Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) (35 page)

She slid a hand into his jeans and he felt himself respond. The jerky unhitching of a button, the freedom of a zipper coming open, the fumbling out of denim. These awkward acts held a sort of immutable grace. The softness and wetness and entwining of limbs seemed natural and preordained.

When it was over he lay with her hair strewn over him and fell into the wilds of the universe. In his dreams he was a young man again, training horses, with his whole life before him.

33

From somewhere in the deep forests he returned. The dreams fell away and the stark clarity of everything he had done washed back over him. He looked at the clock radio next to Mona's bed. Four thirty in the morning. He turned over and tried to go back to sleep, but closing his eyes cast his mind into a state of hyper-caffeinated brilliance. He thought back to the car and the swatch of red on its back bumper, the angle and elevation of its back end as it disappeared into the night.

The only thing missing was his notepad. He remembered waving it in Jorgenson's office. He had told him that it contained the combination to Eagle's safe, and that the only solution was to plant something incriminating on him. His heart raced. If the car he saw last night was Schmeaker's, this was the only possible explanation. In which case Eagle was in danger.

JW considered going down and waking Eagle up. But then he would have to tell Eagle how he came to have his combination, and everything would come out. There would be nothing to stop Eagle from calling the police, nothing to protect what was left of his life. Mona stirred next to him, but didn't wake.

Another option occurred to him. He could go check out the safe himself, while everyone was asleep. The thought made his heart race anew. And as he mulled this possible
step, it became increasingly clear that if he was going to do it, he would have to act immediately, before the sun was up. He turned over and looked at the clock. Ten to five. He lay back and imagined the police coming, the safe opening, drugs inside, Eagle being arrested.

He rolled quietly out of bed. Mona turned over and he froze, but she fell back to sleep. He felt around on the floor for his pants, and pulled them on. He couldn't find the rest of his clothes. He would have to risk it. In and out. Grab whatever was there and hide it, or bring it back here.

He tiptoed barefoot from the room and down the hall. He could see light coming in through a back door. He made his way to it and out onto a small concrete patio. He gently closed the back door, then crossed the patio and stepped out into the backyard.

The grass was dry beneath his feet, and the air was cool on his bare chest and arms. He ran to the end of Mona's house and stopped. He looked around the corner toward Eagle's house, fifty or sixty feet away. There were no lights. He ran to the back of the house and up to the sliding glass door. It was completely dark inside. He climbed onto the small deck and tiptoed to the door. The handle was unlocked. He hesitated a moment, thinking of how dangerous this gambit was. He could still just go back. Then he slid the door open.

JW saw the eagle feather on the dining room table. It fluttered in the disturbed air. He stepped inside and could hear Eagle's heavy breathing. He listened, then tiptoed to the corner of the hall and peered around it. Both bedroom doors stood ajar. Other than Eagle's breathing, he couldn't hear a sound. He stepped quietly into full view and nothing happened. He tiptoed down the carpeted hall toward the office door. He could feel the nylon strands under his bare feet,
and he remembered to avoid the squeaky spot. He was shaking. They would wake soon. And if some sort of bust were planned, that would happen soon as well.

In the office, he stepped to the closet door and put a hand on the edge to quiet it. He slowly pulled it open, and then he got down on his knees and recalled the combination. Nine, ninety-one, thirteen. He began slowly turning the safe dial, cupping a hand over it to muffle the clicks, and stopping to listen every several clicks to make sure Eagle or Jacob weren't shifting in bed. Nothing. He cranked the lever down and the safe door popped open.

Bundles of cash spilled out onto the carpet. With a lurch of panic he shoved his hands under the cascade, but when it stopped, there was nothing but more heavy breathing down the hall. He let the cash down gently. Bundles of fives, tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds. It suddenly occurred to him that the money could be Eagle's. Perhaps it was part of the capital to start the new bank, or even an investment from the band.

