The Guardian Hills Saga

by James Edwards

  Oblivious to the outrage, deeply focused on his craft, the ride engineer worked diligently to assure a pleasant experience above. Fret etched upon his face, he raced to all eight sides of the gazebo, peeked upward, and mumbled a variety of spells in an effort to maintain the ride’s airworthiness.

  Are they high enough? he privately wondered. Is the speed too much? Should I increase the spacing between child and between child and gazebo?

  Concluding that the riders were safe, and unnoticing of the terrified parents, he took a break from his duties, sitting near the southern stairs. Sweating, sitting down hard atop a step, and pulling a trail of colored hankies that never seemed to end from a pants pocket, he dabbed his face, sighed loudly, and smiled warmly, his eyes locked on one beaming little boy who leaned on a wooden crutch. The boy stood three steps below, and though he loved the merry-go-round, he most wanted to be near the magician.

  The occasion was Steven’s sixth birthday; the mystic was his grandfather.

  Once refreshed, the magician leaned forward and touched his grandson’s face softly. “Remember, Steven,” he said, “with a village, all things are possible.”

  The boy’s gut was full of all that was good. All that was good.

  The memory faded.

  Back in the attic, the boy—almost man— reenacted that special day but added his own special touches. Pretending he was the magician, Steven waved the wand through the air with his right hand, painting upon cold breezes that pushed through cracks in the walls and roof. His strokes were tentative, and at times he nearly fell over to the right. In his thoughts, he imagined the incredible. Steven saw the gazebo. And in the middle, he saw himself.

  Like his grandfather, he commanded a powerful magic. Bubbles, though, didn’t simply fall out of orifices or bounce around; rather, they rained down on the roof and park lawn from sudsy clouds. Fireworks didn’t simply wiggle across the floor; they shot out from center stage, flew over the audience, and burst into brilliant colors. Coins didn’t simply fall from ears; rather, dollar bills crawled out of shirts and glided like butterflies. Winds were either playful or mischievous, depending on his whimsy. And the merry-go-round—instead of calmly thrilling patrons, acted like a Tilt-A-Whirl, sometimes lifting 45 degrees to the left or 45 degrees to the right, causing both laughter and screams. But in his vision, unlike his grandfather’s show, the parents watching approved, clapping their hands and asking for an encore.

  Steven couldn’t see their faces, though. Parent or child, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see their eyes, noses, cheeks, or mouths. They were all blank.

  In the present, boisterous thunder startled Steven. Staring past the chest, bringing his hand and wand to a stop in midair, he saw lightning shutter outside a small window on the south end of the attic. A sense of dread filled him. Crawling, favoring the right side of his body, he moved toward the window and peered out. Crowding the glass to get a better view, he stared numbly at downtown Westcreek. Bright outdoor lights made the buildings appear huge and far away, and yet they were, at most, a three-minute walk.

  Carefully removing his top hat, his long, bony face sagging, Steven reflected on the upcoming day. A gut once full of all that was good soured. Filled with anxiety, he vowed that in the morning he’d still honor an anniversary, as planned, despite the discomfort. In the morning he’d reluctantly walk down Main Street to the opposite end of town. In the morning, at town center, he’d become an unwilling actor on a stage, in a spotlight and in a play made by others and watched by many sets of critical eyes. Thinking hard about the day, he became tired, resting his head on a small sill, gradually falling asleep.

  Downstairs, a door opened.

  /////

  Gloria Johnson and her late-night date staggered into a small kitchen, slamming the door behind. Each giggled at the associated thud, and Gloria tried to lessen subsequent sounds with nonverbal quieting. Each struggled to keep the other upright, drunk from more than a few drinks at the Westcreek Café. Her long blonde hair matted on top but wavy on the sides, Gloria wore a sopping wet, light blue floral dress. Her suitor, tall, poorly shaven, and with a noticeable potbelly, stretched the confines of an old white T-shirt and swam in a grubby pair of tan slacks. In contrast to Gloria, his hair, light brown and thick with grease, shed the rain falling outside with ease.

  “Are we crazy, Danny?” Gloria asked with a conscientious giggle. “I mean, is this all happening too fast?”

