Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 02 - The Dark Place

by The Dark Place

  Julie rallied. "They’re right," she said. "We’re soaked." He could feel her relax a little, and it steadied him.

  Quietly, he folded back the top flap of the bag and began to rise.

  "Where are you going?" she asked sharply. "Don’t—"

  "Shh, I’m not going anywhere. I just want to stand up and look. I can’t see where he ran." He peered cautiously over the top of the boulder and was able to see all the way to the end of the rockbound enclosure, to the narrow cleft through which he and Julie had entered it.

  "Do you see him?"

  "There’s nothing. The sky’s getting smudgy out that way, though. It’ll be light soon."

  "Thank goodness."

  The entire little compound lay before him, permeated with a gray, predawn stillness. He wiped the moisture from his eyes. Already the strangely saturating mist had penetrated his shirt and trickled icily down the small of his back. Unless it was cold sweat, which was entirely possible. Where was Big Cheese? What had become of Startled Mouse? Gideon dropped his eyes to the ground at his feet. Where was the ax?

  The two cries, urgent and horror-stricken, exploded in his ears one after the other.

  "Ciniyaa!" someone shouted from behind him. "No!"

  Behind him…on the other side of the big boulder, away from the cave! Big Cheese must have run out through the narrow entrance, doubled back, and come up behind him…

  Gideon spun violently just as Julie screamed, "Gideon! Oh, God…!"

  The shining, naked figure crouching atop the rock swelled and reared up over him, gray and luminous in the murky light, the terrible stone ax raised to the zenith of its arc and already sweeping down.

  Without thinking, Gideon leaped forward to meet it. His outthrust hand caught the plummeting wrist, caught it and brought it up short. Wild black eyes glared crazily at him, inches from his own, while the ax teetered and then toppled over, heavily thumping Gideon’s shoulder and sliding down his back. Long before it hit the ground he had balled his right fist to ram it into the gleaming, dark abdomen. His shoulder muscles had already bunched to drive the blow home when the red, mindless haze of sudden violence abruptly cleared. He saw who stood before him.

  Startled Mouse.

  With a shudder of pity and revulsion he dropped the writhing, slippery wrist—as frail and scrawny as Abe’s. The old man, too, shook himself, as if with disgust at the saltu’s touch, and screamed what might have been a Yahi curse or only a wordless shriek of loathing. He ran a few feet along the top of the boulder, spiderlike and dragging his mutilated foot after him, to where a jumble of loose stone fragments lay in a rough depression, and tried to pick one up. It was too heavy, and the old man moaned his frustration. He grasped a smaller one in both hands and jerkily raised it over his head, grimacing with the effort.

  Again there was a shout in Yahi from the other side of the boulder. "Ciniyaa!" Big Cheese stood below, his smooth face raised in the gray rain to the old man. Startled Mouse looked over his shoulder at the cry, and Gideon saw his sound foot slip a few inches on the wet rock. Off-balance from the weight of the stone, he began to tip backward over the edge of the boulder.

  "The rock!" Gideon shouted. "Throw it down!"

  Gideon sprang toward him, and Julie started from the sleeping bag, hands outstretched. Below, Big Cheese moved a step, his arms raised to catch the old Yahi. Gideon knew none of them would reach him in time, and knew that they knew it, too.

  Startled Mouse knew it as well. The rock was held aloft on rigidly extended arms. The collapsed old face was defiant, the flaccid, nervous mouth for once clamped shut. Like a bizarre statue toppling from its base—a tilting, pathetic Moses hurling down the tablets—the old man inclined slowly backward and hung impossibly over empty air. Gideon had very nearly reached him after all when the rock finally fell away, and Startled Mouse dropped headfirst after it.

  Mercifully, the clatter of the stone drowned out the sound of fragile, thinly cushioned bone striking the rocky ground ten feet below. Gideon clambered quickly down the side of the boulder, but Big Cheese was there before him, on his knees.

  The old man was dead. He had landed on the back of his head, and the brittle skull had ruptured, so that brains and blood were already mixing with the rain. His face was undamaged, but the mouth hung loose again, and the eyes were eerily askew, one nearly shut, the other open and unfocused.

