by Alex Archer
Then he asked, “How do you know John Jacob Ten Bears?”
“Johnny? I met him in a bar. I didn’t encourage his acquaintance.”
That’s putting it mildly, she thought, restraining a smile.
“Do you frequent this bar, Ms. Creed?”
“I’ve been in Lawton for three days. I’m not sure that gives me an opportunity to ‘frequent’ anything.”
He pursed his lips. “You have spent only a single night in the Lawton area, Ms. Creed.”
“I’ve had kind of a rough time, Special Agent Young. Lots of travel, a close friend being killed. Being shot at. I may be a little fuzzy as to details right now.”
He nodded judiciously.
“Are you investigating Johnny?” she asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”
“Is he a person of interest, then?”
“I can’t answer that, either.”
“Then what difference does it make what I know about him? Anyway, everything is in the statements I gave to Lieutenant Ten Bears. Including my account of what happened in the Oklahoma Rose.” About which he’d as yet asked nothing.
“Presumably you know he is John Ten Bears’ father?”
“Yes. Do you feel that prejudices the lieutenant’s ability to conduct an investigation?”
“Let us say the potential for a conflict of interest is there.”
She laughed. “If you’d actually sit down and talk to either man, you’d find out how mistaken that is. If anything, Lieutenant Ten Bears will go harder on his son than he would some random person.”
“Perhaps you believe that.”
She reminded herself getting annoyed with a federal agent was a waste of time at best. “Look, just what are you investigating here? The serial killings? The Iron Horse People? Some kind of events locally that might connect them?”
“Why would you suspect we’re investigating local events?”
“I got shot at this morning. With fully automatic weapons, which are extremely uncommon on the streets in this country, as well as intensely illegal. They were American made, not Kalashnikovs—M-16s. There’s obviously some pretty serious game being played around here. I’d have to be a fool not to notice that.”
“Have you any special knowledge of what you’re calling a ‘game’?”
“No. I’m interested in who killed Paul, and is butchering my professional peers. Lieutenant Ten Bears has asked me to consult, on an unofficial basis, from my knowledge not just of archaeology but of the profession of archaeology. I’ve done contract consulting with law enforcement before. I know the rules.”
“Are you aware that the penalties for obstructing a federal investigation are quite severe?”
“Yes. I’d pretty much gathered that.”
“It would be advisable for you to leave the area, Ms. Creed. You can only put yourself in the way of unpleasant complications by staying.”
“So I’m not under suspicion of anything, then?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Isn’t it usual procedure to tell a suspect not to leave the area?”
“I see… You are not a suspect, Ms. Creed. I have the discretion to tell you that.”
“Good. Do you have the discretion to let me go?”
“Are you agreeing to leave Oklahoma?”
“No.”
“You aren’t being very cooperative, young lady.”
“You haven’t actually asked my cooperation on anything. You’ve threatened me. You suggested I go away. Not much scope for cooperation there. Now, may I please leave? I’m tired and hungry and want to take a shower.”
“Yes.”
She got up.
“Ms. Creed?” His voice stopped her at the door.
“Yes.”
“You’re making a mistake if you stay.”
“That wouldn’t be the first one. Good evening, Special Agent Young.”
THE STARS WERE OUT above the Plains in force when Annja pulled into the gravel lot of the Bad Medicine. The glow of the neon sign did little to push them back as she parked facing the dirt road. She looked to confirm the presence of a certain distinctive red-and-cream Indian bike before she turned off the engine.
The clouds were gone but the wind bit deep as she got out of her car. She wondered how freaked the rental company would be if they checked the car’s GPS records and found she’d driven back to the place where she’d left the last one. Which presumably had been turned into a sieve by gunplay by the time they sweet-talked a wrecker into coming out to such dubious precincts to tow it away.
“Take it up with Lieutenant Ten Bears,” she suggested aloud to the hypothetical outraged rental agent.
