Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Sudden silence had cut through the smoky air.

  Sonny looked up briefly to see a sheriff in full uniform stepping slowly between tables, almost like a classic entrance in an old western, all eyes upon him, all breath held, all drinks poised in motionless hands.

  Sonny, though, was too cool to react as the others. No white man – sheriff or not – was going to take him away from a pool game. Sonny dropped his head and resumed eyeballing the length of his cue stick. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his opponent backing away from the table, taking his glass of draft beer with him. Sonny’s peripheral vision told him why. The sheriff had reached the pool table and was staring at Sonny. Before, Sonny’s shot had merely been one of many private dramas in the crowded bar. Now, it was the total focus.

  He clicked the cue stick into the white ball. It was a perfect shot. He knew it as the white ball made contact with the eight ball, knew it as the eight ball hit the bank, reversed direction, and spun toward the corner pocket. Just as the eight ball reached the pocket, the sheriff plucked it from the table.

  “What kind of nonsense is that?” Sonny asked, getting the right touch of belligerence into his voice for the benefit of his audience and especially for the girl in the corner with the halter top who had been pretending to talk with her friends while keeping a good eye on Sonny.

  “You and me are going for a little ride,” the sheriff said. “I’ll try to explain then.”

  “I ain’t going anywhere but to the bar for another beer.”

  “I got me a pair of handcuffs and a bad temper that says otherwise. Be a lot easier on the both of us if I don’t need to use the handcuffs.”

  Sonny didn’t think about it long. Maybe the man’s hair was grizzled and he had some sag to his face, but he was still plenty big and drill-sergeant mean. If Sonny let himself get dragged out, it wouldn’t show much dignity. On the other hand, with the sheriff looking like the bad guy, it was probably earning Sonny sympathy. With any luck he’d be back to cash in on it before the halter top at the table in the corner found someone else to pretend to ignore.

  Sonny tossed his cue stick at his opponent. “Hold my spot,” Sonny said. “And you remember. I won this game.”

  Sonny’s cowboy hat was on a nearby table, along with a half-glass of beer. He grabbed the hat and put it on, tilting the brim just right. He paused to finish the beer. Going with the sheriff was one thing, but seeming like he was in a hurry was another. Finally, he ambled toward the door, following the sheriff to the police car parked outside.

  “You’ll sit in the back,” the sheriff said. “Make yourself comfortable. We got a ways to go.”

  “A ways to go" turned out to be nearly an hour, an hour of no conversation at all. Sonny had tried once or twice to ask questions, but the sheriff hadn’t even glanced in the rearview mirror at Sonny, They’d taken pavement into the hills until it became gravel, gravel until dirt, and had arrived at a small cabin just as the sun began to set. Sonny didn’t like the darkness, didn’t like the mountain remoteness among the trees, didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t open the doors of the police car because the handles on the back doors had been removed. Sonny especially didn’t like having all this quiet time to wonder exactly how much the sheriff knew about the Native Sons and if it had anything to do with why the sheriff was taking him here. By the time the sheriff parked the car, Sonny had forgotten his hopes for the girl with the halter top and had long since begun to worry about survival.

  The sheriff opened the back door of the patrol car and invited Sonny to step outside. Sonny did, watching the sheriff's hands closely, dreading the sight of a billy club.

  “Go on in,” the sheriff said, pointing at the cabin. “You’ll find someone waiting for you. My advice is to listen close.”

  The sheriff plunked himself back into the car and rested behind the steering wheel. Sonny thought it through, realized he had little choice, and let himself into the cabin with its lamplit interior of rough walls, sagging cupboards, and bunkbeds along the walls. There, for the first time, he met – and instantly hated – the tall, pale banker who introduced himself as Wayne Anderson.

  “Look around,” Anderson said. “Take a good look. This is the place where your friend Harold Hairy Moccasin died.”

  The casualness of the man’s words scared Sonny, more than the words themselves.

  “You’ll die here, too,” Anderson continued. “Tonight. Unless you make the right choice. So listen good.”

