Eagle, Kathleen (38 page)

Damn.
He'd
been thrilled to hear the boy say he wanted to stick around. He wished he could
have explained the situation to him right up front, but listing the offenses
they were looking at—murder, burglary, animal abuse, arson— just might spoil
his summer a little bit. And those were the crimes they knew about so far.

He
let them through the gate that would take them to the path that followed the
creek and watched them disappear below the hill, the dog trotting along behind.

"You
and your son on the outs already?" Carter asked as the brothers walked
back to the house.

"Trying
to get in a little quality time before he heads back to camp." Reese
offered a seat on the back stoop. "What's up?"

Carter
put one booted foot on the step. "I heard you had a little fire out here
last night."

"Earl
the Pearl must have been after the ol' man's papers, is all I can figure."
At this, Carter gave him a strange look. Reese shrugged. "I took all that
stuff out of here, though, so he came up empty-handed."

"What
did you do with it?"

"Safekeeping."
He spared his brother a smile as he sat down on the stoop.
Safekeeping
was
all Carter was going to get right now. "You're supposed to put stuff like
that in a library. 'Course, Bad River doesn't have a library." He quirked
an eyebrow. "What would you think of the Roy Blue Sky Memorial
Library?"

"That's
a noble suggestion, Reese, and I'm sure you could finance it yourself, but I
can't see—"

"What
would you say if I told you I was thinking of running for a seat on the
council?"

Carter's
face dropped. "I'd say you'd either lost your mind or you were jacking me
around. And I did come to talk ser—"

"How
about chairman? Think I should take Sweeney on for chairman?"

"Jesus.
Are you serious?" Carter shook his head. "You're not."

Reese
shrugged. He didn't know how serious he was, but he'd decided to spread the
rumor that he was thinking about it and see if he could rattle Sweeney's cage a
little more.

"So
what can I do for you, Carter?"

"Sarah
took the kids and went home to Yakima."

Reese
let a wordless moment pass, respectful of Carter's loss. Then he offered what
comfort he could. "They've always come back."

Carter
nodded. "I've... I think for now they're better off with..." He took
his right foot off the step, switched it for his left. "What you can do,
brother, what you need to do... what I'm begging you one last time..."

Reese
lowered his gaze. "Jesus, Carter, will you give it up?"

"No,
listen, please." Carter sat down, a step below his brother. He was
determined to get the full begging effect. "All I need is your word that
you'll ease up. Take a breath, step back, and get a little better perspective
on—"

"Carter,
Ten Star isn't doing us any favors. Somebody's making a hell of a lot of money,
and it's not us." Reese gestured, pleading in his own way. "I don't
need to take a step back. From where I'm standing right now, I can see that it's
time to part company with that outfit, and I'm thinking you—"

"I'm
asking you not to press this. For my sake."

"Nobody's
suggesting that you haven't done your job. You're the only manager we've got.
We need—"

"I
need
you,
Bro-gun. I've never asked you for anything, have I? You've
always been my super-stud brother going your own way, and I've been... whoever.
Who the hell knows who I am and where I belong? Not dragging on your shirttail,
that's for sure." Carter sighed and gestured in frustration. "So I've
never asked, but I'm asking now. All it would take is for you back off. Just go
along with... with what's already in place. Maybe it's not the best deal we
could get, but it's not that bad."

"Not
that bad?" Reese considered his brother's face for a moment. The brother
he hardly knew. The brother his father had sent away and reclaimed. How much,
he wondered, had that hurt, and which part had hurt more? And when would it be
time for all the old hurting to be over?

"Carter,
who killed Dad?"

"I
don't know." Carter sighed again, this time on a shaky breath. "I
don't ask. I accept it as a hit-and-run. Somebody out of the blue, somebody who
came and went."

"They
didn't come and go. They killed our father." He looked into his brother's
eyes, seeking assurance that he was not
they,
or any part of them.
"They came and stayed, like some big leech. They came and attached their
greedy mouths, and they started in sucking."

"The
business wasn't here when they came. They built it."

"Why
here? They think this is like the Nevada desert, like there's nobody here?
Maybe we won't notice if they use us? We oughta be grateful, right?" He
paused. Then, apprehensively: "What are you grateful for, Carter? What did
they do for you?"

"They
gave me a job with a lot of—perks."

"The
Bad River Lakota gave you your job. That's who you're working for."

"I'm
doing what Ten Star tells me to do. And they're telling me to try to talk some
sense into you."

"What
do you owe them? What do you do for them?"

Carter
stood.

Reese
stood taller. He turned his brother around by his shoulder, made Carter look at
him. "What do you
do
for them?"

"I
look the other way when they tell me to. That's all. I swear to you, Reese,
I've tried..." The breath Carter drew quivered in his chest. He looked
away from his brother as well. "I figure, we get this business built up,
there'll be enough in it for everybody. They'll get what they require, and
we'll have more jobs, more revenue, more—"

"Their
price is too high, little brother. The price of your soul is too high. And
yours isn't the only one, is it? They've got Sweeney, too."

Carter
stepped away.

Reese
let his hand fall to his side. "You don't really think they'll ever have
enough, do you? History proves otherwise. The stories—"

"Forget
the damn stories!" Carter whirled to face him, eyes full of fear. "If
you keep this up,
I'm
gonna be history."

"Come
on, Carter..."