  Gideon heard Julie come up behind him. "Oh!" she said softly. Instinctively, Gideon knelt and gently closed the old eyes with two fingers. He looked up to see Big Cheese, his face streaming with rain, staring strangely at him. There was a long, long moment of silence. The Indian sat back on his heels. The sensual nostrils flared as he drew in a lengthy breath.

  "You know," he said in flawless English, "he had a legitimate grievance."

  Chapter 19

  "Yeah," Big Cheese said, "I’m Dennis Blackpath." The onetime graduate student leaned forward to blow on the dry shreds of moss and bark that had come from the deerskin pouch around his neck, and the crawling spark flickered, gasped, and puffed into flame. In the young Indian’s hands the fire drill had been ridiculously easy to use. Now he added bits of wood, gradually increasing their size. When the fire was going well, the three of them, sitting on the ground, leaned close to it. Julie and Gideon shivered in their wet clothes. Blackpath, with the moisture beaded on his greased skin, didn’t seem cold.

  "You’ve been living with them all this time?" Julie asked, not bothering to conceal her astonishment. "Since 1975?"

  "That’s right," Blackpath said, adding more wood. "Nobody believed there were Indians, but I found them. And once I found them, I stayed. I’d had enough of the white man’s rotten world. I went to live as my forefathers had lived, in harmony with nature. In tranquillity."

  It was the sort of cant Gideon ordinarily found banal and tedious. But Blackpath was another matter. He had committed seven years of his life to it; he’d actually managed to bring it off. Except for the tranquillity.

  "I suppose," Blackpath said moodily, flexing a long, thin stick like a fencer testing an epee, "you want some explanations."

  "That would be nice," Gideon agreed.

  "About the killings." His head down, Blackpath spoke to the stick, as surly in English as in Yahi.

  "That seems like a good place to begin," Gideon said mildly, but his hackles were rising. If anyone had reason to be aggrieved, it was certainly he, with two attempts on his life and a painful dent in his head, and not this pampered student-cum-wild Indian. Something in his tone must have given away his feelings, because Blackpath suddenly looked up at him and snapped the stick in two.

  Julie cut in. "You said that Startled…What was his name? I don’t want to keep calling him that."

  "Their names are private," Blackpath said curtly. "Startled Mouse is good enough." For the likes of you.

  Julie did not respond in kind. "You said he had a legitimate grievance," she said quietly.

  Blackpath tossed the pieces of the stick into the fire. "You saw his foot?"

  "Yes," Julie said.

  "It was shot away, a long time ago—"

  "In 1913, when he was a little boy," Gideon said slowly, remembering. "And his mother was killed when they rifled a cabin on Canoe Creek. They stole two hard-boiled eggs."

  "You talked to Pringle," Blackpath said.

  "That’s an awful thing," Julie said, "but—"

  "But what?" He was answering Julie, but his stare challenged Gideon. "It’s no excuse for killing people seventy years later?"

  Gideon looked at him without speaking. Something sagged inside Blackpath. His gaze dropped to the fire. "Ah, hell," he said, "it’s funny speaking English after all this time." He paused. "You’re right, you’re right. It’s not an excuse." He seemed to be searching for the precise words he wanted, then gave up with a small shrug. The dawn had come; Gideon could see him more clearly and was struck anew by the strange beauty of the mask-like face.

  "I really loved the old man. Really lo
ved him." The words could hardly be heard. "He was the first one of them to accept me. He called me Grandson. I called him Grandfather." He cleared his throat. "But, God, how he hated the saltu. I think he’s always been a little crazy." He was, Gideon thought, genuinely close to tears.

  "I think he killed some people when he was young," Blackpath went on, "but when I found them he wasn’t any kind of menace. Then they built that damn road right through here—"

  "The Matheny trail," Julie said.

  "Is that what it’s called?" he asked without interest. "Well, he went wild. Killed the first hiker he saw."

  "But he’s so frail," Julie said, "so small—"

  "This was six years ago, remember. He was stronger. Besides, he used an atlatl. A spear thrower." Blackpath was picking up moist earth, crumbling it in his palm, and letting it run from his cupped hand. "I talked with him again and again, tried to explain the killing couldn’t do any good. I thought I had him convinced. And then he clubbed someone else."

