by David Knop
“I didn’t think I’d meet a retired master chief of the Navy who is either a bear trainer, a shaman, or a bear. And most of all, I didn’t expect to be locked up for killing goddamn wolves. You gotta believe it never occurred to me that I’ll probably be murdered tonight.” I regulated my voice and words to hide my uneasiness.
“Quit pacing. Your hysterics are unbecoming.”
“Hysterics? By morning, I’m dead.”
“Keep it up, you’ll have a stroke first.”
I inhaled, let it out slow. “Okay, okay. So, don’t trust Oso. Why?”
Deer’s eyes widened like he was ready to run. “You cannot recognize a yee naaldlooshii? A skinwalker?”
“No. No way.” Some shaman can transform themselves into animals. Some call them shapeshifters. “Not Oso. No.”
Deer threw his head back. “You, of all people.”
I knew the campfire stories and legends. My former wife—still an uncomfortable description—was raised on the Navajo reservation and I’d been there countless times to visit family. Skinwalkers were a Navajo tradition and a worrying one at that.
I said, “I know what a skinwalker is. Like a witch, a bad witch, an animal like Wolf or Grizz, maybe a…Oh shit.” Wolf’s bites on my legs and arms tingled.
“Now it becomes clear?” Deer said.
“Oh, man.” I sat on my bunk, put my head in my hands. “Okay, what’s a skinwalker doing on this rez? I always thought they were Navajo.”
“We Utes have them, too,” Deer said. “Last year a security officer on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation spotted a huge creature with coal red eyes. He and another officer pursued but couldn’t catch it.
“Utes and Navajos have been at odds for centuries. Things worsened during the 1800’s, when we started selling Navajo children as slaves.”
“We?” I asked.
“Later, my ancestors joined Kit Carson against the Navajo, who then cast a spell on our tribe. We sent medicine men to make amends, but the Navajo refused to lift the spell.”
I heard a key in the door. A head appeared and said, “Who’re you talking to?”
“Don’t know.” I spoke the truth.
He glanced around the cell, then at me. “Smart ass,” the jailer said. He slammed the door.
I asked, “Who are you?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Deer’s hooves clicked on the cement floor as he shifted weight. “I don’t blame the Navajo, but it’s time to end it.” He snorted.
“Oso Walker? A retired Navy master chief corpsman is a skinwalker?” My brain was a demolition derby of theories crashing together trying to make sense, but just making junk. Crazy junk.
Rubbing my face, I said, “Okay, why the hospital groundbreaking?”
“A shared history of trouble makes more trouble easy.”
“Mayhem at the hospital groundbreaking. Doesn’t seem like much,” I said.
“It will be when the shooting starts. Clearly, you don’t understand what you’ve stepped into. You will soon.” Deer misted away and I was alone.
Deer’s words puzzled me. As an animal guide, Deer is ordinarily compassionate, kind, and empathetic. I didn’t see that in this spirit. I saw other attributes. I saw a bad omen, a warning.
But I understood one thing from Deer’s history lesson: the need for revenge never dies.
Chapter 24
Lights out on a hard bunk. A dark cell made the worst place for my last night. Death was supposed to come in bed with loved ones at your side. I expected instead, a staged jailbreak in the middle of the night that would certainly be my fate. My guess: a bullet dead center in the head from behind.
With eyes closed and breath deep, I reached out to my elders’ ghosts. I had no prayer dust or sage to purify myself, no animal guide to follow. No drums, nor music. Only this black cell and the hiss of silence.
I slowed my heart, directed my mind to an ancient campfire on a cold night long before time. In its flame, I purged self-pity, strove for complete honesty until my thinking came clean and clear. My breathing stopped. I lifted upward in deep relaxation and floated to a place of no form or time.
Footsteps, toenails clicking on a cement floor, drifted my way. The steps grew louder, then stopped. Breathing. Not mine. Growling. Not mine, for sure. A brown mass moved—indistinct in form, clear in menace. Smells drifted toward me: the tell-tale stink of wet dog. The musk of Grizz. Rapid sniffing. A snort. A grunt.
