by Thomas King
Whether or not Floyd knew who had killed Takashi, he was right about one thing. Claire would want the matter cleared up as soon as possible. Whatever else Claire was, she was an astute business woman, and having the resort splashed all over the newspapers as a dangerous place to vacation or to live would be very bad for business. Maybe Claire would pay Floyd for the privilege of not seeing the resort highlighted on the national news and dragged through the tabloids. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t.
Thumps looked at the tea bag floating in the cup. He was tired, and it was late.
“Come on,” he said to the cat, even though he knew that Freeway would only come when she was good and ready. Enough for one day. Tomorrow would be soon enough to begin again.
When the phone rang the next morning, Thumps opened his left eye just enough to see the clock on the nightstand. The first number was a six. Thumps closed his eye, rolled over, and tried not to count the rings. Somebody wanted him awake. Telemarketers didn’t call at this hour, so it had to be someone who thought they were his friend. Thumps didn’t have many, and at this moment, he didn’t want to talk to any of them. Including Claire.
On the thirteenth ring, Thumps snatched the phone off its cradle. “This better be good.”
“You still asleep?” Duke sounded much too cheery for the news to be encouraging. “I catch you at a bad time?”
“I’m asleep.”
“No, you’re not.”
Thumps sighed and buried his head in the pillow. “Goodbye, sheriff.”
“Figured I’d check to see whether you’ve heard from Stick.”
“And you thought six in the morning was a good time to call.”
“You were the first item on my list of things to do.”
“Terrific.” Thumps was wrong about Duke’s voice being cheery. It was exhilarated. Almost passionate.
“That’s what I figured,” said Duke. “Always best to take care of these things before they get out of hand.”
“What things?”
“We need to talk to Stick.” The sheriff paused and waited as though he were trying to find the right words. “We need to talk to Stick right away.”
“Did we find something?” Thumps tried to keep the sarcasm under control.
“Sorry I woke you,” said Duke in a happy singsong fashion that was particularly annoying. “You have a nice day.”
Even before Thumps put the phone down, he knew the case had taken a turn, that the sheriff had indeed found something, and whatever it was, it wasn’t going to do Stick any good. The call was Duke’s way of letting Thumps know that the situation was now serious, that the alert going out for Stick’s arrest would probably describe the boy as armed and dangerous.
The hot-water heater in the basement had slipped into an extended depression, and for the last six months, it would produce only lukewarm water that ran to cold whenever Thumps began shampooing his hair. It was an irritating and startling routine, but by the time he stepped out of the shower, he was wide awake. And hungry. There was nothing much in the refrigerator and no time to stop in at Al’s for a leisurely breakfast. Instead, Thumps settled for a cold cheese sandwich with sliced banana. Protein, fat, carbohydrates, and fruit—all in the same package.
All the way out of town, Thumps watched his rear-view mirror, in case the sheriff was more devious than he imagined. Nothing. Just to be safe, he took the long way, even pulled off the road at the top of Benson’s Coulee so he could see the road below him. Nothing. By the time he turned off the main road, he was reasonably sure he hadn’t been followed.
The parking lot for the trailhead to Blackfoot Falls had six cars in it. Three were rentals—tourists probably, who had come west to visit the wilderness. One was a pickup truck with British Columbia plates. The sixth car was Stick’s Mustang. Thumps felt the hood. Dead cold. So, Archie had been right. He had seen Stick.
From here, if you knew what you were doing, you could climb to the saddle at Dark Horse Pass and then go cross country for an hour and come in behind the resort. Or you could keep climbing and catch the Ironstone as it emptied out of a sheer canyon over Blackfoot Falls into a series of deep pools where the fishing was as good as it gets.
The car in the parking lot was good news. It offered the possibility that Stick had been telling the truth, that he had gone fishing. The Mustang was locked, but Thumps had it opened in a minute. There were tapes on the front seat, and a shirt and a pair of pants on the back. The trunk took a little longer to open. Inside, Thumps found a pair of dark green waders and a fly rod.
