by John Hansen
I hobbled up the stairs and sat down on a chair. Ronnie turned and looked at me, looking over my various wounds, and then shook his head mournfully and stared back out over the valley.
“You got my letter?” I asked.
He nodded. “So they really did it,” he said. “Jake told me he was going to take you out but I didn’t believe him. That psycho’s been threatening it for so damn long.”
“You believed him enough to tell Larry to come get me.”
“Well if it was going to happen, I knew it was going to happen then after the powwow.”
I thought back to when I had first met Ronnie, that morning I had arrived fresh from the jammer bus, it felt like years ago. There was so much about him I had yet to know. “You got my letter?”
He nodded, still facing away from me. “When Thunderbird called the store last night to see if you were back from the powwow, and when he said Greg had left you there, I got this feeling... this feeling that Jake was going to make his move. I didn’t know who else to tell but Larry… of all people – that’s the insane part of all this.”
He flicked the cigarette out over the grass and turned and leaned against the rail, facing me. He nodded to where the cop car had been. “So am I going to jail?”
I looked at him for a moment. “There’s a bag of pills from the hospital on the kitchen counter. Go get it for me please.”
He went in and then returned with the bag and a glass of water. I popped one of the bottles open and swallowed a large, pain pill.
“So tell me what you are into with Jake and the rest of them.” I stopped trying to look at him which craned my neck, and I sat perfectly still so as not to move one battered muscle.
Ronnie just stood there for a minutes, frowning and thinking. “That big bag of weed was just the beginning.” He turned and pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and lit it on, the flame of the lighter illuminating his moustache for a second. “Clayton and Jake and I had gotten to talking, you know, when I first got her and needed to buy some week. They told me that they had a connection in Canada that could get me a lot more, a whole lot more, but that they had no market for it, not enough customers, not here in Browning. I told Clayton I knew a lot of drug people in Detroit and how Detroit was a bottomless pit of all kinds of vices, that folks would buy anything there – which is true.”
He took a long drag from his cigarette and blew it out slowly from his nose. “It was mostly just bullshit talk, and Clayton seemed kind of reluctant to get going after a while. But Jake came to me here at the store one day and said he had already gotten things off the ground and had a truck coming in from Calgary with two hundred pounds of weed that I was going to have to transport back to Detroit, with one of Jake’s guys going with me to make sure it went smoothly.
He took a drag off his cigarette. “I just thought ‘Oh shit, what have I got into?’ The whole thing started getting too crazy, Will, and it became more about Jake and less about me – and Clayton wasn’t even in the picture anymore.”
“So Clayton wasn’t involved – not in my thing either?” I asked.
Ronnie shrugged. “He kind of was at first, but then he quit it and after insane Jake started running the show. Jake said he had two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the family money tied up in the weed deal, and that I was going to have to deliver some funds from Michigan soon to help buy him out or I be dealing with ‘some bad people from the North.’ That was it for me. I mean I needed money, I have a lot of debts back in Michigan, but not enough to get killed or put in jail over.”
“So you bailed.”
“I tried to, but Jake said he’d be going to Detroit with me within a few days, or that he’d be going to my funeral in Detroit in a few days. He also told me that he had decided to get you out of the picture at the powwow because you were stirring up the BIA over Alia’s death.”
Ronnie smoked the last grain of tobacco above the filter and then flicked the second cigarette out into the grass. “I guess now he’s going to get arrested, and maybe that will put a stop to this whole debacle.” Ronnie seemed resigned to some new fate that involved everyone going to jail. All of his energy and toughness had evaporated from him – maybe all blown out in a final, defeated cloud of cigarette smoke.
“You’ve been so different the past few weeks… I should have figured it out,” I said. “I was blinded by Alia’s dying.”
“Jake didn’t kill her,” Ronnie said. “He actually seemed pissed off about it, and Clayton was just as angry as anyone. But,” he said, “she was involved in the business, Will. She was running money up to Canada for Jake and Clayton, and bringing back some small-time deliveries. She had quit it though, after she met you. That’s what had Jake so pissed off at you; I think he was in love with her.”
“Why didn’t she tell me any of that?” I wondered out loud.
“Who knows?” Ronnie said. “She didn’t want to scare you away, probably. She had just gotten to know you, probably the first good guy she had ever met who wasn’t Browning trash. Didn’t want to ruin it.”
Ronnie took a deep breath. “It feels good to get this all out, Will, even if I do go to jail for the rest of my life.” He offered the mountains a weak smile.
“When Jake had his knife to my throat, he said to ask you why,” I said.
Ronnie frowned, “I think he was going to try to pin your murder on me.” He shook his head at spit at the porch floor, “He’s seriously mental, Will, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to tell. I was thinking of just splitting a couple of nights ago.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “Something kept me.”
“Well I don’t think you’re going to jail.” I said.
“Come on man,” Ronnie looked at me, smirking grimly. “I know the sentences for possession with intent to deliver; money laundering; attempted murder if Jake decides to lie about me to the cops. Twenty years mandatory, easily, even in this wild place.”