I pushed myself up, then collapsed. I sucked air, blew hard to waken. A blue mist enveloped a feminine figure with both arms beckoning. A beautiful woman sang a mournful song, but not in a tongue I understood. “Come with me,” she said. I couldn’t move. The time had come to sing a death song, but I had none.
Light flooded the room. Reality intruded with a cell door crash, walls shining gray like ancient pottery. Three men shouldered into view, scowling, smelling of coffee and armpits. Hands on pistol butts. “Get up.”
This was no dream. I got up.
Deputy Lettau head-motioned toward the cell door. I walked out. They didn’t bother cuffing me, an invitation to make a break for it. I knew better but looked for a way out just the same. I walked a dead man’s walk until we stopped at an exit that led outside. A deputy held it open. Lettau motioned for me to exit.
“No,” I said.
Lettau pulled his pistol. “Outside, Romero.”
“Shoot me here, Lettau.” Blood is difficult to clean, and harder to explain. Inside the building the fluid would complicate the inmate death report.
Lettau’s grin showed teeth. “Who gives a shit where? This shoot’s righteous. You killed Deputy Jones.”
“Were you there?” I asked.
Lettau smiled, said, “Got your ass dead to rights.”
If they had me dead to rights, why take the risk of shooting me? I knew too much. Lettau’s real interest was my silence.
A door at the end of the hall opened. Everyone turned. I delivered a front snap kick to Lettau’s groin. He dropped. A deputy grabbed me from behind in a sleeper choke hold. My world blackened.
“What’s going on here?” said a voice down the hall. The choker released me. I sucked air.
The voice had come from a deputy who wore the rank of sergeant. He looked me up and down while two men helped Lettau stand. “Well, Lettau?” he asked.
Lettau’s face washed ashen, and he said nothing
The others had nothing to say.
I rubbed my throat, an instinctive dose of survival locked my jaw shut.
The sergeant looked at me, then at Lettau. “Why’s he not cuffed?” Then he gave the deputies a once over, said, “Why are you armed in the cell block?”
Lettau opened his mouth to speak.
The sergeant said, “Can it. I want all three of you standing in front of my desk first thing tomorrow.” In Lettau’s face, he said, “You better have the right answers.”
To me, he said, “With me.”
I followed. With a quick glance back at the deputies, I caught Lettau mouthing, “This isn’t over.”
The sergeant led me to an interrogation room, said, “Wait in here.”
The soundproofed room was as welcoming as my recent cell. Time passed. I went from near death by law enforcement to near death by anticipation. The door opened, the sergeant held out a hand and said, “He’s all yours.”
Jean Reel walked in. “Peter,” she said.
My jaw must have dropped because she raised her eyebrows as she held out a pair of hand cuffs. She said, “Turn around, arms at your back.”
“What?” I asked. Her face turned stern and I complied. Never a dull moment with her.
“Procedure,” she said.
She cuffed me. Outside, a black SUV waited. She put me in the rear seat, then sat next to the driver.
Reel twisted and looked across the front seat at me. “Why do I spend most of my time pulling you out of trouble?”
“You
protect and serve?” I asked
“Smart ass.”
“Love your timing. How’d you spring me?”
She smiled, waved a hand in dismissal. “FISA warrant.”
The FBI can go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get a warrant but they’re not easy to come by. “Man, you got that kinda juice?”
“I told you from the beginning, the Director has personal interest. He went straight to the court. This case has widespread implications.”
“Widespread? FISA? You mean foreign and you mean terrorism. What’s that have to do with me?”
“You don’t need to know, Peter.”
No use pressing her for an answer, and it didn’t take a genius to reckon this case had foreign interest. Natural gas draws big, sometimes bad, money. Federal regulations governing Indians are hopelessly complex and some reservation business enterprises take advantage by dealing directly and secretly with foreign interests for gas and oil leases and timber.
