Smoke Signals (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 4) (3 page)

“What’s the job? John Tall Wolf asked.

Marlene Flower Moon had her own question. “Have you ever heard of Frederic Strait?”

John shook his head. “Never.”

“He’s a brilliant young man, only twenty-five and already a multi-billionaire.”

“You have a knack for making rich friends,” John said. “A useful talent for someone with political ambitions.”

John encouraged Marlene’s presidential dreams. Toiling in the Oval Office would leave her little time to think about him. Even Coyote would be stressed hewing to a president’s work schedule. Still, she’d have fun matching her wiles against those of other world leaders.

“I’m building a war chest,” Marlene admitted.

“So Mr. Strait has a problem you want me to solve and he’ll be grateful to you if I do. How’s that supposed to fall under the scope of my duties with the Bureau of Indian Affairs?”

“Mr. Strait has a few things in common with you.”

Getting an uneasy feeling, John asked, “Such as?”

“He and his mother are Cheyenne. She was adopted as a pregnant fourteen-year-old by a white couple. She’d been turned out by her parents for disgracing them.”

John frowned. “Was the biological father white?”

Marlene shook her head. “But he wasn’t Cheyenne either. The girl wouldn’t say who he was.”

John had come to have some idea of who his own paternal family was, but that had happened only by the time he’d reached his mid-thirties. He asked, “This guy wants me to find out who his dad is or was?”

“No, I’m going to do that,” Marlene said.

John had no doubt Marlene would succeed. “So what is it you want me to do and, by the way, how’d this guy I’ve never heard of make all his money?”

Marlene smiled, flashing her predatory dentition. “He changed his name to get more in touch with his true heritage. Now, he calls himself Freddie Strait Arrow.”

John smiled. “I like his sense of humor, but I still don’t know him.”

“To answer your other question, Freddie made his money in high tech. As a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic, he patented a microchip with what I’m told is a revolutionary architecture. Does all sorts of things better than other chips. Freddie says its just the first in a series of advances he has in mind. The licensing agreements he’s reached with several big corporations made him wealthy.”

“Good for the smart Indian kid,” John said. “He have any plans for investing his fortune other than making you president? He does know what you have in mind, right?”

Marlene nodded. “He thinks it’s a marvelous idea.”

John was sure at that moment that Marlene had seduced Freddie.

“You might like his other big plan for the future,” Marlene said.

John said, “So tell me. What’s he got in mind?”

“He’s not going to take the country back from the white man; he’s going to
buy
it back.”

John kept a straight face. “He’ll need a powerful sum to do that. Billions would be just a drop in the bucket.”

Marlene said, “He might forgo Kansas and North Dakota.”

John grinned and played along. “He could start small, buy Rhode Island and Delaware, just to show his intent.”

“Okay, nobody will ever be rich enough to buy the whole country,” Marlene said.

“Glad we agree on that much,” John replied.

“But he has been buying large holdings in New York City.”

John laughed and slapped a knee. “Freddie’s trying to buy back Manhattan? All right, you’ve got me. I at least want to meet him.”

“He’s buying land all around the country,” Marlene continued. “The idea is by the time he’s an old man and maybe the richest person in the world, he’ll deed all his purchases back to the tribes that originally held the land. That way, they’ll form an archipelago of sovereign Native American nations right across the United States.”

John whistled softly. “I can see where that might be tied up in court for a century or two, but I do admire the young man’s pluck and vision. So how do I fit into this grand scheme?”

Marlene began, “Freddie owns two mountains and the valley between them in Washington State …”

Showing great spousal devotion and a strong stomach, Valeria Batista led her husband, Ernesto, by the hand to the stream where he was to be cleansed of the vile odor that enveloped him. Basilio Nuñez had the job of watching over them. Valeria had arrived in the mountains of
El Norte
a year after her husband had come to the United States. The price of being smuggled into California and then up the coast to Washington had doubled from what it had cost Ernesto a year earlier, and as beautiful as Valeria was a premium had to be paid to see that she arrived unmolested.

Trailing along behind the couple at safe distance, Basilio called out.

“Señora, do you by chance have any sisters?”

His thinking was perhaps her beauty might be shared by a sibling.

The Batistas stopped and turned to look at Basilio.

“Three,” Valeria replied, knowing just what the
pendejo
— moron — had in mind. “I am the plain one of my family.”

Basilio’s jaw dropped at the idea, and then it firmed as he thought she had to be toying with him. Still, the notion had such allure he couldn’t help but revisit it. If it was true, he wanted to see all three sisters. One would be enough to make his own, but if he had the opportunity to select his favorite, what could be better?

“Would they like to come to America?” he asked.

“What? Up here in this wilderness? I would not have come except to be with Ernesto.”