  Danny grabbed her and danced a waltz without music. “It’s not happening fast enough,” he answered, his eyes bloodshot. “If I had my wits about me, I’d gather up a justice of the peace right now and be married to you tonight. The ceremony is unimportant. To me, it’s the love that matters.”

  “But are we rushing things?” Gloria said, resting her wet head on his shoulder and giving way to the dance. “I mean, we’ve only known each other two weeks.” She smirked briefly. “I feel like a schoolgirl who needs to be set straight. I think I love you . . . but I’m scared my heart is blinding me. It has in the past. It’s like I need someone else to tell me what I’m feeling is true. So I can be right. I know I’m not making sense.”

  Danny dipped her as part of his dance. Then he held her close, stumbling in his next few moves. “You’re making perfect sense, my dear. You want assurance, and I want to give it to you. Do you remember when we first met?”

  “Yes,” Gloria said, making eye contact. “How could I forget?”

  “You were working a late-night shift at the diner. I had just rolled into town, wanting a job at the mill. And there you were, behind the counter in a tight pink dress, trying to stuff napkins in a metal holder that was already full. God I was taken by you! All I could see was your pretty face. I fumbled over my words just ordering a damn cup of coffee.”

  “I remember,” Gloria whispered, hiding her mouth as if trying to control emotion, Danny twirling her in a circle.

  Danny touched her cheek. “I didn’t tell you, but right then and there I wanted to fight every man in the joint.”

  “What?” she said with surprise.

  “I got insanely jealous,” he confessed, slowing their movements. “If they even looked at you wrong, them with all their cheap come-ons and fancy talk, I wanted to crack their jaws. It was an instinct. To protect. I just wanted to put you on a pedestal that no one could touch.

  “Sometimes you have to listen to your gut,” Danny continued, stroking Gloria’s soft left cheek with his index finger. “My heart tells me that we belong together. That we should be married.”

  “Are you sure, though?” Gloria asked vulnerably.

  “Without a doubt.” Danny kissed her forehead. “Now, what does your heart say?”

  Gloria skirted the question. She laid her head, again, upon her beau’s shoulders. “Marriage,” she said with melancholy. “I never thought I’d be at this point in my life again. After my husband died, I thought I’d be doomed to a life of loneliness in this godforsaken town.”

  The man with greasy hair pushed away, grabbed Gloria’s hands, and then spun her slowly, admiring her blue eyes. “This is a whole new chapter in both our lives,” he said. “A whole new book, for that matter. Soon it will be just you and me.”

  Gloria’s stomach stirred. “And Steven,” she said timidly. “You forgot to mention my son. It will be the three of us.”

  “Yes, yes!” he said immediately, overemphasizing his words, as if embarrassed by his verbal gaff. “Steven too! I want to put you both on that pedestal.”

  Gloria sighed with relief. “Good. I want him to be a part of our celebration, Danny. He’s in the attic.” Stopping their dance, she headed farther into the little house, to the middle, where a trapdoor in the ceiling hung open and a fold-down wooden ladder touched the floor.

  But she wouldn’t get far.

  “No!” Danny whispered with pressured speech, running after and grabbing her arm. “Not right now. Please. There’ll be plenty of time for family when we’re married. Let’s just g
ive this moment to husband and wife.”

  Gloria turned. She gazed into his murky eyes, searching for something sincere. After a pause in which she combed her fingers nervously through her drying hair, and then apparently finding what she sought, she smiled. “Okay,” she mumbled, “okay, later we’ll celebrate as three.”

  “That’s my girl,” he responded, massaging her shoulders with strong fingers. “Now, how ‘bout one more drink before I wash away in all this bliss.”

  “All I’ve got is some old gin,” Gloria said plainly.

  Danny clapped his hands. “You’re in luck—old gin is my favorite! At least it is now. Let’s have a glass.”

  Gloria bit her lip and felt a growing apprehensiveness. Moving around Danny, she passed a small rusted sink, a scuffed-up gas stove with four burners—only one workable—and a small refrigerator that sputtered loudly. In front of a Formica island with pots and pans dangling above on makeshift hooks, she stooped, rummaging through a set of lower drawers. In a bottom one she retrieved two short glasses and a half-empty bottle.

