THE TRICKSTER

by Muriel Gray

  Before he could react, she slipped a hand into his and looked up into his face, speaking in a tiny child’s voice that was both earnest and comical. “There’s still time, you know. They can wait for you.”

  He stared at her as if she was crazy, until her sister threw a snowball meant for her that exploded instead on Calvin’s shoulder.

  “Lorna!” The mother was furious. She put down her bags on the roof of her car and ran to where Calvin stood staring at her daughter.

  “I’m so sorry about that.” She grabbed the culprit by the arm and the smaller girl by the hand.

  “That was very stupid and very rude. Now say sorry to the gentleman, Lorna.”

  Lorna looked up at Calvin and back at her mother. Quickly she stood on tiptoe and kissed the Indian’s lined brown face. Her sister hesitated, looking deep into his eyes, then did the same. They broke loose from their mother’s grip and ran laughing to the car.

  The woman was bewildered but charmed. She looked at Calvin, who had remained fixed to the spot in a trance, and put her hands in her coat pockets with a shrug.

  “Kids.”

  He looked at her dumbly.

  “Are you OK?”

  Her face was full of concern and compassion. He nodded his head.

  She smiled at him like the sun breaking from behind a cloud. “Take care now.” She turned to join her daughters. They got in the car and drove away, skidding in the snow as the night swallowed them up.

  He stood like that for minutes, the circle of white from the snowball gradually crumbling from his jacket. He would have liked to pretend that it had been his imagination, but he knew it had been real. There was to be no escape, then. It must be done. He was part of it. His tears came unchecked then, and he stood and cried like a child. He cried for the love that was in those three strangers’ hearts, and for the hatred and evil that would one day seek to destroy them. And he cried that a weak and sick old man was the only thin and useless straw the Great Spirit would use against a force that could end him with a thought. But through his tears he knew he had been spoken to by something other than the child, and he wiped his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. He looked once at the wooden door of the bar with the blue neon Labatt’s sign glowing above it, then walked slowly along the street toward the woods and the hills.

  She swallowed her M&M and slapped the desk with her palm. “Jesus, Eric, this is the end.”

  The phone was off the hook to stop the reporters getting another chance to con a statement from them, and the television set on the office wall was full of the CNN guy, live outside the office complex, pronouncing doom on their ski company. Who was going to bring the family skiing to a resort where the kids got sliced up?

  Sindon sat in the strip-lit office, listening to the phones next door being answered by the cops in the outer office. Tired and hungry from the long, wretched day, he wished she would shut the fuck up and let them both go home. There was no more to be done. The police had asked them everything except their goddamn inside leg measurements and he’d had enough.

  Pasqual pushed the “mute” button on the remote and slammed the rectangle of black plastic onto the desk.

  “If it’s that fucking Indian the cops are so interested in, I tell you I’ll break his dirty neck with my own hands before they get him behind bars.”

  Eric thought that unlikely. He also couldn’t believe that Sam Hunt had anything to do with this horror. But the RCs had plainly thought otherwise. They had wanted to know everything. Sam had been with the company for years, and though he was only a groomer, Eric knew him and Katie pretty well. Sam a killer? No way.

  “You know Sam as well as I do. Don’t be crazy.”

  Of course she did. In fact she’d had the hots for him a few years ago until she realized she was drawing a blank. It had irked her bad. “It’s Indians, Eric. I told you they’re more trouble than they’re worth. How many we got now?”

  He sighed. “Three. We don’t have them, Pasqual. They’re not Mandingos, for Christ’s sake. Three Kinchuinicks work here. Sam Hunt, Endel LaBelle and Perry Nine Saddles.”

  “Shit. They deserve everything they get with dumb names like that. Perry fucking Nine Saddles.”

  “Perry sure doesn’t deserve what he’s got.”

  That was for sure. Big strong guy like Perry. Look at him now. The doctor thought he might have meningitis and they’d rushed him to Calgary. But it wasn’t that at all. The poor guy had been having horrible hallucinations about all sorts of weird shit. The shop staff found him screaming out back in the stockroom, drooling and pointing at something he thought he saw in the corner by the snowboards. They were doing tests, he still had a fever that was wringing him dry.

  She snorted, ignoring him. “Yeah, well, I think they’re all crazy enough to do anything. Moses said they’re trouble on any resort and I should have listened.”

  Moses? The way Pasqual spoke, he suspected she was on pretty chummy terms with their pale employee. Come to think of Mr. Moses, where was he? Eric didn’t recall seeing him in the canteen during the staff interrogations. In fact, he hadn’t seen him all day.

  “Did the cops speak to Sit—whatshisname?”

  She caught an edge in his voice. “Sure. Well, I’m sure they did. They spoke to everyone.”

  Suddenly Eric wanted home. He would have to fight a path through the waiting reporters, but that seemed preferable to sitting here listening to Missy Asshole. “Look, Pasqual, I’m bushed. I’m going home now.”

  “Great. Leave me. I’ll just run this crisis single-handed.”

  “There’s nothing you can do tonight. It’ll be worse tomorrow. You should get some sleep.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Eric. I’m going to make sure our Celebrity Ski goes ahead. I’m going to phone the agents that are still in business-hours time right now, and make sure their babies don’t pull out.”

