Hunting Indians - Chapter 15

Find Chapter 1 at: https://steemit.com/fiction/@andrewgenaille/hunting-indians-chapter-one

Find Chapter 14 at: https://steemit.com/fiction/@andrewgenaille/hunting-indians-chapter-14

1. Chapter 15

Kevin spent the night in a homeless shelter.
He left the apartment and headed down to Hastings Street where he knew that he could blend in simply by keeping to himself. It was twelve blocks of dilapidated buildings and the people society let slip through the social safety net. On his way there he passed a Market Store and did a quick walk through. Smoothly he put food in his pockets before walking back out.
Kevin found himself an ally way and a spot behind a dumpster before getting into his food. Dinner was an apple, a couple of granola bars and a can of beans with bottled water. No longer hungry he curled up in a doorway, covered his face with the hat and went to sleep.
"Hey, buddy." Someone in the dark shook Kevin on the shoulder, causing him to tighten his grip on the handle of his knife. "You alright?"
Kevin looked up at the man dressed in ten-year-old jeans and a leather jacket. He had a grey beard and a pony-tail under his own baseball cap. Kevin guessed that this guy was in his sixties at the least. "I'm fine."
"You're also yelling at people and there aren't anybody around." The man said.
"Just walk away, and leave it alone." Kevin locked eyes with him hoping the other could catch a clue.
"No, you can't stay here. Cops are making their rounds and they don't like anybody setting up shop back here. They find you sleeping here they're allowed to haul you in for nothing. You want to spend the night in a jail cell?" He said. "Come on, I'll take you somewhere you can get some food and a bed."
The man stood up. Kevin considered the cops coming and got up as he put his knife away.
"Name's Reed." The man said as they moved down the alley to the street. He nodded to two cops that reached the alley. Kevin tilted his head but just enough to avoid looking like he was intentionally hiding. Instead of following, the two cops moved to check the rest of the alley.
Reed took Kevin four blocks up the road to a mission. Its front door was unassuming in that it was just a glass door with boarded up windows on either side. The words "St. Mary's Mission" were spray painted on the wood in red while "Get a fucking job" was in black on the other. Inside it opened up into a hall the size of half a gymnasium with folding tables surrounded by chairs. People moved about with their trays of food as they looked for places to sit. Most were in various degrees of wardrobe distress based on how long they've lived on the streets or willingness to accept hand-outs.
"It's a good place. You hungry? It's usually good food, not the best but they know how to mix it up here. Comes out pretty decent." Reed led Kevin to the short line at the far end of the wall.
Kevin looked around and decided there wasn't any real authority here, and the people in this room weren't the type to go out of their way to find police. It didn't mean he was going to let his guard down but at the very least he'd be able to get some sleep.
Reed grabbed a tray and handed it to Kevin, the two of them moved down the line. The three college volunteers on the other side of the table scooped different types of foods onto their trays. They reached the end where Duncan scooped out the hot beans. He was a university student dressed in jeans and a pull-over his mom bought him at Christmas. Duncan's hair was longer than it should be but combed.
"We missed you on movie night, Reed." Duncan said as he scooped for the other.
"I heard you showed Batman Forever." Reed replied.
"Yeah, it was good." Duncan defended his choice.
"It sucked thirty years ago, it sucks now."
Duncan chuckled and scooped for Kevin but stopped when he saw the Indian, and it was very clear to Duncan that he was looking at one. "Oh."
"Oh hey, this is my friend Leroy," Reed motioned to Kevin, "He's new around here so I'm looking out for him."
"Oh yeah?" Duncan said, and then pulled himself out of the shock as he put the food on the tray. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
Kevin watched Duncan carefully as Reed motioned for them to keep walking. "I'll be at the next night when you get better taste."
"I'm working on it." Duncan went on to the next person.
