The Sky Fisherman (37 page)

"At least the pony doesn't have bullet holes," I said. Before it became a Christmas roof decoration, game wardens used Jake's stuffed deer as an open-field decoy to trap city dudes who stopped to spotlight and shoot it. Good for ten or twelve arrests each season, the deer took serious abuse. Some dudes even took time to reload when the deer didn't fall during the first volley.

Jake shook his head. "Don't go thinking negatory thoughts, nephew. This deer is a tradition. Kids love it. From a distance they can't see the bullet holes or raggedy rump. And I usually win a prize for merchant display."

I knew Jake was just blowing wind. Earlier he'd said that no one
judged the merchant displays except a couple of tipsy old Realtors whose noses shone brighter than Rudolph's.

The roof was fairly flat, but it had taken me over an hour to shovel off the snow, given the accumulation, the wind, and the treacherous footing. I was wearing one of the Sasquatch coats. Before Thanksgiving, Jake had given me my Christmas present early because he thought some of my schoolmates might want one, and the fake fur had become so matted down with the sleet, I resembled an outlandish, oversize rodent.

Gab had done a practiced double take when he saw me working alone on the roof. "That's the ugliest goddamn elf I ever saw," he shouted up above the wind. "Santa's really scraping the bottom of the barrel."

I tried shoveling a load of snow on his head, but he ducked inside too fast.

While I cleared the roof, Jake had stayed inside keeping warm and patching a couple of the deer holes with catgut. My feet were freezing and my hands had turned numb.

Homer climbed the ladder to offer hot coffee and warm cake doughnuts. "Some job," he said, indicating the piles of snow I had pushed off the roof.

"Jake said this would take about an hour," I said. "After two, I'm leaving for sure."

"Good luck." Homer shook his head. "Last year when it was sunny and warm, it took three hours. Stringing the guy wires is no picnic. And I've never seen this much snow in mid-November."

"This is tough work," I said. "I can see why people in Minnesota have heart attacks." After I took off the parka hood, my head steamed more than Homer's coffee. Once the roof was clear, I went inside to get Jake. The coat was soaked and slick.

"Goddamn, I never saw a rat that big," Sniffy said. "Must've crawled out an open sewer somewhere."

"That's no rat. It's a nutria," Gab said.

"Same difference," Sniffy said. "They're cousins or something. People eat them in the Philippines."

"And they taste just like chicken," Gab said. "Everything tastes like chicken."

"Are you about ready to help?" I asked Jake. "You were supposed to come up sooner and clear the roof."

"Packaged up some worms," he said, "in case we get a rush." They all laughed, since fishing season had been over for a couple months.

"That's some coat, all right." Gab laughed. "I didn't think those coats could get uglier, but they look worse wet than dry."

"Your basketball team should wear them," Sniffy said. "Scare the opposition to death. Only way you're ever going to win."

"It might slow the players down," Gab said.

"They can't move any slower and still be breathing." Sniffy slapped his knee.

I didn't say anything because I'd shot only three for thirteen in the last game. Two of our starters had moved away with their parents, who had worked at the mill but were following job prospects to Arizona.

"Woof had to move guys up from the junior varsity," Jake said. "But I'll bet if he figured out a nutria play, we could go to state again."

I'd heard the story of Woof's trick play from the back-room boys early that season. Designed to create an easy bucket on an inbounds play under your own basket, he'd used it to win a regional championship. With two seconds to go and trailing by a point, Gateway had the ball out under its own basket. Talented Lewisburg usually guarded Gateway tightly on the inbounds and forced a long pass and a long shot. But this time Woof played his ace. As Woof's guard prepared to inbound, the Gateway center dropped to all fours and began barking wildly like a dog, shaking his head from side to side and snapping his teeth. Distracted, the Lewisburg players turned their attention to him, and the inbounds pass went to Gateway's forward for an easy layup.

The Lewisburg coach tried for a technical foul or unsportsmanlike conduct—anything to nullify the play—but the rulebook had no text on a barking-dog play, and Gateway advanced to state.

But now Sniffy was right. We had been playing poorly, and it would take more than a trick play to bring us up to speed.

