Super Chief (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 3)

by Joseph Flynn

  Arnoldo was about to take an heirloom tomahawk — sharpened stone head, wooden handle, rawhide bindings — off a wall and start in on the furniture when Maria Black Knife finally appeared. Arnoldo looked at her and smiled.

  “How do you like what I’ve done with the room, Grandmother?”

  By way of an answer, Maria withdrew from a deep pocket in her skirt the revolver that Delshay Crow Wing had returned to her.

  Arnoldo seemed not to notice or think it was important, if he did.

  “Did I tell you I met my cousin, John Tall Wolf?” he asked. “Great guy. Said he’d help me find a job, if I decide to leave the rez.”

  Maria raised the gun and pointed it at her grandson.

  He made no move to run. Showed no sign of fear.

  “I know you’ve lost faith in me,” Arnoldo said, “but I wouldn’t count on that Bodaway guy too much. You know how dumb he is? You want me to tell you who he shot just now?”

  The old lady was intent on the task at hand, but that last question ruined her focus.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Marlene Flower Moon.”

  That drew a response. Maria looked suddenly stricken.

  Arnoldo nodded. “Yeah. How stupid can you get? We all know the stories about her, right? Guess Bodaway is learning the error of his ways about now, huh?”

  The gun in Maria’s hands started to move in a downward arc.

  “Of course, you were in on the plan with him, weren’t you?” Arnoldo asked.

  “No!” Maria yelled. “I told him to stay away from her. He was only to kill Tall Wolf.”

  “So you were in on a plan to commit murder. Something you never needed to do. John told me he has no interest in ever returning to the rez.”

  “He said he would never come here at all,” Maria said, “but he did come. He doesn’t control his fate; it controls him. He will be back and the time will come when —”

  “He’ll seize power from the Black Knife family? That’s why he has to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s my fate never to lead the family and run the rez? Get all the power and most of the money that will come from our natural gas reserves?”

  “Yes.” She raised the gun again, held it in front of her eyes. Pointed it at Arnoldo’s chest.

  “So I have to go, too. Just like John. Neither of us can be allowed to make a claim that might spoil your plans. But with Bodaway gone, who will your successor be?”

  Maria’s face became a stone mask. “I’ll find someone.”

  “If Coyote lets you,” Arnoldo said.

  Maria pulled the trigger of a gun that hadn’t been fired in more than a century — hadn’t been cleaned or oiled in who knew how long — and it blew up in her face.

  Several pieces of sharp, flying metal barely missed Arnoldo.

  Far more struck Maria Black Knife. Two pierced her eyes. One went through her windpipe and into her spine. Another severed her external carotid artery. She seemed to Arnoldo to compress as if an invisible handle was pushing her into the floor.

  “All that planning, and what good did it do you, Grandmother?” Arnoldo asked.

  He supposed he should have been frightened when she tried to kill him, but he’d felt all along how things would work out: with his survival and his grandmother’s death.

  He’d thought the ghost of a long-dead cavalry officer might make things right.

  But he’d felt far more certain Coyote would have her revenge.

  Whatever the case, he was the true head of the Black Knife family now.

  Wasn’t sure he wanted the title though. However much power might come with it.

  Look where it had gotten the rest of the family.

  Except for John Tall Wolf. He’d gotten out and … Okay, he seemed to have Coyote as a full-time problem. So maybe he wasn’t a good example.

  But if he, Arnoldo, didn’t get out he might become as power hungry as all his relatives.

  He called the tribal police to come to the scene and take care of the immediate mess.

  He’d sleep on what to do next.

  Chapter 64

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  “The doctors tell me you’re not going to die,” John told Marlene in her hospital room.

  Byron DeWitt’s waiting helicopter had medevacked Marlene to Albuquerque.

  “Of course not,” she replied.

  “The surgeons who worked on you were amazed by the narrowness of your wound path.”

  “Were they?”

  “Yes, the round that hit you didn’t tumble on impact, as expected. Just went straight through.”

  “Lucky me,” Marlene said.

  Her complexion was pallid. The outline of some sort of bandage was visible under her hospital gown in the area just above her right breast. But a monitor showed her heartbeat was within normal range and steady. Her hair looked like she’d just had a stylist come in and fix it.

  Taking his cue from that last point, John asked, “You going to have someone do your makeup before the TV people get here?”

  Marlene’s eyes flashed, telling him he’d nailed it.

  John nodded. “You’re right. It might help you get a leg up for that cabinet post.”

  She smiled, showing appreciation for John’s mind rather than affection for him.