I then told Ronnie about how I had only filed a complaint against Jake for the assault and how I had just hinted to the cops about my suspicions about the drugs. “That’s all I had,” I said, “Suspicions, in the end. But I never mentioned your name; and I don’t think anyone else will either.”
“Why not?” Ronnie asked.
“Because Jake’s not going to tie you into some story that will just shed more light on his dealings with the Canadian drug people, across national borders and state lines. And Clayton, if he is arrested at all, won’t be either for the same reasons. They have nothing to gain by ratting you out, and you’d do them more harm than good if they dragged you into it.”
Ronnie nodded slowly but didn’t look too convinced. “Jake’s not too bright, but we’ll just have to see. He’ll probably rat out the Canadian gang, with their big shipment coming in soon. That’ll be interesting... seeing what they do to that poor bastard.”
He looked back at me. “So you going to be okay, no major damage?”
“I’ll live.”
“That’s good. So, the big questions is still out there… who do you think killed Alia?”
I looked out past the trees and over the surface of the lake; a couple of hawks as they soared low over the water and then flapped heavily up to the top of a pine tree hanging over the surface. I watched them perch there and imagined the view they had with their keen eye sight, watching me watch them.
“You might never know,” I said.
Ronnie shook his head again and turned to go back inside. I looked up at him, squinting at the bright sky behind his face. As he passed he paused and reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Well it was good knowing you, Chiefy.”
I stayed on the porch a while and thought hard about my course of action. Keeping the truth from Greg seemed right to me, to protect the right people, but remembering Greg’s fervor in trying to solve a real case, finally a real case for the Khaki Kops, and the heat he got for it, after years of unsatisfying work and unhappi
ness, I felt sorry for him. Maybe I will tell him, I thought – I just don’t know if he’ll have to do something about it.
I thought about Officer Olsterman too, but I had no loyalties to him and no qualms feeding him just enough to get rid of Jake. I wondered who Alia would want to know about who killed her… Clayton maybe... Sky too.
As I thought it over more, I felt strongly that she would want some to know, and some not. Some to mourn and others to forget. And as for Larry being charged with murder… well… I smiled to myself: she very well might have wanted him chained up like a beast… But, no, probably she’d have pity even on him, like I did, pity for a brutish fool, blundering around and knocking things over.
Pity especially if she had seen Larry show an intimacy and vulnerability that convinced me his guilt should remain a secret. If he wanted to turn himself in, that was his business; but I wasn’t going to add to the fallout of what he did by destroying his and Phyllis’ lives.
I got up slowly from my chair, which had grown a bit painful to sit in, and stood at the railing, my face lit up in warmth from the sun that now reached over the mountains, basking the back of the store in a bright glow.
I took my bag of meds and walked through the kitchen, climbing up the stairs and walking into my room. I tossed the meds on my bed and then stopped to look around, and I knew it was for the last time. I had decided – almost instantaneously when I walked into that room – that I couldn’t now just resume life in the store like nothing had happened. I couldn’t face Larry the same way again, not without everyone else knowing what I knew. It all just felt… over. Finished.
Also, in the back of my mind, I felt like it was just possible that some sort of retaliation may be heading my way for what I just told the BIA; and I didn’t want anyone in the store put in danger. I decided I would ask to crash with Greg for a few days, while I figured out what to do, where to go. Nobody would know I was there. And if he couldn’t have me there, well… I would figure something out.
I would also have to figure out a new job, I reasoned as I sat on the bed, something to keep me in Montana, keep me near this place I felt attached to, yet so apart from. I longed to live here in those simpler times of early summer, with the sunny hiking trails awaiting and the glistening lake resting nearby. I had saved a little money from the store job, not having anything to spend my pay on, so I would be okay for a while.
As I looked over the room, the bed, old chest of drawers, the bats on the ceiling, the tattered area rug over hard wood floorboards, the now-familiar wood grain patterns in the door, the big window that stayed open all the time, I knew that I would very much miss that simple little room.
Forty-One
I sat quietly for a while, looking around at the four walls that had been part of my home for months. I wouldn’t miss the rest of the store, not really – just my room. I knew the place so well, the ceiling with its nails sticking out, the old smell of the varnish on the walls, the bush outside the window. It saddened me to leave it.
I smoothed out some wrinkles in the covers beside me. So many thoughts and events had passed over my sleeping body on that small bed. Alia had lain with me there and left me there.
I stood up and went down the hall to Katie’s room. I could hear Ronnie taking a shower in the bathroom. I knocked on Katie’s door and she answered with wet hair and a towel on. She looked so fresh and beautiful, hair all tossed around wet and dark. Her jaw fell open and I forget what I must look like, and I scolded myself for giving her such a shock with no warning.
“Katie, I’m fine,” I said, reaching out and holding her hand. “Sorry about that.”
She put her other hand up to my cheek and felt one of the big bumps on my forehead, which had now taken on a bluish hue.
