30

Chippewa River Reservation

Still Thursday, 20 September

“Let me explain why that’s so offensive,” Virgil Burton of the North Lakes Ojibwe Tribes says.

We’re seated across from him at a low-rise cafeteria table for children in the lunchroom of the community center. I don’t recall ever being small enough to fit at a table like this.

“It’s not that white people talk about First Nations people being magical,” Burton says, “although that is kind of moronic when you look at what’s happened to us. It’s that white people don’t bother to look at what’s happened to us. They’d rather look at the teepees. And the Wendigos.”

It’s embarrassing as fuck.

“The First Nations had societies,” Virgil says. “I’m not talking about Robin Hood camps in the wilderness. I’m talking about civilizations. Before Columbus got here, one in four people on Earth lived in the so-called New World. Tenochtitlan was the biggest city on Earth. We had books, and governments, and courts of law, and the best armies in existence. When Hernández and de Grijalva attacked the Maya, the Maya kicked their butts. The Aztecs kicked Cortez’s butt in 1520. A year after that the Florida killed Ponce de León. Then European smallpox hit, and ninety-five percent of the indigenous population died. Which the Europeans pushed to ninety-seven percent through slavery and extermination.

“After that, of course, this place was wide open. Domesticated crops and animals everywhere the Europeans looked. Gold that was already mined. Do you know how much Pizarro’s first shipment of stolen gold back to Europe was worth?”

We shake our heads.

“Four times as much as the Bank of England. But white people, if you’ll excuse the expression, want to romanticize the way the survivors lived after that. Like First Nations people wanted to be wandering tribes ruled by warlords and living in the woods. We didn’t want that. That was forced on us by the white man. Those were our Dark Ages. But you people would rather talk about shamans, and spirit guides, and the nobility of the simple life. Of course it was the simple life: the whole world had ended.”

Changing tack or something, he says “Did you know Hitler had a painting of Geronimo in his bunker?”

“No,” Violet says.

“Hitler loved the First Nations people. You know what the First Nations people thought of Hitler? They joined the U.S. Army to fight him. First Nations got some history with the U.S. Army. But Hitler didn’t care about that. He just went on loving us. And here’s another thing: he had syphilis. He did. You can look it up. He had syphilis and he blamed the Jews for it. There’s a whole chapter in Mein Kampf called ‘Syphilis.’ ”

“I’ve read Mein Kampf,” I say, not realizing how that sounds till it comes out.

“Do you know where syphilis comes from?” Burton says. “That’s right. The New World. Like potatoes. And corn. And tomatoes. But did that make Hitler hate us? No it didn’t. Cause he would have had to look at the facts about us to do that. Which he didn’t want to do. He loved us, but he didn’t want to see us.

“And now you folks come here asking about Wendigos. You’re both doctors, man. Do you ask about educational programs? Do you ask about diabetes rates, and whether anyone’s doing anything about that? Have you got any idea how many people here are on dialysis? I’ll show you the center if you want. Teenagers hang out there, cause if they’re not on dialysis yet, they will be. We show movies in there. We got Netflix. We got ladies coming around helping people do their taxes. People running for tribal council, they campaign in the dialysis center. If one in four white people had diabetes, there wouldn’t be diabetes.”

“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” Violet says.

“Don’t be sorry,” Virgil says. “Just be open-minded. You know what a Wendigo is?”

We both shake our heads.

“A Wendigo’s a story for children. Children and white people. It’s a guy who’s starving to death in the winter, so he eats his family. As a punishment, his spirit gets cursed to live in that spot forever. Always hungry. Always trying to kill people so he can eat them, but so weak he has to do it by drowning them. You see where I’m going with this? It’s just more Road Warrior shit. You’ve got a people so afraid of starving to death they have to tell their kids not to eat each other. That’s all the Wendigo story is: don’t eat each other. Stay human, no matter how bad things get. Now, what Europeans hear is the opposite: First Nations people are magic, and they know how to talk to Bigfoot. But if Bigfoot was real, he would have died of smallpox a long time ago.

“White Lake’s a dangerous place. Anywhere kids go to party is dangerous—particularly white kids. If there’s something going on there, please don’t blame it on us.”

★★★

In the car, at the end of a mud turnoff, looking out at a lake we don’t know the name off, rain battering the windshield, the whole day seems to fold in on us. Violet starts to cry. If I hadn’t been anorgasmic for that shit for years, I probably would too.

“Teng seemed so nice,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“He was nice to his brother.”

“Yeah.”

“And now he’s dead? And nobody even knows why?”

