Crown of Serpents (13 page)

Jake smirked. He too had heard the same opposition from certain members of his clan upon his announcement of joining Army ROTC. One old crabby clan mother — Miss Lizzie Spiritwalker — told him never to come back. But his Uncle Joe had stood in support. Jake shook off the bitter memory and read the last sentence of the marker.

Never fully appreciating it until recently, that sentence simply stated that Ely Parker was a Freemason. Jake nodded. He had read and absorbed much over the years on the subject. Freemasonry was an incredibly influential organization that had roots as far back as the Middle Ages. As the most ancient esoteric fraternity in the world, its stated goal was to make good men better in their morals, character, and pursuit of knowledge. It had even shaped the founding of the United States in its beliefs of equality, tolerance of religion, and separation of church and state. All men in the fraternity were considered brothers despite their religious or political beliefs. But brotherly love, especially in times of war, was another matter, Jake thought as he gripped the steering wheel. Just look at the outcome of the Boyd, Butler, and Brant affair. They were all Masons.

Punching the gas pedal, he sped up Hopkins Road into the heart of the reservation. Motoring past several modest homes and harvested farmer’s fields split by copses of woods, he had a satisfied feeling that the reservation still maintained a semblance of its rural flavor.

The feeling didn’t last long. Up past the railroad tracks he noticed a definite change for the worse. It started with the cigarette and gasoline signs along the road, each hawking low prices up ahead. Then came the first of the many makeshift gas and smoke shops — no more than trailer homes turned into mini-flea markets. They had spread like weeds since his last visit a couple of years back. Some had gas pumps installed right in their front yards while others tried to win over customers with a bit more cleanliness by actually paving their driveways. Their customers, mostly non-Indian locals from the neighboring American towns, didn’t care one way or the other. They were lined up bumper-to-bumper like crack heads seeking their weekly fix. All they were interested in was cheap tax-free gas and cigarettes — anything to beat the soaring prices in the state.

Jake’s uncle, Joe Big Bear Tununda, his mother’s brother, also had an enterprising gas and tobacco business like these, but his was much more polished and professional. It had been the very top moneymaker on the reservation for many years and Joe was always generous in spreading the wealth to his clan.

Uncle Joe had taken on a more important role early in Jake’s life though. Joe became his surrogate father after both of his parents died in a fiery car crash. Drunk driving was the cause. They had just won the jackpot at a Batavia bingo hall and the drinking and driving celebration afterward had cost them their lives. As tribal custom dictated, the mother’s brother would be left the children. Joe gladly accepted. He welcomed his young nephew into an already large family and raised him as his own.

Near Bloomingdale Road, Jake pulled into the busy parking lot of a two-story wood frame building that housed Joe’s gas station, smoke shop, and grocery store on the first level. A five room family residence was on the second — Jake’s home as a youth. The complex was called Big Bear Gas, Grocery & Smokes. It was a mainstay of the reservation where everyone would come from miles around to fill up their tanks, buy cartons of tobacco products or to just catch up on the local gossip and politics. Jake parked and took a few minutes to reminisce as the people shuffled in and out of the main entrance.

He knew early on in life that working in a business like this was one of the few options he had if he stayed on the reservation. But he could never picture himself making ten dollars an hour, becoming old and overweight and one of those miserable people who said,
I wish I had done things differently.

He instead yearned for adventure greater than the
rez
could offer. When he was old enough to read and learned of Ely Parker’s significance as an Army officer from the birthplace marker, Jake started asking questions of the clan elders of other warriors of the tribe. He soon found out his own Seneca Indian roots derived from some of the most courageous war captains in all of the Iroquois Confederacy. His clan members had also fought for America in her Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. And through a genealogy search of his deceased father’s British roots he traced his American ancestry as far back as the War of 1812. His inner fire had been stoked. Through his self-investigative historical research young Robert Jake Tununda decided to join the path of the warrior. He wanted to prove to himself on the battlefield that he too could live up to his glorious past and in the process become a man.

