Page 48 of The River We Remember

“Were you given visions, Sam?” Loretta said. “Because all I hear is the crying when you have one of your nightmares.”

The room experienced a moment of rather stunned silence, then Landis asked, “How do you know about all this initiation stuff, Sam?”

“I’ve been doing some research for a book I’d like to write about the Great Sioux Uprising.”

“Samuel, sweetheart,” Loretta said, laying a hand on his arm. “This book you’re going write, if you ever do, I wouldn’t count on it being a bestseller. Believe me, no one cares about the Indians here. Why don’t you write a mystery instead? Everybody loves a good mystery.”

Once again, an uncomfortable quiet settled over the room. Into that quiet, someone said, “So, Brody, do you think Noah Bluestone killed Jimmy Quinn?”

IT WAS TWILIGHT, and Connie Graff sat in his truck near the long dirt lane that led to the simple farmstead where Noah Bluestone lived with his Japanese wife. He was parked at the edge of the Alabaster River, in a blind of cottonwoods. His window was down, and he listened to the call of the birds among the trees and the fallow strips that outlined the land cultivated by Bluestone, and before him by Bluestone’s father and grandfather and great-grandfather. Graff had been watching the farmhouse with a pair of field glasses he kept in the truck. He had no intention of questioning the Bluestones again. He simply wanted to scrutinize the place unseen and, if he was lucky, observe the man and wife together when they believed themselves to be alone. He was curious about how they were with each other. He wanted to know especially how Bluestone treated this pretty, quiet woman from another country, another culture. He’d wondered that since the day before, when he spoke to her among the rows of amaranth, where, as nearly as Graff could tell, she worked long days like a common field hand.

Someone left the house. Graff lifted his glasses and saw that it was Noah Bluestone. The man walked slowly across the newly planted fields, a dark figure against the dying light, moving in the direction of Fordham Ridge, where the river curled back on itself to create Inkpaduta Bend.

Graff rolled a cigarette and smoked awhile and the light grew thinner. Then he saw the woman leave the house with her old Saint Bernard and disappear behind the barn, walking across the field in the direction opposite to the one her husband had taken. He crushed out the cigarette in the truck ashtray, started the engine, pulled out of the trees and onto the dirt lane. He parked near the pen where the pigs were kept. His presence disturbed them, and they grunted and moved about restlessly. The door of the small barn was open and Graff entered. His eyes were used to the dim evening light, and he had no trouble making his way around inside.

He’d come on impulse and wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He opened a door to an area in one corner that was squared off by interior walls. Inside was clearly a slaughter room. A metal crossbar hung from a pulley attached to a ceiling beam. The floor below was stained with old blood. A tarp, also stained with old blood, hung on a wall peg. A shelf along one wall held the instruments of a butcher—a hacksaw, two great cleavers, sharpened knives of several sizes and shapes. There was an enormous metal basin that Graff figured might have been for the capture of entrails. Except for the bloodstains, all the materials looked clean and the area itself freshly washed down. Graff understood this was where Bluestone butchered his hogs. He left the barn and opened the door to an outbuilding that was both a garage and a workshop. Bluestone’s pickup was parked there. The workshop was a well-organized area with tools and sawhorses and a workbench. Graff moved to the pickup and peered over the tailgate. The truck bed was empty and exceptionally clean, he thought, for a farm truck. A sudden bark at his back brought him around. The woman and the dog stood in the doorway.

“Good evening, Mrs. Bluestone.” He tipped his Stetson.

She didn’t reply.

“Deputy Graff,” he said. “You remember me?”

“I remember,” she said.

“I’d like to talk to you, if that’s all right.”

The woman looked up at the sky, which was beginning to salt with stars. “Would you like to come into the house?” It was said with disciplined politeness.

“Thank you,” Graff said.

She offered him tea and he accepted. He’d never been inside the farmhouse before. Given her heritage, he’d expected some Oriental influence, but he saw none. Nor did he see anything that hinted at Bluestone’s own Native heritage. The little house was old, but all the furnishings looked recently bought, and Graff wondered if the couple intended it as a way to leave their pasts behind them.

The dog, who was really a rather gentle creature, lay on the floor watching the woman as she prepared the tea.

Graff said, “Where are you from in Japan?”

“Okinawa.” She brought the tea on a tray. The tea set was fragile porcelain, and the small cups had no handles.

“I don’t know Japan at all.”

“It’s a beautiful land,” she said, pouring tea for him and then herself.

“Have you always lived in Okinawa? I mean before now?”

“No.” She didn’t elaborate. She seated herself and waited for Graff to go on.

“You speak very good English.”

“I had good teachers. Nuns.”

“In Japan?”

“I grew up Catholic.”

Which surprised the hell out of Graff. “I’m Catholic myself. I don’t recall ever seeing you at Saint Ignatius.”

“I went once, Deputy Graff. It was made clear to me that I wasn’t welcome there. I say my prayers here now.”