C. Box - Force of Nature

“I brought you some ducks,” he said, handing over the burlap sack.

“I love duck,” she said.

“I remember you saying that. Careful, they’re live.”

“I’ll twist their heads off in a minute,” she said, ushering him to the table. “We can eat two of them. Do you want to eat duck?”

He sat heavily. His shoulder pounded at him, each pulse of blood brought a stab of pain. “Duck would be good,” he said.

Alice Thunder was short and heavy, and her face was the shape and size of a hubcap. She had thick short fingers and a flat large nose and warm brown eyes. As the receptionist for the Indian high school for twenty-two years, she knew everyone and everyone knew her. She’d befriended Nate’s lost lover Alisha when she’d moved back to the reservation to teach, and after Alisha’s grandmother died, Alice Thunder had stepped in. Alisha’s high school basketball photo was balanced on the top of her bookcase. Nate knew the two of them were related in some way, but he wasn’t sure of the details. It was often the case on the reservation.

Her house was small, simple, and very lived-in. There were few pictures on the walls and a noticeable lack of gewgaws. Unlike some of the other Indian homes Nate had been invited into, there were no romantic portrayals of noble Plains Indians or rugs depicting maidens or warriors. Only the doll made of bent, packed straw and faded leather clothing on a shelf hinted at sentimentality. She’d once told Nate that her grandfather, an important tribal elder, had made it for her when she was a child.

“First I’ll kill the ducks,” Alice said, “then I’ll see what’s wrong with you. And I’m telling you now I want to eat most of the duck fat. I hope you don’t want any.”

“I already know what’s wrong with me,” Nate said. “I just need some help with the dressing. And you can have all the duck fat.”

“So why are you bleeding?”

“I got shot with an arrow.”

“Where’s the arrow?”

“I pulled it out.”

Alice Thunder paused at the back door with the sack of ducks and looked Nate over slowly. He couldn’t tell whether she was amused at him or puzzled, or both. She had a way of making her face still while her eyes probed.

“Did you think an Indian woman would be able to help you more than the docs at the clinic because you were shot with an arrow?”

He said, “I can’t go to the clinic.”

“Ah, yes,” she said. “You’re an outlaw, I almost forgot.” Then she bumped the back door open with her big hip and went outside to kill and clean the birds.

The little dogs gathered at the back door to whine and watch.

He sat without saying anything when she came back into the kitchen with three bloody duck breasts. She dipped them into a bowl of buttermilk, dredged them in flour and cornmeal, and dropped them into a cast-iron skillet bubbling with melted lard. She covered bits of bright-yellow fat in the flour as well and dropped them into the lard to create rich cracklings.

“Take off your shirt and let me take a look at your wound,” she said over her shoulder. “Was it an Indian who shot you?”

“No,” Nate said. “A redneck.”

“There are Indian rednecks.”

“This wasn’t one of them,” he said, rising painfully and reaching up with his right hand to unzip his vest.

Alice never said “natives” or “Native Americans.” She always said “Indians.”

While the duck breasts sizzled, she turned around and put her hands on her hips and closed one eye as she observed the bloody compresses he’d taped on himself.

“Sloppy,” she said. “But keep it on until after we eat. Then I’ll change it.”

Nate looked away as she stripped the old bandage and bathed the wounds with alcohol swabs and taped them.

“Does it sting?” she asked.

“It does,” he said, and chinned toward her ticking woodstove. “Make sure to burn the old bandages and everything you’re using to clean me up. Don’t leave a trace of it in your house.”

She paused, then continued cleaning. “You don’t want to leave your DNA?”

“That’s right.”

“But you’ve been here in the past. I can’t get rid of everything you might have touched.”

“You don’t need to,” he said. “Just the blood.”

“I don’t think there’s any infection,” she said, shuffling her feet so she could get a good look at the holes in front and back, “but I’ve got some antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs I’ll send with you. I’m not a doctor. You may need to go see one.”

He grunted his thanks. Finally, he asked, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

She said, “I think I know. I heard about the boat they found in Saddlestring. Everybody’s heard about that.”

“I suppose so.”

“There is one thing I want to know,” she said.

He waited.

“Why did you come to me? Why didn’t you go to see your friend, the game warden, and his wife?”

“Too risky,” Nate said.

“But you don’t mind risking me?” she asked. It was a flat statement, and not accusatory.

“I’ve been meaning to come by for a long time,” he said. She stood aside as he got to his feet and pulled his shirt and vest back on. His shoulder ached, but the binding was tight and clean, and he gained a bit more movement in his left arm.

Nate went out the back door and returned with his duffel bag. He unzipped it and gave her a block of cash.

Alice took it from him and put it quickly on the table.

“It’s ten thousand dollars,” he said. “I wanted you to have it.”

She shook her head. “Are you buying my silence?”

“No. I want you to use it however you see fit. But maybe you’d consider using some of it in Alisha’s memory. Maybe a scholarship fund for her students, or memorial or something.”

Surprisingly, he noted moisture in her dark eyes. “I miss her,” she said.

“I miss her, too,” he said, and gave her a thin braid of Alisha’s hair. It was similar to the strand he’d attached to his gun. She took it from him and sniffed it and worked it through her fingers and held it there.

“It’s my fault, I know that,” he said. “If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been in the wrong place. I know that.”

“Tell me what happened,” she asked. “I’ve heard rumors, but no one else was there.”

Nate said, “Two intruders breached my security and attacked the place I lived. Alisha was visiting for the weekend. I was outside when it happened. Alisha wasn’t. She didn’t suffer, at least.”

“But you have,” she said. It was a statement.

“If my life was more normal…”

Alice shook her head as if to discount him. She said, “Don’t take all the blame. You’re talking to someone who lives in a place that’s never been normal. It’s not so unusual to me, and it wasn’t unusual to her. She would have followed you anywhere, I’m sure.”

“I found the men who did it,” Nate said. “I put them down.”

She looked away.

“I need to go,” he said.

She stepped aside. As he neared the door, she said, “A man came by the school last week and asked about Alisha. But I knew he was really asking about you.”

Nate paused and turned. “What did you tell him?”

“The truth,” she said. “I told him Alisha no longer worked there, that she had left the school and the res.”

“But no more than that?”

“No. Then I waited. He acted kind of put-out and asked me where he could contact her. I told him I didn’t know. He asked me if I knew anyone who might know of her location. Any friends, for example.”

Nate leaned against her kitchen counter, waiting for more.

She continued, “He asked me, doesn’t she have a friend who is a falconer? Did I know where he can be reached?”