troopers out here looking around. You want to stay or not?'
'We ain't gonna move nothing in no two days. Course I want to stay.'
'All right, then what do you want done with the movie star?'
'What do you think? Take him off somewheres and shoot him. Hell, Brother'd kill you to do it. Yeah, jes take him off somewheres.'
'I saw it coming,' Hazen said, 'but wanted to make sure.' He went inside, walked through the musty smell of the living room to the kitchen, picked up the business card from the counter and dialed the number on it.
Within moments a voice came on saying, 'OK Realty, this is Denise. How may I help you?'
Hazen said, 'You know who this is?'
There was a pause before she said, 'I have a pretty good idea.'
Hazen said, 'Guess who jes come by here?'
Ben coasted toward Brother standing at the side of the road by his truck and stopped close to him.
'Man, you're a mess.'
Bloody from his face to his T-shirt. Brother said, 'I busted my goddamn nose,' and touched it, barely.
'I see that. Listen, I told your daddy. He ought to be along pretty soon.' Ben raised the window, nothing more to say, and continued on toward town.
Doing the one-eighty brought him to life again and got him thinking of Carl, what Carl would say to him: 'There you go, you don't take abuse from those people. You can tell looking at 'em they're dirty. What you said's fine. Get off my property or I'll fuckin run you off.'
They looked serious enough to come after him, and he couldn't help thinking this situation could be in a movie. The only thing different, he'd be the good guy for a change. And it was real life.
III.
Preston Raincrow could trace his people back more than a hundred and sixty years: some of them from a Cherokee clan, the Keetoowah, and some from slaves owned by the Creeks, black slaves brought all the way here from Georgia or Alabama during the Trail of Tears. His great-grandma, Narcissa Raincrow, lost a child when she was sixteen - not having any business being with child - and Virgil Webster hired her as a wet nurse when Graciaplena died giving birth to Carl. Narcissa stayed on as Virgil's housekeeper, 'becoming as close as a man and woman can be,' Preston would say, 'till she died a few years ahead of old Mr. Webster.'
Preston and Ben played basketball three years for the Bulldogs, Ben looping the ball toward the basket, Preston finally growing tall enough to go up for the ball and stuff it. After high school Preston went to work for Ben's granddad Carl in the orchards and rode bulls every year in the Okmulgee Invitational, the all-black rodeo they held out at the Creek Nation arena, fourteen thousand in prize money. Ben told him he was too lanky for bulls and Preston switched to saddle broncs. It was fun, but didn't offer a living. After a few years he gave up working for Carl and joined the tribal police, became a Muskogee Nation Lighthorseman and drove around in a white Taurus with a gold star on the door.
Ben called the Lighthorseman headquarters from the motel and was told Preston was no longer with them, now working for Russell Exterminating, killing bugs. Ben said, 'You're kidding - Preston?' but didn't get a reason or any more information. He called the exterminators to learn Preston was out on his route. Ben left his name and the Shawnee Inn phone number.
Five-thirty, Preston Raincrow hadn't called. Ben was about to try him at home, say hi to Ophelia and find out where he might be. That was when Preston knocked on the door and came in the room in his dark-green exterminator uniform.
The first word he said was 'Tenkiller. Man, it does me good to see you,' and wrapped his long arms around Ben.
'How'd you find that out?'
'What, calling yourself Tenkiller?' Now he stepped back to look Ben over. 'I'd catch a glimpse of you in a movie falling off something, or getting beat up by the good guy, but I wouldn't see your name there at the end? I don't know why I never wrote and asked. So one time I kept stopping the tape to look good. I see 'Ben Tenkiller' there with the stuntmen and I know it's you.'
'I used it,' Ben said, 'to get the job on Dances with Wolves, told 'em I was Indian. But then once I was known in the business as Tenkiller I was stuck with it.'
'You name yourself after the lake?'
'After the Cherokee with ten notches on his bow the lake was named after. What're you doing killing bugs?'
'You mean 'stead of arresting drunk Indians? I stopped a white guy come driving away from the Elks, weaving all over the road, and I stood at attention while I caught hell for it. What Caucasians do is not the business of a Lighthorseman. The guy even sideswiped a car, said somebody cut him off, two A.M., not a soul on the street. I said fuck it. I said what am I doing working for the law? My great-grandma Narcissa? Her daddy, Johnson Raincrow, was bad as they come and got shot for it in the olden days. Shot while he's sleeping outside on the ground, the only way to take him.'
'You gonna turn outlaw?'
'I was thinking you could get me work in the movies.
Sonny Samson from here made it big. One Flew over the Cuckoo's? The man didn't even talk and was one of the stars.'
'You want a beer?'
'I don't need any for a change, but yeah, gimme a cold one.' Preston looked around the room of dark wood, the king-size bed, walked over to the balcony and looked out from the second floor. 'Man, you could almost dive from here in the swimming pool. But don't try it, you hit your head on the concrete. It's too cold anyway, do any swimming.'
Ben got a couple of Buds from the cooler asking Preston how his family was doing. Preston said Ophelia took the kids to her mama's when he quit the cops and stayed drunk for a while. He said, 'It ain't hard to act stupid if you put your mind to it. But two weeks of missing them was all I could take.' He asked how Ben was doing and Ben told how Kim was killed, falling off a ladder while he's slicing mushrooms, and Preston said, 'Did it turn you stupid, get you thinking you're to blame?' Ben said he was handling it. He didn't mention the feeling of expectation, ready for something new in his life. Or ask about Denise, if Preston had seen her lately.
He told about going out to the house and finding these people living there, the Grooms, Avery, Hazen and Brother, and what they'd pulled on Lydell, getting him to lease the property.
'Bring Lydell to court with you,' Preston said. 'The judge'll let you tear the lease up.'
They were seated at the table now, drinking their beer and smoking cigarettes. 'They're bad guys,' Ben said, 'but I can't figure out what they're up to.'
'What made you suspect it, big ugly prison tats on their arms?'
'They're not working the place,' Ben said. 'Letting it go to hell. The barns are closed up, the equipment's all outside in the weather. They got cows in there eating the papershells off the ground.'
'That's only criminal in the eyes of a pecan grower,' Preston said. 'What else you see?'
'Nothing.'
'What you suppose are in the barns all closed up?'
Ben said, 'If I could get deputies to go out there to take a look -'
Preston was shaking his head. 'They have to know what they're looking for.'
'But they could go out with subpoenas, couldn't they? Get these guys to appear in court?'
'Once you file a complaint.'
'But when's the court date, next year? I want 'em out of there now, so I can still hire the pecans picked. I gave 'em till noon the day after tomorrow.'
Preston, starting to grin, said, 'Or what?'
