Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (6 page)

Heather spread out her sleeping bag but made no move
to get into it.

"What are you waiting for?"

"I need to go to the bathroom."

"Bathroom!" he snorted. "There's a privy outside, if it
hasn't fallen down."

"Where?"

"Up the hill. I'll show you."

She limped after him back to the main room.

"Did you twist your ankle?" he asked.

"Thanks for finally noticing. The heel broke off my
boot."

"Huh!" He started to laugh, and then seemed to change
his mind.

The back door was to the right of the fireplace. Don pulled
the bolt. "Straight up the path."

Through the darkness Heather could see a shed. That
must be it. She scrambled up the path on hands and knees.
When she reached the privy and pulled on the latch, the door
fell off, knocking her backwards.

She pushed the door aside and hauled herself to her feet.

No time to be squeamish. Heather pulled down her jeans
and panties and lowered her bottom over the hole in the board
seat. Gasping at the blast of frigid air, she imagined monsters
with icy fingers reaching up from the dark lagoon.

When she returned, Don was sitting on the side of the
bed, smoking.

"How do you like our privy?"

"The door fell off and knocked me over."

"Is that right? When I was a kid, I thought the privy was
haunted. I never went there at night."

"First time I ever heard of a haunted privy."

"Family secret. When my grandfather dug the pit, he uncovered a skull and a bunch of bones. Old Indian grave. There
were arrowheads and shell beads and a clay pipe."

She shuddered. "Under the privy?"

"It wasn't a privy then."

"All the same, he should have put it someplace else."

"Anywhere on that hillside would have been the same."
He tossed his cigarette on the floor and ground it out.

Heather kicked off her boots, crawled into the sleeping
bag, and pulled up the zipper. She didn't stop shivering until
her body heat had finally warmed the narrow space. That was
when the smell took over. Mouse dirt and mold. Her throat
tickled and her breath wheezed.

Don went outside, but not for long enough to go up to the
privy. When he returned, he pinched out the candle and lay
down.

The mattress sagged. Heather had to hold on to the edge
to keep from rolling into the hollow in the middle. Sometime
during the night, gravity won. Her grip on the mattress loosened, and she woke up to feel Don's body against hers. Then
she went to sleep again.

The mattress creaked. Heather half opened her eyes. It was
morning. Don was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a
cigarette.

"Are you awake?"

"Uh-huh."

"Look out the window."

Rising on one elbow, she peered through the dirty glass.

Snow filled the air with feathery clumps. It would already
be over the tops of her pant boots, and it was still falling.

"Do you know how to light a Coleman?" Don asked.

"A what?"

"Jeez! Don't you know anything? It's a stove. It's for
cooking."

"You mean there's food?"

"Look in the kitchen."

"Where's the kitchen?"

"In a three-room cottage, you should be able to find it."

She unzipped her sleeping bag and crawled past him.
Christ, it was cold! With the sleeping bag draped over her
shoulders, she tottered into the main room. The gym bag was
no longer there.

Daylight brought to life the pictures hanging on the board
walls. Some were the usual Canadiana: water, rocks, and
trees. Others were blown-up snapshots of people having fun.
A laughing girl in a canoe. A raccoon accepting food from
a woman's outstretched hand. A boy holding up a string of
fish. She took a second to observe the boy. A skinny kid with
narrow shoulders and fair hair. He might have been Don at
twelve or thirteen.

He came up behind her as she studied the picture.

"Is that you?" she asked.

"My kid brother."

"I never heard you mention him."

"He's dead."

"Oh. Sorry."

The kitchen was a narrow room with a door at the far end
and a window that overlooked the lake. On the counter was a
chipped enamel sink with a rusty hand pump mounted beside
it. Also on the counter stood a metal object that looked like a
hotplate crossed with a barbecue.

"That's the Coleman," Don said. He fiddled with a knob
and flicked his lighter. A ring of blue flames spurted.

"Cool. But what's there to cook?"

He pointed to a row of large, dusty jars labeled with masking tape, all empty except for Sugar, Rice, Flour, and Macaroni.

