Chapter 20 Blackfoot
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Blackfoot
With his shirt unbuttoned, Leaf lay on the couch, enjoying the tingling sensation in his body. Milo sat on the floor in front of the table, rolling a joint while a storm raged outside.
Heavy rain hammered against the windows and roof as the sky rumbled above. And in the dim candlelight, the interior of his small wooden cabin felt like a cozy refuge, a safe cocoon in the darkness.
“You know,” Milo whispered, reaching for the lighter. “The candles are for the dead. That’s what my mother told me once.” He stared into the flames for a long time before finally lighting the joint and taking a deep drag.
“What was she like?”
“She was … Blackfoot.”
“Tristan has never talked about her before.” Leaf was genuinely interested—perhaps because his own mother had died of cancer far too early.
“Yeah … no …” Milo murmured, exhaling smoke.
“He deals with it differently than I do. I was nine. Mingan was seven. It was Halloween. Dad asked us what we wanted to dress up as. Construction worker, Spiderman, Batman … We didn’t care about any of that.
We had spent the whole summer with the Blackfoot tribe in Montana and just wanted to be like Grandpa Old Bear.
He had an amazing war bonnet and beautiful embroidery on his vest. So, Mom got us traditional costumes.
” Thoughtfully, he rolled the joint between his fingers.
“It was fun trick-or-treating with Mingan. Everyone knew about our heritage, and it was never an issue. But still, Ming and I shared something that other kids couldn’t understand. Do you have siblings?”
Leaf shook his head.
“After trick-or-treating, we sorted through all our candy. As usual, I gave Mingan all the candies that contained nuts, and he gave me his chocolate in return.”
“Are you allergic?”
“No. I just didn’t like them. And Mingan didn’t care.
” A sad smile flickered across Milo’s face.
“Mom was about to tuck us into bed when we heard a noise. It sounded like a broken window. Dad sent us to the basement to hide. I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face as she took us by the hand and led us downstairs.
She was terrified and kept telling us to be quiet.
She led us to the closet and handed me a flashlight.
“‘Hide in here and don’t come out until we come to get you. I’ll check on Dad.
’ She stroked our heads, closed the door, and pulled down the blinds.
I was terribly afraid, but I did everything to hide it because Ming was even more scared.
He was only seven and wanted to go back to Mom, so I played with the flashlight to distract him, pretending it was a lightsaber.
“Suddenly, we heard a scream. The flashlight slipped from my hand and landed in the pile of clothes. Ming froze with fear and shook all over, so I covered his ears with my hands. When he felt my heart racing too, he put his small hands over my ears and hummed softly. That’s how we stood there. Paralyzed.
“The light then came on. Ming wanted to run out screaming, but I held him tight. Mom and Dad weren’t alone. Through the blinds, we saw two masked men.”
Milo paused, his face a mask as he stared into the flames. It was quiet. He took a deep breath, still not taking his eyes off the candle, and continued in a monotone voice.
“Dad was pushed to the floor. His left side of the face was covered in blood. The other man dragged Mom by the hair. She cried and screamed. Blood ran down her face, and her blue blouse was torn. She begged the men. My father tried to help her, but he had no chance.
“‘Everything will be fine, Nuna,’ he kept repeating. ‘Everything will be fine.’
“Then the man yanked Mom’s head back and pressed a knife to her throat. Ming wanted to run out screaming. I held him tight and pressed my hand over his mouth.
“Mom became very calm. She stopped crying and looked at us, toward the closet.
“I don’t know what I saw in her face … No idea. But she was … so calm.
“But then, that sound, the knife, that slit her throat … ‘Nuna! Nuna!’ my father cried, reaching out for her. But she was already … They punched Dad in the face, and he fell into the pool of blood. With a gun, they pressed his head to the ground. I heard a click … and … a shot …”
Everything was completely silent. Milo stared into the flames. Leaf didn’t even dare to breathe.
“I … um … Ming trembled in my arms, so I held him even tighter. A sob escaped him, and my heart stopped. The closet door swung open, and one of the masked men stood above us. He held up the bloody knife and turned the blade in his hand.
“That is it, I thought, but at that moment, I didn’t care. What reason was there to keep on living? Our dead parents lay not ten feet away from us.
“‘No kids! Are you crazy?’ the other guy yelled.
The man wiped the blood off the blade with his fingers and bent down to give us war paint on our cheeks. ‘Now you’re real Indians,’ he said. They then ran off. We stayed in the closet and hugged each other tightly.
