“Where’s Injun Joe?” Brock asked me presently, just as I took a bite.
Sandwiches hung in midair around the table. Deliberately, I took my time about chewing and swallowing before responding. “Poling a raft across the Mississippi, I believe,” I said.
He sniggered. “No, I meant your sidekick, Tonto.”
I speared him with a look. “If you’re referring to Looks Far’s grandson,” I said evenly, “his name is Joseph Curtis. He intended to come, but he had another engagement.”
Brock opened his mouth again, but Perry shut him down with a glare. Brock looked away from me and busied himself with the cap from his soda bottle.
Mentally, I shook my head and wondered what I’d ever seen in Brock. White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman had done me at least one favor; I had very nearly married this boor.
Whatever appetite I’d had was gone. I put my sandwich down.
“Everybody about finished eating?” Perry asked. “Good, then let’s get started.” Food was pushed aside and yellow legal pads came out. “Charlie, as you know, our client is prepared to tender an offer to the Uintah and Ouray Tribe for the land where Mr. Guzmán’s home is now located.”
“It’s not for sale,” Charlie said.
“We understand that it would be difficult to part with such a valuable piece of property,” Perry went on. “It’s a prime location between Denver and Boulder, with a stellar view of the plains. It backs to National Forest land. It’s crying out for development. Now, Mr. Durant’s firm has drawn up plans for an entertainment and retail complex that would bring a vast improvement to the tax revenue situation of Boulder County, as well as creating much-needed jobs, and, when the casino is finished, adding to the state’s coffers as well. I don’t need to tell you what a boon this project will be to both the citizens of Boulder County and the state of Colorado.”
“It’s not for sale,” Charlie said again.
“Now we are not unmindful of the fact,” Perry continued, “that such an offer would have to be contingent on the relocation of Mr. Guzmán’s home and business. Durant Development is prepared to grant him a parcel of land in southwestern Colorado, twice the size of his current home site, as well as relocation expenses.”
“It’s not for sale,” Charlie said, a third time.
“Of course, there would be a time limit on this offer,” Perry said. “Mr. Guzmán would need to relocate by the end of January 2013. As I understand it, though, that should not be difficult, as there are no permanent structures on the site.”
“Perry,” I broke in. “What part of ‘it’s not for sale’ are you not hearing? The tribe will not sell the land, period. And my client will not move.”
“Everybody will move, for enough money,” Leo muttered. It was the first time he’d spoken since we entered the room; I assumed Perry had told him to either stuff a sock in it or find himself another lawyer.
“If it’s a matter of the size of the offer…” Perry said.
“Mr. Durant,” Charlie said, ignoring Perry. “Let me ask you something that’s been puzzling me about this whole thing. You are pushing very hard for this particular piece of property at this particular time. You have harassed my client’s tenant, telling him to clear out, even threatening to bulldoze his home, with no provocation that I am aware of. It’s clear you did no due diligence of any sort, because if you had, you would have been aware that Mr. Guzmán did not own the property before Ms. Witherspoon told you. You have not approached Boulder County to begin the process of eminent domain, despite your threats. Moreover, you have approached neither the county nor the state legislature for approval to build a casino on the site, even though a casino is the centerpiece of your development plans. To say nothing of the wisdom of beginning construction on such an upscale project in this economy. My question, Mr. Durant, is why? Why is this particular piece of property so important to you?”
Leo had been getting redder and redder as Charlie built his case. Finally he exploded. “You’re nothing but a filthy Indian like the rest of them!” he yelled. “That man” – he pointed a shaking finger straight at Looks Far – “that man should be locked up on the reservation! He should never have been allowed to leave! And you shouldn’t be allowed to leave, either!”
“Leo, calm down,” Perry said warningly, putting a hand on his arm. Leo shook it off and stood.
“My ancestors were homesteaders in Texas,” Leo said, leaning halfway across the table. “It was a hard life, but they were making a go of it. Then a bunch of savages scalped ‘em and burned down their home. The only one left alive was my great-grandfather, who was away at school back East.
“By the time he came home, all the Indians were supposed to be locked away on reservations. But they missed a few,” he sneered. “Just as he was beginning to make a profit from ranching, another band of savages burned him out.”
I almost began to feel sorry for Leo. Losing your ancestors twice to senseless violence would be tough for anyone. But on the other hand, I thought, this was old news. Odin had had to reach pretty far back in Leo’s family history to find something to wind him up with.
And then his next words really killed my nascent sympathy.
“All this crap about ‘sacred’ this and ‘sacred’ that,” he said. “It’s nothing but an excuse to keep the best land for yourselves! We took this land from you for a reason,” he went on, looking Charlie in the eye. “We took it because you Indians weren’t doing anything with it. We knew how to make it productive. We knew how to get the most bang for the buck. And now you’re back, with your sneaky Indian ways, trying to buy it all back again! Well, I won’t stand for it!”
Charlie let him fume for a moment. Then, calmly, he said, “We’re done here. Perry, it was a pleasure to meet you.” He stood and held out his hand.
Leo slapped a sheaf of papers into it. “No, we’re not done, by God!” he said. “That is a sales contract, given to you in good faith. You are duty-bound to consider it.”
