Two Medicine (50 page)

“You’ve been so different
the past few weeks… I should have figured it out,” I said. “I was
blinded by Alia’s dying.”

“Jake didn’t kill her,”
Ronnie said. “He actually seemed pissed off about it, and Clayton
was just as angry as anyone. But,” he said, “she
was
involved in the
business, Will. She was running money up to Canada for Jake and
Clayton, and bringing back some small-time deliveries. She had quit
it though, after she met you. That’s what had Jake so pissed off at
you; I think he was in love with her.”

“Why didn’t she tell me any of that?” I
wondered out loud.

“Who knows?” Ronnie said.
“She didn’t want to scare you away, probably. She had just gotten
to know you, probably the first good guy she had ever met who
wasn’t Browning trash. Didn’t want to ruin it.”

Ronnie took a deep breath.
“It feels good to get this all out, Will, even if I do go to jail
for the rest of my life.” He offered the mountains a weak
smile.

“When Jake had his knife
to my throat, he said to ask you why,” I said.

Ronnie frowned, “I think
he was going to try to pin your murder on me.” He shook his head at
spit at the porch floor, “He’s seriously mental, Will, and I didn’t
know what to do. I didn’t know who to tell. I was thinking of just
splitting a couple of nights ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He shook his head.
“Something kept me.”

“Well I don’t think you’re
going to jail.” I said.

“Come on man,” Ronnie
looked at me, smirking grimly. “I know the sentences for possession
with intent to deliver; money laundering; attempted murder if Jake
decides to lie about me to the cops. Twenty years
mandatory
, easily, even
in this wild place.”

I then told Ronnie about
how I had only filed a complaint against Jake for the assault and
how I had just hinted to the cops about my suspicions about the
drugs. “That’s all I had,” I said, “Suspicions, in the end. But I
never mentioned your name; and I don’t think anyone else will
either.”

“Why not?” Ronnie
asked.

“Because Jake’s not going
to tie you into some story that will just shed more light on his
dealings with the Canadian drug people, across national borders and
state lines. And Clayton, if he is arrested at all, won’t be either
for the same reasons. They have nothing to gain by ratting you out,
and you’d do them more harm than good if they dragged you into
it.”

Ronnie nodded slowly but
didn’t look too convinced. “Jake’s not too bright, but we’ll just
have to see. He’ll probably rat out the Canadian gang, with their
big shipment coming in soon. That’ll be interesting... seeing what
they do to that poor bastard.”

He looked back at me. “So you going to be
okay, no major damage?”

“I’ll live.”

“That’s good. So, the big
questions is still out there… who do you think killed
Alia?”

I looked out past the
trees and over the surface of the lake; a couple of hawks as they
soared low over the water and then flapped heavily up to the top of
a pine tree hanging over the surface. I watched them perch there
and imagined the view they had with their keen eye sight, watching
me watch them.

“You might never know,” I
said.

Ronnie shook his head
again and turned to go back inside. I looked up at him, squinting
at the bright sky behind his face. As he passed he paused and
reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Well it was good
knowing you, Chiefy.”

I stayed on
the porch a while and thought hard about my course
of action. Keeping the truth from Greg seemed right to me, to
protect the right people, but remembering Greg’s fervor in trying
to solve a real case, finally a real case for the Khaki Kops, and
the heat he got for it, after years of unsatisfying work and
unhappiness, I felt sorry for him. Maybe I will tell him, I thought
–
I just don’t know if he’ll have to do
something about it.

I thought about Officer
Olsterman too, but I had no loyalties to him and no qualms feeding
him just enough to get rid of Jake. I wondered who Alia would want
to know about who killed her…
Clayton
maybe... Sky too.

As I thought it over more,
I felt strongly that she would want some to know, and some not.
Some to mourn and others to forget. And as for Larry being charged
with murder… well… I smiled to myself: she very well might have
wanted him chained up like a beast… But, no, probably she’d have
pity even on him, like I did, pity for a brutish fool, blundering
around and knocking things over.

Pity especially if she had
seen Larry show an intimacy and vulnerability that convinced me his
guilt should remain a secret. If he wanted to turn himself in, that
was his business; but I wasn’t going to add to the fallout of what
he did by destroying his and Phyllis’ lives.

I got up slowly from my
chair, which had grown a bit painful to sit in, and stood at the
railing, my face lit up in warmth from the sun that now reached
over the mountains, basking the back of the store in a bright
glow.

I took my bag of meds and
walked through the kitchen, climbing up the stairs and walking into
my room. I tossed the meds on my bed and then stopped to look
around, and I knew it was for the last time. I had decided – almost
instantaneously when I walked into that room – that I couldn’t now
just resume life in the store like nothing had happened. I couldn’t
face Larry the same way again, not without everyone else knowing
what I knew. It all just felt… over. Finished.

Also, in the back of my
mind, I felt like it was just possible that some sort of
retaliation may be heading my way for what I just told the BIA; and
I didn’t want anyone in the store put in danger. I decided I would
ask to crash with Greg for a few days, while I figured out what to
do, where to go. Nobody would know I was there. And if he couldn’t
have me there, well… I would figure something out.

I would also have to
figure out a new job, I reasoned as I sat on the bed, something to
keep me in Montana, keep me near this place I felt attached to, yet
so apart from. I longed to live here in those simpler times of
early summer, with the sunny hiking trails awaiting and the
glistening lake resting nearby. I had saved a little money from the
store job, not having anything to spend my pay on, so I would be
okay for a while.

