Yokche:The Nature of Murder

by P. J. Erickson

  “But its freezing in here.” Shanna was close to tears with fatigue and frustration and now she had to pee. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Across the other side of the camp site. I’ll take you on the bike to show you where they are.”

  Shanna stared at him about to rebel. Get on that bike again. Tonight? Her urge to pee won. They rode over to the restrooms in frosty silence. Tiredly, Shanna climbed off the bike again and dragged her sorry ass into the so-called ladies room. She stood inside the door, appalled. The smell caused a gag reflex from some distance and the floors were inches deep in water and slime. There was, of course, no paper, water or soap, but Shanna had been to appalling before and anyway, what choice was there?

  Chase drove her back to the cabin and left her there while he went to the camp office to buy some logs. He came back a little while later and set up a fire right outside the door of the cabin. The fire was warm and romantic and Shanna started to feel a little better.

  “Here. Drink this.” Chase handed her a shot of his Gentleman Jack. “That’ll warm your insides a bit, because nothing in there will. With no covers the cabin will be freezing later.”

  Shanna was past caring, she had had enough adventure for one day. She didn’t even care if the mysterious stalker was right there in the campgrounds with them somehow. She felt and looked like a drowned rat but remarkably, she realized, she was still having a good time.

  A group of bikers had a lit a fire not far from them and though Shanna had not taken much notice, she had picked up that they had been drinking steadily and were getting progressively rowdy. As they got louder, one of them started to comment in terms even Shanna had not heard, about her appearance. She moved slightly around the fire, so that she was directly facing Chase who had his back to them. The one with the vulgar mouth was apparently trying to incite the others to join in. Luckily, he was not generating much enthusiasm but apparently, just the presence of their numbers, together with what he had ingested, was sufficient to embolden this leather-clad lothario and he weaved drunkenly towards them carrying his bottle with him.

  Shanna tried to shrink into the ground. The man was big and ugly. He looked like a Hell’s Angel’s worst nightmare. He was bald and even his head was covered in tattoos. The grimy tank top he wore was obviously designed to advertise his massive muscles and great hairy chest. He looked like one mean and nasty piece of work.

  Earlier Chase had told her that the type of tattoos this man wore usually signified an ex con. Shanna tore her gaze away from the brute long enough to realize that Chase, who had gone deadly still, was not immune to this but was, in fact, fully aware of what was going on behind him. His body was coiled and tense and he was staring intently at something behind her.

 

 

  Thirty-seven

  Chase was staring at the mirror on his bike which was pulled up alongside the cabin and through which he had a perfect view of the action behind him. He had been watching it for some time, off and on, while he and Shanna were enjoying the fire and he had seen a ginger-haired guy in a leather trench coat lope into the circle of toughs with a couple of bottles. The stranger had been liberal with his booze while drinking little himself and he had done a lot of talking with furtive glances in their direction. It took several bottles to get the bald moose drunk enough to be mean. Chase had counted.

  Chase shifted his position slightly, still apparently oblivious to the events behind him and leaned towards Shanna. “Go into the cabin now and don’t come out till I tell you.” Chase watched as Shanna’s lightning mind went to work weighing the options. She would never instantly obey like a good biker chick, but she would decide so fast that you could hardly tell the difference.

  She nodded slightly and began to gather her purse as if casually deciding to turn in for the night. She wasn’t fast enough. She had barely got to her feet when a huge meaty paw engulfed her arm.

  “What’s the hurry doll? How about a drink?” The big oaf had her by the arm and scrutinized her insultingly, inch by slow inch. He turned to Chase with a drunken leer. “You don’t mind bro? The brothers and me, we left our old ladies home this time and we could sure use a little action.” He grinned wetly. “This split tail of yours is sure a sweet looking piece. Looks like she could suck a lot of dick with that mouth. C’mon babe, let’s you and me go get acquainted.” Baldy changed his grip to around Shanna’s shoulders and tried to hug her close enough for a sloppy kiss. Shanna, who had been wriggling wildly, if ineffectually, in that huge grasp, immediately pulled backwards and spit in his eye. She wasn’t yet fighting, waiting for a signal from Chase, but he could see that she wasn’t going to stand still for a mauling either.