There it was again, Basilio thought, the inexplicable attraction of a peasant for such a beauty. Batista might have been kind, even indulgent, to his wife, but was that enough? Of course, he might be hung like an Andalusian bull, but that, too, would be fate playing a joke.

“Perhaps they could be housed in Los Angeles or San Francisco,” Basilio suggested. “I am quite rich, you know.”

Valeria dared to offer a skeptical look, but she played another angle.
“Señor,
are you saying my sisters would live in a fine house, but their sister, me, and my husband, Ernesto, would be stuck up here in this cold forest with wild animals?”

Basilio saw that not only was Valeria beautiful, she could also drive a hard bargain. But that only encouraged him. A beautiful woman with spirit was even more desirable than one who was meek and submissive.

To show her his wealth and power, Basilio said, “I will pay off your coyote debt, and all of you will live together, even him.” Meaning Ernesto.

Valeria gave Basilio a long, hard look. “You swear this, before God?”

He raised a hand. “I do, before God.”

“I will test the truth of your words.”

“How?” Basilio asked, suspicion entering his voice.

“When we get to the stream, I will need to bathe my husband. If you are a man of honor, someone my sisters should know, you will not watch us. You will stay somewhere you are unable to see us and you will wait until we are dressed again before taking us back to camp.”

Making that concession would not be easy for Basilio. Seeing Valeria, splashing naked in a stream, would be a sight to behold. Certainly, it was one he had been looking forward to, and one he would never forget. Of course, Ernesto would also be nude, and that would be something he’d never want to see or remember.

“Very well, but one more thing.” Basilio had to bargain to maintain some self-respect.

“What?”

“As long as you are cleaning yourselves, make sure you clean that weapon, too.”

Ernesto still carried the semi-auto assault carbine he’d been issued. It also had been suffused with the noxious odor. Ernesto spoke for the first time, saying humbly,
“Sí, patrón.”

Basilio sat on a round rock in a small meadow and let a half-mile gap grow between himself and the Batistas.

Giving the husband and wife room to whisper.

“You can not ever go back to these people, you know that?” Valeria asked.

Ernesto nodded and said, “Neither can you.”

“Why did you not shoot the man in the forest?”

“I tried to scare him off. He was little more than a boy, and he carried only a camera, not a gun.” Ernesto shrugged. “Some men you shoot, others you don’t.”

“Had you known what he would do to you …”

“Yes, then, of course.”

“So you did not miss because your aim was poor?”

Ernesto only gave his wife a look. She knew who he was. He’d been a farmer as a boy in Mexico, but as a man he’d been a Mexican marine. His identity had been exposed. A bounty was put on his head; self-imposed exile had become a necessity.

“You know why I love you, don’t you?” she asked.

“Because I saved you from one such as the bastard behind us.”

“And asked nothing in return. You did not miss your shot that day.”

“Nor will I miss any other I need to make.”

The Batistas disappeared from Basilio’s view behind a growth of shrubs rising at the edge of the stream. Basilio gave them ninety minutes before he went looking for them. He figured that was time enough for a bath, a screw and a second bath. That was the limit of both his courtesy and his patience. The
señora
would simply have to understand.

By the time he got to the rivulet, though, she and her damn husband were long gone.

The peasant’s rifle had vanished with them.

Julián was not going to like this.

John Tall Wolf was lucky enough to snag a ride on an executive jet. Marlene had arranged it; Freddie Strait Arrow had provided the aircraft, a Gulfstream G550. The seat in which John sat was fully reclinable and able to accommodate his six-foot-four-plus length. Once the plane reached cruising altitude on its way to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he’d lie back and take a nap.

Before the G550 could leave its gate, though, the petite and exquisite cabin attendant named Nan approached him and said, “Sir, the captain has a request to delay departure.”

John had the feeling Marlene was not responsible for the delay.

She’d simply appear in a puff of smoke if she really wanted to see him.

“What’s holding us up, Nan?”

The attendant had introduced herself as he’d boarded the aircraft.

“A woman, sir. She’s just arrived at the airport herself, flying in from Calgary. She called your office and was told you were about to depart Washington. Her name is—”

“Rebecca Bramley.”

“Yes, sir. She said she hoped to visit with you here in town, and she’d like to see you, if at all possible, before we depart. She was very polite.”

“She has terrific manners, but she could also punch a grizzly bear in the nose.”

“Oh, my. If I may say so, sir, the captain told me Ms. Bramley sounded a bit crestfallen when she heard you were about to leave town.”

John frowned. Sadness was not a prominent feature of his fiancée’s emotional repertoire. “At the risk of throwing people’s schedules out of whack, yes, let’s delay our departure. That’s all right with the pilot, isn’t it?”

“Of course, sir. This plane is yours to use as you see fit. That was Mr. Strait Arrow’s explicit instruction.”