“So, you waltzed into the sheriff’s office and flashed a warrant for my custody, and he let me go?”
“That’s how it works,” she said, her tone suggesting you-damn-well-know.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Yes, Peter, you are. The charges for shooting a law enforcement officer have been subordinated, not dismissed. Plus, you just picked up another charge for assaulting a law enforcement officer in jail.”
“So, I’m on loan?”
“You could look at it that way. And the wolves, don’t forget the wolves.” She couldn’t keep a straight face on that one.
“Funny,” I said.
We drove until we arrived at her mobile command post in the woods. She led me to the conference room, still cuffed. She said something to the people in the room and they exited. She hung a placard that said classified on the outside knob and closed the door.
“Sit,” she said.
A half-turn showed my cuffs. “Any chance?”
“Oh, sorry. A formality.” She crossed behind me and unlocked the cuffs.
I rubbed my wrists and sat.
“Okay, Peter, tell me what you’ve found out,” she said, sitting in a chair next to mine.
Before I could speak, her voice, smell, and beauty struck me dumb. I fell into her black eyes.
“Peter, you okay?”
“No,” I said. An irrepressible sensation swept across me. Her eyes tugged and I lost control. Seduced by a combination of longstanding yearnings and love unbound, I cradled her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers.
She kissed back. Good thing, I could have received a knee to the nuts. I pulled away.
Her black eyes glistened. “Peter?”
“I’m sorry. I was out of line.” I let go.
“I don’t believe you’re sorry and out-of-line fails to describe it.” She put her arms around my neck and kissed with an urgency that took my breath away.
We freed ourselves from our chairs. I laid her back on the table.
A knock on the door. We jumped up, grabbed our chairs, pretended to be seated all along.
Reel said, “What is it?” An arm pushed a stack of paper through the door. Reel grabbed it. The arm disappeared.
“Can we continue?” I asked between breaths.
“Later,” she said, “Later, most definitely.” She straightened her cammies, fluffed her hair. After a cooling down period, she said, “Okay, Peter, now tell me what you know.”
Reel could return to work much faster than I. My heart had yet to slow.
There wasn’t much new to tell her about the traditionalist Utes. I had already briefed her on them, the activities of Ute activist Posey Trujillo, and the secret meeting of the sun dancers at the farmhouse. I reported the appearance of gangbanger Wookie Gutierrez at the Chivington cabin and described how Grizz had ripped up both groups.
I briefed her on the events that bothered me most. Oso and his bruins. I told her what I’d observed. “So, Oso is either one hell of a trainer or he is not all together human, at least not all the time. There’s more,” I said.
“Why did I see that coming?” She dead-panned and I couldn’t tell if she believed me. I imagined her about to call for the paddy wagon and shrink. Sometimes her Indian got lost in her FBI.
“Oso is a skinwalker.” Her eyes widened and now I could see the Cherokee in them. “That’s Navajo, Peter, and you know it. And, Oso passed a background check.”
“This one’s Ute. Background paperwork got a section on skinwalkers where you can just check a box?”
“We combed naval records and everything else. I have his DD-214 discharge certificate. Case closed.”
“I’ll bet I know where you didn’t check.”
She slapped a palm on the table. “Really, Peter?”
“Indianapolis. The pay center for military retirees.”
“I told you I have his discharge.”
“Faking paperwork is kid’s stuff. Is Indianapolis payin’ him?”
She had no answer for that but picked up the phone and called her security assistant, Dean, one of the agents working outside the conference room. “Check on Oso’s retirement pay status. Indianapolis pay center. Yeah, I know, I know. Humor me.”
We sat staring at each other while sexual vibes fluttered around the room like a trapped sparrow. I tried to ignore it and said, “How’d you know the deputies we’re going to kill me?”
“You were the target and only witness to an attempted assassination. And you killed a cop. Your incarceration offered a slam dunk opportunity for those thugs.”
