Indian Country

By Peter Farrell

Life is not just another rodeo for shooting star fourteen-year-old Carol ORourke in rural Montana. She goes from a life on the road of one rodeo to the next to one that is very differentliving with a family. She is rescued by Ben Sterler, his wife, and children while they were traveling on vacation. She grows up in a fairly normal family situation, but her past in the rodeo is never far away.

As a young woman, Carol falls into the Long Island club and bar scene, working as a bartender. She stays in close touch with Sarah Sterler, who she grew up with and also rescued in another much more serious way.

Carols earlier life with the Sterlers, particularly Ben, the father, suddenly catches up with her one day. Her life progresses at a rapid, furious, and often violent pace at this time, bringing friends and lovers into the fray with her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984550026

Peter Farrell

Peter Farrell is the author of five novels, four screenplays and various magazine articles. The themes are, invariably, marine related, island connected and with characters of the eccentric flavor. The action? Well, that can get hot. A Vietnam era veteran, the author finished his schooling courtesy of the State of New York University system. He has taught in the public schools, owned a bar, caught fish and delivered more boats throughout the Caribbean and along the East Coast than he cares to count.

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Copyright © 2018 by Peter Farrell.

ISBN:                 Softcover                 978-1-9845-5003-3

                            eBook                      978-1-9845-5002-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/28/2018

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Where nary is heard a discouraging word, and the sky is not cloudy all day…

CHAPTER ONE

She picked her way along the edge of the road, her moccasin boots scuffing the bits of rock scattered at her feet out of the way as she concentrated on loading the Colt.38 revolver with the bullets she dug out of her pocket.

She wanted to keep moving, being exposed here, the only cover being low brush and cow grass before the tall trees and big rocks began. It wasn’t easy loading, for she had to hold the gun pressed against her body with just the butt, using only the upper bicep of one arm. The empty cylinder stuck out, throwing the balance off, and she had to keep the butt tight or she would drop again one of the bullets in the dirt.

It was good there was no wind. The air clean shiny and wet from the roiling creek running close by. And sparkling bright with glints of garnet and feldspar, granite and shiny shale chips, the sun already strong this time of the morning when it peaked over the edge of the mountains. The sky had been that tuxedo blue just earlier, but had steadily gotten brighter; one that promised it would be warm enough soon to keep her body from the shivering she was still feeling from the night before.

The funeral grey sharp sides of the mountains surrounding the valley hovered around the twisting road ahead. Beyond hung the higher peaks, white splotches of some all-season snow sticking out like cotton in the bright stillness. The aspens stood straight along the sharp edges of the rocky escarpment leading up to the closer crags, early green leaves and buds sticking out, the occasional birds jumping through the branches twittering quietly. The idea that the aspens were connected by a single root underground, and they all lived together in this symbiosis, made her feel powerful somehow. As though the universe included her. Accepted her as part of it.

She saw more of the creek now, and the Indian paintbrush and wild roses that grew along the bank. The water deep and wide, containing a coppery green light when the sun shone directly on it. The rocks under the stream knocking against each other and murmuring, as though talking to themselves.

She looked back now at the spot on the road where the crappy pickup had spun out, and the thing now angled nose down in the splashy creek rocks. Some junk from the truck’s bed had fallen out on its way off the road, pieces of wood and other colorful garbage strewn behind it like a child had dropped its toys.

The only sound the creek rocks and water burbling, a bird tweet. She did not expect any sounds from the truck, but you never know.

The bastard had it coming, she thought. Drunk enough to think she was easy, dumb enough to brag about the Colt. And even dumber to want to show it to her. After he had spent his time feeling her up, probing his disgusting fingers under her skirt like she was some type of merchandise he maybe wanted to buy. Such is the price.

He said he was Arapahoe. Wore a beat up black felt sombrero ringed with some cheap beads over skanky greasy hair that looked a bit too light colored to have been very much Indian, if any at all. Said to her, ‘Jest call me Slim,’ and sliding dirty fingers across the scrabby seat, the blackened nails making their way to the flesh above her knee. His Cowboy dialect alone sounded too much southern California, like a lot of those other scumbags who somehow had infiltrated the Montana west country over the past decade or so. Or at least those her father would complain about at the end of another moneyless and usually depressing day when their fortunes had met the usual.

But her father was gone now. And the reason she had hit the road to begin with. Ain’t much of a road here though, she thought now. Oh, Dad, how have you left me!

She would have felt her eyes get wet again, but she’d done and been through with all that for over a month.

