“Now go!” the mayor roared.
From a birds-eye view, the scene looked buggy. At one end of Westcreek, a beehive of tiny lights twinkled, waiting for any and all help. Toward the middle of town, glowing beetles flitted away from a great bonfire to blacker and blacker places. Up and over the many hills of the valley, the two groups went. Up and over the many hills, walkie-talkies buzzing with talk.
And to the north, one little firefly without light dashed for cover.
14.3 Drums of War
12:29 a.m.
Behind, heavy breathing . . . the calamity of twigs snapping . . . boots pounding into the forest floor . . . rousing battle cries, and Steven tried to stay ahead of it all. He zigzagged through the forest, Pike, Blaine, and Beckett trailing by a hundred feet but gaining ground. The young guardian felt tired. He wasn’t used to expending so much energy at once. With his earies near but out of sight, rustling the brush on his flanks or swinging in the trees, he angled for the clearing, hoping the abandoned mine might offer a hiding place until he could implement the next phase of his plan.
He wouldn’t get far.
Running through the woods became more and more difficult. Branches snagged his robe, moss shifted his footing awkwardly from right to left, left to right, and back again, and the base of the staff slipped on smooth rocks, throwing off his balance.
The struggle became an advantage to the mayor’s group. Leaving the glow of Pike’s jiggling lantern—squinting his eyes to make out the boy’s profile—Blaine sprinted ahead and grunted, kneading his rifle.
One hundred feet behind quickly became fifty.
“You go, you go,” echoed voices from the treetops, “too slow, too slow.”
Peeking over his shoulder, Steven could see the hulking outline of his chaser. Faster and faster, he tried to run. Faster and faster. Attempting to trick Blaine, he suddenly jolted to the east, hoping the lumberjack’s momentum—and sudden turn—would cause him to fall; it didn’t. Instead, Steven tripped over a small tree stump, landing face down on the ground. Hyperventilating—immediately flipping onto his back—eyes wide open, he held out his shaking hands, hoping for mercy or to block any aggression.
Fifty feet became zero.
Blaine towered over Steven. Suffocating what little moonlight and starlight dripped from above, Bull’s son cast a dark shadow. And while Steven shook, the lumberjack slowly raised his rifle, barrel first. He stood in that position, like a statue, for what seemed to the young guardian an eternity. Steven could almost feel the coldness of his presumed smile—the chill of his intentions. Then, with a growl, Blaine slammed the butt-end of the weapon into Steven’s forehead.
Unconsciousness.
/////
An aching head . . . the warmth of a lantern . . . three blurry faces staring down . . . the smell of a cigar . . . soft earie whimpering, and Steven awoke. And though most of his senses were foggy, his hearing was clear.
“Let’s just end it here,” Blaine grumped, raising his rifle a second time.
“No!” the mayor shouted, grabbing one of his thick arms. “I told you, I want him alive!”
“Why?” Blaine asked.
Pike moved closer to Blaine’s face, unrelenting in his hold. “Because he’s just one more reason to renegotiate with the tribe. The lines have been drawn and redrawn so many times, all it takes is cultural war to get the government to step in. To save our town. This valley. The whole matter will be tabled for years. In our favor. Think about it.” He ended with a smile.
“You’ve got a short memory,” Blaine chastised, pressing his nose against the mayor’s. “The Bureau of Indian Affairs declined our petitions. They won’t get involved.”
“The bureau, yes, but I’m thinking further up the ladder. I’ve been working for weeks to secure an appointment with President Truman and his Secretary of Domestic Affairs. As we speak, a special delegation from Cass County, chosen by me, is meeting with both men. They’ve got stacks of paper documenting treaty errors, incorrect land partitioning, and fraudulent signatures on many of the agreements. Add in four white murders, a white family’s home burned to the ground a few years ago at the hands of a crazy Indian, and now arson,” Pike whispered. “Our case is rock solid.”
Blaine guffawed. “You put our fate in the hands of politicians?”
“Not just politicians. Politicians with an audience. When the newspapers and radio stations get ahold of this story, we’ll get the attention and sympathy of the whole nation.”
