Scene of a Crime/For Unto Us: Jhon Collector Mysteries

By James Hess

Jhon Collector, a member of the Lakhota Nation, stands in the world of his mother's people (who was Lakhota) and the world of his father's people (who is not Lakhota). Because of his pedigree he brings a unique perspective to his work as a member of law enforcement, and must balance the two - which are often in conflict with one another - as he seeks his place in both worlds.

SCENE OF A CRIME and FOR UNTO US - non-traditional mysteries - introduce Collector, and his approach to the world on The Res and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hess
• Release date: Jan 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370419036

James Hess

James C. Hess graduated from the University of Colorado, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, with additional studies in Editorial Journalism and Cinema Studies. He divides his time between his home in Colorado and all points west.https://www.instagram.com/j.c.hess/

Book preview

Scene of a Crime/For Unto Us

Jhon Collector Mysteries

By

James C. Hess

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

James C. Hess on SMASHWORDS

Scene of a Crime/For Unto Us

Jhon Collector Mysteries

Copyright 2017 James C. Hess

All Rights Reserved

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the writer.

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Colorado State University is located in Fort Collins, CO., and is an internationally recognized institution of higher learning. Colorado Parks and Wildlife oversees a large number of resources within the State of Colorado. The Colorado Bureau of Investigations is a professional organization, which exists to bring resolution and closure to unsolved cases involving activities of a criminal nature.

Excluding CSU, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the CBI, the following are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Dedicated to the memory of Tashunke Witko

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Table of Contents

Scene of a Crime

For Unto Us

Afterword

Addendum

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Scene of a Crime

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Scene of a Crime

Introduction

First there comes the craft of writing - a process undeniably demanding and laborious as the humble scribe attempts to find the right words to communicate the desired intention while fending off unsolicited opinions and advice of armchair experts and critics. Then - if all goes well – there comes the art of writing; each governed by quality. Within quality there is the goal of creating something memorable: A setting, a scene, a character, a quote.

Once this rather daunting task is accomplished to satisfaction the writer repeats the process again and again, and in time the reader (always and ever fickle) comes forth and asks: Where do you get your ideas from?

Some writers may present themselves as sophisticated and learned with regards to this matter and, clutching their lapels, go on at great length, posturing and pontificating as they invoke their given muse.

Other writers are antithetical to this group: With hands deep in their pockets, their gaze to the top of their feet, they mumble an explanation about how they were able to produce their work, glossing over the inherent truth - they don’t really know; it just happened.

A few writers choose another path for their response to the question posed: The simple truth. Where Jhon Collector is concerned I know that is the preferred approach, because Collector would not have it any other way - and that is quite telling about his character and nature: In today’s world of superficiality and transitory relevancy where truth - more often than not - is a rarity, those who pursue it and serve as guardian of it are unique, indeed; they are the ones we remember long after the name of the latest popular culture phenomenon blurs away, becoming the dust that shrouds oblivion.

The truth regarding the question asked - where do you get your ideas from - is that the character Jhon Collector did not come to me in a thunderclap, a shining moment of brilliance. I cannot and will not claim that he presented himself to me, fully formed, as if born of an ancient god, descending from a profound summit of superiority, forged of perfection, tempered with idealism. The truth is I came to know Jhon Collector over a substantial period of time.

The first glimpse I had of him occurred shortly after I graduated college, as I made my way to a job interview on a busy urban street - a man-made canyon of tall buildings where sounds echoed and boomed from the darkened base; the distorted din of motorized vehicles accelerating and slowing adding to the chaos and noise that ensued; horns blared, people yelled - all evidence of civilization and progress, which threatened to overwhelm the senses.

He was on the opposite side of the street from me. Quiet and still, barely discernable in shadows at the entrance to a tall building. The absence of movement on his part conveyed a distinct contrast to the modernity around us; defiant against the world that would otherwise claim us, demanding submission and assimilation as it wrought - inflicted, really - what many deem progress through a cacophony of noise that assailed sanity and humanity alike.

It was a glance in his direction because when I looked toward what I assumed he was looking at and back he was gone, the madness of sound seeming to have consumed him. Just a momentary look on my part, but something in how he stood, how he existed stayed with me, finding shelter in the imagination, where development of his character was certain.

The second time I saw Collector was several years later, in Los Angeles, specifically Burbank, not far from the Disney Administration building. I knew him immediately because I recognized the quiet, the stillness of his form in the shade caused by line of trees along a calm street.