  “I’d have missed you, if Bodaway had killed you,” she told him.

  “The search party hasn’t found him yet. You’d think someone who fell out of the sky would be dead, and the cadaver dogs wouldn’t have any trouble locating the body. Unless, of course, someone else got to him first. Say a few locals who’d be only too happy to do your bidding … and only because Bodaway is still alive.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course not. But just in case you’re keeping a little secret, think about this. I’m all but certain there’s a family connection between Alan White River and me. That would mean Bodaway is my kin, too. You really want to have two of us to deal with?”

  Marlene smiled again. “There’s no one like you, Tall Wolf.”

  Though he knew better, he couldn’t stop the compliment from pleasing him.

  Even so, he said, “I shouldn’t tell you this, but assuming you really are Coyote, you’re immortal. And I’m not. I will die someday, and it is possible you might eat my remains.”

  “But?” Marlene asked.

  “You might not like the way I taste.”

  Marlene frowned. That was clearly a thought she’d never considered.

  With a scowl she told John, “Go take care of White River. Get him as little prison time as you can.”

  John nodded and left.

  With John lightly grasping his left arm, Alan White River surrendered to FBI Deputy Director Byron DeWitt, saying, “I’m the man who stole the Super Chief.”

  “All by yourself,” DeWitt added.

  “Of course not.”

  “And your accomplices are?”

  “I’m old. My memory’s not so good.”

  “Well, I believe half of that. What’s that in your hand?”

  “Something I found on the train. I thought you should have it.”

  White River handed Edward Danner’s journal to DeWitt.

  “You’ve read it?”

  “I don’t recall, but my feeling is it should come to the law’s attention.”

  “Nicely worded,” DeWitt said.

  He looked at John to see how much he might have coached White River.

  John kept a straight face, as did White River. Two wooden Indians.

  “You’re cooperation will be noted,” DeWitt told the old man. “It might be considered a mitigating factor when you come to trial.”

  John said, “One billionaire and maybe two for —”

  DeWitt’s phone interrupted with the tone of an incoming text.

  “Excuse me for just a moment,” he said. He stepped away to read the text. What he saw made him chuckle. He returned to John and Wh
ite River. “Two billionaires. Special Agent Benjamin has just taken sworn testimony from corrupt state and county officials in California that Brian Kirby bribed them to overrule the officials Edward Danner had bribed.”

  John nodded. “So with that testimony and Danner’s journal, you do have two crooked billionaires in the bag — with the help of one little old man who has a failing memory but a strong sense of doing what’s right.”

  DeWitt grinned. “Little? He’s almost as tall as you are. If his memory improves to the point where he can remember what he read in the journal and testify in court that he chose to preserve this journal to deliver to the FBI in the interest of justice, that might go a long way toward shortening his sentence.”

  White River shared a few words with John, whispering into his ear.

  “It’s possible,” John said, “his memory might improve selectively.”

  “Whatever is the best he can do, provided he gets the judge to buy his story.”

  White River nodded. He could work with that.

  But DeWitt wasn’t done laying things out.

  “Given there’s no tangible harm done to the train, there shouldn’t be any major concern there, but when the train was taken, the crew was kidnapped. That is serious.”

  “They all survived,” John pointed out.

  “Just barely in two cases. Otherwise, it’d be capital murder and there’d be no wriggle room.”

  “How much is there now?” John asked. “Keeping in mind that at Mr. White River’s age any prison term is likely to be a life sentence.”

  DeWitt sighed. “He’s going to do some time. That can’t be helped.”

  White River nodded in acceptance.

  “It might even look like there’d be no way he could outlive the sentence.”

  “Might?” John asked.

  “Someone in the federal government, say a senior law enforcement official, not me, might petition President Grant for clemency for Mr. White River in the waning days of her second term, less than two years from now.”

  John nodded. “I can do that.”

  DeWitt continued, “If for some reason President Grant can’t find her way clear to do that, and her vice president should succeed her in the Oval Office, a senior government official in law enforcement might petition the new president for clemency — and that would be me.”

  John said, “Thank you. There’s something else you might do in any case.”

  “What’s that?” DeWitt asked.

  “After Danner and Kirby are convicted?”

  “Yeah?”

  “See if you can get the powers that be to put them in the same cell.”

  DeWitt loved the idea. Even White River smiled.

  As a courtesy to John, DeWitt let him have a few minutes alone with White River.

  “Don’t know if you’ve thought about it,” John said, “but your plan for sending the Super Chief on to the museum in Chicago has a flaw in it.”

