Gabriel's Stand (21 page)

“Guess who I heard from?” Alice was smiling. Gabriel hadn't seen his wife genuinely happy for months.

He stared at his her tiny image on his screen. Gabriel was in his trailer in Southern Idaho, and Alice was using a non-encrypted videophone borrowed by her friends at tribal headquarters. “I'm afraid to speculate,” he said, his heart hammering.

“I talked to a person of interest. And I talked to an old friend. I can't say more over this connection. So call me?”

“In a heartbeat.”

A minute later Gabriel was using a key encrypted line routed through a bank in Salt Lake City. “Hi,” Alice said. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Out with it woman.”

“Fred Loud Owl and Snowfeather called from an encrypted phone—somehow, Loud Owl has access to this spy stuff. Fred wants to get Snowfeather to see you, Gabriel. I'm so jealous.”

“Just me? You should be there. It has been so long. When?”

“Actually we'll all meet here at the Intertribal Center, if that can be arranged. Then she wants to get away with you and you slip out unseen. Remember, Gabriel, I'm working under an alias.”

“We can sneak off to our old camping place.”

“Now I really am jealous.”

“How did they find you?” Gabriel asked.

“Oh, you know Fred Loud Owl and his tribal connections.”

Holding the encrypted sat-phone in hand, Gabriel pushed his chair away from the counter where the laptop was set up and reached for dog food in the drawer under the sink. “So how did Snowfeather find him?”

“Good question. Turns out you did some business with a man named Roberto Kahn?”

“Yes. He is a lawyer based in Arizona that I consulted with on parts of the Habitat project. Nice young man.”

“Well he has also worked with Fred Loud Owl. And in one of those providential fate encounters, Kahn saw Snowfeather on a ferry in the San Juan Islands when she was on the run from Berker. He figured out who she was and gave her his business card. Eventually, she connected with him in Tucson and he called in Fred.”

“Sounds like providence was at work,” Gabriel said.

“I agree. Well anyway, Fred picked her up and used one of his Spirit Journey outings to give her some space to think. Fred always knows the perfect hideouts.”

“That sounds just like Fred,” Gabriel said, laughing. As he poured dog food into a tray at his feet, Fat Fox crawled between his legs, tangling the laptop power cord. “When can we see her?” The black chow began attacking his dinner with noisy enthusiasm.

“What's that sound?”

“Fat Fox is having dinner under my feet.”

“Tickle him for me.”

“I will. Hey. I have some news, myself,” he said.

“Don't tell me someone called you?”

“Yes. People do call me here. Bill collectors, old constituents, Cousin Steve, your Uncle Max. All to complain. But this was different. Are you ready for my news?”

“Ready.”

“I have found John Owen.”

“Thank God. He finally called? He's okay? Out with it, Gabriel. Did John Owen call you or what?”

“His assistant Ken Wang did. By the way, Ken is John's new son-in-law.”

“What? Isn't that quick?”

“Yes, but consider Elisabeth's situation. Her baby was born after Josh died in that Vector plant fire, and John sent her into hiding. It seems that Ken Wang was assigned to protect her. Well she had the baby, time passed, and the little guy has already had his first birthday. John told me that Ken and Elisabeth got married in Montana and Ken has adopted the boy.”

“Montana? That's next door! Gabriel, it's so hard to catch up. I wasn't even sure John was alive. And Elisabeth… How is her little boy?”

“Fine. More to the point—safe. They call him Little Josh, after his dad.”

“Where is John?”

“Okay… He's in hiding at a secret location.”

“Thank God. We heard that the blood and tissue the police found in that Seattle warehouse matched John's DNA.”

“I know, but that's not the whole story,” Gabriel said. “John was tied up at the scene of his kidnapping. He cut his way loose and early bled out as a result; but his people got him away safely to Canada. As of now, he's off the continent, and I don't want to know where. I'm hoping the G-A-N freaks think he's dead. It was a pretty hairy kidnap, Alice. It was all about the Treaty vote. John escaped by cutting off his own right hand.”

There was a long silence. “Oh. My. God. Is he okay?”

“Yes. Minus his right hand.”

“John is amazing. Give him a hug from me…if you ever reach him again.”

“I hope I can. Ken Wang left me a couple of encrypted numbers and some passwords to use for emergencies. Oh, I almost forgot the other big story. John is restarting Edge Medical and Vector Pharmaceuticals…locations undisclosed, for obvious reasons.”

“So John is now an illegal drug dealer?”

“That's about it. Aren't you glad you married me?”

“My mother warned me about
dating
you.”

“So did mine,” Gabriel said, chuckling.

