Gumshoe Gorilla (32 page)

"I understand. And I'm familiar with the privacy laws. But my client's in a rather desperate situation. He's in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor. And with his blood type..."

"Oh my. What happened to him?"

"He was doing business in central Africa, and picked up a parasite. It was resistant to the standard course of treatment, and they finally had to resort to aggressive chemotherapy to take it out. Now he needs to find a compatible bone marrow donor within the next couple of weeks."

"I'm... I'm so sorry to hear it. And I wish that there was something I could do. But by the time we got the kids, they'd already been in the system for a while. I never met any of the parents."

"I understand. But surely there must be records. For medical emergencies and such? Or in case a family changed their mind?"

"I never heard of anyone changing their mind. At least not at our camp. There were some medical records, though. Immunization histories and that sort of thing. But nothing that connected any of the kids back to their parents."

"You're sure? Not even..."

"Believe me, I'm sure. Five or six times we had kids break into the office, convinced that we had the names of their parents on file somewhere. We finally just opened up the place and let them have a look. I tell you, if records on the parents even exist, then they're under lock and key up in Washington. We certainly never had a copy."

"OK. Well, thanks for your time."

"I just wish I could be of more help."

I hung up.

Well, that settled it. There was no secret cache of documents lying around here. No answers to find in this place. Only ghosts.

I stood up, brushed the pine needles off my jeans, and threw another rock in the lake. Well, the trip hadn't been a complete waste. The country up here was beautiful. Something from the back of my mind reminded that this was one of the counties that the Cherokee would be getting back if their suit in the World Court was successful. Being here, I was beginning to understand how they felt about it. No wonder they were still fighting for it, two hundred years later.

"RG? RG? Are you paying attention?"

"Sure Natalie," I said, switching her over to the speaker phone. "I'm just multitasking. I've got a lot going on over here."

I put my feet up on the desk and leaned back. On the far wall, the monitor was running some clips that I would be using on my show that night. With the sound off, of course. It's a good way to gauge their emotional impact. If you do a show right, the visuals should be so compelling that it doesn't even matter what you say. After all, this is television.

On the right screen, there were scenes from the sacred ball play, the contestants purifying themselves in a stream before the game, then lining up to have their sticks blessed. On the left screen, a team of puppets was illustrating the story of the water spider, and how she brought fire to the people when all the other animals had failed. But the center screen was the attention grabber. On it, four white hunters were in the process of beating a Cherokee boy to death. In a few seconds, his mother would hear the screams, and come to help, only to be raped by them. It was brutal, and chilling, but it was also history. Just one of thousands of such incidents that occurred back in the 1800's, after the State of Georgia passed a law declaring that Cherokee couldn't serve as witnesses in a trial. That they would have no voice with which to speak of the crimes committed against them. That it was open season for any white who wished to kill or rape or steal from them.

"RG! Are you there?"

"Sorry Natalie. Minor crisis over here. But nothing that I can't put on hold for you. What have you got for me today?"

Natalie is my eyes and ears inside the Baptist News Network. Like me, she is a returnee to the Nation. Only one-eighth Cherokee by blood, she can pass for white. Her intelligence reports on BNN used to be vital, back when Stonewall was in charge over there. But since he'd gone to prison and lost his senate seat... well, the relevance of her reports had declined substantially. I already knew that things were a mess over there, so there wasn't much point in having her tell me that week after week. I probably should have had my secretary take her calls and filter out the useful information for me, but undercover agents tend to get nervous whenever you let someone else in on their identity. And who knows, the intel on BNN might become important again in the future. Best to stroke Natalie's ego now, make her feel important.

"Well, the network is continuing to slide towards insolvency," she said. "But Trent's still not willing to sell. He can't hold out much longer though. I managed to get my hands on their latest financial records. Pretty grim. I've e-mailed them to you along with the usual material on their audience surveys. Oh, and I also managed to stir up a little trouble between Trent and his one remaining star, Sandy Roberts. You should have been there to see the fireworks."

"Really? How'd you get them to turn on each other?"

"Appealed to his need for control, her need for fame, and put the two on a collision course. I almost felt guilty about it, it was so easy. Kind of like kicking a man when he's down."

Up on the center monitor, the action segued into a white mob, bashing to pieces the first printing press bought by the Nation, and lynching the men who were working it. Later that year, the Georgia assembly would make it a hanging crime to sell printing equipment to the Cherokee. Worried we might educate ourselves, organize ourselves.

