by John Hansen
“You’re mourning her,” Brooke said, with a darker look on her face. “You’re in mourning, and it’s made you rooted in this place, Will. I think it’s given you a purpose – a reason to stay here. You were never rooted before.”
I looked back at Brooke with a scowl; I felt like she was now intruding into a world in which she didn’t belong – she hadn’t paid the toll to be able to talk about Alia’s effects on this world.”
But Brooke was undaunted, she was always a brave one. She just smiled knowingly at me. “Don’t act like you don’t understand what I mean, Will, I know you do. Just think about it. We don’t have to talk about it anymore. I just wanted to figure out what was different about you.”
“Of course I’m mourning her, but that hasn’t improved me in any way.” I said grumpily. “It just about ruined me.”
“No, it gave you roots.” Brooke picked up a small purple blossom of flowers and twirled it thoughtfully under her nose. “You know about my brother Nick, the one who died?”
I did, Scott had told me about it. Nick was a troubled guy, a little older than Brooke. He had always battled a drug addiction and he was bi-polar; and I had always figured that was what had drew her to Scott initially – he and her brother were a lot alike. But her brother Nick had simply disappeared from their home one day in Marietta, Georgia, two years ago, and not a word was heard about him for all that time. Not until one day when police all the way in Athens, Georgia called to say that they had identified a body as being Nick, and that someone had to come down to identify and claim him. Scott had gone with Brooke to view the body.
“Well maybe you know,” she said, her voice sounding a little strained, “that he drowned in a shallow ditch full of water, next to the highway near Athens – not too far from town. Nothing else around, just his body in this ditch. Nobody knew anything about the circumstances of why he was there, why he had gone that far, and what he was even doing out there to begin with.
“The point is,” she said, looking back at me, “is that not knowing is worse than knowing when it’s someone you loved. A mystery to others becomes a… a haunting fixation to you. I know, and that’s what I can see on you too, despite the fact that you seem more… rooted. Something is eating at you too, and I know that feeling, that look.”
She suddenly reached over and gave me a hug, leaning into me. I was surprised, but I put my hand on the back of her head and my arm around her back. She was warm and smelled sweet, and it actually felt good to have her hold me. I looked up the slope and saw Scott was heading back down.
“If you can, you should find her, Will,” Brooke said with urgency as she hugged me. “Find out what happened to her. You’re lucky because you’re here, close to it, and you know this world. I’ll never know what happened to Nick, but you can find out about Alia.”
I heard Scott crunching through the brush above us. He was sweating and flushed, but was beaming with pride. After Brooke and I got up and stretched ourselves, Scott showed us his pictures of the bear, grinning as proudly as if he had shot it and had it mounted in his den as a trophy. Even with his zoom fully extended, the bear was still the size of a pea, but it was wild, and a Grizzly, and that was special.
The rest of the hike was strenuous and it got very hot, but it felt good to sweat in that clean air and pure sunshine – it was a clean sweat. The flies and bees left us alone at that elevation, right above the tree line, but I could see bees below us down the hill in the sunshine, buzzing lazily in the patches of flowers.
I thought a lot about Brooke’s words as we hiked along; and I hoped in a way that she wasn’t right about me having to find out about what happened to Alia – because even though I wanted to more than anything at that moment, I knew that if I somehow didn’t find out, that I’d be suffering from a “haunted fixation” for the rest of my life.
But maybe she had it right. I wished Brooke was staying longer so I could talk to her more about things, to get her thoughts on my life. She was a rare treasure and I was a little envious of what Scott had, but I was glad for him all the same.
Later than afternoon we returned, exhausted but with that special kind of peaceful relaxation from being out in the sun all day. I saw them to their campsite but didn’t stay long; and despite my thoughts going over and over what Brooke had said, I slept more soundly that night than I had in a very long time.
Thirty-Four
I came by the camp after they had packed up their stuff. All of their junk was shoved into the car they had, and they were all set to go.
As I said my goodbyes, Brooke hugged me and kissed me on the cheek, slipping me a knowing expression as she got into the car. Scott, sporting the beginning of a scruffy beard and looking as healthy and whole as I’ve ever seen him, gave me a big bear hug.
“This mountain air is doing you good,” I said to him.
He smiled at me broadly. “Take care of yourself, Will. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I don’t know what you would do, anymore. You’re a new man.”
He laughed and looked past me at the mountains in the distance. “Just a new chapter, buddy.”
“So you’re off to California now?” I asked.
“Yea,” he said. “By way of Utah, Nevada. Gonna take our time.”
“Take care of yourself, Scott,” I said, and with that, he got into his car and drove away from the campsite.
After getting back to the store that night, I had a note from Phyllis that Greg had stopped by and left a message for me to call him. I stared at the note, feeling Brooke’s words resonating in me about finishing this mission to the end, finding out who killed Alia. I decided then and there to recruit, all over again, and once and for all, the one person who I knew would help me – the Khaki Kop himself. Instead of calling him, I would just go and confront him at his house – rejuvenated that energy that was so fleeting within him, but that buoyed me along with him nonetheless.
