The killer studied Mark and the other children, noting the hierarchy of playmates, the playground distribution of power. The boys and girls played together until they were seven years old, then separated by gender after that. The kids under five years old were treated with a general respect by the older children, but were definitely subject to the whims of their elders. Fat kids were ridiculed and left to play in their own groups. The one black child, a girl, played quietly with two white girls. Most of the kids were clumsy and weak and posed no threat to the killer, but there were two white boys with physical coordination beyond their years, and they fought for leadership of the playground. One of the boys, fairly short for his age, but stout and confident, was a conservative. When he was in charge, the group played games they’d played a thousand times before. Frozen Tag, King of the Hill, Double Dare. The other boy, Mark, the blond in the Seahawks jacket, was tall, thin, and fearless, a revolutionary. As the killer watched, Mark invented a game. During that game, all the kids piled onto the merry-go-round, then Mark and two or three of his favorites spun them around and around, as fast as possible. As the kids became sick or scared, they screamed for it to stop, but Mark ignored them as he continued to spin them. The only way to quit the game was to jump from the merry-go-round. Kids rapidly collected skinned knees and bruised faces as they worked up the courage and leapt into the dirt. When one last child was left on the merry-go-round, that one child most afraid to jump, Mark proclaimed that last child the winner. The kids played it again and again. Watching that game, the killer knew that Mark would grow into a powerful man.
So the killer waited until Mark Jones and Sarah, his young white nanny, walked out of the park. Holding the knife close, the killer trailed Mark and the nanny through a quiet neighborhood, past a 7-Eleven, a Safeway supermarket, Talkies Video, and dozens of anonymous apartment buildings to a two-story house partially hidden behind large trees. Silently singing an invisibility song, the killer ascended into one of the larger trees and looked into the kitchen and living room. Through the large windows, the killer watched the nanny feed Mark a bowl of tomato soup, a sandwich, and most of a bag of corn chips. Then the nanny and Mark settled down on the couch to watch television.
A little after six, Mark’s mother, Erin Jones, a bank manager, pulled into the driveway. There was no sign of the father. The mother stepped into the house, received a warm greeting from the nanny and a brief nod of interest from Mark, and then walked into the kitchen to prepare her dinner. As she was cooking, the nanny gathered up her things and left the house without a word. She stood beneath the killer’s tree and lit a cigarette. The exhaled smoke drifted up and past the killer, who could smell the boy’s scent also wafting up from the nanny’s clothes. The killer understood what needed to be done.
After dinner, Mark’s mother got him ready for bed. Dressed in his favorite pajamas, the ones covered with the blind superhero Daredevil, Mark washed his face and brushed his teeth. His mother read him two stories before she turned out the light and left him alone in his bedroom. The killer saw the mother mix herself a drink and watch a movie. She was tall and skinny, with pinched features and very short, blond hair. A pretty woman, the killer thought, but obviously lonely. After the late news, the mother stripped naked and crawled into bed without washing her face or brushing her teeth. She read a magazine for a few minutes, then turned off the lamp, and quickly fell asleep.
The killer waited in that tree until midnight. The knife felt heavy and hot. With surprising grace, the killer stepped from the tree, walked up to the front door, and slipped the knife between the lock and jamb. The killer was soon standing inside a dark and quiet house, tastefully decorated in natural wood and pastel colors, with stylish prints hanging on the walls. With confidence, the killer explored the living room, bathroom, and study downstairs. Then the killer walked upstairs and into the master bedroom, where the mother slept alone. She had thrown off her covers, and the killer studied her naked body, pale white in the moonlight streaming in from the window. Small breasts, three dark moles just above the light brown pubic hair. She was almost too skinny, prominent ribcage, hipbones rising up sharply. The killer knelt down beside the bed as if to pray. Then the killer did pray.
Later, after that prayer was over, the killer walked down the hallway into the boy’s room. Mark was curled up in a fetal position. An active dreamer, he was mumbling something the killer could not understand. The killer recognized the superhero on Mark’s pajamas. Daredevil, the blind superhero, who used his other highly developed senses to fight crime. The killer’s eyes closed. The killer wondered if the boy could be found by using other senses. The boy’s smell, toothpaste, sleepy sweat, socks. By touch, warm and sticky skin. With eyes now open, the killer leaned over close to the boy and softly licked his face. Salt, something bitter, a slight sweetness. The boy stirred, opened his eyes, and stared at the killer’s face, which shimmered and changed like a pond after a rock had been tossed into it. The killer set two owl feathers on the pillow beside Mark Jones’s head and then gently lifted the boy from the bed.
2. Hunting Weather
1. The Aristotle Little Hawk Fan Club
JACK WILSON GREW UP white and orphaned in Seattle. Dreaming of being Indian, he’d read every book he could find about the First Americans and had been delighted to learn that they raised their children communally. An Indian child moved freely between tepees, between families. A child could be loved and disciplined by any adult in the tribe. During the long, cold nights, every campfire was a welcome sight for a lonely child. Wilson loved the idea, and tried to find some tribal connection with his eleven foster families, but could only advance a little beyond uncomfortable formality with one household before he was forced to pack up his meager belongings and move to another. Lying in strange beds, Wilson read about Indians and recreated himself in the image he found inside those books. He saw himself as a solitary warrior on horseback, crossing miles of empty plains, in search of his family.
Wilson’s mother had died of cancer when he was a baby, and his father had died in a car wreck when he was ten, but something in Wilson refused to believe in their deaths. He always expected a phone call from her, to see him come bursting through the front door with unexpected news. But it was a lie. Wilson knew about liars. And what the TV and movies said about Indians were lies. That they were evil. That they raped white women and ate white children. Indians were said to worship the devil. His teachers tried to tell him all these bad things about Indians, but Wilson had always fought them.
“So,” said his high school principal when Wilson was sent in to see him yet again. “What about Indians this time?”
“I’m part Shilshomish Indian,” Wilson said. “I looked it up. There was an old medicine man named Red Fox who lived in a shack on Bainbridge Island. Back in the 1920s or something. His Indian name was Red Fox, but his American name was Joe Wilson. My dad used to say that Joe Wilson was his great-uncle.”
“Well, now, that’s very interesting. How does it have anything to do with your visit to my office?”
“Mrs. Jorgenson said all the Indians were dead. I told her it wasn’t true. I said I was Indian. She said I was a liar, and I said she was the liar. Then she sent me here.”