Once BC was up some size, in school, and in the care of Clare and Lucinda, with Hawk and Aaron there to help, Blaze and Lynette went back to Alaska – not once but twice. They stood at Point Barrow, looking out to the Arctic Ocean to the west and Beaufort Sea to the east. It was a barren and desolate landscape, but it was also beautiful in an ethereal kind of way. It was like the beginning and end of the world. They stayed in the gracious homes of Inupiaq families in the far northeast of Alaska, and later hosted several Alaskan indigenous families from time to time at the ranch. Like Lynette, Blaze came to understand the draw of Alaska. Primal, majestic, unforgiving, it was a place in this world alone in its beauty. They’d kept up with Kenny Underworth, who after a serious accident, was driving a desk at the Interior Department in Washington.
They also went to Europe and visited castles built out of love, and atop the Eiffel Tower, Blaze kissed his forever-bride and put another ring on her finger. It was an emerald ring given in thanks for making him so happy. They held hands, as they always did, and other tourists asked if they were newlyweds. “Yes,” Blaze answered. “We’ll always be newlyweds,” he would say with a big smile, his bright, straight teeth gleaming in the evening light beneath his golden skin.
In the years that were to come, they would need each other’s hands. The hands the priest had blessed on the day of their wedding. There is so much pain in life, but it can be endured when there is a steady and patient hand to hold on to. Theirs was a strong, loving marriage. Theirs was an undying belief in the Creator which allowed all things to happen for a reason.
A crack rang out from somewhere up on a ridge high above where Aaron, Blaze and the new hired hand worked. In less than a split second, Aaron fell to the ground, a rifle shot to his head. He was dead before his limp body hit the dusty earth. Blaze threw himself over Aaron to protect him from another blow, if it was to come. A second shot rang out, striking into the dirt only inches from where Blaze’s upper torso shielded Aaron’s now lifeless corpse. In the few seconds that followed, the hired hand reached into the cab of Blaze’s truck and pulled down the rifle from its rack. He aimed at where the shot came from, firing four shots directly at that spot. Then there was silence.
“Get him in the truck,” the hired hand screamed, “I’ll cover you.”
Blaze lifted his body off of Aarons and looked down at his beloved brother. There was no need to rush him to medical care. He was dead. Blaze stumbled a few steps past where his brother’s body lay and he vomited, falling back to his knees as he wretched.
Clare shrieked in horror as Blaze deposited his brother’s bloody corpse on the couch in the living room of Rancho Whitehall.
“I’ve called the sheriff. I just couldn’t leave him laying out there in the dirt with the ants crawling all over him. I couldn’t do it,” Blaze spoke through his tears. “He didn’t deserve to lay out there in the dirt,” he said, crying freely now. Clare threw herself onto her husband’s lifeless body and sobbed aloud, alternating choking sounds with yells.
“Why, why?” she asked. “Who would do this to him. He never hurt anyone, who would do this to him? Why?,” she kept saying.
“I don’t know,” Blaze replied, but by God whoever did it will not live out the fullness of his days,” he said resolutely.
Blaze was devastated at the loss of his big brother. He loved that man, and he knew Aaron loved him. Though they did not share the same blood, they shared much of the same life, and Blaze was almost inconsolable at his death. He was glad that Aaron had not suffered from some long, painful, debilitating illness that would have robbed him of his manhood, but he was not ready to loose the man who had been so much a part of his entire world. Not like this. Blaze mourned him in the Apache way, and he led the pallbearers in a black business suit – always a man of two worlds. Lynette was there to help guide him through this tragedy, but at times, she stood aside and let him work through the pain, which no one could relieve.
While Clare, with Lynette’s help, made the necessary funeral arrangements, Blaze went back to the exact spot on his own ranch where Aaron had fallen. The blood still stained the brown earth, and there were dozens of foot prints all around where the sheriff’s investigating team had tramped. But the dark red, dried blood was still there. He did not cry this time. He was angry.