I intended to cross the street for a closer look, but before I could a convoy of grip trucks for a film or movie production rumbled between us, and when I looked again Collector was gone. Despite the interruption, the distraction I remembered him: How he physically contrasted the blue-eyed, blonde haired, suntanned southern California types who were so commonplace; and the absence of self-importance dishonestly expressed as confidence. There was something else to him - something else I would come to know through time.

The third time I experienced Jhon Collector was where I would expect to find him and, again, it was quite telling: I was hiking in the mountains near where I lived and, as I came into a large meadow in mid-summer, I realized that I was in a place he would call home. As I took in the pastoral setting framed by a forest of lodge pole pine and Colorado blue spruce interspersed with groves of aspen thunder rumbled in the distance, and in the sound I sensed another presence. Not primal or feral, as prejudice expressed by someone who lives in civilization might suggest, but fundamental in its humanity.

Years of experience involving the outdoors has taught me not to explicitly react to something. Instead I subtly scanned the meadow and the forest by only moving my eyes, and saw between the shadows and the light on the opposite side of the meadow, between the trees, the now familiar stillness and quiet. Waiting. Watching. Beckoning sublimely.

For a moment I was tempted to run across the meadow, giving chase to this creation of the imagination, whose specifics had eluded me for so long. But as I considered doing so I realized that I already knew him, I knew his name. Instead I stood as he stood - quietly, taking in the setting, the scene, the character, the world there as it was intended.

The thunder prefaced a light rain, and in the subsequent coolness the pronounced scent of sage came forth, refreshing the world, making it anew. It was then I knew what I needed to know about Jhon Collector and his world, his stories.

SCENE OF A CRIME came about shortly after that experience and the culmination of several events - a clipping from a newspaper provided by a well-intended person who remains firmly attached to the notion that Nature will conspire against anyone it can; an anecdote from an acquaintance who makes their professional living from Nature; a personal experience from a friend who made it their pastime to learn about Native Americans; and a suggestion to learn, know, and understand about the Sioux Nation.

Since writing SCENE OF A CRIME I have made an ongoing effort to continue my education about the Lakhota (Lakota). Despite the nobility of my undertaking I must confess - through plain and simple truth Collector would favor - that I have stumbled more than once, unintentionally mispronouncing a word or phrase in the Lakhota language; gotten the name of a leader or warrior of the Lakhota Nation unintentionally wrong because I remembered something incorrectly; and tried the patience of so many who so generously and graciously assisted in my efforts to learn, know, and understand a people long mistreated and misunderstood because, like Jhon Collector, they are perceived to be at odds with the world which claims progress and ‘civilization’ are the benchmark of humanity’s development and advancement.

It is my intention, through the craft of writing, the art of writing, guided by quality, to tell the stories of Jhon Collector as they should be told. It is my hope and desire that doing so will result in the memorable.

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Scene of a Crime

If you lose something important to you, go back and search for it and you will find it.

- Sitting Bull

On the last day of May, the last day of his professional career, the last day of a life he had known for almost fifty years, Homicide Detective Miles Nelson slowed his vehicle to a stop outside of the entrance for Lane State Park, which was nestled in the foothills east of the Colorado Rockies, and about an hour south of the Colorado-Wyoming border. He turned off the engine of his aged pickup truck, climbed out, feeling his age in his stiffening muscles and wearied bones, and walked to the large sign near the entrance, which clearly stated the applicable rules and regulations, noting the one that required a park pass for motorized access. A cursory glance at his surroundings, and then he walked toward the four vehicles illegally parked, in clear view of the large No Parking sign, memorizing the license plate numbers for each. The mental exercise was interrupted when he saw that each of the vehicles had parking permits for Colorado State University. The expressed fact provided reason to discontinue his effort because experience had taught him that college students generally ignored rules and laws, and frequently made excuses for doing so - either in his presence as he wrote a ticket or in the presence of a sympathetic judge who, more often than not, dismissed the charge, implicitly discounting him and the law he swore to uphold.

Nelson exhaled, grumbling under his breath, and then returned to his vehicle, starting the engine with a slight grinding noise somewhere in the transmission, a certain indication of its impending mortality. Forty-five years of service in law enforcement and it seemed that he could end it as a meter maid if he was not careful in the hours that remained in his career.

Following the unpaved road into the park he made a right turn less than three hundred yards from the entrance, and continued along a cracked asphalt blacktop to a building marked Visitor Center in sun-bleached letters. West of the building, carved into a hillside, was a parking lot with spaces for at least a dozen vehicles.

Only two spaces were occupied. Nelson parked next to a truck decaled park maintenance and climbed