  "Hartman," Gideon said.

  "Whoever. I found the poor guy on the trail with his head bashed in. A mess…" H e stopped. Gideon knew he was thinking of Startled Mouse, who lay where he had fallen, covered with Gideon’s poncho, on the far side of the boulder. Blackpath closed his eyes. "I took him back to the village. Back to here. Keen Eagle—that’s a good name for him—remembered how to trephine, and I thought for a while the guy might live. But he died."

  Blackpath stared into the fire. "I thought that was the end of it. But then a few weeks ago, after all those years, he must have stumbled on this girl near the summer village. You know about that?"

  Gideon nodded.

  "That was a bad thing. And now he tried to kill you. Twice." He sighed. "I guess it’s best this way."

  "What about the others?" Gideon asked. "They weren’t involved? They didn’t know?"

  Blackpath shrugged again. "They knew and they didn’t know. Like you didn’t know about the Japanese internment camps. Like the Germans didn’t know about Dachau. Look, they buried the two guys, didn’t they? But no, they weren’t involved in the killings, if that’s what you mean. They’re good people; harmless."

  "What about you?" Julie asked suddenly. "You’ve been here seven years. Did you find what you came to find?"

  "Sure," Blackpath said hotly. "Does it seem so impossible? What did I give up that was so wonderful? That world out there is garbage! It’s bad enough for a white man, let alone an Indian." His voice softened. "They helped me to become Indian, honest-to-God Indian. And I helped them."

  "You helped them?" Gideon said.

  Blackpath stared at the fire, seeming to muse aloud. "When I came, they lived like dogs, on filth, scrounging around camp dumps for food and old clothes. They’d forgotten how to fish, how to make fishhooks, how to cover their huts. They hadn’t made a tool in decades. The old woman hadn’t woven a basket since she was a little girl. They were fighting the eagles for rotten salmon. They’d forgotten how to preserve meat, how to make their clothes."

  "And you," said Gideon, looking at him with increasing respect, "taught them the old ways."

  Blackpath bristled. "Yeah, I taught them the old ways. What’s wrong with that?"

  "Look," Gideon said, "will you get it straight that I’m on your side? We came here to help."

  "All right," Blackpath said. "I’m sorry. I know you did. Okay, I taught them the old ways. As much as I knew. Do you know, when I found them they all slept in one big hut? The woman in with all the men?" He seemed honestly scandalized. "Now look at the way they live. Their own tools, their own food, their own homes. I made them Indian again."

  Not only Indian, Gideon thought, but indisputably Yahi. Dennis Blackpath had accomplished a phenomenal feat.

  "But you’re not Yahi," Gideon said. "How did you know the old ways?"

  He shrugged. "Books."

  "You’ve done a remarkable thing here," Gideon said.

  Blackpath was uncomfortable with praise. "And what happens now?" he asked angrily. "Don’t think we’re going to live in some museum like Ishi all over again."

  "There’s a good possibility," Gideon said, "of a reservation—"

  "Jesus Christ, can you see that? These people dealing with the BIA? Anthropologists all over the place with questionnaires: ‘And what is the nature of the informal relationship between the mother’s brother and the paternal parallel cousins?’ If—"

  Gideon held up his hand, smiling. "I agree with you. All right, what would you like to happen?"

  "As far as you’re concerned, nothing. Just leave us alone. Forget us. We don’t want any help. We don’t need any more squeaky turtles."

  Gideon flushed, then smiled again. "But the old woman really got a bang out of it, didn’t she?"

  Blackpath smiled, too. "Yeah, she did, didn’t she? Look, you two are the only ones who know about us. Can’t we keep it that way? Can’t we just stay here?"

  Julie shook her head. "The trail’s going to be reopened. There’s no way of stopping it."

  "God," Blackpath said, "do you really need another trail through here? More beer cans…I mean, how much longer can these people live? Can’t you wait a few years—?"

  She was shaking her head again. "No, it wouldn’t work."

  "Jesus Christ," Blackpath said, "I don’t know what to do. We can’t go back to our summer village. A couple of goddamn kids stumbled on it last week and almost found us. They must have told people, because the next day there were two more poking around—" He looked up suddenly. "That was you, wasn’t it?"

