Sherman Alexie: Indian Killer

“Wannabe?”

“Yeah, you know, wants to be Indian.”

“I see, and what time did Reggie leave the bar?”

“I don’t know. About nine or so, I guess.”

“And you didn’t go with him?”

“No, I swear. There’s about a hundred Indians who’ll tell you I was in that bar until closing.”

“We’ll check on that. How about Harley?”

“Harley took off this afternoon and I ain’t seen him since. He and Reggie almost duked it out.”

“Does Reggie own a knife?”

“A knife?”

“How many times has Reggie used this knife on someone?”

“I don’t know anything about a knife. Hey, shit, this ain’t about that Indian Killer, is it?”

“You tell us what this knife is about.”

“Hey, man, you ain’t going to pin that Indian Killer stuff on me. I didn’t kill nobody. And Reggie didn’t kill nobody, either. I know Reggie. He’s smart. He went to college, you know?”

“We know. He beat up his professor. A great student.”

“I don’t know what that was about, man. Maybe Reggie was just trying to scare him. That professor put the whammy on him, you know? Got Reggie kicked out. Reggie was smart, man. I tell you. He didn’t kill nobody. You go ahead and run your tests. Get all the witnesses you want. But I didn’t kill nobody. Reggie didn’t kill nobody.”

“Do you own a knife?”

“Yeah, I got a Swiss Army knife, a butter knife, and a steak knife at home. Shit, yeah, I own knives. I have to eat, enit?”

“Did Reggie own a knife?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“And what about Harley Tate?”

“You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“And where is he?”

“Only Harley knows where Harley is.”

“DON’T HURT ME,” WILSON said to John. “I’m not a white man. I’m Indian. You don’t kill Indians.”

John wondered if Wilson knew the difference between dreaming and reality. How one could easily become the other.

In his dreams, John saw his Indian mother standing on the porch as he drove away from the reservation. It was cold and rainy, as it would be on a day such as that. Or on another day, in another dream, his Indian mother on the delivery table, in all the blood, too much blood. She has died during his birth. An evil child, he destroyed his mother’s life as she gave him his.

Standing on the last skyscraper in Seattle, John was silent as the desert. The golden sand and blue sky. The long series of footprints leading to the horizon where that stand of palm trees waits. The wind beginning to blow. A storm approaching. Soon the sand would obscure the footprints and there would be no trace that anybody had come this way before.

John looked at the pistol in his hand and understood this was not the right thing to do. He dropped the pistol to the floor in front of Wilson, who was weeping. As Wilson continued to weep, the first ferry from Bainbridge Island docked at the wharf. Cars rolled off in orderly rows. Another jet passed by overhead, the nonstop from New York’s Kennedy Airport. Indian lawyers were already in their offices. Indian doctors were sound asleep. Wilson wept. Mick, the bartender, sat alone at the bar in Big Heart’s Soda and Juice Bar. He shuffled over to the jukebox, which was still playing songs that had been requested hours earlier, and pulled the plug. Olivia Smith stood quietly in the doorway of her husband’s study. He was asleep, crumpled on the couch, a detailed map of the United States propped open on his chest. She curled up close to her husband on the small couch. In a downtown garage, the street sweepers had just finished their shift and were contemplating a long day of sleep. Fog. Rain. Wilson wept. Rescue helicopters landed at Harborview Medical Center a few blocks east of the last skyscraper in Seattle. Mark Jones stood silently at the foot of his parents’ bed and watched them sleep. The ocean pounded against the shore. The alarm clocks were ringing, and workers, Indian and not, would soon fill the streets.

“What is it?” Wilson asked John. “What do you want?”

John stepped in front of Wilson. They stared at each other. John finally understood that Wilson was responsible for all that had gone wrong.

“You’re the one,” John said.

“What?”

“You’re the one who’s responsible.”

“For what?”

John reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. A thin blade. John didn’t know if the blade would even cut Wilson. But if it worked, Wilson would bleed out all of his Indian blood, a few drops scattering in the cold wind. Then the rest of his blood, the white blood, would come in great bursts, one for each heartbeat, until there were no more heartbeats. John’s former co-workers would find the body when they stepped from the elevator. The foreman’s face would grow even more pale when he saw Wilson tied to the wall. The building would be haunted forever then. The foreman would finish the last skyscraper in the city and move on to his government job. He would be working on a freeway exit in the Cascade Mountains when he saw his first ghost. He would see Wilson, impossibly pale and bloodstained, walking down the freeway, his thumb out in hopes of a ride. Or John could cut Wilson’s throat and then carry his body back down to the ground. He could drop his body into the cement mixer and fire the mixer up. He could bury Wilson in the foundation and nobody would ever find him. John knew that every building in Seattle contained the bones of fallen workers. Every building was a tomb. John pressed the dull knife hard against Wilson’s throat.

“What is it?” Wilson asked. “What do you want from me?”

REGGIE POLATKIN WALKED DOWN the country highway. A hundred miles from Seattle, a thousand miles away, maybe more, maybe less. The sky was cloudy. It could have been night or day. Fields on either side of the road, though the crop was indiscernible. A cold breeze. Dead skunk smell saturated the air. So isolated. Reggie was startled when the car suddenly pulled up. A red truck, smelling of exhaust and farm animals. Reggie leaned into the open passenger window and saw the driver, an elderly white man. Gray hair, gray eyes, blue overalls. Chewing-tobacco stains on his large teeth. The old man smiled when he spoke.

“Hey, do you need a ride?” asked the old man.

Reggie nodded, climbed into the truck. He looked at the smiling farmer.

“Where you headed?” asked the old man.

“I’m running,” said Reggie.

“I figured that.”

“You ever hear of Captain Jack?”

“Can’t say that I have. Was he a Navy guy?”

“Oh, no. He was a Modoc Indian. His real name was Kintpuash.”

“Are you Modoc?”

“Nah, I’m Spokane. Little tribe that didn’t do much fighting.”

“Was Captain Jack a fighter?”

“Oh, yeah. He led about two hundred Modocs from a reservation in Oregon and set up camp in northern California, where they were supposed to be. Modocs aren’t Oregon Indians. They’re California Indians. Yeah, old Captain Jack had about eight warriors and the rest were women and children. Anyways, the Cavalry came after Jack. Captain Jack ran from them and hid in these lava beds, you know? Great hiding places. Miles and miles of tunnels and mazes. Captain Jack and his people fought off the Cavalry for months, man.

“Man, there was this one Modoc named Scarface Charlie who attacked a patrol of sixty-three soldiers and killed twenty-five of them. All by himself. You hear me? All by himself.”

“He must have been quite the fighter.”

“He was, he was. But they couldn’t fight forever, I guess. They gave up. Captain Jack surrendered. I mean, he had all those women and children to worry about. So, Captain Jack surrendered and they hung him. They hung him, cut off his head, and shipped it off to the Smithsonian.”