Warrior (Freelancer Book 2) (10 page)

Walksalone's smile disappeared and a deep sorrow filled his eyes. "Peter Talltrees was a good and brave warrior. They found him a few days ago. It obviously took a long time for them to kill him, but from the way they took their anger out on his body, he died in silence. I know that he declared you an honorable warrior worthy of carrying the Arrows. He broke our traditions, but he would never have done that if he hadn't felt you had a clear soul and an honest mind." He chuckled briefly. "That and Pete was a Pawnee, and they never get anything right."

He continued in a sober voice. "Now I need to ask you. Will you give me what you carry willingly and expecting nothing in return?"

Rick didn't know exactly why but he answered with the respect he'd been taught to give a senior officer. "Yes, sir, I will."

Rick unzipped his leather jacket and pulled the leather loop over his head. He had never actually looked at the pouch he carried. It was decorated with dots and loops in colored paints and sewn with rawhide strips whose varied hues indicated they were from different animals. It felt both very old and recently made, an impossible combination that seemed to make sense.

He sat on the motorcycle looking at it for a moment and then handed it to Walksalone. The older man took it carefully. He studied the pouch closely on both sides, held it to his chest with his eyes closed for a long moment, and then ritually raised it to the four directions, ending up holding it above Rick's head.

Again, he spoke in Cheyenne, and Rick listened to the graceful flow of the unknown words. It sounded like speaking and singing combined as if they had never been parted, and it went on for a long time.

Finally, Walksalone put the loop around his own neck, and the pouch disappeared under the red-checked shirt. "You have given our medicine back freely, but out of respect for the medicine we must pay a respectable ransom. The first Arrow was returned for a gift of 100 horses."

The man's smile returned. “How are you fixed for horses?

Rick laughed. "Man, all those horses in Washington? I'd have to graze them on the White House lawn."

"OK, how about a hot shower, a hot meal, and an inconspicuous lift back to your bus in Oglala?"

"That would be more than enough."

"Well, it will be a start." Walksalone called to Eve, and then turned back to Rick, putting his hand on his shoulder. "We still owe you. Someday you must ask us for a service, a serious one that is worthy of what you have returned to us. Remember, you must do this."

Rick nodded.

Walksalone laughed and clapped his hands. "All right. Let's get you two washed, fed, and on your way. You're going to have to excuse me, though. I have some serious business with the Tribal Council. We need to talk about coal leases and exactly where we're going to tell Excacoal they can shove them."

"Come here, granddaughter!" He gave Eve a hug and a kiss on the top of her head. "You and your 'whirlwind' have done well. Now, it is the old men's time to fight."

"OK, that was Kanawha, and here's Jocelyn." Rick was leaning far over the horizontal steering wheel of the VW bus and peering to the right trying to pick out the road signs in the gathering dusk. "Wait a minute. Jennifer? That's not fair. You can’t have two ‘J’s in a row."

In the passenger seat, Eve smiled. "You can't expect the city planners to be consistent all the time."

"Hey, this is Washington. A 'foolish consistency' is practically mandatory." Rick sat up and began to haul the bus into a right turn. Even after all the miles they'd put on it, it still felt heavy and unwieldy. "Ingomar. Do you know why it’s named 'Ingomar'?"

"You asked me the same thing about Tunlaw and I told you it was 'walnut' spelled backward," Eve said.

"That was half an explanation at best," Rick replied as he straightened out on the quiet residential street. "Why not just name it 'walnut' and shove it back about five streets, so it fits the alphabet? And what does Kanawha mean?"

"It's a river in West Virginia and it's undoubtedly named after the original inhabitants once they were safely killed or driven away." Eve began to pack away the cigarettes, snacks, and other detritus of a long road trip. "I will, however, admit that 'Ingomar' has me stumped. Some sort of Viking?"

"A Wagnerian dwarf was my first guess." Rick shook his head. "No, I had to look it up to solve the riddle. He was the hero of a play named, obviously, 'Ingomar.' Well, ‘Ingomar the Barbarian,' to be precise. It was apparently a monster hit before the Civil War, and cities and counties all across the country are named after him. And one street in Washington."

He smiled ruefully. "Only my roommates would send me a coded letter where I had to break the code first and then answer a series of riddles to find the address. I think it's on the 2100 block of Ingomar, but it could easily be on the other side of the city completely. Or in Nebraska, for that matter."

He slowed the bus and continued down what was now a single-lane street with cars parked on both sides, and houses perched on high banks at least a story above the street. It felt like a ravine. "But I think it's right along here."

It had been a long and, thankfully, boring journey from Montana. After a night’s sleep back at the cabin on Muddy Creek Road, they'd been stuffed into plywood boxes in back of a pickup truck with bales of hay on top of the boxes. They had air mattresses to cushion the bumps, but the two-day ride back to Oglala was dusty and claustrophobic.

