Red Knife Read Online Free PDF Page B

tell me where he is.”
    During the third year of his first term as sheriff, Cork had hired Marsha Dross as the first female law enforcement officer in Tamarack County. She was approximately his height and not too dissimilar in build. One evening nearly two years earlier, in the soft light of dusk, a sniper had mistaken her for Cork and put a bullet into her. She’d survived, but the damage had killed any hope she might have had of ever conceiving a child. She wasn’t married—the shooting had ended her engagement to a man who desperately wanted children—there were no prospects on the horizon, and Cork didn’t know if the question of marriage and children was one she even pondered much these days.
    “Taking a lot of crap lately from a righteous and outraged citizenry?” he asked.
    She gave a snort that passed for a laugh. “You see Hell Hanover’s editorial in this week’s Sentinel ?”
    She was referring to Helmuth Hanover, publisher of the area’s weekly newspaper. Anyone who’d ever been the target of one of his venomous printed diatribes pretty much figured that he was in league with the devil. Hence, the name by which he was generally known: Hell.
    “Yeah. And come to think of it, you do resemble Barney Fife with a bra.”
    Dross rounded the southern end of the lake and began to head north, up the eastern shoreline toward the rez.
    “Makes you feel any better,” Cork said, “Hanover took a lot of shots at me when I wore the badge.”
    “Hanover’s an ass, but he’s reflecting a pretty significant sentiment. This Red Boyz horseshit’s got everybody pissed. It’s bringing out the bigot in people.”
    “You think it’s horseshit?” Cork asked.
    “Don’t you?”
    “There’s stuff I disagree with, but I can understand the reasoning.”
    “You’re not going to give me a sociology lecture about poverty, are you? Because with the casino, every Ojibwe in the county is getting a nice chunk of change now.”
    “That’s not exactly true and you know it. But it’s not about money. The Red Boyz are all young, a lot of them raised by parents who weren’t much more than kids themselves and didn’t give them any sense of who they are or what they could be. All they know is that they’re Indian and looked down on, generally speaking. A brotherhood is one way for them to find some self-esteem, to belong to something that makes them feel important, especially a brotherhood with its roots in Ojibwe ethics.”
    “Ethics? The Red Boyz? The ethics of thugs maybe.”
    “The Red Boyz stand pretty firm against drugs and alcohol. They don’t use and they do everything they can to discourage it on the rez. Bet if you tracked the numbers, you’d find that since Kingbird organized the Red Boyz, arrests for drug use and related crimes in this county have gone way down.”
    “I do track them and you’re right. But”—she held up a cautionary finger—“that doesn’t mean there’s no crime going on. The Red Boyz all drive nice, new, big vehicles, and I can almost guarantee they didn’t pay for them with what they get from the distribution of the casino revenues. DEA’s convinced the Red Boyz operate a narcotics depot on the rez. They warehouse the merchandise and distribute it all over the Midwest.”
    “Where other people’s children buy it.”
    “Exactly.”
    “I told you there’s stuff I didn’t agree with. That’s some of the stuff.”
    “What else don’t you agree with?”
    “It’s a charismatic organization. Its strength depends too much on Kingbird’s influence. He was the one who gave it direction, who set the guidelines.”
    “Guidelines? You think Lonnie Thunder was operating under guidelines, Cork? You ought to see the videos he made.”
    “I don’t know what to make of Thunder.”
    “Kingbird’s gone now, so what’ll the Red Boyz do?”
    “I wish I could say there was somebody capable of stepping in to fill his shoes. Tom Blessing was basically his right hand, but Tom’s no