Indian Killer (19 page)

J
OHN SMITH STOOD IN
the darkness outside the UW Anthropology Building and stared at Marie Polatkin through the classroom windows. She was arguing with the professor, a white man wearing a gray ponytail and turquoise bolo tie. He also had a large bandage on his forehead, though John had no idea that the professor had injured himself by running into a low basement ceiling. John didn’t know Dr. Clarence Mather, but he’d seen many other white men in Seattle who dressed that way. Those white men thought long hair and turquoise were rebellious, but John knew that, for white men, long hair and turquoise were simply another kind of military uniform. John wondered if Marie understood that. Perhaps she was telling the professor how she felt about his ponytail and turquoise bolo tie. Of course, John couldn’t hear anything Marie was saying, but he could tell she was angry. She sat up straight in her seat, her finger jabbing the air as she made some point, one hand running nervously through her long, black hair. John thought she was beautiful.

After the class was over, as John followed Marie through the dark campus, he’d been surprised to learn that she was following the professor. She was good. She used trees and statues as cover, slipped into shadows and blind spots, stepped quietly across cement and gravel walkways. She was so good that John had lost sight of her a few times and, only by following the professor himself had he picked her back up again.

Dr. Mather, completely unaware of both Marie and John, walked to the faculty parking lot. A few cars were still left in the lot, which was faintly illuminated by two rows of streetlights. Mather set his briefcase on top of his car and began a methodical search for his keys, shoving his hands into every pocket. Marie crept so close to the professor that John was left breathless by her daring. She was just ten feet away from the professor when another white man called out. Marie disappeared behind a car as Mather turned toward the voice.

“Dr. Mather!” said the white man as he approached. “Dr. Mather, it’s me. It’s Dr. Faulkner.”

Mather recognized Faulkner, the chair of the Anthropology Department.

“Good evening, Dr. Faulkner. How are you?”

“Fine, fine. How was your class?”

“Well, I’m having trouble with a student. An Indian student, actually. She is very disruptive.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What’s her name?”

“Marie Polatkin.”

“Polatkin? Polatkin? Why is that name familiar?”

“She’s a cousin of Reggie Polatkin. You remember him, of course. He assaulted me in the Student Union Building.”

“Of course. My God, Dr. Mather! You don’t think there’s some sort of conspiracy going on, do you?”

“No, no. Marie is a very bright girl, just confused. I’m sure things will work out. I mean, things are very tense in the class since David Rogers disappeared.”

“He was your student?”

“And since that other man was scalped, my white students have been reluctant to express their opinions. Marie seems to be taking advantage of their fear.”

“Listen, would you like to go for a drink? Perhaps we can discuss this.”

“That would be fine.”

Mather and Faulkner climbed into separate cars and drove out of the parking lot toward the same destination. John watched the cars pull away and wondered what Marie had thought of the white men’s conversation. John stood at the edge of the parking lot and looked for Marie, but she had disappeared.

W
ALKING DOWN THE BURKE-GILMAN
Trail, Arthur Two Leaf thought about the evening chemistry class he’d just left. He was a carbon-based life-form. The chemistry professor, Dr. McMinn, was a carbon-based life-form. The plants on either side of the trail were carbon-based life-forms.

“We are all made of essentially the same DNA, the same genetic material,” Dr. McMinn had said. “In fact, women and men share about ninety-nine percent of the same genetic material.” She’d then looked at Arthur, who had a wild crush on the white professor. “And people of different races, such as Native Americans and European-Americans, also share about ninety-nine percent.”

That might be true, Arthur had thought, but that one percent makes all the difference.

He was still thinking of Dr. McMinn’s blue eyes, and speculating about her genetics, when three masked men stepped from the brush beside the trail. One man, wearing a white mask, was holding a baseball bat.

“Hey, prairie nigger,” said white mask. “What the fuck you doing on our trail?”

Arthur suddenly understood the flight instinct. And he also understood how a deer could stare into the headlights of an approaching car and be unable to move.

“I don’t want any trouble,” said Arthur.

“You don’t want any trouble?” asked white mask.

“No,” said Arthur, his voice breaking.

“Oh, now, listen to him squeal,” said white mask.

“Yeah, like a pig,” said blue mask.

