Diamond Blackbear screamed. And ran…straight into a bush.
Frantically fighting her way through the grasping green wall that surrounded her, she ignored the scratches and the ripped hair until her hands felt nothing before them. Reason, exploded by what she’d seen, left her with only instinct to drive her forward.
Bouncing off someone, hands gripped her like a vice, held her, shook her. Yelling slammed into her face. More shaking. Bits of a face appeared before her. A brown eye. A nose with a bump in its center. A mouth…in motion…
Staring at the motion, she understood one fierce word. “What…?”
Little by little, it came to her: He wanted information. Jerking her hand toward the bushes, she stuttered, “Th-there…”
Roughly, he shoved her towards new hands, gentler hands that urged her toward a building. Once inside, she felt rather than saw, the large picture windows on her left. Thrust into a seat facing a wall, she stared, feeling neither the bench beneath her nor the table holding her clenched hands.
Her unseeing eyes turned toward the window until a thump under her hands made her turn. Two cups of steaming liquid sat in front of her and a large Native woman jostled the table to sit opposite her.
Passively, her eyes turned back to the window as a car crawled past and people stared and pointed to the bushes at the edge of the parking lot.
Gradually, her vision cleared. The image in her mind began to fade as reality grew. Around her, she heard noises and saw the movement of bodies. The smells of cooking, the clanking of silverware and dishes; slowly, reality burrowed into the haze of terror that had surrounded her. Glancing around in amazement, she saw that she was in a restaurant and the Native woman watching her from the other side of the booth looked familiar. “Ceilie?”
“Yes, it’s me…” she answered, lifting a finger as she turned to greet someone who had just come into the room.
A kind of exhausted numbness settled on Diamond as the rest of the conversation faded from her hearing. Her eyes slid indifferently around the room, finally coming back to focus on the brown mug in her hand. ‘How did I get this?’ she wondered, staring at it. To her jumbled mind, it had only just appeared, popping out of thin air.
Then the question faded, and her interest with it, as her eyes drifted to the tabletop, noting its shininess, then onto the glowing spot, a twin to the hanging light. Leftward, her eyes roamed, seeing the tabletop, the condiments, and the mounted paper announcing the daily specials. They drifted up to slide over the silver-gray aluminum frame to the shadowy reflections in the window.
“Uh…!” she yelped as a torn and bleeding face stared at her. Realizing it was her own face; she shot a sideways glance at Ceilie, hoping she hadn’t noticed.
But she had. “You OK?” Ceilie asked softly.
Jerking her head up and down, Diamond slurped some of the hot brown liquid and making her mouth sting in the process. The worry didn’t leave Ceilie’s eyes; it only formed a crease between her brows. But Diamond had relaxed enough to give her a small smile before turning once more to stare at the parking lot.
Diamond remembered he first time she had met Ceilie so many years ago, at the university orientation fair. College had been the result of a promise Diamond had made to her dying grandfather. As she had held the thin gnarled hand in that hospital bed, she had been too full of fear and pain to deny him anything. Promising to go to school and get a degree, she had found herself sucked into the characteristic vortex activity signaling the beginning of new life. Panic had grabbed her. Her eyes had darted around the turmoil looking for something, anything, familiar. Pathetic relief had flooded her when she saw the Native American Student Organization sign across the gymnasium. Like a salmon, Diamond had battled her ways towards it, finding Ceilie and her husband, Joe, sitting at the table greeting new students.
“Ceilie Taylor, round and brown,” Ceilie announced with a grin and an outstretched hand. In a desperation born of fear, Diamond had clung to them as if they were a rock in rapids.
Graduating two years before Diamond, they had urged her to return to her home reservation when she graduated. Feeling lead by God to take them up on the offer, she had driven from Judgment Falls early that morning, two days after her own graduation.
By the tie she entered the north country where the Lac du Grande Homme reservation was located, the sun had only been a glowing promise behind the deepening forest. At the junction of highway 41 and County Highway Z was a weathered sign announcing the boundary of the rez. Passing from a grassy field to the tall pines that stood like a barricade at the edge of the reservation, she whispered a prayer, “Thank you, Jesus, for the safe journey.”
The ancient road curved serpentine fashion through the pines; rolling over hills, sharpening around lakes, past driveways marked by tilted mailboxes. Then, coming around a right angle curve, the road had abruptly widened at a football field-sized parking lot between two buildings.