  Fury engulfed Chase. He uncoiled in one swift, sinuous movement. He pulled Shanna violently free from Baldy and pushed her out of harm’s way. A quick glance told Chase that Shanna was heading into the cabin. He turned back, placing himself in Baldy’s face, nose to nose, yelling and screaming, jabbing his finger into the big guy’s fat gut and generally behaving like a maddened wasp buzzing round an elephant. The sting might be small, but there was plenty of it and it could still be deadly.

  Chase couldn’t have repeated whatever insults he was hurling at the big guy; he was busy trying to get the man’s measure. Big he knew, but was he all mouth? Was he fast, strong, mean? Chase was surprised at the depth of his rage when Baldy’s meaty paw touched Shanna but he also knew that this fight was a set up and that he was meant to get badly hurt, so he fought hard to keep his cool while seeming insane with rage.

  The drunk just gaped. He was bigger than most men and like most big men was obviously used to being treated with deference whenever he looked sideways at anyone. He didn’t seem to know what to make of this howling maniac and almost turned away and headed back to camp.

  Chase watched him think about it and out of the corner of his eye saw the guy in the leather trench coat position himself in Baldy’s view. This seemed to have the desired effect because Baldy let out a roar, dropped his bottle and charged towards Chase.

  The man seemed to sober up a little and Chase knew he would have his hands full. He had hoped Baldy was drunk enough to just fall down but still, he was lucky. Whoever set this fight up was not too smart. There were probably a hundred men in the camp who would have stuck a knife in Chase’s back without a second thought for just a few bucks. So maybe, this was only supposed to scare Chase away from something.

  On the other hand, if Baldy’s mates decided to join in, Chase would be dead and it appeared that someone over there really wanted Baldy’s mates to join in. These guys were from the meaner side of town and Chase could not expect anyone else to help even though they might draw a crowd.

  Chase saw Shanna watching from the cabin window and was grateful that he would not have to keep an eye on her while he was getting beaten to a pulp. He was no stranger to fighting. He had learnt to defend himself at the age of five in the streets of Brooklyn and had been improving on it ever since. He had found that his maniac act helped to disconcert the enemy, who was usually bigger and heavier, while working Chase up into the berserker mood he needed to compensate for being lighter. There would be no rules. Chase was a street fighter from way back. Anything that put the guy out of commission and quickly would be put to use. The only decision was what would work fastest. Chase had no weapons on him, though he could maybe use his belt buckle if he needed to.

  Baldy charged toward him at around two hundred and eighty pounds. Chase stood his ground watching that massive bulk pound toward him. At the last second, he ducked and sidestepped swinging neatly around. Still screaming at the top of his voice, grinning with demonic ferocity, Chase danced toward the bigger man and kicked him hard behind the knee. He heard something crack and grinned in sadistic satisfaction. “You asshole, your mother probably fights better than that. My woman can’t help you. You’ve got to have a dick in order to get it sucked.”

  Enraged, the man swung around as his le
g gave out and he fought for balance.

  Chase saw his opening and ran in while the man’s arms were flailing around. He rabbit punched him hard, aiming for the Adam’s apple. He missed, but only slightly. The blow was sufficient to set Baldy gasping and sputtering for breath. The ruckus had attracted some attention and a crowd of bikers followed them in a black leather circle, jeering and catcalling and goading Baldy to fury. Chase risked taking his attention away for a second to assess the situation. The crowd around them looked mostly harmless. Baldy’s buddies appeared to have no inclination to help him out and Shanna was keeping out of sight. It seemed that if he could get rid of this idiot, that would be the end of it.

