Jeremiah’s Revenge

by Sandra Brannan

Then, to Coyote Cries’s further amazement, Long Soldiers capitalized on the opportunity when the small crowd had gathered around. “Look, I thought she might want to try some of the best shit out there. I’ve got some free samples. Considering her brother loves this shit, and he’s such a good friend of mine and all, I just thought maybe she’d want some, too.”

  The other kids listened intently. They were curious. It was a perfect opportunity to make new friends, to offer some bait for those who had always wanted to get their hands on something new. He had managed to name drop by mentioning what Coyote Cries imagined to be the most popular guy at Pine Ridge High School as one of his customers. Smart move.

  Infuriated, Larry jabbed the jagged bottle in the air in front of Long Soldiers. “That’s not true. Logan doesn’t use your shit anymore. He’s clean, just like everybody else here.”

  No one moved or disputed the twig.

  He spun on his heels to face the others. “Don’t forget what Mr. Two Bears said. We matter. We can beat this, if we stand together.”

  Who the hell is Mr. Two Bears? One of the old brothers? The Jesus freaks who imposed themselves on me when I was a kid? Pretending to be father figures to those of us without one? Pretending to care? What the hell do they have to do with these kids?

  Coyote Cries had to find out, because at the mention of his name, the other kids turned their attention to the twig.

  Facing Long Soldiers, the twig said, “We’re not going to buy anymore, Long Soldiers. Find a new place to peddle. Get out of here.”

  Long Soldiers chuckled and scanned the faces in the small crowd to measure their acceptance of Standing Bull’s ideas. The crowd remained passive. Coyote Cries frowned.

  “Take it easy, little man. People are buying my shit here tonight. I’ve sold at least two cases of beer and a few odds and ends on top of that. People need me here, Larry. Maybe you don’t. And maybe even little Edith doesn’t. But others do. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  Long Soldiers wrapped his long, spindly arm around Edith Walking Crow’s neck. “I’m happy to leave Edith alone when she tells me to. Understand, pussy boy?”

  Edith stared at Larry with bewilderment and sheer terror. Larry asked, “Edith? What do you want?”

  Coyote Cries raised an eyebrow, curious to see who would win this little battle.

  The girl finally opened her mouth—just barely. “I want to go with you.”

  She scrambled free of Long Soldiers’s embrace.

  He shrugged. “No problem. Just means more for me to enjoy, unless anyone wants to join me? World’s greatest highs?”

  The murmurs of the crowd rose as the high school teens encircled Todd Long Soldiers. Larry grabbed Edith’s pudgy hand and led her back into the dark recesses of the night. Coyote Cries gave his employee a passing grade, even though he had lost two potential users.

  Within the hour, Long Soldiers responded to Coyote Cries’s text and met him behind the abandoned warehouse in Whiteclay. Long Soldiers’s sweat was pouring off his forehead in the cool night. He was nervous.

  “Toníktuha he?” His fingers trembled as he shoved a thick wad of money toward Coyote Cries.

  Coyote Cries said nothing. He just nodded.

  They stood in the shadows of the abandoned building. Long Soldiers fidgeted and occasionally kicked an empty bottle or pop can with the toe of his boot.

  “I didn’t know you were out. Alcott never told us.”

  Coyote Cries stared at him. “How’s business?”

  “I haven’t been able to convince anyone to use either the heroin or the sample Quaaludes. They want meth. I told Alcott that. We all have. The older ones are still interested in this shit—the ones who graduated from high school a few years before Jeff Two Bears came to the reservation to teach.”

  “Jeff Two Bears?” Not the old codgers, Ray and Fred.

  “He’s a problem.”

  Coyote Cries’s eyes narrowed.

  “I’d convinced a few of the students at the Catholic high school to buy some heroin. And one of the Holy Rosary students even tried a Quaalude. They’re Two Bears’s students. But I’ve had to offer more freebies.” He nodded at the wad of cash Coyote Cries was holding. “That’s why it’s so light.”

  Coyote Cries said nothing and thought about the situation.

  Long Soldiers glanced at the wall of the brick building and paced.

  Coyote Cries leveled his stare at him and scanned the wall with his peripheral vision.

