Tribal Ways. Alex Archer
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“Public’s gonna be crawling straight up our…trouser legs on this one. I don’t even blame ’em. All we can do is try to keep calm, do good police work, let the forensics people do their thing, try to identify this killer and wrap him up before he can do this again. And barring that, hope that next time he tries, some good-old boy archaeologist will pull an octagonal-barrel Winchester lever action out the rifle rack of his pickup truck and let some badly needed sunlight into this bad boy’s skull. If you’ll pardon my speaking what you might call frankly.”
“Nothing I disagree with, Lieutenant,” she said. “One thing. Paul seemed very specific that the attacker was a skinwalker. A Navajo wolf—he called it that, too. Beyond the fact that there are legends of skinwalkers, I don’t know anything about that, or what might make Paul so positive that was what attacked him. Do you know anything about skinwalker myths?”
“Not much more than you. They’re a Navajo thing, just like he said. Not something us Numunu—Comanches—would get up to. Nor the Kiowa, either. Not even Plains Apache, far as I know. They still speak an Apache language, but they picked up Plains Indian culture since they joined up with the Comanche and the Kiowa a couple of centuries back.”
“I want to see the site, Lieutenant.”
He looked at her with frank appraisal. “Is this a personal thing? Or are you gonna go for journalistic status, try the power of the press routine?”
“Whatever it takes,” she said. “I want the killer caught. It is personal. Of course it is. I’ve consulted with investigative agencies before—I know enough to keep out of the way of real forensic investigators. And as an archaeologist I certainly know how to avoid contaminating or disturbing a site. Also I may be able to infer something from the dig site that someone who isn’t a trained and experienced archaeologist would miss.”
His black eyes gazed at her for the space of several breaths. “I’m not proud, Ms. Creed,” he said. “Leastwise, not prouder than I am eager to save a whole bunch more poor folks from getting torn up like that. I could use any information I can get. So let’s go ahead and call you a consultant on this one. You need a contract?”
She shook her head. “Nor do I need any fees. Let me use your name, and back me up if I need it. I promise I won’t embarrass you.”
He nodded. “Good enough. And thanks for not asking for any money—things are pretty tight, budgetarily speaking, even for a sensational case like this. I’ve worked with archaeologists before. Heck, I worked with Ted Watkins, the archaeologist who got killed out there this morning. So I know you understand about not trampling through a crime scene like a herd of buffalo. I wish half the law enforcement people who’ve been up through there already had half the sense about that kind of thing as you people do. I’ll give you the little speech, anyway. Stay out of the way of any cop types, whether they’re troopers, county mounties or, heaven help us, the Feds. If you encounter the suspect do not try to detain or interact with him, for God’s sake. Otherwise, knock yourself out. And I’ll put out the word you’re helping me on a discreet kinda basis.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“I’m not sure it’s a thanking matter, ma’am.”
They both stood. He was a good three inches shorter than her. Annja nodded at the beefy revolver holstered at his right hip. It was matte silver metal with contoured wooden grips. They looked well-worn.
“I couldn’t help noticing you carry a double-action revolver, Lieutenant,” she said. “Looking at the other troopers I thought the Oklahoma Highway Patrol issued Glock 22s.”
He looked as if her query surprised him. It clearly didn’t displease him.
“Smith & Wesson 657,” he said with unmistakable pride. “It’s a .41 Magnum, N-frame, stainless. Custom Hogue grips. Got me a special exemption from the department to carry it. Helps I’m a Comanche and all, plus I’ve been with the patrol since old Quanah Parker was a lance corporal. I got nothing against the Glocks—they’re pretty good guns, even if I can’t help feeling like they’re flimsy for being half made out of plastic and all. And there’s nothing wrong with .40 caliber. I just like the authority the .41 Mag gives you, without it having so much recoil it takes all day to haul it back down on target every time you shoot, like a .44 Magnum does. And maybe some of that cowboy wheel-gun mystique.”
He slapped the weapon affectionately. “This pup got me all the way through the fast drive to Kuwait City in ’91. Not much call to use it then, although it was a power of comfort to me. Been out of the holster a time or two since, though. And never once let me down.”
“Kuwait City, 1991? Wait, you were Force RECON?”
“That’s right, ma’am. You wouldn’t be former military yourself, would you? Or from a service family? You seem to know a fair amount about the forces.”
“I have a lot of friends in the military. But—you’re a Marine.” She already knew better than to say ex-Marine.
“Semper fi, ma’am!”
“The young man in the photos on your desk is Army.”
Ten Bears’ thin-lipped mouth tightened ever so slightly, and his eyes narrowed just a hair. “Boy always did know how to piss me off,” he muttered. “Even if he did make Ranger.”
“Well, thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll let you know if I find anything that I think you might be able to use.”
“You look like a woman who knows how to take care of herself,” he said.
“I like to think I can.”
“Well, this isn’t the time or the place to show how tough and independent you are.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“There’s a mass murderer on the loose,” he said. “You didn’t forget already?”
“No,” she said slowly. “I didn’t.”
“I’m just joshing you,” he said. “About the forgetting part. Not about the murderer. I don’t think this fella plays well with others.”
“I’ll try to stay away from him.”
“You be sure to do that. Let us professionals handle him. We do a bad enough job without any help.”
She wasn’t sure quite how to take that. He seemed like a man who, for all his cockeyed banter, took his job very seriously. She also didn’t think his tongue was more than halfway in his cheek, and wondered just who wasn’t doing their job quite so well.
She also knew better than to ask. Lieutenant Ten Bears clearly thought of himself as a stand-up cop. He’d never bad-mouth a fellow officer to an outsider. But he might not be above dropping some sidewise comments about his comrades who didn’t measure up.
“One more thing before you go,” he told her as she started for the door of his small office. “We got us some young South Plains braves here in western Oklahoma who don’t much like white-eyes. And they play rough. Tempers are extrashort right now since some of them don’t like it that we got us a great big new casino the Nation’s opening up in a few days.”
He laughed at her expression. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They can’t fire me for calling them braves. Any more than they can make us Indians call ourselves Native Americans. That fight we won, anyway. Maybe it’s a trend.”
Annja had to laugh. She found herself liking the lieutenant.
As she left she thought, I don’t believe in werewolves. But there are plenty of things I don’t believe in that have a nasty habit of turning up, anyway.
3
The site was a bust.
The sun was setting when Annja got there. The only people present in the mellow dusk light slanting beneath gray clouds were some gloved techs moving gingerly around inside the yellow-tape perimeter whipped