Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

  10:27 a.m.

  Behind the steering wheel in the cab of Harold Hairy Moccasin’s ’64 Chevy pickup, Sonny Cutknife grinned at the darkness on the other side of the cracked windshield. One headlight was gone on the truck, and the other threw out a poor yellow color in a losing cause against the black of night. It took concentration to follow the faded center line on the buckled asphalt of the back road, but Sonny was grinning because, aside from Nick Buffalo’s absence, all his calculations had fallen into place.

  Johnny Samson, leaning against the passenger door, had joined them at Harold’s mobile home. All day, Sonny had worried that Johnny might not show. Sonny figured it would be a reflection on his leadership if he couldn’t maintain power over some kid.

  Harold, sitting between Sonny and Johnny, was burping happily, a result of all the beer Sonny had given him over the previous few hours. Earlier, after the first couple of beers in the cramped living room of the trailer, Harold had agreed to read Sonny’s note into the tape recorder. Sonny had to coach him through it on nearly a dozen trial runs and suspected Harold had memorized the note instead of actually reading it. No matter. Sonny now had five cassettes, all with the same message. It something went wrong, there was no way Sonny could be tied into this; it wasn’t his voice on the cassettes.

  After a couple more beers, Harold had also agreed that Sonny could drive his truck, saying with owner’s pride that sure, it needed new leaf springs and there were a few rust holes, but it got him where he needed to go. Which suited Sonny fine, getting where he needed to go with Harold’s truck. If anybody remembered a vehicle near the construction site, it wouldn’t point back to Sonny, and, after all, Harold’s voice was on the cassettes. If anything went wrong, Sonny had planned, Harold could take the rap. Say it went to court; it would be Harold’s word against Sonny’s. Johnny wouldn’t testify against Sonny; because he’d shown up, obviously he believed if he crossed Sonny he would find his head in the post pounder.

  For a first raid, this one seemed almost perfect. Except for Nick. Johnny and Harold were worried about Nick’s absence, and Sonny had lied, telling them Nick would meet them at the construction site, where the Native Sons would make their first strike. He thought that once he got the two of them that far, it would be too late for them to back out.

  Sonny was a proud man, a warrior chief going into battle, and although at the moment he only had two misfit followers, after tomorrow, there was no telling where he’d go. Other warriors from across the nation were certain to join his cause, inspired by his brilliance and vision. Sonny knew that thirty years from now, people would look back and see how obvious it was that he had been destined to lead a national revolt to avenge white men’s injustice.

  Sonny grinned even more until a few miles later, when Harold Hairy Moccasin cracked a can of beer, sending spray into Sonny’s right cheek. Sitting Bull or Spotted Tail or Red Cloud would never have had to endure an indignity like that, Sonny thought.

  “Hey, Sonny,” Harold said, nervous from the silence on both sides of him, “you like the way the truck handles? I’m thinking, soon as I get some money, I’m gonna slap in a V-8. You’ll see this baby hum then.” He burped and laughed. “Chicks love a man with power, if you get my drift.”

  Sonny said nothing, but his grin returned. Power. Right on to that. This was just the beginning.

  * * *

  Sonny drove them past the construction site and continued for a half mile before pulling down a side road. He pulled over as far as he could and parked.

  “Why didn’t you just have us walk from the trailer?” Harold complained, working at acting cool. “I could have saved gas money and spent it on beer.”

  Sonny decided to allow Harold the bravado. Instead of smacking Harold for questioning his authority, Sonny chuckled. “Harold, after tomorrow, we’re gonna have money pouring in from all across the country. Brothers everywhere are gonna support our cause. You wait and see. Then you can have all the beer you want.”

  “Yeah, cool,” Harold said. “Women too, right?”

  Johnny didn’t join in.

  Sonny wished he could trust Johnny enough to give him the keys to the truck. It’d be a lot easier to have someone drop them off then swing back and pick them up again when they finished. Johnny, though, was too hard to read. Sonny needed to be sure Johnny wouldn’t change his mind and drive off, especially after seeing the damage that Sonny intended. The last thing Sonny wanted was a get-away vehicle that got away before he did.

