Big Sand Bay Road was widely known as a hazard. In a wet spring, such as this one, Big Sand Bay Road became a plethora of potholes, some so large they were capable of swallowing a tank. It was only in the driest stretch of summer that the road received a grading, the potholes a gravel backfill. And even then the road was barely usable.
“Damn it, Track!” David yelled at full volume. “This truck’s almost new. You gonna foot the bill if the axle snaps?”
“No.”
“Then think of something else.”
“I would,” she said, “if we had time. We don’t. So it’s follow the Big Sand Bay, Jeeves, and don’t spare the horses.”
“Jeeves,” Mel snickered, then snorted. “You’re a funny girl, you know that, Track? An’ ya give great hug. Hey! I gotta idea. Why don’t you marry me?”
“Mel!” David and Joey shouted.
Along Big Sand Bay Road, impressive pines gave way to walls of stalk-thin poplars, tag alders, birches, and waist-high canary grass. The truck was brutally jostled from one pothole to the next, making Michael feel as if he were riding a mechanical bull. After yet another slam to the undercarriage, he glanced at David. “Was there a big fire back here?”
“Nah,” David said. His hands were locked on the steering wheel as he hunched forward, his eyes trained on the rutted and steadily narrowing road. “About fifteen years or so ago, they clear-cut all the way down to the ground and then this mess of sun worshipers grew up.”
Michael looked out the side window again. “Looks rough.”
“It is,” David snorted. “Last year a first-time deer hunter, a sixteen-year-old, thought he could get away with doing something us oldsters wouldn’t even try. Anyway, three days later his mama called the station, crying for her baby. As soon as she told me where he went, I knew we’d have to go in for the little shit. Luckily for us, Tracker was able to find him.”
Michael looked again at the scenery, awed by the maze of trees. He half turned, looking at her over his shoulder. “You’re really that good?”
She averted her eyes, then said, “Yes, I am.” Michael continued to watch her as she snapped at David, “But if you’ll recall, I didn’t exactly find that kid all by myself.”
Michael turned forward, looking at the police chief, waiting for him to speak. David said nothing, keeping his eyes trained forward. Tracker was right, of course. Although at this juncture he didn’t feel inclined to acknowledge the fact that she hadn’t headed the search party.
Benny Peliquin had.
Benny knew this region of sapling forest, shifting sand cliffs, and meandering river almost as well as he knew the back of his own hand. Yet Tracker had been the one who’d found the kid’s trail, and then a short time later, the kid. She’d said it was an easy find because the kid had been so scared. Her pointed reminder was meant to convey that Benny wouldn’t be afraid, that locating him wouldn’t be an easy twenty-minute walk into the back of the beyond. David chose not to rise to the bait. Arguing would defeat his purpose, for truth be told, Tracker was his only hope of finding Benny.
Again staring out the window, Tracker thought about Benny’s truck, where it had been found abandoned on County K at Bench Mark 900. His leaving his truck there was just a bit too obvious for two reasons. For one, leaving his truck parked on the side of a regularly used road meant that it would be seen. And for the second, if Benny really wanted to hide from the law, he had plenty of places to stash the truck, knowing it wouldn’t be found for weeks. As small as the reservation was, without this clue as to where to start looking for him, she would have been stumbling blindly around for God knew how long. She hadn’t even thought of Sand River until David had told her precisely where they had found Benny’s truck.
David had expected her to begin the search at Bench Mark 900. Had she done that, she could easily have picked up Benny’s trail along the creek that fed into the Sand River. But because she had an idea of his actual direction, she’d bullied David into taking Big Sand Bay Road. This way, she would be coming in on Benny from behind. For now, she began to think of ways to shake off her police escort.
She was still mulling this over when the truck came to a complete stop. Realizing they’d arrived at the end of Big Sand Bay Road, she popped open the door and jumped out, running to the flatbed to retrieve her backpack. She was already slipping her arms through the shoulder straps when the others joined her. The four men were talking; Tracker heard their voices, but their words skimmed right past her. They were still talking when she set off, working to put distance between herself and them. Once she was inside the blind of thin trees, she couldn’t see them, but she could clearly hear the Bayfield deputy swearing a blue streak.