  Eric was amused. She was mad. “Go ahead. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

  He left her in the office very much a child, and one that saw her toy being broken in front of her eyes.

  The darkness was soothing. With his eyes wide open like this it lapped around the edges of his vision like a thick black oil. Only the tiny red light on the radiator thermostat intruded into this velvety balm. Sleep was not happening for Sam. Beside him, Katie’s regular breathing told him that she had escaped into oblivion but he was far from such a release. Neither of them had known what to do after Katie’s question. They had sat unhappily in the kitchen trying to find a road out of this nightmare, and Katie had held his hand silently for an age, as though her touch could make it all go away.

  “You’re not well, Sam,” she’d said to him when she thought the silent contemplation was enough.

  He’d looked at her and nodded. “I know. But what does that not being well mean?”

  “It means we’ll find a way to make you better.”

  “That’s not my point.”

  “I know.”

  She’d let his hand go for a second and run her fingers through her hair. “Can I tell you something?”

  He’d blinked at her.

  “Do you think I would be sitting here at this table, with our two precious children slumbering upstairs in their beds, if I thought you were even capable of what’s going through your head right now?”

  He was unmoved.

  “Then why did you ask me?”

  “You looked like you wanted it said.”

  That was true. He thought he hadn’t, had prayed at the time that she wouldn’t ask him, but really he wanted someone to scream it, to break the big, thick silence of suspicion those cops had woven. She’d leaned forward again and taken both his hands into hers, his big hands that had rested like dead weights on the cheerful yellow Formica of that table—a scratched and ruined thing that had seen the Hunts laughing and feeding and joking around it for years. The table where Billy had taken his first solid food, dribbling the mashed carrot down his tiny pointed chin from a
gummy smile that would break your heart. Where Jess sat in her clip-on chair and offered her parents pulverized pieces of bread and butter from a chubby hand with squeals of delight. Now, just Sam and Katie, and a lump of horror that sat between them like stone.

  “Sam. Listen to me.”

  He’d listened, afraid of what she was going to say.

  “You’ve never killed anyone.”

  Then, although his face had remained rigid and blank, he’d screamed inside like he’d been waiting to scream all his life, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, but I have! My God, I know I have. It’s happening again. These ten years of happiness have just been a cruel trick. Dear God, let me die before it happens again.

  If Katie could have read the contents of his heart she would have recoiled. He knew it. But she could not. And instead, she got up and held him from behind, and they’d climbed the stairs and put out the lights and got into bed like everything was OK. Sex was out of the question. They’d both known it somehow, neither one wanting to make those first tender suggestive touches that would lead to the inevitable. But they’d held each other and Sam had held her even more tightly when the sudden jerking of her body meant she’d fallen asleep in his arms. And now he was here, alone in the dark, believing he’d been alone in the dark his whole life, his time with Katie and the kids a brief step into the light to which he had no right.

  If only he could know. He thought of the faces of McGee and Daniel. Daniel knew something more, Sam was sure of it. He’d seen the expression of disgust on his face when he’d looked at Sam and he had to know why. He was a straight guy, Daniel Hawk. Sam had liked him, though he hardly knew him. It was important not to know him.

  There were no Kinchuinicks on Sam and Katie’s long Christmas card list and that’s the way he wanted to keep it.

  Had to keep it. Maybe Daniel knew why. He gulped at that thought. Sam shifted his arm from Katie’s shoulder and waited to see if she would stir. She made a small noise as she exhaled, then settled back into her dreams.

  He could barely see her in this blackness but his heart filled with a passion for her as he touched the warm curve of her neck and smelled her hair.

  He swung his legs gently over the side of the bed and felt for his clothes on the chair. The buckle on his belt rattled, and he paused to see if it had woken her. No. He was safe. He massed the bundle of cloth in his arms and quietly slipped from the room to dress downstairs.

  In the hallway, Sam pulled on his jeans and the big turtleneck sweater that his hands had found in the dark. Some instinct told him not to turn on the light. He pulled back the curtain of the tiny window by the front door and looked into the street. The snow had stopped, leaving the houses and their yards under a picture-postcard mantle of glittering white magic, but the sky looked laden and ready for another storm. There was a car across the road, sitting in the shadows under the pines outside the Neasons’ house. Two figures sat in it.

  Cops. He let the curtain fall and leaned against the wall. So they weren’t sure it was him, but were suspicious enough not to let him out of their sight. A wave of panic swept over him. He padded softly into the dark kitchen and felt around at the door for his boots. The glowing clock on the microwave was reading twelve fifty-two.

  Getting the car away was going to be impossible. Of course, he could just let those guys follow him. He was only going to see Daniel Hawk, a man who might not be that pleased to have his family woken up at this time in the morning. But he had to see him. And he wanted to see him alone.

  He grabbed his jacket from the wooden peg and felt in the pockets. The spare keys to the company truck were there, and he knew where the truck was. It was two blocks away outside Marty’s place. As quietly as he could, he opened the kitchen door and slipped through. There was a low growl as Bart’s head raised from his paws, until he saw and smelled his master and remained lying as commanded by Sam’s insistent and frantic hand gestures.