“And we waited. We waited for someone to come and take us away.
“We waited for so damn long.”
Leaf sped toward downtown, cursing every red light. He prayed no cop would pull him over while half-listening to Clint trying to drag words out of Tristan on the radio.
“In my research, I came across some extraordinary material,” the radio host said.
“News articles said they pulled two kids with blood smeared on their faces out of the house. They had spent hours in the same room as their, quote, unquote, slaughtered parents. That was twenty years ago. How do you deal with that, Tristan?”
“Fuck!” Leaf cursed and grabbed the phone.
While he was once again stopped by a red light, he called Carol. The manager picked up, and it sounded like she covered her mouth to keep her voice low while speaking.
“Leaf? Hello?”
“Stop it!” he shouted into the receiver and started driving again when the light turned green. “Stop the damn interview!”
Carol gasped in disbelief. “But they’re live—I can’t just—”
“Do your damn job and get Tristan out of there!”
He hung up and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. Even though he had reached downtown quickly, it wasn’t fast enough for him.
“I …” Tristan’s voice sounded thin as porcelain over the speaker. “Where … Twenty? … I don’t know …”
“Oh, fuck! Do something!” Leaf shouted, silently cursing Carol, who was completely blind to such things. He couldn’t even blame Andrej, because he was surely as blindsided as Tristan. But eventually, he intervened.
“I don’t think this is appropriate, Clint,” Andrej said.
“I’m just doing my job,” Clint defended himself.
“You’ve crossed several lines in the last few minutes without even hesitating. We should probably just end this now.”
Suddenly, there was static noise, then the station reacted immediately and switched back to the studio.
“Um, yeah … Here’s Anna Banana again! Looks like Clint here …
tsk, tsk … Clint, you naughty boy! I would have loved to learn more, but …
uh … let’s listen to a song first. Maybe we can come back to him later. ”
Leaf turned onto Hope Street and drove straight to the parking lot. He jumped out of the car and hurried into the hotel. Although some drugs were still running through his system, adrenaline had flushed most of it out since Tristan’s distress call.
He rushed through the lobby and took the escalator up. Once there, he rode the elevator to the rooftop bar. Upstairs, he only needed to follow the voices, and when he turned the corner, he saw Carol arguing with an Elvis Costello look-alike.
Leaf was boiling with anger.
How dare this guy hurt Tristan? Does he have no respect at all?
Nearby, the radio crew waited in silence; behind them, Tristan and Andrej came into view. Andrej offered him a glass of water, but Tristan seemed absent, lost in his thoughts. One didn’t need to be a genius to see how he was being consumed by his dark memories.
Leaf put his hand on Clint’s shoulder and spun him around, then landed a right hook. As Clint staggered backward, the horn-rimmed glasses flew off his face. One of the technicians was close enough to catch the radio host.
“Leaf!” Carol exclaimed, horrified.
Anger boiled up inside Leaf, and he wanted only one thing: to take down the guy who had hurt Tristan.
He grabbed Clint’s shirt and punched him again. When he cocked his fist for a third, Carol yanked him back.
“Stop it!”
“I’ll sue you!” Clint snarled, touching his bloody lip.
“And I’ll make sure you never do another interview again!” Leaf barked at him. “Go become a lawyer if you want to cross-examine someone! But you can’t just spring something like this on people!”
In a rage, he broke free from Carol’s firm grip and pushed her away. “And you! How clueless can you get? Why didn’t you step in?”
Carol hesitated, staring at him in stunned silence. Before she could find words, Leaf stepped toward Tristan—who still hadn’t moved. He looked frozen, but Leaf could tell he was miles away, completely gone.
“Leaf. You’re here.” Relief tinged Tristan’s fragile voice.
“Take him home,” Andrej said. “I’ll deal with Carol and a lawyer.”
“This will spread like wildfire,” Leaf said, worried.
“We can’t do anything about that anymore. But I’m sure it will blow over eventually. I’ll put it on the list.”
“Come on.” Leaf led Tristan back to the elevator.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long. As soon as the door closed and the Rooftop Bar disappeared, he hugged Tristan.
“Where did he …?” Tristan’s voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“Don’t think about it anymore.”
“That …”
Leaf took off Tristan’s sunglasses and caressed his cheek. “Breathe slowly in and out. Everything is fine.”
Tears gathered in Tristan’s eyes, and it almost tore Leaf’s heart apart to see him trembling all over.