A Rendezvous to Die For (2 page)

“
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 revenge, 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.

Although he said he was working
as a freelancer, I wondered what had really brought Eric to the
Rendezvous, a nonpolitical family event. He usually went where there
was news . . . or where he intended to stir some up. Feeling uneasy,
I resented the pall he had cast on what had been a promising day.

The
’hawk-throwing competition was slated for 10:30, so I made my way
to the edge of the encampment where targets had been erected away
from the main Rendezvous traffic. I arrived too early. Officials had
postponed the event for a half hour to wait for one of the
competitors.
Must have been a short list of competitors,
I
thought. ’Hawk throwing was definitely not ready for prime time.

The break gave me much-needed
time to run back to the parking lot to replace my battery packs and
get some fresh CF cards. I had three digital cameras with me: one to
shoot newspaper-style photos, one for my own use, and a smaller one I
was testing. Crossing the field to the parking lot, I compulsively
shot up the last few megs remaining on the small digital. I usually
separated the CF cards into envelopes. Since I had brought only two
envelopes with me, I pulled out the card from my small camera and
tucked it into the watch pocket of my jeans. Then, with new cards
inserted into each of the cameras, I headed back to the contest
grounds, arriving just in time to see the contest get under way.

It probably wasn’t written in
’hawk throwing rules, but every contestant sauntered in an
identical walk to the throwing line. The all-male group stood
motionless for a few seconds, squinting at the target. Then they
swiveled their heads and, to a man, spit out a brown arc of tobacco
juice. The spitting ritual over, they wiped their hands on their
trousers, and then held their long-handled ’hawks in front of them
shoulder high, while they took a bead on the target. The target was
about fifteen yards in front of the throwing line. I’d seen one
like it in my landlord’s yard—a foot-thick cutout from a fat,
ten-foot round tree, propped up on its side.

Once they had sized up the
target, the marksmen stepped forward, at the same time lifting their
throwing arms above their heads. Depending on each of their personal
styles, they took either two or three steps and then threw the ax
with a powerful swing. The axes flew end-over-end toward the target.
About one out of three struck the target and remained imbedded.

Finally, Tomahawk Pete was
announced—the thrower I’d heard about from Ground Kisser and the
one who had held up the competition. I watched as a husky, bearded
man strolled up to the throwing line and began the same ritual as the
contestants before him. I focused my long lens on the thrower and
suddenly did a double-take. Tomahawk Pete was my landlord, Marty
Madigan! Now I knew why his weird backyard hobby was throwing
tomahawks.

Today, his aim seemed to be off.
Maybe he was flustered because, as the latecomer, he had held up the
competition. His throws were only good enough for third place. After
the points were tallied and announced, I searched for him on the
sidelines. “Too bad about the contest,” I said. “I heard you
were the favorite to win.”

He snatched off his slouch hat
and ran his fingers through his wavy gray hair. “Aw, hell,” he
said, “I’d have had a better chance if I could have found the
tomahawk I usually use. I searched high and low for it. Couldn’t
find it.” He slapped his hat across his knee.

“
Isn’t one ’hawk as good as
another?”

“
Mine’s special,” he said,
leaning his elbows on his knees. “I have my ’hawks made by a
blacksmith in town. The blade is weighted and shaped the way I want
it. I even have him tap some nail studs in a particular design at the
end of the handle. When I’m not using it in competition, I hang
leather fringe on the end of it.”

“
Don’t ’hawk handles break
easily?” I asked, drawing on the little information I’d gleaned
from other onlookers of the competition.

Marty fingered the ’hawk he’d
used that morning, stroking the wood. “Not mine. My handles are
made out of black walnut. I’ve had the same handle on that ’hawk
I lost for more than a year. I expected to have it for another year .
. . or even more than that.”

“
Well, I hope it shows up,” I
said, turning to leave. “Better luck next time.”

Eager
to take a break from the Rendezvous events, I decided to maneuver
towards the tribe’s encampment to “shoot a few Indians,” as
Eric had sarcastically suggested. One good thing . . . I hadn’t
seen anything of that menacing creep since our earlier confrontation.
Maybe the Rendezvous was big enough for both of us.

I strolled along a well-worn path
that cut through the woods surrounding the clearing and found it
enjoyably quiet, after all the Rendezvous activity. Birds were
singing in the chokecherry trees and I could hear the rippling river
somewhere to the left of me, making its way to the mighty
Mississippi.

As the pathway petered out, I
could see a couple of teepees that had been erected in a stand of
tall pines on a rise above the river. No one seemed to be around. I
searched for the sweat lodge, knowing it should be closer to the
river, but I couldn’t locate it. Since sweating ceremonies are
considered sacred, Indians never consented to being photographed
while in a lodge. I felt my excitement rise. Maybe, if I hurried, I
could take a few pictures while no one was about.

I found a narrow, rocky path that
led directly to the river and followed it through the brush. In less
than a minute, the lodge emerged in a clearing only a few yards ahead
of me. It was little more than a dome-shaped hut made of hides draped
over a willow-branch frame. The door was merely a flap of deer hide.
The lodge would accommodate only four or five adults, who would sit
around a pile of rocks in the center. During a “sweat ritual,”
they heated the rocks white-hot, then poured cold water on them to
create very hot steam. Depending upon the ceremony, participants
burned bunches of sweet grass, smoked or passed a “sacred pipe,”
talked, prayed, or pursued visions. After they had sweated long
enough, they headed for a dip in the river while rubbing themselves
with sage.

No smoke was rising above the
lodge. I figured the ashes must have been left to burn out after the
previous evening’s ceremonies. I hurried to the structure and
peeled back the hide from the opening to peek inside. Because the
hides formulating the lodge were made of thick hides, the sunlight
couldn’t penetrate them. It was rather dark inside, but I noticed a
few wadded-up blankets near the fire pit. I paused to adjust the lens
on my camera and then pointed it at what I hoped would make an
interesting picture. The flash went off, illuminating the scene for
only an instant. That’s all it took. A second of illumination. I
jumped back, trembling, and smothered a scream with the back of my
hand.
It . . . it’s not a pile of blankets,
I thought.
It’s
a . . . a man!

I backed up and swung my head in
every direction to examine my surroundings. Not a single leaf on any
tree stirred. I saw no one. It was unbelievably quiet. I shivered,
knowing I was utterly alone.
What should I do?
Maybe my
imagination has gone wild.
Slowly, I turned to take another look.
God, no!
I thought.
It . . . can’t be.

But it was. The man by the fire
pit was Eric Hartfield. A very dead Eric Hartfield. And a familiar
weapon was buried deep into the base of his skull.

I had a sick feeling I’d found
Marty’s missing tomahawk.

Chapter
2