  "That was us," Gideon agreed, "and that funny feeling at the back of our necks was you."

  "Wait a minute," Julie said slowly, "there is a place, about twenty-five miles northeast of here, near Hayes Pass." She spoke dreamily, her memory working. "Only about half the rainfall we get here. It was proposed for a trail two years ago and got turned down. Too expensive, too difficult to get to. Hardly anyone knows it’s there. I only saw it once myself. A sloping, grassy valley, five miles long, with a lovely river running down it. There’s a big, blue hanging glacier at the upper end. It was loaded with elk when I was there, and deer…"

  "It sounds like paradise," Blackpath said.

  "It is. It’s lovely. And there isn’t a trail within five miles. Oh, it’d be perfect!" she said excitedly. "Why didn’t I think of it before? I can show you where it is on the map." She frowned. "Rats. The map’s back at our camp. It’s two hours from here, at least."

  "It’s twenty minutes. You were following the old man’s tracks, and he was being careful. That’s one thing they didn’t forget. Let’s go."

  "What about the others?" Gideon asked. "They’ll be waking up. It’s light."

  Blackpath looked at the dripping, gray sky. "Not for another hour."

  "You mean they don’t get up at dawn?" Julie asked ingenuously.

  "If you lived in a hut," Blackpath said, "and two out of three mornings were like this, what would you do?"

  It took them exactly twenty minutes to get back to their camp. Julie spread the map on the floor of the tent, out of the rain, and Blackpath bent over it while Julie traced with a pen the best way to get to Hayes Pass. He nodded at last and looked up, staring into her eyes for so long that she finally dropped her own. Then he looked hard at Gideon.

  The question was unasked, but Gideon answered it. "You can trust us," he said.

  "I guess I have to." The veiled eyes studied Gideon longer still. "I do trust you," he said more firmly. "We’ll go there. Now. As soon as we bury Clear Water. That was his name. Clear Water. Not Startled Mouse." It was an offering, a gift to them.

  They were startled by a thumping drone and looked through the tent flap to see a helicopter skimming grasshopperlike toward them through the gray rain, coming from Lake Quinault.

  "It’s John," Julie said. She saw Gideon’s surprise. "What did you think, they were going to hike in?"

  That was just what he’d thought. He’d forgotten this was the twentieth cent
ury and had expected to have another five or six hours before John got there. "They won’t be able to see the cave, but they’ll spot this tent right away," he said. "They’ll be down here in five minutes."

  He grasped a suddenly distrustful Blackpath by the elbow and hustled him out of the tent, across the small clearing, and into the thick, green forest. Julie ran after them.

  "We don’t have much time," Gideon said to Blackpath. "Listen, it’d be better if you left Startled—Clear Water—where he is. We’d have a body to show the FBI, and they could close the case and forget about the rest of you."

  "We can’t!" It was the first time Gideon had seen him upset. "He’s got to be buried. He ought to be cremated. His spirit can’t rest until he’s buried. I mean," he added quickly, "that’s what they believe." Agitatedly, he looked up toward the rapidly increasing clatter, but the helicopter couldn’t be seen through the forest canopy.

  "I’ll see to it that he’s buried!" Gideon shouted over the noise. "And cremated! I promise!"

  Blackpath was irresolute. Gideon had the feeling it was a rare condition for him. Again Blackpath looked up toward the sound. The helicopter was hovering. The tent had been seen. He nodded quickly and stuck the map in his waistband.

  "Thank you!" he shouted. Obviously, it didn’t come easily.

  He began to turn away. The invisible helicopter was coming down, apparently on the nearby gravel bar. Julie touched the bare arm and leaned forward to speak in his ear. Gideon read her lips. "Tell Gray Sparrow good-bye."

  He nodded. "Thank you!" he shouted again, but the words were lost. He turned and darted into the brush.

  Gideon wondered how long it would be before he spoke English again, or if he ever would. He glided smoothly among the trees, the rain glistening on his naked back, and melted into the dripping, green forest. Already he seemed to have shed the persona of Dennis Blackpath and left it at their feet, becoming part of the rain forest again; a Yahi, Ishi in reverse.