  Baldy’s face turned purple and Chase swung his attention back to the matter at hand as Baldy coughed and spluttered and danced with pain, maddened, but unable to catch a breath. The crowd howled with glee. Forced to slow down, Baldy circled warily, keeping his distance while his breathing slowly returned to normal. Eventually, he straightened up slowly and approached Chase with considerably more caution, his eyes narrowed into slits of enraged concentration. He was a powerful man. Chase knew the oaf only needed to connect and he could break Chase in two. He didn’t intend that Baldy should ever connect. He danced out of reach continuing his epic monologue. “Cmn you motherfucker, big fucking hero, you ain’t nothing but a side of lard. Look at you. You got a belt under that belly? I know you ain’t got a dick. You want to fuck with me? C’mon fatso. Let’s go.”

  Chase ran in circles around Baldy and then danced in close and slapped him lightly several times in the face, all the while pantomiming for the crowd, in and out like a flea on a dog’s ass, keeping Baldy blundering around in ever faster circles chasing his own tail. The crowd roared. They were falling down laughing. Chase kept it up. He stopped at the far side of circle facing the crowd and shrugged his shoulders exaggeratedly. Although winded, Chase appeared to be breathing normally. He wanted to seem totally unaffected by his exertions, hoping the crowd would goad Baldy some more.

  They cheered and obliged. Chase shot them an exaggerated, look what this idiot’s doing look with a jerk of his thumb, then he turned around, arms folded across his chest and tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. “Hey, dickless, what’s keeping you? You want to fight or fart, let’s go here, you're boring everyone.”

  Baldy plodded towards Chase, head lowered, eyes fixed unwaveringly on his tormentor. He was sweating hard and grunting under his breath. He almost looked like he was going to paw his foot in the sand and twitch his tail.

  Chase switched tactics. He stalked towards Baldy taking his time, coldly furious and deadly as a great cat. The words spit out slowly grated against his rising rage. “You want my woman, you motherfucking sorry son of a bitch?” Chase laughed. It was short and ugly. “Look at you.” With a sneer, Chase spit out his next words softly and slowly but each as cold and deadly as a bullet. “I should kill you just for thinking about it.” Chase was quivering with rage; anyone within range would now be a target. “You ever even think about my woman again and I’ll slice you into little pieces you scumbag. I’ll kill you, you stupid motherfucker, cm’n get close enough. I’ll tear pieces out of that great belly of yours, bite by bite and then I’ll spill your guts out and stomp on them asshole, cmn, get over here.”

  He kept it up, voice ugly, eyes cold and flat, focused unwaveringly on his adversary. The crowd grew silent in response. Chase no longer noticed. He stared directly at Baldy’s eyes waiting for the red rage to rise in them that would signal an impulsive attack. Chase himself, although yelling was doing it with cold, calculated fury.

  An enterprising bookmaker in the crowd was busy taking bets but the crowd was made up of experienced fighters. There weren’t many takers. Chase took no notice. He saw and heard only Baldy. His life depended on it. At the split second that Chase saw Baldy start his charge, someone in the crowd stuck out a foot and tripped Chase, sending him sprawling towards the other man. Goddammit it. Caught unawares, Chase fell hard and awkwardly. He felt the wind pushed out of him and pain seared his left hip. He lifted his face, spitting out sand, shook his head and sucked in air in great gulps.

  With a delighted roar, Baldy dived forward in a belly flop intended to finish Chase off but Chase wasn’t there. Despite the pain, Chase curled up and rolled fast enough to be caught only a glancing blow. Even so, Baldy had landed on Chase’s bad leg and Chase bit his lip to keep from groaning. The pain was immediate, excruciating and crippling.

  Faster than he looked, Baldy scrabbled to his knees and aimed a massive fist at Chase’s head. Momentarily crippled and in agony, Chase could only turn to avoid the blow as best he could. He took the punch on his back just below the shoulder blade and felt like his shoulder was just shattered in a million pieces. He saw white light behind his eyes. The blow threw him forward. Eating sand again, Chase knew he would have to finish this fight fast. Baldy would cripple him in no time just by virtue of his size.

  On his hands and knees Chase shook his head, pretending to be dazed as he checked on Baldy’s whereabouts. The man was behind him. He had gotten up and grabbed a beer bottle from a bystander, which he promptly broke over the man’s head.

  What a moron. Only a fool would make a move like that. The bystander didn’t like being cracked on the head and liked losing his beer even less. Before Chase was on his feet a melee had started. Bottles were being broken, knives appeared here and there and the whole crowd was punching each other out in earnest.