“Before I give myself over to the long sleep, I will find the man who took you away,” he vowed to his dead brother. “I will send him to you and you can have your revenge.”
Blaze slept only briefly, and then fitfully for days after Aaron’s murder, and after the funeral, he seemed to just give up sleeping. He paced the floors of the cabin as if looking for something he’d misplaced; he wandered around the ranch going nowhere, coming from no place. His strong legs supported him as he stood for hours looking out at all he and Aaron had acquired. With all of what seemed to be mindless behavior, he was thinking, planning – putting Aaron’s death out into the Universe. His every waking moment was thoughtfully in pursuit of the man who took his brother away from him.
Hawk came from town with possible news.
“I started asking around, you know, asking some of the people who know everything that goes on up here on the mountain. A man, an old drunk, who was being patched up in the hospital’s emergency room on the night Aaron was killed, told some folks that a blinded Indian was also being treated that night. He had cuts on his face and pieces of rocks had lodged in his eye socket. The doctor’s couldn’t save the eye. Whatever sent the fragments into his eye must have come from something high powered, because the pieces literally chewed up his eye socket,” Hawk said. There was only one man, maybe two, that Blaze knew of who would want to hurt him, but none that would have malice toward Aaron – unless – unless – the bullets were meant for him!
Blaze went looking for Tomahawk Mason, who was nowhere to be found. From all he Hawk and Maurice could gather, Tomahawk came up missing immediately after Aaron was murdered. He surmised – no, now he was sure – that the bullet was meant for him, but he had to know why. Blaze hired a full investigative team out of the state capital, Santa Fe, and what they finally brought to him shocked and stunned him.
“Mr. Snowdown,” the somewhat shabbily clad, but expert investigator said, sitting in Blaze’s home office, “evidentially, a P.P.Izzard and Tomahawk Mason were involved in some rather illegal land dealings with a crew from up around Albuquerque. Seems they’d promised a big money land deal that would bring this crew, or syndicate if you will, countless millions of dollars in a quick turn over scheme. Well, for whatever the reason, the scheme went bust, and the syndicate lost their ass, if you know what I mean,” he said, chuckling. “And because they were beholdin’ to some crime family out on the west coast, somebody had to pay for the fuck up. You know what I mean?” he asked, knowing that Blaze had his meaning.
“Go on,” Blaze said.
“Well, they found parts and pieces of Izzard in trash bags out at the County landfill down off of Interstate 25 a few years back, and his head showed up outside Phoenix, Arizona, with his ears and tongue cut out. It seems that Tomahawk disappeared from the face of the earth for several years. He showed back up on a computer print-out at the border patrol center in southern Arizona with some Salvadoran illegals, but because he’s an American citizen, he was processed, held for a few days for investigation while they verified his citizenship, then released about a week before your brother was murdered. Somehow he made his way back up here and was trying to squeeze money out of some tribesmen so he could leave the country again. By all rights, he probably would have wound up in bags like Izzard, if he hadn’t been able to get across the border and blend in. You know what I mean?” he asked again.
“Yeah,” Blaze replied flatly.
“There’s a heap of money out on his head by the syndicate because his mess brought several of them to federal trial and most went to prison. Another bunch had their homes, bank accounts, cars and boats confiscated by the feds, and let’s just say that there are a hell
-of-a-lot of influential people who lost their asses, and want his, you know what I mean,” he said as a statement, not a question.
“Where’s the son-of-a-bitch?” Blaze asked impatiently.
“As we speak right now,” he’s back in the hospital in El Paso. He was headed back across the border. Seems like something happened to his eye. An old injury to one eye got infected and the infection has spread all over his face, some kind of flesh eating shit,” the private investigator laughed. “He told a man on his ward that some fella shot at him and the fragments of the surrounding rocks flew up in his eye, that’s how he got originally hurt.”
Blaze sat forward in his desk chair.
“What hospital?” he asked with a menacing tone to his voice.