When his uncle discovered his true intentions, he gave Jake just one recommendation. He urged Jake not to go in the Army as a private — the low-level grunt at the bottom of the ladder most often used as cannon fodder. Instead, Joe pressured him to develop his leadership skills first, earn a college degree, study history, sociology, and geopolitics, and enter the service as an educated officer who would be in on the decision-making process during conflicts — one who could influence the outcomes of the battlefield and the men he would be responsible for. Jake ran with his uncle’s recommendation. It proved a wise decision. He landed a Native American scholarship and attended Cornell University, just a three-hour drive from the reservation.

Donning his black beret head cover and checking his uniform coat, he jumped out of his SUV and walked into the crowded smoke shop. Next to a young lanky Indian clerk, there, behind the counter, as always, was his beloved Uncle Joe. A large smile appeared on his uncle’s wide, double-chinned face.

“Jake, how are ya, son?” he said. “Billy, my new clerk here, said you called. Couldn’t believe it.” Flipping his black braided ponytail over his shoulder he rose up to greet his nephew, his hefty midsection pressing tightly against a food stained white t-shirt.

Jake smiled warmly, taking off his beret and walking behind the counter to give him a bear hug. “It’s good to see you Big Bear.”

“Come on, let’s go in the back room, get out of this riff-raff,” offered Joe, leading to a quiet lounge behind some curtains. “Sit down. Relax,” he continued. “Looks like you picked up some more medals since last time you stopped in. It’s been quite a while. You really should come home more often. We all miss you here.”

“It’s been tough,” said Jake, plopping down on a well-worn sofa. “I’ve been on non-stop tours of duty. They had me in all sorts of task forces and intel ops. Didn’t get much R and R. Rest and Romance.”

“Hey, I got your last e-mail about your new job announcement. Congratulations,” said Joe with a grin. “I don’t think you’ll be getting injured anymore now that you’re a big historian.” He walked over to the lounge’s refrigerator.

“Other than a paper cut here and there,” replied Jake with a laugh. “I tell you what, twenty years of infantry was pure adventure but I was fried. We did one hell of a job in rebuilding countries, saving lives, and spreading democracy — good stuff I’m proud of. But a lot of sacrifice and a lot of screw-ups came with it, on top of the corruption — mostly from our own Congress. The politics were the worst part of it. Lost too many men because of political appeasement.”

“I hear you,” sympathized Joe, leaning on the open refrigerator door.

“I needed a new direction. Working for MHI will be a whole new adrenaline kick. Ah shit, listen, enough about me. How’s life treating you out here? Looks like you’ve got some competition knocking on the door.”

“Same old crap, different day as they say,” replied Joe, turning around. “Those start-ups come and go. Can’t maintain themselves. They spend all their profits on booze and gambling up at the Indian casinos in Niagara Falls. They never learn. Hey, can I get ya a pop or something? Or a Snapple, I know you like that.”

Jake nodded. “Snapple.”

“I tell ya Jake, the damn tribal politics are becoming cut throat out here.” Joe rattled some glass bottles inside the fridge.

“Oh yeah?”

“We’ve got us traditionalists hotly debating the Neo-Iroquois, I call them, on whether we should get into the gambling racket like all the other nations.” Joe grabbed two iced-tea drinks. “But I’ll fight it all the way. Gambling is against the Handsome Lake Code of our religion.” He walked back to his nephew and twisted the caps off, handing his nephew his drink.

“No booze, no gambling, no bad music,” Jake mentioned. “I know the code. Well, at least I don’t gamble, right?”

Joe smiled and gave him a
cheers
to seeing him again. They clicked bottles and swigged down half.

Jake smacked his lips. “Ahhh, that hits the spot. I loved it when you sent me this stuff in Iraq.”

Joe plopped down onto the couch beside his nephew, the cushions hissing under his weight. “So, what brings you up this way?”

“Well, got a real nutsy story to tell you. Was wondering if you could help me out.”

Jake went on to explain about how he was traveling through Seneca County earlier in the day when some crazy stuff started happening. Joe mentioned there had always been strange going-ons in that area. But when Jake retold the story of the trapped hunter, the shaft, the discovered Indian grave in the marsh, and the silver broach with the odd symbolism, his uncle sat in a stupor.

Setting his drink on a table, Joe looked at his nephew. “What’s this symbol look like?”

