Wind Catche

by Jeff Altabef

  She says, “Sheriff Daniels believes that grandfather might be involved with these recent deaths in some way. They are looking for him and want to ask you some questions, if you are up to it.”

  But I’m not up to it. Acid churns in my stomach, bile rises in my throat, and the voices practically scream in my head! I jam both of my hands against my ears to drown them out, but it doesn’t help. Pain rips through me. I screech.

  Mom jumps back.

  A doctor races into the room.

  “What’s wrong, Jules?” Mom sounds just like another one of the voices in my head.

  “The voices are so loud!” Tears flow down my cheeks freely. A dam has broken that I’m not sure will ever stop.

  “What voices?”

  “The ones in my head. They keep coming back. I just want them to go away.” They’re so deafening, I jam a pillow against my ears, but that does nothing to quiet the noise. The sound comes from inside my head.

  How can I quiet that?

  Her face turns white and the next face I see, a man’s, is unfamiliar. He says something to a nurse who enters the room, but the voices are too loud for me to hear them.

  I’m afraid of what might happen next, so I shut my eyes tight, and the blackness returns. This time, I welcome it.

  I wake to find Mom staring out the window, her shoulders stooped, her hands pressed against the wall. My head throbs dully, but the voices are soft like water gently lapping on the sides of a small creek, so I shift in the bed and hope they don’t get louder.

  She must have noticed that I’m awake because she turns, a forced smile stuck to her face as she twists her hair. “Are you feeling better?” She’s worried about me. Strain shows in her eyes, the thin tight line made by her lips, and her fingertips that twirl the ends of her long hair. She really wants to ask me about those voices I’ve been hearing, but she’s anxious about bringing up the topic. That’s okay with me. I want to know what’s happening with Sicheii before we talk about me.

  “I’m feeling better.”

  Mom visibly relaxes. Some of the tension leaves her shoulders and neck as she strides to my bedside.

  Before she asks me any follow-up questions, I strike first. This is my window of opportunity, so I need to take advantage of it. “What’s going on with Sicheii, and why does the Sheriff think he’s mixed up in these murders?”

  She looks away. Her eyes rest on the doorway. It looks like she’s hoping a doctor or nurse will show up to rescue her.

  I need to know what’s happening. Sicheii’s in trouble and it has something to do with those two thugs who grabbed me, so heat starts to flush my face. “Tell me what’s going on!” The words come out in a low growl.

  “Don’t get worked-up, Jules.” Mom sighs. “I’ll tell you everything I know. Do you want something to drink first?”

  My throat is desert dry, so I nod. Mom hands me a plastic cup of water with a straw. My eyes lock on her until she starts to talk. It takes a full minute, but she buckles. I knew she would.

  “I don’t know how much you’ve heard about these... deaths.” She doesn’t want to call them murders because she’s worried it might upset me. Since I don’t burst out in tears or pull my hair out of my head, she continues. “Old Man Roundtree, Samuel Brooks, and Stuart Baker have all died in the past week.”

  “Judge Baker was murdered?” Stuart Baker was a long-time local judge and as white as snow. As far as I can tell, he didn’t have a drop of Native American blood. How does he fit in with the twisted arrows?

  “Yes, sweetie. He was killed three days ago.” She squeezes my hand. “Sheriff Daniels believes your grandfather may be involved.”

  “Why?” There’s a difference between lying and keeping secrets. At least I think there is. I decide to keep the twisted arrows secret because I don’t want to give anything away that might implicate Sicheii—not even to my mom. “They should be looking for those guys who attacked me and Troy. They’re probably the killers.”

  “The Sheriff and the other deputies are searching for them, sweetie, but they don’t think those two are involved in the slayings. A team of burglars has been targeting houses after someone’s died or gone on vacation. The Sheriff believes you and Troy just interrupted a burglary.”

  “He’s an idiot.” I sip water through the straw. I’m not going to tell Mom or the Sheriff that Slicked Back Hair wanted Sicheii. That will have to be a secret for now because it means he’s in the middle of these crimes in some way. I need to talk to Sicheii before I start to make him seem more suspicious than he is already. “What evidence do they have against Sicheii?”