“Fair enough. Your timing was perfect.”
“Thank you.”
“How’d you manage it?”
She swiveled in her chair to face me. She rolled her eyes, shook her head, then turned to her pile of papers. “Come on, Peter. Why don’t I just tell you everything about my operation?” Her cynical humor was endearing, more like enticing, but I settled for the memory of her in my arms.
“It’s a thought,” I said. True, much of her investigation was classified and I had no security clearance. I sat with nothing more to say.
The phone rang. Reel answered. “No. Really? You sure? That’s not what you told me the first time, Dean. We’ll talk, later.”
She hung up, slapped the table. Her face reddened and, for a moment, she couldn’t speak.
“Master Chief Petty Officer Bertrand “Oso” Walker died of heart failure two months after retirement.”
Chapter 25
“Oso is dead.” She put her face in her hands. “Compromised. My whole operation is compromised.” She rose from her chair, started to pace, working up a head of steam. I’d seen her angry before and didn’t want to be in front of that train.
I said, “A faked death certificate is easy to pull off. Oso Walker was a stranger to his own tribe, so when he died there may not have been much social or official notice. Few, if any, people knew him or cared, for that matter.”
“Shit. We never should have missed that.” She shook her head, slapped the back of her chair. It spun, then faced her as if offering a seat.
Pointing to the chair, I said, “Good idea. Please sit.” She sat, but I let her cool before saying, “Listen. If Oso, the skinwalker, is on a vendetta against the Utes, he has no real interest in your conspiracy case.”
“No, Peter, the fact he’s on my team at all is the problem. He’s had access to classified information. No telling what he’s done with it. If the Director gets word of this, I’m on a plane to Minot.”
Many agents considered Minot, North Dakota, the worst duty station the FBI could offer. People ask and answer, Why Not Minot? Freezin’s the reason. Agents go there to fade away and shiver out their time until retirement, or so the story goes.
“You’re over-reacting, Jean. Classified exposure is the least of your worries. Have Dean call the pay center again and get them to send the death certificate, the real one. Might show how nat
ural the death really was.”
“Why, Peter? Why the pay center? Why not the Ute Council? Why not county or state agencies?”
“Then, you risk the wrong people find out you’re lookin’. Besides, it’s one of them that passed on the fake you relied on.”
She rose from her chair. “If I can keep from killing him, I’ll have Dean make the call.”
“Go for it,” I said. “We have to know what we’re dealing with. What we’ve seen so far makes no sense.”
A crescendo clicking of keyboards invaded the space when she opened the door, then faded with her closing it. Reel yelled. I imagined poor Dean trapped between monitors and status boards with no way to evade her anger. She returned and sat at her monitor, remained quiet. From time to time, she sorted paperwork.
I wanted that death certificate and had little doubt it would show up, so I kept quiet and pretended to read the status displays on the back wall.
Twenty awkward minutes later, Master Chief Petty Officer Bertrand Walker’s certificate, the one held by the pay center, appeared on Reel’s monitor. She read aloud, “Says here immediate cause was sudden cardiac arrest due to cardiomyopathy. Also says, no autopsy performed.”
“Very interesting. Ever check his Navy health records to confirm he had a heart condition?” I asked.
Reel called Dean. She asked him for a summary of Walker’s Navy medical records, waited for his answer, then put down the phone. “Dean says, if he had a heart problem on active duty, it is not reflected in his records. There is no mention of any heart condition, no record of a medical or physical evaluation board of any disability, no VA claim and he was not assigned disability retirement.”
“Something stinks, here. He retires from the Navy and dies two months later? The guy was healthy.” I asked. “We have a sudden death with no readily obvious cause and no autopsy. Had a case like that as an MP. Turns out the cause of death was too damn convenient for the person who signed it. Got a conviction, too. What does federal law say?”
“Follows state law. Let’s see.” Reel typed. “Okay, here it is, in Colorado an autopsy is required when death was sudden and happened to a person who was in apparent good health.”