“Fire-Sky Dispatch to two-one-three, clear to copy. Received a call from a child reporting her parents are fighting, Mount St. Helens Subdivision.”
“Dispatch, I’m direct and en route.” Nicky flipped a U-turn and hit her lights, siren, and the accelerator.
“Address is 2311 South Mount Rainier. Robert and Veronica Koyona.”
Nicky knew the house. She’d been there the other night, delivering food and diapers. “Who’s the reporting party?”
“One of the kids. Venetia Vernon. Said her stepdad is drunk and beating up on her mom. She asked for you by name. Unknown weapons.”
“On my way. Start another unit.”
* * *
She arrived at the house within ten minutes. Hearing shouts and crashes inside, she decided to approach.
The lock was splintered on the front door. It was cracked open about six inches. She sidled up beside it, knocked loudly, and yelled, “Fire-Sky police! Come to the door! Come to the door! I can hear you fighting. We’re coming in the house!” she lied. She didn’t want to let the combatants think she was alone. There was a thump and the sound of glass shattering.
“Help! You have to help! He’s gone crazy!” an adult female screamed.
“Just shut up! How could you do this to me?” a male moaned. Robert Koyona. Venetia and Valeriena had called him Bobby.
“Bobby? Hey, Bobby, calm down. What’s going on? Come talk to me. Let’s not make this any worse. We’re here to help.”
“You can’t help! No one can help.” His voice degenerated into sobs.
“We’re coming in!” Hand on her sidearm, adrenaline high, Nicky pushed the door open farther. It creaked on broken hinges. She sidestepped inside, scanning the house. It was in shambles.
“Veronica? Are there any guns?” Nicky asked.
The woman was crying. “No. Nothing. He just hit me. Bobby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—I wasn’t sure—”
“Shut up! I loved him! He was my son! My son! And now he’s not,” Bobby wailed, his voice slurred.
A movement caught Nicky’s eye and she swung around. Venetia, holding Victor, stood in the doorway on her right, Valeriena behind her. Nicky put her finger to her lips, beckoned to them, and hustled them outside. A siren wailed in the distance. Backup.
Her gaze ran over the children. They were dressed in T-shirts and leggings, no shoes. The baby was in a shirt and diaper, his chubby legs and feet bare. The girls cried softly, their faces streaked with tears, but Victor was stoic, the nipple of a bottle tight between his teeth. He twitched his little toes.
“Are you hurt?” They shook their heads. “Where are your mom and stepdad? What part of the house?”
“In the kitchen. It’s through the archway and on this side.” Venetia motioned right with her shoulder and said, “Bobby’s more drunk than I’ve ever seen him. He opened that letter today.”
Valeriena sniffled. “Yeah, and he gets no distribution ’cause of it. Turns out he’s not Victor’s dad. Probably Victor’s dad isn’t even Fire-Sky, so Victor’s not worth nothing anymore.” She shook her head at the baby and wiped tears from her eyes.
“Does your stepdad have a gun or knife?”
“No. Veni hides the rifles under the bed in our room when they get drunk, like teacher told her in school. Bobby was just using his hands. They’re pretty good for hitting,” Valeriena offered. Her voice wobbled. “Can you help our mom?”
“Yes, honey. But you have to stay right here. Don’t move from behind the truck.”
Her backup pulled their car up to the curb, its siren cut abruptly, but the lights still flashed. Two uniformed officers jumped out and jogged toward them. Valentine and Aguilar. She gave them a quick update and left Valentine with the children—he had a couple of kids—while she and Aguilar hurried to the house.
“Veronica, Bobby? I’ve got the kids outside! They’re safe! Officer Aguilar and I are coming in now!”
They stepped through the home’s threshold into the darkened hall and trod silently to the arched opening. Nicky peeked around the wall. The furniture in the family room had been overturned. A lamp without a shade lay on its side, bulb shattered. Colorful baby toys were strewn about and a naked Barbie doll sat on the fireplace hearth. Broken glass and empty beer cans littered the floor.
“Veronica? Where’s Bobby?”
“No! Don’t take him! It’s my fault he got so mad. I deserved it!” she sobbed. Her voice came from behind a long counter that blocked the view of the kitchen floor.