Purple mask was silent.

“Are you an Indian pig?” asked white mask.

“Whatever you say, man,” said Arthur.

“Whatever I say?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Well, Indian pig, I say this,” said white mask as he punched the bat into Arthur’s belly. Dazed, Arthur staggered and fell to the ground. As he fell, he could see the baseball bat in white mask’s hands. Expecting a beating, Arthur reflexively curled into a fetal ball to protect himself. He wondered if he was going to die.

W
ILSON’S STUDIO APARTMENT WAS
small but tidy. It was in an old building just east of downtown. He had lived in it forever even though he knew he could have moved into a larger place. He felt safe in this one. He liked his couch that folded out into a bed, the coffee table where he took many of his meals, the big-screen television filling up an entire wall, the clock radio, the chest of drawers with a black-and-white photograph of his birth parents set on top, the small desk with matching chair. His typewriter sat on his desk, along with a cup of pencils, some correcting fluid, and copies of his two published books. His kitchen was tucked into a corner: tiny refrigerator, stove, and sink. He had two plates, two settings of silverware, one cup, and one glass. Small stereo. A simple life, to be sure, but it was good camouflage from the monsters.

Wilson thought about the Indian Killer. A white man scalped, a white man disappeared, a white boy kidnapped. It was Biblical, David versus Goliath. But Wilson was disturbed by that. He wondered if a real Indian was capable of such violence. He knew about real Indians. He’d read the books, had spent long hours meditating, listening to the voices from the past. From the confusing and complicated cornucopia of tribal influences that made up Wilson’s idea of ceremony came burned sage and tobacco, a medicine pouch worn beneath his clothes, and a turquoise ring on his right hand. While beating the drum he’d ordered from a catalog, Wilson played Southern and Northern style, often within the same song. Some nights, Wilson would slip into the traditional dance outfit he’d bought at a downtown pawn shop, drop a powwow tape into the stereo, and two-step across the floor for hours. He dreamed of being the best traditional dancer in the world. Wilson saw himself inside a bright spotlight in a huge arena while thousands of Indians cheered for him. Real Indians.

Wilson sat down at the typewriter, cracked his knuckles, typed the first word, and leaned back in his chair. He cleared his throat, decided he was thirsty, and wondered if he had any milk left. He drank gallons of one-percent.

He stood up, walked over to his refrigerator, opened it, and discovered it was nearly empty. A pizza box, jar of mustard, and unidentifiable lunch meat. Opening the refrigerator had made him hungry, an automatic response, so he grabbed his apartment keys and went for some dinner at Big Heart’s Soda and Juice Bar on Aurora and 110th. In light traffic, Big Heart’s was at least a twenty-minute drive from his Capitol Hill apartment, but Wilson never minded the effort because Big Heart’s was an Indian bar, meaning that Indians frequented the place, although a white man owned it. Wilson spent a lot of time at Big Heart’s. The bar was a huge multilevel circus. On the main floor, a twenty-seat bar, a jukebox, and a dozen tables. Two pool tables on the lower level, a dance floor and bandstand on the upper floor. Three or four hundred Indians shoved into the place on a busy weekend night.

Despite all of the time he spent in Big Heart’s, Wilson had never come to understand the social lives of Indians. He did not know that, in the Indian world, there is not much social difference between a rich Indian and a poor one. Generally speaking, Indian is Indian. A few who gain wealth and power as lawyers, businessmen, artists, or doctors may marry white people and keep only white friends, but generally Indians of different classes interact freely with one another. Most unemployed or working poor, some with good jobs and steady incomes, but all mixing together. Wilson also did not realize how tribal distinctions were much more important than economic ones. The rich and poor Spokanes may hang out together, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Spokanes are friendly with the Lakota or Navajo or any other tribe. The Sioux still distrust the Crow because they served as scouts for Custer. Hardly anybody likes the Pawnee. Most important, though, Wilson did not understand that the white people who pretend to be Indian are gently teased, ignored, plainly ridiculed, or beaten, depending on their degree of whiteness.

“Hey, there,” said Mick, the bartender, who was also the owner, as Wilson took a seat facing him. “What’ll you have? A hamburger and fries, a glass of milk, right?”