"Yeah," I said, "about that. I want you to hold off on any more unauthorized sabotage at BNN. I've got another plan in the works, and I don't want you tripping over it by accident."

"Anything you can tell me about?"

"I'm afraid it's on a need-to-know basis."

The white mob on the screen morphed into a modern crowd of Baptist protesters, waving big plastic crosses and signs that read
Fight UN Land Theft
and
ONE Nation under God
. You could see the hatred in their faces. I felt myself getting angry again, just watching it. The sequence was that good.

"Not even a hint?" Natalie pleaded.

"Sorry. Your work is important, but I have to keep some secrets."

I needed my viewers to be angry. To draw strength from their outrage, from the endless crimes committed against us by the whites. To remember what we were fighting for. I'd received word that Stan Fallen Dove, president of the tribal corporation, was already floating a compromise offer before the US attorneys fighting against us in the Hague. A promise not to confiscate private homes and businesses, not to relocate any of the whites who fell within the treaty area. As if he's forgotten what the whites did to us. How they forced us off our land at gun point. The long slow death march to Oklahoma. No, Stan was a compromiser, and he would give away everything before the fight even started. In his heart, Stan values peace over justice.

"I understand." Natalie said. "I'll get back to you when..."

The door to my office opened, and Laughing Bear burst in, singing.

"You'll be swell! You'll be great! Gonna have the whole world on a..."

I took Natalie off speaker phone and picked up the receiver.

"Sorry about that," I said. "Unexpected company."

I motioned for Laughing Bear to shut up. He dropped the musical number down to a hum and started doing a dance routine with my coat rack.

"Laughing Bear, by the sounds of it?" Natalie asked.

"His reputation precedes him," I answered.

Laughing Bear was a member of the Bow String Warrior society, whose members do everything backwards. I took it from the song and dance routine that he was here on serious business.

"Yeah, well be careful. I've never trusted that guy. I mean, he's a pureblood and... well, you know they've got it in for you."

"That's a gross generalization," I said. Even though it was true.

The purebloods had grown fat and lazy on the money from casino gambling. They'd adopted the white man's ways, the white man's religion. Most of them were Methodists now. And I'd heard the things they say about me in private. "Snake Oil Salesman" and "New Age Flake" were some of the kinder words used. The purebloods have turned their back on the magick of their forefathers, and now they think it's all some kind of joke. But the joke would ultimately be on them. For the magick is all too real. And in the end, they won't matter. In the Nation, there are three times as many returnees as purebloods. And our hearts are pure, even if our blood isn't.

"Maybe," Natalie went on. "But I've heard rumors about him. Stories that he belongs to some sort of secret society."

"You mean the Bow String Warriors?"

"No. Everybody knows about that. I mean something else. There's talk of an underground organization that goes all the way back to..."

"Yeah, I've heard those stories too," I said. "But those are just rumors. The Keetowah Society doesn't even exist."

"Maybe. But watch your back anyway."

I hung up. Laughing Bear wrapped up his dance number. He grabbed my bear cape off the coat rack and put it on. Then he climbed up on my desk and sat down cross legged, staring me eye to eye. His manners take a little getting used to, but his presence was reassuring. He was Ice-in-Summer's protector, back when she was the sacred center of the Nation. And now he is mine. That says a lot.

"So how's my favorite little witch doctor?" he asked. "Cooking up any heap bad juju today?"

"Perhaps," I said, laughing.

He did look funny , sitting there in my bear cape. He smiled, and for a second the light caught his eyes in a strange way, and I saw a trace of something feline. His totem, a cat of some kind. So far I've only seen hints of it.

"So who was on the phone?" Laughing Bear asked.

"A friend of mine. She seems to think that you might be a member of some secret society."

Laughing Bear grinned broadly.

"I trust you haven't told her anything."

"Don't worry," I said. "I keep my secrets. And I value the help your order has given me."

I was distracted by a shadow on my desk. I glanced up to see what was casting it, but there was nothing there.

"Something wrong?" Laughing Bear asked.

"No, just..."

I looked back at my desk. The shadow was gone now. Still, I knew what I'd seen. The shadow of a horned owl. It was a warning, and I'd been seeing it a lot lately. It meant that another Shaman was close by.

But who? Ice-in-Summer is dead. And as far as I know, I am the last in the Nation.

"It's not important," I said. "So what does the Keetowah Society wish to say to me today?"

Laughing Bear frowned.

"I'm afraid that we bring you good news. Our agents have found your enemy's weakness."