The first building was a white one-story with brown trim and a side entrance to the parking lot. A sign announced it was the Mini-Market, Café and Variety Store. This was it: the café where Ceilie worked as a waitress and where they had agreed to meet.
Pulling into the parking lot, Diamond noticed the father building was a garage/gas station with a battered Jeep sitting in front of it. Driving across the parking lot to face the deep woods surrounding the area, Diamond noticed a small black car behind the Mini-Market near the back door. ‘Probably Tony,’ Diamond thought. Tony was Ceilie’s boss and was evidently getting ready to open for business.
Diamond climbed out and stretched, hearing a few birds calling in the branches. It was a beautiful June morning with blue sky and a peacefulness she hadn’t felt in a long time. Turning in a slow circle and looking at the empty asphalt around her, memories assailed her. This had been a meadow on the corner of two gravel roads, one road slightly wider than the other that turned right angles off it. The wide one, now County Trunk Z, meandered northwest to southeast through the rez while the other led to a group of tarpaper shacks jokingly called Z-town. The shacks belonged to the same family and sat on the shores of Z-lake, one of the Chippewa Chain of Lakes.
It was a big family…aunts, uncles, cousins…what was their name? It teased at the corner of her mind then suddenly sprang forth. Wolf! That was it. Staring at the gravel road, she wondered if the family was still there. Who was it that her grandfather used to visit down there?
“DIAMOND?”
Shooting to her feet and whirling toward the reverberating voice, she saw a huge, hulking Native male wearing a brown shirt labeled Lac du Grande Homme Sheriff’s Department on one arm. He had turned slightly, reaching to yank a chair over from a nearby table, straddling it backwards; he looked at her with sleep-bleary eyes.
Slowly, she sank back down as Ceilie greeted him. “Billy.”
As he returned Ceilie’s nod, Diamond noticed that even though he was seated, he was tall enough to look her in the eye. Coming beside him was another man, at least a head shorter. He, too, pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat down. Looking passed them; Diamond suddenly saw how utilitarian the restaurant was with the plastic wipe-clean walls and heavy wooden furniture. Behind her she heard the murmuring voices of a pair of patrons. The remainder of the restaurant was empty by this time.
“Been a while!” Billy’s voice boomed again as he turned back to her and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?” he asked, offering her one.
Shaking her head numbly, she silently slid her eyes to the other male. Should-length wavy brown hair and a long-sleeved white shirt and jeans marked him with an indefinable stamp of ‘city’. His caramel brown eyes saw her watching him and returned the stare with equal frankness.
‘He’s the one who stopped me,’ Diamond’s memory flooded back. ‘He’s the one who grabbed me. Yelled at me that he was the rez police.’ Her eyes slid over to Ceilie, who, in turn was watching her.
Billy spoke again, his voice quieter. “I’m Billy Boone.” He waited, somehow aware she needed time to process the information.
‘Billy…’ Diamond thought slowly. ‘Billy Boone…’ Her eyes drifted away from his face as a fragmented vision of childhood winter came to her. A snowball fight. Fullness came in a flash. Snow flying – three, four others – Diamond outnumbered getting snow in her face, down her jacket – cold snow, no mercy, Billy wading through – walking her home – Billy biggest kid around. Sure! Billy Boone! Nodding her eyes once again turned to his face.
“I’m Sheriff on the rez now.”
‘Sheriff? Police?’ Diamond frowned uncomprehendingly. ‘Why does he want to…?’ She shut out the thought, ‘No…no…’ Her eyes shot away from his face, falling on a spot on Ceilie’s uniform. ‘Gravy…?’ she wondered.
Billy pulled her back to him. “Must be fifteen, twenty years since I saw you last? Where ya been?”
“Judgment Falls,” her autopilot said as her eyes turned to tare again out the window. She’d been somewhere else…Ghostly reflections exchanged glances then turned watchful eyes toward her as she struggled to think.
“At college?” Billy looked at Ceilie. She nodded and he turned back to Diamond. “Whatcha major in?”
‘Major…’ The word bounced around her mind as she watched two fighting sparrows fall from the pine trees, hit the ground and fly in separate directions.
“Diamond?” Billy called her back again.
Turning, she struggled to remember what he’d asked. Major…? “Uh…Commercial Art.”
Sitting up straighter, Ceilie’s answer sounded defensive across the booth. “She’s very good at art.”
Billy sucked on his cigarette and gave her a nod. Turning back to Diamond, he asked, “So…you here to get a job? Or just come back to find your roots?” He watched her somehow as he watched his smoke curl.
