CHAPTER THIRTEEN RETRIBUTION
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RETRIBUTION
“My brothers, shall we submit?
Or shall we say to them:
‘First kill me, before you can take
possession of my fatherland!’”Sitting Bull
3:00 PM
June 15th
White River Trading Post
Allen, South Dakota
Eric Two Bulls pulled his battered old Dodge Pickup into the driveway of the White River Trading Post on the outskirts of Allen, South Dakota.
He’d just finished a shift at the Tribal Roads department.
He’d spent the last eight hours patching potholes on the highway between Allen and Martin.
He was exhausted and ready to go home to eat.
His wife, Elaina, would have dinner waiting for him.
He scanned his bank card and began putting fuel into the old truck, hoping that twenty dollars would get him through the rest of the week. He had only forty dollars left in his account until payday, and he had to make it last.
“Hey, Eric!” called a voice from the door.
“Hey, Billy,” Eric replied to the young kid coming out of the door of the trading post. “How’s your dad?”
“He’s getting stronger,” Billy answered. “The doctors say he might get to come home from the hospital next week.”
“That’s great news,” Eric said. “How’s things here at the trading post?”
“Not that busy today,” Billy said with a shrug.
“The only other customers we’ve had in the last few hours were a couple of wa?í?u dudes that came in, bought a Coke each, used the bathroom, and left.
I don’t think they were from around here.
They both had odd accents. Kinda like a British accent, but different. ”
“That’s odd,” said Eric. “I mean, no offense, but this ain’t exactly a big pit stop for travelers unless they’re getting gas.”
“That’s kinda what I thought, too,” said Billy. “They weren’t very talkative, either.”
Another car pulled in, and three Native men in jeans and work boots got out, then headed inside. They were all dressed like ranch hands.
“Duty calls,” said Billy, grinning. “Stop in before you leave. I’ve got something for Elaina. Mom made her a blanket for the baby.”
“That’s good of her,” said Eric. “Tell her we said thank you. I know Elaina will love it.”
Eric turned back to the pump just as it rolled past twenty dollars.
“Damn!” he said, clicking it off quickly.
It stopped at $20.44.
“Well, it could’ve been worse,” Eric said, hanging up the pump.
He started to turn back to the station when the air pressure changed.
Before he could ponder what it was, he was physically picked up and thrown about thirty yards.
His truck flipped over and crushed the pump.
Eric felt the heat rolling over him as he hit the ground and slid to a stop.
His ears were ringing, and he couldn’t focus.
When he could see, he noticed that his jean jacket was on fire.
He quickly pulled it off, threw it on the ground, and slapped out the small spots of fire on his jeans and shirt.
Smoke rose from him, and he could still feel waves of heat rolling over him; however, his ears were ringing. He couldn’t hear anything else.
He shook his head and tried to clear it, but he felt nauseous and disoriented. He looked toward the trading post, but it was fully engulfed in flames. Even the pumps had gone up, taking his truck with it. The initial blast had thrown him clear of the secondary explosion.
“Billy,” he said weakly.
He knew no one had survived that explosion. He fumbled for his cell phone to call it in, then realized he’d left it on the seat of his truck. He looked around for a payphone, but the only one he knew of was on the side of the store.
Black, billowing smoke rose into the sky, and in the distance, sirens responded from Allen. Eric couldn’t hear any of that, because the blast burst his eardrums. As he tried to get to his feet, he vomited violently onto the pavement.
“Uh oh,” he muttered. “I think I’ve got a concussion.”
As his thoughts cleared, he remembered one detail clearly. The first explosion came from inside the building, and Billy mentioned that they’d had two white men in the store. They were his only customers for the last few hours.
“This is because of the oil wells,” thought Eric.
He glanced up and saw two emergency vehicles coming toward him. They were both fire trucks with their lights flashing, but he couldn’t hear the sirens. They stopped and immediately began unrolling hose to fight the fire. One of them grabbed a kit and came running over to him.
“Are you okay?” asked the fireman, but Eric couldn’t hear his words.
But he got the gist of it from watching his lips.
“No,” Eric managed to say. “I can’t hear anything. Just ringing.”