As I looked over the room,
the bed, old chest of drawers, the bats on the ceiling, the
tattered area rug over hard wood floorboards, the now-familiar wood
grain patterns in the door, the big window that stayed open all the
time, I knew that I would very much miss that simple little
room.

Forty-One

I sat quietly for a while,
looking around at the four walls that had been part of my home for
months. I wouldn’t miss the rest of the store, not really – just my
room. I knew the place so well, the ceiling with its nails sticking
out, the old smell of the varnish on the walls, the bush outside
the window. It saddened me to leave it.

I smoothed out some
wrinkles in the covers beside me. So many thoughts and events had
passed over my sleeping body on that small bed. Alia had lain with
me there and left me there.

I stood up and went down
the hall to Katie’s room. I could hear Ronnie taking a shower in
the bathroom. I knocked on Katie’s door and she answered with wet
hair and a towel on. She looked so fresh and beautiful, hair all
tossed around wet and dark. Her jaw fell open and I forget what I
must look like, and I scolded myself for giving her such a shock
with no warning.

“
Katie, I’m fine,” I said,
reaching out and holding her hand. “Sorry about that.”

She put her other hand up
to my cheek and felt one of the big bumps on my forehead, which had
now taken on a bluish hue.

“
What the heck happened,
Will?” she asked with a horrified expression. “You
okay?”

“
Yea, Katie, I’m fine –
believe me. But I need to talk to you for a sec.”

She nodded distractedly
and led me into her room and sat me on her bed with care, and then
went around kicking some clothes strewn about under the bed to tidy
up. She had decorated her room much more than Ronnie or I had, I
noticed again, and had made it a separate home, distinct, personal,
private. Photos, art, flowers in small vases and candles placed
here and there. I felt like I was visiting another house altogether
– intruding into someone’s home.

“
I’m moving out today,” I
said.

She gaped again at me and
then said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa….” holding up her hand to stop me from
speaking further. “Back up mister. First, what the hell happened to
your face?”

“
I got
in a fight at the Blackfoot powwow,” I
said
. “Technically honest” was
still honest
,
after all.

“
With who?” She folded her
arms and stared down at me.

“
Some of the
Indians.”

“
Why?”

“
They didn’t like that I
was there.”

Standing in front of me
like a principal moralizing a student, she shook her head, “This
was about Alia wasn’t it? Whoever did that to you may have done
that to her… did you think of that?”

“
It did actually,” I said
flatly.

She huffed, rolling her
eyes.

“
I filed a police report
against them,” I said, “so I’ll let the BIA take it from
there.”

She eyed me with a new
suspicion. “You seem awful
calm
about all this.”

“
It’s
the meds,” I said simply.
Still
technically true.

“
Listen, Katie,” I patted
the bed beside me, “listen to me for a little bit, okay?” She sat
down after hesitating a moment, wanting to interrogate me more. She
sat carefully, folding the towel under her. She brushed her wet
hair aside and looked at me doubtfully.

“
This did have something
to do with Alia,” I said, “but not in the way you think. I found
out that she was killed by a hit-and-run driver, not by some of the
people I originally expected – she was killed by someone I never
expected. But this someone, Katie, he’s suffered enough, and I’m
going to let it go.”

She looked at me stunned for a moment; her
eyes searching mine for more information.

“
You know who it is, but
you aren’t going to tell the police?” she asked in
shock.

I nodded my head.

“
But after all that…” she
said, shaking her head.

“
I’ve forgiven him,” I
said, watching her eyes.

After a moment, I
continued, “But after the fight I was in, I learned that there is a
lot of stuff going on in Browning that I need to avoid, for now.
So, I’m going to lay low for a bit.”

“
So
you’re going into hiding from
them
?”

“
No… it’s not like that,”
I said. “I just can’t go back to living here like before, not now,
not after last night.”

She still looked at me
doubtfully, with a woman’s intuition telling her that she wasn’t
getting anything near the whole story.

“
I’ll still drop by and
see you before the summer is over, Katie; but I just wanted to see
especially you and tell you goodbye.” I got up from the couch with
a wince, and she saw it. She stared at me with a hard, cold
expression now on her face.

“
So you’re just going to
take off and leave me?” she asked icily. “Just like
that?”

I pulled her up to stand in
front of me and I looked her in the eyes and said,
“
Listen
to me. I’m
really glad you came back to this place, Katie, and that you worked
here this summer. You are an incredible girl that I love getting to
know, and I feel as close to you as anyone here. I want to keep
being your friend and I really don’t ever want to stop. Is that ok
with you?” I asked.

Her doubtful frown finally
broke and tears welled up in her eyes. She swallowed, and then
laughed with embarrassment. She wiped the tears away with the heels
of her hands like she always did, and then hugged me tightly, and I
didn’t make a sound despite the pain that wracked my body when she
did so. It felt good to feel that pain.

Katie made me promise to
go to church with her one more time before the summer was out, and
told me to call her that night to let her know where I was and that
I was safe.

I packed everything
in just a few minutes. All I left was the
tattered
Heart of Darkness
copy by the bed on the nightstand, which I had
never gotten a chance to read.

I went and told Ronnie I
was leaving, and he didn’t even seem surprised. He offered to drive
me over to Greg’s, but I knew that he was booked to work the front
register and was already late, so I’d have to wait until his lunch
break if he was going to take me.

I knew Larry and the rest
could handle the store without me, now that the summer was winding
down and the tourists and campers were dwindling in number. But
closing the store down on the last day of the season was a major
chore I knew – packing up everything for the winter – cleaning the
place from top to bottom; and I was sorry I was dumping that on the
rest of them.