He would live with it. He looked around for something to contain the cash. There was a box of Glad trash can liners on the shelf above. He pulled one out, quietly spread the bag open, and started stuffing it with bundles. He listened to Eagle and Jacob's breathing. He was sweating now, and he felt almost nauseous from his racing heart. He flipped the safe door shut, turned the lever and spun the dial, and pushed the closet door closed.

JW grabbed the bulging white trash can liner and, tiptoeing on the balls of his feet, carried it to the door. He paused and looked around the corner toward the bedrooms. It seemed as if they were still sleeping, but the breathing had become quieter. Had they heard something? He stepped out
into the hall and tiptoed around the corner, where he felt cool air settling in through the open sliding glass door.

He stepped out and turned to close the door, but as he did so, he heard the toilet flush inside. His hands and arms suddenly cramped and he felt as if he were choking. He slid the door shut under the flushing sound and leaped off the deck. He crouched and steadied himself with one hand in the rubbery grass. He swallowed and tried to breathe. His mouth and throat were dry, and his heart was pounding in his ears. He stayed hunched under the edge of the deck, listening. Finally, after what must have been five minutes, he decided to dare it. Squatting low, he ran through the grass, keeping below the level of the deck. He made the corner of the house and paused. He had to get the bag of cash to his trailer: down the hill, past the paddock, and across the road. He decided to try for the cover of the truck first.

He hoisted the bag and ran for it, feeling his pulse in his neck. He half-expected Eagle to raise an alarm, or call out to him to stop. But he reached the truck and ducked down behind it without incident. His lungs were heaving, his fingers splayed into the dusty gravel of the barn drive to steady himself, the plastic sack of money on the ground beside him. He was lathered in sweat despite the morning's coolness. The sky was warming into a pinkish-yellow dawn.

He swallowed and looked around the front of the truck, gathering himself for the dash to the trailer. But just then a dark blue sedan flew past and came to a stop in front of Eagle's house. Its disc brakes hissed quietly and tires crunched on the gravel. It was followed by a county cruiser and a tribal police car. Two men in jackets marked FBI got out of the sedan. Bob Grossman and Dan Barden exited the county cruiser, and Fladeboe stepped out of the tribal car. They lifted their door
handles and pushed the doors closed quietly with their other hands. Jesus, JW thought. He had been right.

He ducked back behind the truck. There was no way he could make it to his trailer now. He looked again and saw Grossman nod at Barden and wave a finger in a circle. Barden nodded his understanding and started heading around the back of the house. The others moved up the walk toward the front door. He heard them knock. Jacob's confused voice answered with something unintelligible.

“Can I help you?” Eagle's voice carried out into the dawn.

“Mr. Eagle, I'm Deputy Sheriff Grossman with the Bass County Sheriff's Department, and these gentlemen are Agents Richardson and Olson from the FBI. You know Officer Fladeboe. Sir, is there anyone else in the house?”

“Just my son,” replied Eagle, his distant voice hoarse with sleep.

When JW looked again, he saw Fladeboe walking down the hill toward the paddock. Now he would surely be exposed. He glanced behind him. The lean-to was ten feet away. He picked up the bag and lugged it over to the lean-to, noticing in the process that the plastic was stretched thin, the bills almost poking through the membrane. The dusty soles of his feet felt cool on the brown earth of the lean-to. He looked out from among the halters and lead ropes, and saw Fladeboe pass the truck and duck through the rails into the paddock. Puzzled, JW strained his neck and watched Fladeboe bend over, jam his hand into a zippered plastic bag, and pick up a handful of horse manure, closing the bag around it.

*
 
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*

E
AGLE WAITED ON
the porch with Jacob and Grossman while the two FBI agents entered the house. He saw Deputy Barden step in from the back sliding glass door in back.

“I don't understand,” he said.

“It's in the warrant,” Grossman replied. Eagle noticed that he was sweating, and he kept looking out at the trees.