“What the heck happened, Will?” she asked with a horrified expression. “You okay?”
“Yea, Katie, I’m fine – believe me. But I need to talk to you for a sec.”
She nodded distractedly and led me into her room and sat me on her bed with care, and then went around kicking some clothes strewn about under the bed to tidy up. She had decorated her room much more than Ronnie or I had, I noticed again, and had made it a separate home, distinct, personal, private. Photos, art, flowers in small vases and candles placed here and there. I felt like I was visiting another house altogether – intruding into someone’s home.
“I’m moving out today,” I said.
She gaped again at me and then said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa….” holding up her hand to stop me from speaking further. “Back up mister. First, what the hell happened to your face?”
“I got in a fight at the Blackfoot powwow,” I said. “Technically honest” was still honest, after all.
“With who?” She folded her arms and stared down at me.
“Some of the Indians.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t like that I was there.”
Standing in front of me like a principal moralizing a student, she shook her head, “This was about Alia wasn’t it? Whoever did that to you may have done that to her… did you think of that?”
“It did actually,” I said flatly.
She huffed, rolling her eyes.
“I filed a police report against them,” I said, “so I’ll let the BIA take it from there.”
She eyed me with a new suspicion. “You seem awful calm about all this.”
“It’s the meds,” I said simply. Still technically true.
“Listen, Katie,” I patted the bed beside me, “listen to me for a little bit, okay?” She sat down after hesitating a moment, wanting to interrogate me more. She sat carefully, folding the towel under her. She brushed her wet hair aside and looked at me doubtfully.
“This did have something to do with Alia,” I said, “but not in the way you think. I found out that she was killed by a hit-and-run driver, not by some of the people I originally expected – she was killed by someone I never expected. But this someone, Katie, he’s suffered enough, and I’m going to let it go.”
She looked at me stunned for a moment; her eyes searching mine for more information.
“You know who it is, but you aren’t going to tell the police?” she asked in shock.
I nodded my head.
“But after all that…” she said, shaking her head.
“I’ve forgiven him,” I said, watching her eyes.
After a moment, I continued, “But after the fight I was in, I learned that there is a lot of stuff going on in Browning that I need to avoid, for now. So, I’m going to lay low for a bit.”
“So you’re going into hiding from them?”
“No… it’s not like that,” I said. “I just can’t go back to living here like before, not now, not after last night.”
She still looked at me doubtfully, with a woman’s intuition telling her that she wasn’t getting anything near the whole story.
“I’ll still drop by and see you before the summer is over, Katie; but I just wanted to see especially you and tell you goodbye.” I got up from the couch with a wince, and she saw it. She stared at me with a hard, cold expression now on her face.
“So you’re just going to take off and leave me?” she asked icily. “Just like that?”
I pulled her up to stand in front of me and I looked her in the eyes and said, “Listen to me. I’m really glad you came back to this place, Katie, and that you worked here this summer. You are an incredible girl that I love getting to know, and I feel as close to you as anyone here. I want to keep being your friend and I really don’t ever want to stop. Is that ok with you?” I asked.
Her doubtful frown finally broke and tears welled up in her eyes. She swallowed, and then laughed with embarrassment. She wiped the tears away with the heels of her hands like she always did, and then hugged me tightly, and I didn’t make a sound despite the pain that wracked my body when she did so. It felt good to feel that pain.
Katie made me promise to go to church with her one more time before the summer was
out, and told me to call her that night to let her know where I was and that I was safe.
I packed everything in just a few minutes. All I left was the tattered Heart of Darkness copy by the bed on the nightstand, which I had never gotten a chance to read.
I went and told Ronnie I was leaving, and he didn’t even seem surprised. He offered to drive me over to Greg’s, but I knew that he was booked to work the front register and was already late, so I’d have to wait until his lunch break if he was going to take me.
I knew Larry and the rest could handle the store without me, now that the summer was winding down and the tourists and campers were dwindling in number. But closing the store down on the last day of the season was a major chore I knew – packing up everything for the winter – cleaning the place from top to bottom; and I was sorry I was dumping that on the rest of them.
Instead of waiting around till lunch, I walked out of the store alone, just as I had come. I left out of the back kitchen door, not looking back once at the ancient, log building that had been my home.
I walked over the gravel and down the path that led to the road, and then walked the quarter mile or so to where it met the main park road. I figured I would wait for a red jammer bus and hitch a ride, hoping to get it to drop me near Greg’s.
I stood next to the road, my back to the gravel dirt path that led to the store, facing the thick woods across from me, waiting for a rickety old jammer bus, a backpack hanging on my shoulder (I had finally abandoned the old suitcase), my guitar case, and my precious bag of meds.
Forty-Two
Later that morning I was walking up to Greg’s house. Dee was out in the front yard playing in the grass with Ophie, and she waved as I walked me over, saying something to Ophie. I came over to them and dropped my things. She looked up at me warmly and didn’t seem surprised by my rough and beaten appearance. Ophie barely glanced up and seemed to take no notice as well.