  The bricks had been spattered with spray paint in a multitude of colorful messages adorning the backside of the abandoned warehouse. One message that caught Coyote Cries’s eye read Jesus Lives painted in bright blue beneath the crude sketch of a sorrowful Jesus Christ. The crude drawing depicted Jesus with his arms outstretched to the viewer, his comforting hands open for an embrace.

  “You look so old,” Long Soldiers said.

  Coyote Cries resisted a smile and stuffed the money into his pocket. “It’s been twenty years.” He pulled a bag from the other pocket and handed it to Long Soldiers. “Kiddies will love these.”

  Long Soldiers studied the bag, held it close to his face, and kissed the bag. “Meth. Thank God. I couldn’t get him to listen to me. But you did. How’d you convince him?”

  “Convince him?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Alcott, the boss,” Long Soldiers said, stuffing the bag in his jacket pocket.

  Coyote Cries’s fingers snatched his collar with lightning speed, like a cat pouncing on its prey. Long Soldiers clawed at Coyote Cries’s hand and Coyote Cries demanded, “What’s happening? At Pine Ridge High?”

  Long Soldiers gasped, “They won’t touch any of this shit. They tell me where to go. They say they don’t need it. They’ve got plans for themselves. I don’t know what’s gotten into them. I tried, Jeremiah. Really, I did.”

  Coyote Cries asked, “Skimming?”

  “I would never do that. Alcott would kill me.”

  He tightened his grip and lifted the large man off the ground with one hand. “Alcott’s not the boss anymore. I am. And you’re already dead.”

  Long Soldiers’s eyes widened. Panic overtook him, and he wet his pants. “No, please. Let go. I’m telling you the truth. Two Bears has brainwashed the little shits into thinking they’re hot shit. They’re really messed up. I practically gave this shit away, and I’m dog meat to them. They wouldn’t touch it.”

  Coyote Cries grumbled. “You know the rules. Whatever it takes to get those kids hooked. You should have been willing to pay them to take it, you idiot.”

  “But Jeremiah, I tried. I did everything I could. Alcott didn’t want me giving out cash to—”

  Coyote Cries lifted one finger on his free hand to his tight lips and mocked a hushing motion like a father to a child in church. Todd Long Soldiers stopped struggling. A slash of a smile appeared on Coyote Cries’s hard face, and he snatched the blue bandana off Long Soldiers’s forehead. He dropped him to the ground, gagged him with the bandana, and felt his wiry body quake.

  Long Soldiers’s face appeared as sorrowful as the crude Jesus painted on the warehouse wall. Coyote Cries leaned down, smelled the fear pouring off his clammy skin, and said, “Alcott is dead. And he was never the boss.”

  Coyote Cries slipped the belt from Long Soldiers’s jeans and beat him until he stopped screaming.

  And moving.

  COYOTE CRIES NOTICED the man entering the front doors of the Indian Health Services.

  The bald man in a brown suit was definitely not BIA. He was likely FBI. But not Streeter Pierce, as he’d expected. Maybe Pierce didn’t know about his escape yet and still hadn’t figured out the letter about the parole hearing delay was a fake.

  If he had, he’d be here. This meant Coyote Cries had more time for his plan. He wouldn’t be so rushed, and that was good. He set his coffee cup down, unfolded himself from the lobby armchair, and followed the suit.

  He made sure to stay far enough behind the guy, so he wouldn’t no
tice he was being followed. He went right, down the hall, then left, and into the second door on the right. He was definitely a fibbie, a coworker of Pierce’s.

  Coyote Cries walked past the ICU room and tucked himself into the next alcove to listen.

  Thick layers bandaged Long Soldiers’s head. Drainage, feeding, and oxygen tubes emerged from various orifices covered by the multiple sheets of gauze. Both hands and wrists were in casts, and dressings covered several areas on the patient’s upper torso and arms. He couldn’t see Long Soldiers from the alcove, but he’d already checked. He had been in the room earlier when the nurses weren’t paying attention.

  The methodical wheezing and pumping of the machines and the steady beep of the monitors were the only sounds in the quiet hospital room. He hoped they wouldn’t drown out the conversation.

