The Red Power Murders

by Thomas King

  In the fall of 1890, the Tucker lost its top floor to a fire. No one knows how it started, but the best of the stories credited the blaze to a family of squirrels that had taken up residence in the attic and decided to play “chase” across the furniture. The paying occupant of the room had not been amused and joined the game with a broom. There was an oil lamp and a set of brocade curtains, but the story ended happily. More or less. According to most versions, both the squirrels and the guest escaped.

  Through that winter, a hard season marked by blizzards and the massacre of Big Foot’s band of Lakota at the hands of a revitalized Seventh Cavalry, the hotel remained vacant. But by the summer of the following year, it was open again, with two new floors.

  In the years after the First World War, the Tucker fell on hard times. The hotel closed, and the bottom floor was used as a hospital, as a general store, and then as a warehouse. From the late 1940s on, it was home to travelling theatre companies, a library, and a skating rink. When McAuliffe Moran Inc. bought the property, the Tucker was showing art films in the lobby every Friday and Saturday.

  Thumps had been to one movie at the Tucker. With Claire Merchant. During one of their “on-again” periods. A French film with subtitles. What he remembered most was the soft smell of damp plaster and rotting wood, and the hollow echoes of empty rooms and dead spaces. The ornate limestone exterior was still intact, but the stone had darkened down—old age and coal smoke—and summer tourists, seeing the building for the first time, imagined that it had been the site of some memorable disaster.

  Thumps pulled in beside the sheriff’s vehicle and got out.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “I think Andy is going to stick that key into every car in the lot.”

  “I meant the hotel.”

  “I know.”

  “Boutique,” said the sheriff, letting the vowels drip off his tongue.

  “It was an eyesore.”

  “History,” said Duke. “It was history.”

  “Still is.”

  “Were you around when it was a skating rink?”

  “Nope.”

  “Too bad.” The sheriff hitched his pants and headed for the main entrance. “Those were the days.”

  The limestone had been sandblasted and painted with a sealant that helped bring out the veining. Brass railings had been added for accent along with a long piece of red indoor/outdoor carpet that cascaded down the granite steps.

  It made sense, Thumps reasoned. If Noah Ridge was coming to town, this is where he would insist on staying.

  “How well do you know Ridge?”

  Thumps shrugged. “How well did I know him.”

  “He going to recognize you?”

  It was a good question. Thumps wasn’t sure that Noah would recognize him. Salt Lake City had been a long time ago, and in those years, thousands of people must have passed under the man’s bridge.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe’s not an answer.”

  The elevator that took Thumps and the sheriff to the fourth floor was a reproduction of a turn-of-the-century lift with a door made up of slender iron rods that accordioned in and out, a faux stained-glass canopy, and rich wood panelling. Boutique or not, the corporate folk had spared no expense.

  “What are you going to say to him?”

  “How’s ‘hi’ strike you?”

  “I’m not paying you to say ‘Hi.’”

  As he walked down the hall, Thumps imagined he was in a gangster movie. That he and the sheriff were hit men on the way to a job. They’d knock on the door, and someone would say, “Who’s there?” and then the two of them would take Tommy guns from beneath their trench coats and spray the place with bullets.

  “Andy’s not that stupid,” said the sheriff.

  “If you say so.”

  Thumps hadn’t really thought about who might open the door to room 424. But even if the sheriff had asked him to guess, he would have been wrong.

  “Yes?”

  The winter sun coming in through the window behind the woman was blinding. Thumps recognized her voice before he could see her face.

  Dakota Miles.

  After all this time and there she was, standing in the doorway, looking pretty much the way she had looked when Thumps last saw her. At the train depot in Salt Lake.

  “I’m Sheriff Hockney,” said the sheriff in his official voice. “We’re here to see Noah Ridge.”

  “Thumps?”

  Thumps smiled. It was nice to be remembered.

  “You must be kidding.”

  “Nope. It’s me.”

  “The last time I saw you . . .”

  “I was putting you on a train.”

  “That’s right.” Dakota nodded. “You a cop?”

  “Not anymore.”

  The sheriff tipped his hat the way that sheriffs always tip their hats. “Thumps is helping us out.”

  “A consultant?” Dakota couldn’t keep the smile down. “For the police.”

  “Sure,” said the sheriff, “a consultant.”

  “Actually,” said Thumps, “I’m a photographer.”

  “I guess a lot has changed.” Dakota sounded sad now. And tired.

  And some things are still the same, thought Thumps.

  The friendly people at the front desk probably called this “an executive suite,” or possibly “a penthouse.” Thumps could see the corner of a galley kitchen. Somewhere farther on would be a master bedroom with a tub/shower ensuite. That was the beauty of old hotels. They were spacious compared to the cramped little boxes that you got at places like the Holiday Inn or Motel 6 or the hundreds of other look-alike chains that followed the highways west.

  Thumps especially liked the windows. They were tall, stately affairs with a bevelled glass arch, the kind that opened inward, like French doors, to let in fresh air, and he wondered just when the concept of hotel windows that opened had been lost. Probably when hotel entrepreneurs discovered that windows that didn’t open cost less than windows that did.