“I’ll look it over,” Charlie said, “but I have no authority to sign it. Any sale would have to be approved by the tribal council.”
Durant’s beady eyes narrowed further. “I’ve held off contacting the county, just in case I could make you see reason. I guess I shouldn’t have bothered. I’ll be calling them this afternoon.”
“You do that, Mr. Durant,” Charlie said, slipping the document into his briefcase without looking at it. “And I will present your contract to the tribal council at my very next opportunity. Although I am certain that once I tell them exactly what you have said here today, their answer will be ‘not just no, but hell, no.’ Good day.” He turned and walked out. We all followed him.
“At least we got a free lunch,” Shannon said as we headed back to the elevator.
I smiled at her. Then I said, “I’d like to ask a favor of all of you. Could we stop by my old office downstairs? I’ve got several boxes of files in there I had to leave behind on Wednesday. As long as we’re here, I’d like to pick them up.”
“They’re gone,” Brock said behind me.
As one, we turned to face him. “What do you mean, they’re gone?” I asked.
“Perry had them shredded,” he said.
“Bullshit,” I said. “You had them shredded.”
He shrugged. “Same thing. Those files belonged to the firm. You had no right to take them with you, anyway.”
I was livid. Of course I had a right to those files, and he knew it. I was sure he had gone through the boxes before he sent them off to be shredded. Which meant he also knew how much trouble it would be for me to recreate them all.
“Somebody get me out of here,” I muttered, “before I do something I’ll regret later.” Shannon took my elbow as we turned and walked away from him.
“This isn’t over, Naomi,” he called down the hall after me. “We’ll run your friends out of there, one way or another. They might as well pack up and move back to the rez right now.”
I allowed myself a single
explosive “Bastard!” as I punched the elevator button for my former floor. As the doors opened, I said, “He could have been bluffing. Come on.”
He wasn’t bluffing. Tess was glad to see me, but she said Brock had indeed collected the boxes from my office. “He said he was going to arrange to send them offsite for you,” she said. “That was okay, wasn’t it?”
I sighed. “No, it wasn’t, but you had no way to know that. It’s not your fault, Tess.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Naomi. I thought he was doing you a favor. You two were so close.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Well.” I forced myself to smile. “At least I get to give you a proper goodbye. I owe you that much, after putting up with me for six years. I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” she said, giving me a hug. “If you ever need a secretary, give me a call.”
“You can bet on it.”
As I trudged back to the elevator with my entourage, Charlie said, “You could sue him.”
I shrugged. “Not worth it, Charlie, but thanks. I’ve been backing up most of the important stuff on an external hard disk, which was in the box I took home with me. But there were a few important documents that I only had in hard copy. Nothing irreplaceable, but it’ll cost me money. And I just quit my job.”
Shannon put an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Naomi. I mean, I knew he was an asshole, but…wow.”
I hugged her back. “You called it.”
“Yeah, I did,” she sighed. “But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
We said our goodbyes outside Shannon’s office. “I wish I had time for a post-mortem,” Charlie said, “but I need to get going if I want to beat the snow.” He looked toward the mountains, where clouds were beginning to build up. “Nice to meet you all. Keep in touch.” He shook hands all around. “Stay strong,” he told Looks Far; the old man nodded. “And give my best to your grandson. Tell him I mean it about elk season.”
“I’ll tell him,” Looks Far said.
Charlie then turned to me. “I meant what I said to you, too. Let me know if you have any questions about setting up your business. I’m full of free advice.” That made me grin. “And send me an e-mail with a list of the documents you’re missing. I might be able to help you fill in the holes.”
I was touched. “Thanks, Charlie. That’s very kind of you.”
He waved away my gratitude. “Our mutual friend here tells me you’re critical to his life’s work. It’s the least I can do.”
I glanced at Looks Far, who was smiling warmly at me, and felt like crying. So many people were depending on me…. “What a build-up,” I joked, to keep the tears at bay. “I hope I don’t disappoint you.”
“I think you’ll do just fine,” Charlie said. Then he got in his car.
There was no sign of Joseph, either outside Shannon’s office or inside. Looks Far shrugged. “Maybe he got a friend to drive him home.”
It seemed implausible to me. Or maybe I was just in denial. I was getting used to having the guy around, maddening though he could be.
“Well, I’d love to chat with you both, but I’ve got a client coming in a little while,” Shannon said.
“Oh yeah, working for a living. I remember that,” I said.
“I should get going, too,” Looks Far said. “Charlie’s right – there’s a storm coming. I need to get home and batten down the hatches.”
“You don’t have any hatches,” Shannon said, amused. He winked at her.
“I’ll call you later,” I told Shannon as I left with Looks Far.
He walked me to the Cube – a gentlemanly gesture, I thought. As I unlocked the car, I heard an owl hoot close by, and jumped. I looked at Looks Far, who was scanning the treetops.
“You can come down,” he called. “Charlie’s gone.”
A great horned owl swooped in silently and landed on the roof of my car.