She looked at the smoke, staring as if fascinated by it. Beyond, the other guy twitched impatiently. ‘Dog!’ she remembered suddenly. ‘He said his name was something like a dog…’
“Diamond?” Billy’s voice broke in, forcing her back to his question. “Are you staying?” He looked at her, waiting for the answer.
“Staying…?” she repeated with a frown, then looked at Ceilie. “Visiting.”
Following her gaze, he asked, “Known each other long?”
Ceilie looked back at Diamond. “About five years.”
Diamond nodded. ‘Only five years. Seems longer. Seems like forever.’
“Is that where your grandfather took you?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No, we went to…I grew up…Lake Benoit, south of LaCrosse.”
“Where’s your grandfather now?”
“Died. Just before I went to college.”
“Sorry to hear about your grandfather. You’re all alone now?”
“I’ve got friends,” she answered exchanging smiles with Ceilie.
Beside her, Billy crushed out the butt of his cigarette and blew the last of the smoke toward the ceiling. “Well,” he said, leaning forward. “I hate to start your visit off on a sour note, but I need to ask you about this morning.”
Her mind went blank and she stared back at him, confused.
“When did you get here?”
She thought back. The sun had been up but not over the trees when she’d pulled into the driveway. A few birds were wrapping up their morning songs. “About five,” she said finally. “Maybe 5:30.” Looking down, she saw her thumb rubbing on her coffee mug.
“From Judgment Falls? No stops?” Billy asked.
Turning to stare out the window, she thought about when she had left. The small college town had been hot and humid. “I left about ten last night. It was cooler. Less traffic.”
“Any stops along the way?”
“Gas, an all-night station in…Wausau, I think it was.”
“And you got here before the restaurant opened?”
Stiff neck muscles jerked an affirmative.
“Did you see anyone else here? Any cars in the lot?”
“There was a black car behind the building.”
“Tony’s,” Ceilie said, confirming Diamond’s suspicions.
Billy nodded. “Anyone else?”
“A Jeep over at the gas station next door.”
“Yours?” Billy asked the other guy, who nodded. He turned back to Diamond. “Any others?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “No.”
“So you arrived about…when?”
“Between 5 and 5:30,” she said.
“You don’t know which?” The other guy demanded.
She shook her head, showing him her wrists. “No watch.”
Billy nodded as if he’d known that. “Then what?”
Diamond thought a moment. “I was early for meeting Ceil…I decided to take a walk down to the lake.”
“Why?” Billy asked.
Looking at him, she answered slowly, “To stretch my legs.” Pausing, she couldn’t make the link between her taking a walk and what he wanted to know.
“So you decided to take a walk…” Billy urged her after the silence had extended a little too long.
“Yes,” she confirmed and looked away.
“Then what?” Billy pushed.
Stiffening, she stared at him and shook her head. “No…No…” Short puffs of breath burst out as her eyes remained riveted to his face.. “I…can’t!”
He gazed back at her, waiting silently, persistently.
THEN WHAT…THEN WHAT…THEN WHAT? It echoed so loudly she couldn’t believe no one else could hear it. It echoed like a canyon, shouting in her mind as if she stood on the edge of a steep little cliff. A little cliff a few hundred feet high. Just waiting for her to jump.
Gasping for breath, she turned her eyes to the tabletop, forcing her brain to think, to remember that morning. Forced her memories to go around that wall she’d built. Around the wall toward that hidden something. Something behind that thick green brush beside the parking lot. Something awful. Something ugly.
Billy sat silently, waiting as she struggled.
Suddenly, the memory burst forth full-grown in vivid clarity. She watched herself walk around her car, stroll to the gravel road, enjoy the sound of the breeze in the pines, smell the water from the lake…no…there was another smell. Her eyes swung around as she hesitantly stepped along the road. She’d smelled it before, but not as strongly.
Everything seemed quiet, serene even. She walked on toward the little rise in the road that came before the downhill slant to the lake.
Then from the corner of her eye, something moved. Not a big motion; just a kind of wave. Turning, she saw a tall sumac bush. There in the midst of the green leaves, something metallic flashed in the light breeze.
‘Gum wrapper,’ she told herself. But no, she argued, ‘It’s too…’ Her feet edged closer, feeling the curve of the slight ditch between the road and the bush. The early summer grass barely reached her ankles. Leaning forward, she widened the branches and saw…
‘A purse?’ She frowned at it. ‘In a bush? How…?’
