“After we last spoke, I reviewed the tribal laws that govern the council. I know you can only adopt a woman into your family if you have no daughters of your own. And Little Bird, you already have two daughters!”
“This is true my Chief, but…”
“Amy! Where is Amy Red-Tail?” the Chief shouted.
There was a small commotion in the crowd on Little Bird’ porch, and Amy pushed her way forward.
“Here, I’m here my Chief,” she called.
“Amy, tell the truth now, isn’t it true? Little Bird can’t adopt a woman into her family?”
Amy frowned and nodded slowly, “It is true my Chief.”
Chief Two-Steps spun back around to face Little Bird, the man now smiling broadly. “You can’t adopt her Little Bird. That means she’s not part of this tribe. That means she’s a spy.”
“But my Chief, I didn’t adopt her.”
“What?” Two-Steps demanded.
“Anna didn’t come here to petition adoption for herself. She came seeking adoption for her son, and as you know, I have no sons.”
At the moment the crowd went quiet, as every eye in the village turned to look at Anna and her swollen belly.
“This is nonsense,” Two-Steps hissed, “The child isn’t even born yet! You can’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl!”
Little Bird smiled and shook her head slowly, “That’s where you’re wrong my Chief, a Mother always knows.”
Another murmur rose up from the crowd, this one dominated by female voices. Little Bird couldn’t hear their words, but the tone told her that more than a few of the mothers in attendance agreed with her, but enraged, the Chief shouted them all down.
“Superstition and lies Little Bird, that’s all this is! I can see what you’re doing here. You would say anything to protect your white friend. But I’m the Chief of the Indian Nation, and I say who our people’s laws apply to and who they do not!”
For the first time, voices in the crowd began to hiss and shout back. It was clear that the tribe was starting to see past the Two-Steps carefully crafted façade. The Chief pulled the hatchet from his belt and turned and began to walk towards Anna again.
“Chief Two-Steps, stop! Wait!” Little Bird shouted at his back.
As the big man closed on Anna, Laughing Dog drew his knife and stepped in front of her, but he wasn’t the only one. The other members of the Council of Elders stepped forward too, including Amy Red-Tail and Little Bird’s daughter, now holding a frying pan. Little Bird was following after the Chief now and shouting at the man’s back, but Two-Steps didn’t even break stride.
“I won’t have a white bastard born into this tribe!”
It was going to happen the old woman realized, he was going to kill Anna right her in her front yard, in front of the entire tribe and there was nothing she could do about it, no way to stop it. Her words, her only weapon had failed her. She had promised Kyle that she would protect Anna and his child. Wait, Kyle! That was the answer!
“The baby’s not white!” Little Bird screamed, “The Baby is not white! It’s an Indian baby!”
The crowd went silent, and Two-Steps stopped again, this time just short of Anna.
“What?”
“Anna’s baby isn’t white. It’s half Indian. Coal is the father, and that means it’s your blood too.”
Out of the Darkness
As the moon slid behind a cloud, Coal hissed from the shadows, “This is it, go now, move!”
Kyle crawled from beneath the wreckage of the burned out RV and then turned to pull Miles out behind him. The old man grimaced in pain but managed to keep silent as Kyle pulled him to his feet. Miles still gripped the spear like a walking staff and made to set its tip against the pavement when Kyle reached out and stopped him.
“No, it’s too loud. Just lean against me old friend, come one last sprint to the end.”
“God damn it move, both of you.” Coal whispered again.
Without any further delay, Kyle began to hobble off across the road and towards the hanger like structure. Just as Coal promised, he had found a safe place for them to wait out the last of the daylight, but the 50 yards between them and the building was an empty parking lot. Where there would be no buildings or ditches or oddly enough, even ruined cars to cover their advance. The only thing protecting them now was the darkness. Miles and Kyle cleared the roadway and then slipped through a huge gap in the chain-link fence before starting off across the open parking lot. The trio had spent nearly an hour laying in the shadows, watching the place and planning their approach. In the end, they had chosen the simplest and most straightforward of plans. Head directly for the nearest doorway, stay as quiet as possible and give their pursuer the shortest opportunity to find them in the darkness.
