Indian Killer (40 page)

“What is it?” Wilson asked John. “What do you want?”

John stepped in front of Wilson. They stared at each other. John finally understood that Wilson was responsible for all that had gone wrong.

“You’re the one,” John said.

“What?”

“You’re the one who’s responsible.”

“For what?”

John reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. A thin blade. John didn’t know if the blade would even cut Wilson. But if it worked, Wilson would bleed out all of his Indian blood, a few drops scattering in the cold wind. Then the rest of his blood, the white blood, would come in great bursts, one for each heartbeat, until there were no more heartbeats. John’s former co-workers would find the body when they stepped from the elevator. The foreman’s face would grow even more pale when he saw Wilson tied to the wall. The building would be haunted forever then. The foreman would finish the last skyscraper in the city and move on to his government job. He would be working on a freeway exit in the Cascade Mountains when he saw his first ghost. He would see Wilson, impossibly pale and bloodstained, walking down the freeway, his thumb out in hopes of a ride. Or John could cut Wilson’s throat and then carry his body back down to the ground. He could drop his body into the cement mixer and fire the mixer up. He could bury Wilson in the foundation and nobody would ever find him. John knew that every building in Seattle contained the bones of fallen workers. Every building was a tomb. John pressed the dull knife hard against Wilson’s throat.

“What is it?” Wilson asked. “What do you want from me?”

R
EGGIE POLATKIN WALKED DOWN
the country highway. A hundred miles from Seattle, a thousand miles away, maybe more, maybe less. The sky was cloudy. It could have been night or day. Fields on either side of the road, though the crop was indiscernible. A cold breeze. Dead skunk smell saturated the air. So isolated. Reggie was startled when the car suddenly pulled up. A red truck, smelling of exhaust and farm animals. Reggie leaned into the open passenger window and saw the driver, an elderly white man. Gray hair, gray eyes, blue overalls. Chewing-tobacco stains on his large teeth. The old man smiled when he spoke.

“Hey, do you need a ride?” asked the old man.

Reggie nodded, climbed into the truck. He looked at the smiling farmer.

“Where you headed?” asked the old man.

“I’m running,” said Reggie.

“I figured that.”

“You ever hear of Captain Jack?”

“Can’t say that I have. Was he a Navy guy?”

“Oh, no. He was a Modoc Indian. His real name was Kintpuash.”

“Are you Modoc?”

“Nah, I’m Spokane. Little tribe that didn’t do much fighting.”

“Was Captain Jack a fighter?”

“Oh, yeah. He led about two hundred Modocs from a reservation in Oregon and set up camp in northern California, where they were supposed to be. Modocs aren’t Oregon Indians. They’re California Indians. Yeah, old Captain Jack had about eight warriors and the rest were women and children. Anyways, the Cavalry came after Jack. Captain Jack ran from them and hid in these lava beds, you know? Great hiding places. Miles and miles of tunnels and mazes. Captain Jack and his people fought off the Cavalry for months, man.

“Man, there was this one Modoc named Scarface Charlie who attacked a patrol of sixty-three soldiers and killed twenty-five of them. All by himself. You hear me? All by himself.”

“He must have been quite the fighter.”

“He was, he was. But they couldn’t fight forever, I guess. They gave up. Captain Jack surrendered. I mean, he had all those women and children to worry about. So, Captain Jack surrendered and they hung him. They hung him, cut off his head, and shipped it off to the Smithsonian.”

“The Smithsonian Museum?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? They displayed Jack’s head like it was Judy Garland’s red shoes or something. Like it was Archie Bunker’s chair.”

“That’s a terrible story.”

“Yeah, isn’t it? And I’ll tell you what. Captain Jack should never have surrendered. He should’ve kept fighting. He should’ve kept running and hiding. He could’ve done that forever.”

“Is that why you’re running, son?”

“That’s right, old man, I’m not Captain Jack.”

“So, where you running to?”

Reggie pointed up the highway, pointed north or south, east or west, pointed toward a new city, though he knew every city was a city of white men.

“W
HAT IS IT?” WILSON
asked. “What do you want from me?”

