Yellow Earth Read online

  “We’d stay inside of the reservation boundaries,” adds the operator.

  Fitz shakes his head. “You’ll have to redo your Class III agreement. The NIGC, the state.”

  “We got Ruby on it already.”

  “Ruby’s your lawyer.”

  Again the proud-papa grin. “Comes out of Yale. She’s a mix of little tribes, but none from up here. Ruby Pino.”

  “She’d better be good.”

  “The gal doesn’t take any prisoners.”

  Fitz looks out the window again. “There much else to see on the water?”

  “Not really,” admits Swat Gilchrist. “It’s an Army Corps of Engineers kind of a deal.”

  Fitz makes a cross with his fingers, as if fending off a vampire. The men laugh. “Keep those people away from me.”

  “I figure they stuck this big-ass lake on us, cut the reservation in two,” says the Chairman as his Pheasant Poppers arrive, “the least we can do is make the sucker pay off.”

  THE BOYS ARE EATING it up, the skinny white kid and the fat Indian kid, eyes sliding past Scorch every time the door opens for men to come in or out, offering a good see-through to the pole humpers on stage. Who knows how long they been getting their rocks off out here, fifteen, twenty seconds at a time.

  “You don’t even have a fake ID to try on me?”

  “No sir.”

  ‘Sir’ is a new one. “That’s fucking pathetic.”

  The white guy is definitely cruising behind something, his eyes all pupil, and the Indian kid looks permanently pissed off.

  “I mean, I know it’s a little slow in this burg, but beaver hunting in the alley–”

  It’s wider than an alley, delivery trucks able to drive between the clubs to get to the back. Vic decided to use the side for the main entrance to cut down on the fights with the crowd coming out of Teasers next door, or at least keep them out of public view. Teasers had been a drugstore that died in the ’80s and Bazookas was the old Legion post turned evangelical storefront, a race between the carpenters and wiring guys to see which could open first.

  “There’s not much to do.”

  When the door isn’t open the white kid can’t keep his eyes off the tat on Scorch’s neck, the flaming skull he got when he was in the Outlaws in Tampa.

  “So, what, people grow their own weed on all these farms?”

  The boys relax a little, understanding now that he’s not going to kick their asses or call their mommies.

  “A couple try,” says the Indian kid. I wedge him in the doorway, Scorch thinks, nobody gets in or out. “It’s not, like, a really long growing season.”

  “But kids can get baked if they want.”

  “Pretty much. If it’s just, you know, something to smoke.”

  The problem with Beavis and Butthead here is they didn’t grow up in the culture, never seen some punkass snitch taken away in a body bag.

  “You think you could hook us up with something better?” asks the white kid.

  “Better?”

  “Ecstasy, ketamine, rohypnol, GHB, coke.”

  “What did you, Google that shit?”

  The kid shrugs. “Stuff I’d like to try. And we got lots of friends who, you know– like to try stuff.”

  Scorch remembers being outside in the alley looking in, everything the adult world got to do cooler, more fun, more dangerous than the kid world. And he got early admittance, held with lifelong cons at the Okeechobee CI until his trial, sent back there for another year when he aged out of juvenile. Welcome to the rest of your life, fucker.

  “So how bout it?”

  Persistent little prick. Brent’s lightweight surfer-dude buddy, Wayne Lee, will be bringing it all up on his Texas runs, and Brent says he promised him the drillers and the drivers, leaving Scorch with zip besides working the door at Bazookas. Pay is good for this kind of gig, Vic waving off his arrest record, but compared to what other people are knocking down in the oil patch–

  “Suppose I could hook you up,” he says. “How do I know I could trust you?”

  Neither has a snappy reply, so Scorch one-hands the white boy around the neck and lifts him off the ground.

  “This is how,” he answers for them, glancing down the alley to be sure no new customers are coming his way, then bringing the boy’s reddening face close to his. “Because nobody who’s ever fucked with me is alive to brag about it.”

  He puts the kid down. His knuckles are still raw from beating on that pipe pusher the other night, and Vic says he can’t wear MMA gloves on the job– too much provocation for the wildasses who come in.