  Doing it this way – and Sonny had thought it through – was best. If anyone showed up, the three of them could scatter in the woods and sneak back to the truck. The other way, with the truck right there, parked in front, it would be too easy for someone to follow them once they got in the truck, since the only place the truck could go was down the road.

  It would have been better, of course, if Nick had been there. Nick could be trusted to drive. Not Johnny, though, and certainly not Harold. Harold would get lost in a parking lot. Sonny often figured it was a good thing grocery stores were invented for Indians like Harold because if Harold went looking for deer or buffalo, he’d never find his way back.

  “Where’s Nick?” Harold asked as they began the hike back toward the construction site. It was eerily quiet out there, some ten miles from the nearest town, three miles beyond the last house they’d passed. The tall spruce trees on both sides of the road were outlined black against the starry, clear sky, like sentinels along the roadside.

  “He’ll be there,” Sonny lied, trying not to let Harold’s reminder of Nick’s absence irritate him. “If not, we don’t need him. And he’ll miss all the fun.”

  * * *

  As a construction site, it wasn’t much. During the day, Sonny had checked it as well as he could, considering he didn’t dare drive by too slowly or too many times. He didn’t want to raise suspicions, as there wasn’t much traffic out this way.

  All Sonny had seen on a half-acre freshly cleared in the trees were stacks of pipe, assorted piles of lumber, a construction trailer, a few pickup trucks, and a parked semi-trailer, probably loaded with other construction materials. Sonny had also noted with satisfaction a D-8 bulldozer chugging black smoke as it ripped a raw path through the trees and flattened the entire construction area.

  At night, Sonny couldn’t see that anything significant had changed since his day trip. The pickups were gone; that was to be expected. The workers didn’t have any reason to camp out here. Everything else was in place, however. The D-8 bulldozer was parked beside the trailer.

  Sonny assumed, because of an oil company sign at the road, that the multinational was getting ready to bring in a rig for a test well. During the last hundred yards of their approach, Sonny vented rhetorical anger about the raping and pillaging of ancestral land. Aside from that, Sonny couldn’t care less about the oil company’s intentions; he only cared about his.

  Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness by the time they arrived at the construction site; a dozen times Sonny had warned Harold and Johnny if any headlights approached to hide in the ditch and look away so that their night vision wouldn’t be spoiled. His warnings had been as unnecessary as they were tiresome. No vehicles had passed them.

  “Where’s Nick?” Harold asked as they surveyed the silent shadows of the construction sight.

  “Yell for him,” Sonny suggested sarcastically.

  Harold drew a lungful of breath, and Sonny had to elbow him in the stomach to keep him from taking the suggestion.

  Johnny still hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t said a word since leaving Harold’s trailer, which began to worry Sonny. He’d have to make Johnny a part of this so that Johnny couldn’t turn back.

  “You and me,” he said to Johnny, “we’ll take the dozer. Harold’s gonna watch the road.”

  “What about Nick?” Harold asked.

  “What about your busted nose?” Sonny asked. “Cause that’s what you’re going to get if you don’t stop crying about Nick. We go
t a job to do.” He pushed Johnny toward the dozer. “Let’s go.”

  Over his shoulder he told Harold, “Wait there. You see headlights, you whistle.”

  It took Sonny less than five minutes to hotwire the bulldozer. There wasn’t much to it, and he’d had experience working a dozer on the McNeill ranch.

  The diesel engine chugged. Sonny didn’t want to let it warm up long. Isolated as they were, there still was the chance someone might drive by.

  “You get on with me,” Sonny said to Johnny. “Harold, you watch for traffic. Come running if you see headlights.”

  Johnny found a perch beside Sonny, who was already at the controls. Sonny launched into action, shifting levers with no hesitation, getting the dozer blade high in place and rumbling forward. “Watch this, man,” he said. He pulled a lever down, reversed one track, and spun the dozer toward the trailer. Seconds later, the massive blade pierced the thin metal wall. The dozer continued through as if the trailer was an egg carton.

