Prologue
After months of practicing and planning, it was finally going to happen. I had anticipated every possible problem and then eliminated them one by one. All I had to do was keep my cool. The rest would take care of itself.
I had already scoped out the sweat lodge, after he suggested it as our meeting place. Now, I was arriving plenty early, so I could do the necessary schmoozing. It was all part of my plan—as was carrying the only weapon I’d need. A trained warrior knows how to travel light and still get the job done. I smiled when I thought of how I’d do it. Thinking this one up was nothing short of brilliant. The weapon I’d leave behind would baffle the cops more than help them.
He made it so easy for me. “I’ve got that information you’ve been looking for,” was all I needed to say, if I said anything at all. He’d kill for that information, but we’d see who kills for what information.
I checked out the lodge and its surrounds one more time. He thought it was so clever to meet in this particular place. He liked the irony of it, he said. But I couldn’t have chosen a better location myself. It was isolated and the line of sight was just right for my purpose. Even the weather was cooperating. It was the land of mosquitoes, but not a single one was in evidence. All it would take is one mosquito slap to give away my position. I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter setup.
I blew the air from my lungs through pursed lips. This was one venture I couldn’t wait to pay off. I hadn’t sat in all those god-awful city and county meetings for nothing, listening, always listening, while I collected the information I needed to formulate my plan. My plan was perfect. I knew my schedule right down to the last minute. I’d have a window of at least an hour where we’d be alone. Not that I needed an hour, but a good soldier always builds in enough room to maneuver, just in case.
I shook my hands in front of me to dispel the jitters and cursed the beads of sweat forming on my brow. I had nothing to be nervous about. All those hours of practice, practice, practice would pay off. It would be different for each one of them, but if they were all as easy as this one to set up, it wouldn’t be long before my job was done. Now, I just had to wait and watch the little rat take the bait. I had no doubts he’d take it, either. Not for a minute.
What’s that sound? Good, he’s right on time.
Focus, focus, focus.
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle is about to be put in place. I have him exactly where I want him. He is in my power now and he doesn’t have a clue, the little moron. We are connected, occupying a small part of the universe together. I’m the only one who can break the connection.
Look at him. The fool. Swinging up the path, thinking he doesn’t have a care in the world; but, he’s feeling the last breeze he’ll ever feel on his face in this lifetime. He’s probably dreaming about how he’ll spend the cash he figures he’ll get out of this little encounter.
I need to stop daydreaming. Focus. Focus.
He’s coming closer. He’s in the clearing now. Wait until he’s absolutely in place before you do anything. There. He’s kneeling. Getting ready to peer inside, just as I knew he would do. Does he really think he’ll find me in there?
Stand still. Don’t move a muscle. You’ve got time.
His eyes are still adjusting to the light. Now he’s standing. Probably wondering where I am.
Now . . . before he turns around! Ready. Aim. FIRE!
Ah . . . perfect. Perfect.
Not that I ever doubted it would be anything less.
One down. Four to go.
Chapter 1
Sunday
It’s mind-boggling how a day that starts so beautifully can end up so disastrously. The beautiful part started when I stowed my camera gear into the back of my Jeep and climbed into the driver’s seat. It was barely dawn on a lovely Minnesota June Sunday. The disastrous part started not long after I entered the grounds of the Prairie River Trappers’ Rendezvous.
I take pictures to pay the rent, but when I’m fed up to my f-stops with wedding gigs, I look for opportunities to indulge my passion for “real photography.” That’s what I was doing as I headed north on the almost deserted highway.
The idea of grown men and women reenacting an 1830s gathering site of fur traders and Indians fascinated me, and my friend Anna Sanders had been adamant about my taking in the event. “Cassandra Cassidy, you absolutely must go to the Rendezvous,” she had said. “You’ll get some great pictures of black powder shooting, tomahawk throwing, and blacksmithing. Sunday is the last day, so don’t dawdle in making your decision to attend.”
