In the Company of Wolves_Thinning The Herd

by James Michael Larranaga

  “How bad is her condition?”

  “She’s fine and safe here for now. But I need an ambulance as a distraction. If you send it, we’ll load the escaped convict Helene Woman of the Storm into it to transport her off the reservation.”

  “They’re giving up the ex-con but keeping Rebecca Baron?” Delmar asked.

  “Yes, just until the media frenzy settles down,” Quin said.

  “Let me speak with Rebecca.”

  Quin held the radio up for her.

  “Hello, this is Rebecca Baron…”

  She confirmed details and her identity while Quin began thinking of a way to protect her. Big Ben would certainly learn of this and would want a status update on the health of his newest client.

  Stray Dog bounded into the room. “Hawk said you wanted to see me?”

  “To protect Rebecca, we need to go public with the accidental shooting,” Quin said. “Let reporters capture video of her, get her face in the newspaper. Ben would never kill such a public-facing person, right?”

  “Good idea,” Stray Dog said. “Are you comfortable with that kind of publicity, Rebecca?”

  Quin appreciated Stray Dog’s professional style, always caring about his clients.

  “Yes, I’ll go on camera,” she said. “But why don’t I take my policy back from him? Then there’s no reason for Ben to kill me.”

  “Ben is the policy owner and also the beneficiary,” Stray Dog said. “You’re the insured, but it’s very difficult to cancel a policy. As long as he makes the premium payments, there isn’t much you can do.”

  “So going public might buy us some breathing room,” Quin said.

  “It might buy Rebecca some time,” Stray Dog said. “But Ben hates to lose, and he could still go after Rebecca just to get back at you, Quin.”

  That was the warning Quin dreaded. Would his involvement with Rebecca only threaten her short life even more?

  She put her hand on his. “Stay with me. You can protect me.”

  “We’ll keep you here for a while,” Quin said. He couldn’t make any more promises.

  “I have a voicemail from Ben,” Stray Dog said, waving his phone. “He wants to know what has happened to Rebecca.”

  Quin thought about how to outsmart Big Ben. How could he use this situation to his advantage to protect Rebecca?

  “Don’t call him back yet,” Quin said. “Give me your phone. Let’s shoot video of Rebecca just in case we need it. Then we’ll have Delmar call for an ambulance.”

  Quin looked to the back window and noticed a raven soaring over Hawk’s yard. As tired as he was, Quin knew he had to keep moving; the wolf wasn’t far off.

  Ben had three monitors on the top of his desk tuned in to the morning news updates of the siege on the reservation. The monitors should’ve been packed in boxes along with Ben’s other belongings, but the early morning news was hard to ignore. On any other day this would’ve made exciting television, but this incident indirectly involved him.

  He waved at Harold, who was on the phone. “Shh! I can’t hear.”

  Harold cupped the phone close to his chest. “I found the hotel Christopher was supposed to be staying in, the one on the island.”

  “What did they say?”

  Harold thanked the person on the phone and hung up. “Christopher never checked in yesterday.”

  Ben loosened the Windsor knot in his tie. News stations had played the audio from the 9-1-1 call all morning. The voice on the audio sounded a heck of a lot like Christopher’s.

  “God damn! He’s in town.” Stabbed in the back again, Ben thought. “He’s onto us. He doesn’t answer my calls.”

  Harold sighed. “What do we do?”

  Ben had been watching the images on the monitors; there were plenty of squad cars and officers standing around, but nobody taking action. What happened last night? If somebody killed Rebecca, he would be $10 million richer.

  The phone rang, and Harold handed it to him and left the room.

  “Hey, Ben. We got a problem back home,” Senator Paul Almquist shouted into the phone.

  “Where you calling from?” Ben asked.

  “The jet,” he shouted again. “Took the first flight I could to get home.”

  Ben set his feet up on the desk, watching his monitors. He knew this incident worried the senator. “Caught the news?”