  “There’s almost no cops in Yellow Earth,” says the Indian kid. “Even less on the rez.”

  And they got their hands full. The deputy who came by to get Scorch’s version of the last incident said he was doing twelve-hour shifts racing all over the county to deal with truck accidents, fistfights, overdoses– “It’s Saturday night every day of the week,” said the badge, who didn’t look much older than these two.

  “I’ll think about it,” Scorch tells them. “Meanwhile, stay the fuck off of my porch.”

  Jewelle’s music, Lady Gaga doing “Just Dance,” starts to play inside as Scorch watches the two walk back out to the street. They probably got uncles, brothers that he can connect with, get some real action going here. Brent will make sure he gets whatever product he needs. Brent likes to keep all his options open. Scorch steps back into the club and there is a cheer from the cranked-up drillers and drivers, Jewelle in her hard hat and yellow safety vest, wrapping her long legs around the gleaming silver pole as the mock-up derrick behind her gushes inky liquid in appreciation.

  And it really is Saturday night.

  THE WAVES DON’T STOP. It makes sense, of course, it’s the ocean, but still it’s the thing that impresses him the most. There is a steep drop-off from the sand and then it levels and you have to time it right getting in and getting out or get smacked by one of these big waves that keep piling in.

  At home the wind, even in the worst season for it, gives you a break now and then.

  Not that they aren’t fun to wrestle with. Lots of screaming, amusement park screaming, from the tourist kids, skipping up and back on the wet sand as if to taunt the waves, catch me, catch me, and the people already in bobbing to keep their heads above as the big ones roll in, and twice now he’s been thrown up against Brent’s wife.

  Bunny.

  Never actually seen a bikini like that in real life, and she’s not the only one on the sand and in the water wearing one, and you have to try not to stare. When in Rome, or here I guess, when in Waikiki.

  The hotel actually only has this pretty narrow strip of beach that it claims, Diamond Head off to the left and a boardwalk that goes along in front of the other beach hotels starting just to the right, and he had pictured something longer, unbroken. Bronzed women riding white horses in slow motion along an endless stretch of white sand. Not that he’s kicking.

  He’s glad Brent loaned him the goggles, no telling what kind of beating the salt water would deal to his eyes, even if he probably looks funny in them. No photographs, please. Harleigh ducks under and leaves his feet, frog-kicking down, passing all that blond whiteness of Bunny and heading parallel to shore. His Granpaw Pete told him how the river Indians were expert at holding their breath underwater, hiding from enemies, and he used to practice in the reservoir when he could stand the cold. This, this bath water, doesn’t make your testicles shrink but it’s hard to stay under. Buoyant, he can really feel it. He goes under again and kicks toward the boardwalk side. No old farmhouses under this. Something looming, a bloom of green to one side near his head and he realizes it’s a turtle. Up for a breath and then following it, webbed flippers stroking, a huge green turtle with what looks like an island of green ferny stuff growing on its back, wavering behind as it swims. Harleigh swims after the turtle till it moves between the mass of bodies directly in front of the hotel, then he stands, taking a gulp of seawater as a wave
breaks at just the wrong moment. Like his mother always said, keep your mouth shut and nothing bad will come into or out of it. He coughs, spits, feeling it halfway up his nose.

  “You okay?”

  Bunny, who has been hovering close with the idea that Indians can’t swim. He wants to tell her that’s black people, that Indians only drown because the Big Water Snake gets jealous of their amphibian ability and pulls them down.

  “I saw a turtle,” he calls over the shrilling of the tourist kids and the boom of the waves, holding his hands wide apart to indicate its size.

  “Really? Wow!”

  Bunny is an enthusiast. At first glimpse Connie identified her as a cheerleader for the Timberwolves, which turned out not to be true but pretty damn close. Tyler Junior College, dental technician program, part of the ‘Apache Cheer.’ And yes, a couple of the girls on the squad were actual Apaches.

  “It had stuff growing on its back.”

  “Like fungus?”