More to the point was just where she was just now, and how to get going out of here. She could ponder over again just what she would do again or not when faced with another Chuck. But she knew that complaining about or dwelling on past or even future mistakes had little to do with the NOW. Something else her father was always coming up with. ‘Just stick with the NOW, darling,’ he would grumble to her, usually when the proverbial shit stuck on the end of the pitchfork when one was just tryin’ to toss clean hay.

So she did just that, smiling down at the old revolver in her one hand. NOW it is.

Not a bad piece, she said, flipping the full cylinder back in place with her hand tight on the butt grip, finger already in the trigger guard and sighting it with both blue eyes open along the barrel back towards the pickup. She shook her head now, tumbrills of reddish curls bouncing on her shoulders. Her lips set, she then turned around and continued walking along the harder edge of the road.

She moved as fast as she could, wanting really to run. But to where? There were miles to go before she got out of this shitty little valley, and onto a road that might have some traffic. She hadn’t planned to walk to wherever she was going. Only that she was. Going.

When she hefted her bag hanging on one shoulder for the hundredth time, she heard the tinkling of the spent cartridges she’d left in her skirt pocket with the full ones. Then she looked at the gun she carried down along her side in her hand.

Ain’t gonna get a ride this way, darlin’, she said, swinging the weapon around her perimeter as she skipped to and fro. Then, sighing, she stopped and set down the bag.

She dug the empties out of her pocket, separating the live ones with her fingers, counting what she had left and leaving them behind. Out of habit she’d kept the brass, remembering those times her father had been after her to pick them up after he’d dumped them out. Then he’d so swiftly reloaded, all the time keeping up his gunslinger patter and shooting again so fast he made the rubes blink like frightened ponies, the oohs, aahhs and squeals from their women bringing a smile to his face.

But now she just shrugged and tossed them into the sage and rocks as far out as she could.

Squatting now on the edge of the road, she spread open her bag. One she had proudly made herself, using a piece of fancy worked horse blanket made by one of the women on the Rez. She then lay out carefully her, what her father would call, anyway, ‘worldly possessions.’

She considered them piece by piece. Some clothes, bent toothbrush, scraggly hair brush, teeth-missing comb, her favorite old Indian shawl made as Rez rodeo tribal regalia, broken pencils and scrap envelopes, a postcard of Flathead Lake. A small cedar cigar box. A few loose coins, separate dollar bills and one tight roll of Grants, Jacksons and three Franklins. All she had now from the too quick shitty sale of her father’s guns, bandoliers, silvered leathers with turquois inlays, fancy pencil point toed boots, colorful hand embroidered shirts and tooled saddle bags to the Rez trading post.

She shuddered now, thinking of that mess. The snarky way she was told how lucky she was to get what she did, considering what they thought her father, old Tom O’Rourke, ‘owed’ them. Yeah.

Forget that shit, now, darlin’….

She would have liked to really throw everything away in the grass with the brass shells. But with a heavy breath she picked through it all one more time again.

Some of her clothes were pretty enough. Two blouses, some head scarfs, a pair of denim jeans, a wide flaring tribal skirt similar to the one she wore now. Stuff with such intricate embroidery it gave her a tiny shiver sometimes to just look at and hold, thinking about the times her father had brought her this, or that, saying simply, ‘I thought you might like this, darlin’.’

The other bits and pieces of her life, the arrowheads, a shark’s tooth, a fossilized sea shell and a loose rubble of acorns, tiny sand dollars, crab claws, other pertinent stones and snake rattles she left in a pile, sighing and fingering these things she thought for the last time. Just extra weight…

Then she grabbed the pile and threw what she could fill with her hand into the little wood cigar box. You never know what you might need.

She stuffed it with the revolver in the bottom of the bag.

Considering this NOW, however.

How long she should keep this thing. Considering. She had watched enough cop shows to weigh the risk.

Just before dusk she made it to a road that looked like more than a simple two-laner, at least one with a double yellow line down the middle.

The sky black high up, shadows slithering down against the high peaks behind her, a few stars already bright, sun down some time ago. Headlights peaked now out on the stretched ribbon edge of the highway. But she didn’t feel comfortable—considering the how and the why and the end of the last ride she got.

The deep ditch alongside looked soft with cow grass, dry, no loose dirt. She stooped down in it, low enough to keep her body out of any headlight shine. No way she could get a real look at any vehicle stopping for her in the increasing gloom of the night. She was done enough for the day as it was, enough to just lay down low and hopefully get whatever sleep she could. She got out the tightly woven colored shawl from her bag, lay snuggly as she spread it over her bare leg. Her one hand still in the bag, just touching the Colt.

Once every few minutes or so some truck or such flew by a few feet from her head. She heard and more felt the engine roar and the tire screaming whine just before and disappearing quickly enough to almost not be a bother. She counted to less than a hundred before she fell off to sleep and dreamed.

