John Sandford: Shadow Prey

"Lila Bluebird."

"Is that your husband in there?"

"Yes."

"Has he got anybody with him?"

"He's all alone," the woman said. Tears streamed down her face. She was wearing a man's cowboy shirt and shorts made of stretchy black material spotted with lint fuzzies. The baby clung to her shirt, as though he knew what was going on; the other kid hung on her hand. "He said to tell you he'll be out in a minute."

"He drunk? Crack? Crank? Anything like that?"

"No. No alcohol or drugs in our house. But he's not right."

"What's that? You mean he's crazy? What…"

The question was never finished. The door of the Bluebird house burst open and Tony Bluebird hurdled onto the lawn, running hard. He was bare-chested, the long obsidian blade dangling from his neck on a rawhide thong. Two eagle feathers were pinned to his headdress and he had pistols in both hands. Ten feet off the porch, he brought them up and opened fire on the nearest squad, closing on the cops behind it. The cops shot him to pieces. The gunfire stood him up and knocked him down.

After a second of stunned silence, Lila Bluebird began to wail and the older kid, confused, clutched at her leg and began screaming. The radio man called for paramedics. Three cops moved up to Bluebird, their pistols still pointed at his body, and nudged his weapons out of reach.

The tac commander looked at Lucas, his mouth working for a moment before the words came out. "Jesus Christ," he blurted. "What the fuck was that all about?"

Wild grapes covered the willow trees, dangling forty and fifty feet down to the waterline. In the weak light from the Mendota Bridge, the island looked like a three-masted schooner with black sails, cruising through the mouth of the Minnesota River into the Mississippi.

Two men walked onto a sand spit at the tip of the island. They'd had a fire earlier in the evening, roasting wieners on sharp sticks and heating cans of SpaghettiOs. The fire had guttered down to coals, but the smell of the burning pine still hung in the cool air. A hundred feet back from the water's edge, a sweat lodge squatted under the willows.

"We ought to go up north. It'd be nice now, out on the lakes," said the taller one.

"It's been too warm. Too many mosquitoes."

The tall man laughed. "Bullshit, mosquitoes. We're Indians, dickhead."

"Them fuckin' Chippewa would take our hair," the short one objected, the humor floating through his voice.

"Not us. Kill their men, screw their women. Drink their beer."

"I ain't drinkin' no Grain Belt," said the short one. There was a moment's comfortable silence between them. The short one took a breath, let it out in an audible sigh and said, "Too much to do. Can't fuck around up north."

The short man's face had sobered. The tall man couldn't see it, but sensed it. "I wish I could go pray over Bluebird," the tall man said. After a moment, he added, "I hoped he would go longer."

"He wasn't smart."

"He was spiritual."

"Yep."

The men were Mdewakanton Sioux, cousins, born the same day on the banks of the Minnesota River. One had been named Aaron Sunders and the other Samuel Close, but only the bureaucrats called them that. To everyone else they touched, they were the Crows, named for their mothers' father, Dick Crow.

Later in life, a medicine man gave them Dakota first names. The names were impossible to translate. Some Dakota argued for Light Crow and Dark Crow. Others said Sun Crow and Moon Crow. Still others claimed the only reasonable translation was Spiritual Crow and Practical Crow. But the cousins called themselves Aaron and Sam. If some Dakota and white-wannabees thought the names were not impressive enough, that was their lookout.

The tall Crow was Aaron, the spiritual man. The short Crow was Sam, the practical one. In the back of their pickup, Aaron carried an army footlocker full of herbs and barks. In the cab, Sam carried two.45s, a Louisville Slugger and a money belt. They considered themselves one person in two bodies, each body containing a single aspect. It had been that way since 1932, when the daughters of Dick Crow and their two small sons had huddled together in a canvas lean-to for four months, near starving, near freezing, fighting to stay alive. From December through March, the cousins had lived in a cardboard box full of ripped-up woolen army blankets. The four months had welded their two personalities into one. They had been inseparable for nearly sixty years, except for a time that Aaron had spent in federal prison.

"I wish we would hear from Billy," said Sam Crow.

"We know he's there," Aaron Crow said quietly.

"But what's he doinf Three days now, and nothing."

"You worry 'hat he's gone back to drinking. You shouldn't, 'cause he hasn't."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

Sam nodded. When his cousin said he knew, he knew. "I'm worried about what'll happen when he goes for the hit. The New York cops are good on a thing like this."

"Trust Billy," said Aaron. Aaron was thin, but not frail: wiry, hard, like beef jerky. He had a hundred hard planes in his face, surrounding a high-ridged nose. His eyes were like black marbles. "He's a smart one. He'll do right."

"I hope so. If he's caught right away, the television coverage will come and go too fast." Sam had a broad face, with smile lines around a wide, soft chin. His hair was salt-and-pepper, his eyes deep and thoughtful. He had a belly, which bore down on a wide belt with a turquoise buckle.

"Not if Leo moves. He should be in Oklahoma City tomorrow, if his car holds out," said Aaron. "If the two… attacks… come right on top of each other, the TV'11 go nuts. And the letters are ready."

Sam paced down to the water's edge, watched it for a moment, then turned and spoke back up the sand spit.

"I still think the first two were a mistake. We wasted Bluebird, doing that second one. Those killings won't have the impact we need…"

"We needed some low-risk attacks to start…"

"Wasn't low-risk for Bluebird…"

"We knew he might have a problem… but we had to set a tone. We had to make it a war. We can't just have a couple of assassinations. We have to make the media think… War. We have to pump this motherfucker up. It has to be big, if we want to get…"

"The Great Satan," Sam snorted. "It'll be for nothing if we can't get him out here."

"It wouldn't be for nothing-the ones we've already taken are bad enough. But he'll come," Aaron said confidently. "We know he comes out here. We know why. We know where. And we can get at him."

"No," said Sam. "We know he used to come here. But maybe no more. He's got the media watching. He wants to be president… He's careful…"

"But once he's here, he won't stay away. Not with the monkey he's got on his back."

"Maybe," said Sam. He thrust his hands into his pockets. "I still think the first two were bullshit killings."

"You're wrong," Aaron said flatly.

Sam stared out at the water. "I don't want to waste anybody, that's all." He bent, picked up a flat rock and tried to skip it across the river. Instead of skipping, it cut into the surface like a knife and was gone. "Shit," he said.

"You never were any good at that," Aaron said. "You need more of a sidearm."

"How many times have you told me that?" Sam asked, hunting up another rock.

"About a million."

Sam flipped the second rock out at the water. It hit and sank. He shook his head, thrust his hands back into his jean pockets, stood quietly for a moment, then turned to his cousin. "Have you talked to Shadow Love?" he asked.

"No."

"Are you still planning to send him to Bear Butte?"

"Yeah. I want him out of here," Aaron said.

"Shadow Love is a weapon," Sam Crow said.

"He's our kid."