“Yes, she did, too, come to think of it…”

North of Salmon, Idaho, the following week…

“God, I miss my pipe,” Gabriel said, as he stirred the last embers of their dinner fire. The evening sun shot through the lodge pole pines in broken shards, dappling the rocky ground. When Fred Loud Owl had reached Gabriel after Snowfeather's Spirit Journey, Fred brought Snowfeather quietly and secretly to visit Alice and Gabriel in Sandpoint, Idaho, a place that the Commission agents, fully occupied with enforcing the new regulations in the urban centers, were leaving alone for the time being. It was during that secret reunion that a special father-daughter trip return to the Old Campground was planned. It was to be just Snowfeather and Gabriel—Alice having decided to stay behind to protect her cover identity. So father and daughter traveled by car from the Spokane, Washington airport to Salmon, Idaho, and trekked from there with pack horses to this favorite childhood spot.

Gabriel looked over at the tent where Snowfeather was busy unpacking her clothing. Gabriel found himself studying the changes in his daughter's appearance: still pretty, but with a new leanness in her face. He detected a certain brusqueness of movement, as one might expect from someone on the run. And there was an unmistakable, almost heartbreaking aura of sadness. Gabriel had been chewing on some very bad news—a call from a Seattle police contact that he received after he and Snowfeather left Sandpoint. He dreaded the moment when he must tell their daughter.

Never a good time,
he thought,
but must it be right now?

Gabriel quelled the growing anxiety in his belly, allowing more pleasant thoughts to surface briefly. He recalled vivid images and smells from a long childhood hike to the same spot. The nine year old Gabriel had worshipped his giant, half-Swede father.

As Little Bear, Gabriel had reveled in his father's omnipresent pipe smoke, the smell of bacon, fry bread, and dense coffee, and the night stories by the fire at this very spot. Gabriel remembered how his official Standing Bear name had been conferred by the tribe only after a successful bow and arrow hunting trip in the Bitterroot Mountains.

“Coffee ready?” Snowfeather called out, her voice muffled by the tent.

Moments later, the sound of scalding liquid filling metal cups mingled with the rustle of pines in the gentle evening wind, as Gabriel poured from a blackened pot. “Come and get it, Princess!”

“Sounds funny to be called that.”

“So are you willing be demoted to Little Princess?”

“No thanks!” One of the pack horses snorted, testing its tree tether. “Sounds like you snoring, Dad,” Snowfeather said, poking her head out of the tent door.

“Mom and I were so happy and relieved to see you safe,” Gabriel said, remembering Alice's joy at seeing Snowfeather in Sandpoint Idaho. Snowfeather emerged from the tent wearing a light parka and a baseball cap. “That somehow you found Fred Loud Owl was a miracle.” Gabriel handed her a cup.

“It was. And there is more to tell,” Snowfeather said, holding the hot metal cup by the edges of its loop handle. She blew across the surface.

“More than what happened to Lance McKernon?”

“Nothing that grim.”

“You want to talk about your Spirit Journey?”

“That's certainly part of it, Dad. Plus it's some news about me.”

“You're pregnant?” he said, intending to joke, as he awkwardly avoided the bad news.

“What?!” Snowfeather's smile was impish. When she noticed her father's pained expression. Misinterpreting, she reached over and touched Gabriel's arm. “Hey. You're way too young to be a grandfather.”

“Don't I wish,” he said, dropping to his haunches. Gabriel sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “But that wasn't it…”
Here it comes
, he thought.
God help her
. “Here's the thing—I have some…news,” he said.

“You first, then,” she said.

Gabriel looked up at his daughter's sweet face and grimaced. “Bad news.” He sighed. “I couldn't bring it up at the airport or on the drive. And I had just gotten the…report…as you arrived. I just couldn't bear to ruin all the joy of our getting together.”

“How bad is this news, Dad?”

“Very. Let me get the hard part out of the way.” Gabriel straightened up, his expression wary. Snowfeather immediately caught the bitter scent of incoming disaster. Her face went opaque. “I'm afraid Mom doesn't know yet.” Gabriel said. “I thought you should be the first to hear this.”

“I'm ready,” she said. Her eyes said otherwise.

“There is no good way to tell you this, Princess.” Gabriel was still stalling. He took a deep breath. “Vincent is dead. It was murder.” The words had just blurted themselves out, like missiles. “I am so sorry.”

Snowfeather stood frozen, her coffee cup canted at an odd angle, the contents spilling out in a narrow, black waterfall, sizzling into the fire…like her own blood. Her eyes became bright with tears. “Oh,” she said. “Oh… Oh…Vince.” Her hands started shaking.

Gabriel balanced his cup on a rock, and gently took Snowfeather's cup, setting it down next to his. He hugged her, feeling the wetness of her eyes against his neck. “I am so damn sorry. I'd been wondering about him ever since he dropped out of sight.”