  Mom frowns, but I fire a hard stare at her. I count to ten in my head and she cracks. “They found an antique hatchet in Grandfather’s apartment with blood on it.”

  “Anyone could’ve put that hatchet in his apartment,” I blurt out, immediately suspecting Lisa. “Why would he keep something like that?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie, but they found some other evidence at Baker’s house.”

  “Like what?” The skin on my face is on fire, and the plastic cup bends under my grip.

  “They found strands of long white hair. The results of the DNA test aren’t back yet but they think it’s your grandfather’s hair.”

  “What does Sicheii say? Have you talked to him?”

  She shakes her head and squeezes my hand. “No one’s heard from him. I’ve checked with everyone.”

  I don’t like the defeatist sound in her voice. She sounds like she believes the worst, which is not like her. A hatchet and a hair shouldn’t be enough to convince her that her father murdered three people. I study her for a second. She starts twirling her hair again. “What else aren’t you telling me?” Then I go with a hunch. “What does this have to do with my father?”

  Mom’s face freezes.

  Bingo.

  Her eyes twitch toward the door. “I’d better find him so we can explain together.”

  My father’s name is Ayden Connors. That’s the one thing I’ve known about him my entire life. Everything else is a mystery, like the water in the bottom of a deep well. Anything could be down there because it is too deep for the light to reach.

  My throat tightens and my heart pounds as if it will explode as Mom leads him into my room. Ever since I was little, I dreamed of the moment when I would first meet him. I know this isn’t technically the first time we’ve met. He saved me in Old Town, and he was in the hospital room the last time I woke up, but those times don’t count. I never got to talk to him or really see him.

  As a young girl, I often fantasized that he was innocent, hoping that one day the truth would be discovered and he would rush home to be the father that everyone else had. Once, right after my fifth birthday dinner, I asked Mom a few questions about him, and she shut me down. She took hold of my hand, told me he was guilty of his crime, and I should do my best to forget him. We were better off without him. “He’s bad,” she said.

  Of course, I couldn’t forget about him. Who could forget about their father? But it was clear she’d never fill in the blanks, so I asked Sicheii a few times about him, but he always answered my questions with stories about spirits—usually the Great Wind Spirit. It didn’t take long for me to be left with only my imagination, so I invented many different versions of my father. They varied from Prince Charming to Jack the Ripper.

  So when he strolls into the room behind my mother, I feel this crazy nervousness mixed with part giddiness and part dread. What if he was innocent after all? What if he proved to be a greater disappointment than I already assumed? What if he doesn’t like me? What? What? What?

  He walks stiffly, his blond hair cut crew-cut short. Small thin wrinkles line his face, and a scar meanders two inches down his right cheek in a thin white line. His back is slightly bent forward as he walks. He is five inches taller than Mom, and his arms are corded with muscle underneath a simple blue t-shirt. They approach the side of my bed with him a step behind Mom.

  “Juliet
, this is your father, Ayden.”

  He moves next to her. A shy light smile brightens his face with only the edges of his lips bending upward. It’s definitely not a Jack the Ripper type smile, but it’s not a Prince Charming smile either. I realize he’s probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes like everyone else.

  “Hi there, Juliet.” He has a distinctly Irish accent, and his glacier eyes sparkle with a bit of mischief. “You are even lovelier than your mother.”

  Years of emotions bubble up inside of me like an active volcano. It’s all too much. “Don’t hi me! I’m almost sixteen years old and not one letter. Not one phone call. Nothing!” Spit flies from my mouth, and the plastic cup crumples under my grip. Water splashes over the sides.

  Ayden steps backward, a shade lighter than he was a minute earlier and Mom steps forward. “Don’t become so upset, Juliet.” She touches my arm. “It’s not all Ayden’s fault.”

  My jaw drops. “Don’t you do that!”

  “Do what, Jules?”