  “He’s out for a jog.”

  Thumps tried to imagine Noah out for a jog. When he knew him, the only physical exercise the man ever performed on a daily basis was talking. And he was good at it. Passionate, committed, eloquent, he could open your heart and your wallet. His looks helped. Long dark hair, a face chiselled out of stone, deep-set black eyes, he had been the darling of progressive liberals and romantic conservatives, the moneyed, well-meaning, heart-in-the-right-place sort who were committed to social change and the status quo all at the same time, who wanted to hear what Native people needed but who were loath to help in the belief that any assistance might limit free will and thwart ambition. But they were more than happy to pay for the lecture.

  “I guess you’re here about the death threat.” Dakota pushed the door open.

  “Only one?” Thumps tried a chuckle, so Dakota would know it was a joke.

  “One’s all it takes.” Dakota said this in a flat, matter-of-fact way, but just beyond the edge of her voice was something else. Concern. Maybe anger. “Come on in,” she said. “You want coffee? Tea?”

  “Coffee for me,” said the sheriff.

  “Coffee’s fine,” said Thumps.

  Dakota disappeared into the kitchen. The sheriff turned his hat in his hand and glanced around the room.

  “There anybody you don’t know?”

  “Just someone from the past.”

  “We should sit down and talk about that past of yours one of these days.”

  “Nothing much to tell.”

  Hockney chuckled. “You wouldn’t have a file with the FBI, would you?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Not that I’m going to look.” The sheriff found a chair and hooked his hat on his knee. “Unless you screw up.”

  Thumps had always wondered if his time in Salt Lake had wound up in a file in Virginia. He hadn’t been a member of the American Indian Movement or the Red Power Movement. Sympathetic, sure. But he had staye
d away from most of the marches and the rallies.

  Except for that one time when the local chapter of AIM had walked down to Temple Square to deliver two dozen long-stemmed red roses to the head of the Mormon Church. It was during one of the church’s periodic conferences, and the temple grounds were filled with families taking in the sights. David Hardin, who was the head of the Salt Lake City chapter of AIM, had called the church’s public relations office to let it know who was coming and what they were bringing. And why.

  But paranoia runs deeper than common sense, and the church immediately called its security division, which called the Salt Lake City police. By the time the small band of Native men, women, and children arrived at the gates to the temple grounds, armed to the teeth with flowers, all the entrances had been chained shut. There were police on the rooftops of the building surrounding Temple Square, police in station wagons with police dogs, police on foot in uniforms and in plainclothes. Thumps was sure he had never seen so many police in one place at one time, though, to be fair, the long gold-foil box that Hardin had carried all the way from the Indian Walk-in Center near the railroad station to the temple grounds could have contained a Winchester carbine and a box of ammunition.

  Of course, anyone who knew Native people knew they wouldn’t take their families with them if they were looking for a fight, but this bit of wisdom had escaped notice by the folk whose job it was to guard the fort.

  At first Hardin tried to reason with church officials, who stood behind the gates out of reach and ready to run for cover the moment the carbine appeared. He told them that this was a “thank you” march and that he wanted to present the head of the church with a dozen roses.

  Leave them at the gate, the church officials politely told him. And someone will pick them up.

  This give-and-take went on for a while, which allowed every television network in the city to get its cameras in place. Finally, Pauline Chee, an older Navajo woman from Shiprock, who had better things to do than to stand around and argue with frightened White men, opened the box, took the flowers out, and shook them at the officials, while the police and the cameras stood ready for the riot to begin.

  “You guys have been pretty good to us this year,” said Pauline. “And we appreciate your generosity. So, here are some roses, and we’re going to try to forget about what bad manners you got.”

  One of the officials, the smallest man of the bunch, came forward and put his arms through the bars in a gesture that was supposed to suggest goodwill, thanked Pauline for the roses, and promised that the church would continue to do what it could for Native people. “Well, then,” said Pauline, “you can start by taking the chain off this gate.”

  “We can’t do that,” said the official.

  “I got to use your bathroom,” said Pauline. “And so does Quasty.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “’Cause she’s pregnant.”

  In the end, the chains stayed on the gates and the Indians stayed out of Temple Square, and that night on television, the “Standoff at Temple Square,” as they called it, was broadcast around the world.

  Thumps was trying to remember the face of the church official who had finally come out from behind the gates to accept the roses, when he heard the hotel door behind him open.

  Thumps didn’t have to look at Hockney’s face to see that the sheriff’s eyes were bright with interest.

  “Noah,” said Dakota, coming out of the kitchen with cups and a pot of coffee, “this is the sheriff.”

  Ridge nodded to Hockney and then turned to Thumps. “I know you.”

  It was more a question than an answer. Thumps could see Noah flipping through the past to put a name to a face.

  “Thumps DreadfulWater.”

  Noah had put on weight over the years. Not the potbelly kind. Just a thick layer all over. In his younger days, his body had been a complex of mean angles and sharp edges. Ice cliffs and crags. Now he looked more like river rocks and butter. His nose was puffier than Thumps remembered. Only his eyes remained unchanged.