  “You like that?” Sonny asked. “This baby has got some power, don’t it?”

  “Sure,” Johnny said.

  “Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Sonny picked a crash course through a stand of saplings, popped the bulldozer through without slowing, and throttled it to full speed, straight uphill, straight toward a gigantic steel tower that carried electric power lines to feed power into the entire valley.

  Day 6

  2:00 a.m.

  “We’re only going to be gone a week, my little sugar,” Mommy said. She was in the front seat of the car, looking into the mirror of the passenger visor and adjusting her lipstick. “You have all you need in your suitcase. And some nice surprises that you can unwrap when we’re gone.”

  “I want to go with you,” the boy said from the backseat.

  “You’re almost a man,” Daddy said, hands on the steering wheel. “Keep your chin up.”

  “For goodness sake, he’s five. Don’t place that kind of pressure on him.”

  “And bribing him with new toys is the solution? I’d rather raise a soldier than a wimp.”

  The boy fidgeted. He was small for his age, and with his legs straight ahead, his feet barely stuck out beyond the seat. It gave him the tips of his shiny black shoes to stare at as a distraction. He didn’t like it when his parents spoke in those tones.

  Finished with the lipstick, his mother snapped the visor into place. “Look, we’ve got one week. Do you want to spend the first two days fighting?”

  “I’m only saying –”

  “Honey, try to understand.” His mother spoke softly. “No matter how much sense it makes, a mother stills feels guilty leaving.”

  The boy lifted his head just as his mother leaned over and kissed his father on the side of his neck. “An entire week, hon, Maybe we can find a way for the stork to bring him a brother or sister.”

  “Or just practice,” She kissed him more passionately, giggling slightly.

  It caused the boy more discomfort. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t help himself. He never liked it when his father got the kisses. Especially because his father wasn’t always nice to her. Once the boy had walked into their room in the middle of the night to tell them about a bad dream and had found them fighting. His father had been on top. He had tried to pull his father off his mother. His father yelled at him, and his mother sent him away, and they had shut the door on him without listening to his scary dream.

  “I want to go with you!”

  His mother turned to look into the backseat.

  “Sugar, Daddy and I won’t be gone long. We'll call you every day to tell you how much we love you.”

  “I want to go with you!”

  “Son, if you keep yelling,” his father said, “I’ll have to put you over my knee.”

  “No, hon,” she said, “not now. He’s upset. Go easy on him.” She leaned over and began nuzzling his neck again.

  The boy went back to staring at his shoes. He didn’t look up again until the car stopped and his father opened the door for him. The boy saw the house, past his father, at the far end of the sidewalk.

  He remembered the house. It boas the house of his bad dreams. “Please,” he said, “don’t make me stay here.”

  “She’s a nice lady. She took care of you last year, remember 7 You’ll have lots of fun.”

  The boy opened his mouth to tell what he remembered about the old lady, but the house triggered another memory – of a kitten and what dead meant.

  So the boy silently let his mother hug him good-bye. A few tears trickled down his cheek as he clutched her hand and let her lead him toward the house. His father walked behind them, carrying the suitcase packed with clothes and wrapped presents.

  The door at the far end of the sidewalk opened, and the old lady stepped out and began to wave at them. His mother took him closer.

  At the doorway, the boy smelled the rose-colored perfume on the old lady. He wanted to scream and cry, but the old lady had promised to make his parents dead if he wasn’t quiet. He remembered that. So he let his mother push him into the house. He watched after her with tears streaming down his face as she walked away with his father.

  On his return well past midnight, the Watcher rigged a gas lantern to hang from a hook on the wall. It threw a surprising amount of intense white light, which the Watcher liked. The shadows were darker as a result in these cramped quarters, more surreal. The way the lantern hung, its light etched exquisite lines across the far side of Nick Buffalo’s face.