She could see the buckle from the strap hooked on the upper branches and she pushed through the brush to free the long strap.
On the other side of the bushes, the forest was open except for a few half-grown trees coming up or an occasional knee-high bush beside a log corded with age. Pine needles crackled under her feet as she stood on tiptoe and reached for the strap.
Her right foot slipped down a slight hill and she switched hands to reach up with her left hand. That was when she saw it.
Just a patch of white…in the midst of the greens and browns. She turned, forgetting the purse. Sliding forward past branches and over downed trees, she kept her eyes on the patch of white.
Slowly the white became a sleeve. A hand rested lazily on a downed log. The sleeve flowed back to a patch of blue. Beside the sleeve was a tangled mass of blonde. In the middle of the blue vest was a stain of deep burgundy.
‘Is that…?’ Diamond asked herself, edging even closer. A scream had erupted from her throat as she realized it was a dead woman; that the ‘deep burgundy’ was her lifeblood, splattered and drying at Diamond’s feet.
Her shaking hand clamped over her mouth to hold back a new scream. Instead, it rose as tears, forcing their way out of her eyes.
Ceilie reached across the table and took her hand and held it. That comforting gesture soaked into Diamond’s agonized mind, breaking the spell the memory had put her under. It gave her strength to go on. She forced the memory back into the shadows and took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “I was headed to Z-lake. The purse…” They knew this. Did she have to repeat it? Yes. But not for them. For her.
She took a deep breath to start again.
“What about the purse?” Billy asked.
“It was hanging high in a sumac. I wondered how it got there.”
“Did you take it?” Her head shook in quick jerks, back and forth, making her hair splash in her face.
“Why not?”
‘Oh, God…!’ the cry echoed in her soul with the anguish she felt. Why had she even stopped? Why didn’t she just keep on walking? “I thought…” her voice sounded high, almost bird-like. “S-something might be wrong…I don’t know!”
“You thought something might be wrong? From the purse hanging on the sumac?”
Inhaling sharply, she nodded. “Yes…! I saw…the body…the blood…” Her throat choked on the words. “It…it was strange…why was it there? Who’s was it?”
“Was there any money in it?” The short guy looked at her with a smirk on his face.
Confused, she stared at him. “Money?”
“Yeah, you know…” He rubbed his fingers together. “Money?”
“I didn’t get it down…” Realization filled her. She’d completely forgotten about it.
“Why not?” Billy asked.
She turned to look at him, her thoughts once again stagnating. He waited. “Because…” Her eyes widened again as the body filled her vision.
“Because you saw the body?” Billy asked softly.
Wincing, she gave him a curt nod and turned away as if that would help. ‘Oh, Great Father! Make it over soon!’ she prayed.
“Diamond?” Yet again Billy was pulling her back. “Diamond? Did you know the woman?”
“No!” She gasped out and shut her eyes. “I never saw her before in my life!”
“And you hope you never do again,” Billy added and sat back, thinking. He glanced her way, watching her choke her coffee mug, trying to strangle the memory he had been forced to bring back to her. “You didn’t see anyone around, did you?” His voice held no hope, only something like a wish.
“No…” She shook her head, glancing at him with thoughtful eyes. “But…she’s been…dead…awhile, hasn’t she?”
Both men seemed alerted by her question, then Billy appeared to relax. “Yeah. I’d say about six hours. But that’s not official.”
She glanced at Ceilie wondering how far to go. Finally she asked the question, “The murderer wouldn’t still be around, would he?”
Billy responded with a shrug. “Probably not, but I had to ask.”
Ceilie’s jaw had been getting tighter and tighter until now she could no longer hold it in. “Well, if you’re finished terrorizing Diamond, maybe you could make some introductions.”
He glanced at her and kept silent.
“Him!” Ceilie snapped. “To her?”
His gaze was hooded as he said, “Diamond, this is Deputy Charlie Dodge of the Lac du Grande Homme Sheriff’s Department.” His eyes never left Ceilie. “That good enough for you?”
She lifted her chin. “Nothing wrong with telling people who’s who.”
Suddenly Billy grinned. “Careful, Ceilie. You’re getting more like Marge every day.”
Ceilie’s mouth dropped open and snapped shut.
Meanwhile, Charlie edged closer to the table and asked, “Most people would have lost their lunch after seeing the gore you saw, Miss Blackbear. Since there is no evidence that you did, perhaps you would explain why.”
Diamond was alert enough to be insulted by his implication. “I was raised hunting and trapping. I just never saw a human body before.”