  Still on his knees, Chase looked around for the leather duster. He was nowhere in sight so Chase eased carefully and painfully out of the kicking, punching, biting crowd of partying bikers, gleefully having at it and retreated to the cabin, limping painfully.

  Shanna let him in and bolted the door, then hugged him so hard he winced. Her eyes were huge and she was white as a sheet. While the fight, for the most part was a bunch of guys having a good time, there were some vicious thugs mixed in and the scene was probably truly terrifying to the uninitiated. Almost crying, Shanna was biting her lip, clearly terrified that he was badly hurt.

  Chase let Shanna help him as he limped over to the bed and sat down heavily massaging his leg. He was touched at her concern and thankful that the sudden turn of violence had shaken her. Chase knew he would get the full brunt of her anger later, but for the moment she could only make little mutterings of concern as she stripped off the remainder of his tee shirt and inspected the reddened area below his shoulder blade already darkening to purple. Chase flinched at the touch of her fingers. Feeling for himself, he found he had a few scratches and was breathing hard but seemed all right otherwise.

  Shanna turned her attention to the rest of him and started to tug at his boot. Chase grabbed her hand. “Don’t do that.”

  Shanna stopped tugging, startled. “But your leg needs attention.”

  “No, don’t touch it.” Chase tugged on his boot again and got up abruptly.

  “Chase. You are limping badly. That’s your bad leg. You could be bleeding, you could have done some major damage, don’t be stupid.”

  Chase turned on her, practically snarling, allowing Shanna a vision of the beast within. “Leave it, I said.”

  Shanna stared for a minute then snatched her things off the bed and sat down, her back to Chase, busying herself wiping mud off her boots. Her back was stiff.

  The noise outside started to move away as the fight started to wind down, its participants deciding it was more fun to get drunk, get laid or do some dope. Shanna peeked out the window watching until Chase joined her. Then she turned sharply away.

  Chase saw that Baldy was evidently having an argument with his campfire mates. Then he angrily picked up his jacket and stomped off in the direction of the pool hall.

  Chase spoke without turning around, “I don’t think we have to worry about anything anymore tonight but just to be sure, I’ll go reconnoiter. Lock the door behind me.” With that he left. An hour later he was satisfied t
hat whatever had been going on was now over. Leather duster was nowhere on the campsite and Baldy, busy playing pool, hadn’t even recognized him. Wearily, Chase headed back to the cabin. They slept, fully clothed, each keeping stiffly to their own side of the bed. The cold woke both of them at different times during the night and eventually it was dawn.

  Showered, Shanna went to a nearby hut and got a cup of coffee while Chase had his shower. When Chase pulled up with the bike a little while later she glowered at it and made no move to leave her coffee. Chase wasn’t in the mood to be charming. “Shanna get on the bike. You’ll never pass Biker Chick 101 that way.”

  “Thank god for that.” Shanna said witheringly. She stayed where she was just long enough to let him know she would not be bullied, then put on her helmet. “But at least my butt has established some kind of relationship with this thing, so maybe I’m not a total loss.”

  Chase couldn’t help the grin that escaped him. She was even cute when she was in a snit. He signaled with his thumb that it was time to put butt to bike again.

 

 

  Thirty-eight

  It was late afternoon and a mesmerizing orange and black sunset hit the horizon as Joe emerged from his chickee to gather with the other men for the ceremonial lighting of the new fire. Dressed in his finest, Joe was once more all Indian. He belonged here with his own people, not out in the white world. Unlike some of his brethren, Joe had never been able to merge his two worlds, and felt he had become two different people. He much preferred this world. Here there was no need to be wary, on guard and suspicious. There was no racism here. For those that belonged, all were welcomed, regardless of color. The tribe took care of its own.

  Still musing, Joe had fallen into step with Willie Hatchee without noticing. The two were good friends and had endured their boyhood initiation together. Willie had done well and sat on the tribal council but Joe felt Willie was too aggressive in his stance on Indian affairs.