  “How could I avoid it? Police are surrounding an Indian reservation,” the senator said. “It’s not politically correct, you know. I have to put a stop to this.”

  “You got bigger problems than your political career,” Ben said.

  The senator lowered his voice. “How so?”

  “One of my former employees walked away with company files that could put you and many other politicians in prison. He’s on that reservation with the escaped prisoner and the hostage.”

  The senator offered no reaction.

  “Hello? Are you there?” Ben asked. Had Senator Almquist hung up and started calling his lawyer already?

  “I’m here,” he said. “What’s the plan got to do with that information?”

  “What do you think? He’ll go public with it,” Ben said.

  “Then get rid of him.”

  “If it were only that easy,” Ben said. “You’re the only one who can get rid of him.”

  Another long pause, filled with the white noise hiss of the jet.

  “Me? How?“

  “Christopher Gartner is on that Indian reservation right now,” Ben said. “That hostage is a client of mine. I’m betting she’s already dead, in which case I can collect $10 million and be on my merry way. Christopher also has the database that could put a lot of us in prison.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  Ben watched the video footage of squad cars circling Indian land. “These Keystone cops don’t know what they’re in for. Speak with the governor, grab the president’s ear if you have to, and call in the National Guard.”

  “Jesus! I can’t do that! Indian reservations are sovereign nations. We can’t just blow in there and shoot them up,” he said.

  “Why not? A fugitive escaped from prison, shot somebody, and took the victim to the reservation,” Ben argued. “That’s all the cover you need to reclaim the database.”

  The senator breathed heavier, hyperventilating into the phone. “This could be another Ruby Ridge, another Waco, Texas, massacre.”

  “You want to see seven Republican senators arrested for conspiracy and murder?” Ben knew he was getting through. Paul was a politician; he’d take any side that twisted his arm hard enough.

  The senator swore under his breath and then managed to say, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Quin had slept only a few hours when he awoke to Helene cursing. He rolled out of bed, walked to the bathroom, and splashed water on his face. He went to see what she was fussing about and found her pacing in small circles in the center of Hawk’s living room. Quin wanted her to sit down, but he knew she wasn’t a thinker. Helene was a doer, and she had to do something while they talked, even if that meant circling the room in tight circles like a caged animal.

  “If you give me a car and a full tank of gas, I could get away,” she said. “Distract them and give me a head start.”

  “Won’t work,” Quin said. “You can’t run forever.”

  Hawk nodded. He was a man of simple principles. “You must go back. Tell them what you’ve done.”

  She stopped her pacing long enough to point a cigarette at her father. Her eyes were glassy and red. She hadn’t slept much either.

  “You want to hand me over to the white man?”

  “You did that yourself long ago,” Hawk said, folding his arms. “Quin Raven has a way to trick the wolf. Do as he says.”

  “The ambulance is here,” Quin said to Helene. “You’ll lie on the gurney, and they’ll put you in the ambulance as if you’re Rebecca.”

  “They’ll send me back to prison,” she said. “A real prison this time!”


  “I’ll try to negotiate on your behalf,” Quin said. “If you don’t cooperate right now, I guarantee you’ll never see the outside of a prison again.”

  The paramedics knocked and then entered through the front door.

  “Go Helene. It’s the only way out,” Hawk said.

  Helene climbed onto the gurney as a police officer stepped in the doorway.

  “I love you, Papa,” she said.

  Hawk kissed her forehead. “Be a good girl.”

  Quin stepped onto the porch and watched the ambulance drive off. Slim Jim stood in the driveway with binoculars, watching the front gate. “They’ve called in the military!”

  Quin stepped off the porch and grabbed the binoculars. “Let me see.”

  The National Guard arrived and parked along the edge of the reservation. Quin counted five army-green trucks.

  Slim Jim read a text on his phone. “My friends Pony and King-Fish are scouting up on the hills. They said the National Guard has another caravan headed our way. My God,” he said. “All of this for Helene?”