  “She has been mine from the beginning,” the Watcher told Nick. “Or have you already realized that?”

  Nick spat. He was still hogtied, of course, his hair matted with dirt, his pants stained where he’d been forced to wet himself while waiting for the Watcher to return. Nick’s spitting was an act of defiance that pleased the Watcher. Doris Samson had been too frightened too soon. If Nick remained unafraid, there would be more power to take at the end.

  Much as the defiance was pleasing, however, the Watcher wondered if he should go over and cut Nick to show him who was in control. He finally decided against it. Blood might lead him to a frenzy earlier than he wanted, and Nick Buffalo’s escaping soul was an event to be anticipated and savored.

  “Let me show you something,” the Watcher said. Much as he hated Nick Buffalo, he found it exciting to finally be able to share his trophies, especially since it would only remind Nick of what the Watcher was taking away from him.

  The Watcher stepped over Nick toward an old apple crate in the corner. He took the crate and sat cross-legged in front of Nick, setting the crate on the dirt floor between them.

  “Photographs,” the Watcher said, holding them up and spreading them like cards in a deck, with the back of the photographs toward Nick. “You can’t look closely, though. They’re for my eyes, not yours.”

  The Watcher paused to smile at each photograph: Kelsie walking by a stream; Kelsie under her favorite tree; Kelsie at her bedroom window; Kelsie swimming in the lake; Kelsie asleep. All of them had been taken without her being aware; all of them showed his power over her.

  Reluctantly, he set the photos back in the apple crate.

  He took out a white T-shirt. “Hers,” the Watcher explained. “She was fourteen. Very beautiful then. See how large the shirt is? She used it as pajamas. Often, I wear it myself.”

  Nick Buffalo spat again.

  The Watcher smiled at Nick’s jealousy. The shoe was on the other foot now. The T-shirt went back into the crate. The Watcher lifted out a dog collar. “She had a dog named Louie. Altogether, it was taking too much of her time. So Louie had an accident. All the love she put into Louie returned to me with his life’s blood.”

  “You are crazy,” Nick said. “Nutso. Do you know that?”

  “My perception of reality is different from yours. Don’t feel at fault, though. It takes years of experimenting to get the force and understand it.”

  The Watcher gently set the dog collar
down into the crate. He took out an envelope. “Here are some photos I will allow you to see.”

  He took a photo and held it in front of Nick’s eyes, adjusting the angle so that the lantern light clearly illuminated a photograph of Doris Samson, gagged, eyes bulging with fright.

  “It looks like ink,” the Watcher said. “Unfortunately, I was forced to develop these in black and white. You don’t get the full effect of the blood, and it looks like ink. Disappointing.”

  Nick’s eyes were closed. One glance at the photo had shown him too much.

  “Open your eyes,” the Watcher ordered. “I want you to share these with me. Trust me; if I have to, I’ll cut off your eyelids.”

  Nick opened his eyes. The Watcher took satisfaction in that. Nick finally understood the Watcher’s seriousness and the Watcher’s power. Whatever the two of them had shared before this evening mattered no longer, and Nick knew it.

  “Good,” the Watcher said as Nick kept his eyes open.

  Photograph by photograph, he showed Nick the last moments of Doris Samson’s life. When the Watcher was finished, he calmly placed the photographs in the envelope and put the envelope back into the crate.

  The Watcher had much earlier decided he would first show Nick Buffalo the photographs of Doris Samson. That would make the final two items in the apple crate much more significant to Nick.

  The Watcher kept his eyes on Nick’s face as he took both items out and silently set them on the floor in front of Nick. First a 35' camera. Then an eagle-feather headdress.

  The widening of Nick’s eyes showed that he understood.

  “Yes,” the Watcher whispered, his pleasure growing at Nick’s fear, “I will remember you with fondness, too.”

  5:48 a.m.

  The terrible sound of someone screaming took James McNeill from his wife’s arms. Groggy, he sat up in bed. The dream had seemed so real that it took him a moment to realize she wasn’t there.