  “Don’t defend him after all these years! You’re the one who said he was bad and that we were better off without him.”

  Mom shifts on her feet uncomfortably as her fingers twist the ends of her long hair. “I don’t remember saying those things, and there are reasons why you never got any correspondence from Ayden.”

  “Reasons! It’s been almost sixteen years. Did he forget how to write in jail?”

  “Actually, he might have written you a few times.” She averts her eyes away from mine.

  “What are you talking about?” My heart sounds like a war drum. Mom’s a bad liar like me. I can tell that she’s upset, so I hold my breath and wait.

  She bites her lip. “Ayden wrote you one letter each week. I just never gave them to you.”

  My mouth opens, but it takes a while for the words to spill out. I’m so furious I can barely breathe. “After all this... I can’t believe you... You’ve been lying to me... I hate you!”

  Ayden leans closer. “Now don’t be too hard on your mom, Juliet. She was only doing what she thought was best.”

  “Out!” I point toward the door. “Both of you! Out!”

  Mom twirls her hair. I chuck my pillow at her, hitting her square on the face. Ayden grabs her arm and pulls her in the direction of the door.

  Mom’s face goes white, but the twinkle in his eyes brightens.

  Befuddled. Confused. Shocked. Upset. Stupefied. Dazed. Really pissed off! I feel them all as if my emotions are ingredients in some awful angry stew that I’m forced to eat.

  I’ve spent almost sixteen years living in a world without a father, believing he wanted nothing to do with me, that he was bad. But now I find out Mom kept him from me, hid his letters, and lied to me my entire life. And now she seems to like him? She holds his hand and smiles at him?

  Argh!

  I punch my pillow. Words, thoughts, and emotions swirl in my mind like a dust storm. Everything I thought was solid crumbles beneath me. One moment I’m the angriest I’ve ever been, and the next I’m elated with a sense of giddiness bubbling inside of me as if my heavy emotional stew has turned into a carbonated soft drink. It’s ridiculous. I feel like two different people. I’m more comfortable being angry, but the giddy Juliet keeps nudging her way into the picture.

  My father wrote me letters.

  What should I do? I have a father, and he wants to be part of my life. Was he innocent of his crime? Perhaps he isn’t bad at all. If Mom could have hidden all those letters from me, she could have easily lied to me about him.

  But he did spend fifteen years in prison for manslaughter. He was convicted. Someone died. And what does all this have to do with Sicheii? The dust storm rages on.

  My thoughts settle on Sicheii. What’s he mixed up in? I can’t believe he tortured Roundtree. But I hesitate, caught by a whisper of doubt that trips me up. Could he do something so extreme? Part of me says absolutely not, but another part is unsure. He’s always been mysterious. His beliefs are rock hard. What if they were challenged? What if he had to kill to keep the world in some type of balance only he could see? Would he murder to do that? Sicheii’s core is strong. I’ve never seen him waver from doing what he thought was right. He never even hesitates. But torture is a totally different extreme from murder.

  I am lost in the middle of the dust and debris of my own thoughts when the door opens. I expect my mother to step through the doorway with an explanation I don’t want to hear, but Ayden stands at the threshold instead. I raise my pillow threateningly, and he tosses both of his arms up in surrender.

  “I’m unarmed. I come in peace. Don’t fire.” He smiles at me. “Can I come in?”

  I lower the pillow but keep it close just in case.

  He ambles to my bedside. “I’ve waited so long to meet you. I’m sorry it has to be here in this place. But we can’t make our own world. We have to live in the one we’re given.”

  “I can’t believe you wrote me letters and that woman hid them from me. I could strangle her!” I look down and my hands are indeed strangling the pillow.

  Ayden’s face softens. He rests his hand lightly on the side guard. “Don’t be too hard on your mother, Juliet.” The short sleeve on his t-shirt rolls back an inch, revealing the edge of a tattoo. It looks like a skull. “She had her reasons to keep me away from you.”

