Two Medicine (51 page)

Instead of waiting around
till lunch, I walked out of the store alone, just as I had come. I
left out of the back kitchen door, not looking back once at the
ancient, log building that had been my home.

I walked over the gravel
and down the path that led to the road, and then walked the quarter
mile or so to where it met the main park road. I figured I would
wait for a red jammer bus and hitch a ride, hoping to get it to
drop me near Greg’s.

I stood next to the road,
my back to the gravel dirt path that led to the store, facing the
thick woods across from me, waiting for a rickety old jammer bus, a
backpack hanging on my shoulder (I had finally abandoned the old
suitcase), my guitar case, and my precious bag of meds.

Forty-Two

Later that morning I was
walking up to Greg’s house. Dee was out in the front yard playing
in the grass with Ophie, and she waved as I walked me over, saying
something to Ophie. I came over to them and dropped my things. She
looked up at me warmly and didn’t seem surprised by my rough and
beaten appearance. Ophie barely glanced up and seemed to take no
notice as well.

“Hey Will... sit down in
the sun with us,” Dee said.

I sat down slowly,
settling into a position with my back to the sunlight. Dee looked
over my things. “Going somewhere?”

“
Well,” I said, “I wasn’t
expecting to just drop this on you, but I was wondering if I could
crash here – just for a couple days – until I find a new place. I
was gonna ask Greg first but I’m guessing he’s not
here.”

Dee just nodded as if it
was a perfectly normal thing to ask. “Officer Olsterman called this
morning, looking for Greg. I had him tell me the whole thing. I
think he forgets I’m a ranger too, that old fart.” She smiled, and
Ophie held up to her a dandelion; Dee picked it up and twirled it
in her hand. Ophie was stacking plastic Lego bricks together to
make a house in the grass.

“
I was gonna call over to
Two Med and see how you were doing, see if you needed anything,”
Dee said. “Then I see you walking up with your bag and guitar like
you live here already.”

I laughed. “I hope Greg
doesn’t think I’m barging in, but I am a good cook – at least as
far as the Two Med snack bar menu goes.”

“
You hear that Ophie?” Dee
asked the little girl. Ophie did not indicate she heard anything,
but kept on focusing on her little Lego building. “Will’s gonna
make us some Huckleberry shakes!”

“
As many as you can
handle,” I said. “Also, I think I can make it up to him. I have
some news that he will find interesting.”

She looked at me curiously
for a moment, but then nodded and looked down at Ophie. “Well you
certainly travel light. Of course you can stay here – as long as
you need.”

She probably knew more
about the whole thing that I realized. I still was wavering on
telling Greg about Larry’s accident; and the problem still would be
what Greg did with the news. But I felt as I watched Dee and Ophie
playing and thought about Greg’s life, that I had to tell him who
killed Alia – I couldn’t just leave him in the dark forever. He had
risked his job at one point, after all.

We hung out
on the grass for a while, watching Ophie construct
her house and then put a live turtle in it, which she had found in
the road days before. As she played, I told my sanitized versions
about the powwow, Jake, and the rest, to Dee as we sat there. I
felt so relaxed, just sitting in the sun with nothing to do for the
moment, and in Dee’s calming presence, and nothing pressing down on
me, that I couldn’t stop smiling. I got out my guitar and strummed
some chords, letting my mind wander into a thoughtless peace,
letting the notes and melody wander over the grass and into the
air. The meds were apparently still doing their work…

The mountains near Two
Medicine Lake were still visible from Greg’s house – just the peaks
over the trees, though. I watched them with the familiar eye of a
local, and imagined myself on one of the peaks looking down. I
decided I would put my worried aside and wait until the next day to
decide where to go, where to work, where to live. I strummed the
chords some more until the sun reached higher and Dee called me out
of my reverie to go in and have lunch.

I ate and we cleaned up,
and then I suddenly felt so exhausted that I stumbled into the
spare guest room she showed me and laid down on the bed. Within
seconds was in a deep sleep. It had been two days since I had
slept, in fact, so it was no surprise that I passed out. Dee left
with Ophie to the grocery store after putting me down, and with the
quiet of the house and my new-found peace, I slept as soundly as I
had all summer.

I woke up later on the
couch and it was dark outside. I forgot for a moment where I was as
I stretched my sore body. I looked up expecting for a moment bare
wooden planks, but saw a smooth, white ceiling with a big, ceiling
fan hanging down over me. I heard voices and the clinking of dishes
coming from the back porch. I got up stiffly and wandered over to
the sliding back door. Greg was standing at a little barbecue grill
and frying sausages and vegetables skewered on kabobs.

I reached into my bag and
pulled out a baseball hat and put it on in an attempt to clean up
my appearance somewhat – my hair sticking out in crazy directions,
and my t-shirt and shorts wrinkled. I still, however, looked like a
wreck when I stepped out onto the porch.

“Hey guys, I apologize for
my bedraggled appearance.”

Greg turned to me and
looked analytically at my wounds. “Jeez, Will, they really did a
number on you, huh?”

“
Let’s not discuss it,
babe,” Dee said, nodding at Ophie. She asked me to help with
setting the table. Ophie looked at me critically, and I heard her
ask Dee in a quiet voice what happened to me. Dee ignored
her.

“
You’re right,” Greg said
to Dee, nodding and looking back down at his grill filled with
sausages. “Gotta focus on these babies anyway. Get a beer,
Will.”

“
No, he’s helping me
first,” Dee said, smiling at him.

“
Probably not a good idea with the meds, anyway.” I said,
realizing however that I had not taken one that day
yet.
Then the peace on the front
lawn was not drug induced,
I
mused.