  Danny watched her. Moving in behind, stroking his scraggly face, he admired her tight curves longingly. “Gloria, I’m finding it hard to wait for the honeymoon. I’m having thoughts of making love to you. Right now. Tonight.”

  Standing stiffly, uncomfortable with his stare, Gloria forced a smile and concentrated on pouring the gin into the glasses. She offered Danny one. “We mustn’t. We . . . should wait for our vows.”

  He gulped down the gin and moved closer, rubbing his fiancée’s long arms.

  “Tell me what our lives will be like,” Gloria said, trying to change the subject. “When we leave Westcreek.”

  Danny moved closer yet, kissing her on the neck. “We’ll move to St. Paul. Buy that house you’ve always wanted. Remember? The little one-story with a picket fence and a rose garden on the side. I’ll scrounge up a job—anything to pay the bills and keep us happy. You don’t have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to. Never have to serve up drinks in a sleazy restaurant again. We’ll enroll Steven in the local high school.” He slowly turned Gloria so they faced each other, rubbing his nose against hers, his bloodshot eyes turning more bedroom-like. “Our lives will be perfect.”

  A tear rolled down Gloria’s cheek, and in one swift motion she embraced Danny as if afraid they might never see each other again. “When I was a girl, I used to hope that someday a man would touch my soul, cherish my heart—cherish who I was, who I might be.” Her lip quivering, she whispered sadly. “Is it you?”

  Danny took Gloria’s glass, raising it into the air. “To us! To a new beginning and a happy home!” He swallowed the contents.

  “Make love to me . . . ,” Gloria said sadly.

  In a kitchen plain and simple, the two held each other strongly. Gradually one overpowered the other, groping body parts and biting flesh; the other endured it all, wincing occasionally. Gloria’s body was slammed into the Formica island and then across to the nearby sink. The physical show of affection built in such a way as to grow beyond what the little room could handle, and eventually man and woman retreated to a bedroom of plain walls with the slam of a door behind. There, a honeymoon took place. There a pedestal was touched. There one would wake without the other.

  Upstairs, Steven had awoken and heard everything. Again.

  3. Discovery in Guardian Hills

  July 19th, 1945, 5:32 a.m.

  At sunrise, a veiny fog meandered through the clearing where four bodies lay dead.

  Sheriff Brewster Cullin, his right hand shaking and squeezing a small deer hide necklace with small white, brown, and red beads, grappled mentally and emotionally with what he saw. Standing alone and directly to the east of the Great Rock, he watched the flurry of activity related to an investigation into a quadruple homicide. The scene sent a shiver down his spine. Lawmen and other workers from the county seat of Walker, twenty miles away, dressed in brown coats and plastic-covered hats, took pictures, measured distances between bodies and between bodies and weapons, scribbled numbers on pads of paper, and tended to the deceased. Cullin grimaced as he saw Bull’s body rolled into a large plastic sack, then carted away down the side of the shallow valley like meat being delivered to a butcher shop. He startled when an especially bright flashbulb went off, documenting Bernie’s bloody skull. And he caught his breath when a pastor in a black gown said a quiet prayer over one of the twins.

  What the hell happened? the sheriff privately anguished. You four—out here in the middle of the night. What the hell were you doing?

  A muscular deputy with thinning black hair approached. “Brewster, we’re about done,” he said in a raspy voice. “We’ll take all the evidence back with us. Go over it with a fine-toothed comb. Let ya know what we find. Coroner will want to talk with you.”

  Cullin simply nodded, as if in a daze. Then he made eye contact. “What do you think happened here, Aaron?”

  Sighing loudly, removing his hat, and slapping off some residual rain, Aaron shook his head. “I don’t know . . . we’re on Indian land. Maybe they were out poaching animals.”

  “Poaching? What, a herd of buffalo?” Cullin snapped, his cheek muscles tightening. “Bernie alone had enough ammo to start a war!”

  “Whatever the reason, there could have been an altercation,” Aaron added. “A dispute that somehow pitted Bernie against the other three. A preliminary wound analysis shows that Bernie was shot by a high-powered rifle. Bull has a high-powered rifle.”

  “And Bull and the twins?”

  Aaron glanced up at the mine. “Their deaths present a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He means we’re missing a murder weapon,” a voice called out.