  “There’s no reason for lying to me! I deserved to see those letters. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me. Do you know how hard that was?” My face burns and probably turns red. With the color comes voices, mumbled, jumbled voices, which grow more numerous and louder. I ignore them. “I thought you hated me, that you wished I was never born. You have to be angry with her, too.”

  “At first, sure, I was angry with Summer, but I could never stay angry with her. Not when we were kids and not now.”

  Not when they were kids?

  I assumed Ayden was a one-night stand, a momentary lapse of judgment, but now it’s obvious there’s a more substantial connection between them. A thousand questions threaten to spill out of my mouth all at the same time when Ayden lifts both of his hands up, palms out.

  “I know you must have questions. Let me tell you the truth, and you can decide for yourself.”

  I nod and do my best to keep my mouth shut and quiet the voices in my head. If I try hard, sometimes they grow weaker.

  “I met your mother in elementary school. We hit it off instantly. I can’t say it was love at first sight, but we were close from the beginning. We were so different, it was easy to see why your grandfather disliked me from the first.”

  “Why would Sicheii dislike you?”

  “Oh, he had his reasons. My brother was six years older than me, and by the time I was in sixth grade, he led a gang that dealt drugs. I helped him. At first, it was no big deal. I’d just deliver a package, collect some money. But that was only at the beginning. By tenth grade, I had a clientele of my own. The money was easy.”

  I sit up higher. “My mom was dealing drugs?” The idea is so foreign it might as well have come from a different planet.

  “No, Summer never dealt drugs.” Ayden jabs with his pointer finger to make the case. “She was always better than that, better than me. She kept a distance from that side of my life.”

  “But she knew what you were doing?”

  “We were in love.” Ayden shrugs. “When you’re in love, you overlook the other person’s faults, especially when you’re young. And I had many faults. Still do.” A sly smile whispers across his face.

  “Sicheii must have known about you.”

  “Your grandfather has a way of knowing everything. He warned me to stay away from Summer, but it would have taken a bullet to keep me away from her. Summer felt the same way.”

  “But how—”

  Ayden lifts his hand to silence me. “My brother got busted when I was sixteen. He got caught dealing and had to go to the pen for five years. I took over the gang.”

  A faraway look clouds his ey
es. “I didn’t know what else to do. My brother needed me to run things. I couldn’t let it all break apart on him.” He pauses for a second. “Oh hell, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wanted to be the man. The money was good and the power was, well, I got a bigger high from being the boss man than from anything we were selling.”

  Ayden clutches the side guard with both hands. His knuckles start to turn white. “I did bad things those years. I’m not going to lie to you. I hurt people. Your mother didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “She must have known some of it.”

  “She never knew any of the details, but I guess she didn’t ask that many questions either. For a few years, it all worked, and then Summer got pregnant with you.” Ayden smiles. This time it’s such a full, genuine smile I return it with one of my own. “You changed everything for me. I wanted out. I wanted to open a bar, have Summer work the books. I would be the bartender. We could have a happy ending, even a white picket fence.”

  “What happened?”

  “I needed one last score to make enough seed money to start the bar. I even had the place picked out on the edge of Old Town. We decided on a name: Second Chances Saloon. I planned to sell a mountain of blow to some college kids. I cut a deal for everything we had left.”

  “So you would’ve had enough money to buy the bar and come totally clean?”

  Ayden smiled. “Well, not totally. My brother was going to lend me some of the dough. I’d stop dealing drugs, but in return for the loan, we’d launder some of his cash through the place. Just enough to pay him back.”

  “Mom knew about that?”

  “Yes. Summer wasn’t happy with it, but it would get me out of dealing and it would only be temporary. But we never got that far. Before I sold the coke to the college kids, rumors started circulating—rumors about your grandfather and Roundtree.”

  “Rumors about what?”

  “This was a long time ago.” Ayden twists the side guard. The cords in his arms and neck stiffen. “There was a rumor that Roundtree had developed a new super drug with your grandfather’s help. This new drug was going to make everything else obsolete. I was in the business and had a reputation at that point, so it interested me. Besides, it was important for me to know who was dealing, you understand.”