  “It’s not for her,” Quin said. “It’s for me and Christopher. They know we’ve got the evidence.”

  Quin’s heart was pumping double time. He suspected the database contained evidence to convict Big Ben Moretti of other murders, but how could Ben call in the troops?

  Quin went back into the house. ”Christopher, what’s in those files?”

  “A list of investors,” Stray Dog said from the kitchen. “Several of them are senators. They knew Ben was killing clients. They even encouraged it so they could collect on their investments.”

  Quin had had no idea Big Ben’s murders were part of a larger conspiracy. “Senators are involved?”

  Stray Dog nodded, looking out the porch door toward the front gate. “At least six or seven, plus other power brokers in Washington. This is big, Quin. They don’t want this information to get out. They’ll slaughter us!”

  “Not if I can help it.” Quin ran back out to Slim Jim’s Bronco. “Let’s go down to the gate.”

  Quin and Slim Jim drove there and parked the truck. The squad cars had multiplied, breeding right there on the gravel road. He could’ve easily have counted twenty or thirty vehicles. And green camouflaged jeeps were just arriving.

  Quin climbed up onto the roof of Slim Jim’s truck and shouted to the reporters. “This is a setup! Those army vehicles are not here to recover an escaped prisoner! They’re here to recover evidence of a government cover-up! The government is killing its citizens!”

  He paused for a moment as the wind burned through his bare hands. Reporters zoomed in with their cameras and microphones. They looked relieved to have interesting footage, but nobody understood what he was saying. Quin looked into the crowd of curious faces.

  “What are you saying?” Delmar Torres shouted through the radio clipped to Quin’s belt.

  Quin pulled it and replied to Delmar. “Watch me.” He spotted Big Ben at the back of the crowd.

  “That man there, in the trench coat, is guilty of murder!” he shouted. “I have the proof. I have the names of senators he has killed for!”

  The cameras and reporters swarmed Big Ben the way paparazzi chase celebrities. He backed away, shaking his head, probably telling people the Indian on the truck was a nut.

  Quin knew nobody caught the real meaning of what he said. Even the Indians below him on their trucks nodded vaguely as if they thought Quin was making a typical plea about how Indians had always been mistreated. This approach wasn’t working.

  He jumped down from the vehicle onto the snow and approached the gated entrance and the mob of reporters. “I have proof I can give to one of you that will shed some light on what I am saying.”

  A female reporter stuck a microphone through the gate. “Senator Almquist is flying in from Washington. Anything you want to say to him specifically about the hostage situation inside?”

  Quin backed away from the gate. “No. Just tell him I need to speak with him once he arrives.”

  Over the radio Delmar repeatedly asked him what was going on. Quin took it off his belt and hurled it over the gate. A mob of photographers ran to where the radio landed in the snow, like a pack of hungry dogs chasing after a single bone.

  Seeing this, Quin looked through the gate back at Big Ben, who’d managed to elude the reporters. Quin had an idea that might end this, a way to avoid the oncoming siege, but he wanted to meet with Rebecca one more time before he met with Big Ben.

  Quin burst through the door of Hawk’s house and found Stray Dog and Hawk in the kitchen mixing medicine for Rebecca.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Quin said to Stray Dog.

  “What is it?”

  “I think I can negotiate a settlement when Senator Almquist arrives,” Quin said. “Rebecca can get medical attention and remain here while she recovers.”

  “You are the raven. The wolf will follow the raven,” Hawk said.

  “Exactly, so I can’t stay here anymore.”

  Quin knew this had been what old Hawk had been telling him earlier. “As long as I leave with the evidence, they’ll have no reason to come onto your land, Hawk.”

  “Our land.”

  “This isn’t my home,” Quin admitted to Hawk for the first time. “I’ve stayed long enough.”

  Hawk accepted this, as if he already knew Quin wasn’t Sioux, as if he knew this was the best way.

  “When you leave, Quin Raven, the wolf will follow, but he cannot harm you,” Hawk said stoically.