The expected blast of warmth and noise hit her like a blowtorch when she opened the door. Once again all conversation stopped as if a switch had been turned. She could see twenty or so Iron Horses gathered there.
Every face turned as one to peer at her.
Somebody said something and jumped to his feet. She was relieved to see most of the expressions were confused. Somewhat.
But then a familiar lanky figure unfolded from a table in the far corner. “It’s all right,” Johnny Ten Bears said, his baritone voice ringing out.
“Come on in,” Johnny said, walking up to Annja with his rolling gait. “Folks, this is Annja Creed. We met her the other night under kinda unfortunate circumstances. I talked to her today, right before that little shooting scrape you-all heard about, and we agreed to bury the hatchet. She’s good people.
“And she’s with me,” he added.
Not knowing quite how to respond to the sheer force of masculinity the half Kiowa, half Comanche biker lord seemed to radiate, she shook his strong well-shaped hand. It made her feel lame.
“Understand I can’t order anybody around,” he said, smiling and leaning his head close to hers so his hair fell to either side of his face like shining black curtains. “These aren’t the sort of people who take kindly to taking orders. I just try to…set an example.”
“All right,” Annja said. “Can we talk?”
“Figured you might want to do that.” He straightened. “Come on and meet the tribe. This bear-shaped buck is Billy White Bird, my right-hand man and the best wrench in western Oklahoma and the greater panhandle area.”
“Sorry we got off on the wrong foot the other night,” Annja said as the grinning man enfolded her hand in one paw. “I see your face is healing up nicely.”
“Superficial cut,” he said. “Head wounds bleed like crazy. Anyway, I always heal fast. And I apologize for my behavior. Sometimes I let a joke get outta hand.” She noticed that he still wore his colors over bare skin, and got another glimpse of the intricate blue tattoo over his paunch.
“Wondering why I wander around half-nekkid?” he asked, and shrugged. “Don’t like to get too hot. Ed keeps it like a furnace in here during the cold months. And an icebox when it’s warm.”
He followed them as Johnny escorted Annja through the crowd, introducing random people. “This is Ricky, Angel, Mose, Quahadi—”
Ricky was blade-lean and had a gold hoop in his right ear. Angel looked almost comically like her name, with a soft oval face that probably looked years younger than she was. She wore a fringed black jacket over her colors. She also carried a dark-blue Taurus .357 with what looked like grips custom cut down to fit her small hands. Beyond that Annja lost track.
As they navigated back toward Johnny’s table, Annja met Eagle Eye, Satanta, Loco and Lonny Blackhands.
And, of course, Snake.
“I believe you two got acquainted the other night,” Johnny said.
Her handshake was dry and firm and sinuously strong. Well, it would be, Annja thought. “Pleased to met you,” Annja said.
“The pleasure’s all yours,” Snake said. “Anytime you’d like to renew our…getting acquainted—”
“Now, Snake,” Johnny said, putting just a hint of whip-crack to his voice. “Is that a hospitable way to treat
our guest?”
“If I were hospitable,” the tall woman said, turning back to the bar, “would I be named Snake?”
Everybody got back to what they were doing—talking and drinking—while Johnny took Annja to his table. Billy White Bird followed.
The chairs were old-style wooden saloon chairs. They were at least somewhat more comfortable than the one in Special Agent Young’s office.
“So why the interest in us?” Johnny asked. “It doesn’t seem likely to be our charming company.”
She grinned. “Don’t underrate yourselves,” she said. “I’ve had plenty worse receptions.”
Billy looked at her close. “Reckon you have at that,” he said softly. He took a drink from his mug. When he set it down an unmistakable smell reach Annja’s nostrils. He was drinking apple cider, not beer.
In fact, now that she noticed it, she hadn’t smelled alcohol at all since coming in here. “You have got to be kidding—” she said, leaning back and straightening in her chair.
“I think she’s caught on to our terrible secret,” Billy said, eyes twinkling.