“And you could hardly say she was unaffected by it!” Ceilie protested.
Charlie kept watching Diamond. “Or she’s a good actress.”
Just then the restaurant door opened and another deputy the size of Billy strode in. “Billy?” His voice was gravelly and his face laced with lines and acne scars. Despite his height, he had a belly that bulged over his belt buckle but he gave no indication of flab. His long hair was streaked with gray and pulled back in a ponytail and he squinted at them all as he waited for Billy to answer. In his hand was a brown paper bag that he held up to Billy’s line of vision.
Standing up, Billy led the others out the door to the hallway.
“Who’s that?” Diamond asked, staring at them.
“Tom Stonehorse. He and some of the county deputies are searching the area where the body was.”
A squat man in an apron came out of the kitchen motioning Ceilie over for a talk. She patted Diamond’s hand and went to talk to him.
Diamond continued to watch the three men in the hall. Billy stood between them, looking in the bag. Tom stood on Billy’s left, Charlie on his right. Tom leaned closer to tell Billy something, forcing Charlie to lean closer to hear.
Suddenly Billy looked up, staring right into her eyes. His lips moved slightly and the others looked in her direction as well.
Closing the bag, he headed back to the booth. “Diamond, have you seen Sam Hugent lately?”
“Who?” She said with a frown.
“Sam Hugent.”
“Sounds familiar…” Her eyebrows pushed together. “Sam Hugent?”
“He was your neighbor.” Billy stood over her watching her every move. “We all played together as kids. Him, you, me, the LaSalle brothers?”
Tom and Charlie stared at her as she thought back. Memories flooded her as she remembered running with the other kids in the neighborhood. She barely heard Billy say that Sam hadn’t been around in awhile.
In her mind, Diamond could see the rutted driveway that ran past her place, heading down to his house…the crest of a hill…the swamp below the house…a yard full of kids…Sam…always in trouble…always angry when he lost…bringing his mother a bunch of wildflowers…her looking at them and tossing them away…heading for a baby too near a patch of poison ivy… Diamond could picture him, hurt, angry. Skinny kid, mean, his mother too busy with six other kids, too tired for Sam. She nodded, finally. “Oh, yeah. Down the road from us.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?” Charlie asked, leaning forward.
Turning to look at him, she noticed his hair curled around the edges of his ears and waved over his forehead. He had a strong jaw line without a massive chin; a narrow nose that indicated mixed blood somewhere in his line. His eyes were sharp, glittering like brown diamonds, looking for snakes under rocks. He wasn’t bad looking – if you liked the pushy type. “March. Seventeen years ago.”
She remembered that day, too. Seventeen years ago…Icy rain still blew in her face, trickling down her neck, the darkness of evening surrounding her. The hand in her back, shoving her forward; the voice, cracking from a broken heart, crying for her to get her things together, to get a move on, swearing at the pain. It had been after school. March. A week after her parents had died.
Sam had gotten off the bus with her. She, stopping at her house, him walking on with his siblings…brothers? ‘No,’ she thought. There had been a girl in there somewhere, older than her by four or five years.
Seventeen years ago…how could anything be important now? She frowned at Tom who was staring at her.
“Well?” he snapped.
She hadn’t heard his question.
“I said, are you sure it wasn’t more recently?” His eyes met hers with a hardness that increased the line between his brows and under his eyes. Below his nose, his thin mouth compressed even thinner in a sharp line.
Meeting his eyes evenly, she repeated, “March. Seventeen years ago.”
“That’s pretty specific, Miss Blackbear. How can you remember it was March? Not April?”
Billy’s eyes traveled between him and Diamond.
Anger rippled through her. He was calling her a liar! “I know it was March because it was a week after my parents died! I’m sure! But Sam? I barely even remember him! Who’s he to you?”
They watched her silently until Billy said, “We’ll be in touch.” He motioned out the door.
As they went out, Ceilie came over and stood watching them.
“What do you think?” Diamond turned to her.
She shrugged. “Best guess? I think they think you’re involved some how.”
“That much I can figure out,” Diamond said testily. “But why?”
Ceilie studied her a moment. “How long have you been a Christian? A little over a year?”
Diamond nodded.
“Well, I don’t know why this is happening,” Ceilie answered. “But I do know that this is part of a plan God has for you. God is in control. Trust him.”
Diamond looked out the window. Sure, she’d become a Christian and that meant turning the control of her life over to Jesus. But this…! Trouble she could get into without help, divine or otherwise.