"That's it." He picked up a pail. "I'm going outside to get
snow we can melt for water."

"Doesn't the pump work?"

"Jeez, at ten below?"

Heather boiled rice for breakfast. Don smoked right
through the meal. After eating, he brought in logs from the
woodpile outside the back door and lit a fire in the big stone
hearth. Heather stretched out her hands to the warmth.

"Enjoy it while you can," he said. "When the snow stops,
I'll have to put out the fire. Smoke from the chimney is a dead
giveaway somebody's here." He dragged a chair to the hearth
and settled himself.

Heather looked at her surroundings. The dark blue seat
cushions were stained. Dirty white stuffing bulged from their
burst seams. Dust covered everything.

"Doesn't anybody ever come here?" she asked.

"A guy from the village checks every so often."

"I mean come for a vacation."

"Not anymore."

"Why not?"

"There was an accident." He paused, shook his head.
"Sooner or later the place will be sold. My dad and uncle are
suing each other over the estate. Both their lawyers told them
to stay away." His lank hair fell across his eyes, and he pushed
it back irritably. He hated questions, but if she didn't ask, how
would she find out anything?

"What are you going to do about the car?"

"Nothing, right now."

"You can't just leave it there. It's covered with DNA."

"I'll figure out something."

She suspected that Don hadn't a clue what to do next.
They were both in a bad spot. But Don's was worse. What would he face if he got caught? Life? Twenty-five years? That
was his problem. She wasn't the one who had killed the Paki.
Her smart idea was to turn herself in.

All this trouble to steal a few lousy bucks from the till of
a corner store. Why had she let him talk her into it? Why was
she such a fool?

Heather sat in front of the fire on a love seat with dirty cushions and stared at the flames. Don was dozing in his chair with
his skinny legs stretched toward the fire.

This might be a good time to do something about her
boots. She pulled the broken heel from her pocket. To make
the two heels match, all she needed was a knife. This would
be simple. She stood up, wincing when her feet met the cold
floor, and carried her boots into the kitchen.

Don sighed, shifted in his chair.

In the drawer that held the cutlery, she found a knife with
a saw-toothed blade. That should do. Holding the unbroken
boot firmly against the countertop, she started to saw. The
knife squeaked as it chewed.

Don must have heard. He bounded across the floor.

"What are you doing?" His fingers squeezed her wrist so
tightly she dropped the knife.

"Fixing my boots."

"Leave them."

"I want to walk like a normal person."

"You aren't going anywhere." Wrenching one arm behind
her back, he propelled her to the love seat and dumped her
onto it. "If you're thinking of running away, forget it." He
stalked back to the kitchen, picked up her boots, strode across
the room, and hurled them into the fire.

"No!" she yelled. Jumping up, she made a dash for the fire place tongs. Before she could fork her boots from the fire, Don
grabbed her shoulders. He held her fast while tongues of blue
and green flames licked the leather of her boots. The soles
peeled away from the vamps, and the heels sweated beads of
glue. He didn't let her go until two charred lumps were all that
remained.

Morning sunshine sparkled on the lake. Around the cottage,
evergreen boughs bent under their burden of snow. Don put
out the fire.

"We're going to freeze," Heather whimpered.

"The fireplace will hold heat for a couple of days."

"And then we'll freeze." The food wouldn't last more than
a few days anyway. Freeze or starve. What difference did it
make?

She padded across the cold floor to the windows. Now
that the air was clear, she could see the village at the end of
the lake, smoke rising from snow-covered roofs. There was
a tiny island in the middle of the lake. The only tree on the
island was a dead pine. A rough platform of sticks balanced on
the top, capped with snow.

"What's that thing on the dead tree?"

"Osprey nest."

"You're kidding."

"Why should I be kidding? This is Osprey Lake. Ospreys
live here."

"It doesn't look like they live here now."

"They fly south for the winter."

"They're not so dumb. At least they're smarter than the
people in those houses, stuck up here in the snow. What do
they do all winter long?"