Blaine scowled at the mayor for an uncomfortable few moments. Then he roughly jerked away from his grasp, giving in to the logic.
Handing Beckett his lantern, Pike stooped down to Steven. The mayor was surprised by what he saw.
“You?” he shrilled. “The Johnson boy. Grandson of Decoreous.” He slowly nodded. “Out for revenge, I suspect. You want to even the score. I can appreciate that. But there’s a problem, boy: the death of your grandfather was an accident. I didn’t kill him on purpose. The gun misfired.” He shook his head. “Torching our town isn’t justified. Now you’re gonna pay. Be lucky I’m a sworn deputy. I’m saving you from valley justice. Now, will you come willingly?”
Steven didn’t respond. The impact of his wound reached his stomach, and he had to turn over and throw up. Blood from his head dribbled down his face and mixed with the vomit into a sort of goo, soiling the black earth.
“Will you stand and walk peacefully back to Westcreek?” Pike said, this time louder.
Still no response. As if in a trance, the young guardian squished the sludge together, like he was making some sort of dough for baking. At the same time, he began chanting in tongues, his eyes eventually rolling back into his skull.
“What the hell is he doing?” Beckett worried with a disgusted face, nervously stepping closer, pointing. “What’s that about?”
“Shush!” Pike shouted backward.
“Do you admit your guilt?” he said more forcefully to Steven.
The young guardian still wasn’t paying attention. Becoming more invested in his behavior, shutting the rest of the world out, he squeezed the ingredients together. A slight cough accompanied his work, and his eyes bled, stressed by the pressure of being pushed back into his head.
“Make him stop,” Beckett pleaded with discomfort, rubbing his long scar. “That don’t seem normal!”
Blaine slapped Beckett’s face. “Rolly told you to shush. Now shush!”
Pike grabbed Steven’s long black hair. “Goddamn it, Indian, do we have to drag you out of this forest?” he shouted.
“You can try!”
The answer was other-worldly. Reverberating off the trees, earth, and sudden-blackening sky, it sounded like a mischievous ghost-child disobeying its unseen, apparitional parents. High-pitched and giggly, the words brought the forest to much greater life. Winds ripped into and out of the area at near hurricane strength. Bubble-like, Native faces, accompanied by deep-throated battle screams, raced about and tried to swallow Pike and his men whole. Though none were harmed, each man fell or was forced to clutch a nearby tree for support. The earies laughed at such antics, and those in the trees crawled closer to the ground for a better view, sometimes whooping or hollering with approval.
“Here it comes, here it comes,” Steven rambled in a daze. “Here it comes, here it comes . . .”
“Here what comes?” Beckett quipped with panic.
All three men came together on a hill, back to back. With the spirits swooping at their every move, they held onto each other, trying silently to process what they were seeing, hearing, and feeling. The air became thicker, tree branches poked at their shoulders and ribs unnaturally, mosquitos and black flies swarmed around their heads, as if in some sort of partnership, and ants climbed into their boots by the dozens.
Then came drumming.
Bum . . . bum-bum they felt beneath their feet, the topsoil vibrating like loose sand on a snare head. Bum . . . bum-bum.
To Beckett, the thumping felt l
ike something or some things wanted to enter the world from below—as if maybe knocking, first, for permission.
“We need to get out of here—now!” he insisted.
Bum . . . bum-bum, the beat continued. Bum . . . bum-bum . . .
“Try to stay calm,” Pike encouraged shyly. “Maybe it’ll pass.”
Rolly? an unexpected two-way radio message crackled near Pike’s hip. It’s Tommy. We’re just south of the Dawson Mine. Near the clearing. Do you hear that? Do—do you feel that? What’s wrong with the forest?
Frozen with fear, the mayor’s eyes tremored.
“Rolly!” Blaine yelled. “Answer him!”
Pike remained in the same state.
“Damn it, Rolly. Do it!”
Still nothing.
Finally, pivoting, Blaine ripped the walkie-talkie from the mayor’s belt and clicked a button. “Tommy, stay where you are. Hunker down until we can figure this out. Check?”