The sounds shoved her roughly out of the dream. She had been running, no, maybe riding—a whole passel of Indian ponies, all with colored on feathers flowing from long and wild dark, dark manes. Somehow she was on all of them and then one at a time—flying hell bent over the deep gold grass beneath, the sounds of their hooves so light, then clomping… sudden high-pitched screeches.

A banging noise. Squeaky high, and then low gruff voices. Ticking sounds of an engine just turned off.

She had strands of her curly hair in her mouth, and picked them out, saliva feeling already cold on her skin. She didn’t want to move, but the morning chill made her shiver, blades of grass bending with dew dropping on her face.

Goddamn, look at this sky, would you? Maxfield Parrish.

At least it isn’t Wyeth.

You got that right. Not a grey cold sky to be seen! Never get a morning like this… anywhere. Even Long Island.

It’s never dry like this either… or as quiet.

She could smell patchouli and cannabis, urine. Tinkle splash with a low groan. A giggle.

Hey, pops, we gonna stop at that Blackfoot reservation? I wanna get some more of those…

You have enough for now, dontcha think?

Mom, can I have another yogurt? Benjy finished off the one I had.

Bullcrap!

You did!

Rock—or something—hitting, then a cry…

MOM!

Carol inched up the edge of her gully, careful to keep her head as low as she could. The grass was nice and tall almost to the edge of the highway. She could peer past it to see the group spread out around the old VW bus stopped just the other side. The body was in good shape though, and not something seen very much out here. Most vehicles she saw were either overly big, shiny, very new—or just dirty, beat-up and worn out, like the people driving them.

A family. The Dad stood, slouching to one side of the vehicle as though he was keeping himself from falling down, his body somehow still straight, and staring at the mountains and the highway wending its way into them. A couple of young kids, a long-haired boy about ten, and a little girl, maybe seven or so. Mom off by herself, draped in a dark shawl she kept hugged to her body, bare legs stuck out of a fringed hippie dress just coming below her knees. Birkenstocks on her feet. Straight black hair, parted Indian style right in the middle and hanging below her sharp and straight across shoulders.

Mom brought a piece of what looked like a roach to her lips, inhaled a last one, not looking at her children. The smoke hung languidly in the still morning air. She crumbled the last bit, dropping it to the dust at her feet.

The boy had hair the color of winter wheat, longer than his mother’s. He was now holding off his sibling with one arm, as her little stick-like appendages tried reaching him. She had her tongue extending past her determined lips, dark eyes shiny and wet. Her hair more the color of Mom’s, bowl-cut, not coming past her earlobes and trimmed just above her black brows, the strands in time now with her swinging arms.

The brother laughing, hyena-like; his sister grunting with her efforts.

Then, falling in the dirt behind the VW, skittering rocks and pebbles, she crumbled in a lump when her brother let her go. Wailing now, lips blubbering. They looked blue against the stark whiteness of her perfect oval face. Streaks wetly flowed from her shuttered eyes.

Benjamin! The voice was sharp now, the female general of this command.

I didn’t do anything!

"Molto bene," Mom murmured, then turned away from them, electing to ignore the issue once letting the boy know she was well aware of his bullying. She turned her head once toward the front of the van, her eyes on the father. But he was still intent on the road ahead, as though keeping himself separate from such childish activity.

Carol stood up in the ditch now, fully exposing herself not some forty feet away from them. She used her hand to pull back and straighten what she could with her tresses. Opportunity knocks, she thought—

She had not made a sound, but the father swung his face towards her. His eyes appeared overly large in his face, pupils’ obsidian as they took her in. Same hair as the boy, shorter and stuck out from under a plaid wool cap with a brim. His body fully straight now, and he stepped away from the front of the van and took a few steps in her direction, as though not sure what he was seeing. His clothes hung on him as though he had a personal tailor, bespoke; at least they appeared that way to Carol. She wasn’t used to seeing someone standing so straight wearing an outfit that looked not cheap-store bought or hand-me-down.

He reminded her of some of the doctors from the hospital in Missoula. The ones that looked like people who really didn’t belong there—too clean, too sharp, too smart. Nice enough. But alien to what she was used to. Horse ‘n Cow vets usually were what she knew of those who had any medical experience or some rough and ready EMT’s the Rez had on call. And all of them were just cowboys anyway with another part-time job. Maybe a couple of them, at least one, had saved her life.

But it had not come without a cost.

Hey, there.