Kevin followed Reed to one of the tables near the back where he sat with his back to the wall and could keep an eye on Duncan who seemed to have just gone back into the rhythm of things.
"He's a good kid." Reed said after a couple of bites. "He won't snitch on you."
Kevin looked at Reed the same way he was watching Duncan.
"You don't blend in as much as you think you do, or would want to." Reed said and chuckled.
"What does that mean?"
"What are you? Cree?" Reed didn't see Kevin's reaction as the other tensed up. "You don't see many Cree around here anymore. You don't see many Indians at all anymore, but Cree, you come over the mountains?"
"No, I was born here."
"But still Cree?"
"Half." Kevin said. He wondered where Reed was going with this. He also considered walking away but didn't know where he would go from here.
"Yeah, look, people hate Indians cause they're scared of you. They're worried you're going to take their land from them. They're worried you're going to take their jobs and money." Reed motioned around, "Does anybody in this room look like they've got land, jobs or money? No, don't worry about us, we don't care what you are. All we see is another guy that society thinks is shit. So you might as well be one of us."
Kevin didn't have a reply, but what he said made sense.
The two men spent the rest of the meal eating in silence but Kevin couldn't get past watching Duncan. He caught him watching Kevin a few times. Once caught Duncan quickly looked away and moved onto something else.
Afterwards Reed showed Kevin around the facility. There were washrooms and private showers. There was a section for needle exchanges, and a room where the doctor would come in once a week. In the back of the building forty cots lined up. Kevin was assigned one at the back with a pillow and blanket.
Reed took the bed three cots over from Kevin with a family in between them; a mother, father and son. Kevin faced the wall and fell asleep quickly.
Kevin woke up long before anybody else and didn't bother saying goodbye. He had things to do and didn't want to get bogged down in pointless conversation.
His first appointment he picked because of its distance from him, still within the downtown core but far enough from the mission that he could run back to it without drawing attention. He reached the home of Raymond Copeland just before seven in the morning and moved around to the backyard. It was a small house on the edge of the city among other small houses but none cheaper than a million bucks to buy. This city was beyond over priced but if some idiot was willing to pay, who was Kevin to argue.
Kevin knocked on the door leading into the rental and waited. He tilted his head listening for any sounds that came from inside. After a moment he knocked again. Raymond opened the door and was about to say hello but he froze when he saw Kevin.
"Raymond?" Kevin asked.
Raymond reached for his belt where his weapon was holstered. He wasn't a coordinated individual and also about fifty pounds overweight for his five foot eight frame. Kevin was a blur. He pulled his knife out sticking it into Raymond's throat and pulled it out just as fast. Raymond stopped his fumbling as his mouth dropped open and his eyes showed realization mixed with panic. Kevin put his hand on Raymond's chest and pushed him back into the house before he collapsed to the floor.
Kevin didn't know him from Adam. He didn't know that Raymond's only job with the Indian Agents was to ensure gardens and landscaping were done to code and no unauthorized equipment was being used. He didn't know Raymond was a third born or that he was seeing a waitress up the street. Kevin didn't care. All Kevin knew was that Raymond's name was on his list and everybody on that list deserved to die and for a moment Kevin felt some satisfaction in killing him.
Kevin didn't feel remorse or question why he didn't, it was as if the part of his brain that felt empathy had been shut off or blocked. It wasn't something he worried about in his current state of mind. What he felt was hate. The same anger and hate that he felt out in the field, standing over Rachel's body. A simple, pure emotion that blocked out all others.
Kevin wiped the knife on Raymond's pant leg and put it back in his pocket. He closed the door and started back for the street as he headed back to the shelter.