I figured I’d burn through a few megs on my digital cameras and fill up some rolls of film on my good old 35-mm. I’d also be able to add to my personal collection of Indian photographs, as some members of the Prairie River Band had a couple of sweat lodges and some teepees on the grounds. I’ve been interested in Indians ever since reading about them in the third grade. Then, after attending a powwow with a school group my junior year with camera in hand, I had become hooked. At the Rendezvous, the Indians would be “trading” with people masquerading as trappers, military men, and buckskinners. Buckskinners! I pushed my vehicle up to seventy-five, anticipating the day’s possibilities. Weather reports promised a warm, sunny day.
I pulled into the parking lot about seven. Early for me. The Rendezvous covered a generous eleven acres, with more than a hundred encampments. I threw my camera bag over my shoulder and set out to find the nineteenth-century equivalent of a Starbucks.
A ten-foot tall palisade-type fence flanked the entrance to the trading post. A gate was open to allow the paying public to enter. I produced my photographer’s press pass and slipped in, immediately noticing several permanent buildings within the palisade walls. A clerk’s quarters and company store were made out of hewed logs and had twin fireplaces bookending the building.
Like an early-day multipurpose room, a couple of sleeping bunks were attached to a far wall. The storekeeper had to simply tumble out of bed and walk the few feet to his “store”—a super-sized log slab balanced across two huge upended logs. From shelves in back of him, he could pull off goods, such as tomahawks, knives, knit hats, gourd dippers, animal skins, blankets, buckskin shirts and dresses . . . whatever anyone wanted to buy or trade.
At a blacksmith shop, the ’smith stirred up embers, preparing to fire up his forge for the day. I made a note to stop by on the way out.
In a corner, I saw long-skirted women pulling wonderful-smelling bread loaves out of a clay oven. With my nose pointed in the bread-bakers’ direction, I almost tripped over an Indian, squatting with a knife in his hand in front of a half-finished birch-bark canoe. “Oops, sorry,” I muttered, as he threw out his arms to keep me from plunging headlong into his lap. I pushed myself up, dusted off my jeans, and peered around to see who had witnessed my less-than-elegant spill. Then, as composed as I could manage, I flashed a smile at the guy and proceeded on my way.
Event participants were beginning to stir from a motley assortment of wall tents, teepees, and lean-tos that had been erected beyond the palisades, forming “streets” throughout the encampment. The acrid smell of wood fires mingled with the pungent smells of frying bacon and fresh-brewing coffee. Tin cups rattled to the accompaniment of pots being taken on and off the spits erected over small cook fires.
As a photographer, I could usually walk through a crowd as an almost-invisible observer, snapping pictures and chatting up the people I photographed. But in this crowd, dressed in twenty-first century clothing, I was as conspicuous as a stockbroker at a jugglers’ convention.
A trio of mountain men passed by, yakking and spitting. They wore pants made of the hide of some kind of animal, cotton shirts, leggings, and moccasin
s. They nodded to me and, when one peeled off from the trio, I snapped a few pictures of him. “Who are you?” I asked.
“Name’s Ground Kisser,” he said. “Got the name twenty years ago when I kept fallin’ down after a particularly unrestrained night of imbibin’.”
I photographed him as he turned to spew a stream of tobacco juice on the ground and then swipe his mouth with the back of a hand. I resisted the urge to say “Yuck,” and asked, “And, what’s that?” I pointed at a rawhide bag hanging around his neck.
“My ‘possibles’ bag,” he said, opening his mouth to reveal a few gaps where his teeth should have been. “Got a knife, some powder and shot, some fire-startin’ stuff, and a little tobaccy in it.”
Ah, yes, “tobaccy,” the cause of the little wet brown spots I kept trying to avoid as I wandered the grounds. To complete the man’s frontier ensemble, a small ax dangled from a leather string around his waist. “What do you use that for?” I nodded toward it.
“My tomahawk?” He patted it. “Come ‘round to the ’hawk games, and you’ll see what we do with ‘em.”
I zeroed in for a close-up of the dangerous-looking implement. “So, you compete with it?” I wanted to keep him talking. “Is it made especially for competition? Is it special?”