I got to Greg's house late that night, around 10 pm. It didn't look like any lights were on in his house, and I felt like a trespasser walking up to his door. I remembered he had a back deck and I walked past the front of the house and around the yard to the back. A single porch light shone down and I saw him sitting at a little black rod-iron table. As I walked up I saw he was writing on a legal pad, and when he looked up at me he flipped the pad over on its front.
“Speak of the devil,” he said, regarding me with a studied frown.
“The devil? That doesn’t sound encouraging.” I sat down at the little table, across from him, and looked down at his pad. “What you working on?”
“It can wait. I need to talk to you.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I think I know who killed Alia.”
His words hit me like a punch in the face, and my breathing stopped. “Who?”
“Before I get to that, let me ask you something. Are you planning on going to the Blackfoot powwow?”
“The powwow?” It took me a moment to get on track with what he was asking. “Yea, I guess…”
“Who invited you?”
“Thunderbird, actually. He said the council approved it or something like that.”
Greg nodded. “So Clayton didn't ask you?”
“Clayton? Of course not.”
“You didn't see him recently – at his house?” Greg looked concerned, and unfolded his arms, leaning forward. “That house is watched, Will,” he said in a quieter voice, “and it's known that you have been there.”
“Watched by whom?”
He didn't answer. I sat back, looking at him doubtfully, “What has any of this have to do with who killed Alia?”
“There's a lot of people talking about you out there.” Greg nodded his head in the general direction of Browning. “And you got some attention of law enforcement too.”
I snorted dismissively. “Who? Officer Olsterman?”
“There are more entities than the BIA’s office watching things in Browning, Will,” he said gravely. “Beca
use of our position, the rangers are advised about certain criminal developments, and, my friend, your name has come up.”
“Come up how?” I felt a cold sinking fear in my chest. “Stop speaking so cryptically; just tell me what the fuck is going on, Greg.”
“There's suspicion that a major drug-running deal is going through Browning and that someone at Two Med is involved. You are suspected as being a part of running the drugs.”
“Out here? At the store?” I laughed. “Who is saying all this? Who is here besides the BIA?”
“DEA. And not for the first time. There’s been drug issues in Browning in the past; and there’s been a pipeline of drugs coming through here from Canada for decades. The BIA is just the boots on the ground for larger entities.
“I don’t get the connection with Two Medicine, though,” Greg continued. “Who would be helping to transfer drugs around from Two Med? Ronnie?”
“Could be,” I said, but internally I felt like it was a definite fact.
“Jesus,” I said after thinking it over, “I don't hear from you for two weeks and suddenly you pop up with all this out of nowhere? I didn’t even think you were involved anymore.”
Greg just stared back at me. I sat thinking for a moment, processing everything he had said. Watching the house, drugs, murder, cops. I could not believe it was real.
“Why’d you go see Clayton?” Greg asked.
“No,” I said, after thinking for a moment. I looked up at him and shook my head. “No more questions, Greg. Stop acting like a fucking cop; and act like my friend.” I said.
“Tell me who killed her or just leave me out of it and stop freaking me out.” I said. “ I don’t care about the rest of that shit.”
“Clayton… or Jake,” Greg said.
“Clayton or Jake?”
“Look Will, a lot gets filtered out by the time things reach the Rangers. And we were only notified about things because somebody is fingering an employee of Two Med as being involved in drug delivery – that’s the only reason we even know anything about it.”
Greg shook his head at me. “You cannot repeat any of this to anyone, but Clayton and Jake are supposedly planning, or involved in, a major drug-running trip over Canada’s border. These kind of over-the-border deliveries attract a lot of attention from federal law enforcement, and I think Clayton and Jake know it, and that somehow Alia got in the way and they got desperate.”
“So you think they killed her because she was going to mess up their big deal?”
“One or both,” Greg nodded. “Yea.”
“Which is why you’re worried about me, now,” I said.
“That and the Two Med connection with Canada… that’s what’s stirring things up so much in Browning lately. The cops and who knows who else were watching Clayton because of the drugs, and then this grisly murder happens.”
I tried to picture Clayton and Jake beating Alia to death in the woods. Questions arose immediately, however. Why was she killed like that if Clayton and Jake were trying to keep a low profile? And why the lack of footprints and the weird location? And why like end it like that, leaving a body lying there beaten? It still didn’t make any sense to me.
“It has always looked to me more like a sudden act of rage – a ‘crime of passion.’” I said, sitting back in my chair and running my hands over my face. “But with the strange placing of the body, the footprints, it looks planned-out.”
I thought back to my visit to Clayton’s house, how he had told me of his campaigns and intentions to clear his family name. I had believed him; he seemed honest, if not somewhat unfriendly. Was I suckered? And if so, was Sky duping me the same? How is she involved in this?
“I don’t even know what to say,” I said shaking my head. I looked up at Greg. “So what do we do now?”
“We don’t do anything.” Greg flipped over the legal pad. He had written a lot on the first page, filling up the entire front side.
“I was actually writing a statement of everything I know on Clayton, Jake, and even Alia – not much on her, though.” He stared down at the legal pad and then looked up at me again, as if suddenly remembering something. “The reason I wanted to talk to you tonight, Will, is make sure you don’t go to the powwow, not now.”