Even for a seasoned woodsman the trek was a nasty slog. For a rookie it had to be hell, especially as swarms of bloodthirsty insects eagerly made everything twice as bad. But the deputy’s yelps disturbed the stillness. Livid, she turned and backtracked.
Tipping her head back against her shoulders erased the shadow caused by the bill of her baseball cap. David had a clear view of her upturned face as she spoke in a low-voiced growl. “If you can’t keep him quiet, give me your pistol.”
His tongue protruding slightly between his lips, David unsuccessfully fought a smile. He looked away for a second, then back down to Tracker. “Don‘tcha think shooting at him would be louder than his bitchin’?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But Benny might mistake the shots for a poacher.”
David slapped the insect stinging the side of his neck, looked at his hand, flicked the dead creature away. “Tell you what, I’ll bathe all us manly guys in repellent and then we won’t bother you with our complaints.”
“It’s not perfumed, is it?”
David looked irritated. “No. It’s fragrance-free for sensitive skin.”
Tracker rolled her eyes, not amused. “I’m going on up ahead. You’ll be all right as long as you keep heading west. I’ll always know exactly where you are. I won’t lose you.”
David craned forward, said just loud enough for her to hear, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the same thing you promised a couple of years ago?”
Blood rushed to her cheeks. Then her eyes turned hard and she squared her shoulders and walked away. Just a few steps further into the brush, Tracker vanished.
Heading east and now a good half a mile away from the men, she was zoning, any and all disruptive thoughts of David banished. Deep in the zone she was able to glide through the worst of the dense brush and tag alders. The shore of the Sand River was firm enough to jog along as she followed the circuitous river in its determined course to the big lake. An hour later, she veered off, plowing straight up a steep incline, breaking through the barrier of canary grass, where she was once again immersed in stands of immature poplar, birch, and tag alders growing so close together that more often than not she literally had to squeeze herself between them. Sweat poured down her face into her eyes. Tracker felt no discomfort as she plodded steadily onward.
Every particle of her was wholly submerged in her surroundings. She listened to birds sing and recognized each species by its song, heard the partridges thumping loudly against hollow deadfall and the rustling of unseen tiny mammals skittering around her crouched form. Peering through the soughing grasses, she also heard the crackle of a branch and knew by the sound that a velvet-bumped buck was very close, that it was pausing to test the air. She felt the buck’s wariness, then felt it relax.
Time had no meaning in the zone. For Tracker, since the buck’s presence had been noted and the deer had moved off, only one or two minutes had gone by. Actually, it had been closer to thirty when her heightened senses detected the movement of a black bear sow and cub. Both came lumbering close to where she sat, arms wrapped around her knees, boots planted so firmly that they were buried deep in the red sandy soil. Both mother bear and cub ambled by without noticing the human so close to them that Tracker could have reached out and touched one or the other.
> More time passed, the shadows shifting from those of mid-morning to those of high noon. Tracker had not moved so much as a fraction of an inch, yet she felt no cramping of muscles, no needs of any kind. Nor was she concerned that David and the others might catch up with her, blunder into the little trap she’d set for Benny. She’d sent David west, straight into the worst of the region. He and his crew would hike up hills and down gullies believing all the while that she was just a few yards ahead, never once suspecting that she was keeping watch over a stretch of wild rice. The tall rice stalks protruding above a field of water were courtesy of a band of beavers, the industrious creatures having dammed up this section of the Sand River, inadvertently creating a rice bed known to no one else on the reservation.
Except Benny.
He’d brought her to this place only once, when she was a child. For that one season, they’d been a ricing team, Benny poling the canoe through the choke of plants while Tracker knelt at the front, using white cedar sticks to knock the rice grains into the boat. The rice from this field had to be the best she’d ever tasted. Her father thought the same thing. He’d also wanted to know just where the rice had come from. Tracker remained silent, keeping Benny’s secret even though she was disappointed when Benny didn’t ask her to rice with him the following season or the next. After that, and until today, she had forgotten.
