Super Chief (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 3) Read online

  She honored her commitment and gave all the men their shots at the red rock.

  Prosser, Spaneas and Fenwick all hit the rock; Prosser and Fenwick nicked the red spot with their final rounds. Taylor put three rounds into the red, a much more difficult shot with a handgun than a carbine. He might as well have come right out and told her: He’d had either law enforcement or military training before going to work on the railroad.

  She was going to ask him about that but …

  Then she got a text from John Tall Wolf: If you have the time, please call me.

  Chapter 28

  Rolling East of Gila Bend

  When Maj responded to John’s request for an update, he asked her, “What are you doing?”

  “Right now? Chugging toward New Mexico, cleaning my M-4 carbine and my Beretta.”

  That surprised John. “You’ve had occasion to discharge both firearms?”

  Maj explained it was only target practice with the crew and why they’d felt the need.

  “Perfectly reasonable,” John said. “After one train crew disappears, yours won’t want to be the next to go. How’d they do?”

  “Three weren’t bad for guys who’d claimed never to have fired a carbine before.”

  “Did you explain things are different when someone’s shooting back?”

  “I will,” Maj said. “That and when your target is also moving, and when it’s dark outside, maybe even foggy or a high wind is blowing. I’m going to get around to that, but I’m going to let them feel good about things for a while.”

  “Aren’t there four guys in your crew? What about the last one?”

  “He’s the interesting one. Leo Taylor. I’d like you to take a special look at his background, if you don’t mind.”

  “He shot better than the others?”

  “Way better, and he chose to use my sidearm, too. I’ve got the feeling he has military or police experience. Besides his marksmanship, he looked more at home with a weapon.”

  John paused for a moment, and Maj asked, “What?”

  “I haven’t said anything yet, passed my surmise along, but I’m thinking there had to be an inside man on the Super Chief crew. That’d be the most efficient way to take over the train. A whole lot easier than galloping alongside the locomotive on a horse and making a stuntman jump into the cab.”

  Maj laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. I should’ve thought of that. Don’t you think the FBI is checking that out?”

  “Undoubtedly. But they might not find out what I have in mind, namely that one of the crew has Native American blood. Not that he’d have to look it. Some tribal leaders look white and have Anglicized names. I want to see if I can turn up a little more information on that possibility before I talk to Deputy Director DeWitt.”

  “How’re you going to do that?” Maj asked.

  “My co-director, Marlene Flower Moon, knows every indigenous person from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego. I’ll ask her.”

  “You two have a good relationship?”

  “It’s one of mutual self-interest; things usually work out.”

  “Good. Let’s you and me have one of those. I’ll tell what some of my guys’ conjecture about where the Super Chief is.”

  She told John about the train being taken to Mexico to run drugs.

  “Huh,” he said. “I suppose it’s possible. Just didn’t occur to me, but it’s worth checking out.”

  “Maybe you’ll like this one better. It fits with your notion of a crew member being Native American. It’s the possibility of the thieves hiding the Super Chief on a reservation. Sovereign territory, right, and there’s a sense of irony to it as well. What do you think?”

  John was silent long enough for Maj to ask, “You still there?”

  “I am. I’ve thought of that possibility, too, but it’s not one I like.”

  “Why not? Being BIA, it seems like you’d be right at home with it.”

  “Too close to home for comfort. I’ve made a point of never working on a rez.”

  “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to push the wrong button.”

  “Who thought of that idea?” John asked.

  “Leo Taylor, the guy who’s good with a handgun.”

  John said, “I’ll get Marlene to take a real close look at him. One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re the only one on your train who’s armed, right?”

  “As far as I know, yeah,” Maj said.

  “Well, keep your carbine locked up safe and your sidearm on your person.”

  “You think Taylor could be trouble?”

  “Only if the thieves are brilliantly well organized, but better safe than sorry.”

  “Words to live by,” Maj said.

  Chapter 29

  Northern New Mexico

  “So all this is our land, but we used to have so much more,” Bodaway said. “Really, the whole continent belonged to Native Americans.”

  Alan White River and his great-grandson sat cross-legged on a ledge near the crest of a mountain. They looked out on an aspen forest below and other mountains in the range that stretched to the horizon. The sky was a sapphire blue. The air was thin and cool. The drop-off, mere inches in front of them, was thousands of feet.

  “We don’t own the land,” White River reminded the younger man. “We are only its caretakers.”

  “Yeah, custodians. A position of both responsibility and power.”