  He ducked behind the wall when a tall nurse shuffled toward the door to document vitals and make a periodic check on the patient. The two would talk even if Long Soldiers couldn’t. He’d find out what they knew.

  The nurse had the body of a football player yet was graceful in her movements. Her skin was dark and leathery, but he imagined her touch was gentle, which aroused him. He heard her introduce herself as Norma Chasing Dog. He was FBI Special Agent Roger Landers. He could hear just fine from his hiding place.

  “His name is Todd Long Soldiers. He’s forty-six. A resident. Unmarried.”

  Her voice had no inflection, but it sounded familiar.

  The agent asked, “Who brought him in?”

  “Someone dropped him off at the emergency entrance but didn’t even stay to check him in. That was early this morning, just after two. It wasn’t my shift.”

  “What do you know, Norma?”

  “I think he was brought in by some kids who were out drinking last night. My boy told me he had heard some other boys talking about their trip to the strip joints in Chadron. When they returned, one of them had to pee. They had stopped at Whiteclay behind one of the buildings and found Long Soldiers.”

  Coyote Cries heard the young nurse walking down the hall before he saw her. When he did, she was studying a clipboard and hadn’t noticed him.

  He listened and wondered what he’d missed.

  The nurse said, “It took awhile to figure out who this guy was. He didn’t have any identification. Luckily, one of our custodians recognized his boots and the blue bandana gagging his mouth. CCG. Long Soldiers was notorious for his dingo boots.”

  Coyote Cries didn’t understand CCG.

  “Blood alcohol?”

  “Nothing. He was completely clean. He’s not a user; he’s a supplier.”

  A long pause followed before the agent said, “Found at Whiteclay—so I suspect he was bootlegging or peddling. Do you think he was beat up by someone who didn’t like what he sold them? Or by someone who didn’t like his profession?”

  “Hell, yes. Any or all of the above. But that sure as hell won’t be the story he tells if this guy ever comes out of it. Whoever beat the snot out of him used a metal pipe or brass knuckles or something. He had some serious damage to his head and face. It looks like Long Soldiers tried to protect himself and broke lots of bones in his hands and both forearms in the process.”

  The agent asked, “Will he live?”

  Coyote Cries didn’t hear the nurse’s answer. She either nodded or shook her head.

  “Head injuries?”

  The nurse answered, “Not so bad that he’s a vegetable. But he’s messed up. He’s been unconscious the entire time. He’s stable, and the swelling is going down. He’ll come out of it.”

  “What’s the doctor saying?”

  “They don’t know anything. Doctors stationed here lately have been a bunch of white kids who couldn’t afford to put themselves through medical school. So they promise to ‘do their time’ on the reservation in exchange for financial help from the government. Chalk it up to another failed program implemented to assuage centuries of white guilt.”

  Coyote Cries suppressed a grin. He was more attracted to Norma than ever.

  “Who do you think did this to Long Soldiers?”

  “I heard Long Soldiers was trolling at the Pine Ridge High party last night. One of his marks was the young Walking Crow girl. Her older brother, Logan, is one tough little shit. Maybe he was teaching Long Soldiers a lesson.”

  Coyote Cries was pleased to hear Norma throw out a reasonable suspect to cover for him.

  “The truth. You don’t believe it was Logan Walking Crow. Do you?”

  Coyote Cries strained to hear her answer. He wanted an excuse to pay her a visit.

  “Who do you think did this, Norma?”

  “I could be killed for telling you.” He heard Norma’s heavy sigh. “What the hell. I’m going to die someday anyway. Todd Long Soldiers is rumored to not only be one of the bootleggers for alcohol on the reservation. He’s also one of the drug dealers. So is Floyd Tice.”

  “The guy that got the crap beat out of him a few weeks ago?”

  “These guys are with CCG.”

  “Coyote Cries gang?” the suit asked.

  Coyote Cries hadn’t heard that his team had been labeled CCG. It was a great tribute to him. He was a legend. That was another reason Long Soldiers deserved the beating—for not telling him.