  “I’m listening,” Sonny said, his mouth suddenly dry.

  Sonny had been listening ever since. He’d been listening for twenty-three years, right to the moment of striking a match in front of the open filing cabinet.

  Sonny had rigged it as simply as possible. Gasoline and kerosene, he knew, left traces that arson investigators could find. From what he’d read, they could piece a fire together from its origin.

  Sonny didn’t know enough about electricity to rig faulty wiring. So he had chosen candles, setting them upright in the files. He’d light them and shut the file cabinet drawers, leaving them slightly open to supply air. He also had some candles set up in the trash basket at the side of his desk. He’d draped the long curtains from a nearby window into the paper-filled trash basket.

  What he hoped was that the candles would burn down and start all the papers on fire. Once the curtains caught, there was a good chance the wood paneling would begin to flame, especially since Sonny was leaving a few windows open to provide a draft.

  What Sonny also hoped was the time it took for the candles to burn down was enough time for him to get to his girlfriend’s. She’d be his alibi.

  Sonny would blame a careless cigarette for the fire. Everyone knew he chain-smoked. The metal ashtray on his desk would not burn in the fire. He’d say he must have missed the ashtray and hit the trash basket with his final cigarette of the evening.

  If the candles didn’t work, Sonny would come back early the next morning and do it right with kerosene, taking his chances on an investigation. He wasn’t really worried about it though, for he had his own plans.

  He hadn’t believed Anderson’s excuse about deciding the new computer system made for the perfect opportunity to erase the years of paperwork. They could have chosen a time five years earlier or waited five years and simply burned down the computer systems. For all these years they had been content in hiding behind a legal labyrinth that had protected them so well.

  No, Sonny thought, something was in the wind. They were well-connected enough to hear of an upcoming investigation. Or maybe one of the surviving members of the group was defecting to go public. Or maybe inquisitive heirs were investigating the sources of an estate’s revenue. Whatever the reason, they wanted to cover their tracks.

  Sonny had been planning for this. He had not been stupid enough to think that this gravy train would stay on the tracks forever. He’d enjoyed the ride and had had every intention of staying on board while the train was running. But from day one, he had known that eventually something would derail it.

  He had spent years putting together his own documents. Wayne Anderson might think a fire in the administration office would erase any links to Emerald Canyon. But Wayne Anderson was wrong. And Wayne Anderson and the surviving others – mistakenly secure in their assumptions of anonymity – would pay for the mistake. Sonny intended to sop up the last of the gravy before moving on.

  Without any change in expression, he struck the match. He leaned forward and lit the first of the candles.

  6:15 a.m.

  Despite the extreme loneliness of sitting at the kitchen table with a cold cup of bitter coffee, Clay smiled as he watched a truck come up the drive of the ranch house. If the clouds broke, the sun was only minutes away from reaching the tip of the mountains – it didn’t surprise him that these visitors would arrive with the light of a new day.

  Clay smiled because even without the familiar light-green paint of the old Chevy truck, he would recognize his visitors by the s
tiff posture of the passenger. Old George Samson spent a great deal of effort and pride in carrying himself as a man thirty years younger. George also tended to concentrate on the scenery and never relaxed enough to enjoy conversation.

  While Clay had spent his share of time driving George into town for supplies and occasional doctors’ appointments, in this case, George’s grandson, Johnny, was the recipient of the old man’s focused silence. Clay could guess why they were at the ranch; he wished there was another reason.

  As they parked the truck, Clay rose from the table and moved to the kitchen counter. He dumped wet coffee grounds into the trash, found another filter, measured fresh coffee, and began to brew a new pot, making it twice as strong – the way the old man liked it.

  Johnny and George knocked before stepping into the back entrance. Johnny wore khaki pants and a button-down shirt. He was a schoolteacher on the reservation. Unlike some teachers who felt they needed to be friends with their students and were ineffective as a result, Johnny knew the kids wanted someone to respect, so he chose not to dress as they did.

