Alice set the pot down and joined them. The odds are not good for them. Of the seventeen remaining from the original hundred, thirteen will commit suicide.”
Pearl argued, “That’s not as high as eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds who are white, but it’s but second highest by race.”
Alice said, “The point is, unfortunately, that the number is growing each year.”
“Tragic,” Streeter said, shaking his head.
Alice lowered her head and lifted the napkin from her lap, delicately dabbing her mouth. “Our son did such a great job bringing awareness to our people. These statistics may sound startling. But they don’t even cover the violent crimes that go unreported.”
“I never understood why folks didn’t report crime. I ran into that so often when I worked the reservation,” Streeter said.
“Repercussions,” Fred said.
Pearl nodded. “Many of our people will report the crimes against them, which are perpetrated by strangers or people of another race. And many more will never report those crimes committed by their own family members or loved ones. So many people on the rez are afraid of the repercussions—like Floyd Tice, Todd Long Soldiers, Julie Good Run.”
“Do you ever just want to throw your hands up? Surrender?” Streeter asked, as he acknowledged his own feelings on the situation and how they had changed as he had aged. He felt profound weariness, like he wasn’t effecting change as he should.
“It’s hard to say,” Ray answered with a sigh. “Our people must realize that it does not help to cover for those who are evil, just because we have the same blood or the same color skin. We will be unable to rise above the atrocities until we do.”
Pearl said, “A woman where I work part-time, at the Red Cloud Indian School, did not show up for work for a few days last spring. Some of us became concerned and went looking for her. Her husband said he did not know where she was.”
Streeter remembered just such stories from when he was an agent in Rapid City. And he knew her story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“We found her not far from her house. She was naked in a field bleeding from numerous lacerations. But she was still alive. She had been lying there for four days and three nights.”
Streeter realized accepting the SSRA job in Rapid City would be tortuous for him. And he offered up a silent prayer that Liv wouldn’t quit her job at the bureau over the transfer to DC and wouldn’t move back to Rapid City—because he would most certainly follow if she did. He realized he’d made a big mistake by forcing her to go.
Pearl continued the story of her coworker. “Her husband and she had gotten into an argument over the last donut in the box. He slashed her with a carpet knife, over and over again, and left her in the field to die. We took her to the hospital, and she is fine now, but she refused to press charges against him. She said it was nothing, just a few small cuts she got at home.”
Fred finished for Pearl, “Before she had even been released from the hospital, she called the school to say her husband would be by to pick up her paycheck and asked if they could please release it to him.”
Pearl nodded. “The school could do nothing to stop it from happening. The tribal police did everything they could, but the woman was unwilling to press charges against him. He’s in prison, thank God, even though she tried to stop them. The US and tribal attorneys did their jobs and convicted him on an evidence-based prosecution with her egregious injuries and doctors’ testimony.”
Streeter lowered his gaze, knowing what they were saying was all too true.
Ray added solemnly, “It hasn’t changed, Streeter, since you left. Some will always believe they are helping by protecting their own.”
Fred said, “That only compounds the problem. Hechitu yedo.”
Streeter knew that meant “That’s the way it is.”
Ray jabbed Fred. “Sounds like you’re jumping on a pity pod, brother.”
“Maka. Nothing more degrading.”
“Did he just call you a skunk?” Streeter asked Ray. Ray and Fred elbowed one another. “About Jeff. He chose the reservation life for what reason then?”
Alice jumped in to explain. “To help. So many people, including our own, do not know the American Indian life. The reservation is not representative of the Indian culture. Our culture is about work, offering our gifts—our skills and talents—to the community. Celebrating life.”
Pearl added, “I’ve lived there my whole life. But I have never mistaken the reservation as somehow the very essence of who we are.”
Ray said, “We were rounded up like cattle and herded onto the reservations in 1894.”
“Actually, 1830.”
“Ah, you’re right, brother. The Indian Removal Act. But President Andrew Jackson only focused on removing those of our brothers in the south and relocated them west to Oklahoma. He hadn’t turned his focus on us in the west. That was later.”
“There was no gold yet. Then the Indian Nation really started to shrink,” Fred added. “From six to ten million of our people to only a quarter million after the turn of the century. The 1800s were riddled with devastating government policies designed to eliminate us.”
“Be fair, brother. Not all of that was the US government. Much of our people’s loss was from disease and malnutrition,” Ray countered.
“Because of the movement west. The settlers brought with them disease and germs, decimating our food sources.”
Ray batted a hand at Fred. “We can argue later. We can agree that reservations were created in 1830 to separate us from the white man.”
“Not separate—remove us from the white man,” Fred muttered. “It was called the Removal Act.”
Ray continued, “President Jackson designed this new way of living—new homes, new communities.”
Fred scoffed. “Jackson’s design was seriously flawed from the get-go. Our ‘new’ lives isolated us from the rest of the country. That was not our way of life.”
Ray said, “Some Indians in Rapid City feel guilty for never having experienced the reservation life. As if it is honorable or culturally stimulating. It is neither.”
