Winter Counts(84)
That ended today. It was time, finally, that Rick got his due.
I put the gun to his head. He started whimpering, sobbing, and I saw he’d pissed his pants. That was fine, he could die in his own urine. For years I’d been helping people get some justice on the rez, the only means they had left to them by a legal system that had sold them down the river. Rick Crow deserved to die for what he’d done to me, to Nathan, to all the people. There needed to be a reckoning, a balancing of the books. It was time.
I started to pull the trigger, then stopped, momentarily disoriented. I saw my sister, Sybil, standing behind Rick, and I wondered if I was still affected by the yuwipi and having some flashback. She looked sad, desolate, and it was like she was talking to me without speaking. I could understand what she was saying, even though her lips weren’t moving. She said that, while I didn’t like it, I was connected to Rick, that he was my relation. I needed to sacrifice, to take the tougher road by granting forgiveness to Rick, and to myself.
And what was justice? The wasicu version was to impose retribution—vengeance—for wrongs and injuries, but the Lakota principle was to repair whatever harm had been done. Kiciyuskapi, the untying-each-other ceremony, where the parents of a murdered child and the parents of the murderer would smoke the pipe, make amends, and release one another from retribution. But how could anyone heal and restore the countless evils Rick had wrought?
He kept looking at my gun, wondering what I was going to do, cowering, pathetic, a vision of wretchedness and desolation. Mitakuye oyasin, all my relations.
I lowered the Glock and walked back a few steps.
“It’s your lucky day, loser. You get to live, for now anyway.”
Relief passed over his face, and he started shaking. The stain on his pants had grown.
I heard a noise coming from the back door of the museum, and looked around.
“Put the gun down, Virgil.”
I looked over and saw Ben Short Bear, pointing a Colt 1911 pistol at me. At this range, it’d blow a hole the size of a grapefruit out of my body. What was he doing here?
“Ben,” I said, “I got it under control. This asshole is talking shit, but I got it covered.”
“Virgil, put the gun on the ground and kick it over to me. Don’t even think about trying anything. You do, and the first bullet goes in your chest. Do it now.”
I studied Ben’s face to see if he was serious. He didn’t waver and kept his gun pointed at me. I did as he said and kicked mine over to him, the weapon rattling as it traveled across the pockmarked concrete floor. He picked it up and put it on an old chair to his right.
“Now, sit down next to Rick and put your hands behind your head. They come down, you get a bullet.”
I sat down, Indian style, and held up my hands. Rick’s odor filled my nostrils, the smell of piss and fear. “I told you,” he whispered.
“Ben, what’s this about?” I said. “You hear this dirtbag’s lies? He’s trying to say you’re selling drugs on the rez. I know he’s full of shit, so let’s—”
“Yes, he is a dirtbag. I’ve built a successful business, and this jackass and his Denver buddies are trying to take it away. I was hoping you’d finish him off, but it looks like you’re not the tough guy everyone thinks you are. I suppose it’s up to me.”
He leaned over to Rick, put the gun on the center of his forehead and pulled the trigger, the sound like a bomb in the enclosed space. Rick fell back, most of his head gone.
28
Why’d you do that?” I yelled at Ben.
He stepped back, pointing the gun at me again. “He knew too much. I was hoping your nephew’s testimony could put them away, but he didn’t get the chance once someone told them Nathan was working with the cops. Too bad.” He motioned with the pistol. “The Mexicans have a code, you know. A crude type of justice. Anyone who cooperates with the police gets killed. But never a quick death. They make an example of snitches, usually hanging or burning them after cutting off some body parts.”
I jumped up. “Let’s go! I’ll take those fuckers out!”
“Sit down, Virgil.” He moved toward me, just feet away, the gun glinting in the dim kerosene light. “Now.”
I sat down again next to Rick’s corpse, the smell of shit and death beginning to fill the room. “Ben, you want those guys gone, I’ll do it. Just let me save Nathan. But I need to get out there now.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Both you and Nathan have outlived your usefulness. You and Rick were killed by the heroin cartel, sad to say, then those savage gangbangers burned this building down. And the FBI will soon learn that our Mexican friends tortured and murdered a teenager. The feds will really go nuts when that news breaks. And I can go back to my business, without any foreign interference. Sorry about your nephew—he seemed like a nice kid.”
The thought of Nathan being tortured was enough to drive me insane. But I couldn’t think about that. I needed to get past Ben and out of this stinking building. If I kept him talking, he might let down his guard. My only move was to make a play for his gun if and when he got distracted.
“One thing I don’t understand,” I said, eyeing the gun. “Why’d you tell the gang Nathan was an informant? Why not go through with the buy and let the feds arrest them? Then they’re gone, and you’re in the clear.”