"I
don't know why I thought I could talk to you." He shook his head,
backpedaling, wiping his hand over his lower lip. "You're just like...
Damn, you should know better, but you've got your head up your ass, too, just
like—"

"Nah,
mine's in the clouds," Reese said calmly. "I like that much
better."

"I'm
telling you, people are gonna get hurt."

"People
are already getting hurt. They have been hurt. They've been hurting for a long,
long time." Reese extended his hand. "If it's money you need, just
tell me how much. I'll stand you whatever—"

"Money
won't pay my bill. I'm asking you to
stand down.
That's the only way you
can help me."

"Stand
down?" Reese gave a dry chuckle as his hand claimed his brother's shoulder
again. "Hell, I've already retired once. We'll find another way. I'll
stand by you, and we'll find another way."

"Yeah."
Carter backed up a few paces. "You watch yourself, okay? And anybody you
care about. Watch all the doors."

"Watch
for what? Earl Sweeney? If these Ten Star people are outsourcing their dirty
work, they should try enlisting somebody with half a brain."

"They
probably will."

"Do
you hear yourself?" Reese demanded incredulously. "This is like
something out of a damn movie. But movies end. A couple of hours, and it's all
over, case closed. We don't need this outfit, Carter. Their contract is
up."

His
brother wasn't hearing him.

Damn,
how bad could it be? Carter said he had nothing to do with their father's
death. As far as Reese was concerned, anything else could be repaired somehow.

Repairs
could still be made.

"You
let a killing threat lead you around by the nose, you can't live your
life," Reese said quietly. "Believe me, I know this for a fact."

"I
have to get over to the casino." Carter turned to leave, then paused. He
looked at his brother. "I like the money they're paying me, sure, but I've
tried to do a good job. Maybe it's not the best business, but I guess it's no
different than selling other kinds of entertainment, and we're actually getting
people to come out here for it." He drew an arc with a sweep of his hand,
as though he were presenting Reese the prairie. "Way the hell out here, on
a godforsaken Indian reservation, we built a glittering entertainment palace.
And it ain't covered with colored corn, either."

"Hey,"
Reese said with an open handed gesture. "I own a damn limousine
service."

"The
grand illusion, huh?" Carter smiled wistfully. "It's a business, and
it's growing. Given a choice, I'd rather create something besides winners and
losers, but this is what we've got. I'd like to see you pull it out of the
fire, Bro-gun."

"Help
me."

"If
Ten Star goes down, I go down." He shoved his hands in his pockets and
watched the riders approaching through the gate Reese had left open for them.
"Helen's undercover, isn't she?"

Reese
ignored the question. "We could help each other, Carter. I've got money,
and I've got influence. You've got information."

"More
illusions, Bro-gun. You're liable to give yourself a heart attack trying to
save us all."

"It
could happen," he allowed, chuckling, easily shrugging the weight of that
particular worry off his big shoulders. He started to add his usual line about
getting hit by a truck, but that one didn't work for him the way it used to.

The
phone was ringing inside the house.

"I'll
get moving. You catch that, and I'll say good-bye to my nephew."

Reese
went inside and grabbed the receiver off the hook. Without any preliminaries,
the caller informed him that Helen Ketterling had left this number.

"Helen!
Phone call. This guy's pretty insistent."

Carter
relieved her of her horse and led the animal back to the barn. Reese started to
follow, but she motioned him inside. He leaned against the kitchen counter and
tried not to listen in, although her side of the conversation was pretty
cryptic, anyway. But when she turned to him, she looked pale.

"The
scan I sent of the photograph of Peter Jones?"

"They
found something already?"

She
nodded. "They found his body in Wyoming. Shot through the head."

"Suicide?"

"Murder."
She stepped closer to him, bringing him more details. Her eyes told him the
important part was still coming. "He was found in a pickup. Front end
damaged. Headlight broken."

"The
piece I found..."

"Fits.
The tires match the impressions they took out here."

His
mouth went dry, but he was sure he tasted blood. He reached back, gripped the
edge of the counter behind him.

"He
killed my father?"

"Somebody
driving that pickup did. The only vehicle I ever saw Peter Jones drive was an
old van, but that doesn't mean anything. He had friends, people who worked with
him, pulling his scams."

"He
had to be hooked up with Ten Star."

"I
can't prove that at this point, but I'd bet on it." She laid a hand on his
arm. "If I were a betting woman."

"Proving
it isn't your job." He jerked his chin toward the phone on the wall.
"That's his job, the guy who just called. The guy who should have been
calling
me
about the pickup matching the tire tracks they found next to
my
father's body."

"The
guy who called is my boss. He's not investigating either homicide. We're
interested in Indian gaming. But he is working with the FBI, and yes, they see
the connection."

"We're
making some progress," he said eagerly as he pushed away from the counter.
"My dad's files are full of newspaper clippings about Indian gaming, and
there are a lot of success stories. But in some places these outside managers
are turning out to be crooks, and some management companies are taking Indian
people for a ride."

"But
they pay a lot of bribes, and that's where some of the tribal officials get
themselves in trouble," Helen said.

"Yeah.
Loans, I guess they're called." He took a bottle of water from the
refrigerator and uncapped it. "One case, the crafty manager plea-bargained
with the federal prosecutor, turned in a bunch of Indians he'd given these
loans to, and got off pretty easy."

She
refused the drink he offered. "It could go the other way. Somebody who's
taken a bribe could turn state's evidence."

"And
ruin his life." Reese took a long drink, then passed the back of his hand
over his lips.