  Suspicion entered the old man’s eyes, and he asked, “What’s that?”

  John replied with a question of his own. “Who’s going to want to drive a haunted train? Not the crew that had the job in the first place. They probably don’t ever want to see the thing again. You have someone else in mind?”

  From the look of consternation that crossed his face, White River didn’t.

  “It’s always some damn thing,” John said in sympathy. “I won’t ask you to implicate your inside man on the original crew by having him do the job, but you should ask Marlene if she knows two or three Native Americans who can do the skilled work.”

  White River bobbed his head. “I’ll do that.”

  “I know some people who can provide security, make sure nothing unexpected happens to the train again,” John said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Me, my parents, a Canadian Mountie I know and the Amtrak cop you met who’s one sixty-fourth Pequot and loves a good train story.”

  White River’s eyes moistened. “You warm my heart, but I have to warn you: The spirits on that train are real and their sorrow is enduring.”

  John told him, “I know. I hope I’ll come to understand them better than I do now.”

  The old man reflected on what he’d done. “Do you think anyone will come to visit the train? Will it be too frightening? Too sad?”

  John shook his head. “I think if the stories are explained well, the aura will make it all the more compelling. People will flock to it and will see the country’s history in a whole new way.”

  John didn’t say so, but he thought Disney would kill for an exhibit with even a whiff of the truly supernatural. Something that made people weep and rage and defied rational explanation.

  Well written and illustrated supporting exhibits could give a factual underpinning for the strong feelings the train would arouse.

  John added, “I think the Chicago museum could sponsor guest tours, too. The Super Chief should ride the rails again on a regular basis, visit cities across this country and in Canada and Mexico, too. Spread the stories that train can tell far and wide.”

  Now, Alan White River’s eyes overflowed. He took John’s hands in his.

  “You are a very interesting young man. I hope I’ll have the time to get to know you better. Will you come visit me in prison?”

  “I will,” John said.

  Before heading east, John made a phone call to L. A., talking to Ellen Feazell, the reporter who’d put him on to Danner and Kirby. He told her to pack her bag for San Francisco. Two Bay Area billionaires were about to be arrested by the FBI. She could get the jump on what was bound to be a horde of newsies.

  Ms. Feazell thanked John.

  Agreed to refer to him as an anonymous source.

  Chapter 65

  Washington, D.C.

  John arrived at his new office after riding the Super Chief to Chicago with all of the people he’d mentioned to Alan White River: Haden Wolf, Serafina Wolf y Padilla, Rebecca Bramley and Maj Olson. Everyone got along famously.

  They coexisted comfortably with the spirits aboard, too. Listened to their stories and songs. Understood every word, no matter the language that was spoken. Offered their respect and condolences.

  A picture postcard from the rez in northern New Mexico lay on the unstaffed secretary’s desk outside John’s new BIA digs. The photo looked a whole lot like the mountain on which Maj Olson had kept him from dying. He turned it over and read a note from his cousin Arnoldo.

  Thought you should know. I got a promotion, too. Elected chief of tribal council. Let’s send each other cards from time to time. Show each other we care — from a distance.

  John smiled. He could live with those boundaries.

  There was a knock at the door to the outer office and a handsome young woman entered.

  She was Native American in appearance, except for her eyes.

  “I’m your new secretary, Johona Green Eyes. Just a temp until you decide whether you want to keep me on or bring in someone else.”

  She didn’t seem bothered by the idea that John might replace her.

  “Are you one sixty-fourth Irish?” he asked.

  “One eighth Scot.”

  He had one other question for her.

  “Did Marlene send you?”

  “Marlene who?”

  Perfect answer — for someone who was either innocent or well coached.

  No matter, he’d find out soon enough.

  “Never mind. Tell me what skills you have.”

  The list was lengthy. She could keep his professional life well organized.

  “Where would you like me to start?” she asked.

  “We’ll get a jump on my Christmas card list,” John said. “Begin with Arnoldo Black Knife.”

  About the Author

  Joseph Flynn has been published both traditionally — Signet Books, Bantam Books and Variance Publishing — and through his own imprint, Stray Dog Press, Inc. Both major media reviews and reader reviews have praised his work. Bookli
st said, “Flynn is an excellent storyteller.” The Chicago Tribune said, “Flynn [is] a master of high-octane plotting.” The most repeated reader comment is: Write faster, we want more.

  Contact Joe at Hey Joe on his website: www.josephflynn.com. You can also read excerpts of all of Joe’s books on his website.

  All of Joseph Flynn’s novels may be purchased online at amazon.com.

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