It was a small town of ten thousand people built between three large mountains and the river over a hundred years ago. Initially it was a logging town but more recently had turned into a retirement community as the loggable trees began to run out. People moved away looking for work. Those too old simply started collecting their pensions and stayed put.
Peter saw coming here as a risk verses reward scenario. On the one side he needed to get his wound taken care of, while on the other these people were all armed. They also grew up in a world where Indians were their only competition for resources. He decided he didn't have a choice otherwise he would either bleed out or catch some kind of staph infection.
He left the tree line into a neighbourhood of two story houses, middle class style. He followed his instincts toward the town center where he hoped there was a pharmacy. What he found though was light traffic where the suburbs turned into two story high buildings. He spotted the pharmacy three blocks away but it wasn't somewhere he could just walk into without raising suspicions.
He looked up the other road and spotted a large industrial building with various parts of trucks in the yard. Peter found the opening in the wire fence line and moved up to the windows, as far as he could tell it was a closed machine shop.
He broke the window, unlocked the frame and opened it to climb inside.
He didn't notice the hair-thin wire attached to the window. It sent a signal through the system and an alarm went off at the call center ninety kilometers away. They went about contacting the owner of the building.
Inside Peter moved past the machines for the head office in the back, but spotted what he wanted hanging from the wall, a bright red bag marked "First Aid." Peter grabbed it and moved to the washroom.
Unknown to Peter, the Owner was reached while on vacation in Mexico. He gave the Security Company permission to contact the local police force.
Peter put the bag down and turned on the sink. He took off the coveralls to get at his leg before he dug into the kit.
Industrial first aid, he thought to himself, better than any pharmacy. He grabbed the blade, the alcohol, bandages and antibiotic cream and laid them out on the counter.
Peter practiced this in the woods before and once when his cousin Christine cut her arm open falling out of a tree, just not on himself. He wasn't fully prepared for the pain as he cut into the leg to open the wound again. He grabbed the small tongs from the kit and pushed it into the opening, biting down hard as he moved it around. He felt the round, accidentally moved it and caused himself a lot of pain. He tried again and grabbed it.
Peter slowly pulled it out and dropped it into the sink, letting out the breath he was holding as a renewed throbbing started in his leg.
His hands shook.
He covered a cloth in the antibacterial cream and then pressed it hard onto the wound, hoping that the pressure would stop the bleeding. He started wrapping the bandages around his leg and paused when he heard the sirens. Peter hurried now. He tied the wrapping off and put on his coveralls again.
Peter opened the door slightly and looked through the giant engines in the way. He could see the shapes of two cops looking over the broken window. Peter rested his head against the doorframe and closed his eyes.
He hurt. He could feel every scratch and tare on his flesh, and a throbbing that wouldn't go away. His joints felt like there was rocks between the bones and his muscles ached. He had to will himself to open his eyes again because those few seconds they were closed he could've just shut down and slept.
He moved to the tools on the wall and grabbed the metal sheet cutters.
Peter went to the office and checked to see that the door was unlocked. He went inside and closed softly behind himself. There was a chocolate bar on the desk he grabbed as he moved to the window. He unlocked it and climbed outside. Peter walked to the back fence using the machinery as best he could as cover.
At the fence he pulled himself up and cuts the barbwire on top. He waited for the three razors holding wires to fling away. He dropped the sheet cutters and climbed over the fence to the other side.
"Hey! Hold it!" Peter stopped to see that he had been spotted by one of the cops and then darted off into the back yards of the lower class homes, past the barking dogs and garbage bags. He could see the mountain on the other side of town and thought that if he could make it there it was just a matter of disappearing into the forest again.
He almost reached the end of the block when he spotted the cruiser pass on the road. He had to hide behind a wall. He looked back the way he came to see the other cop was climbing over the fence to follow him.
Cops in town, hunters in the bush, Peter was starting to feel like a mouse trying to survive in a house full of cats.
He moved to the back door of the old house and tried the knob to find it was unlocked. He went inside and closed the door. He locked it and slid to the floor, hoping cops weren't allowed to check inside. He only had a moment to consider it before he heard feet coming down the stairs.
Peter slid across the floor and partly to his feet as he moved for what he hoped was a door to the basement. It turned out to be the door to a pantry cupboard but at that point he had no choice but to enter while closing the door behind himself.
He went to the back of the five-foot room and sat down behind some cleaning supplies, hoping the shadows hid him. He made an effort to get his breathing under control, fearing that sound it made would let the people know he was there. He kept his eyes on the light that came in from under the door, staring at it waiting for a shadow.
It felt like an eternity to him, but the more time that passed the more secure he felt in his hiding spot, although he could hear the sound of people moving around the house. It was nearly ten minutes before the sounds stopped, before he let himself relax and breathe normally.
He opened the chocolate bar and started eating.