Eventually something outside the realm of commonplace rustling and twittering touched her mind. The muted sounds were unhurried. More than that, they were controlled. Tracker decided to wait a bit, to allow Benny more time. He was a lot older now than when he’d taught her the ways of the woods, the pathway into the zone.
He’d also taught her something else. That the older a person grew, the harder it was to remain in the zone for any length of time. The mind was willing, but older bodies couldn’t take the strain. She continued to wait even when a passing breeze brought to her a whiff of thin smoke. Tracker grinned. Benny was so cool. Exhausted as he had to be, he wasn’t sloppy. In making a fire he’d gone for the wood on the beaver lodge, wood stripped of bark and aged—the kind of wood that would produce only the barest trace of smoke. Even now the smoke was so faint that if she hadn’t been in the zone, she wouldn’t have smelled it at all. Nor would she have caught the scent of burning paper, the label on the can he’d opened and set in the fire. Inhaling deeply she recognized his favorite meal.
Spaghetti-O’s.
Tracker stood for a moment while her body adjusted itself. The slowdown of her heartbeat, the near shutdown of blood flow to the extremities was one of the reasons zoning for a long time could be so dangerous, why older bodies rebelled against such prolonged mental freedom. And as she slowly withdrew from the zone, she felt the strain the sustained crouch had placed on her knees, ankles, and feet. As her heart rate returned to normal every vein in her legs reacted to the sudden whoosh of blood, sending back the sensation she was being stung by hundreds of wasps. She winced, lifting one numb foot, then the other, and gingerly setting them down.
It was damn near impossible to remain in shape during the long winters. This past winter her cousin Patti had decided that every Monday night would be fitness training in Patti’s basement. Well, that hadn’t worked, mainly because four other cousins were included and Monday nights quickly became a six-woman party; the one nod to fitness was the Red Cliff stair-climbing exercise. This wasn’t a machine, but a race up the basement stairs, through the kitchen (pausing just long enough to grab a buffalo wing and a can of Miller Lite), out onto the back porch, down those stairs, around the house, and back down into the basement, with a stop to dump chicken bones and emptied beer cans into the trash barrel. Then the entire process was repeated. Thanks to the Monday night exercise sessions at cousin Patti’s, Tracker was coming out of the previous winter five pounds heavier.
And at this moment, she was feeling every one of them.
Eight
Hunkering with his left haunch on his ankle, right leg slightly extended, Benny fed bleached sticks to eager flames. Hearing a steady movement, he dropped the sticks and slid his arms between his legs, his hands touching the rifle lying beneath him. He listened keenly, knowing after a space of seconds that he was listening to an Indian. Indians habitually walk toe-in and in a winding pattern. Non-Indians walk like ducks and dead-on straight, trampling everything with a splat-splat stride. The Indian he was listening to sounded very light. Benny relaxed, went back to tending the fire.
A minute passed. Then from the corner of his eye he watched Tracker approach, coming in slowly, her hands on top of her baseball-capped head, fingers entwined. She stopped about a half dozen feet away. Benny looked up from the fire and they stared at each other in an uncomfortable silence.
Finally Benny spoke. “What you doin’, girl?”
Hands remaining on top of her head, Tracker shrugged her shoulders. “Same as you, I guess. Just taking a walk in the woods. Nice day for it. Biting flies aren’t too bad and the sun’s not too hot. Yep, it’s a pretty good day for a walk.”
“Huh,” he grunted, looking away, back at the fire. Lip pointing to the blackened can sitting amid the flames he said, “Think maybe all your walking made you hungry?”
“I could eat,” she returned.
“Come on in, then.”