  George, hair dazzling white, was a denim ad in soft, faded jeans and soft, faded jean jacket. He’d finally allowed his doctor and Johnny to talk him into spectacles. Aside from the wire-frame glasses and slight shrunkenness he couldn’t hide with any amount of excellent posture, he hardly looked older than when Clay had first spoken to him a quarter-century earlier.

  “Morning,” Clay called. “Sit yourselves down. I was just about to start some eggs and bacon.”

  It was a white lie. Clay didn’t feel like eating. He didn’t feel like doing much except for punching a fist through the kitchen window. What was there he could do to get Taylor back? Nothing. He, the great retired FBI hunter of serial killers, had so little information about Taylor’s disappearance that all he could do was sit by a phone and hope for a call from the person who had taken his son. He planned to call the local sheriff to ask him to bring in the FBI, but even then, Clay knew that fieldwork rarely helped the victims; instead, it provided preventative measures by stopping the kidnappers from future crimes.

  There were also his feelings of frustration about his wife – he knew where she was, but it seemed there was even less he could do to get her back. Clay was beat up good, and he knew it.

  Johnny and George took chairs at the kitchen table, waiting with formal politeness as Clay cracked eggs and stripped lines of bacon into a frying pan. Only when Clay turned back to them did George speak.

  “I didn’t find out until last night. Johnny came up to the cabin,” George said. He did not listen to the news and would not have heard otherwise. “We are here to help.”

  “Taylor?” Clay asked, knowing, of course, it was.

  “Yes,” George said. “Johnny was able to tell me only what he heard on television.”

  “I wish you could help,” Clay said. “We’ve got Rooster Evans going up in his plane today, and the search parties will continue. But I’m pretty sure Taylor isn’t out there.”

  “The reports were true?” Johnny asked. “He’s been kidnapped?”

  “Everything points to it.” Clay found refuge in replying professionally, as if it wasn’t his son who was missing.

  “What can we do?” George asked.

  Clay was glad they didn’t offer trite consolations, such as Taylor would be fine, or he’d be back soon. Clay was glad they didn’t ask questions in the manner of bystanders at a gruesome car accident. He’d been there, when people took pleasure in the curiosity of horror. Who might have kidnapped him? Was it revenge? Any ransom calls? How was he taken? How are you sure it’s a kidnapping? Do you think he’s alive?

  “What can you do? Drink coffee,” Clay answered. “Eat my bacon and eggs without complaining. I can’t leave the house. I have calls to make; I need to coordinate the search efforts. Tell me a couple of bad jokes. I could use some company.”

  "Kelsie?” Johnny said.

  “Not here.” Clay grabbed the coffeepot and poured them each a cup. He didn’t explain further.

  George was a close friend. Johnny, almost as close. But Clay didn’t buy into the female thing of easing pain by sharing it. The way men worked, Clay figured, if they didn’t know each other well, baring the soul was plain embarrassing. And if they were good friends, they could read enough between the lines. Talk about anything – philosophy, baseball, women and how they drove you nuts. Argue about anything. But feelings? Hey, they were there, you knew that. And if you wanted to talk about them or listen, fine, but no probing. No advice offered unless asked. What it boiled down to was that silence was good enough sympathy. Sometimes sympathy was changing the subject and allowing a man his dignity.

  “Maybe you should send us up in the air with Rooster,” George said after he and Johnny absorbed the implications of Clay’s brief answer about Kelsie. Gone at six in the morning? Gone during the crisis of Taylor’s kidnapping? There could be no good reason for that.

  “Let me in the airplane,” George continued. A wide grin showed off new teeth. “With these spectacles, I see like an eagle again.”

  The offer touched Clay. One of the reasons George watched the scenery so closely while riding in a moving vehicle was to take his mind off the moving vehicle. George didn’t go much for speeds over thirty miles an hour.

  “Might be a good idea,” Clay answered George. “I’ll see if he has room in the airplane,”

  The bacon began to pop and sizzle. For the next few minutes, Clay tended the stove and listened with half-concentration to George and Johnny argue over the efficiency of George’s eyesight, thinking how much good it did a man to have close friends, thinking back to his career days and how job and family tended to keep his peers at mere acquaintance level.

