Cold River Resurrection Read Free Page B

closer, she could see the remnants of a large forest fire, some trees with upper limbs burned, and then she stood at the edge of a blackened, burned forest. Dark limbless trees pointed to the sky, like exclamation points (use sparingly, Detective Biscoani!). Across the scorched valley a rock wall stood watch over the desolation. As she made her way through the wasteland, it reminded Jennifer of pictures she had seen of Hiroshima after the atomic blast. At least she could see where she was going for the first time since she had entered the wilderness.
    There! A car, a pickup truck in the burned out clearing. She began to run, a ragged scream coming out as a croak. As she got closer the pickup danced away, and she ran harder, dodging blackened trees. The truck changed into a tree and then a rock, and she sank down to her knees, too exhausted to cry. She sat like that until the sun was hot, and she rose up and started walking, the illusion of a truck already gone from her mind. 
    Jennifer walked aimlessly through the seared landscape. Tendrils of black dust rose up and swirled around her legs. A shadowy specter of ash floated behind her, marking her progress.
    At the rock wall, she found another body. Her mouth was dry. Breathe in, breathe out.
    Painted fingernails. Like her Nanna.
    She took a souvenir.
    No one’s gonna mind.
    Eventually she wandered away from the rock wall, back toward the forest. She sang to herself and fingered the fabric of her shirt, clutching the artifacts of her passing.

C hapter 2
     
    Cold River Indian Reservation
    Sidwalter
     
    “Daddy, I want to ask you something.” Nine year old Laurel threw her bag on the floor of the Suburban and hopped in to the passenger seat. She reached for her seatbelt and looked at her dad. It was an ongoing question, one that usually led to an argument.
    “No. Not if it’s about Twati .”
    “Daddy, why not?”
    Smokey sighed. He grabbed the radio microphone from the console and announced that he was on his way to work. “Dispatch, be advised, I have my daughter with me.”
    “Copy, call Chief Andrews in his office.”
    “Three oh three, copy.” Lieutenant Mark “Smokey” Kukup of the Cold River Tribal Police Department wore a gray and black uniform, kept his hair long, traditional, braided on each side. His face was Chinook, the high cheekbones and dark skin of the Columbia River Tribes. He looked at Laurel. Sometimes he thought she was a twenty-one year old in a nine year old body. He rarely said no. He had been in Afghanistan for three tours, much of Laurel’s life, and it was hard for him to say no, but he was learning. He would hold firm on this request. She wanted to study with a Twati , an Indian doctor, a shaman. “Laurel, I don’t want you to learn that type of stuff.”
    “ Ila says I should. She says I have a gift.”
    “Your Ila , your grandmother, needs to speak to me about it first.” He backed the SUV out from the log house he shared with his mother and daughter and pulled onto the drive. The house, barn, and outbuildings sat in a large grassy meadow. Behind the house the wooded slope ran for miles to the west toward Mt. Wilson. The driveway curled through the meadow, over a small hill for a half mile, and then ended on a wide gravel road that eventually led to State Highway Twenty-six, the Mount Hood Highway that ran through the reservation from Portland to Madras.
    “Daddy.”
    Smokey turned to look at his daughter. She was so beautiful she made his heart ache. She had her mother’s face and shiny black hair down to her waist.
    Like her mother’s face was once. Before Amelia  started drinking again. Before the parties. Before meth, and her death when he was halfway around the world.
    “Daddy, couldn’t I just learn a little bit?”
    ”Laurel, I will talk to Ila about this, just don’t ask me. From what I hear, you already know too much k’inut (vision).”
    “I won’t ask until you talk to Ila, Dad, but k’inut is traditional,