"They tend their trap lines. Except for Rosemary Bear Paw. She's a bootlegger. When we were kids, she supplied its
with smokes and liquor. She never asked questions. Never
told secrets. Her house was painted blue."

"Why blue?"

"So people would know which house was hers. There are
no street addresses up here, you know."

This was interesting. Rosemary Bear Paw must own a
snowmobile. What would she charge for a lift to ... where?
Huntsville? Anywhere with a bus station. Heather had ninety
dollars in her wallet. Would that be enough?

But first she would have to walk to the village-one mile
across the frozen lake.

There was a junk room on the far side of the kitchen door.
Heather had looked in several times, but never entered. Maybe
the next time Don dozed off, she could search there for something to wear on her feet. She might even find the gym bag.
Don must have hidden it somewhere.

She would like to know how much money was in that bag.
She was entitled to half, wasn't she? She had driven the car.

"Tell me about your brother," she said as they sat at the wooden
table eating their supper of boiled rice. "The boy in the photograph."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just wondered. Was he a lot younger than you?"

"Five years younger. He was twelve when he died.

"You told me there was an accident. Was that it?"

"Yeah. Charlie drowned." Don set down his spoon.

"Poor kid."

"He bugged me to bring him up here fishing. I used to
come up with some other guys. We didn't want Charlie along,
but Dad said we had to take him. We paddled over to the vil lage and bought a couple of forty-ouncers from Rosemary Bear
Paw. Charlie never had a drink before. The guys thought he
went outside to throw up. Drowned in six inches of water right
by the shore." Don banged his fist on the table. "It wash t my
fault. What kind of parents would throw out a seventeen-yearold kid because of an accident? When I phoned my grandfather,
he hung up on me. It's their fault I ended up on the street."

"You weren't exactly on the street when I met you," she
said. "You had a job pumping gas. As I remember, you had big
plans."

"I was waiting for a break."

It had been a warm July day when Don first came into the
drugstore where Heather worked. He had bought toothpaste.
She remembered that because of his smile-the kind of smile
that sells toothpaste on TV. Their fingers brushed when she
handed him his change.

Next day he was back buying condoms. When she saw
what they were, blood rushed to her face and she couldn't
meet his eyes.

"When are you done working?" he had asked.

She didn't answer. But at 4 o'clock, the end of her shift,
her heart beat fast to see him leaning against a black Mustang
in the drugstore parking lot. He wore tight jeans and a dark
green shirt open at the neck.

"Can I give you a lift?"

"No thanks. I don't have far to walk."

He had smiled. "We can go for a drive." Something shivered in the air between them.

"All right." I shouldn't be doing this, she told herself as
she climbed into the car. From the beginning, she couldn't say
no to Don.

"Name's Don," he had said.

"I'm Heather."

"I know."

"How?"

"Your badge."

"Oh. Of course." She had felt her cheeks redden.

He drove fast, with the window open and one arm along
the back of the passenger seat. They had stopped for a hamburger at a crossroads restaurant, and then kept on going.
He'd parked his car down by a river just past a little town.
It was very quiet, almost as if the town were miles away, not
barely out of sight behind a hill.

He removed a green plaid blanket from the trunk. Heather,
pretending she didn't know what was coming, wished that she
were wearing sexy underwear instead of cotton briefs. As he
pulled her down onto the blanket, she remembered the condoms. Don was prepared. But he took a lot for granted, didn't
he?

With her next paycheck, Heather had purchased five pairs of
lace panties at La Senza. For the rest of the summer, she and
Don had made love a couple of times a week, either on the
plaid blanket or in the backseat-depending on the weather.
In November they rented an apartment together.

To help out with expenses, Heather stole things from the
drugstore: condoms, toothpaste, aftershave, deodorant. It was
easy.

While they were sharing a joint one afternoon, Don said,
"I've figured out a way to make some real money."

"How?"

"There's stuff with street value in that drugstore. Uppers. Downs. Dexedrine. Cold remedies. We can make crystal meth out of cold remedies right here in the kitchen." His eyes
locked on hers. "What about it?"