Sherman Alexie - Indian Killer

The people had applauded when Wilson revealed that his next novel was going to be about the murders, and he had smiled at the applause. Then he realized that he should have kept his mouth shut. Now that his secret was out, other authors and publishers would surely confirm his worst fear and rush books into production.

Inside the sandwich van, Marie and John rode in silence. She was intent on following the taxi. She wanted to know where Wilson lived. She wanted to protest right outside his house. The police would come for sure, especially in light of this whole Indian Killer thing. That could be a big scene, all three local networks might show. John watched the taillights of the taxi. They reminded him of something he could not remember. It was a nagging feeling that hurt his head. His stomach growled loudly.

“You hungry?” asked Marie. “There might be a few sandwiches in the back. Help yourself.”

John looked behind him and saw the metal racks that held the sandwiches. Other than the racks, the van was bare. John spotted a sandwich on the floor and picked it up. He worried that it might be poisoned.

“Did you make this?” John asked Marie.

“Yes.”

John knew then that it could not be dangerous. He was hungry and wanted to eat it, but felt guilty because he had nothing to offer Marie in return.

“Go ahead,” she said.

The sandwich tasted like smoke.

“Man,” Marie said. “I hate this guy.”

“Who?” asked John with a mouth full of bread and bologna.

“Wilson. He’s a cannibal. No, he’s not even eating his own kind. He’s a scavenger. He’s a maggot.”

The sandwich suddenly tasted like anger.

“And there’s this other guy, Dr. Clarence Mather. He’s teaching my Native lit class, you know? He’s one of those kind who thinks he knows everything about Indians. An Indian expert. Arrogant asshole.”

John nodded. He remembered the night he had followed Marie as she had been following Mather.

“You were following your teacher,” John said.

Marie stared at the taxi ahead of them.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“I was following you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Marie seemed to accept that answer as being honest and decided she’d have to be more careful in the future.

“If you ask me,” said Marie. “The wrong white guys are dying.”

The sandwich soured. John quickly finished it and licked his fingers. He thought about Jack Wilson and Clarence Mather, and wondered how their fear would taste.

The taxi pulled up in front of Wilson’s, and Marie pulled up right behind the taxi, her headlights filling the cab.

“Hey!” shouted Eric as he noticed the van. “I think we’ve got company!”

Wilson turned around in his seat. He could not see who was in the van because of its headlights. Eric reached under his seat and pulled out a sawed-off golf club, a one-iron. Wilson and Eric stepped out of the taxi at the same time. When Marie turned off her headlights, Wilson recognized her as the leader of the protest, Marla or Maria or something like that, but he couldn’t quite see who was with her.

“What do you want?” screamed Eric, waving his golf club.

“It’s those protesters,” said Wilson.

“Come on out of there!” shouted Eric, “I’ll give you something to protest!”

Marie smiled at the cab driver’s bravado. He did not look like much of a fighter, or a golfer. John saw the club and closed his hands into fists. Just two white men. John knew he could hurt them.

“Come on!” shouted Eric.

John stepped out of the truck.

“No,” said Marie, but John was already marching toward Wilson and Eric. The cab driver quickly backpedaled, but John saw that Wilson held his ground with a surprising lack of fear. Actually, Wilson was too shocked by John’s obvious resemblance to his own hero, Aristotle Little Hawk, to be afraid. Wilson felt as if he’d brought Little Hawk to life through some kind of magic. Wilson had always felt magical, but he’d had no idea how much power he really possessed.

“Aristotle,” said Wilson.

John knew about Aristotle. The philosopher was required knowledge for Catholic schoolboys. But he had no idea why this white man was talking about an ancient Greek while a crazy cab driver was swinging a tiny golf club. It was very confusing. John wondered if these white men were real.

So John reached out to touch Wilson, to test his reality. Eric suddenly found his courage and, screaming like a television Indian, charged John. Wilson heard the screams and reflexively fell to the ground. Eric swung his one-iron blindly at John, who snatched the club out of the air and took it away. Disarmed and terrified, Eric fell to the ground beside Wilson. John raised the club above his head and stepped toward the men. Wilson reached inside his jacket and John wondered if the white man had a weapon. Then Wilson relaxed and showed John both hands.

“John!” shouted Marie. For a brief moment, she thought that John was going to smash the men’s brains with the golf club, but John just screamed and threw the strange weapon toward the apartment building. Glass shattered. Windows lit up. Marie dropped the van into drive and pulled up beside John. Wilson and Eric scrambled out of the way.

“Get in! Get in!” shouted Marie. John looked at her. He wondered if she was real. He turned away from her, ran away, disappeared. Marie watched him running, then she quickly drove away.

“I’m glad you saw them,” said Eric. “You can tell the cops who it was! Those damn protesters!”

“No,” said Wilson, firm in his belief that the big Indian would have valuable answers. “We don’t need the cops. I was mistaken. I don’t know who they were.”

“But you said you recognized them?”

“No, I was mistaken.”

“Jeez, it’s a good thing that wasn’t the Indian Killer, huh? We’d both be dead!”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Eric shrugged his shoulders. He was sure Wilson was lying, but not sure why. It didn’t much matter since no one had been hurt. Wilson was already unaware of Eric, of Marie, of everything but John. Wilson was enchanted with John. Wilson thought that a man who looked like that could be Little Hawk. Wilson wanted John all to himself.

“MR. HARRIS, CAN I have a few words with you?”

“Hey, dude, are you, like, a cop?”

“Homicide detective, actually.”

“Well, I haven’t been homicided. At least, not yet. No thanks to those Indians, though. They blinded me, man.”

“The doctors think you’ll be able to regain some of your vision. Maybe all of it.”

“That’s what they tell me. But I don’t know, man. I’m scared. I can’t believe what those Indians did.”

“Yes, well, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about. Are you sure they were Indian?”

“Positive. Braids and all. Just like the movies.”

“Do you think you could identify them? Perhaps work with one of our sketch artists to come up with a composite? I know it will be hard without your eyes. But we’ve got to try.”

“Just like the movies, huh?”

“Just like the movies.”

“Yeah, man, I’ll do my best. Like I said, they were some righteously angry dudes.”

“Can you tell me exactly what happened that night?”

“Yeah. You see, man, I’ve been hitching across the country, trying to find myself, you know? Out there in the open spaces, man, you can see some powerful shit, I mean, some powerful stuff. But anyway, I was on my way to Canada. I, like, met these Canadian dudes down in Arizona a few weeks back and they said I could visit them anytime I was in Canada.”

“And that’s why you were camped on the Indian Heritage High School football field.”