The voice was quiet, a low rumble she felt good about. But good in a way she only felt she could handle if she really needed to. Like that of a big cat she had come upon once on a sharp turn on a trail. It had the same rumble in its growl – as in you are safe right now. This NOW. His hands were spread out now from his body, open. He wanted to show her he meant no harm. The fingers were long, and even from across the road she could see the nails were clean. Maybe he was a doctor. But then maybe he was one of those who just liked to play doctor. And ‘that remains to be seen,’ something else Dad, her Dad, would say when anything came up that was questionable. Could be whether the bridle was tight enough on a frisky pack horse, the last card being flipped on would be a winner this time, or a new pair of boots would fit right or not.

She fetched her bag and crossed the road towards them. Smiling now, thinking of the treasures she had saved in cigar box and the little munchkin-like girl still slumped behind the VW.

They were heading north, into Canada. Willing to take her along. But that was fine with Carol, as long as it was putting space—a lot of space—behind her. Into the NOW. She was fourteen years old.

Whoppie, ti yi yay, get along, little dogies

It’s your misfortune and none of my own

Whoppie, ti yi yay, get along, little dogies…

The voice a high soprano. Not perfect, no, not by along run. Edged with coke and whiskey, late sloppy evenings. Very early stumbly mornings. Inhaled smoke and rough shouts and blown out laughter.

A country voice.

The Big Sky country, she called it.

***

And to Harry, it had to be the same big blue sky he always saw. Rolling off from the bay and out on into the Atlantic. He just had to look up and he would hear her sing. He heard her now. It was wonderful…

Then the tape-deck turned back on again. A little whirr, then a chunky click.

The cab of the truck filled once more with a sonorous voice:

"We differ from the chimpanzee by some mere two hundred genes. How could that miniscule difference enables one to comprehend the universe when the chimpanzee cannot even comprehend a grain of sand?

You see the world in fundamentally erroneous ways. You believe you occupy a three-dimensional space in which separate objects trace smoothly predictable arcs marked by something you call time. This is what you call reality.

You think you are born. And you think you die. All your life you feel separate and alone. You fear death, because you feel the loss of individuality.

Birth and death, pain and suffering, love and hate, good and evil, are all illusive. Not existing in reality,

Like counting. There is no enumerability. A number system has no independent existence in the real world. Nothing more than a sophisticated metaphor.

Take allegedly definable numbers such as pi or the square root of two. A computer the size of the universe running an infinite amount of time, you could not calculate either number exactly.

Religion. A belief, in a higher power is the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage.

Direction and purpose, motivation and a mission."

Harry knew where he was. Where the truck still stuck at the end of the worn macadam road that faced the bay. The voice from the tape-deck just more sound. And this was a place he came to some mornings. The front wheels of Harry’s truck would just kiss the edge of the sandy rubble-strewn beach. The blacktop beneath the tires crumbling into the windrows of dead seaweed and bay garbage.

Cootie usually along with him, those mornings at dawn.

‘Jest to look,’ Harry says. Like now.

Sitting hunched in their seats, bleary eyed, peering into the salty murk of the new day. Looking.

Ya see ’em?

See what? It’s still too dark, Harry grunted.

It’s blowin’ out though. I don’ have to see to know that.

Harry Jensen. Big as a house with a skinhead haircut. Not really fat, more like a whale. His outer layers tough as steel-belt radials. And his partner –friend, associate, sometime adversary:

Cootie Parker.

Long haired, skinny, a weasel-eyed character with a constant squint and a head that bobbed and shifted about like a just sprung jack-in-the-box. Commercial fishermen. Clamdiggers, mostly. But anything else on the water would do. Bay rats, they were.

Cootie wasn’t crazy about coming down to the bay edge at dawn. Seemed like a waste of time to him. But it was Harry’s boat he was working on, Harry’s truck he was ridin’ in. And sometimes – just sometimes – the breaking dawn over the waters of the bay gave him a real good feeling.

A fresh feeling. A newness that reminded Cootie of looking into the eyes of a woman he had just met and seeing the promise there.

But that didn’t happen too often.

What was good, about the mornings, was that Harry would point out something new or different. Even in the twilight shadows before the sun poked up over the far horizon. Harry’s eyes were always searching, the thick spectacles on his ruddy face making his pupils seem so big they looked like they’d spill right out of the sockets when he stared directly at you.

Harry was strange. He didn’t say a lot. Just the fact of the choices on the tape deck in his truck was plenty enough. The strange part. Though he had to admit that sometimes some of the weirder shit that came out was, well,… interesting. He was glad that there was no tape deck on the boat.

Yessirree, thank you, God!

But when Harry wanted you to know something, he did.

From around the point now. You can see the spray.

And Cootie looked