“How? When?” She stood back, biting out the words, staring into her father's dark eyes. Her own eyes were a mix of horror, anger, and grief. She was barely under control.

“He was killed before the treaty ratification vote. That's why he never contacted you. Never got in touch. It was Berker's doing. After you and Mom left me at Sandpoint for your girl talk visit with Aunt Mary, I took an encrypted call from Thurston Smith—he was calling from Wyoming. Evidently, the investigation by his old Committee on Terrorism had turned up a witness just before their inquiry was closed down by the new leadership. Well, this witness, after all this time, surfaced only last week. He called one of the former investigators and described the…killing. Seattle police went from there and located Vince's remains. Eventually they called Thurston and he called me the same day. I was so sick. I didn't know how to tell you.”

Snowfeather's eyes were deep hollows. “Somehow…on the ferry. You know, after I had just seen…what they had done to Senator McKernon. It hit me then…that maybe…just maybe… Oh, Dad!” She began weeping. “God damn them.”

“Yes, damn them. It was The Sisters for sure.” Gabriel put a gentle hand on his daughter's cheek. “I know all too well how it can be, Princess. Suspicion is only a cloud. Doesn't matter how bad think we feel when it's based on just a suspicion. But the confirmed truth hits so much harder.” He held her hand, and turned to face the sunset over the trees, pulling her to his side. His voice was very soft. “Vincent's remains were found buried in a South Seattle junkyard, just where the informant said they would be found. I didn't get details.” He shook his head, turned to face his daughter, his eyes damp. “Forgive me, Princess, I didn't want the damn details. I knew that Vince was a good young man…but…shit…” He waited a moment, listening to the suppressed sobs from his daughter. “That's all I know.” Gabriel hugged his daughter. “That is all I can know.”

Snowfeather ran from him then, stumbling past the tent, breaking branches as she disappeared into the trees.

“God
damn
them!” Gabriel said.

——

Three hours passed. Sometimes Gabriel heard his daughter's sobbing carried by the wind over the rustle of the pines. One time he heard his daughter's anguished howl. It wounded his heart.

Eventually, Gabriel tried to busy himself with the camp, heating a pot of water, preparing a supper they probably would not touch. Then as the first signs of dusk cast deep shadows over the tent and he stirred the fire, he heard the snap of a twig behind him and the rustle of a jacket being adjusted.

“Yes. Damn them.” Snowfeather echoed her father's parting words. Gabriel turned to find his daughter standing behind him. She had composed herself. Her tears had dried; their faint traces streaked down her dusty cheeks.

“Hi,” Gabriel said softly.

“Hi,” his daughter said. “I
knew
Berker was lying about Vincent at the time,” she said. “That bitch, Tan, Berker, whatever her cursed name is—she came in, almost gloating. She tried to tell me Vince had found someone else—that he was going to LA. Horrid, horrid witch of a woman. Oh, Dad, I should have tried harder to contact him.” Snowfeather began weeping. Gabriel walked over and hugged her.

“It couldn't have made any difference, Princess. He was dead the same night he went into that witches' nest. I am still sick at heart. But it is over.”

Snowfeather cursed unintelligibly, her voice muffled against his coat.

“I'm just glad you got out when you did, Princess.”

She stood back from him, rubbing her eyes. “Oh Daddy. I need to walk.”

Gabriel nodded. “Let's go up to that ridge. The sunset will be spectacular from there.”

They hiked in silence for ten minutes, the sun dropping lower, the shadows growing deeper along the forest floor. The ridge, a rocky outcropping higher than the surrounding trees, afforded a sweeping view of the Idaho-Montana border area—rugged, forested and still pristine. Two falcons circled while Snowfeather climbed a sloping rock to its highest point. She sat on the sun-warmed stone in the rapidly chilling air. Gabriel followed her in silence, stopping just below her perch.

“Dad, remember that conversation you and I had on campus before the Treaty vote?”

“How could I forget?”

“I really thought we had all
earned
this, Dad. Whatever bad happened was deserved. Like Karl Marx said, about breaking eggs to make an omelet. I didn't stop to think about just how far that idea could take me. Good God I was dumb.”

“How could these people have ruined a good thing, so completely? Gaia was a noble idea. ‘Gaia's Revenge?' What the hell is that? These people are so screwed up. How does this even happen? Smart people get taken in every day, Princess. Every good movement can be hijacked.”

“But I'm beginning to think that Berker herself is actually…”

“Evil?”

“Do you think evil is real?”

“Not a doubt about it,” Gabriel said.

“I do, too…
now.
”

“Life deals us some hard lessons.”