  “I’ll be in my room if you need me.” Dakota put the coffee pot on the table. “You’ve got dinner with the mayor and the library committee at six.”

  Noah picked up a watch from the counter, one of those heavy masculine models with a stainless-steel band, and slid it on his wrist. “You exercise?”

  Thumps shook his head.

  “Nothing like it. You know Native people were some of the greatest runners in the world.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Jim Thorpe. Billy Mills.” Noah flopped on the sofa and kicked off his shoes. “You’re Choctaw, right?”

  “Cherokee.”

  “Sequoyah and Will Rogers. That’s pretty much it, isn’t it?” Noah got up and padded into the kitchen. “Bet you’re wondering about Dakota.”

  “She’s a big girl.”

  “That she is,” said Noah. “She’s my executive assistant.”

  “You know,” said the sheriff, butting in before either man could get warmed up, “I’ve always wondered what an executive assistant did.”

  “Depends on who the executive is,” said Noah.

  The last time Thumps had been in the same room with Noah Ridge, he had had the almost uncontrollable urge to hit the man. Now the old feeling was back.

  “Did Dakota tell you I didn’t need your help?”

  “Didn’t come to offer it,” said the sheriff. “But this is my town. I live here. I work here.”

  “Nice place,” said Noah. “Used to live in a town like this when I was a kid. Had a big lake just north of us. A lot of folks would come up to the lake every summer. Rich people. Fancy cabins along the shore, each one with its own private beach. Could hardly get to the lake.”

  “Yeah,” said the sheriff, trying to be friendly, “we got a lake like that.”

  “The one I passed on the way into town?”

  “Red Tail Lake.”

  “And every fall as soon as the weather turned cold, the rich folks would lock up their fancy places and head back to the city.”

  “Sort of like old activists,” said Hockney.

  “Sure,” said Noah. “Some of us, at least.”

  “Long as the rest of you remember to mind your manners,” said the sheriff, “we’ll get along just fine.”

  Noah turned to Thumps. “Is this the ‘keep your nose clean or I’ll run you out of town’ speech?”

  “Don’t guess it’s the first time you’ve heard it,” said Hockney.

  “Just ask old Thumps here,” said Noah.

  Hockney reached down and grabbed his hat. “Well, no sense keeping you. Just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

  “Welcome me to town, right?”

  “Sure.” Hockney set his hat and shook Noah’s hand, gripping it just tight enough to let the man know that he wasn’t his best friend. “Welcome to Chinook.”

  SEVEN

  Outside the hotel, the air was now dead still and frigid. Thumps could feel the cold chipping away at his nose and making his toes ache.

  “That’s some friend,” said the sheriff as they walked back to their vehicles.

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Well, that’s good because people tend to judge you by the friends you keep.”

  The cars had a light sprinkling of snow. Thumps wiped off the windshield with the sleeve of his jacket.

  “That woman a friend of yours too?”

  “We knew each other.”

  “Yeah,” said Hockney, opening the door to his SUV and sliding behind the wheel, “I figured that much out all on my own.”

  THUMPS WAITED UNTIL the sheriff had pulled out of the parking lot and turned the corner before he headed back to the Tucker. The house phones were at the far end of the lobby.

  Dakota answered on the first ring. She didn’t say hello, and she didn’t ask who it was. “Come on up.”

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  “Only two people would have any reason
to call me. One of them is probably standing under a hot shower, using up more than his fair share of fossil fuels.”

  “And the other one is freezing in the lobby.”

  “I’ll turn the heat up.”

  Dakota’s room was on the third floor, and it was much smaller than Noah’s. No living room, no kitchen, just the standard arrangement of beds and tables. Even the window was ordinary. No arch. No bevelled glass. Just a long rectangle stuck in a wall.

  “So what’d you think?”

  There was a plate of fruit on the table in front of the sofa and a pot of tea.

  “Of what?”

  “Noah. Me. Take your pick.”

  The fruit plate was an artistic fan of sliced apples, bananas, blueberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, and watermelon. Thumps hadn’t seen a cantaloupe at the supermarket for almost a month, and he had no idea where the hotel would have found a watermelon.

  “Noah’s looking good.”

  “He’s put on weight.”

  Thumps helped himself to several slices of watermelon and three chunks of pineapple. “You look good.”

  Dakota nodded. “But you didn’t come back to tell me that. And you didn’t come back for the fruit.”

  No, Thumps thought to himself, I didn’t come back for the fruit. “I’m surprised, that’s all.”

  Dakota walked to the window and looked out. “Some days when I wake up, so am I.”

  Dakota was thinner than Thumps remembered, and she had cut her hair. It had been long before, the kind of hair you could braid and still come away with length. It was close-cropped now, almost severe, as if she was in mourning. But then again, maybe she was.

  That was how Thumps remembered her. In mourning. Dakota and Lucy Kettle had been friends. More than friends. Less than lovers. Sisters. Not that those designations meant anything. Friends could become enemies. Lovers could leave. Sisters could move away and never call. Dakota and Lucy had been more than all of those. When Lucy disappeared and didn’t return, Dakota crawled away into a deep depression. And then she crawled into a tub. Along with a bottle of pills.