Johnny shrugged. “It’s no big thing. Some of our people are recovering alcoholics. The rest of us don’t tend to drink much. Yeah, the stereotypical Indians and alcohol thing—some people say we’ve got a genetic predisposition to it, but I don’t buy. The scientific evidence seems sketchy at best. Anyway. Booze and bikes don’t really mix that well—that’s a fact. Nor do guns and booze.”
She shook her head. “You people are too much.”
“Now she’s really catching on,” Billy said.
“I thought you were hanging around to investigate the skinwalker killings?” Johnny said.
The media had dubbed the murderer the I-40 Killer, since all his attacks had occurred fairly near the big west-to-east artery that had supplanted the famed Route 66. The police were squatting hard on all details that connected the crimes to anything either supernatural sounding or that would hint at an Indian connection. None too surprisingly the Iron Horses seemed to have contacts of their own.
“So why the interest in us?” Johnny asked again.
“The Dog Society connection, mostly,” she said. “Which was brought home to me pretty forcefully this morning.”
“Listen,” Johnny said, “I am really sorry about that. I had no right to expose you to that kind of danger, not to mention those poor people at the diner. I honestly had no idea the Dogs would fly that far off the handle. I didn’t realize just how bad things had gotten.”
“Why do you assume you were the target?” she asked softly.
A local cone of silence seemed to descend on their little table. “Say what?” Billy asked.
She shrugged. “I’ve been attracting a lot of attention lately. That attack on your club house I took for just bad timing on my part. Say, none of your people were hurt in that?”
“Nothing they won’t get over,” Johnny said.
“Them Dogs were planning some kind of surprise attack, we think,” Billy said. “Once the guns started talking, they pulled back pretty smart.”
“Good. Anyway, I got a personal warning from them night before last.” She sketched out the restroom encounter in eastern New Mexico.
Through her mind flitted the memory of wolf shadows at sunset. Seeming to watch her. She dismissed them as irrelevant. Hallucination, mere coincidence. Certainly nothing real.
When she finished her account Johnny sat back, pulling a long face and nodding.
“You’re taking this all pretty calm for a well-groomed college-educated white-eyes chick,” Billy said.
She shrugged. “Not the first time I’ve been shot at. With automatic weapons, for that matter. Not the first time people have tried to jack me up in lonely places, either.”
The two bikers exchanged glances. “I get the feeling you let us off kinda easy the other night, lady,” Billy said.
“Yeah. Well. No offense, but you didn’t really trip my deadly threat detectors. Seemed as if you were just trying to rowdy me up some.”
Billy guffawed. He made as if to slap Annja on the back, then pulled his hand away as if suspecting her shoulder was forge-hot. “Hoo-baby! We got us a winner here, Johnny.”
“As long as you don’t get to thinking you’re bullet-proof,” he said soberly.
“Believe me, I know better,” she said. “Anyway, as to your conflict with the Dog Society here—it just seems there has to be a skinwalker connection. First, it seems unlikely the Dogs have decided to lean on me, however hard, just because I’m nosing around their turf. If they know that much, they know I am fixated on solving the death of my friend. Circumstances have kind of forced me to widen my focus. Second, it also strikes me that if the Dogs were after me that first night outside this place, they’d’ve come on way stronger than they did in that ladies’ room.”
“Mebbe they put two and two together after you busted those bad boys up some,” Billy said.
“Not impossible. But one common theme of the skinwalker attacks seems to be that the digs he targets are protested by Native groups.”
“Nominally native,” Johnny said.
“Okay. But the Dogs opposed the dig here, didn’t they? Even if they weren’t the ones picketing it?”
“Actually, they were,” Billy said. “They have this kind, gentler public-face auxiliary. Kinda like Sinn Féin to the old Provisional IRA.”
“The creature—killer—does seem to have struck a bit far afield. Coincidentally in an area where radical violence is already taking place.”