  Norma explained, “A bunch of lowlifes work for the scum from Colorado—the asshole who took his place when Jeremiah went to prison. He pretends to know our people, but really all he’s doing is draping himself in Jeremiah’s reputation. He’s like a fancy dancer under a coyote pelt. One greedy bastard and unoriginal too.”

  Coyote Cries vowed to find out who this woman was. Somehow, she thought like he did. She felt his pain and knew his very core.

  “A name? Have you heard?”

  “Guy named Alcott. Dan or Dave. A white guy.”

  “We’re on him,” the suit said.

  And so was Coyote Cries.

  He’d been “on him” within an hour of his escape. He had called him from Alcott’s Denver mansion after he’d retrieved everything he’d instructed Webber to leave there for him and after he’d confirmed that his men had indeed taken care of that traitor, Vic. They had—although in the most unoriginal fashion.

  And a good thing they had. Because the hit was so unoriginal, Alcott never suspected Coyote Cries was behind the murder—which was why he had parked his car in the garage and stomped inside to meet the released felon instead of speeding off in his Lamborghini like he should have done.

  Coyote Cries enjoyed every minute of his time with Alcott—listening to him bargain for his life and promise him the world if he let him live; seeing his expression when he quoted Jeremiah 12:6: “For even thy brethren has dealt treacherously with thee. Believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee”—and watching him die as he choked on the wad of money he had stolen from him.

  Coyote Cries grinned.

  Glancing down the hall in both directions, he retreated quickly to the exit. He’d heard enough. There was plenty of time to exact his revenge on everyone who’d betrayed him.

  And a little left over to visit Nurse Norma.

  Jeremiah Coyote Cries stood between some parked cars outside the construction area waiting for Jeff Two Bears to take his late afternoon break. He’d learned through his sources that Two Bears had been moonlighting as a flooring hand on weekends with the new construction at the high school.

  He was leaning against an old pickup truck with Pennington County plates. He knew that Jeff Two Bears was from Rapid City and probably hadn’t had time yet to change out his plates. But he had no idea what Two Bears looked like. He’d known the man’s dad years ago, but he doubted that would help.

  Someone had given him a general description and told him that the Two Bears were a wacipi family—a family that not only celebrated but taught others their culture by traveling to powwows around the country and advocating clean living. They believed in no violence, no alcohol, and no drugs—which meant no tolerance fo
r him.

  Old man Two Bears had tried to convince the Catholic grade school to accept Coyote Cries when he was ten. He had pleaded his own case, since there was no one else around to do it for him. He had begged them to have mercy on him, considering he’d been beat to near death by his stepfather the year before. But they wouldn’t take him. Then in eighth grade, three years later, another old man Two Bears had caught him with a knife in his hand after slashing a teacher’s tires.

  But he hadn’t ratted him out. He had just told him to get his life turned around before it was too late and that he’d be watching him.

  He didn’t know which old man had fathered Jeff. But none of the Two Bears he knew would have any appreciation for his altruistic desire to exact revenge on the very people who had destroyed their culture in the first place. They were naïve. They equated forgiveness without consequence to weakness.

  He glanced over at the sun and waited.

  By twenty minutes to one, most of the cars in the construction yard and parking lot had been retrieved by the workers. Coyote Cries watched as two men approached the lot. Both men were Lakotans, both in their early to mid-twenties. That fit the general description.

  He studied their faces, but neither claimed the pickup. A third man emerged from the Pine Ridge High School. He was tall, slender, and had a confident gait and looked to be just over six feet tall with a face that gave him the look of a young boy. But the sureness in his steps was unmistakably that of a mature man.

  The man was running his long, slender fingers through his stylishly groomed hair, which sprang obediently back into place. Although he was alone, a wide, perfect smile sat upon his handsome face.

  Coyote Cries mumbled to himself. “A pretty boy. This will be easier than I thought.”

  He watched as Jeff Two Bears waved a friendly goodbye to the last of his fellow coworkers and approached the truck. He pulled up short when he saw Coyote Cries standing near the bed.

  Coyote Cries stepped away from the vehicle as Two Bears opened the door and crawled into his truck. Coyote Cries hurried to the driver’s side window when he saw the other two workers drive out of the lot.