They picked up the VW Camper from the Iron Crow family and took the old Lincoln Highway east. The first coast-to-coast paved road, it was slow and relaxed with old restaurants and tourist courts that seemed to have never left the 1930’s.

In Gettysburg, they'd stopped and walked through the battlefield. The numbers of dead and wounded there had struck Rick as incredible—50 thousand in just three days. He could see why there were so many monuments and memorials. The nation had lost a generation.

It was an educational experience for Eve as well. The cavalry companies and battalions that she knew from their part in the Indian wars were born in a very different conflict, learning their trade by killing each other. Although, as she pointed out, at least it was a fair fight, and damn few women and children were involved.

Standing on Little Round Top, even she was silenced as she considered the courage of the Confederate soldiers who assaulted such an unassailable position. There, they were met by the equal courage of the men from Maine who fought until their bullets ran out and then attacked with their bare hands.

All the way, they watched for strange men with peculiar scars dressed in just-bought clothes. It was easy to do since just about every car and truck would pass the VW as it struggled up hills, but no one slowed to stay behind them or waited at the next turnoff.

There was plenty of time to talk while driving and during the slow lazy evenings when they'd find a secluded spot, camp, cook dinner on a little hibachi, and watch the sun go down. They went back over every event, beginning with the "security arrest" in Wounded Knee and the coordinated fire on Indian and law enforcement positions the night of April 26, and how it had broken the AIM occupation.

There had been no police reports in the newspapers about bikers found injured on the Needles Highway or police seeking a couple on a motorcycle, but they did hear on a local radio station that there were services for a Vietnam Veteran, a pilot, who was found dead on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The reporter said that the police suspected it was suicide, just another case of chronic depression. Rick had not forgotten Pete Talltrees—the man had saved his life twice—and the image of his maimed body haunted his waking hours much as the battle of Ia Drang still occupied his nights. Promising Talltree's ghost that he would find his tormentors and exact revenge was the only remedy he found for his anger and grief.

Eve called home and learned that the Tribal Council had refused to honor any of the mining leases, even ones that had already been signed. She didn't mention the Sacred Arrows, but she did pass along her father's "appreciation" to Rick.

As the days passed, they'd stopped talking about anything serious, turning instead to pointing out the struggling roadside attractions they passed and to a great deal of comfortable silence.

Eve grabbed the panic bar, as he suddenly swung left into a driveway almost hidden between two cars. It ran about 20 feet and then made another left turn into a two-car garage under a brown and yellow house with wooden siding.

"You could shout a warning or ring a bell or something when you're going to do something crazy," she said as she bent to collect her things from the floor. "How do you know this is the right place?"

"'This is it.' That's what Joseph Smith said when he founded Salt Lake City. Like Smith, I was guided from above," Rick said as he opened the door and embraced a tall man in shorts, sandals, and a long, bushy beard. "Steve here was waving flashlights at me from the porch."

Steve grinned and waved a pair of orange cones. "Technically, they're Runway Marshaling Wands. I figured you might need a bit of guidance. We gave you the wrong house number just in case."

Eve jumped out of the car and came around for her own hug. "In case of what? Your letter being intercepted by some random bunch of geeky spies?"

"Well, yeah." Steve leaned back and looked at her. "I'm with the National Security Agency now. You know,
'We Read Your Mail So You Don't Have To
.' You two are pretty well off the radar but there's no point in taking chances."

"So, you've decided to sell out to The Man?"

"Damn right." Steve indicated his usual uniform of shorts, t-shirt, and sandals, "Just like I went corporate with GE. The advantage with NSA is that they have ALL the good toys and one or two programmers who can actually teach me something."

Rick had pulled open the side door of the camper and started handing out duffle bags and backpacks as Steve continued. "Anyway, every once in a while, we do something useful. A couple of Arabs were going to set off car bombs in Manhattan to welcome Golda Meir last month."

Rick asked, "Really? I didn't hear about it."

"And you won't." Steve laughed. "We 'accidentally' overheard them talking about it on an open phone and passed a quiet word to the FBI."

Rick pulled out the last bag. "Well then, I’ll agree that it’s not a complete waste of your time. I was afraid you were just hanging around listening in to homegrown radical types. You know, hotheads like the Vietnam Veterans against the War or the Democratic Party."

"Well, I'll have to admit that we listened in on most of what went on at Wounded Knee," Steve said. "Heard quite a bit about you and your little ride through the mountains. It was odd, most of the conversations were on a frequency that the standard radios issued by the FBI and U.S. Marshal can't receive."

Eve started up the back stairs with her bags. "Would have been nice if you'd given us a head's up."