He sat down in the shade and put on his hiking boots. If Stick had come to the trailhead to go fishing, why did he leave his fly rod in the trunk? And if he had parked here and walked into the resort to kill Takashi, why not take the fishing pole with him to help establish his alibi?
Thumps stood up and looked around. It was mostly open country to begin with, and from where he stood in the parking lot, he could see all the way to where the trail rose into the foothills and dropped into the narrow valley behind the first range of hills. The hike looked a lot longer than he had remembered, and he debated throwing his sleeping bag on the ground, taking a nap in the shade, and waiting for Stick to come out on his own.
Thumps was still thinking it was a good idea as he left the parking lot and began the climb to the near ridge.
In his heart, he believed that he was in far better shape than he looked, and by the time he got to the top of the ridge and looked down into the valley, he knew he was wrong. His legs hurt. His back hurt. His head hurt. His arms ached, and the skin on the heels of his feet was beginning to separate. Resting didn’t help. Every time he stopped, he could feel his muscles begin to tighten, and he could hear the insects behind him gaining ground.
You could fish the Ironstone at any of a dozen spots, but if you were serious about your fishing—and Stick was—you’d fish the pools below the falls. It was a hard spot to get to and difficult to fish, but the browns that lay in the shadows could bring down an elk. If Stick had gone fishing, that was where he would be.
Thumps checked the sky ahead of him for any sign of smoke, but that would have been too easy. There was the chance that he might stumble across Stick’s trail, but only if Stick had marked it out with reflective tape. The cliché of an Indian gliding through a forest, alive to the vagaries of turned stones, broken branches, and scents on the wind, only happened in movies and on television. A fire trail he could follow. He might even be able to negotiate a well-used game trail. The more Thumps thought about what he was doing, the more he realized how crazy this expedition was. It would be desperately comic if, in trying to find Stick, he got lost or even injured. Wilderness might not be as wild as it once was, but it could still kill you if you took it for granted.
Thumps started down the trail into the valley. With any luck, he would get to the pools while he still had feeling in his feet. With a small miracle, Stick would be there waiting for him.
Thumps hadn’t counted on a miracle and he didn’t get one. The pools below the falls were deserted. He searched the rocks for any sign of Stick, but the only things moving were the big trout rising in the pools to take insects off the surface of the water. Thumps headed for the shade of the big boulders. It would be cool there, a good place to rest and think about what to do. Next to one of the larger rocks, someone had constructed a crude circle of stones. Inside the circle he saw the remains of a fire that had “tourist” written all over it. From the look and smell of the firepit, some idiot had lugged in a bag of self-starting charcoal briquettes. Thumps was sure if he poked through the ashes, he’d probably find pieces of melted marshmallow stuck to the stones and the charred remains of a cork or two. This wasn’t Stick’s work.
So, where was Stick going when Archie saw him? The good news was that there weren’t many choices. South was the resort. North was more mountains. If you went far enough west, you’d wind up in one of the many small resort towns with hot springs a
nd golf courses and motel beds that vibrated. Going east took you back to Chinook.
Thumps closed his eyes. A quick nap sounded appealing, but he knew that if he went to sleep, there was no telling when he would wake up. The great outdoors was nice, but he didn’t fancy spending a night in the wild watching the stars and listening to wolves. Just as well, for Freeway wasn’t the kind of cat who enjoyed having the house to herself. The last time Thumps had stayed out overnight, Freeway had unrolled the toilet paper, then pulled the cereal box off the counter and dragged it around the house.
Thumps was watching the water pour over the falls and arguing with his body about the nap when he suddenly remembered. Sikayopa. Stick had told him about it once when they had come to fish the pools, when Thumps and Claire had been serious contenders for each other’s affections. Sikayopa. An ancient site, on the eastern face of the mountain, where you could see the sun rise. Where people had gone for generations to seek visions. A ledge of black stone, darker than the rest of the mountain. In the shape of a crouching bear.
That must have been where Stick was going. Nothing else out here made any sense. What had Stick told him? An hour’s climb, at most, from the pools. Directly above a large scree field.
