window.
“I can’t take your hat, Rudy,” I told him.
“You can’t not take it,” he insisted. So I did, and as I climbed over the side of the truck to join Shawnee, it occurred to me that I now had Buzzard John’s knife
Lucky me.
2
A week after I got to the rez, we began the backbreaking work of harvesting the crop, tying up the plants, and hanging them upside down from the ceilings of the barn and drying sheds. Then came a monthlong lull, with little to do but grow my hair out. Having a Mohawk didn’t seem so cool when you were living with Indians.
It took a month for the plants to dry. Shawnee and I did a lot of hiking, some swimming until the river got too cold. I don’t know if any of the grown-ups knew we were having sex. If they did, they didn’t say anything. Then when the plants were ready, Shawnee and I joined the trimming crews working day and night at long plywood tables in the barn. She taught me how to clip away all but the tiny hip leaves from the sticky, skunky, purplish green buds, and how to shape and manicure them. I got pretty good at it, too. I could clip as fast as any of the Indians, and never once ruined a bud.
It makes me happy now to think back on those stony, fuzzy weeks, the haze of pot smoke drifting under the high roof, the spooky, snaky sound of R. Carlos Nakai’s wooden flute music over the sound system, and the constant
By mid-October the product was dried, trimmed, and ready to ship. Because at that time of year a single man driving a van didn’t have much chance of getting out of Humboldt County without being pulled over and searched, Rudy told me I’d be going with him on his business trip.
And off we went the very next day, in a customized white Dodge Tradesman van, with false interior walls and raised floor filled with vacuum-sealed one- to ten-kilo bags of bud. Sorry as I was to be separated from Shawnee, but mindful of my status as a charity case, I looked at this as a tremendous opportunity to prove to Rudy how useful I could be. My job, as we worked our way down the coast to San Diego, then north up the Central Valley, was mostly to sit high in the passenger seat, always visible, when we were on the road, to roll joints while Rudy drove, and to guard the van while Rudy took care of business. At night we shared a motel room, but only in motels where we could park the van right outside our room.
Our last stop was Stockton, where Rudy sold the last of the weed, except for a few kilos he’d held back for personal use, to some other California Indians, some Pomos, I believe. The van’s false floor and walls were stuffed with cash and I was more than ready to go home, which already meant the big house by the side of the river for me, though I’d lived there only two months. I especially wanted to get back in time for the big Halloween party the following night.
But Rudy wanted to celebrate first. We took a motel room with two queen-size beds and got good and stoned. Rudy treated us to a prime rib dinner, then went out partying with his Indian friends while I watched TV in bed with the room curtains open so I could keep an eye on the van. I must have fallen asleep, though, because the next thing I knew it was dark, and Rudy was climbing into bed with me.
I knew right away he was drunk. His movements were clumsy and his speech was slurry and he didn’t seem to understand when I tried to tell him that he had the wrong bed. He just kept pawing at me, patting me roughly on the head like I was a big sheepdog or something, and saying things like “You’re a good kid, c’mon, you know what to do.”
But I didn’t. I didn’t even know what was going on yet. I still thought Rudy just had the wrong bed, so I got up and moved over to the other one, farther away from the window. But Rudy climbed in after me, buck-ass naked with a hard-on, and started slobbering against my neck, saying shit like “Give it to me, short stuff, c’mon, give it to me,” and shoving his dick at me.
By now it was pretty obvious what was going on, but I still didn’t completely get it. I told myself Rudy was so drunk he thought I was a girl. So I pushed him away and turned on the light. “Quit it,” I kept saying. “Cut it out. It’s me, Rudy, it’s Luke.”
Rudy’s eyes were all piggy and bloodshot, his dark skin was all splotchy, and his face with its bent-down nose was all twisted around like a devil mask. “No shit, white meat,” he said, looking right into my eyes. “Now roll the fuck over.”
“I’m gonna go sleep in the van,” I told him, trying to climb out of bed. Rudy grabbed me around the neck with one hand and started punching me in the back of the head with the other, short hard jabs with his fist. I scrambled free, half-stunned, and dove off the bed. I was scrabbling around on the floor, snatching up my clothes, trying to get dressed and get away at the same time, while Rudy was riding my back, trying to force me down.
Punch after punch rained down on me. I was trying to get my pants on when my fingers closed around something hard in the pocket of my jeans. It was Buzzard John’s knife. Still crawling around with Rudy on top of me, punching and grabbing at me, I fumbled it open, started jabbing backward with it, just poking it at Rudy, trying to get him off my back. Then I heard a gasp, lost my hold on the knife, and collapsed underneath Rudy’s weight, feeling a hot wetness soaking the back of my T-shirt.
I rolled out from under Rudy. He was lying on his back, grabbing his neck with both hands, blood oozing out between his fingers. Buzzard John’s’s knife lay on the floor, the blade coated with a coppery sheen. I watched in disbelief as Rudy started convulsing, his back arching and his heels drumming the floor. After a few endless seconds of that, he went limp.
“Rudy?” I said, my voice a horrified whisper. “It was an accident, dude. I swear, it was an accident.”
But Rudy, whose eyes were still open, bugged out and staring at the ceiling, was beyond forgiving anybody anything. And in the end, of course, it didn’t really matter whether I had meant to do it or not. Once again, through no fault of my own, my life had been torn apart. I couldn’t very well go back to Hatchapec now. My new friends, my adoptive family, and especially Shawnee, were lost to me, so lost it was like they’d never even existed.
Then through the open curtains I caught a glimpse of the white van parked in the blacktop lot in the rear of the motel, and was reminded that things could have been a whole lot worse.
3
One of the truer things I learned from Rudy was that in spite of what most people thought, a person is less conspicuous driving during the daytime, when there are lots of cars on the road, than he is late at night. I left Stockton at dawn in my customized Dodge van with a shitload of cash, a few kilos of high-quality sinsemilla, and three mottoes to guide me on my path. Trust nobody, look out for number one, do unto others as others have done unto Luke.
Not that I was looking for trouble or anything. All I wanted was not to be fucked with anymore, to be left alone to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. But where? I needed someplace safe, off the beaten path, where nobody would think to look for me.
I’d been working on the problem all night, but it wasn’t until I was on the road that I thought of the old homestead in Marshall County. That’d be the last place anybody would look for me, I figured. And I knew the area. I could drive around the back way, scope things out, make sure there were no cops still poking around. If the coast was clear, I could move back into my old bus. If not, I knew a few places in the hills where I could hide out until it was safe.
I crossed the Marshall County line late in the afternoon. Traffic slowed to a crawl where the state highway merged with Marshall Street, running through the heart of Marshall City. The main drag had stoplights every few blocks, the better to snag the summer tourists. I couldn’t help thinking that the last time I’d seen these buildings was from the back of a squad car. Who