The firefighter nodded and began checking Eric over. Physically, he was singed and had some nasty scrapes from hitting the ground, but no big wounds or shrapnel. However, the hearing was going to be a problem.
“Do you know what happened?” asked the fireman.
Eric nodded.
“Good,” the firefighter said. “The cops are gonna have a lot of questions for you.”
Eric nodded again and looked back at the trading post.
“Was there anyone inside?” asked the firefighter.
Eric didn’t hear him, so the firefighter waved his hand in front of his face to get his attention. Eric turned and looked at him.
“Was there anyone inside?” the firefighter asked again.
“Four people,” muttered Eric. “Billy Tall Grass and three ranch hands, but I don’t know their names.”
“Thank you,” said the firefighter.
He turned to the other firefighters.
“Four possibles inside!” he shouted.
An ambulance pulled up, and the EMTs took over treating Eric. The firefighter rejoined his comrades and went to work trying to get the fire under control. Eric leaned his head back as the EMTs gently helped him onto the gurney.
Two Tribal Police cars came roaring up. The officers got out quickly and began blocking off traffic to keep it away from the firefighters. The first officer to exit his vehicle was Gilbert Two Dogs. He frowned at the damage and shook his head.
“What the hell happened here?” he asked as the EMTs began wheeling the gurney toward the ambulance.
Eric motioned frantically, and Gilbert walked over.
“Can he talk?” asked Gilbert.
“He can talk, but he can’t hear you,” said one of the EMTs. “His eardrums are probably blown out from the blast.”
Gilbert took out a notepad and handed it to Eric.
“Tell me what happened,” Gilbert said, so Eric could see his mouth moving.
Eric began scribbling furiously and wrote down everything that Billy had told him. Then he wrote one word in all caps. BOMB. Gilbert looked at it and frowned.
“Are you sure?” asked Gilbert.
“I was an explosives tech in the Army,” Eric wrote. “The initial blast was in the building, not at the pumps. It had to be a bomb.”
Gilbert frowned and nodded at the EMTs. They loaded Eric into the ambulance and headed for the hospital. Gilbert took out his phone and texted Kade.
“Explosion on the Rez,” he sent. “White River Trading Post just outside Allen. Four possible dead. Likely in response to the oil rig explosions. You were right. It’s started.”
He waited for a response for just a moment when he saw the three dots indicating he was about to get a message.
It simply said, “We’re on our way.”
He quickly put away the burner phone, then took out his department-issued one. He dialed Tribal Police Chief Jack Red Thunder and briefed him on everything he’d just learned, leaving out any reference to Kade.
“So, you think this was a deliberate attack?” asked Chief Red Thunder.
“It looks that way, Chief,” said Gilbert. “We won’t know until we locate the device. As hot as this fire’s burning, there might not be anything left.”
“Stay on scene,” Chief Red Thunder said. “I’m on my way.”
Fifteen minutes later, seven motorcycles came roaring down the highway.
Two of the bikes were riding double. Raven was behind Kade, and another couple rode a big road bike.
Two other women rode their own bikes. As they approached the barricade, Gilbert walked out toward them.
He held up his hand like he was doing his job and slowly approached Kade’s bike.
“What can you tell us?” asked Kade.
“Not much, so far,” Gilbert said. “They’re still trying to get the fire under control.”
“Then how do you know it was a bomb?” asked Kade. “Gas stations occasionally catch fire.”
“The surviving victim,” Gilbert said, “Eric Two Bulls, was an explosives technician in the Army. He said the original blast came from inside the building, not the pumps. He said he recognized the blast pattern.”
“Anything else?” asked Kade.
“Yeah, Billy Tall Grass was working there,” said Gilbert, “and he mentioned that two wa?í?u guys were the only other customers he’d had in hours.”
“I want to see the security tapes,” said Kade.
“If they survived,” added Gilbert. “I’ll try to make a copy for you or at least grab some stills. But I’m betting it’s unlikely any of that survived. Unless they keep their footage in an online archive, but that’s not likely. I doubt they could afford cameras, much less expensive security.”