Thumps got to his feet and dragged a boot through the firepit scattering the stones and the ashes. Charcoal briquettes and marshmallows. It was a wonder they hadn’t packed in steaks and a portable barbecue. But then again, maybe they had.
The climb out of the pools and over the first ridge was reasonably easy. But as Thumps stood in the narrow valley and looked up at the eastern face of the mountains, he could see that finding Sikayopa was going to be more difficult than he had hoped. There were at least four scree fields, and in the deep shadows, all of the rock was dark.
It took him the better part of an hour to find it. Set on the side of the mountain. A long, thick slab of black granite. And just below it, the bear in the rock. Thumps walked the base of the scree field, looking for a trail, a way up. But there was no easy way to get to the ledge. If he made a mistake, he would come sliding down the mountain as part of a small avalanche. A wrong step and he could break a leg.
Thumps sat down and gave plan B a try.
“Stick!”
He listened to his voice as it ran down the mountain and echoed in the thin air. It was loud enough.
“Stick! You up there?”
Somewhere off to the right, Thumps heard the distant clatter of rocks.
“Stick, it’s me, Thumps!”
Thumps waited for his voice to disappear into the silence. It would be nice, he mused, if hard things could be done the easy way once in a while.
The climb was difficult, and as he dragged himself over the loose rocks and boulders, as his breathing turned to desperate gasps, Thumps began to imagine that Stick was waiting for him with a cold glass of lemonade and a bowl of fruit salad with cottage cheese. It was the thin air. Thumps understood that. But when he finally pulled himself onto the ledge, his shirt wet with sweat, his legs aching, his ankles bruised, his hands and arms cut and scraped, he was mildly disappointed to find it deserted.
The ledge itself was a narrow affair that ran back to a shallow cave. Someone had built a small fire at the back of the cave and had stayed long enough to have lunch. Or supper. Or both. Two apple cores and a banana skin lay near the firepit.
Thumps smiled and wondered if they were the fugitives from Ora Mae’s fruit plate.
Not that any of this meant that Stick had been here. The fruit could have come from anywhere. The fire could have been started by someone who just needed to get away from everything for a while. Thumps didn’t know much about vision quests but he knew they generally lasted more than one day. As far as he could tell, only one fire had been started. An overnight stay, maybe, or a day visitor.
Thumps walked the length of the ledge looking for clues. If the fire was Stick’s, why would he have come here? If he had killed Takashi, he might have gone to the pools to establish an alibi, but why would he have come to this place? Thumps walked the ledge again, slowly this time. Nothing.
The cave was little more than a shallow bowl cut into the rock, deep enough to get you out of the weather. But the roof sloped quickly, and if you wanted to sit at the back, you had to crawl.
Enough was enough. Enough hiking. Enough stumbling. Enough crawling. Stick was damn well old enough to take care of himself. Thumps did not need to dash up hills to impress Claire. As he recalled, little he had ever done had impressed Claire. The light was starting to go, and if he hoped to get back to the parking lot before it was too dark to see, he would have to start back down now. He glanced at the cave one more time.
“Hell!”
Thumps got down on his hands and knees and made his way inside. From the entrance, the roof of the cave looked as though it sloped down until it met the floor, but as he got to the back, the roof suddenly and unexpectedly opened up into a small dome, a rock bubble, where he could sit up.
Thumps dragged himself into a comfortable position against the rock and rested. It was pleasant, he had to admit, for a cave. He picked up one of the apple cores. It was fresh. So was the banana peel. He was reaching for the second apple core when he saw the buffalo. At least, that’s what it looked like. A crude drawing of a buffalo scratched into the roof of the cave. And then a second drawing, this one of a man with a spear. As Thumps’ eyes adjusted, he could see that the roof was covered with drawings of animals and people. And symbols. Rain, clouds, a river, lightning. Some of the drawings looked bright and fresh. Others looked older. A few appeared to be as old as the rock itself. Off to one side, someone had scratched “Dalton loves Celeste” into the wall. High on the roof, another artist had drawn a reasonable facsimile of Mickey Mouse.