Eagle looked over the warrant as Fladeboe came up the walk, carrying a sealed plastic bag filled with—of all things—some of Pride's manure. The two computer-printed pages said the court had found probable cause that he was involved in a burglary of North Lake Bank the evening before, and authorized the officers to search for cash, horse manure, and other evidence of the crime.

“Horse manure?”

Fladeboe stepped up with the bag. “They found some on the carpet of the bank and outside the back door, and it had red horsehair and wild rice hulls in it.”

Eagle was indignant. “That's ridiculous,” he said.

“Tell it to the judge, Johnny.”

Fladeboe had dated Wenonah in high school, and Eagle had disliked him since learning that. He was too much of a pleaser, a wannabe white boy, and here he was, going out of his way to help them screw over a fellow Indian. Deputy Barden stepped out onto the porch.

“Mr. Eagle?”

He turned. The deputy's forehead jutted forward to form an officious shelf above his eyes. “We need you to step inside.”

“Okay.” Eagle couldn't think of what they could have possibly found, and he began to wonder if they had planted some sort of evidence. He turned to Jacob, suddenly wanting a witness. “Come on, son.”

Jacob began to follow, but Grossman held up a hand.

“You stay here.”

Eagle looked into Grossman's eyes and grew concerned. The man had unbuttoned his shirt collar.

“Why?” Eagle asked.

“Sir, inside. Now!” said Barden.

Grossman shot Eagle an edgy grin and shook his head, as if they were old friends and Eagle was being ridiculous. “He'll be fine.”

*
 
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*

JW
THOUGHT ABOUT
hiding out in the lean-to until they left, but realized the plan was too dangerous. If the money had been planted, the police would be looking for it, and if they didn't find it in the house they would search the vehicles and the outbuildings. He had to get it to his trailer. He glanced out again and lifted the stretching bag of cash. Everyone had gone inside now except Jacob and Bob Grossman, who were talking to someone he couldn't see.

JW ran for it. He crossed the road with the bulging sack and ran through the low brush on the far side, then in under the oak trees. Sharp sticks, rocks, and thistle barbs jabbed at his feet. His lungs burned with an uncontrollable urgency as he raced over the grassy gravel and up the wooden steps to his trailer, thankful for the partial cover of the oak trees. He opened the door, lifted the heaving bag in through it, and slipped inside, turning quickly to whip the door quietly shut. His arms and hands felt numb. He doubled over, heaving and sweating, trying to catch his breath.

He felt dizzy, and his vision broke up into swimming pixels. He swallowed and leaned over to look out the eating area window, to see if he'd been spotted. They were all still
looking toward the house, and Eagle was nowhere in sight. He grabbed a dish towel and wiped his face, then leaned on the counter in front of the sink, catching his breath. Out in the middle of the road, he saw a bundle of cash fluttering in the wind.

He was at the trash can liner in two steps, and he immediately saw where the plastic had stretched and torn. He dropped the liner and looked out the window. He would have to retrieve the bundle. He glanced up at Eagle's front porch and saw Grossman step away from the house and look out over the yard and the road.

*
 
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*

B
OB
G
ROSSMAN WAS
trying to get his heart to stop racing. The guys inside had found Eagle's safe and had asked him to open it, while he was stuck outside with the kid. He turned and scanned the trees. Some Indian could be aiming a deer rifle at him right now, he thought. They had a grapevine. He noted how thick the trees were here, with an undergrowth of buckthorn and red sumac. A shooter would be virtually invisible. He shouldn't have taken this assignment, he realized. Margie was right, it was too soon. But he was trying to impress Barden and Big Bill, to show them he wasn't the paralyzed babbler that Barden had found lying in the wheat field, with nothing but a small flesh wound.

He turned back to the kid. It was the young ones who were the most dangerous. They had access to firearms, but they lacked judgment, and he was sure they had tried to gun him down once already. This one, Jacob Eagle, was a pot smoker and a thief, a living example of the kind of miscreant that had made his life miserable. The kaleidoscope of his mind shifted,
and a new interpretation of recent events suddenly fell into place with shocking clarity—with this kid as the key.