Miles and Kyle cleared the distance together, but carrying the old man’s extra weight was tiring Kyle quickly and the soon the sound of his own heartbeat was filling the scavenger’s ears. At that moment, Miles collapsed nearly pulling Kyle from his feet. The scavenger swore, managed to steady himself and then checked to see if the old man was still alive. Miles was still breathing, but each breath was coming out as short, painful things now. Just then Kyle could make out the sound of running feet from somewhere behind him, he turned to squint into darkness and for a moment considered dropping Miles to pull his revolver.
“Jesus, don’t stop and don’t fucking shoot me either!” Coal hissed.
The bounty hunter ran out of the darkness behind them and grabbing Miles under the other arm helped them clear the last few yards to the building. Their target was a single service door, just to the right of one of the large roll-up doors. But as they neared the structure, Kyle realized the outline of the doorway began to grow more and more visible, and he didn’t have to look up to know their cloud cover was waning. When they reached the doorway, Coal grabbed the L-shaped handle and immediately cursed.
“It’s fucking locked,” he hissed.
“Fuck!”
“Spear,” Coal demanded.
Kyle held out the iron shaft to his friend and Coal snatched it out of his hands. A second later the silence of the night was shattered as the bounty hunter thrust the tip of the spear into the steel door frame first once and then again. On the third try, the spear found purchase and Coal threw all his weight against it. The doorframe groaned for a moment and then failed, sending the door swinging outward.
“In, in!” Coal shouted.
With one last effort, Kyle managed to stagger through the doorway and into the utter blackness of the building while dragging Miles with him. Coal was right behind him, urging Kyle forward and trying to pull the damaged door shut behind them. The bounty hunter had the door nearly closed when a sound like a gunshot reverberated through the door and then echoed through the large space. Kyle was breathing hard, but between his breathes he managed, “What was that?”
The familiar clicking sound followed, and a small light sprung to life in the darkness as Coal held up his lighter. In the shifting light, both men could now see the 12 inches of steel spear shaft protruding through the door, just inches from Coal’s face.
“I think it’s safe to assume he knows we’re here,” Coal said, “Now here, take this.”
Coal offered Kyle the lighter in the darkness and Kyle actually managed to take it from him without dropping it or burning himself. Then the bounty hunter turned and reached up to grab hold of the shaft, but just before his fingers touched it, the spear was yanked out of the doorway from outside. Kyle nearly dropped the lighter in surprise, but Coal had a different reaction. The half-breed scooped up his damaged rifle and without even aiming he fired a shot through the door. The shot deafened Kyle and blew a clean hole through the door about three inches below the one left by the spear. Coal racked the rifle again and then taking the water skin from around his neck began to cut away its rawhide strap.
“Did you get him?” Kyle asked.
“Did you hear screaming or the sound of a body hitti
ng the ground?”
“No.”
“Then I’m guessing I didn’t get him,” Coal replied.
Coal pulled the strap away and then reaching up he looped it around the door handle before tying the end off.
“What are you doing?”
“Buying some time hopefully, let’s move.”
Scooping Miles up between them again they turned and moved further into the building. To the right, Kyle could sense, more than see the huge open space that had to be some kind of open work bay that aligned with the huge roll-up doors. While on their left Kyle’s hand found an interior wall and then a moment later a doorway leading to the left.
“What have you got?” Coal asked.
Raising the lighter and squinting into the darkness, Kyle replied, “It looks like an office of some kind maybe.”
“Good enough.”
The pair squeezed through the doorway carrying the old man between them. Inside they found a row of steel filing cabinets against one wall and a pair of desks, but other than that the office was unusually sparse. They laid Miles down on the floor behind the desks and Kyle did what he could to try and make his friend comfortable while Coal began to rummage through the cabinets.
“This place is fucking weird,” Coal said as he quickly checked drawer after drawer.
“Why? What did you find?”