The tail of some kind of animal that was attached to his furry hat wiggled as he shook his head. “Nah, my ’hawk’s not too different from everyone else’s ‘round here. ‘cept for Tomahawk Pete’s. He takes ’hawk-throwin’ pretty serious. Has his made special. Might be somethin’ to it, too, ‘cause he usually wins.”
Walking on, I noticed a wildly bearded man in a flashy outfit—headband, loose-fitting shirt, vest, trousers with a bright red waist sash, and moccasins—perched in front of a teepee, smoking a hand-rolled cigar. Eager to talk, he told me he was a courier de bois. “I was reared up with the Ojibwe,” he said, in what was becoming an irritating accent most of the reenactors seemed to have adopted. “Got plumb tired a givin’ up ever’thin’ to the French fur companies, so’s now I’m a free trapper. Some a them folks say I’m a outlaw and they put a bounty on my head. I hafta keep a lot a light between me ‘n them.” He winked at me, while chuckling, then spat a ubiquitous stream of tobacco juice off to the side, missing my right boot by a hair. I jumped back a couple steps.
The trapper was drinking something from a tin cup and it reminded me that I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. “Do you know where I could buy a cup of coffee?” I asked.
“Wal,” he said, lifting his cup. “Made this coffee from some green coffee beans I traded with a fella’, oh, ‘bout six month ago. Jest roasted a coupl’a handfuls in the fire last night so’s I could throw them into coffee water this mornin’. I’ll pour ya a cup.” He reached for a smoke-blackened coffee pot. Seeing my look of distress, he grinned. “Or I could rassle up a cuppa coffee from this Maxwell House pouch, if ya like.” He poured some water into a paper cup he had stashed behind his antique utensils and then tapped a couple spoonfuls of instant coffee into it. “Enjoy,” he said.
Grateful and about to be fortified with a shot of caffeine, I sipped the tepid brew and waded out into the city of tents again. As I photographed a wiry little guy—also missing his front teeth—he held forth about his life as a Long Hunter. He pivoted to display all his worldly possessions, while he launched into his memorized lingo. “It’s all here, on muh back. A tarp, ground cloth, foldin’ skillet, tent stakes, rope, tin pots and cup, wooden bowl, horn spoon, fork, squirrel cooker, a pouch for my fire kit, muh possibles bag, haversack, ‘hawk and two knives, a camp hatchet, salt and pepper horns, jerky, parched corn, cornmeal, coffee, dried fruits and veggies, powder horn, priming horn, smooth bore gun, two blankets, and a spare shirt or two.”
I laughed. “And I thought lugging my cameras was a challenge. Why are you here, Long Hunter? What draws you to participating in these weekend events where you leave the comforts of the twenty-first century behind?”
He squinted at me. “What you talkin’ about, ma’am? We always come to Ronnyvous. How else you think we’re gonna peddle our hides?” He turned away, shaking his head, his persona still intact.
I strolled through the encampment, marveling at the sounds and sights that were missing. No blaring rock music. No buzzing cell phones. No sign of soft-drink cans or Styrofoam fast-food containers, candy wrappers, or cigarette butts. The transformation to the 1830s was almost complete. About midmorning, I was kneeling before a little girl swathed in a coat fashioned from a red-and-white-striped Hudson Bay blanket. Her mother, in a long cotton calico chemise, was leaning over her with a corncob, preparing to scrub off a morning’s indulgence in sticky candy. As I clicked the shutter, someone called my name.
“Hey, Cassandra.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I groaned. It was Eric Hartfield. “Hello, Eric.” I pushed myself to my feet, bracing for his opening salvo.
“Looking to shoot a few Indians today, C.C.?” He smirked.
“No, you little prick, I’m shooting rocks. Where’s the one you crawled out from under?” I struck a hands-on-the-hips, legs-firmly-planted stance. I’d been in “Nice Minnesota” mode long enough. The man always had a way of irking me and I was immediately on guard.
“Now, now, Cassandra, I just don’t know what to make of a remark like that.” He stepped closer, his scrawny five-foot-seven frame a mere foot away. His breath smelled of stale coffee and menthol cigarettes. I saw the blood pulsing at his temples and pulled myself up as tall as I could manage, distracted for only a moment by my reflection in his wire-rimmed glasses.