“Please,” John whispered. “Let me, let us have our own pain.”

With a right hand made strong by years of construction work, with a blade that was much stronger than it looked, John slashed Wilson’s face, from just above his right eye, down through the eye and cheekbone, past the shelf of the chin, and a few inches down the neck. Blood, bread.

“No matter where you go,” John said to a screaming Wilson, “people will know you by that mark. They’ll know what you did.”

John touched Wilson’s face with his left hand and then looked at the blood on his fingertips.

“You’re not innocent,” whispered John.

John dropped the knife, turned away from Wilson, quickly walked to the edge of the building, and looked down at the streets far below. He was not afraid of falling. John stepped off the last skyscraper in Seattle.

John fell. Falling in the dark, John Smith thought, was different from falling in the sunlight. It took more time to fall forty floors in the dark. John’s fall was slow and precise, often stalled in midair, as if some wind had risen from the ground to counteract the force of gravity. He had time to count the floors of the office tower across the street, ten, fifteen, thirty, forty. Time enough to look up and find the one bright window in a tower of dark glass across the street. A figure backlit in the window. Time enough to raise his arms above his head, his feet pointing down toward the street, falling that way. The figure moved in the window above him. He had time to wonder if the figure was dancing. Or shaking with fear. Or laughter. Or tears. He had time enough to watch the figure grow smaller as he fell. Falling, fallen, will fall, has fallen, fell. Falling. Because he finally and completely understood the voices in his head. Because he knew the heat and music left his body when he marked Wilson. John was calm. He was falling.

He was still watching the shadow in the fortieth-floor window when he hit the pavement. It was quiet at first. His eyes were closed, must have closed on impact. He listened to the silence, felt a heavy pressure in his spine, and opened his eyes. He was facedown on the pavement. Pushing himself up, he felt a tearing inside. He stood above the body embedded in the pavement, small fissures snaking away from the arms and legs. The body in blue jeans, red plaid shirt, brown work boots, long, black hair. A fine dust floating. An anonymous siren in the distance, on its way somewhere else. He looked up at the building across the street. The window on the fortieth floor was dark. He knelt down and touched the body embedded in the pavement. Still warm. He pulled the wallet from the body’s blue jeans, found the photograph inside, and recognized the faces. He read the clipping about Father Duncan’s disappearance. He pulled the cash out of the wallet, let the wind take it from his fingers, watched it float away. The streetlights flashed red, flashed red. He tucked the photograph and clipping inside the wallet, slid it back into the pocket of the fallen man. John looked down at himself and saw he was naked. Brown skin. Muscles tensed in anticipation of the long walk ahead of him. He studied the other body as it sank deeper into the pavement. John stood, stepped over that body, and strode into the desert. Dark now, the desert was a different place. Colder and safer. An Indian father was out there beyond the horizon. And maybe an Indian mother with a scar on her belly from a Cesarean birth. She could know John’s real name. John wanted to find them both. He took one step, another, and then he was gone.

“M
S. POLATKIN, MARIE, CAN
you tell us something about John Smith?”

“He wasn’t the Indian Killer.”

“Why do you keep insisting on this? We have the murder weapon, we have Jack Wilson’s sworn testimony. John Smith was the Indian Killer. Case closed.”

“Jack Wilson is a liar.”

“Have you seen Wilson’s face? He looks like a car wreck. I hardly think he deserves to be called a liar. Have you even read his book about all of this?”

“No.”

“You should. It’s a very interesting portrait of John Smith. You’d like it. Wilson says that Indian children shouldn’t be adopted by white parents. He says that those kids commit suicide way too often. You ask me, John’s suicide was a good thing.”

“Wilson doesn’t know shit about Indians.”

“Have you read Dr. Mather’s book?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Really? You’re in it, you know? And it’s not too flattering, I must say.”

“So what.”

“Mather thinks your cousin Reggie is the Indian Killer. He thinks you might have been a part of it, too.”

“I hardly knew Reggie. And if I’d been a part of it, Mather wouldn’t have enough fingers left to write a book.”

“Are you threatening Dr. Mather?”