  With ears erect and tongue panting in the freezing night air, Bart watched Sam creep through the yard and scale the wooden fence and kept watching until his master was completely out of sight. He put his head on his paws and gave a tiny whimper.

  As he hung up the phone, Hawk glimpsed McGee through the open door, moving about in his office with the gait of a man who is looking for something to do. He felt bad about knocking back the invite of a meal. His staff sergeant’s loneliness was so acute sometimes it was almost solid, pulling down Craig’s shoulders like a rucksack. But Daniel really needed to get home. If he didn’t get the plow on the front of his truck and shift the snow on the trail every morning, it’d close for sure.

  Tess had taken Larry down around lunchtime, and since she’d seen the news she was talking to him on the phone like Daniel was a child who couldn’t cross the road. Yes, he was OK, yes, he’d be careful, no, they didn’t know who it was, yes, he remembered the chicken in the foil wrapper needed eating before it started to rot.

  She had been very upset over Joe’s death. She still couldn’t talk about it without blubbering. Craig was right. They’d been buddies, all right, and Tess had liked Joe. Never got on with Estelle so much, but he thought that was on account of Estelle not being Indian. She was pretty hot on their roots, was Tess. She used to scold Joe for not speaking more Siouan or Cree. Maybe that’s what rubbed Estelle the wrong way.

  He shoveled his papers around the desk and undid the top button of his shirt. It was ten before midnight and the room was still buzzing. But Craig was right. The regular detachment guys were definitely B-team now. Seemed like the squad from Edmonton weren’t too impressed by the wipe-clean board and the colored markers, judging by the fact it was back to being white and blank. Daniel pushed back his chair, picked up his jacket and walked over to Craig’s door. He tapped his fingers lightly on the wood. “I’m outta here. Need me for anything?”

  Craig looked up from a file. Joe’s file. “Nope. On you go.”

  “Right. Bye.”

  “See ya.”

  From outside, the long melancholy horn of a freight train filled the valley. Daniel left and Craig watched him go, wondering why he trusted Hawk, a mere constable, more than the sergeant who’d stepped into Joe’s shoes since his death. Indian-struck. First Joe, now Daniel. People would start to talk soon. He smiled to himself, then stopped smiling when he resumed looking at the photos of Joe.

  This was a great drive in the summer. The road went all the way around the back of Silver and then started to climb up through the trees, before the dirt road for the Hawk place turned off to the right and climbed another half mile through the pines.

  In the winter it was still breathtaking, but it was a bastard to drive. Especially at night. Daniel was still about three miles from his driveway, and the snow had started again with a vengeance. He was just going to have to take it easy. He let his mind drift back to work as the snow came at him like bullets.

  Sam Hunt. Everything Craig had said at the briefing was true, but Daniel’s gut was yelling at him that Hunt had something to do with this. A lot to do with this. It was the Redhorn murder that was bugging him.

  He’d told Craig in truth that he hadn’t known Sam or his family, but how could he tell him that the Hunting Wolf family were so notorious you didn’t need to know them? Moses and Marlene Hunting Wolf. The scum you scraped off your boot after stepping on a carcass. There were so many rumors on a reservation, rumors about everything and everyone, but some of them had substance. And there had always been a rumor that Moses had bumped off his old man. Eden Hunting Wolf’s body had been found battered to death in his cabin with the clear marks all over his head and body from the handle of an ax. But as usual no one knew anything, no one saw anything, no one would say anything. The ashes in the stove told the story of where the murder weapon had gone. Moses Hunting Wolf’s drinking buddies all swore blind he was with them at a moonshine session over at the east end of the reservation and that was that. Never mind that those buddies all seemed to suddenly come into some spare drinking money for the n
ext month or so that no one remembered them winning at bingo.

  But Sam. The first time he’d met him at the Fox Line depot he couldn’t believe that Marlene and Moses could have spawned this good-looking, pleasant guy. The women used to talk about him. In fact as soon as Sam’s voice had changed Daniel recalled a hell of a lot of the women used to talk about him. Seems after Moses ran off to the city to pursue his drinking career, that priest guy and his wife took a shine to Sam. Used to take him skiing, that was all Daniel knew. Sam was crap in rodeo, they said, but he was a mean hockey player and took to skiing like he was meant for it. Weird thing for a Kinchuinick to do, though, and Daniel guessed that’s why everyone thought Sam Hunt was an apple. That, and changing his name, of course. Mind you, if Marlene and Moses had lived up to half of their reputation, Daniel figured he would have wanted that name buried too.

  An animal ran from the trees ahead. A coyote. Its eyes flashed in his headlights as it stood still, side-on to the oncoming vehicle, before it bounded into the cover on the other side of the track.

  Daniel loved being up here with all the animals and birds. He’d worried about Larry growing up off-reservation. For all the bad things about it, the space and the freedom were wonderful, and he would have grieved if his son couldn’t have grown up with the same love of nature that he’d always taken for granted. This was the compromise. White life in town. Kinchuinick life in the hills. Pretty damn good.