Must be nice to be twenty-five and have a luxury aircraft to lend to people, John thought. But at the moment he was pleased the whiz kid was affording him some flexibility. He told Nan, “We might be having another passenger fly west with us. We have everything necessary to make her comfortable, I assume.”

Nan smiled and said, “Absolutely, sir.”

John took out his phone and Nan gave him space to speak privately.

Rebecca picked up and John told her, “I know you just got off a plane, but getting on the one I’m taking to Seattle will be anything but a hardship, and I certainly want to hear why you came all the way to Washington unannounced to see me. We’re not breaking up, are we?”

“Never.” Rebecca asked for directions to John’s gate.

He said he’d come and escort her back to his magic carpet.

Julián Fortuna, being the high honors graduate of the best business school on the West Coast that he was, had made plans to evacuate the
campesinos,
the processed marijuana, next year’s seedlings, all the agricultural tools, residential tents, food, water and other necessities, along with the odd two or three million in cash on hand, should unforeseen circumstances arise. Three alternate sites of operation had been found. All of them fell under the ownership of the same private citizen as the original location.

The other settings ranged from nearby to far away, from less than easy to find to deeply hidden and hellish to attack. Thing was, Julián had never expected to need any of them. Making sure he had options was, he’d thought, a simple exercise in prudence.

The kind of thing that failing to do would surely bite you on the ass, but once provided for should be nothing more than a way to sleep easy. Now, the whole stinking process was well under way. The peasants had been warned not to run away, and Julián himself had spread the lie to the
campesinos
that Ernesto and Valeria had been shot when they had tried to escape.

He’d pointed out Basilio as the heartless executioner who had killed them.

“This man,” he’d told the assembled clandestine community, “is a cold-blooded killer, as am I. Anyone who disobeys us will die, painfully.”

Julián truly hated this approach to management. It absolutely destroyed team spirit. He would have to work like a sonofabitch to get an atmosphere of good feelings back. In the meantime, productivity would suffer and revenue would take a dive.

If their little company had been listed on a stock exchange, the shares would have tanked. Even without that stigma, the bosses in Mexico wouldn’t like the decline in the cash-flow one bit. They would blame Julián when, really, it was his idiot cousin’s fault.

“How the hell could you let them escape?” he’d asked Basilio when the numbskull had first slinked back into camp.

Hanging his head, Basilio said, “She made me promise I wouldn’t look.”

Julián was incredulous. “Valeria Batista? She was the one giving orders? I don’t remember making her your superior.”

Julián had spoken so quietly no one outside his tent could hear, but Basilio was sure everyone would hear the gunshot if his cousin killed him. Of course, Basilio was the one who’d actually killed people, several men and one woman, while Julián had never done more than give one
cabron
a few whacks with a baseball bat.

Part of that disparity, Basilio couldn’t deny, was because Julián was smart enough to get his way without having to kill people.

“Lo siento,”
Basilio said. I’m sorry.

Julián sighed and strained to understand the situation. “What did she promise you so you would not watch her bathe with her husband? My first impulse is to think sex, but I don’t see her doing that in front of her man. Even Ernesto Batista would not stand for it.”

Still staring at his feet, Basilio confessed. “She said she would arrange for her three sisters to come from Mexico and stay with me.” He raised his head and conjured a small, gullible smile. “She said she is the plain one among them.”

Julián sighed and tried to ease his worsening headache by rubbing his temples.

“Cousin, did you ever stop to think the woman might not have
any
sisters?”

Just the idea was enough to stupefy Basilio. He opened his mouth to speak but could not find the right words. When he finally did there was only one.
“¡Puta!”

Whore!

Julián’s thoughts ran along a more practical path. The fact that a woman who was supposed to be an illiterate farmer’s wife had so deftly manipulated Basilio reflected badly on him as well as his cousin. In business, as in life, there were times when it was easy to feel that powers greater than yourself were screwing with you. Using you as an object of contemptuous amusement.

First there was the fellow in the forest with his camera. He seemingly appeared out of nowhere. A lack of nearby hiking paths was one of Julián’s first considerations in choosing the site for his operation. Nonetheless, up popped a man with a camera. Who then got the better of an armed guard who had managed to take several shots at him.

Then the guard himself, and his wife, became the first workers to escape the encampment.

What next? It was all too easy to imagine things growing progressively worse. So there was no question that the operation would have to move, and not to the nearest alternative either. They would have to retreat to the most distant site. Just getting there would be hard on everyone. Working the land would be much more difficult, as would guarding the workforce. Productivity would drop even further, but there was no other choice.

Well, maybe there was one thing to do. Shoot Basilio if it looked like he’d be a continuing source of either horrible judgment or plain bad luck. Scapegoating might be an ancient practice, but it was still a tool of modern business.

They got the whole operation packed up and moving in less than 24 hours.