“Why not?”
Greg looked at me dubiously, “Because you are in danger, obviously. Haven’t you processed yet what I just told you?”
“Clayton?” I asked.
“Clayton and Jake are heavily involved in tribal matters; and I’m sure they'll be there this year with all the talk that’s out there. And they have friends in the tribe, Will, strong friends.”
I sat back and remembered Thunderbird’s insistence that I go, and with a shock I wondered if his whole act had been a farce and if even lovable, harmless, Teddy-bear-like Thunderbird was in on the deal with Clayton and Jake too. The entire town seemed altered now, even Two Med did, as if I was seeing them through a new lense.
Greg saw my worried expression, and tried to reassure me. “Look, Will, you’re safe if you stick around here – the store. But there’s a lot going on in Browning I don’t know, like I said. Suffice it to say, Browning is off limits for you right now – a bad place to be caught in. Between the cops, rangers, Indians and locals, your name, right or wrong, has gotten around in connection with Alia and murder and Clayton and drugs… basically everything that is wrong in Browning… You’ve got to stay away. For good.
“In fact,” he continued, “If you really want to play it safe, you should leave Montana, immediately.”
Leave? The thought seemed implausible, even with all that was going on. And go where? Atlanta? Georgia seemed as foreign to me now as Montana had seemed in Georgia that morning in the bar with Scott. I shook my head, “I still can't believe this is happening.”
“You’re in danger, Will, there’s no denying it.” Greg looked past me out over the dark lawn that led into the trees. “Glacier is still a wild place.”
“No,” I said, forcing a decision in my mind after considering for a moment. “That’s what Clayton wants, for me to skip town and take the blame for Alia with me. Clayton and Jake don't want me arrested; they know I didn’t do it to Alia and that I’m not involved in drug deals. No… they want me scared, and gone, leaving me looking all the more guilty.”
I stood up and looked down at Greg. The unfairness of what had happened to sweet little Alia, the ridiculousness of what was going on now, all burned within me now with a smoldering, stubborn resentment. “I am going to that fucking powwow, for Alia – because of her; and I’m going to tell Clayton and Jake and anybody else who asks that I loved her, and that she deserved better that she got – I’ll tell anyone who wants to know.
“I’ll tell the whole fucking tribe that she was a beautiful little girl who was beaten down and left in the dirt for dead… She was a part of their tribe – she was one of them. And I’m the only one who gives a fuck.”
I turned and walked back towards the path at the side of the house, but Greg called over to me. “Wait, Will.”
I turned around and watched him get up from his table. “Then I’m coming with you.”
I started to object but he held up a hand and stopped me. “I may be just a ranger,” he smiled sarcastically, “but the powwow is on park land every year, so it’s in my jurisdiction. Even my supervisor can’t argue with that.”
I shrugged, and started walking back. “Just leave the uniform at home this time, though.”
Thirty-Five
I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink when I got in bed later that night. But after staring up at the wooden ceiling for a while and thinking about what Greg had said about Alia’s death, about her killers, about my name being involved with narcotics investigations, I soon felt a heavy fatigue that almost forcibly drifted me into a deep sleep.
The next day was a Friday, and the following day was the big powwow. My shift on Friday had me at the cash register in the gift area, and Larry, unfortunat
ely, was back, and it made for an awkward few hours with his embarrassment over being drunk in front of me evident enough on his face. He didn't speak much to anyone, but stood at the counter near me, typing heavily on a laptop keyboard he sometimes used to track the stock and sales. He would reach back and scratch his bald stubbly head with the easer end of a pencil and then go back to stabbing at the keyboard in heavy strokes.
We were very busy and so I didn't have much down time to converse with him anyway. I was ringing people up non-stop, or getting the shelves restocked here and there and answering the random tourist questions. A huge line had formed at the snack bar due to Katie being the chef, and Larry eventually got back there with Phyllis and to bail her out. Larry ended up kicking her out and she wandered up to help me at the register.
Katie told me as we worked that there was another bonfire at the main lodge that night, and the she was planning on going – Ronnie had told her about it. Even she was getting a little restless, apparently. I thought it odd that Ronnie hadn’t told me about it himself, but she asked me to go and I told her I was down for it. By the time the store was locked up and closed down, were had planned for all three of us go together.
Once again Katie and I piled into Ronnie's car and we drove down the road towards the main lodge. The night was clear and I could see millions of stars already lining the black dome of the sky. I sat in the front seat and Ronnie drove quickly in the dark; his headlights always seemed too dim for the dark roads and on this night even more so.
He was blasting Van Halen and had it up so loud that we couldn’t have carried on a conversation if we wanted to. But with the volume turned up a little too loud, Ronnie’s grim demeanor as he drove, a cigarette stuck in his frowning mouth, and Katie’s worried expression as she watched the two of us, a definite sense of coldness had grown in the vehicle into elephantine size by the time we arrived at the lodge. By the time the car came to a stop, I was glad to get out and get a little fresh little air.