Sheriff Blood was drifting over in his laconic way, not looking at either Banish or Fagin but crossing directly toward them regardless.
“Sort of a happening going on down below,” Blood said to Banish when he reached them. “Something I thought I’d make you aware of if you don’t already know.”
“What?” Banish said.
“Kind of an event in these parts. The state troopers got called away on special detail.”
Banish looked at him. “What detail could take precedence over this?”
“Well,” Blood said. Banish could see then that the Indian was, strangely, embarrassed. “Over in Little Elk tonight.” He nodded then and came right out with it: “There’s to be a miracle, they say.”
Banish could feel Fagin turning and jumped in ahead of him. “What kind of miracle?” he said.
Blood nodded. “The religious kind.”
Fagin said, “Here we go.”
Blood said, “Jesus Christ, or Yashua if you prefer, is set to reveal Himself over at a church in Little Elk around midnight tonight. They’re expecting upward of twenty thousand. Word gets out on a thing like this, people come in from all parts. The troopers needed to keep the highways moving.”
Banish regarded the Indian. “Twenty thousand people,” he said.
Blood nodded. “Upward of.”
Banish was silent a moment. Fagin studied the both of them. “There’s this thing,” Fagin said, “on the planet where I’m from, called television. It’s what most people do at night. Keeps them pretty fucking quiet, usually.”
Banish said to Blood, “You’re telling me that all those people down there, the entire protest, has evaporated. Just like that.”
“It’s down to about thirty.” Blood nodded. “Markers, more or less, for the hundreds they represent. Quiet down there now, kind of peaceful.”
Fagin looked at both of them. “This is fucking retarded,” he said. He strode off.
Blood turned more fully toward Banish then. “How did you know about those unattended deaths?”
Banish looked at him.
“That first day,” said Blood. “You figured that most of them were Indians.”
Banish watched the sheriff’s eyes. “Indians are the only minority up here.”
“What does that imply?”
“That you believe the deaths are related.”
Blood stood fast, looking at Banish, his eyes brighter. “Four of those six were hit-and-runs,” he said.
“Which Police Chief Moody dismisses as drunken Indians. Which is why you called the FBI in here so fast. You think you might need some help.”
Banish could see Blood bracing there before him.
“The newspapers are right,” Blood said. “You are dangerous.”
There was something here. Something in the Indian’s face. Banish discovered the cup of coffee in his hand and tossed it into a nearby barrel. “I’ve got a couple of minutes while I change,” he said. “Why don’t you give me the particulars.”
Blood nodded and walked with him across the clearing.
Trailer
Blood went and stood by the bed. Banish closed the trailer door and moved to his suitcase, set on top of the table. Blood looked across to where the mirror had hung and saw only a rectangle of wall darker than the rest.
Blood had been buying time on the stroll over, secretly having trouble figuring out where to begin. This was important.
“The first two happened before I took office,” he began. “A sixty-eight-year-old Indian found on a county road after attending a powwow down in Crater, and then a floater washed up on Shoot River. He was a sixteen-year-old who had been missing for a few months, and was pretty badly decomposed, not much left.”
Banish had his back to him, rummaging through clothes. He said, “What’s the river like?”
“Wide and rough. Can be treacherous, depending on the season. Runs right through Huddleston. There have been some drownings in the past.”
Banish pulled out a pair of pants with the belt already looped. “Just tell me about the deaths you have the most information on.”
“Right,” Blood said, nodding. He had to present this clearly. “That’d be the last two. This was after my ears had perked up, and other people’s too. They — Indians around here — by then were talking amongst themselves. Speculation about a serial killer of Indians.”
“Hogwash,” Banish said, pulling out a shirt.
Blood nodded, “That is hooey. I told them that’s not how a killer like that works, but they’re just scared. The second-to-last was a twenty-two-year-old male, last name of Kowes, late-generation Shoshoni. Missing for eight days, found floating in shallow water — also in Shoot River. Last seen at a party down near Huddleston Center. Left there late and was headed home when he snagged a tire on a railroad tie while crossing the tracks out by Potter’s potato farm. That amounts to what we know for sure. From there, the official speculation is that, afraid of being caught DWI, he abandoned his car on the edge of the tracks and hiked a mile up to the river. The boy was in good shape, an athlete, and may have thought he could swim the Shoot and walk home from there. It would have amounted to a shortcut.”
“Blood-alcohol?”
“Point-one-seven. The boy did have a good shine on.”
“But people who knew him say he was too smart to try and swim the river,” Banish said, “drunk or not.”
Blood nodded. “His parents think he was forced in.”
Banish pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it onto the bed, where it flopped open, then stepped into the bathroom, fresh clothes in hand. “I’m listening,” he said, turning the corner.
Blood cleared his throat, not used to talking so much at a time. He wanted to be sure to leave nothing out.
“More is known about the last one. A seventeen-year-old male, name of Darkin. Last seen at one of the local hangouts in Huddleston. Called the Bunker, a small cinder-block place set back from the road. Used to have a few swastikas decorating the back of it, been painted over since.”
“The bar Ables was pinched at,” Banish said from the bathroom. The door was open. “What the hell would an Indian be doing in a place like that?”
Blood looked at the brown leather wallet on the bed. It was worn, its faint gold stitching pulled. He could see, poking out of one of the deeper pockets, the top border of a photograph. Blood took a step closer to the bed, keeping an eye on the door.
“That is unknown,” he said. “Maybe to meet some others, there being strength in numbers. Maybe to meet a girl. Anyway, he arrived alone by taxi after midnight, stayed less than an hour. Two men at the door say they saw him leave around one, one-thirty, again alone. It’s a farm road there, tarred but unlit, a fairly main drag south of town. A motorist came across the body more than a half mile away from the Bunker. That was some time shortly after two.”
Banish’s voice said, “What did the doormen look like?”
“Shaved bald, suspenders, black boots.”
Banish said, “These are the people who place this Indian’s time of departure. These are the last people to see him alive.”
“We have no independent corroboration. We’re still trying to track down some of the patrons of the bar.”
Banish said, “Go ahead.”
Blood checked the bathroom door again. “First of all,” he said, reaching across the bed for the wallet, “why would this boy want to walk home four miles at that time of night?” Blood slid the photograph most of the way out. “It was the middle of February and twelve degrees. He told the cab driver who dropped him that he would be calling later for a ride home. He never did.” Blood lingered a moment on the wallet-sized portrait. It showed a trimmer Banish, his face thinner and ten years younger, wearing a dark suit and wide tie and standing with his hand on a chair where his wife sat, her brown hair long and flat, skirt and stockings conservative — and standing at her shoulder, smiling for all she was worth, their daughter, a dark-haired girl of no more than ten or twelve. “Nine dollars in his back pocket,” Blood said, quickly sliding the photograph back inside its pocket and setting the wallet open again on the bed, “more than enough for taxi fare. Coroner filed official cause of death as blunt head trauma of unknown cause, but I asked him to take a closer look at that, it seeming a little too speculative to me, and he came back with a fractured skull and other injuries jibing with hit-and-run.”