“We knew this was going to happen,” Raven said. “Red Basin is behind this. We just can’t prove it.”
“Proof?” asked Kade. “Do we really need proof. Two of their facilities are destroyed, and now an unrelated gas station on the Rez gets bombed. You don’t have to be a detective to connect those dots. This traces back to Red Basin. I’d bet my bike on it.”
“We could try to get their scent,” suggested Raven.
“No use,” Kade said. “They likely got into a vehicle that was parked inside the blast zone. There won’t be a scent left to track.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Gilbert.
“Keep doing your job,” Kade said, slapping Gilbert on the shoulder, “and keep us informed of anything you find during the investigation. Stick to the burner phone. We’ll change them out soon.”
With that, Kade fired up his engine, and they turned around and headed back down the highway.
Gilbert watched them go with an odd smile.
Kade was dangerous, and Gilbert knew that if he went after the men who did this, it would only escalate the attacks.
If Red Basin was behind this, then they weren’t going to stop until the attacks on their oil production did.
“He’s going to start a war,” whispered Gilbert. “It’s just a matter of time.”
***
Three hours later, the firefighters managed to extinguish the flames. The entire building was gone, reducing most of the things inside to ash. The intense heat from the burning fuel had warped the metal pylons that held up the awning above the pumps.
Gilbert stood by with Chief Red Thunder as the fire marshal began inspecting the debris. He’d only been inside about half an hour before he came out to talk to the chief.
“What did you find, Amos?” asked the Chief.
“You’re not gonna like it, Jack,” said Amos.
Amos was Amos Lone Elk. He was the fire marshal for this section of the Rez.
“Just spit it out,” said Chief Red Thunder.
“The ignition source was in the bathroom,” said Amos. “Zero chance this was an accident. I also found fragments of the detonator. It looks military to me. Your guess is as good as mine about the explosives they used. I won’t be able to tell you definitively until we get the lab results back.”
“Your gut is good enough for me,” said Chief Red Thunder. “But we’ll need the lab results for court. Anything else you can tell me?”
“Yeah, whoever did this was a pro,” said Amos. “They knew right where to put it. Just on the other side of the wall was where the natural gas pipe comes into the building.”
“Shit,” muttered the chief. “I was afraid of that.”
“So, what do we do now, Chief?” asked Gilbert.
“The only thing we can do,” said Chief Red Thunder.
“This is a terrorist attack. We do the only thing we can do. We turn it over to the FBI and hope they actually do something about it. We all know if it was a white-owned store, they’d be all over it, but they never seem to care when it happens to us. ”
“Do you think it’ll happen again?” asked Gilbert.
“If the attacks on the oil facilities continue,” said Chief Red Thunder, “it’ll only get worse. Four victims this time. Next time, they might hit a school or a hospital.”
“That won’t be good,” Gilbert said. “It’ll turn into open war.”
“Or another Wounded Knee,” Chief Red Thunder said, shaking his head.
A truck pulled in behind them and Greyeagle climbed out with Declan. They walked over to the Chief and stopped.
“How can we help?” asked Greyeagle.
“Not much you can do,” Chief Red Thunder said. “This is going to be turned over to the Feds to ignore.”
“Maybe not,” Greyeagle said, presenting his badge.
“US Marshals?” Red Thunder said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know you were a fed.”
“Aye,” Declan said, presenting his credentials. “He’s part o’ me task force. I’ll make some calls and get a team out here t’ process the scene.”
“Thank you,” said Chief Red Thunder. “We’d appreciate it.”
“This will not be ignored,” Greyeagle said.
Greyeagle started to step past Gilbert to get a closer look when he caught a familiar scent on the officer.
It only took him a second to recognize Kade.
Greyeagle froze and considered confronting Gilbert but thought better of it.
No one would believe he smelled Kade, and it wasn’t something he could just explain.
That meant they had to be very careful what they said in front of Gilbert.
The real question was how long Gilbert had been working with Kade, and how much he knew.
He had to assume that Gilbert had told Kade everything.
Now the question was, would Kade make things worse?
Greyeagle knew that if Kade hit Red Basin, then things were definitely about to get worse.