"You didn't sound like you needed any help," Steve answered. "You'll be glad to know that the two thugs you pulled the motorcycles out from under are doing well and expected to recover in a couple of weeks."

Rick shook his head, "Only a 'couple of weeks'? I should have hit them harder. Did you pick up any crosstalk between the people who gave us a hand?"

Steve smiled. "Probably. Even the NSA has damn few people who can keep up with idiomatic Sioux at all, and none if they start talking fast. Whoever they were, they had good communications discipline, not a word in English. Well, except for once…"

Rick felt a chill. "What did you hear? Those people don't need any more trouble."

Steve said, "I don't think that 'Holy Shit, You weren't kidding about that crazy-ass white boy. He just came through here like a bat out of hell—had to be doing 140!' is going to interest anyone. Well, perhaps the Montana State Highway Patrol."

"They are extremely low on my enemies list." Rick closed the bus and walked to the rear to check if it was visible from the street.

Steve walked with him. "Don't worry about anyone spotting it. The bus is completely concealed from anyone driving or walking. Anyway, the bus won't look like this for long; we've got a new handheld paint-gun, and Scotty is dying to use it. I think he's planning fluorescent daisies or something."

Rick, laughing, grabbed a couple of bags, and threw them to Steve. "Yeah, like THAT won't be noticed around DC"

Steve caught the bags and headed for stairs hidden around the corner next to the garage doors. "Noticed, yes. Identified is a whole other question. Come on in. We've got a complete quorum of the 'Friends of Ingomar' tonight."

Eve called from the top of the stairs, "'Friends of Ingomar'? Do we get tshirts?"

"Naturally. Eps drew them up and had them screen-printed." Steve looked back and smiled. "Don't worry, we ordered a child size for you and an extra-gargantuan for your boyfriend."

"'Child size'?" Eve exclaimed. "I'm insulted. I am the perfect height. Tall enough to see over the judge's desk and small enough to go all wide-eyed and plead for judicial clemency when necessary."

When Rick entered the kitchen, he spotted his two other housemates sitting at a table made out of a wooden cable spool. Eps looked up from a small multi-colored cube that he was fooling with. "Hey, where you been?"

Scotty Shaw, the butt of countless "beam me up" jokes, was busy on their remote computer terminal, a boxy thing that took up a small suitcase and was usually referred to as the 'trans-luggable.' He had the kitchen wall phone cord stretched over his shoulder and the receiver jammed into a pair of black rubber cups. The green glow of the 5-inch display lighting his face from below made him look like a round, bespectacled Christopher Lee. He waved a hand without taking his eyes off the screen and continued typing.

Rick knew that, from this bunch, it was a welcome easily as warm as one of those screaming celebrations when a unit came back from 'Nam. "You guys haven't changed much," he said. "It's like I never left."

"You were gone?" Scotty didn't look up but a small smile crossed his face.

Eve dropped everything she was carrying and ran across the room to give Eps a warm hug. Turning to Scotty, she said, "OK, nerd boys. Get away from the computer and give a girl a welcome home hug. God knows it's not something that you get every day."

Scotty smiled and stood, gingerly wrapping his arms around her. "Or every year, for that matter."

Rick looked around the kitchen with its yellow walls and blue-painted cabinets. There were bamboo roller shades on all the windows for privacy, but he knew the evening sun would still light up this room with a warm glow. "OK, who is going to show us around?"

Scotty sat back at the terminal. "Eps, why don't you do the upstairs, and I'll do the 'bat cave.’."

"Bat cave?" Eve asked. "You'll see."

Eps led Eve and Rick into the living room with Steve bringing up the rear. Rick asked over his shoulder, "So when did you finally leave the Evangeline?"

"Yeah, none of us need a whole lot of outside stimulation—much less exercise—but eventually being stuck in two rooms gets a bit old," Steve said. "We weren’t on the lease for the house on Capitol Hill. You remember, the owners were on long-term diplomatic assignment and didn't care who lived there so long as the money was deposited in their account. Must have been twenty different people living there at one time or another. I don't envy the FBI agents trying to work their way through that tangle of turnovers."

"I imagine all the excitement ended that happy arrangement?"

"Yeah, it's something about gunfire and explosions," Steve grinned. "It can really piss off the neighbors. I think a group of trainees from the Naval Investigative Service are living there now."

"And the owners think those idiots won't cause any problems?"

Steve shrugged. "Sure, you and I know they were too dumb to get into any other intelligence service and are better at keg parties than catching crooks. I guess it sounds comforting if you're trying to be a landlord from a couple of thousand miles away."

"So how did you find this place? The Delaney Network?"