Kevin reached the Mission in time for the lunch line, which was smaller than the dinner line as most of the people staying here have moved on. Kevin considered just finding some place to hide out but realized he was actually hungry and grabbed himself a tray. He kept his head low so the cap covered his face but relaxed somewhat when he noticed that Duncan wasn't working today.
He finished half his meal before Reed took a seat across from him and put an apple on Kevin's tray. Kevin looked up at him puzzled.
"They sometimes get fresh apples in. You should grab them when you can. You need teeth though. You got working teeth?" He asked.
"Yeah."
"There you go then, an apple for you." Reed said and started cutting up his own apple. Kevin watched him for a moment. "You want an orange instead?"
"No, I want to know what your problem is." Kevin stared.
Reed stopped cutting. "I don't have a problem."
"Then why do you keep tracking me?"
"I'm trying to help you, with everything going on in the world I think someone in your position might need a little help, so that's what I'm doing." Reed went back to cutting, "Just giving you a little help."
"I don't want your help." Kevin's face was hard to read for Reed, but his tone spoke volumes.
"Yeah, well," Reed was dead serious, "Tough shit."
Peter grabbed his tray and put it on the 'used' table. He grabbed the apple and left the room for the back of the building.
Reed watched him go, then bit into his apple.

Beth stared up at the ceiling from her bed in the small cell. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, as they didn't turn the lights out last night. She looked over as Ryan opened the door to look in at her.
"Get up." He said.
"Are they letting me go?" She sat up.
"Nope, Richard's here."
Beth's stomach dropped, but she wanted to appear confident so stood up and allowed Ryan to escort her down the hall to the interrogation room.
Richard didn't bother to stand as Beth was brought into the room. He looked up from the report he had on his crossed legs; her file. Today he was dressed more casually but his equipment was the same, a laptop and IV bag of chemicals.
"Hello Beth." Richard said calmly.
"Richard." Beth said back and casually sat down in her chair. Ryan put the straps over her wrists and stepped back. "I hope they didn't pull you back from something more important."
"Don't worry. Finding you innocent is just as important to the agency as finding you a traitor." Richard closed the file and put it on the table. He folded his hands on his bent knee. "You've seen how this is done before? You know how it works, you know it's fool proof."
Beth used to think so but her knowledge of Peter told her that there must be a loophole somewhere. It gave her hope but she realized that she had to be drugged to find out how he did it.
"I have." She stated.
"Then let’s begin." Richard took his time putting the electrodes on her temples and forehead. He looked over as the laptop started registering her electrical impulses. "This may sting a little."
Richard stuck the needle into Beth's arm and she tensed up. Richard turned the device on and she felt the burning sensation enter her skin and move up her arm. Richard sat back down and picked up his notepad, he casually waited for the chemicals to have their affect.
"What's your full name?"
"Elizabeth Carpenter." Beth answered, her head lightened up. She knew it was an easy question and he was testing her yet. "But I prefer Beth."
"Okay, Beth." Richard smiled. "Are you a spy for the Indian rebellion?"
"Yes." Beth froze, stuck in shock, as she couldn't help answering the question as plainly as possible.
"That was easy." Ryan said.
"I tweaked the dosage a bit." Richard jotted down some notes. "Okay, Beth..."
"Please stop. Stop...no." Beth shook her head.
"How long have you been working for the Indians?" Richard ignored her pleas.
"Ten years."
"According to your file you've only been working here for eight...aahh" Richard clued in and made a note. "Were you recruited and then asked to join our Department?"
"Yes, they asked me to."
"And then you worked your way up to a valuable position?"
"Yes."
"I have to say, Beth, very well done." Richard mocked clapped, "It takes a lot of skill to make it through the vetting process, and especially to the level you've reached. And who was it that recruited you?"
"Karen."
"Karen, their leader did?"
"She wasn't then, but they heard about me and asked her to."
"Heard about you how?"
"Karen."
"Why her?"
Beth tried to hold back, "She's my girlfriend."
"Holy shit, you're a dyke?" Ryan said, with huge grin.
"Yes," Beth looked at Ryan, angry. "No one knows, it's you everyone thinks is gay."
"Fuck you they don't." Ryan said then looked to Richard and the machine. Richard shrugged and nodded as the machine said she was telling the truth. Ryan lost his smirk.
"That's how, your whole life is about keeping secrets." Richard had honest admiration. His own life was about discovering lies and routing out people, he loved the idea of a challenge and found a gold mine. "Are you still her girlfriend?"
"Yes." She said, they hadn't seen each other in months but it was still there and what Beth used to get through the darker times.
"She might be dead, but you know that?"
"She's not."
"How do you know that? Have you been in touch with her?" Richard narrowed his eyes.
"No. I just know."
"You had a kid. How did you have a kid if you're a dyke?" Ryan asked as if the thought popped into his head.
"Donated sperm from a friend." Beth said.
"Would you mind leaving the room please," Richard said to Ryan, who started to protest but the look he got was not to be questioned.
Ryan went through the door and then into the observation room where Barry turned to look at him annoyed. Ryan shrugged and the other man looked back into the room.
"Raymond Copeland is dead." Barry said as Ryan stepped up to him.
"How?"
"He went home for a change of clothes and someone cut open his throat." Barry looked at Ryan to see what his reaction was. "Things are getting out of hand. The press is asking questions about our military operations and they're questioning what we're doing now that there's a killer Indian on the loose."
"We'll get him."
"Will we? Before it blows up in our face? We don't even know what he looks like."
"Brown. He stands out."
"Hmmm." Barry smirked. He focused back on the interview.
"This Indian we're looking for, do you know him?" Richard asked Beth.
"No."
"Karen never talked about him? Your contacts never mentioned him or who he was?"
"No."
"Hmmm." Richard said as he stared at the laptop readouts, watching the lines as they weaved but never spiked. He searched for the right question but knew honestly she had no clue. "Who, do you know of, that we should talk to that would know who he is?"
"Karen. Karen would know."
"Karen is dead. Who alive should we find, and can find?" Richard said and watched as Beth struggled. He could see she was holding onto something but he could wait.
"Gordon would know."
"Gordon. Who's Gordon?"
"Gordon Bishop." Beth said as she looked up at Richard, whose face had drained of colour.
In the observation room both Barry and Ryan tensed up at the name. Ryan stepped closer to the one-way glass as if being closer would change what he heard.
"Gordon Bishop is dead Beth. He was shot through the head by a sniper’s bullet twenty years ago. He's dead." Richard stated, looking to the computer to see if the lines changed, hoping they would change.
"No, he's alive." Beth shook her head.
"And you know where he is?" Richard asked.
"Yes." Beth said after a moment.
"Where Beth?"
"Get your partner." Barry turned to Ryan, "You get your partner. You find me Gordon Bishop and you put him down. No one knows about him, he dies and nobody knows he was still alive. You understand?"
"Yes sir." Ryan said as he grabbed his cell phone.

Chapter 16 can be found: https://steemit.com/fiction/@andrewgenaille/hunting-indians-chapter-16