“Where did you leave your clothes this time?” Looks Far asked the owl. The huge bird flew into the bed of Looks Far’s pickup truck, grabbed a neatly wrapped bundle of cloth in his beak, and flew back to the Cube’s roof. I held out my hands and the owl dropped the bundle into my arms.
“Going with her again, are you?” Looks Far snorted. “All right, then. Be careful, boy.”
The owl fluffed its feathers a trifle indignantly.
Looks Far shook his head. “Goodbye, Naomi. And good luck to you.” Still shaking his head, he walked away.
I surveyed the owl, who was now preening his feathers with his beak. “Am I driving you home, or back to my place, or what?” I asked. “Uh, one tap for your place, two taps for my place. Three taps if I need to guess again.”
The owl ducked its head. Tap. Tap.
“All righty,” I said, feeling kind of silly. “Are you riding inside or on top?”
The owl took off.
I threw up my hands. “Meet you there.” I tossed the bundle onto the passenger seat and got in.
Fifteen minutes later, I opened my balcony door for the owl. He grabbed his bundle from the coffee table and waddled back toward the bathroom.
“You can use my room to…change,” I faltered. Then I slumped down on the sofa. “There is absolutely nothing about this situation that’s normal,” I said aloud. “Not one single damn thing.”
A few minutes later, a very human Joseph came out of my bathroom. He gave me a guilty grin. “Sorry about the drama. It took me longer to get the supplies than I thought it would. How’d it go?” He plopped down on the sofa next to me.
“Not well,” I said, and filled him in. I could tell he was angry, but there was resignation, too, as if he was used to hearing the sort of trash talk Leo had spewed. My heart went out to him. And then I felt guilty – if it hadn’t been for my mother, who shielded me from all knowledge of who my father was, I might not have been shocked by Leo’s words, either.
“It explains Odin’s involvement,” he said. “There’s an Aryan faction headquartered in the same part of Texas that Durant’s firm is from.”
I made the connection as he spoke. “I don’t know about that. One of Shannon’s woo-woo friends is Asatruar. He told her that only a very small minority of Odinists are racist.”
“It doesn’t have to be all of them, does it?” Joseph said tightly. “It only has to be one guy to start it. One guy with money.”
I sighed. “You’re right, of course.” I reached for his hand and he took it. We sat that way for a few moments, drawing strength from one another.
Then he looked at me sidelong. “You know, you’re going to have to quit using that word.”
“Which word is that?”
“Woo-woo.”
I gave a short laugh. “I suppose so. Now that I’m hip-deep in it, I can hardly make fun of it any more, can I?” I sighed. “So,” I said, changing the subject, “tell me about your day.”
He laughed so hard that I started to laugh, too. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You sounded like a mom on a sitcom,” he said. “‘How was your day, little Joey?’”
“Well, little Joey, how was it?”
“Well, let’s see. First, I flew down to your old office and watched Durant get out of his car. Then I rousted out some crows. Then I flew back to your office and followed Durant back to his hotel. Oh, and I had a mouse for lunch.”
I made a face. “Too much information, little Joey.”
“Just doing my best to gross you out, Mom,” he teased.
“It’s working. So tell me about this grand plan of yours.”
He did. It was delicious.
Chapter 11
Snow was beginning to fall as we sat, idling, next to a dumpster in the nearly full parking lot of Durant’s hotel near DIA. The clock on the Cube’s dash read 1:55 a.m.
On the floor of the passenger side was a King Soopers bag that held a small sack of masa harina, a box of quart-sized zipper bags, and about thirty crow feathers that Joseph the Owl had filched from a
nesting site next to the South Platte River in Littleton.
“You really think this is going to work?” I asked Joseph, for approximately the ninety-seventh time.
And for the ninety-seventh time, he reassured me. “I guarantee that when Durant sees the crow feathers, he will believe they’re raven feathers.”
“I’m sorry. You are so patient with me,” I said. “I must be driving you crazy.”
“Nah,” he said.
“I’ve never met anyone as patient as you before,” I went on.
“You’ve never met anyone who grew up with Grandfather before,” he grinned. Then he looked at the hotel again. “His light’s been out for a good half-hour. Might as well do it now.” He got out of the car and shucked off his coat.
“You’re going to freeze.”
“I’ll only be naked for a minute or two. Would you please fetch my clothes when I’ve gone?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” He grinned as he peeled off his running shoes and socks. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s usually a crapshoot whether I get them back.”
“Joseph? Can I go with you?” I tapped my temple. “In here, I mean. It worked once before.”
He looked at me doubtfully. “Your defenses were down because you were asleep. I guess mine were, too – I’d never had a stowaway before.” He looked back at the hotel. “I don’t know if it will work now. We’re both pretty keyed up. But I’m willing to try it.”
“So am I.”
His eyes were already beginning to glow. He leaned into the car and said, “A kiss for luck?” His lips met mine briefly. Then he shut the car door and dashed behind the dumpster. A minute or two later, the owl perched on top of the dumpster and hooted at me. Then he took off on a glide path for Durant’s hotel room window.
I got out of the car and picked up his clothes, brushing off the snow that was already beginning to accumulate. It was freezing, and the wind was picking up. I got back into the Cube as quickly as I could.
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