  “More like camouflage.”

  Bunny smiles. If she had gone the dental route her own teeth would have been her best advertisement. Harleigh has cautioned his wife to quit calling her ‘Miss Doublemint’ or she’s likely to say it out loud where Bunny can hear.

  “You’re right,” Connie said before she crawled under the sheets in the fantasy of a hotel suite. “‘Bunny’ pretty much says it all.”

  Connie, who has never been west of Butte before and is afraid of flying, is down with a killer dose of jet lag, and Brent is off mentoring Fawn through a surfing lesson. Fawn had another of those bikinis, must have bought it online cause nothing like it was ever sold in Yellow Earth, and you could see that she was excited that her natural coloring made it look like she’d been out tanning for weeks. Harleigh thought it was too much, Brent treating her to the trip as well, but Connie reminded him what happened the last time they left Fawn home for a week. And what the hell, how many kids on the rez get to go to Hawaii?

  “You think poor Connie is okay?”

  It was bad for her on the flight, not just takeoff and landing but the whole thing, hours and hours of it, and Bunny starting every approach with ‘Oh, you poor thing’ didn’t help any. But you never know with women, the Big Ladies and Teresa Crow’s Ghost act like they can’t stand each other and the next thing you know they’re conspiring together to heat his britches over something.

  “Yeah, I should go check,” he says, lifting the goggles off and hoping they haven’t made raccoon rings around his eyes. “Don’t want to get too wrinkly in here.”

  Harleigh leaves her hopping in the surf and makes a rush with the incoming wave till he’s up the steep part of the beach. There’s a little footwash deal before you unlatch the gate into the hotel pool and he gets most of the sand off. The pool is big and roundish, some kind of white tropical flower painted on the bottom, with lounge chairs and little tables and sun umbrellas all around it. Couple women doing the thing where they lie on their stomachs on the flattened chairs with their top straps unhooked. Kids already splashing in the pool, climbing on and flipping off inflatable floating animals of different species. Harleigh shakes his head, still not sure he’s allowed to be here.

  It is a Junior Ocean Suite on the twelfth floor. All-white interior, balcony overlooking the ocean and the pool down to the left, Connie a lump of misery curled up on the giant bed.

  “How’s the toothpaste model?”

  “You’re awake.”

  “I felt like something was pressing me down into the mattress. Like I weighed a thousand pounds.”

  “You look better.”

  “I feel more or less human. What time is it?”

  He moves the cat-squasher of a book Brent gave him to read on the plane– whatever he sees in this Ayn Rand babe is a mystery to Harleigh– to reveal the digital clock, not that Connie could read it without her contacts in.

  “Bout eleven.” He steps into the bathroom. There are people on staff at the reservation with offices smaller than the shower stall. He calls out as the perfect spray shoots down. “You think you’re up for lunch?”

  “I doubt it,” Connie calls back.

  “He’s an awful nice guy.”

  “Keanu.”

  “Kapuni. Kapuni Barnes.”

  “That you met at the conference where?”

  “Phoenix, I think. The first time.”

  Harleigh steps back into the bedroom, toweling off. He’s never touched a towel so thick, so white. A shame to get it dirty. Connie is sitting up now, frowning.

  “The Hawaiians usually come if the conferences are in the West.”

  “Don’t look at me.” Connie has linen wrinkle marks on her face from sleeping so hard.

  “You look better.”

  “When people say ‘You look better’ it means you been looking worse. It’s like saying ‘Hey, you lost weight– ’”

  “You should eat.”

  “If I am ever hungry again, I’ll get something by the pool. Or call room service.”

  Harleigh pauses in dressing himself. The lunch place Kapuni chose has a Hawaiian name and he’s not sure how swanky it is.

  “What did Bunny wear in the water?”

  “Some kind of two-piece thing. Hey, I saw a turtle.” Harleigh shows her how big he thinks it was.

  “In where you were swimming?”

  “Of course.”