“I’ve been wondering,” Wilson said to Mick after the food arrived. “How come so many Indians come here?”

Mick shrugged his shoulders.

“How long they been coming here?”

Mick looked around the bar. A few Indians were playing pool, a big Indian guy in a dirty raincoat was sitting quietly at the other end of the bar from Wilson, and one couple was slow dancing to a bad song on the jukebox. It was still early on a weeknight. Mick breathed in deep, tilted his head in thought, made clicking sounds with his tongue, counting that way.

“I guess it must be about five, six years now,” said Mick. “A few Indians just showed up one night, you know, like they were scouts or something. Then there were a few more the next night. A couple weeks later and the whole place was Indian. You know, for a while, I used to have a lot of white customers, too, but the Indians drove them away. You’re about the only white guy left.”

Mick had always referred to Wilson as a fellow white guy. And that had always bothered Wilson, who was so proud of his Indian blood. He had told all of the Indians who would listen about Red Fox, his Indian ancestor. Wilson had not told them that he was a writer, though everybody knew anyway. He thought he was anonymous in this place, picking up bits of stray information for his novels, but Wilson wrongly assumed that the Indians who went to Big Heart’s did not read any books, let alone his books. In blissful ignorance, he figured he fit in fine, though the Skins in Big Heart’s knew that he was just another white guy trying to become Indian by hanging out in an Indian bar. Wilson thought he was charming, but he had just become an expected feature of Big Heart’s, a cheap sort of entertainment, and all the Indians called him Casper the Friendly Ghost.

“Hey, Mick,” said Wilson. “Have you ever had any serious trouble around here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, have there been any killings, anything like that?”

“No way. Lot of fights, I guess, but nobody’s been killed. Why you ask?”

“Just curious.”

Mick nodded his head, then turned to wash a few glasses. There were only a few, just busy work, but he liked to stay on top of things. Mick had once come across one of Wilson’s books and was surprised to see his face on the back cover. Mick was even more surprised when he read the book. It was pretty good, although Mick was kind of tired of hearing about Indians. Still, Mick thought, Aristotle Little Hawk was a good Indian, even if he was just some character in a book. He wished more Indians like Little Hawk hung out in the bar. He knew Wilson claimed he had some Indian blood, said so inside the book. But Mick did not buy that shit. Mick’s great-grandmother was a little bit Indian, but that did not make him Indian. Besides, who the hell would want to be Indian when you could just as easily be white?

“I run a pretty tight ship here,” Mick said to Wilson. “You can’t let these people get anything started. You have to cut it off at the bud.”

Wilson nodded his head and filled his mouth with fries. Mick was always complaining about Indians. Wilson thought it ironic, since Mick depended on Indians for business. If all of the Indians abandoned Big Heart’s, Mick would go under in a few months. Big Heart’s would become a ghost town. Once an Indian bar, always an Indian bar, and the white people would never come back.

Three Indian men in their early twenties walked into Big Heart’s then, laughing and carrying on, having a good time. Wilson recognized them. One was Harley Tate, the Colville with the mashed nose who couldn’t hear or talk. Another was Ty Williams, a chubby, light-skinned Coeur d’Alene. The third was Reggie Polatkin, the Spokane Indian with the startling blue eyes.

“Hey, Casper!” Reggie shouted to Jack Wilson. “How’s it hanging?”

“Down to my knee,” Wilson said, the expected response. He had learned some things in the bar.

“Hey,” said Reggie. “Buy us a pop.”

“Sure,” said Wilson. “Three Pepsis, Mick.”

“Jeez, you dumb-ass white guy,” Reggie said, shaking his head. “Don’t you ever get it right? The Colvilles drink Pepsi, but we Spokanes only drink Coke. And those damn Coeur d’Alenes drink 7UP, enit?”

“Never had it,” said Ty, the Coeur d’Alene. “Never will.”

“Well, then,” Reggie said. “What do Coeur d’Alenes drink?”

“Blood,” said Ty.

“Hey, Mick,” said Wilson. “Make that one Pepsi, one Coke, and a tomato juice.”

Reggie and his friends laughed.

“Good one, Casper, good one. Come sit with us.”

Wilson received very few invitations to sit with the Indians in Big Heart’s, so he jumped at the chance.