Glass crunched under Nicky’s feet as she stepped toward the voice. She rounded the counter and found the two of them huddled together on the floor. Veronica looked up and Nicky grimaced internally. Her left eye was almost swollen shut, her lips puffy and bloody, and red marks circled her neck. Bobby leaned against her, eyes closed, mouth open. Veronica tightened one arm around him when she met Nicky’s eyes, but the other wrist dangled limply in her lap.
“Call EMT and another car,” Nicky ordered Aguilar and holstered her weapon. “Hey, Veronica, the kids are outside. They’re really worried about you. I’m going to come closer and help you up so we can go outside to see them. They’re so worried.” She kept up the quiet, one-sided conversation as she slid her cuffs out and clicked the first one onto Bobby’s wrist.
“No! Don’t touch him!” Veronica lunged to her feet and Bobby’s head thunked on the floor. She swung her fist. Nicky blocked the blow, grabbed Veronica’s arm, and twisted it. The woman howled and squirmed as they grappled along the island counter. The toaster banged to the floor with a metallic clang.
Bobby moaned and woke up. “No! Vronnnie!” He rammed his body against Nicky’s and she fell hard into Veronica. Her breath whooshed out of her. Aguilar dove in to help.
Nicky sucked air. “Cuff him! I got her.” Aguilar pulled Bobby away.
“Leave him alone!” Veronica flung her head back, hit Nicky’s cheek. She flipped and jabbed an elbow, but Nicky had had enough. She squeezed Veronica’s damaged wrist, eliciting an earsplitting scream of pain, and Veronica went limp.
Nicky was snapping the second cuff on the woman’s swollen wrist when Valeriena’s voice yelled, “Mommy! Don’t hurt her!” She plowed into their legs. Her skinny arms snaked around her mother’s knees. Officer Valentine ran into the kitchen and snatched the struggling girl away, his eyes wide as they met Nicky’s.
Veronica suddenly revived and screamed, “Let her go! My baby!”
“Dammit, Valentine! Get her out of here,” Nicky said, absolutely furious. “Carry her. There’s glass all over the floor.” He swung Valeriena’s feet up. They were bloody with cuts and his face went white.
Nicky sat the sobbing woman on the only upright chair at the kitchen table. Shoulders shaking, Veronica slumped forward.
“Aguilar. You good?” Nicky asked. They both were breathing hard from the fight.
“Yes. The husband passed out. Should I try to wake him up?”
From a distance came the high-pitched whine of sirens. “EMTs should arrive soon. Leave him,” she answered.
Veronica rocked and cried. “My fault. He didn’t mean to. My fault. I won’t press charges.”
It wouldn’t matter if Veronica refused to press charges. The law allowed authorities to do it anyway. Nicky sucked in one more large breath and let it out slowly. She touched her cheek. It was tender. She’d have a good bruise.
The siren cut off abruptly. Car doors slammed and a voice yelled, “Emergency medical coming in!”
* * *
It was quiet. Nicky stood in the broken house, cheek throbbing. She stared impassively at the letter open on the kitchen table.
Even in all the devastation, it remained pristine. Two precise folds were pressed into fine creamy paper. She could see the faint watermark. The large, colorful seal of the pueblo was prominent, centered at the top on the page. A blood-red oval surrounded the top of a dark brown volcano that billowed thick, stylized gray smoke. The sky to the left of the smoke was a bri
ght turquoise. On the right side, the smoke transformed into rain clouds, slanting perfect drops falling like tears. A masked face stared from the middle of the smoke, eyes red with fire. All Tsiba’ashi D’yini elemental clans were represented: Fire, Water, Sky, Earth.
Nicky silently read the contents.
Dear Mrs. Koyona,
This letter is to inform you that your child, Victor Koyona, will not receive the annual Per Capita Distribution. Our investigators have discovered he is not the child of Tribal member Robert Koyona as claimed on his birth certificate, and is in fact, only 0.1242 degree Tsiba’ashi D’yini ancestry. As you know, Fire-Sky tribal code Section 1-1-1. F [Membership in the tribe], requires individuals to have one-eighth degree or 12.5% (0.125 degree) Tsiba’ashi D’yini Blood quantum to receive minimum benefits.