  Connie makes a face. You can get her into a swimming pool if she thinks it’s clean, but the idea of putting her head under ‘in the stuff fish pee in’–

  “Harleigh,” she says, looking around at the suite, at the louvered panels, the ocean sunset paintings, the complimentary fruit and macadamia nut basket, “how do you think he can afford this?”

  “He’s been successful in the business.”

  “Driving trucks.”

  “Owning and managing trucks that service the oil fields. It’s a niche business. He must be good at it.”

  “But he’s not investing in the–”

  “He’s putting in his time and his experience. I can’t tell you what a bit of luck it was running into him.”

  Connie slumps back down to her pillow, not looking satisfied with his explanation. “You look good in a Hawaiian shirt,” she says. “Who would have thought.”

  Harleigh steps out of the elevator and crosses the lobby. From what he’s seen so far, the hotel seems to be a Japanese wedding factory, women in tight business outfits carrying clipboards and ushering bridesmaids and family members and even the brides in their meringue-pouf dresses this way and that, chairs constantly being rearranged in the tropical jungle of a courtyard. He weaves through three different clusters, trying to avoid appearing in any of their group photographs, and makes his way to the pool bar.

  Bunny is there, looking fresh and blond and as if she’d never been in the water, parked behind a long frothy drink with a pineapple wedge impaled on the rim of the glass.

  “Milkshake?”

  “Piña colada. You can barely taste the rum.”

  “That could be dangerous.”

  The bartender wanders over and Harleigh orders a simple Scotch on the rocks, hoping it doesn’t come with fruit hanging out of it.

  “How’s poor Connie doing?”

  “Poor Connie,” he says, squeezing in beside her, “has gone back to sleep. She should be fine by tonight.”

  “It usually doesn’t hit me till the second day. Not that I’ve done that much long-distance travel.”

  “Where’d you and Brent go for your honeymoon?”

  “Mexico. This place called Zihuatenejo? It was like a Club Med thing.”

  “I’ve never been to Mexico.”

  “Really?”

  “We’ve had delegations come up, from their tribes.”

  “Right, those are Indians too.”

  “Still a high percentage of the population.”

  “I just don’t think of them as– you know– riding horses and having teepees and all that.”

  “Hundreds of nat
ions, hundreds of cultures.”

  “Even our Apache girls weren’t from the same– whatsit– band?”

  “They live in a dry part of the world. Hard to sustain a big concentration of people in one spot.”

  Bunny pulls her pineapple loose and takes a nibble. “Brent is so pumped about the company. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this excited.”

  “It’s going to be terrific.”

  “You know, we’re partners too. You and me.”

  The bartender sets Harleigh’s drink down.

  “A lot of our end of things will be in my name. Some kind of tax advantage Brent figured out.”

  “So you’re a silent partner.”

  “Not so silent. I end up doing a lot of phone work. Whenever a little honey is called for.”

  Harleigh has explained to Brent that at first there won’t be any contracts directly with the Nations. Let them get established in the field, a couple jobs under their belt and the going rates set before they compete for that work. Brent will run the trucks and Harleigh will be out scaring up opportunities, besides his role in the initial financing. He and Sig Rushmore have worked out a sweetheart of a deal, the Company advancing funds against the royalties from Harleigh’s fee– simple land leases, not only allowing him to capitalize ArrowFleet but guaranteeing them a year’s service contract the minute they put rubber on the road. ‘Synergy,’ Sig called it, and Harleigh had to look it up when he got home. A terrific idea, kind of scientific and business-oriented at the same time.

  “The trick will be growing at the proper rate,” he tells Bunny. “You don’t want to be caught without enough trucks, but if you get ahead of the play–”

  “Brent said it’s like surfing. You have to know just when to get off the wave.”

  It reminds him of Fawn.

  “You think they’re okay?”

  “Oh, they’re fine, Brent just phoned me. It’s a beach up the coast a ways. The traffic is a beast here.”

  “Yeah, that was murder coming in from the airport.”

  She has a simple, thin dress on, just white. Anything else would be gilding the lily.

  “I hope she didn’t take too much of a beating. Fawn’s never been much of an athlete.”