“Check,” came back, though hesitant.
Blaine rapidly pressed the walkie-talkie button three times. “Sheriff, you copy? Emergency, emergency!”
Heavy static. No reply.
Click-click-click!
“Sheriff, come in!” Blaine said more desperately. “Please . . . I think we have a problem.”
/////
Sheriff Cullin didn’t get the message.
Focused on evacuation, he was too busy organizing. Like a traffic cop in the middle of rush hour, he directed—sometimes with agitated arm movements—where bus transports from Walker, Bemidji, and Brainerd should load, turn around, or back up. Directing people fueled his confidence. For an elderly couple having trouble walking, whose home had been devoured by fire, he offered a steady hand up into a bus and to the first available seats. He assured the couple with a sympathetic tone, saying things like, “Take your time” and “Everything’ll be all right.” For a pregnant mother refusing to board, her husband thus far unaccounted for, he offered a shoulder to cry on, hoping his soothing voice and sincere head rubbing decreased stress for both mom and baby; and it did.
However, not everything would be so easy. One task would risk Cullin’s life.
Seated in an adjacent bus, a chubby redheaded boy shouted out a small window. “Sheriff!” he said. “Toby!”
“What?” Cullin answered, peering up.
“Toby—I can’t find him! Please help.” The boy pointed to a slender two-story home just south of town hall where flames whirled throughout the second level.
The lawman suddenly realized that Toby was the youngster’s black-and-gray tabby cat, a feline who often visited the sheriff’s office late at night, hunting for mice or begging for a handout of beef jerky when the sheriff wasn’t busy.
Gently guiding the pregnant mother to the shoulder of a passing fireman, he squinted his eyes to assess the boy’s home. It was on the east side of Pleasant Drive. He could see that the fire was out of control and worried the structure was too unstable.
Ready to tell the boy no, he turned back to the bus. But he had a change of heart. Past the youngster’s watery eyes, Cullin saw sheer terror and helplessness. The boy’s appearance so surprised Cullin that he felt a jolt of electricity that moved his feet and legs almost on their own.
“Stay with your parents,” he said. “I’ll try and find him.”
The situation was more dire than expected. Once Cullin reached the front entryway, he hesitated. Inner pressure had blasted out the upper-level windows, enabling corkscrew-shaped flares to lick near the edges of the windowpanes. Downstairs, embers and wood dropped from the middle of the ceiling. The resulting “puff” of fire pushed open the front door and punched at the early morning air. To Cullin, the house seemed like an angry demon discharging rage from its eyes and mouth.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself. “All for a damn cat . . .”
Psyching himself up, counting silently down from three, he ran up the front path, dropped to all fours, and humbly entered the residence. In the middle of a tall foyer, he listened closely, thick smoke billowing overhead. At first he heard nothing but the violent hum of destruction. Calling the cat’s name didn’t change matters, and Cullin considered retreating. But then—just as he began to circle back—he heard a panicky meow coming from a far corner of the adjacent living room.
The sheriff creeped into the large space like a handicapped spider. He wiggled here and there, trying to pinpoint the animal’s exact location. No sounds came from behind a large sofa, no sounds from a partially opened closet, and no sounds from underneath a china cabinet. But behind a faraway rubber plant, hissing and growling caught his attention, and that’s when Cullin pounced into action.
Sensing that the home might implode at any moment, he leapt for the cat, grabbing it by the scruff and dragging it backward. He incurred bites and scratches on his hands. Cringing with pain, he held onto Toby the rest of the way out, narrowly missing a direct hit from a grandfather clock that fell from the floor above. A fair distance down the front walk, he stood, coughed, and held the cat at arm’s length, for it squirmed like a furry snake and voiced displeasure.
CRACK-SCRUNCH! The house folded in on itself, jarring both human and animal.
“Toby!” the redheaded boy exclaimed with glee, running to his lost pet. He was closely followed by his parents. And though Cullin felt happy to reunite the two, the words to come were not complimentary.
“Goddamn it, son!” he disciplined. “I told you to wait in the bus!”
He browbeat the grownups. “And you—you both should know better than to let your kid out of sight.”
