Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) (37 page)

Grossman saw that he had opened a gash over JW's left eyebrow. “God damn it, JW, what the fuck—” he yelled, but then smoke filled his lungs and he started to cough and choke as he gasped in even more. His head was spinning.

JW seemed to recognize that Grossman was in trouble. “Get out, I'll follow!” he said.

Grossman nodded, his eyes burning. He crawled off JW and headed for the door, his arms shaking, his eyes raining. Somehow he managed to look back and make sure JW was following.

*
 
*
 
*

J
ACOB STOOD ON
the porch with his dad, Olson, Barden, and Richardson.

“Stay here, son,” Eagle said, eyeing the trailer.

They watched as Grossman, coughing, fell out of it. A moment later, JW followed, then stumbled shakily to his feet, holding a sagging dish towel. Fladeboe trained his gun on him and he raised his hands in submission.

Jacob was dumbfounded. This was impossible. JW had made him return the cigars. He was his friend. Something was wrong.

Grossman stumbled to his feet, lost his balance, then stood again. He put his hands on his knees for a moment, and hacked deeply, silver bands of snot and saliva streaming from his nose and mouth. Fladeboe got JW to place his hands on the trailer wall, then holstered his gun and began to frisk him. Barden's handheld squawked and Grossman's voice came raspy over the radio.

“We got it! We got the money!” he gasped.

A sense of confusion and betrayal rose in Jacob. He had seen JW come out of the trailer with his own eyes. JW had stolen the money.

“—whole bag of it,” rasped Grossman. “He was burning it on the stove.” He wiped a stream of snot from his face.

“Ten-four,” said Richardson. He was standing beside Jacob. “Is it still burning?”

“Just what's on the stove. I gotta go back in and put it out,” replied Grossman, turning back to the door. But then Fladeboe said something to him and Grossman nodded and went to handcuff JW, while Fladeboe took a deep breath and stepped up into the trailer. Then Jacob heard the hollow metal whoosh of a fire extinguisher and the smoke began to slow.

“The son of a bitch,” said Eagle, his hands still cuffed behind his back. He looked at Jacob. “I'm sorry I exposed you to him, son. I should have known better.”

“But he was at the eagle feather ceremony, with Aunt Mona—”

“They found the money in his trailer, son. This whole thing was his doing.”

“I guess the FBI had it wrong,” said Deputy Barden. He glanced at Richardson, who nodded in reply.

Barden stepped up behind Eagle and hiked his arms up. Jacob saw tears come to his father's eyes, then heard the cuffs
fall away with a dull clink. His father brought his hands around in front of himself, rubbing the angry purple rings on his wrists.

Jacob looked at him with concern. “Are you okay?”

Eagle nodded.

*
 
*
 
*

“O
KAY
, JW.” G
ROSSMAN
was wheezing as they stood by one of the cars, but otherwise seemed to have recovered from the smoke inhalation. “I'm gonna read you your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you—”

JW looked up at Eagle and Jacob and the agents on the front deck. A flock of mergansers flew overhead, carping and squabbling. The sky was teakettle blue. He could see Eagle's intense stare and feel his hatred radiating down at him. There was nothing he could say.

Jacob toed the ground, no doubt feeling betrayed. He saw Fladeboe intercept Mona as she rushed down the road.

“What's wrong? Why are you arresting him?”

JW caught her eye and shook his head, attempting to convey that she should not say a thing. He saw the worry and confusion on her face, her feathers flashing in the morning sun.

“Just stay back, Mona,” instructed Fladeboe, holding up his hands to bar her way. “She's the local drunk,” he said to Grossman. She slapped him, prompting Fladeboe to grab her wrists. “Settle down, Mona,” he said, and walked her backward.

JW breathed heavily through his nose, but he said nothing and looked away.

*
 
*
 
*

O
N THE DECK
, Jacob was filled with an undirected rage. His heart told him something was wrong. “Dad, it can't be—”

Eagle raised a hand to silence him.

“You need to listen to me!” Jacob said, trying again. But Eagle was focused on Richardson.

“It looks like we may have had a bad tip,” said the agent. “I apologize.”

Eagle nodded curtly, then watched as the agents and Deputy Barden began walking down to the cars.

“Dad,” Jacob said, but Eagle cut him off again.

“Not now,” he said. Then he raised his voice, addressing the agents. “If he was your tipster, he was probably going to plant that up here. He was trying to stop us.” Richardson stopped and turned back.

“That's interesting,” he said. “Why do you say that?”

“I'm opening a new tribal bank. You might have heard that it, too, was set on fire, but mine burned down. We were going ahead anyway. You think this is a coincidence? He came out here and got a job working for me. He was trying to destroy us.”

Jacob was boiling inside. He had had enough. “You're wrong!” he yelled. He shoved his dad and stepped off the porch.

“Jacob!” Eagle called out after him, but Jacob was heading down the hill. He needed to explain that JW had been out with them last night. And he needed to know what was really going on.

He heard Grossman talking to JW as he opened the back
door of the cruiser. “You had it all, and you threw it away. And for what? A lousy roll of the dice?”

JW looked at him, but said nothing.

“Listen to me!” Jacob said, racing up to the car. “You're making a mistake! He was with us last night!”

Grossman pointed at him.

“Back the fuck off.” He called to Barden on his radio. “Dan, can you get me a fucking perimeter?”

“Ten-four,” barked the radio, and Barden started walking down to the cars.

“Stay back or I'm going to fuck you up.” He pointed at Jacob, then turned back to JW and put a hand on his shoulder. “Watch your head,” he said.

Jacob grabbed his arm. “Just listen to me!”