As she came forward, Tracker unlocked her hands, arms dropping to her sides. Entering the makeshift camp she paused, removed her backpack, dropped it close to Benny, and made her way to the other side of the fire. The backpack had landed with a whoosh, raising red dust. Benny, while eyeing the bag, fanned the dust away from his face. Squinting, he looked at the backpack. One old friend suspecting another was embarrassing. Depositing the backpack within his easy reach was Tracker’s way of giving consent to his searching through the contents.
Benny didn’t bother. Instead, he nodded his approval and said, “You’ve always been a good kid, Track.” His voice, still low, took on a dejected tone. “I’m just sorry it was you they sent for me.”
“No, you’re not.” Because her legs still hurt, she crossed them, then leaned forward. “You wanted me to come. That’s why you sent the message. You know the message I mean. The way you left your truck.”
Benny tried to look innocent. The attempt failed miserably. Snickering, he said, “Okay, truth is, I was hoping you’d be just a little slower on the uptake.” His lopsided grin slowly faded, became a grim line. He looked out over the stretch of water and the glut of bright green rice. “We once had ourselves a good old time in this place, eh?”
“The best,” she sadly agreed.
He looked away, sighed heavily, and then went quiet. Tracker waited. Eventually he asked, “How far back you leave David?”
Tracker’s answer was a toothy smile.
Benny’s taut features eased. Seconds later, as realization dawned, he gasped, “Where the hell’d you send him?”
“West.”
Benny’s face twisted with both amusement and distaste. “Oh, man! Track, that’s just pure mean. The only thing meaner would be losing him in Bibbon Swamp.”
“I considered it.” She laughed.
“I bet you did,” he said, laughing with her.
Canned spaghetti always tastes best when cooked in an open fire and singed inside the can until the normally runny ketchup sauce is sludge thick. Sitting side by side, Tracker and Benny ate out of the can he held from the bottom, his hand protected by a leather glove. They had been sharing field lunches since she’d been six, and had the dipping process down pat, Tracker’s spoon going in first, gentleman Benny’s second. Benny always packed Spaghetti-O’s because the little rings of pasta were easier to eat than the stringy stuff. Between bites, they talked.
“I didn’t kill that asshole.”
“I know.”
Benny pulled his head back. “Oh yeah?”
Tracker spooned more food into her mouth. Benny looked down at the can. Only a little bit left. He went for it, his metal spoon clanking against the sides of the ca
n. Tracker licked the remaining traces of sauce off her spoon, then tossed it inside her opened pack.
Sitting back, resting on her elbows, she said, “David said Jud was shot with a pistol. I know you have an old .38. I also know it hasn’t worked in years.”
“Maybe I fixed it.”
“Huh,” she snorted. “Just like you fixed that old Skidoo sled.”
Benny, his mouth full, became defensive. “Hey! Snow machines are tricky. Ya gotta work on ’em real careful.”
“But not so carefully the thing becomes obsolete and the manufacturer stops making the parts.”
Benny chuckled. “So I was a little too careful about the sled. That don’t mean nothing about my pistol.”
She tipped her head back, looking up at the sky. Slate gray clouds were gathering. It would begin raining within a few hours. Worrying now about David being lost and caught out in a storm, Tracker sat up, came hurriedly to the point. “Ben, I know about you and Imogen.”
Benny blinked his eyes, trying the innocent bit again. He was stalling. Ordinarily she would have played along, but because of David and her continued sense of urgency about Uncle Bert, Benny’s tactics were making her angry. “I’ve also heard stories that Jud didn’t always play nice with Imogen. My question is, did he start getting rough before or after he found out you were poongin’ her?”
“Hey!” he yelped. He shot her a look of fury. “Track, I won’t let even you talk about her like that.”
Tracker went on regardless. “What happened, Ben? Did Jud finally beat her so badly that she popped him? If that’s true, then Imogen can plead self-defense. Everybody on Red Cliff will back her up, most especially David. She won’t even see the inside of a jail, never mind go to prison. But you …” She removed her cap, wiped her forehead, replaced the cap. “If you try to take the blame for her …” Tracker paused meaningfully. “Ben, they’ll put you under the damn prison.”
Murder on the Red Cliff Rez Page 9