"Is there any other way?" Tom Delaney lived in an aging mansion not far away that he had subdivided into an amazing number of living spaces ranging from the top-floor suite where he lived to rooms only large enough for a single bed and a desk. The kitchen had three refrigerators—all padlocked—along with a fourth stashed under the back deck. It was rumored that he was already a millionaire from a clutch of other group houses, and he acted as the unofficial rental agent for Northwest DC

"We're technically living over in Columbia Heights. A delightful Hispanic couple gathers our mail and forwards it to a private mailbox in Tacoma Park. Then it's just three more transfers to the Ace Check Cashing storefront in Adams Morgan where an agile young man affiliated with the Black Mafia.

"Those guys who shot up Kareem Al-Jabbar's place on 16th Street?"

"Yeah, I wasn't thrilled about that, five women and two kids murdered just for being Hanafi Muslims." Steve grimaced, "But, as I said, this kid is only affiliated insofar as his older brother is Black Mafia. Justin himself got a track scholarship to Brandeis, but his brother's influence keeps him safe while he's still at home."

Rick nodded. "How about the phones?"

Steve shrugged. "They've just finished installing computer controls on all the primary Telco switches."

"Much more secure that way, no doubt," Rick said dryly.

"No doubt. Of course, that means we own the entire phone system, but we are gentle overlords. I believe our phone number is listed to a 95-year-old woman in one of the projects in Southeast. We made sure she would override us in case she has to call for an ambulance, but everyone else she might talk to has already passed on so the line is usually clear."

At the other end of the room, Eps snapped his fingers for attention. "If the chatterboxes in the back could join the rest of the group, we are heading upstairs to the sleeping quarters." He started walking backward and beckoning like a Japanese tourist guide. "OK, we are walking now, stay together, and mind the steps. We are walking now."

The stairs went straight up from a small foyer in front of the main door, splitting the first floor between a dining room and the living room. There was no dining table in the dining room; instead, three long tables covered with electrical parts, soldering irons, and technical manuals were shoved up against the walls. The living room held a couple of old sofas, two armchairs, and a television.

From the condition of the furniture, Rick assumed it had been acquired in the usual way: driving around the neighborhood on the day trash was picked up in search of treasures that others had abandoned.

Upstairs, there were four bedrooms opening off a square hallway and a large bathroom. Eps led them to the left and turned with a flourish. "We saved you the best room. Please note the spacious closets and the rooftop deck with solid walls, perfect for getting that 'all-over' tan."

Eve sniffed. "I suppose that's your room over there with the window that looks out on the deck?"

"Well, yes, but, as you know, I am a perfect gentleman." Eps put his hand over his heart as if wounded.

"Yeah, who owns every item of high-end camera equipment in the B&H catalog."

Eps looked indignant. "Never. I only buy from the guys with the long sideburns at 42nd Street Photo.”

It was, in fact, a nice room with a small bathroom, a double bed, two closets, a battered desk, and windows on two sides, indicating there would be enough moving air to survive the sweltering Washington summer. The deck was built over the entrance to the double garage and screened by evergreens from the street.

An extremely fat orange cat yawned from a nest in the bedcovers. Eps reached over to pick it up. "This is Max, our watch cat."

Rick asked, "Watch cat?"

"Damn right." Eps tickled the cat's stomach and whipped his hand away before it was mauled. "We've conditioned him with food. Anyone but one of us comes in at night, and he goes off like a fire alarm."

"I thought you couldn't train cats."

Eps snorted. "Of course you can. People just don't try because of all the mythology about dogs. We started with toilet training—on a real toilet, natch—and just kept going." He put the cat back on the bed and pulled a small metal object from his pocket. "Watch this."

He clicked the little gadget and the cat looked up and fastened his gaze on the small man. "OK, Max. Orders."

He double clicked, and the cat stood up. Eps said in a flat voice, "Flip."

The cat gravely took a step forward and did a complete back flip. He was rewarded by a triple click and lay down again. Eps gestured with the metal object. "This is a 'cricket.' Actually, it's the same thing American paratroops used on D-Day to identify each other. The clicks are associated with food in his mind. We haven't actually given him treats for tricks in weeks, but he hasn't figured that out yet."

Eve regarded the cat with suspicion. "Does he answer to everyone or just you?"

"Well, just me at the moment." Eps looked guilty. "You might find it a bit difficult to persuade him that this isn't his room. He's had it to himself for a long time. So, if you want to be alone, just—" Eps reached over to a pile of sheets and towels on a chair, picked a bath towel, and threw it over the cat. Bundling him up, Eps took the cat outside to the porch, and released him, jumping back inside and slamming the screen door inches ahead of a vicious claw.

"Yeah, he looks adorable. Is he safe outside?" "He's safe," Eps answered. "I'm not so sure about any other animals in the neighborhood."

The cat gave them a long look, then stalked over to the front side, jumped on the wall, and used a tree like a spiral staircase to reach the ground.