I try to think of something to say that isn’t “Yeah” but can’t.

“I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not,” I say. “Or at least, if you are, I am too. And a lot of other people. We still have some pretty heavy drugs in our system.”

“That’s not it. It’s Teng. And the fact that there’s something living in White Lake. Which goes against everything we know.”

Or used to know.

“I don’t even feel like I can trust anything back here,” Violet says. She turns her wet face to mine. I can smell her tears. Her lips look slick and soft.

It’s too much.

“Violet,” I say. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

Her eyes widen and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly. She doesn’t want to hear it.

Tough luck, though. For both of us. Among the things that have ceased to make sense in the last eight hours is continuing to lie to Violet Hurst.

“My name isn’t Lionel Azimuth,” I tell her. “It’s Pietro Brnwa. I grew up in New Jersey. I went to medical school in California. Before that I worked as a killer for the Sicilian and Russian mafias.”

She just looks at me. Studying my face for some sign that I’m kidding.

“What?” she says.

“I murdered people.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Even so, it’s true. It’s the one true thing I’ve told you.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“You were… what?”

“A killer. For money. For the Mafia.”

“Really?” She just seems puzzled. “Does Rec Bill know?”

A question I deserve. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Then, all at once, it hits her.

“Oh, my fucking God.”

She slams out of the car.

I get out on my side. It’s pouring. “Violet—come back. I’ll drop you off somewhere.”

“Stay away from me!”

“Then at least take the car. It’s too far to walk.”

“Fuck off!”

I back away from the car. “The keys are in the ignition.”

She pauses, scared and confused.

“You killed people?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Around twenty.”

“You don’t know?”

“There were some situations where some of them might have lived.”

“So you’re a serial killer.”

“Yes, technically.”

“Technically? Oh, fuck.”

There’s stark fear in her eyes, and disgust. But what am I supposed to say? That I’ve never killed anyone like her? That I once went eight whole years as an adult without killing anybody? That I’m almost back up to three?

I keep backing away toward the road. Try to get far enough from the car that she can run to it without worrying I’ll attack her.

★★★

I squelch along the highway till I get to the CFS Outfitters. It takes about an hour and a half.

Now that the rain’s letting up, a kid I don’t recognize is rebuilding the barrier to the lodge road, this time with sawhorses instead of traffic cones.

“Help you, sir?” he says. He looks at me like not all that many people stop by this place on foot. Or soaking wet.

“I’m Lionel Azimuth. I was on Reggie’s tour. Did a woman come through here in the last couple hours?”

“The paleontologist lady?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s down at the lodge. Are you the doctor?”

“Yes. Did she leave a message for me?”

“Not her. But some Indian guy was looking for you.”

“What Indian guy?”

“He came into the outfitters.”

“When?”

“Bout an hour ago.”

“So where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He probably left. I told him you weren’t down at the lodge.”

“Did he give his name?”

The kid scratches guiltily. “He might have.”

“Was it Virgil Burton?”

“I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“What did he look like?”

He shrugs. “Older’n you, I think. He had gray hair, but he didn’t look that old.”

Sounds like Virgil Burton.

“I’m gonna need a ride,” I say. “Or to borrow your car.”

★★★

It’s raining hard out of a bright white sky, and the community center is closed and locked. Henry, the kid who drove me here, stays in his Subaru while I look in the community center’s windows. I hold up a “one minute” finger to him and jog across a baseball diamond and a small gully to the first house I can see. Clean planks of wood. No one answering the door.

I keep moving. A couple houses down, a woman in her early thirties answers. Around my age, which is weird to see on someone who so clearly has a life.

“Yes?” she says. Suspicious but, thank God, not scared-looking.

“Do you know Virgil Burton?”

“Why do you ask?”

There are tire noises in the driveway behind me. I assume it’s Henry, who’s been rolling along the street after me at a more or less even pace.

It isn’t, though. It’s Virgil Burton, getting out of his pickup. When I glance back, the woman is closing the door.

“What’s going on, mister?” Virgil says.

“I heard you were looking for me.”

“How? From smoke signals?” He sees my face and stops moving toward me. “Look, man, are you all right?” He nods toward Henry, parked along the street. “That your friend?”

“You didn’t tell him you were looking for me?”

“No. I promise.”

“Sorry. I don’t—”

“No need to apologize,” he says. “Just get yourself some help. Take care of yourself.”

There’s nothing more to say. I go and get in the passenger seat of Henry’s car.

“Is that the guy you said was looking for me?”

Henry looks surprised.

“No. I didn’t say he was First Nations. I said he was Indian. Like from India.”