“That’s the weird part, not a damn thing all of these cabinets are empty, but it’s not like they’ve been looted, there isn’t even a shred of loose paper left. It’s like somebody packed up everything and moved out.”
“Maybe the company shut down, went bankrupt or something before everything went to shit,” Kyle offered.
“And what? They just forgot that they loaned their fancy space buggy to some assholes playing astronaut out in the middle of Arizona?”
Kyle shrugged, at the moment more concerned with his friend than the man’s crazy obsession that had brought them to this place. Coal moved on to the desks and quickly began rifling through the drawers. While the cabinets had been picked clean, the desk contained the usual clutter one would expect to find in an office. In one of the bottom drawers, Coal found a wadded up white lab coat. The emblem above the breast pocket read: Space Ventures Inc.
“I guess that means we’re in the right place.”
Coal then started ripping the coat into strips and then wrapping them around the end of the steel spear. He produced the small brown bottle from his pocket, looked down at it in a moment of sad contemplation and then upended the last of its contents over the head of the spear. The improvised torch caught the flame of the lighter immediately, and the room was suddenly filled with light. Coal carefully wedged the burning spear between the desks and shoved his lighter back into his pocket.
“What now?” Kyle asked.
“Fuck if I know pale-face, the plan ended with us getting inside alive, so-good, so-far I guess. How’s Miles?”
“Still alive.”
“Well, how about you try and keep him that way.”
Coal raised his rifle and pulling back the bolt barely an inch he checked the chamber and just as he suspected he found that he was down to just a single round.
“What are we going to do about our friend outside?” Kyle asked.
“Outside? I imagine by now he already quit trying to get through that door and moved around the building to find another. To be honest, Id’ be surprised if he wasn’t our inside friend at this point. So, how about you keep quiet, keep that magnum handy and if you hear anything that goes bump in the dark stomp out that torch in a hurry.”
“Okay,” Kyle replied.
“And Kyle, whatever you do, just stay the fuck in here, you understand?”
“What? Why? Where are you going?”
“I’m like our friend out there. I do my best hunting alone.”
“Coal! Are you fucking serious?” Anna screamed, “You just told the whole tribe I fucked Coal!”
“Keep your voice down,” Little Bird cautioned.
The two women were standing in Little Bird’s old house, in what had been her bedroom. After the old woman’s frantic announcement in front of the entire tribe, Chief Two-Steps had been left in an impossible position. He couldn’t deny the Council of Elders’ right to approve the adoption, and he couldn’t prove the child wasn’t male, short of cutting open Anna. In which case, if the baby were a boy, he would have just murdered a member of his own tribe. While Little Bird’s claim that the child was in fact at least partially Indian and that he was Two-Steps’ blood to boot, kept the Chief from labeling the child an enemy, at least for now. In the end, the Chief was forced to swallow his rage, and he simply walked away.
“I’m sorry Anna, I know it wasn’t part of the plan, but you saw the look in his eyes.”
Anna nodded slowly, “I did,” she finally admitted. “He was going to kill me and I…I have to thank you for that. But did you have to say it in front of the whole tribe?”
“Yes, I did. The Chief has already murdered at least one of his own people to keep his secrets, and I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. That very public display we just put on was probably the only way we could guarantee your safety. Two-Steps won’t dare touch you now, because the whole tribe knows that he didn’t want you here and he would be the first one they suspect. As much as he wants to rule in his own way, he wants his people to view him as a good Chief even more. Trying to measure up to the memories of his father and brother I suspect.”
“But Coal? Really?”
“Well, it’s not like a had a lot of time to come up with anything better and besides do you know of any other Indians living among the whites? They would never have believed it If I said anyone else.”
“But isn’t Coal an exile or something? How does claiming him as the father of my child help?”
“Exile is a punishment only handed down to individuals, not families. What kind of savages do you take us for Anna? We would never punish a child for something one of its parents had done. Also, maybe you’re forgetting, but Coal isn’t related to just one, but two Chiefs, Laughing Bear and Red Bear.”
“Coal’s uncle and cousin.”
“That’s right and not only did my people deeply respect both of those men, but they also believe that blood runs thicker than water.”
