Health Center, he sits in the crowded waiting area, and he decides to throw caution to the wind. Might as well, at this point.
“Anyone here know Romero Loonskin?”
It's a needle drop moment. One of those times you feel three inches tall as everyone stops whatever it is they're doing and all of the attention becomes focused on you. Nate regr
ets saying anything right away. No please, he thinks, go back to doing whatever you were doing. Even the nurses have stopped. Everyone in the place stares at him for a few seconds.
An elderly lady in the corner who looks like she might break if she even attempts to stand, speaks up. “I know Romy,” she says. “What do you want him for?”
“You RCMP?” Asks someone else.
“No,” Nate answers, “I'm not with the police. I was just hoping to talk to Romy.”
“He's at home, I think,” the elderly lady says.
“Do you know his house number?”
“No.”
“Does anyone here know his house number?”
Silence.
No one's willing to say anything else, and he can't blame them. He wanders out to the parking lot, and there seems to be even more vehicles parked there than there are people inside. There's a few older pickup trucks too, but no two door Chevs nor Fords with long beds.
Where to now?
He climbs back into his car. There's only so many roads in this place. Romy's bound to live down one of them. Then he thinks back to his days in uniform and calls on the reserve he'd attended and all the cut trails and homemade roads the locals had carved from the forests and surrounding area. It made for a complicated labyrinth at the best of times, and that was when you had at least some idea of where you were supposed to be headed. This was a complete guess. Entering a maze without knowing the parameters of said maze.
Maybe coming out here like this without a plan was a bad idea.
Just drive. But, drive where? Arguing with himself was sparking a headache. He glances at his gas gauge and realizes he's running low.
He pulls off the road from the front of the Health Center and heads east towards Nordegg, admitting defeat before he even starts. I'll get gas, grab a coffee, and regroup.
Ten minutes later, he pulls onto the main road leading into Nordegg off the highway, and the Shell gas station appears up ahead on his right.
Holy shit.
You're kidding me.
Parked next to a pump, no one standing near it, is a white Ford pickup truck. Two door. Eight foot bed. Probably ten, maybe fifteen years old. Rust up around the fenders.
That's it, Nate thinks. Honest to God, that's it!
Calming his nerves, Nate gases up at the next pump over and watches the glass doors at the side of the convenience store, waiting to see who comes out to the white pickup.
The Highway Girls Page 13
