Sherman Alexie - Indian Killer

“John,” said Marie, wanting him to speak. She could see him standing at the protest powwow, not wanting to owl dance, but forced into it by tradition. She could see him, with golf club in hand, standing over Wilson and the cab driver, then curled into the smallest possible version of himself as those white boys punched and kicked him. John looked at her, through her. Marie felt a sudden rush of heat. She could smell smoke. She could see an empty landscape, golden sand, blue sky, a series of footprints leading toward the horizon. She could see the dark figure of a man in the distance. He grew smaller and smaller. No matter how far or fast she ran, Marie knew that she could never catch him.

“Hey, man,” said Boo, trying to break the tension in the truck. The other Indians were silent and still.

John turned toward Boo, who could see the emptiness in the big Indian’s eyes.

“Hey, come on,” said Boo and offered John a sandwich. It was a small and ridiculous gesture.

John looked at the sandwich. He looked at the crippled white man, who had lost almost everything. He had lost his family, his home, his country, the use of his legs.

“Here,” Boo said again and held the sandwich closer to John.

“John,” said Marie, wanting John to accept Boo’s gift.

John heard Marie’s voice in the distance. He looked at the sandwich, that small offering. He closed his eyes and imagined his birth.

John hears the slight whine of machinery. He hears gunfire. Explosions. A bird cry. The machine closer now and louder. The whomp-whomp of blades as the helicopter descends. John hears it land on the pavement outside the van. John closes his eyes and sees the man in the white jumpsuit running across the pavement, holding a bundle of blankets in his arms. The white jumpsuit man wears a white helmet and visor that hides his face. Another white man and woman wait at the end of the street. They huddle together beneath a huge umbrella. The helicopter brings the rain. The man in the white jumpsuit holds the baby in his arms. Swaddled in blankets, the baby is warm and terrified. Beneath the umbrella, the man and woman wait. He is a handsome man, pale-skinned and thin. He grimaces, tries to smile, then grimaces again, awkwardly, as if the smile were somehow painful. She is a beautiful large-breasted woman with ivory skin and clear eyes. The man in the white jumpsuit runs to the man and woman beneath the umbrella, and offers them the baby swaddled in blankets. The baby is small, just days from birth, and brown-skinned, with a surprisingly full head of black hair. The white woman takes the baby and holds him to her empty breast. The baby suckles air. The white man pulls his wife closer beneath their shared umbrella. He tries to smile. The man in the white jumpsuit turns and runs back to the helicopter. He gives the pilot a thumbs-up and the chopper carefully ascends, avoiding power lines and telephone poles.

John opened his eyes and looked around the sandwich van. Everybody was quiet and still, waiting for him to speak or move. John, feeling unworthy and too ill to be healed, looked again at Boo’s small offering. Bread, blood. John could hear the helicopter floating away.

John knew that the man in the white jumpsuit was to blame for everything that had gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong from the very beginning, when John was stolen from his Indian mother. That had caused the first internal wound and John had been bleeding ever since, slowly dying and drying, until he was just a husk drifting in a desert wind. John knew who was to blame. If it had been possible, John would have reached out, lifted the visor, and seen the face of that man in the white jumpsuit. John knew he would have recognized the curve of the jaw and the arrogant expression. John had seen it before.

Once more, Boo offered the sandwich to John, who this time shook his head at that smallest kindness. There was no time for kindness. John needed to be saved and John knew exactly which white man had to die for him. He moved to the back of the truck, opened the door, and stumbled to the pavement. He did not look back, afraid of what he might see, and nobody in the truck tried to stop him. Marie watched John go away. Her skin felt hot and dry. She wondered how it felt to kill a white man.

TRUCK SCHULTZ LISTENED TO the police radio scanner. Dozens of calls. Bar fights, domestic assaults, arson. The Seattle Urban Indian Health Center had been firebombed. Two police officers had been ambushed by rock-throwing Indians. Random gunfire. Police were looking for a truck full of white kids who were attacking homeless Indians. After he’d announced that the Indian Killer was responsible for Edward Letterman’s death, all hell had broken loose. Worse than New Year’s Eve. Worse than a full-moon Saturday night. Truck was in awe of his own power. He had to speak. He leaned toward the microphone.

“I don’t think so,” said Officer Randy Peone as he stepped into the studio. He pointed a finger at Truck. “You ain’t got nothing else to say tonight. Not one damn thing.”

OUTSIDE THE TULALIP TRIBAL Casino, David Rogers was trembling. He was alone in the dark parking lot and was terrified. He had two thousand dollars in cash in his pocket and suddenly felt very vulnerable. As he tried to open his car door, he dropped his keys. He bent over to pick them up and he felt a hot pain at the back of his head, saw a bright white light, and then saw nothing at all.

When he woke, David was lying facedown on the back seat of an old Chevy Nova. Two white men, Spud and Lyle, first cousins, pulled David out of the Nova and dragged him through the woods to a clearing a hundred feet off the road. Still groggy, suffering from a severe concussion, David could barely focus on the two men. He looked down at the ground and saw a solitary flower. He wondered if it was a lily. He wondered if camas root grew there. He wondered how long it had been growing.

“He’s awake,” said Lyle.

“Holy crow,” said Spud as he counted the money again. “Little bastard was rich.”

“How much?”

“A lot, I think.”

David looked up at the cousins. He tried to think clearly. He wanted to tell them something about Hemingway.

“He’s seen our faces,” said Lyle.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Spud, thinking hard.

“You think anybody saw us take him?”

“Nah, those Indians can’t see for shit.”

Lyle and Spud laughed.

“What should we do with him?” asked Lyle.

“I don’t know. I guess we should shoot him.”

David tried to get to his feet. Spud pushed him backward and David sat down hard, his back against a fallen tree.

“He’s just a kid,” said Lyle.

“A rich kid.”

“That’ll be true.”

Spud pulled out his pistol, a.38 Special, and aimed it at David’s face. Lyle covered his face. Spud’s hand was shaking. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. A startled owl lifted from a nearby tree.

“Holy crow,” said Spud. “I killed him.”

“Yeah, he looks like he’s asleep.”

“Well, what should we do now?”

“I say we get the hell out of here.”

With that, Spud and Lyle climbed into their Chevy Nova, drove north through Canadian customs without incident, and into Vancouver. That same night, they lost the two thousand dollars in an illegal poker game, plus another thousand dollars in promises. When those promises couldn’t be kept, Spud and Lyle were driven to a secluded spot by a river and forced to kneel in the mud. With their hands tied behind their backs. Spud and Lyle pleaded for their lives but only the river listened, and it didn’t care.