  He liked that name, Quin Raven.

  “Christopher, I saw Ben down at the gate. Why don’t you call him and set up a meeting with the senator,” Quin said.

  “We tell him we have the database?” Stray Dog confirmed.

  “That should at least get their attention,” Quin said. “And let’s see what else we can negotiate.”

  Stray Dog went to his coat, and Quin turned to Hawk. “I’ll see if I can minimize Helene’s prison time.”

  “You’re a good son,” Hawk said.

  Those words rattled Quin. He wasn’t family at all. He felt he had to admit it. “Hawk, Helene is not my mother.”

  Hawk smiled. “I know. I’ve always known.”

  “Really? Why hadn’t you said anything?”

  “You needed a place to live, and I needed company,” he said. “If you were trouble, I would’ve thrown you out.”

  “Now it’s time for me to move on.”

  Hawk opened his arms, and they embraced. “Go say good-bye to Rebecca.”

  “Thank you again for everything,” Quin said.

  He walked the hallway to Rebecca’s room. He found her sitting, propped with pillows.

  “You’ve been so busy. Come sit.”

  Quin sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling now?”

  “The fever broke,” she said. “Whatever Hawk is making in the kitchen, it’s working.”

  “You’re safe here on the reservation for now. We’ll do the press conference here so the media will know you’re alive and well. Then we’ll transfer you to the hospital.”

  “I heard you saying to Christopher that you want a meeting with Ben. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I need to wrap up a few loose ends,” Quin said.

  “Be very careful.”

  “I promise.”

  Quin went to kiss her on the forehead, and Rebecca pulled him in closer and kissed him on the cheek. He felt a tear dripping from her cheek onto his.

  “Are you crying?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Be careful.”

  Wolves will fight to the death over the alpha position unless one wolf submits.

  Quin watched Senator Almquist shaking hands with reporters and onlookers outside the reservation, assuring everyone that this would all be resolved without violence. He was very concerned about what had happened in his home state of Minnesota, and he was here to help. He tried this same line on the Indians across the gate, but one of them fli
pped him the finger.

  Delmar led Quin and Stray Dog through the crowd to the senator’s mud-splattered black limousine. “Quin, this is Senator Almquist,” Delmar said. “Quin has been negotiating the situation from the inside. This is Christopher Gartner, one of the people who witnessed the shooting last night.”

  Almquist was tall and stately, as if he’d been bred to be a politician. He had a square, angular face. Even Delmar’s thin mustache would’ve helped soften the senator’s stonelike features.

  “I’ve heard quite a lot about both of you,” the senator said. “Would you like to get out of the cold and join me in my car?”

  A big car for a big man.

  Quin reluctantly joined the senator in the limo, with Stray Dog behind him, realizing Big Ben and Sheriff David Carlson were already seated. The senator told Delmar to keep watch outside.

  “No feds allowed in the limo,” the senator said, slamming the door. “Take us up the road away from the crowd and reporters.”

  “Make sure they’re not wired,” Big Ben said.

  The sheriff searched Quin and Stray Dog as the limo crawled along the gravel road.

  “They’re clean,” the sheriff said, sitting back with Big Ben.

  “Thank you for meeting with us, Senator,” Quin said.

  The alpha wolf nipped at Stray Dog. “She’s dead, isn’t she? One of you killed her last night.”

  “She’s fine, Ben,” Quin said. “Your client is alive and well.”

  “Then where is she?” Big Ben barked, as if he were mad that the raven had stolen his big kill.

  The senator put his hand on Big Ben’s knee. “I don’t care about this insurance policy the two of you traded. I’m here to talk about the files that may have my name in them.”

  “Your name and many other names,” Stray Dog said. “You’re also on the list of investors, Sheriff.”

  The sheriff sat motionless, but Quin could see the man’s pulse throbbing in his neck.

  “How can we keep those names private?” the senator asked. “Do you want money?”

  “We want you to stop murdering people,” Quin said.