The investigator didn’t answer right at first. He looked long and hard at the expression on Blaze’s face, measuring him.
“Mr. Snowdown, I’m not a rich man, but I could be, if I let the right people know where he is. Like I said, there’s a heap of money out there if he’s found and, huh,…if you get my meaning… I’m in the information business, and certain people will pay handsomely for this information.” There was a pause again, as Blaze rose from his chair and walked over to the window of his office. He looked up at the mountain. He reasoned that when Tomahawk shot Aaron and his hired hand shot back, the rifle bullets must have struck extremely close to Tomahawk’s face, spraying those rock fragments into his eye.
Blaze did not speak for two or three minutes. Without turning back to face the investigator, he said, “What do I owe you for your services?” he asked.
“Well, our agreement was by the hours of work, so based on what I’ve done, and my other investigators have racked up, and I’ll send you a full invoice, we’re up to about $26,000 at this point. It cost us a bit of cash to get a lot of this information, you know what I mean?”
“And if you make a telephone call to whomever, and I don’t want to know who, a couple of days before you do your civic duty and let law enforcement know where he is, will there be an additional fee for your… delay?” Blaze asked, sounding like a businessman in a board room.
“No sir, there won’t,” he responded quietly, “I believe that within a few hours after a telephone call, I might just be able to retire from this business. I ain’t getting any younger you know. Been at this on my own since I retired from the Air Force Security Service almost thirty years ago. I think I’d like to buy me a nice place with a big swimming pool out in Las Vegas, and spend my nights playing in the casinos, rather than sitting around in parked cars on stake-outs, you know what I mean?,” he asked with a contented smile creeping across his face.
Blaze did not answer. He just continued to stare up at the mountain. When he turned around, his eyes were dark, small slits. He looked at the investigator in a way that made chills run up his visitor’s arms.
“Can I be assured that Tomahawk will truly understand who and why special attention is being paid to him before he…”
“Yes sir, yes sir, I can give you that assurance on my word. He will be painfully apprised of the consequences of his actions. And you know what the Good Book says about ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the disheveled man clucked under his breath.
“Then, I will expect that you’ll continue to be as thorough, meticulous and discrete as you have been so far, and information that will be helpful to the proper authorities, will be given to them – in due time -, ya’ know what I mean?” Blaze said, with no inkling of a change in expression on his face. Blaze sat back down at his desk, from which he withdrew a hand-tooled leather folder.
“The sum of $30,000 should cover all of your costs, including today’s business update,” he said in a voice lacking emotion. He handed an envelope to the investigator. From a cash box in a side drawer of the desk, Blaze counted out an additional thousand dollars, and placed it in front of the man. He watched as the fellow secured the envelope and the loose cash in his battered briefcase. Blaze put his hands together in front of his face with his fingers pointing upward in the shape of a teepee, and rested the tips of his fingers on his chin.
“You don’t need to send me a bill for your services, but I think I’d like a postcard from Las Vegas sometime. That thousand dollars should pay for the stamp,” he smiled for the first time in the conversation. “Yes, I’d like that,” he concluded, shaking the investigator’s clammy hand for the last time.
CHAPTER 38
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A Look Back
Though Clare was a woman of strength and many competencies, the loss of her beloved husband threw her into a deep, lingering depression. She thought about leaving Crystal Bend, but where would she go? She had made Rancho Whitehall her home for nearly twenty years, learning the ranching business, and as an attorney, she had been a tremendous asset to Aaron. Lynette sat with her day after day as she agonized over her choices, and the life that lay ahead of her without Aaron. There was just a big hole in her heart and no one could fill it ever again. She had waited all of her adult like for a man like him – this man – and now he was gone; taken from her in an instant of hate. Out on the deck, they talked about lessons learned. They talked about the joy that Aaron had brought to her and how he loved her and Blaze, and the herd of rescued dogs that had graced their home. In the end, Clare decided to stay at what was now her ranch. She created a memorial scholarship in his honor at the local university and at the law school in Arizona where he graduated. She wanted his legacy of caring and opportunity to live on for some deserving students.