“Meaning what? Coal’s kid has some kind of claim to be the next Chief?”
“No, no, nothing so medieval or for that matter European. Every Chief of the Indian Nations earns their title. What I’m trying to say is that because of his blood, Coal’s child would have the potential of being a great man, a real asset to the tribe, and that’s not something that’s taken lightly around here.”
Anna rubbed at her temples and shook her head again, “Okay, I get it I guess. What do we do now?”
“I think its best if the people see and get a chance to interact with you as much as they can. Starting tomorrow, my daughter is going to take you under her wing and show you everything she can about being a woman in the Indian nation. I want my people to realize that not all whites are evil and that they don’t have to be our enemies. You’re going to put a human face on this war.”
“Alright, I guess that makes sense.”
“After that, there’s only one other thing I want you concentrating on. Keeping your legs crossed and not having this baby. If you go into labor and out pops a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes, we’re all fucked. There will be nothing holding Two-Steps at bay then, and I doubt either of you will survive the day.”
Little Bird’s words sent a chill down Anna’s spine, and she forced herself to nod in reply.
“So tell me, you’re the doctor, how much longer do we have before that baby comes out and proves we’re both liars?”
Anna shrugged, “At this point, it’s hard to say. Anywhere from a week to a month maybe.”
The old woman let out a breath, “Well let’s hope it’s the later and in the meantime, we’ll try and figure out a plan to keep our p
eoples from tearing each other apart. Now try and get some rest, the days start early out here on the Res.”
With that Little Bird turned and walked out of the room and Anna collapsed back onto the dusty bed. She was dirty and sore all over, and her wrist was beginning to ache terribly. Perhaps it was the pain or the exhaustion, but it all seemed to give Anna a clarity of thought that Little Bird was somehow lacking. Her friend was doing everything she could to save her, and her child and Anna loved the woman for that. However, Little Bird seemed to be overlooking the simplest solution and as Anna lay there that little voice in the back of her head returned. And this time when it spoke Anna agreed, she would have to do what Little Bird couldn’t, she would have to kill Two-Steps.
The bounty-hunter crept along the length of the wall in which the office sat for nearly the entire length of the building. As far as he could tell nearly a dozen other doorways led to similar offices and hallways. Trying to stumble down each of them in the dark seemed like a pretty good way to get a spear shoved through his guts. So, Coal could only assume that at least a few of them led to other doorways in and out of the building. What all of it boiled down to was a hell of a lot of possible avenues of approach that he would have to cover, not to mention the enormous equipment bay that he had yet to fully explore. What Coal needed was a way to tip the balance in his favor and funnel this asshole right to where Coal wanted him. Now, crouching in the shadows as the light from Kyle’s torch flickered out of the brightly lit office and into the darkness of the bay, Coal almost felt guilty, almost. The bounty-hunter had used Kyle for bait in an ambush once before, the very first day they had met in fact. The scavenger had handled himself well enough, but afterward, as Coal recalled, he did threaten to kill him if Coal ever did anything remotely like that again. Sorry buddy, desperate times and all that he thought.
However, if that bastard managed to slip past him, Coal still had one more trick up his sleeve. He stood in the darkness and crept along the bay’s corrugated steel wall, and after a few minutes, he found what he was looking for. A small switch box that at one point probably raised and lowered the overhead doors. Coal felt above the box, located the pair of wires leading up the wall and gave them a quick yank. He managed to pull away a six-foot length of wire and then smiling in the darkness he turned and moved back towards the office doorway. Kneeling in the shadows he propped his ruined rifle into place at the base of the door frame, its barrel pointed upward at an angle. Then using a few lengths of the wire, he secured it in place. After that, it was simple enough to loop the remaining wire around the opposite door jam and run it back through the triggered guard. It was a simple trap, almost cartoonish Coal admitted to himself, but in the darkness, it didn’t have to look pretty, it only had to work. As Coal made the final adjustments on the tripwire, the door gave a slight groan, and almost immediately Kyle gave a shout from inside the office.
The Road North Page 40