We had a nice dinner and
relaxed, enjoyable time. It was pleasant to eat outside under the
deep-indigo, almost-night sky on Greg’s back porch. The night was
coming sooner now at this time of year, but still was late to get
dark: around nine p.m. The bugs had long since disappeared for the
year. I was beginning to feel like my time was coming as
well.

After dinner I
finally had a chance to talk to Greg alone. We sat
on the porch after Dee and Ophie cleaned up – Dee insisted that I
take it easy as their guest, “and
slave
…” she said,
jokingly.

The night had fully
arrived, and a thin crescent moon peeked through the pine boughs
over the small river. Larry’s canoe was still jammed up in the
weeds, I could see. I guess I should have returned it, but it
seemed right to have it here now, with me. I didn’t think he’d
object, not now.

“
After hearing about what
happened at the powwow,” Greg said, “I wasn’t too surprised that
you wanted to move out of the store.”

“
I
actually miss it,” I said, listening to the crickets whirring
loudly from inside the dark forest. “I didn’t
want
to leave.” I reached
up and felt the bandage on my neck. The cut was healing quickly,
but it was still painful to move and look around. “But it didn’t
feel right to stay; Jake’s still out there after all.”

“
What are your plans,
then?” Greg asked. “What now?”

“
Not sure. But I can’t
imagine leaving Glacier, not now.”

“
I’ll ask around next few
days and see who’s hiring, give you some options.”

“
I appreciate that, man.”
I shifted in my seat and looked over at him. No, I decided, he must
know. “There’s something I want to tell you about, Greg, but
because of your job I’m afraid you may do something about it that I
don’t want you to.”

Greg looked at me.

“
Alia,” I said.

He watched me for a
moment, and then looked out through the dark shadows of the trees.
“Dee said something about you having some news… Well,” he said,
smirking, “I’m not a cop, remember? Just a ranger.”

“
Larry killed
Alia.”

He looked at me with a
shocked expression. “Larry
Martin
? From the store?”

I nodded.

“
When did you find this
out?”

“
Yesterday.” I then told
Greg the whole story, from the moment I got to the powwow to the
end, with Larry in his proper place in the tale this time. Greg
didn’t move as I spoke, but I could see an energy behind his eyes
that told me he was already putting together what he was going to
do with his new information.

“
Greg,” I said, when I
finished, “you can’t tell anyone about it. Please… Larry didn’t
mean to do it; and the poor bastard is destroyed already – if you
saw him you’d know. He’s a different man now; and destroying his
life and Phyllis and everything would make it all
worse.”

“
I still can’t believe
it,” he shook his head slowly. “You want him to just get off after
he ran her down like that and hid the body? Actually, I should have
suspected him, seeing it all in hindsight,” I said. “He really
became a different person after she died, but I just avoided him
all summer and I didn’t care what he was doing.”

“
Will,” Greg cleared his
throat, setting his beer down on the floor, “I know what you mean
about destroying Phyllis and all that, but you can’t seriously be
thinking that we’re not gonna report this.”

“
I
am
seriously thinking that,” I said

Greg shook his head
again.

“
I want your word, Greg,
as a friend. And you have been a good friend to me. I told you this
in confidence, because you helped me, and now I want you to let it
go.”

Greg grabbed his beer and
stood up and walked over to the grass, pouring the rest of his beer
out. “You’re just emotional after the attack, in shock after
finding this all out,” he said, watching the foam melt in the
grass.

“
No, Greg, I’m thinking as
clear as I ever have. He’s not actually some kind of monster like I
thought. If you report it, he’s arrested, his life is over. I know
he’s an asshole, a bastard, but… there’s goodness in him. And I’m
pretty sure Alia wouldn’t want him going to prison.”

Greg looked back at me
with a pained expression. “So this is the end, after all that
searching for the killer, trying to solve a murder?”

“
It is,” I said flatly.
“And it’s the right thing to do.”

Greg looked down at his
lawn again. “My boss, telling me I was ignoring my job looking into
this whole thing… Dee, feeling like I was distant, angry at me. How
am I supposed to go back to all of them like nothing
happened?”

I took a gulp of my beer,
but didn’t answer him.

Greg sat back down next to
me. He took a deep breath; he sounded defeated. “How do you know he
hasn’t already turned himself in? He said he was going to, didn’t
he?”

I thought of the letter I
had left for him on his truck and pictured Larry reading it,
standing there beside his truck intending to drive to Kalispell to
ruin his life like he ruined another.

“
He won’t,” I
answered.

Forty-Three

That next day I finally pulled off the
bandages and took a long shower. While I was in the shower, I let
the hot water run over my wounds. It stung, but the pain felt like
it was purifying me of something. I watched the water circle the
drain and imagined whatever that bad something was, was washing
down and disappearing in the whirlpool, forever gone.

When I was finished I inspected the cuts on
my face, the neck slash, the puncture wounds. Other than some angry
red edges around the wounds, some discoloration and bruising and
scabbing, it was looking… not so bad. Like someone who had tangled
with a wild animal. I wrapped up the worst of the cuts again after
and applying some ointment, and taped off the bandages.

The phone rang and I let
it go to the answering machine. I knew that Dee and Greg were at
work and Ophie at day care, and they’d be out all day. The caller
didn’t leave a message, but the phone immediately rang
again.
Strange
. I
walked into the living room in my towel, and answered
it.

It was Ronnie voice on the other end. “If
you think you’re getting out of watching the Perseid meteor shower
tonight… you’re dead wrong,” he said.

“
I’m not dead yet,” I
responded. “So it’s tonight? It’s late August already,
huh?

Even after his incessant chatter about it, I
had forgotten all about Ronnie’s big meteor shower – the “Tears of
Saint Lawrence.”