In his wisdom, Aaron left a half interest in the ranch to her for the remainder of her life. The other half interest was willed back to Blaze so Aaron would know that his wife, and his lands, would be protected and taken care of. After her death, her part of the ranch would go to Aaron’s remaining sons and grandchildren. Until Clare was better, Blaze was compelled to take over the running of their ranches again. In a way, that was good for him, because it caused him to work though his brother’s death, instead of continuing in a state of suspended, overwhelming grief.
Lynette’s other daughter, Veronica, died at the age of forty-eight of complications from her numerous diseases. It was good that they had reconciled some years before. She grieved quietly. Blaze would sit next to her on the sofa and just wrap his arm around her shoulders. There was such peace, such security in his chest. She could lean against it, feel the warmth of his body and inhale him. His scent, though manly had the same effect as lavender incense to her nostrils and it calmed her. He was like a doctor of the soul and she could get through anything with him at her side; with his arm always outstretched for her.
One by one, the many horses they’d adopted passed away from old age, as did the more than two dozen dogs they’d rescued over the years. Each was like loosing a member of the immediate family. BC was there to help bury them and one by one, they staked wooden markers for each of their deceased friends. BC was such a wonderful son. He was a product of his parents’ positive ideals and examples; but most of all, he was truly a son of Blaze Snow Comes Down – tall, proud and strong. He would make good babies, and carry the blood of his parents well into the seventh generation.
Lynette’s youngest sister was killed by her husband after he had endured all the insults he could behind her continuous infidelities. It was a brutal and horrid way to die. Lynette had talked to her sister until she was blue in the face about the way she abused her marriage, but to no avail. Her sister, in fear of loosing her desirability and attention from strangers, bed hopped from one man to another. She refused to admit that she was aging, like everyone does, and tried to live a single life, in a married state. It didn’t work. He shot her right after both of their daughters graduated from college. Then he turned the gun on himself.
Merrilynn’s husband, Javier, left her after twenty some-odd years of marriage. She had established a very lucrative practice in Albuquerque, but the move to that city never sat well with her husband. He yearned for the simple life of the Tribal Lands
, and never adjusted to the hustle and bustle of the big city. He returned to Crystal Bend and continued to work as a nurse at both of the hospitals. They didn’t divorce right away but it was inevitable. He was not willing to leave the area, and she was not ready to return to it. She had met her commitment to the tribe and the reservation. She and the children were thriving in Albuquerque. No counsel that Blaze gave could change their destinies. It saddened him because marriage meant so much to him. He wanted for his daughter and son-in-law, what he and Lynette had, but it was not a gift he could give.
Lucinda was diagnosed with breast cancer, at age sixty-four, which was in late stage when discovered. She died within that year. They mourned her as if she was a sister or aunt. Indeed, she was a dear and close friend. As a gift to her family, Blaze and Lynette arranged for the beautiful headstone that world mark the place where she was laid to rest.
Trapper and Pepper, had three more children, a total of five, and their now large family moved to the country up near a small town in Vermont. They made a point of coming back to the ranch every Thanksgiving until well after all of their children were grown. Trapper knew that Satellite Hill was always a place he could call home, no matter where he and his family lived. In his later years, after all his children were grown and on their own, he and Pepper did move to the ranch, and he and BC ran it as a profitable business. BC was glad to have his big brother working with him. Keeping the ranch running took a tremendous amount of work, and even with the hired hands, they found that the days started early and lasted well past sundown.
One afternoon, as Spring turned into a cool Summer, the dogs started to bark, running to the window in the front of the house to let Blaze know that there was something going on outside. He looked through the window and saw a black man and an obviously Hispanic woman walking slowly across the front of the house. The man was pointing and laughing as he indicated first one thing, then another to the woman. Blaze did not recognize him at first and walked out on the front porch to inquire of their visit.
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