Blood Quantum

'I'm afraid so,' Ray said. 'Can you take your jacket off? Roll up your shirtsleeves?'

Keith held his gaze. 'It's getting a little cool out here. Maybe we should go back in.'

'I guess you don't have to. Not yet, anyway. If there's some reason you don't want to show me your arms…'

'It's just -'

Ray didn't want his friend to have to lie to him. 'You probably had a perfectly good excuse,' he said. 'Not that murder is ever justified, but if it was self-defense, something like that…'

Keith looked away at that, toward the water, and drained the rest of his cup.

'Ysabel's basket-making stuff is wrapped in old yucca,' Ray said. 'There were bits of yucca on Domingo's body. He scratched his killer, probably in a struggle, and the DNA tells us that the killer was a white man, with blond hair and blue eyes. If you can show me your arms, and they're not scratched, if you can tell me where you were when Domingo died… Keith, I'm asking you to let yourself off the hook here. Help me out.'

Keith drew back his left sleeve far enough to show Ray deep gouges on the back of his arm, just past the wrist. He shrugged, then released the sleeve again. 'He ruined everything.' His eyes brimmed, but he wiped them with his right hand and continued. 'I'm getting pressure from the university to take early retirement. I could do it, but the deal's not as good as it would have been even last year. Their pension fund took a big hit, and so did my 401 (k). Her medical bills. Sharing in proceeds from the new casino would have been a big help, but Domingo screwed us there. Ysabel's dad was Apache, and her grandmother on her mother's side was Pyramid Lake Paiute. Under Domingo's new blood-quantum rules, she's not Grey Rock enough. They cut her off.'

'I know. I had one of our people check with tribal police, and they told me she was dropped. I'm sorry.'

Keith snapped, anger replacing sorrow for the moment. 'Yeah, me, too. It's like they say, Domingo was trying to keep as much tribal wealth as he could for himself and his friends, no matter what it cost other people.'

He paused, turning the empty cup in his hands, then continued. 'And think how Ysabel felt about it. All her life, she's considered herself Grey Rock Paiute. To suddenly be told that she's not – it crushed her. I have no doubt it weakened her resistance, allowed the cancer to get a stronger grip. That's why she's in the shape she's in now.'

'That's got to be hard,' Ray said.

'It's not just about money, Ray,' Keith insisted. 'Not at all. That cancer? Ysabel started smoking in the first place as a young woman. Back then, the smoke shop was the tribe's main profit center, and most members smoked. It was a way of giving back to the community, if you had anything to give. It turned into a lifetime habit for her. She wanted to support the community, and what she got out of it was lung cancer. She finally quit after she was diagnosed, but it was hard on her. On both of us.'

'So, like I said, you had good reason.'

'I was so pissed. Furious. Domingo kept the smoke shop going all these years, even knowing he was selling poison to his own people and anyone else who stopped in. The other businesses were doing well; he could have afforded to close that one. But he was a greedy sonofabitch, wanted every dime he could scrape together, so he could have his fancy house in the city, the lifestyle, the nightclubs and women and trips.

'I went to see him, to try to reason with him. I thought if I just talked to him, I could make him understand, get him to change his mind, to relax the blood-quantum standards. But he wouldn't listen, wouldn't engage. Just stood there puffing on that big cigar and looking at me like I was an ant, barely worth his notice.

'I got mad. I pushed him. He started to fall – he had been drinking, and he was unsteady on his feet – but he caught my arm, scratching me. When he was upright again, he laughed at me and told me to get the hell out of his house. He turned his back on me, that's how little I meant to him. I lost it then, picked up that heavy lighter, and smashed his skull in. Tried to, anyway. I'm not much of a fighter, I guess.'

'It did the trick,' Ray said.

'I wiped it off on my shin and dropped it. I ran out of there so fast… I'm surprised I'm not one of those guys who leaves his wallet at the scene, I was so scared,'

'You did a good job, all things considered.' Ray said. 'Didn't leave us much to work with.'

'Enough, though.'

Ray nodded. 'Enough, that's true. We didn't have a match for the DNA, but if you'll submit to a swab test -'

'Is that necessary?' Keith said. 'If I confess?'

'Probably not, but it won't hurt to have it for backup. Will you turn yourself in?'

The sun had reached the western hills, and the water had turned into a pool of glittering, molten gold. 'When we get back,' Keith said. 'Right now, I'd like to go be with my wife. She wanted to watch the sunset.'

'That'll be fine, Keith. You watch the sunset with Ysabel.'

Ray went with him, and together they took Ysabel's arms and walked her out on deck. The sway of the ship affected her balance, and she stumbled a couple of times, but the two men kept her going and held her at the rail. The sun stained her beaming face with gold.

'It's so pretty,' Ysabel said.

'It sure is,' Keith agreed. But he was not watching the sunset, he was watching his wife, seeing the delight and wonder she took in the simplest of natural processes, the way the earth's rotation made its surface slide past the sun, bringing darkness to the day and then brightness to the dark.

Ray Langston watched them both, old friends, still desperately in love with each other after so many years. He knew this would not be Ysabel's last sunset, but it would probably be her last sunset on the water, certainly her last one with her husband at her side, and Ray held on to her warm, fragile hand, cupping it against the ship's rail, and he wanted to live in that moment, skimming across the lake's surface with Ysabel and Keith, for as long as he could.

About the Author

Jeff Mariotte is the award-winning author of more than forty novels, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – Brass in Pocket; CSI: Miami – Right to Die; horror trilogy Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts (all as Jeffrey J. Mariotte); The Slab; the Witch Season teen horror quartet; and others, as well as dozens of comic books, notably Desperadoes and Zombie Cop. He's a co-owner of the specialty bookstore Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego and lives in southeastern Arizona on the Plying M Ranch. For more information, please visit www.jeffmariotte.com.

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