  It wasn’t until moving to Montana that Clay had first spent time with a friend who didn’t always somehow turn the conversation back to work issues. That friend, of course, was George.

  Mindful of George’s kindness years earlier when Clay had been in the hospital, Clay had made a courtesy call to George at the new cabin he’d built higher in the mountains. The casual impulse visit had lasted an entire afternoon as they sat on the cabin veranda, sipping on lemon water, discussing subjects that ranged from stars to physics to baseball and history, with Clay impressed at the old man’s reading habits and eclectic knowledge.

  The visits had become weekly, the discussions more lively. It was inevitable that George challenged Clay’s determination to see the world on strictly scientific terms.

  “You made your living by sifting through evidence and drawing conclusions,” George began one day about four years ago.

  “Hard evidence,” Clay corrected. “Forensic science. Fingerprints, powder burns, body fluids, autopsy reports. I did not speculate on the unmeasurable.”

  “That is fair,” George said, a smiling playing at the edges of his mouth. “But tell me, does a good investigator or scientist disqualify any conclusion before weighing the evidence?”

  “No. We try to keep an open mind.”

  “Tell me then,” George said, “why do so many educated people decide God does not exist and shut their eyes to even considering His presence?” Before Clay could answer, George continued. “Spend the next week open to the search that He does exist behind the workings of this world. Look at everything as if you are a child. A child finds amazement in first holding the string of a balloon that floats. A child chases a pigeon in the park and laughs with delight when it flies away. Children see everything with a degree of awe. Pretend, then, everything you see is new to you. The complexity, the wonder of it all, will overwhelm you. When you return next week, tell me, if you are able, that this world is an accident of the universe.”

  The week between conversations became almost mystical for Clay. He watched Taylor wiggle fingers and toes, and marveled at the working of nerve impulses.

  Instead of an annoyance to be swept away, a dew-laced spider web stretching across the steering wheel of his tractor became an incred
ible testimony to the unfathomable – that a tiny bit of soft-shelled protein was capable of intelligence, reproduction, and sophisticated food-gathering.

  One afternoon, Clay spent a full half-hour examining a feather he’d found below the loft of the barn where the pigeons roosted. He pulled apart the strands of the feather, silk smooth and delicate, yet sturdy and practical in the design. Up close he could not see where one color of the pigment began or ended. At arm’s length, he saw again the mottled brown and black of a feather. Strong and tough, yet so light it almost did not exist. Something so perfectly made was so common. And if something this ordinary held so much mystery and wonder...

  Clay found joy in the taste of the morning’s first coffee, in Kelsie’s touch. He looked at his watch and tried to imagine the eternity of time. And the world, once so common, filled him with mystery. He began to understand how George could be serene and joyful into old age.

  During their next conversation, Clay admitted to George that perhaps all of this mystery might be best explained by the invisible presence of a greater power.

  “Clay,” George said, “could you understand this greater power as eternal, a power beyond time and space?”

  “If a person is looking for definition, sure.”

  “And could you give Him a name? God.”

  Clay nodded.

  “How about Christ? Christ as God?” George said.

  Clay shrugged. “No one denies the historical Jesus. A genius of philosophy, a teacher talented enough to impact history –”

  George snorted. “Not a genius or teacher. Either lunatic or Son of God. No sane human teacher would claim something so preposterous. Unless he were sane and it was true.”

  “Well...”

  “If you can imagine a God of great power, my friend, then you only have one stumbling block between you and Christ. Yes, it is a matter of faith. Ever read C. S. Lewis? All you have to do is accept that a God great enough to be behind the workings of the universe descended into the physical realms of His own universe and rose again. I believe once you understand and know that, the how and why of existence falls into place. You are not only seeing the sun in the sky, but by it, you are also able to see everything else. With that understanding, you will find peace. Not necessarily happiness, but peace.”