Thumps ran a hand through the fire, rubbed the soft ashes between his fingers, and smelled them. There was no mistaking the scent. Sage. He had smelled it often enough at powwows and ceremonies. Someone had come to pray. To leave an offering.
It was so close, he almost didn’t see it. A piece of string. Above his head, hanging off a rock shelf. But as Thumps moved to one side and reached up to grab it, he realized that it might also be a tail. It would be just his luck to stick his hand into an animal’s nest. Something small and bitey that did not like fingers. Or worse. Thumps tried to shut those thoughts away by humming a round-dance song. His hand found the shelf, and he cautiously dragged a finger across the rock in time with the music. He found it on the second pass and was relieved that it didn’t feel like a tail at all. Slowly, he began to pull on the string until it stopped.
Okay.
Thumps pulled a little harder, increasing the pressure until something popped out of the rocks and hit him in the chest.
“Shit!”
The object lay in his lap, and for that brief moment, it looked very much like a small rodent. Thumps rolled to one side and knocked it away before it got any bad ideas.
“Damn!”
Now it didn’t look so much like a small rodent. It looked more like a bag. A leather bag with a rawhide tie. Moose hide, from the look of it, and not commercial moose hide, either. Thumps held the bag to his nose. This leather had been smoke cured and hand worked and he was reasonably sure he knew what it was. A medicine bag. Something you didn’t fool around with. Whoever had left it here had left it for a reason.
Thumps turned the bag over in his hands. It hadn’t been in the cave long. He saw no sign of weathering or any hint that animals had been at it. Mice loved hide like this, and given the opportunity, would have chewed the bag to shreds. So, should he open it? Thumps hated philosophical questions like this. A traditional Indian would not open someone else’s medicine bag. Thumps did not think of himself as a traditional Indian, but neither did he like to think of himself as an assimilated Indian. What would a photographer do? No help there. How about a police officer? That was easy. A police officer would open the bag. No question. To hell with culture. To hell wi
th tradition. Get the facts. Catch the crook.
Thumps sat in the cave and squeezed the bag, feeling for what was inside. He wasn’t sure squeezing medicine bags was allowed. Not that it helped. Whatever was in the bag was shapeless and spongy. Except for four small soft lumps.
He sighed. No point in sitting here all night trying to figure out a way to open the bag that would not offend his sensibilities. Which left only two options. Leave the bag where he had found it and assume it had nothing to do with Stick or Takashi. Or take the bag with him and figure out what to do later. Thumps shook his head at the logic he was about to embrace. It wasn’t okay to open the bag, but it was okay to take it. Brilliant. Truly impressive. Very modern.
He shoved the bag into his pocket. He’d get back to the pools before dark. From there, with any luck, he’d be able to follow the trail down to the parking lot. Maybe the moon would be up.
Thumps stopped for a moment, suddenly pleased with the prospect of a walk in the woods. Living in cities had changed his life in ways he had hardly noticed, even a city the size of Chinook. And as he made his way down the side of the mountain, he realized that he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the stars. Or watched the moon rise into a night sky.
NINE
The notion of a romantic stroll through the woods in moonlight under an ocean of stars proved to be extravagant. Almost as soon as Thumps left the pools, heavy cloud cover moved in, turning the trail down the mountain into a slow fall down a deep well. He crashed against rocks, ran into tree branches, tripped over roots, and by the time he stumbled into the parking lot, he was bruised and cranky.
He had heard that medicine bags could provide protection against all manner of mischief. Evidently, questionable decisions such as walking around in the mountains in the dark were not covered.
The parking lot was empty, except for the Volvo. The rentals were gone. The truck with the British Columbia plates was gone. Stick’s Mustang was gone. Thumps brushed the dirt off his clothes and thought about screaming. If he had just waited in the parking lot, he would have found Stick and saved himself the hike. Instead, all he had to show for his troubles were lacerations, torn pants, and somebody’s medicine bag.