Snowfeather picked up a rock and threw it over the hill. She stared at the sunset a moment longer, watching the color spread. “About my news… God, I wish Mom were here, too.”

“Can't your news wait?”

“I better tell you, first.”

“Okay, I'm listening,” Gabriel said quietly, looking up.

There was another long pause while the colors in the sky deepened, catching more clouds; Snowfeather, a few feet away, was a dramatic silhouette against that complicated sky.

“I think I've found my calling.”

“And?”

“I'm going to be studying for a…ministry.”

Gabriel took just a fraction of a second to absorb the news…then he exploded. “Hold your horses,” he said before he could stop himself. “You said
ministry
?” Gabriel climbed up next to Snowfeather.

Without turning from the sunset, she felt for and held her father's hand. “Dad, I'd already made up my mind and now I was just reminded that evil is real. Do you know what that feels like from the inside?” She looked at Gabriel's stricken face. “I've touched evil from the inside. Oh God, Dad, I feel so
dirty
.”

“Oh boy.” Gabriel's sigh was like a very old tree in the wind. He sat very still for a very long time. “I understand and I don't understand. But maybe you could deal with this in a different way?”

“My calling, Dad.”

“Oh boy,” he repeated. “Alice won't get it at all. You know what she will say.”

“She can't be against the church. She goes…”

“I know, I know,” Gabriel said. “She goes to church. Your mother is a Roman Catholic and she put up with me, so I guess that makes her a saint. Above all, Alice is a mother. Your mother. I can hear her in my head, can't you? ‘
I can't hear of this! You, my only daughter. You would turn your back on family life
?”

Snowfeather smiled at Gabriel's spot-on imitation; then she bristled as the meaning penetrated. “You know how I love Mom, but I've about had it with her talk about her precious bloodline!”

“Please, please, cut your Mom some slack. Isn't this is about our people? About the tribes, the long line of us all the way back? It's about all our hopes for you. We injuns are fading out, Princess.”

The little anger storm passed and Snowfeather wilted. “Oh, Dad. After Vincent… I just couldn't.”

“Mom will never tell you. You were too young to see it, but she was so deeply hurt when she found out she couldn't bear any more children after you. And you should see her face glow when she talks about having grandchildren someday.”

“I'm so sorry, but this feels like wartime. Mom's hopes and expectations need to be on hold. And, God, Dad, Vince may as well have been dead for years, so much has happened to all of us, but to me it feels like now. More than ever before in my life, I have to do something. Now.”

“I know, I know. But this plan of yours, it's a huge thing you're talking about. …A huge step.”

“Hey, you weren't thinking this is going to be like being a catholic priest or nun or something?'

“Oh?”

“It's not like that at all.”

“But Fred….”

“Fred Loud Owl got me admitted to a special underground resistance training center. It takes place at a seminary. They're looking for Native Americans. Yes, it gets major support from the Catholic Church, but it's also supported by a lot of other denominations and secular groups. It's a consortium…a conspiracy—The Human Conspiracy.”

“You're won't be ordained, then?”

Snowfeather hesitated. “I'm not sure about that. But I will have a new identity, ordained or not, whatever it takes. The idea is to field-train a cadre of dedicated and well-vetted voices who can speak out against the G-A-N with moral authority. So there is an oath… It's sort of like the military, sort of like the clergy.”

Gabriel was confused, frustrated and irritated; then he felt a crushing surge of weariness. He struggled for the right words.
Too much to absorb
, he thought. “You know what? I'm so tired, Princess, I can't think straight tonight, let alone talk intelligently.”

“Can we talk in the morning?”

He nodded. “Sure. Let's go back to camp. It's getting dark.”

“I think I need to stay up here.”

He nodded. “Take my flashlight, then.” Gabriel pulled his hand lantern from its holster and gave it to her. Then he turned and slid down the rock.

“We can talk at breakfast, okay, Dad?”

“Sure.” Gabriel's face was turned away. He waved to his daughter over his shoulder, his chest aching as if a deep weight had lodged there.

Gabriel was spent, having hit his personal wall, like the long distant runner who collapses on the trail.
How much more can I do?
He thought.
My family is scattered to the winds. My people are betrayed…once again. My country has surrendered to a coalition of witches and compliant fools. Forgive me, Lord, how can I save my country, if I can't even save my family?

Gabriel stood up; he was panting, his hands shaking with anger and frustration.

Eventually, Gabriel sat on a log and stared up through the trees as the stars began to emerge. And he remembered a camp long ago when he was alone with his father. “Remember who you are, my son. We are old, as old as our oldest ancestors all the way back to the Great Spirit. We are here because we refuse to go away, refuse to be something less. My fathers are still with me all the way back to the beginning. It will be the same with you. I promise…”