“But he crawled under the seats,” one of them tried to explain, “and—”
“And nothing! I don’t want excuses!” Cullin interrupted, holding up his palm in a STOP! fashion. “Now get back to the buses or I’ll have you all arrested for pissin’ me off. That includes Toby!”
The family scurried away.
KABOOM! A propane tank shot out of a nearby hardware store on the south side. Cullin raced to the scene. Once there, he found an even bigger problem.
The battle to save downtown was a losing one; it wasn’t just the hardware store. On both sides of Main Street, infernos raged. The Westcreek Café was a total loss. The façade to the General Store lay face-first on the gravel. A wall within the town bank crumbled into an adjacent, empty store. And the boardwalk—especially on the north side—disintegrated into ash. Only the sheriff’s office on the south side was spared any damage, at least thus far. Reviewing the visuals in his mind, Cullin made a difficult decision.
Running to a twitchy miner at the front of a nearby bucket line, he spoke loudly. “We can’t win. The fires are getting worse. You and the others fall back to the staging area and wait for a bus out of here.”
“But Sheriff,” the miner countered, holding a full water pail, “we just need more men.”
“I can appreciate your grit, son, but it’d take the whole Duluth Fire Department to save this town. Do what I ask.”
“Yes, sir.”
Setting their buckets down, the group hurried to the west.
Cullin was by himself. Removing his hat, wiping sweat away from the brim, it was the first moment he had to take a break. Amid the burning he reflected proudly on his accomplishments. Since Pike left, he had helped establish an orderly exit from Westcreek. He guided people on what to do, how to do it, and when. Hands on, he helped those most in need and tried to calm fears. He reached out to people, and they reached back to him. Smiling, he never felt more useful—or more powerful.
But that was about to change.
“Sheriff?” a female voice said from behind.
Cullin turned. “I’ve given the order to evacuate. You need to—”
Coming from the west side of Pleasant Drive, wrapped in an Indian shawl, wringing her hands, Gloria staggered around, as if lost. “Have you seen my son?”
Cullin immediately felt weak. He found it hard to make eye contact with the young mother.
She continued. “I heard the siren and knew we needed to leave. I looked for Steven, but he wasn’t in his bedroom or in the attic. I haven’t seen him anywhere in Westcreek. Do you know where he is?”
Cullin felt a stinging a-ha! In his mind, he connected the dots: Steven, Gloria’s son, Decoreous’s grandson, was responsible for the mayhem. He was surprised, for he thought the boy had gone to live in Wasin after his father’s death; he had rarely seen him.
Cullin remembered a much kinder youth. A little boy who would hobble downtown on his crutch, buy taffy at the General Store, and share it with people he’d meet, just to be friendly. Cullin, himself, still had three pieces in his office.
“Did you hear me?”
The lawman wasn’t sure how to break the news. “I . . .”
“I . . . what?”
“I think Steven’s on the run. People reported seeing a young Native American male with a pack of animals setting fires. Mayor Pike and some others are trying to apprehend him.”
Snorting with derision, Gloria stepped closer. “Steven matches the skin tone you’re searching for, so you think he’s the criminal?”
She crossed her arms tensely. “Tell me, Brewster, will I need to buy another black dress because of a ‘Westcreek accident’? Huh? Bury my son alongside his father? Maybe they can share the same rock in the cemetery. What do you think?”
Cullin wanted to say the right thing, find the right words that would assure her that due process would be followed. But before he could talk, a rusty black pickup raced up Main Street from the east, stopping near Gloria. Inside, Dex reached over and pulled the latch of the passenger’s door, swinging it open.
He yelled out, “Get in! I know where Steven is.”
The young mother hesitated. Though wanting to do as Dex asked—though her demeanor softened at his sight—her mind was muddied by the thought that her son could act out so violently. Like his father. Glancing back and forth between Dex and the sheriff, she acted as if unsure who to trust.
“Now!” Dex demanded, beating on the steering wheel in an effort to clear away the indecision. “If we don’t get to him first, the men in this town will. They’ll kill him.”
The Guardian Hills Saga Page 15