Although no one could see the bullet holes from the highway, the deer was pretty shabby. The hair was worn off the left rump, perhaps from riding around in the game warden's rigs, but Jake had spray-painted a little tan marine paint on the ragged patch to make it seem more realistic. The rump appeared darker than the grayish brown color of mule deer, but at least he'd made the attempt.

The deer wasn't all that heavy, but awkward, especially in the wind. We hoisted it with a block and tackle and tried wrestling it to a high point on the roof. Clear of snow, the roof remained icy, and we nearly let the deer slide off before we caught it. Finally we managed to wire one of the hooves to a chimney.

Gab watched from below, keeping warm in a big parka and sipping
coffee. "Hope your insurance is paid up, Jake. If that thing falls off the roof and injures a customer, you're looking at a big-time lawsuit."

"Like the carrier says, I'm fully insured but not covered. With a little luck, it might hit you," Jake said.

"I don't think most riders include dead deer falling off the roof and breaking people's necks. Acts of God but not acts of lunacy."

By the time we finally got the deer secure on the rooftop it was dusk. Jake rigged two spotlights on the roof corners to illuminate the deer. Then he attached the red light near its nose, securing the extension cord with baling wire. His teeth were chattering as we scrambled down.

"Light's too low," Gab said. "Looks like that deer is chomping a red lightbulb."

"How about you scramble up there and fix it," Jake said. "I'll give you directions for a change."

"Deer's gonna have a stomach full of glass. No wonder that critter's so full of holes. Next thing you'll have it swallowing a sword. I could work up a commercial spot for you. Come see Bambi the Magnificent. The Perforated Deer. I mean the
performing
deer."

After Gab was gone, Jake went out and admired the deer. "Maybe that light is hanging a little low. Up on the roof, it seemed okay."

"I'm not going back up there," I said.

He nodded. "It's close enough for Gateway. Tomorrow we've got to put up the sleigh."

"No way," I said and meant it. "Anyway, Mom says it's uncouth to put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving."

Grady stopped by two days later. "I like seeing that deer. Reminds me of when the state wardens caught those poachers at night. A stuffed deer makes a great tool for law enforcement."

"This one took some serious fire," Jake said.

"Seeing it up there got me to thinking about the two dead boys they found on the reservation," Grady said. "A strange business, so I used an old technique they taught us at the academy." He seemed pleased with himself. "I wrote down all the items that should be at the scene of a crime—what you'd expect to find. Then I listed all the things that were actually there. And I compared them."

"What crime scene?" Jake asked.

"On the reservation. You saw the
Gazette.
'Foul play not ruled out.' Editor got that quote from me. Anonymous, of course. I suggested he run it like that."

"You're about to get everybody stirred up over nothing," Jake said.
"Tempers are already tight. If you go and say the Indians killed a couple guys on the reservation, it's going to be a lot worse."

"Didn't say the Indians did anything. I'm trying to be objective, Jake. Are you, the way you keep palling around with Indians day and night?"

"I choose my own company," Jake said.

"That's your business," Grady said. "Mine's the law. Anyway, I made that list and things didn't add up. I saw Billyum's report. Pretty sloppy police work." He handed Jake a sheet of paper with two columns. "Here, take a look."

Jake read it carefully. His brow furrowed.

"You see it, don't you?" Grady asked. "Remember why you stopped offering the Big Buck contest—quit giving away a new rifle every year for the biggest rack? Why was that?"

"The winners always went out at night and spotlighted," Jake said. He examined the list again. "Spotlight. Hell, they had a spotlight on that pickup. Didn't you see the photos?"

I nodded. "Sure. When Meeks was in here after slaughtering those rabbits, he bragged about freezing them with the spotlight. In fact, he hit it with a big chunk of ice. There was definitely a light."

Grady nodded and stroked his chin. "Well, howdy-do. Maybe that explains it. Meeks was down at the garage complaining the spot didn't work. Raised such a fuss they ordered him a new one."

"So what's the racket about a spotlight?" Jake asked.

"The new one's still sitting there. He never picked it up."

"Doesn't prove much," Jake said. "I get stuck with special orders all the time. Guys want something yesterday, place a special order, then buy it quicker someplace else. I'm stuck."