Valeriena’s statement about Victor being worth “nothing” made sense now.
The child has been disenrolled from tribal membership pursuant to tribal Code 1-3.1. D [Fraudulent Misrepresentation] and 1-1.5. A [Blood Quantum].
If you have any further questions, please call 555-4363. However, be advised that this determination is final.
Sincerely,
Peter Santibanez
CEO, Tsiba’ashi D’yini Tribal Enrollment Office
Santibanez’s signature was scrawled elegantly across the bottom.
Victor was not the biological child of Bobby Koyona. Only a direct comparison of DNA profiles could make that determination. And he was only 0.1242 degree Fire-Sky blood. How precise.
Indians didn’t do DNA.
Or so she’d been led to believe.
Nicky let out a humorless laugh. She now knew the significance of David Saunders’s database.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Excuse me. Excuse me! You can’t go in there without an appointment. Stop right there!”
Nicky ignored the woman who hurried around her desk to bar her entrance into Peter Santibanez’s office atop the Fire-Sky Hotel, Casino, and Spa. The Tsiba’ashi D’yini logo was carved into the center of the wooden double doors, the same one on the letterhead sent to Veronica Koyona. Nicky squared her shoulders and grabbed the iron handle.
A wall of glass greeted her with a magnificent view of Scalding Peak in the distance, the whole of the reservation splayed like a supplicant before the mountain.
Or maybe the reservation bowed low before the all-powerful Peter Santibanez.
He stood silhouetted against a clear blue sky, on his cell phone, face wreathed in a smile that disappeared when he swiveled toward her. He murmured something in the phone and a frown deepened on his face.
“What’s all this, Joy?” His gaze shifted to the woman behind her.
“I’m so sorry, sir. I tried to stop her.”
His brown eyes focused back on Nicky. They stopped briefly on three spots: her badge and sidearm clipped to her belt, the pink scald burn on her neck, and the darkening bruise and scratches on her cheek. Blood and dust from her earlier encounter with Veronica and Robert Koyona stained her clothes.
Nicky stared back impassively, even though her insides churned with anger. She needed some answers.
Now.
“Bill? Let me call you back,” Santibanez said in his phone and hung up before he retreated behind his desk. He must have seen something of her roiling emotion, because he gave her a placating smile. “Rough week?” he murmured. “It’s all right, Joy. I’ll see Sergeant Matthews. Why don’t you bring in some coffee?”
The doors behind Nicky closed with a discreet click. She stared at the man before her.
Peter Santibanez possessed a square and handsome face with a bold Roman nose, and his black hair—shot through with silver—fell in a braid down his back. In his early sixties, he looked a decade younger. He was close to six feet tall, but his stocky, powerful body made him appear shorter.
He waved a hand toward a chair. “Please, Sergeant, take a seat.” Nicky tipped her head to the side and widened her stance. “No? All right. Then maybe you’d like to explain what precipitated this rather, uh, unexpected visit.” His voice was almost jovial, but his posture was stiff. He reached up to tug at the inlaid turquoise clasp of his bolo tie.
Since the tension worked in her favor, Nicky stayed silent and let it simmer before she pulled the letter from a pocket in her jacket and tossed it onto the desk that separated them.
Santibanez’s manicured hand spread the page open. “I heard there was a problem today.” He stared again at her cheek. “You took the call? And bore the brunt of it, eh?” He tsked and shook his head. “The little girls are okay?”
“I need to ask you some questions, Mr. Santibanez, about this letter and its contents.”
He sucked a hissed breath through his teeth and smiled. “I’m afraid all I do is sign these. You’ll have to talk to my investigators if you need more information.”
“Your investigators? Like David Saunders at OMI?”
His smile slipped.
“Saunders has been compiling a DNA database of Fire-Sky Pueblo tribal members for quite some time, hasn’t he, Mr. Santibanez? But his collection really accelerated in the last few years, ever since the per capita distribution has been under your direct supervision. Is that when he first contacted you?”
Santibanez stared at her unblinkingly, a single eyebrow raised and his upper lip curled the tiniest bit. “You sure you don’t want to sit down, Sergeant?”