  Dressed in a red corduroy suit and matching bolo, Mayor Roland Pike joined the conversation from the southwest, adjusting his hat as he strolled lightly over scattered rock. Plump, he puffed on a large black cigar. “It appears that Bull and the twins were shot by a small handgun. Maybe .38 caliber. Problem is, the boys have scoured the whole clearing and found nothing. No gun. No shell casings.”

  As if bothered by a sudden cramp, Cullin wrinkled his face, looked away, and folded his arms tightly against his chest. “I suppose you have a different theory for what happened?” he said snidely.

  “To the contrary,” Pike said, gesturing to Aaron with his cigar. “I think the deputy here is right. Our friends were out hunting—illegally, yes—but hunting. Problem is they didn’t kill each other. Storm got bad. All four sought cover in the mine, hoping things would pass. Somehow Bernie got separated. That’s when a fifth party entered the picture.” The mayor took a long puff from his cigar, stepping closer to Cullin. “You know how obsessive Bernie was. Always thinking ahead. Military minded. Maybe the reason they were loaded for bear is because he feared trouble—expected some kind of altercation.”

  “And how do you know someone else was here?” Cullin asked.

  “Look.” Pike held out his hand, palm side up, revealing a small arrowhead made of quartz. “The boys found over fifty of these around the clearing, along with old hatchets, knives, and arrows. Just inside the mine, only ten feet from the bodies, was a long spear planted into the ground with plumes of eagle feathers trailing off the handle.”

  Suddenly the sheriff experienced intense unease. Troubled by the mayor’s words, he felt an immediate need for a conversation between just the two of them. He talked seriously—and directly—to the deputy from Cass County. “Give us a few minutes alone, Aaron. Please?”

  Nodding and replacing his hat, the worker stepped away to join the others. Cullin and Pike watched him leave as an uncomfortable silence lingered. Then Cullin spoke.

  “What are you thinking?” he said.

  Almost smiling, Pike took another puff from his cigar and then examined it, as if admiring the costly ingredients used in its production. “Indian shit scattered across a crime scene? Reminds me of the ol’ Krebs Place.” He took two steps to the east
and then pointed into the woods with the arrowhead. “A family-owned lumber mill and home was set on fire in the middle of the night ten years ago not more than a half mile from where we stand. As I recall, a crazy old redskin was to blame. Left war hammers, hatchets, spears, and arrowheads all over the grounds just to send a message. A message that whites weren’t welcome on the land.”

  Cullin was quite aware of the incident, which was seared painfully into his memory. Adolphus and Anna Krebs, first-generation immigrants from Sweden, had spent every penny they had coming to America to build a better life with new opportunity. God-fearing, they prayed hard, worked hard, and helped anyone they could in need. They raised five children. In his mind, Cullin could hear the terrified yelling of that day, when he first arrived on the scene, the family desperate to escape; the evil hiss of the flames as the fire rapidly engulfed the Krebs home, four of the five children making it out safely; and the crying—shrieking—from the youngest, William, just three, as he was lost in the chaos; and then the gradual deadly quiet from inside. Back in the present, Cullin’s right hand shook again.

  He verbally blasted the mayor’s recollection. “The Indian man was not crazy. And there was no proof he was the perpetrator!”

  “There was no proof he wasn’t the perpetrator!” Pike shot back.

  “Thanks to you and the others, he didn’t even get a trial. You ran him out of town.”

  “He was a clear danger to our community.” Pike lifted his nose. “Besides, thanks to a kind-hearted sheriff, he didn’t get too far, now did he?”

  Cullin didn’t respond.

  Turning away from the woods, facing the sheriff again, Pike brought the conversation full circle. “The similarities between then and now are striking: ten years ago, murder; today, murder; ten years ago, Indian shit found everywhere; today, the same; and ten years ago, major disputes over treaties between our two cultures; today, nothing different.” He thought deeply. “Do I need to remind you what will happen in thirty days if our elected officials can’t cut a deal with the tribe? We could all lose our homes. Many are already leaving.” He sucked heavily on the tobacco, causing the tip to glow fiery red. “To me,” he added, pointing haphazardly around the clearing, “it seems like somebody’s dead-set against peace in the valley. Again.”