“Well, I’ve got a picture of it — a photograph that the investigator let me take. It’s on my laptop in the truck but I can draw it for you. It’s pretty simple.”

Grabbing a napkin and a pen, and with his uncle peering over his shoulder, Jake drew the outline of a buck. He then scribbled the snake inside.

Joe grabbed the napkin and tore it up in tiny pieces. He cautiously glanced around the room as if someone were watching.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked. “You see a ghost?”

“Almost. That symbol is ancient. It’s a forbidden secret.”

“But Joe—”

“No, just trust me. It has significance with that hole and that gravesite. Oh Great Spirit, I wish that hunter never found it.” Joe took a deep breath and then grabbed a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

Jake watched him fumble to light a cigarette. He had never seen his uncle act this way. “That’s not the only one I found today.”

“What!” muttered Joe, butt hanging out his mouth.

“That same symbol appeared in an American Revolutionary War officer’s journal up at Old Fort Niagara. They just discovered it after being buried in a box this whole time. This officer was in the same area near Seneca Lake when he found one of those same broaches, back in 1779, during the Sullivan campaign.”

Joe turned to his nephew and quickly inhaled the cigarette smoke. He spoke, letting the blue-gray smoke swirl out of his mouth and nostrils. “This cannot be happening. I cannot believe this is happening. Go on Jake. Tell me everything you know.”

For the next twenty minutes Jake told him of the Boyd Box discovery while Joe chain-smoked half the cigarette pack. But when he mentioned in the end that Alex Nero bought the box outright, Joe, who had just taken a sip of his drink, gasped and dropped the container on the tiled floor, shattering the glass.

Joe ignored the mess, stood up, grabbed a land line phone. He dialed. “It’s Joe. I’m coming over right now. My nephew Jake has a white deer story for you.” He paused then nodded “Yes, Robert Jake, the army officer.” He then hung up.

Jake was cleaning up his uncle’s mess and looked up. “What does Nero have to do with any of this? And who the heck did you just call?”

“Soon you’ll know everything. Come on. We’re going to Miss Lizzie Spiritwalker’s house. Remember her?”

“Oh, how could I forget her? She’s that batty old ball-buster that gave me so much shit twenty years ago when she found out I was joining the Army.” Jake stood up and threw away the glass shards. “I’m surprised she’s still alive.”

“Yep, and sharper than ever. She’s the eldest clan mother we have now, the nation answers to her as the matriarchal head. She’s also the best source of Iroquois history in our entire Confederacy — the most respected Faithkeeper there is. Just be patient with her and your puzzle pieces will fit together.”

Ten minutes later. Tonawanda Reservation.

Jake followed his uncle’s maroon Ford F-150 pick up truck up a little-used dirt road that led them to a remote section of Tonawanda Creek. The road was narrow and full of deep ruts making it hard to drive in the darkness. They finally emerged at a run-down old Victorian style house partially hidden in the woods. Jake parked, grabbed his laptop and a New York State topo map book. He jumped out but stopped and stared at the front porch.

Dim lighting filtered out from open windows, drapes fluttered in the cool night breeze. Several bamboo wind chimes knocked together in a rhythmic mellow tune while the trees rustled with a groan. Jake remembered this place giving him the creeps as a kid. Some things never change.

With a rap on the front door and an announcement, they entered to find Miss Elizabeth Spiritwalker Canohocton or Miss Lizzie as Joe called her, sitting in a rocking chair in the center of the living room. A heavy blanket was thrown across her lap. A pet Chihuahua was tucked inside, fast asleep.

Lizzie smiled a toothless, wrinkled grin at Joe, her light brown eyes gleaming in the warm light cast from a single table lamp. Long, straight white hair hung from her tiny head. Soft flute music and a steady drumming played from a portable CD tune box in a corner. Jake studied her. The term
walking dead
came to mind.

“Ah, young Robert Jake Tununda,” her high-pitched voice wheezed. “My what a handsome man you turned out to be. I’ve heard much on your exploits out there in the white man’s world. Come closer. Don’t be shy. I won’t cast any spells on you.” She extended her hand in greeting and coughed. “Not yet at least.”

Jake shook her skeletal-like hand. “Miss Lizzie, it’s a pleasure to see you again. It’s been a long time.”