"I went out to the wrecking yard and checked," Grady said. "Original light is still on the truck. So what do you make of that?"

Jake shrugged. "I guess they used a portable light. I've got one Ray-O-Vac here that will throw a good beam over a hundred yards. You can pick up that kind of light about anywhere—Coast-to-Coast, Krazy Karl's."

"Those fellows ever buy one from you?"

"Not that I remember," Jake said. When he looked at me, I shook my head.

Grady squinted at Jake. "Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if I was poaching elk on the back corner of the reservation, I'd take along a pretty good light. In fact, I'd take a couple. Wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would," Jake said. "But if those boys had been drinking a lot, Meeks might have forgotten his spotlight didn't work. Or they might have stopped to take a piss somewhere and dropped the portable."

Grady tapped the side of his head. "I like how you think. If you get tired of running this store, I'll put you to work. Anything's possible. Like you say, they can buy a portable just about anyplace. Billyum and Squeaky might have overlooked it. They didn't go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. All in all, it was a piss-poor investigation. Plus the burn and now the snow.

"Fire wipes out a lot of evidence. Hell, you couldn't tell shit after the plywood mill fire. The whole investigation was guesswork." He hitched his pants. "Anyway, the reservation's not my jurisdiction. Still, I don't want anything overlooked, so I'm sending off a letter stating my concerns to the regional office of the FBI. Let them have a crack."

"Fuckups, bullies, and idiots," Jake said. "The tribe isn't going to think much of the FBI futzing around. A missing spotlight seems pretty slim."

Grady smiled. "Sure it does. But I've seen cases turn on a lot less. A footprint, a button, broken shoelace. You start with a thread and see where it leads." He folded up the paper and put it in his jacket pocket. His eyes cut to the painting of Kalim. "You think those fellas knew that Kania boy?"

Jake seemed surprised. "Why would you think that?"

"I hear talk. Some of my boys moonlight a little at the mill. Used to moonlight, I mean. They think Meeks and Kania palled around."

"It's a small town," Jake said. "Everybody runs into everybody. What are you driving at?"

"Coincidences always make me wonder. Most of the time, people get killed by someone they know."

Jake laughed. "I can solve that one for you. Kalim didn't kill them, unless you believe that wandering Indian ghosts come looking for revenge."

Grady smiled. "You're smarter than most of my men, Jake. Like I say, you'd be great on the force. But you got this one ass backwards. I was thinking that if someone blamed them for killing Kalim, they might try to get some payback."

Jake didn't reply for a moment, and I stayed quiet, too. "Why would they kill Kalim?"

Grady's brow furrowed. "That's a puzzle, isn't it? But I didn't say they did. You never heard that from me. I'm just trying out a couple theories—shooting in the dark, seeing if I hit anything."

"It's your business," Jake said. "But I'd be careful and not get the town and reservation at each other's throats."

Grady shook his head. "Farthest thing from my mind. And I appreci
ate your concern." He fastened his coat. "I sure like that deer, Jake. Must be a powerful lot of work dragging it up there, using the pulley, attaching all the wires. Getting those lights on the roof."

"I got help," Jake said. "This nephew works like a mule."

"A good kid," Grady said, resting his hand on my shoulder. "He's not likely to wind up on the wrong side of the rule book, especially with his mother's influence. Can't say as much for the uncle."

For once he didn't mention my stepfather, and I was glad.

Grady shifted toward the door. "Hope nobody takes a potshot at that deer."

"I think it's safe from the dudes," Jake said.

"I don't worry much about dudes," Grady said. "What concerns me is the people close by." He stepped outside and looked up at the deer, then poked his head back in. "You ever think of outlining that critter in lights? They got lights on the horse down at the saddle shop. Looks sharp."

After Grady left, I studied my uncle. He was thinking hard but didn't speak until I asked, "Why do you think Grady is going after the Indians on this deal?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Jake said. He tapped the glass counter. "But he's not as dumb as he acts sometimes. And he's right about one thing. There should have been a spotlight."

"Maybe they used headlights. Caught a big elk crossing the road."

"Awful chancy," Jake said. "Most people heading toward a dark corner of the reservation would take along a damn good light."