The blow came fast as Grossman spun and backhanded him hard. Jacob stumbled backward and fell onto the gravel. His knife flew out of his shirt pocket and sprung open.

“Weapon!” yelled Grossman.

Jacob scrambled to his feet, his face burning and his eyes blind with rage. He let out a roar of frustration and rushed Grossman.

The blow had sound, a blast that hit Jacob in the chest and blew him backward with an otherworldly force. He stumbled, but stayed on his feet. He put a hand to his chest and felt a sticky warmth and an aching. His hands came away greasy red.

Grossman's Ruger was smoking and his chest was heaving. The painful ring of the shot filled his ears.

He heard Eagle screaming, and turned to see him running toward them.

His Aunt Mona was crying and fighting to get out of Fladeboe's grasp, but she was making no sound at all.

“Goddamn you, Bob, he's just a kid!” he heard JW yelling
from somewhere. “Call a fucking ambulance!” It sounded like tinkles.

There was a rushing and then he was in his dad's arms on the gravel. His lungs wouldn't lift. His heart pounded in his chest. He felt the warmth on his back and it was somehow comforting. He let out an involuntary, burbly cough and felt the hot, coppery-tin taste of blood in his mouth. He struggled to wipe his dry lips, and his hand came away with a pink-tinged froth.

“Jacob!” His dad's face loomed before him, but the sound of his voice came from a mile away. “Jacob! Can you breathe?”

His dad pulled his own T-shirt off and pressed it into him. He shook his head. He tried to speak. His breath was weak and came bubbled and dark, and he struggled and grappled with an unspeakable urgency. His dad leaned down and put his ear close. “I'm sorry,” he managed to whisper, and then the darkness rushed over him.

*
 
*
 
*

JW
RODE IN
the back of Fladeboe's car, destined for booking at the Bass County Government Center. A metallic bitter taste filled his mouth, and his clothes and hair reeked of smoke. The blood from the gash over his swollen left eye had coagulated and was sealing his eye shut. He could feel it, dry and scabby, on his cheek. The ambulance rushed and bumped on ahead of them on the dusty reservation road, leaving them in a cloud of dust so thick that Fladeboe had to work his wipers.

“Can you turn on the emergency radio in case they say anything about him?” asked JW.

“It is on,” said Fladeboe.

But there was only a dead silence, cut by periodic snippets
of barely intelligible communication from other towns in the far twilight of radio range.

They pulled out onto the highway, past Eagle's burned bank. He stared at the tag hanging and spinning from Fladeboe's rearview mirror: a picture of four Indian chiefs in traditional headdresses. The caption read, Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.

*
 
*
 
*

T
HE AMBULANCE DOORS
opened outward at North Lake Hospital's emergency entrance. The EMT with Eagle and Jacob hit a lever as he got out, and the gurney's legs scissored down onto the asphalt as the driver came around to take the other end. Jacob was unconscious, with an oxygen mask on his face and tubes running into his arms, but they had managed to restore a faint pulse that ran through him like a tiny serpent. Eagle followed as they wheeled the gurney toward the sliding doors, bags of plasma and saline swinging violently from the chrome rack.

As they rushed down the wide hallway, Eagle became aware of a woman in hospital blues at his side, saying something about insurance. Two RNs ran up to join the gurney, and the EMTs filled them in as they hurried forward. Jacob was pale and pasty as lard.

“Sir?”

The woman's hand was on his arm. Eagle reached into his back pocket.

“Here's my wallet,” he said, hurrying after the gurney. “It's all in there.”

“Thank you, but I need you to come with me. You can't be with him in surgery anyway. Please, sir.”

One of the RNs looked up at him and nodded, and in that
moment he felt Jacob's soul slipping away from him. The force of his will could not keep Jacob alive. He was in the hands of others, who neither knew nor cared for him. As he stopped his forward rush, Eagle felt he was somehow finally giving up, and a sickening knot swelled in his heart as he watched the EMTs and the RNs wheel his son away around a corner.

“Sir?”

He turned to the woman and nodded, and she led him into a maze of glass-walled offices.

“You may want to wash up a bit,” she said as they stepped into her office. He suddenly realized that he was shirtless and streaked with his son's blood. She pushed a folded hospital gown at him and nodded toward a back corridor. “Men's room is the second door on the left.”

Eagle elbowed the door open and turned on the faucet, leaving sticky smudges on the handles. There was only one sink and toilet, and the door locked from the inside. He flipped the lock with his elbow, then went back to the sink and began washing the blood from his hands. Red rivers swirled around the white porcelain and ran down the drain. He pulled his hands out of the water and stared at the mirror.

“My God,” he said, “what have I done?”

V

T
HE
P
AYOUT

35

In describing prison to Julie, JW observed that to Midwest Lutherans and hardened criminals alike, beauty has a palliative effect. In fact, he continued, beauty is as essential to the soul as air is to the body. The state prison in Stillwater was a post-Victorian example of this principle, and he described it in letters the way he once told her of the organelles of cells and the gill pouches of pharyngulas embryos from whence fish and people both spring.

Built in 1914 on the upper bluffs of the Saint Croix River, which separates Minnesota from Wisconsin, the prison's tall brick façades had enormous windows and decorative flourishes that would be deemed impractical and unnecessary today. Its population of murderers, thieves, and drug dealers spent their lives in a twenty-acre square that was surrounded by guard towers and a high brick wall erected by the inmates themselves. There were buildings for the administration along the river side of the square, a hospital, a counseling center, special disciplinary housing (otherwise known as solitary), three industrial manufacturing buildings, and three very large cell houses.