Streeter recalled a quote from a US senator with the Whig Party against Jackson in 1830 that the proposed act’s “evil was enormous, the inevitable suffering incalculable.” It was one of the only quotes he remembered from his time on the reservation twenty years ago, because he had witnessed the suffering firsthand.
Edwards? Everett?
Something like that. He couldn’t remember the senator’s name. But his prophecy had been correct.
Alice circled back to Streeter’s question. “These two get a bit too preachy sometimes. But let me try to answer your question, Streeter. My boy lived here—in Rapid City. But he chose to work on the reservation at the high school because he wanted those kids to think for themselves. To earn for themselves. To become self-reliant. He wanted to teach those kids that the true American Indian heritage lies in the traditions and stories shared by our elders with our young—just like in any culture or in anyone’s heritage.”
Streeter nodded. “And he must have done well and touched many lives, evidenced by all those who attended the Mass today.”
Pearl added, “And many more who attended the meal.”
Streeter thought about Logan Two Bears and wondered how many other kids were too frightened to attend. Perhaps when the drums started beating, they finally came.
Ray explained, “I told Jeff when he decided to go back that there is no honor or intrinsic value in living on a reservation, any more so than for those of us who do not. The honor is in becoming the best individuals we can be. In contributing something during our lifetime that otherwise may not be contributed—”
His words were cut short by his own grief that was sudden and violent.
Everyone lowered their eyes and pretended not to see him cry. Streeter reached out and grabbed his hand. He held tight and ignored nothing.
Ray composed himself and laid his hand over h
is heart. “Jeff knew that the intrinsic value of life is in realizing that this is where the magic of our people—of any people—begins. And ends.”
Alice lifted her gaze to her husband, moved closer to him, and held his hand with both of hers. For the first time, she didn’t stuff her left hand in her dress pocket or place it in her lap under the table. Her pinky finger was bandaged tightly with thick layers of gauze.
Streeter drew in a deep breath.
When Alice noticed him watching her, she slid her hand back in her lap and offered Streeter a thin smile and an answer to his unasked question: “Tradition—like so many other things we taught our son: how he believed that life was to be celebrated; how adding value to life began with that first job; sharing your skills and talents with others; experiencing the joy and pride of earning that paycheck as teenagers or young adults.”
Pearl exchanged a glance with Fred. “He tried to caution everyone on the reservation to become less dependent on the government programs and more willing to share his or her talents with the rest of the community. And I heard he used me as an example. Can you believe it? Me? A nobody.”
Alice said, “You are not a nobody. Jeff would say, ‘Like Aunt Pearl says, use their own wings and find their own worms before it’s too late and their wings become weak and useless.’”
Pearl sobbed, covering her face in her hands.
Streeter had been moved by their stories of the young man’s passion and vision. “I can see why he chose the profession of teaching. I have learned so much tonight—from him through you. Those kids at Pine Ridge High School were lucky to have him.”
Ray grinned. “Thank you. He believed strongly in our country, in the Lakota people, and particularly in our youth.”
Fred replied, “Such woksape for a young one.”
Pearl and Alice nodded.
Streeter asked, “What’s woksape?”
Ray, the proud father, beamed and said, “Wisdom.”
STREETER TOOK A LONG drink from his tepid coffee and said, “The drugs. What’s your theory?”
Ray and Fred started with their tag team talking.
“I think it has something to do with what happened to Floyd Tice last month,” Fred said.
Streeter’s ears perked, and he tried not to react overtly. Roger had said he’d been working on the case for several weeks. And Norma Chasing Dog believed all the beatings and murders were tied with one another, too.
Then Ray offered, “He was beat up pretty bad.”
Fred said, “So he couldn’t testify against Marvin Perret on those child abuse charges.”
Ray said, “Floyd Tice is Monica’s uncle. Marvin is her dad.”
Roger had told Streeter that it took him forever to convince Floyd to do the right thing. Then he saw him at Cubby’s, and Floyd ignored him and pretended not to see the FBI agent.
Fred said, “His face needed stitches in several places. His eyes were purple and swollen when I saw him last week.”
“He refused to testify. Monica’s testimony was the only one offered during the trial.”
“But they got the conviction against Marvin.”
Ray said, “Somebody must have scared Tice off from testifying. They assumed that ‘the somebody’ was somehow related to or protecting Marvin Perret.”
“But many people had reason to beat Floyd.”
Streeter asked, “Why is that?”
Pearl continued, “Everyone on the reservation knows that Floyd Tice deals drugs and sells alcohol from his house just off the reservation boundary. No one likes thinking that somehow, sometimes, that stuff gets to our kids at the high school. But I know it does. I see it.”
Streeter asked, “Would he have something to do with Jeff’s death?”
They all hesitated. Fred shrugged.
“What does that mean? If he deals drugs, wouldn’t Jeff have gotten them from Floyd? Or is there someone else?”
None of them said a word. Streeter wondered why not. He wondered if he’d hit a stone wall. He stayed quiet until someone else spoke.
Ray sighed. “Perhaps Jeff simply lost the battle.”
“Hey, you know that’s not true. Jeff would have never given in to them,” Fred said with a shrug. “But Ray’s being humble. Most parents want to find someone to blame, because there could be no way their child was involved in something like this—illegal drugs. But so many of our children are. Particularly with meth. So who would believe you?”