Realization hit her. Nicky sucked in a breath, eyes so wide they burned. “No. You contacted him. He’d have been easy to manipulate, wouldn’t he? After the debacle at OMI with Alicia Waseta’s heart, if someone found out he was keeping an illegal DNA database of Indian blood, he’d be fired on the spot. Probably never to work again anywhere in the country. A huge incentive for blackmail.”
“Blackmail is such a strong term, Sergeant. I prefer motivated cooperation.” He sat and settled back in his chair, hands folded on his stomach. “Please. Sit down and I’ll explain, although I doubt you’ll understand, being an outsider.” The door opened. “Ah! Joy with the coffee. Black with sweetener, am I correct?” he asked Nicky.
Peter Santibanez, all-seeing, all-knowing. It was his reputation on the rez. He had spies everywhere and a finger in every pie.
“Yes.” She slid into a chair.
The door closed behind his assistant.
“Now, of what were we speaking? Oh, yes. David Saunders. You see, he made the mistake of trying to bribe a phlebotomist at the Fire-Sky Clinic. Of course, she came to me immediately. But that’s not quite the place the story needs to start. This might take a while. Are you sure you have the time?”
Nicky leaned forward in her chair, neck and jaw rigid. “I just came from a domestic where a man beat his wife’s face to a pulp because of this letter, Mr. Santibanez. I have nothing but time.”
He stared at her, his body still. “All right. Then the best place for me to start is before the Spanish conquistadores and Catholic Church came to our lands. Of all the People, Tsiba’ashi D’yini has been here the longest. Each tribe has their own origin myth”—he waved his hand dismissively—“but we have stories of the last eruption of Scalding Peak. Scientists say that was over fifteen thousand years ago, predating archaeological evidence of human occupation in this region of the Americas.” Santibanez sipped his coffee. “Of course, oral tradition doesn’t equal hard evidence, but what those stories tell me is that the Fire-Sky People are very unique. And part of that uniqueness has to do with our genetics.”
Nicky sat back and released a slow breath. Santibanez’s statements paralleled those of Emilio Meloni.
“Did you know I initially studied to be a physical anthropologist? I took classes for over a year at Stanford, before I came to the realization that proving to an uncaring world the Tsiba’ashi D’yini tribe settled this ground before all others would get us nothing. It wouldn’t solve our poverty, or our alcoholism, or addictions. It wouldn’t give us back our ancestral lands, or our water rights. It would g
ive us no more power than we already had, which was very little. Only money would do that.
“But I digress. With the arrival of Europeans and Africans, all of the People went through a terrible time. There’s still a lingering belief that war killed off a majority of the indigenous populations of this continent, a belief perpetuated by Hollywood and their testosterone-filled, Eurocentric movies.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk, fingers steepled. Though he gazed at her face, she could see he really wasn’t focused on her. “Soldiers slaughtering peaceful camps full of women and children, or the cavalry heroically charging into murderous hordes of painted braves. Don’t get me wrong. That did happen, but by that time, millions were already dead of pestilence and disease. But that does not a good story make.”
He appeared to be in his own head right now, so Nicky didn’t ask the questions that circled in her mind. This was her time to learn what he knew.
“Measles, smallpox, influenza killed us, brought and spread by the earliest of conquerors, priests and settlers. We lived in a paradise, were genetically adapted to that paradise. We couldn’t fight disease. Populations collapsed. Cultures that had prospered for thousands of years gone in a generation. Those left behind, remnants. But they had been forged in fire. They adapted and survived. They married across tribes, across cultures, muddying their DNA. But Fire-Sky tradition is endogamous. We only married within our tribe. We resisted integration into the surrounding populations.
“Still, when the U.S. government paid us guilt money—paid us to be Indians—we took in anyone who had the slightest connection to our pueblo to swell our rolls, to get back some of what they stole. Now the additional money from our tribal businesses have made those benefits truly substantial. Per capita distribution is exploding.” He blinked and his gaze focused back on hers. “Did you know outside applications for enrollment here at Fire-Sky go up every year? Non-Natives ‘self-identifying’ as Indians because they want our money, faking ancestry documents. And, of course, now it’s popular to be a Native American. My grandmother was one-fourth Cherokee popular.” Santibanez’s voice was sarcastically singsong. “So many people say they are related to Pocahontas, they could start their own tribe,” he mocked.
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