Johnny looked at Billy again, then back at her, Leaning forward, he said, “Ms. Creed, you don’t know the half of it.”
“Annja,” she corrected half-reflexively. “What don’t I know the half of?”
“We have wind that the Dog Soldiers have cooked up a scheme to provoke a race war between Indians and whites,” Johnny said. “We think it’s about good to go.”
12
“That’s insane,” Annja said. “Indians are a tiny minority of the population. They’d get squashed.”
Johnny canted his head to one side. “Maybe not. The U.S. military is spread thin all over the world. It’s been weakened, materially and morally, by too many wars for no strategic benefit to Americans, or even any visible strategic point. The economy is struggling. A case for vulnerability could be made.”
“But would some kind of shocking terrorist strike be more likely to cause faith in the U.S. government to break down, or to invite hideous retaliation against Indians? And not just from the government?” Annja said.
“Well,” Billy said, shrugging, “that’s the question, ain’t it?”
“We fear the latter,” Johnny said. “The Dogs believe strongly in the former. They even believe other radicals, including white anarchists, will actively join them.”
Johnny Ten Bears seemed a highly intelligent man, Annja thought. His manner was certainly calm and rational. “What do you think?”
“I think that the Dog Solders have talked themselves into believing there’s a good enough chance of success to go for it,” he said.
She shook her head and blew out a long breath. “That’s a big leap for me to take,” she responded. “As I said, I’ve been shot at before. By some pretty blatantly bad people. And none of them actually thought they could take down the United States government.”
“Well, Comanche County has been just a font of new experiences for you, then,” Billy said.
“Just do me one favor,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “Once you walk out of here. Keep your head on a swivel.”
“Always,” she said.
“YEAH, JUST LIKE I thought,” Lieutenant Tom Ten Bears said, shaking his head. “FBI has been tramping all over this place like yokels gaping at the world’s biggest pig at the county fair. I do believe I see the print of Special Agent in Charge Young over there.”
Annja doubted it. Admittedly she hadn’t been overly impressed with Young herself. But the Bureau maintained at leas
t certain minimum standards of professionalism.
But somebody had trampled the University of Oklahoma dig and multiple-murder scene well and truly. Her vote went to the national and global media, before taking flight once more and swarming like locusts to the next showy catastrophe. At the moment she and the lieutenant had it to themselves. Not even the Comanche County sheriff was sending his deputies out to freeze and watch an isolated crime scene that had been so thoroughly picked over.
The wind blew. The clouds threatened. Annja wondered if spring was always like this.
“Don’t report me,” the lieutenant said, pulling the collar of his bulky brown jacket higher around his neck, “but I could use some of that global warming they’re always talking about on TV. This is more like the ice age.”
Annja paused by the RV where Paul had lived the last few days of his life. The RV had its doors sealed with yellow crime-scene tape.
“So I’ve been reading some of those reports you sent me,” she said, taking off a glove and briefly touching the cold metal of the RV’s side. “It looks as if people were reporting strange wolflike creatures in the vicinity even before the attacks.”
“Yeah. And not just wolves. We got shaggy-man stories, too. Not your usual Sasquatch or skunk-ape guy in gorilla-sort yarns, either. We’re talking full-on wolfman stuff. Sent you those, too.”
She shook her head. “It’s probably just people getting worked up and seeing natural animals.”
“Got no wolves in Comanche County.”
“Well, big dogs, then. Or even coyotes. Coyotes are everywhere now. You can’t really believe there’s more to these reports than that?”
He stuck his hands deep in his jacket pockets and chuckled. “I surely do love it when you city folk come out here, and you know so much more about the land and the weather and the animals than us poor dumb country folk who’ve only lived among all that our entire lives.”
“You don’t really think there’s anything paranormal going on?” Annja said.
“Not necessarily. I don’t discount supernatural stuff all the way, either. I’ve seen some things that aren’t exactly dreamt of in your philosophy, Ms. Creed.”