Streeter said, “I do. You all know Jeff was not a drug user, and he did not voluntarily shoot that drug into his vein. It makes no sense.”
Ray shook his head. “No sense at all.”
His brown, doughy face was haggard and sagging. Beneath his thick black glasses, the intense sadness in his eyes was accented by his slanting, thick eyebrows, which were transfixed in a sorrowful peak. He held his mouth slightly agape.
Fred was wringing his large callused hands between his knees and leaning forward as he sat on the edge of the couch. Pearl stood quietly in the corner of their small living room with a rosary clasped tightly between her fidgeting fingers. She had removed her dentures the instant the meal had ended and was gnashing her gums nervously.
Alice busied herself with the dishes because she couldn’t bear to watch her husband implode. And Streeter imagined her severed finger hurt like the dickens. He moved beside Ray on the couch and held his hand. “Ray, listen to me: Jeff didn’t do this. He was too bright for that. And I’m going to prove it.”
Ray looked up hopefully into Streeter’s face. Pearl had stopped fidgeting with her beads. The clock on the mantle above the fireplace ticked loudly in the hopeful silence. Streeter glanced over at Fred who had folded his arms across his expansive middle and stood staring at him with one eyebrow raised.
With all of them fixated on him, Streeter explained, “This is at odds with everything I knew of Jeff. He was educated, focused, energetic, and filled with the kind of hope that can only come from being high on life; not high on drugs.”
Ray mumbled, “We know that.”
Pearl retreated to the kitchen and blew her nose with a loud, unapologetic honk.
Fred leaned back in his chair and laced the fingers of his hands defiantly across his chest.
“The toxicology report from Indian Health Services came back on the drugs in Jeff’s system indicating a cocktail,” Streeter explained. He refrained from adding that the forensic scientist had added, “Sleep tight, Two Bears” when she’d handed him and Roger the report. “The indication is that the cocktail was a combination of drugs used in doses large enough to basically knock the user out and then send them into a deep sleep almost instantly.”
The room fell silent.
Streeter added, “Within minutes the heart stops completely.”
“At least, he wasn’t in pain,” Ray announced. Alice wailed. Ray rose to his feet and embraced her.
Streeter stood, too, and raked his fingers through his thick, stubborn hair as he paced. Browsing through his memory, he reasoned, “I talked to one of his students today—Logan Walking Crow. The rumor is that everything is changing because of a preacher—from Denver. The kids are scared of him. They think he’s a freak. Does that ring a bell with any of you?”
All four of the Two Bears simply stared at him.
“Jeff never mentioned anyone quoting from the Bible? Someone violent?”
They all shook their heads.
Alice wiggled her way out from under Ray’s embrace and moved closer to Streeter, no longer hiding her bandaged hand. “Like what?”
“Something about plans. Not a plan to hurt you, but to profit,” Streeter loosely interpreted Norma Chasing Dog’s memory.
Ray asked, “Were those the exact words?”
Streeter shook his head. “More like harm, not hurt. And prosper, not profit. Something about the future.”
Alice grabbed her Bible, winced when she balanced the book on her left hand, and flipped through the pages with her right. “Sounds lik
e prophecy. Unfortunately, the words prosper and harm are used a lot in the Bible, so it really doesn’t help narrow anything down.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Streeter said, holding out little hope that Roger’s team could find anything with Norma’s lead either. “But I have to try. A woman was killed in her home—probably Sunday night.”
“The same day as Jeff?”
Streeter nodded. “But she wasn’t discovered dead until Tuesday.”
“Oh dear,” Alice said, covering her mouth with her fist.
“Who was she?” Ray asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“The woman who found Jeff.”
Pearl gasped. “Julie?”
Fred said, “Who?”
“Julie Good Run,” Pearl explained. “Leonard’s granddaughter.”
“No,” Fred said, cradling his head in his hands.
Ray said, “A good friend of Fred’s. Leonard Good Run.”
“I never knew.” Fred was mumbling. Pearl was trying to comfort him.
Streeter focused on Ray and Alice, who studied him intently. “She reported to the police that she’d seen a man leaving Jeff’s pickup. Then she found Jeff dead.”
Ray’s face brightened. “He was murdered.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. He didn’t overdose. He was injected. Killed. I can’t prove it—yet. But I have every intention of finding out who did this to him.”
Alice rushed to Ray’s side and hugged him. They both wept.
“The girl. She was injected, too?”
Streeter shook his head and cut a glance toward Pearl and Fred. Quietly he answered, “He cut her throat.”
“Barbaric,” Ray mumbled.
“Floyd Tice, Todd Long Soldiers, Julie Good Run, and Jeff. We think they’re all tied to this man, the preacher.”
“Why?” Ray asked, at first hopeful and now disgusted.
“Do you have any theories? Any of you? Based on what you’ve heard about the changes on the reservation lately? The rumors. The deaths and beatings.”
“The organization.” Pearl said the words but stared directly at Fred.
Fred mumbled, “Sungmanitu.”
Jeremiah’s Revenge Page 21