“No, I’m speaking metaphorically.”

“Did you have anything to do with the killings?”

“No.”

“Did you have anything to do with Reggie’s assault of Robert Harris?”

“No.”

“Do you know where Reggie is?”

“No.”

“Do you know Harley Tate or Ty Williams?”

“No.”

“Do you know where Harley Tate is?”

“No.”

“Besides Wilson, you were the last one to see John Smith alive.”

“Yeah. So?”

“What did you two talk about? Did you make plans for the future?”

“We didn’t talk much at all. We were busy fighting off those white assholes.”

“Barry Church and Aaron Rogers?”

“Yeah, why aren’t you hassling them?”

“Barry and Aaron have their own troubles.”

“Yeah, what did they get? Six months in county jail?”

“Weren’t you in a class with Aaron’s brother? The one who disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“Aaron Rogers has indicated that you and David had a romantic relationship.”

“That’s a lie.”

“My, my, Marie. Is every white man a liar?”

“Every one so far.”

“So, what was the nature of your relationship with David Rogers?”

“We were in a class together. I talked to him a couple of times. He asked me out. I turned him down. He disappeared. They found his body. That’s my relationship with David Rogers.”

“I see. And did you know about the camas field on the Rogers’s farm? Did you know about their land dispute with the Spokane Tribe?”

“The Spokanes have land disputes with most everybody. And no, I didn’t know about David and the camas field.”

“Did John Smith kill David Rogers?”

“No.”

“How would you know that?”

“John Smith didn’t kill anybody.”

“Did you kill David Rogers?”

“No way.”

“Did you and John Smith have a romantic relationship?”

“No. Listen to me. John Smith was screwed up. He was hurting. He didn’t know up from down. He got screwed at birth. He had no chance. I don’t care how nice his white parents were. John was dead from the start. And now you’re killing him all over again. Can’t you just leave him alone?”

“John Smith is all alone now. And he won’t be hurting anybody ever again. It’s all over.”

“John never hurt anybody. And this isn’t over.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I just know.”

“What else do you know?”

“I know that John Smith didn’t kill anybody except himself. And if some Indian is killing white guys, then it’s a credit to us that it took over five hundred years for it to happen. And there’s more.”

“Yes?”

“Indians are dancing now, and I don’t think they’re going to stop.”

A
FULL MOON. A
cemetery on an Indian reservation. On this reservation or that reservation. Any reservation, a particular reservation. The killer wears a carved wooden mask. Cedar, or pine, or maple. The killer sits alone on a grave. The headstone is gray, its inscription illegible. There are many graves, rows of graves, rows of rows. The killer is softly singing a new song that sounds exactly like an old one. As the killer sings, an owl silently lands on a tree branch nearby. The owl shakes its feathers clean. It listens. The killer continues to sing, and another owl perches beside the first. Birds of prey, birds of prayer. The killer sings louder now, then stands. The killer’s mouth is dry, tastes of blood and sweat. The killer carries a pack filled with a change of clothes, a few books, dozens of owl feathers, a scrapbook, and two bloody scalps in a plastic bag. Beneath the killer’s jacket, the beautiful knife, with three turquoise gems inlaid in the handle, sits comfortably in its homemade sheath. The killer has no money, but feels no thirst or hunger. The killer finds bread and blood in other ways. The killer spins in circles and, with each revolution, another owl floats in from the darkness and takes its place in the tree. Dark blossom after dark blossom. The killer sings and dances for hours, days. Other Indians arrive and quickly learn the song. A dozen Indians, then hundreds, and more, all learning the same song, the exact dance. The killer dances and will not tire. The killer knows this dance is over five hundred years old. The killer believes in all masks, in this wooden mask. The killer gazes skyward and screeches. With this mask, with this mystery, the killer can dance forever. The killer plans on dancing forever. The killer never falls. The moon never falls. The tree grows heavy with owls.

W
ITH THANKS TO DONNA
Brook, Dick Lourie, Alice Ducey, Morgan Entrekin, and Nancy Stauffer. I would also like to thank the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund for their valuable support.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.