“What are you doing here, Eric?” I backed up a step.
He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a package of cigarettes, and tapped one into his hand. “Not that it’s any of your business, sweetheart, but I’m on assignment for the Duluth paper. They want a write-up on this event.”
That stopped me cold. How could a respected daily newspaper hire a scumbag like Eric? I’d seen road kill with a more appealing personality. “How’d you manage that?”
“It’s called freelancing, honey.” He cupped his hand around the cigarette, lighting it. After taking a long drag, he squinted down at me. “Some newspapers appreciate the skills of an experienced journalist.”
“Unlike others that shun the shenanigans of unprincipled ones.”
“That little incident with the Star Tribune was only a bump in the long, sometimes rocky road we journalists must endure.”
“I wouldn’t call being fired from a major newspaper only a bump in the road!”
“And I suppose your part in that little charade makes you the Fourth Estate’s Joan of Arc.”
“I didn’t ask to be part of that.”
“No? Well, you sure as hell made the most of it to advance your own agenda.” Red-faced and barely controlling his anger, Eric waved his cigarette in my face.
I shifted my weight and flapped the smoke out of my face. “All I stated was my professional opinion.”
“Your ‘professional opinion’ huh.” He spit on the ground, purposely aiming as close to my shoe as he could. “That’s what I think of your professional opinion. It carries about as much weight as a fencepost.”
“The jury didn’t seem to think so.” Our voices had risen considerably and I noticed that both visitors and participants in the Rendezvous were glancing curiously at us as they passed by.
“It didn’t take a professional to expose an amateur’s work,” I added, turning to leave. I’d had enough of Eric Hartfield for one day.
He grabbed my arm and spun me around. “We’ll see who ends up being exposed as an amateur,” he said, his face turning a shade redder with each decibel of his raised voice.
“Should I interpret that as a threat?” I wrenched my arm away.
“Interpret it however you want, you lying bitch!” He sprayed saliva into the air and shook a fist at me. “Nobody does what you did to me and gets away with it!”
I leaned toward him. “Are you talking about r
evenge, Mr. Hartfield? That should be great for your already sputtering career. I can see it on your résumé . . . right under the part about your photo-doctoring skills.”
He glared at me, spun around, and stalked away. He’d gone about ten steps, when he turned back. “If I were you,” he shouted, “I’d watch my back.”
I lifted my chin. “The next time I see you, I’ll fire two warning shots . . . straight into your head!” I pointed my index finger and wiggled it, imitating the pulling of a trigger. Immediately, I was annoyed with myself for engaging in such a juvenile reaction. No one else had the ability to raise my hackles in such a way, but that was no excuse.
Eric Hartfield was a columnist for the Minnesota Issues Review. He used whatever clout he had to attack anyone or anything outside his narrow political comfort zone. American Indians were one of his favorite targets. Shortly after I moved to Colton Mills, Frank Kyopa was running for his second term as tribal chief of the Prairie River Band. Eric wrote about it, as a reporter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. In one of his news stories, he ran a picture of Frank entering the building of a land developer in Chicago, implying that Frank was secretly meeting with the developer to make deals. Because I had often photographed Frank, he knew about my photography-computer skills and asked if I could determine whether or not a photo was a fake. His attorney hired me, and it was easy to prove that the photo had been rather crudely doctored. A photo of Frank had been super-imposed on the picture of the developer’s office entrance. Eric was discredited and fired. When I testified against him, he blamed me for his fall.
I displayed a few Indian photographs in a Minneapolis gallery, and, because I had access to the Indian community, I became a “go to” person for photos to accompany American Indian newspaper and magazine stories. Every favorable gallery review and photo credit rubbed more salt into Eric’s wounds. He pestered me regularly. His telephone calls and e-mail messages belittled my photos and became so frequent in numbers, I could have sued him for harassment. Unfortunately, my work often took me to events he was covering, so I hadn’t been able to avoid him.
A Rendezvous to Die For Page 1
