Sherman Alexie - Indian Killer

“How did she threaten you?”

“She said she’d eat my heart.”

“Really? Marie Polatkin said that?”

“Yes, she did. Of course, I had to drop her from my class. I’m thinking of pursuing more serious charges against her.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. Tell me more about her cousin.”

“Reggie? Well, as I said, Reggie is a former student of mine. We had a misunderstanding and he, well, he assaulted me.”

“Sounds like you and the Polatkin family have a problem.”

“I hardly find this amusing, Officer. I must protest your behavior.”

“Protest noted.”

“Officer, Reggie and I used to travel together. And we talked. Reggie had a very violent father. Very violent. A white man. I always worried that Reggie was going to hurt somebody.”

“Why were you worried?”

“Because he said he dreamed about killing people.”

SLOWLY, WILSON WOKE AND made several attempts to open his eyes. His head ached and he could taste blood. He tried to reach up and touch his face to see how badly he was hurt, but discovered that he was tied to a wall. He could not move his arms or legs. He tested the ropes, but they held tight. How had this happened? Wilson wondered if he was still dreaming.

But Wilson was tied to a wall. His head did ache and his mouth tasted of real blood. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. He did test the ropes that held him. He stood eagle-armed, his wrists tightly secured to two-by-fours, his legs tied at the ankles to another two-by-four. All of the two-by-fours were part of a wall frame. Wilson looked around. By twisting his head, Wilson could see that he was tied to a wall frame in an upper floor of an unfinished downtown building. He could see the other frames that would hold the walls for the bathrooms and two large corner offices. He noticed frames for rows of smaller offices between corner offices. The elevators and shafts were finished, looked strange and out of place. Various saw-horses scattered here and there. A forgotten black metal lunch box near a power saw. An open metal door just north of Wilson. An unlit exit sign above it. Wilson tested the ropes. He could see through the wooden skeleton of the floor to the buildings that surrounded him. In one building, a janitor pushed a vacuum back and forth, back and forth. A police siren many floors below him. Then another siren, and a third, a fourth, blending into one long scream. Wilson could sense that somebody was standing behind him. Wilson knew that his shoulder holster was empty and that somebody behind him was holding the pistol.

“John?” asked Wilson.

“Yes,” John answered. Wilson twisted his head violently from side to side in an effort to locate him.

“John? Where are you? Let me see you, okay? Let’s talk, okay?” asked Wilson. John heard the fear in Wilson’s voice, even as he tried to bury it beneath layers of professional calm.

“John?”

John inched closer to Wilson and touched his arm.

“Hey, John, you scared me there. Why don’t you come out here where I can see you? We can talk, right? Why don’t we talk?”

John remained silent.

“Hey, John, I met your mom tonight. She’s a beautiful woman.”

John saw his Indian mother on the delivery table. She reached for her Indian child.

“Olivia, right? She really loves you, man.”

John saw Olivia, wearing only a towel, walking across a hardwood floor. Her hair wet, her damp feet leaving slight prints on the wood.

“She wants you to come home. Don’t you want to go home?”

Wilson waited as long as he could stand for a response. His voice broke.

“And what about your dad, John? What’s his name?”

I don’t have a father, John thought, but he saw Daniel dribbling a basketball in the driveway. Like this , Daniel was shouting, like this .

“Come on, John, talk to me. It’s okay. We can talk about it. Everybody will understand. I’ll make them understand. I’m a writer, John. What do you say?”

Silence. Wilson thought hard, trying to save his life.

“Listen, John, any Indian would kill a white guy if he thought he could get away with it. Which Indian wouldn’t do it? I’m an Indian. I know. There are a million white men I’d kill if they’d let me. Talk to me, John. Indian to Indian. Real Indians. I’ll understand.”

John heard the fear in Wilson’s voice now.

“Hey, remember up by my apartment? Remember when you had that golf club? Man, I thought you were going to beat my ass. Who were you with? That Indian woman, the one who hates me, right? Maria, Marie, Mary? What’s her name?

“I knew an Indian woman named Mary. Beautiful Mary. Back when I was a rookie. She lived on the streets, man, and I looked out for her. Really, I did. I was the only Indian cop on the force. The only one. Can you believe that? There aren’t many now, but I was the only one then. And I’ll tell you. It was hard work. They always gave me the shit jobs. Called me Chief and Tonto and everything else. Man, it was awful. But I took care of the Indians, you know? All those Indians who lived downtown? Just like now, huh? Lots of them. And Beautiful Mary was my favorite. I mean, I never told anybody this before, but I loved her. I mean, really loved her. I kept thinking we were going to get married or something. I thought we’d have little Indian babies, you know? But then she was killed. Raped and killed. They stuffed her behind a Dumpster. I just wanted to die, you know?”

John stepped forward and pressed the pistol against the back of Wilson’s head. Terrified, Wilson tried to think, not wanting the ultimate indignity of being killed by his own weapon.

“Please,” Wilson said as he struggled against the ropes. He was afraid of the pistol. He was begging for his life from the man he knew was the Indian Killer.

“Don’t hurt me,” Wilson said to John. “I’m not a white man. I’m Indian. You don’t kill Indians.”

“MR. WILLIAMS, I’M SURE you know why you’re here, don’t you?”

“Call me Ty. And yeah, I figure it’s because of what we did to that white guy.”

“And who is this ‘we’ you’re referring to?”

“You know, Reggie and Harley and me.”

“Reggie Polatkin, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“And Harley?”

“Harley Tate, man, he’s deaf. He’s a Colville Indian.”

“And where is Harley Tate now?”

“You mean you ain’t got him? And Reggie, too? I figured you had us all nabbed.”

“Nabbed for what, Ty?”

“For beating up that white guy on the football field. Well, I should say that Reggie really hurt him. Harley and I didn’t know that was going to happen. What was that white guy’s name. I read it in the papers, but I don’t remember.”

“Robert Harris.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Reggie took that guy’s eyes. But he’s doing okay, enit?”

“Mr. Harris is fine. But he says you tried to kill him.”

“Hey, I don’t know nothing about any murders. Yeah, I beat up on that white guy. But like I said, Reggie really hurt him. I didn’t want no part of that. You got to talk to Reggie about that.”

“You know where Reggie happens to be?”

“Nope.”

“Where were you this evening about ten o’clock, Ty?”

“I was at Big Heart’s, up on Aurora. I swear.”

“And where were Reggie and Harley at ten?”

“I don’t know, man. I mean, Reggie left after he almost got in a fight with Jack Wilson.”

“The mystery writer, Jack Wilson? The cop?”

“Yeah, he hangs around the bar a lot. He’s a Wannabe Indian.”