  “In equal measure, but even before the white men came, power meant more to many.”

  Bodaway nodded, self aware. “Guilty.”

  White River said nothing, only let his eyes close.

  “I’m sorry great-grandfather. I’m intelligent, but I don’t have your wisdom. That’s why I always try to follow your advice.”

  The old man opened his eyes. “But I won’t always be with you.”

  “Not even in spirit?” Bodaway repressed a smile.

  White River had no trouble sensing the younger man’s amusement. Bodaway’s father had sent his son out into the white man’s world to be educated, to be successful in a modern sense. As Thomas Bilbray, Bodaway had succeeded only too well. His grasp of mathematics and science was intuitive and deep. A gift from a far greater spirit than the boy could ever imagine.

  That was the problem. Bodaway recognized no authority higher than his own ego.

  He respected his elders, did as he was asked, but he was sure when his time came he would make far more effective plans to … what? Retake North America from the outsiders? White River knew better. The world had changed, as it always did, and the past could never be recaptured.

  “Yes, I will always be with you in spirit,” White River said, “often to your dismay, I am sure.”

  Bodaway didn’t like the sound of that, being crowded by a ghostly conscience.

  One of the lessons he’d learned in the white world was the best defense is a good offense. He said, “Maybe I should be the one who pays for stealing the train, not you.”

  “A sound idea,” White River said, “provided I am not alive when they come for us.”

  Alan White River had stayed in school only long enough to learn how to read, a habit he had cultivated throughout his life. He’d also learned how to read people early, too. See the thoughts that lay behind their words and the shadows that darkened their souls.

  “I will share your decision with the other chiefs,” the old man added.

  Now, White River was sure his great-grandson would do all he could to make sure his revered elder didn’t die before he could assign all blame to himself for the theft of the Super Chief. Otherwise, Bodaway would have no choice but to keep his word. The boy was intelligent, beyond question, but in matters of cunning he still had much to learn.

  Bodaway did his best to keep his anger at being outmaneuvered off his face, but his eyes gave him away … until he took a deep breath and let his displeasure go as he exhaled. White River was pleased to see that the boy was learning, but he kept his face impassiv
e.

  “How can you be so sure any law enforcement people will find us?” Bodaway asked.

  “We’ve let the train crew go. You pointed out the the disadvantage of doing that.”

  White River watched as Bodaway cursed himself silently. The boy had just overlooked a point he himself had raised. Of course, their problems would have been far worse had they killed the crew as Bodaway had considered doing.

  White River gave his great-grandson something else to think about.

  “The greatest danger is always the one that comes from within,” he said.

  Bodaway’s mind riffled through a mental file of images, starting with himself, moving on to the other chiefs and the ordinary people who knew what they’d done. The number was large and getting bigger fast. Native Americans who’d achieved political standing and moderate wealth were already making their way to the reservation where the two men sat on their mountaintop.

  In this day and age, Bodaway was mildly surprised that what they had done didn’t already have its own Facebook page. But he dismissed all of the potential candidates for betrayal … until he got to the one he’d learned of only recently: Marlene Flower Moon.

  “Is that who you mean?” he asked White River. “A woman who would use your capture to achieve political advancement?”

  White River laid a gentle hand on Bodaway’s leg. “I know you will not believe me, but that woman is truly Coyote. The Trickster who plays us all for fools for her own pleasure.”

  Bodaway didn’t even try to hide his feelings now. He all but rolled his eyes.

  So White River gave him something else to think about. “You’ve heard me mention the name John Tall Wolf. I’ve learned about him just these past few years.”

  “What’s so special about him?” Bodaway asked, expecting more mystical hokum.

  “It’s said his mother left him to die as an infant. Coyote came along to make a meal of him, but a man and a woman saved the child, drove Coyote off. Now, Tall Wolf and Coyote regularly scheme against each other and to everyone’s surprise Tall Wolf seems to be winning.”

  Bodaway needed a point of clarification. “But Tall Wolf is real, a flesh-and-blood man?”

  “Yes, and I can feel him hunting us, getting closer by the minute.”

  Bodaway nodded.

  He thought to himself: Wouldn’t it knock everyone on their asses if I did what Coyote couldn’t do? Eat John Tall Wolf for breakfast.

  Chapter 30

  Chicago

  John flew east after speaking with Maj Olson. The Secretary of the Interior’s plane had been returned to him with no explanation. Not that he’d expected one. Coyote never admitted to making a mistake nor offered any apologies.

  With an increasing sense of certainty, John was coming to agree with the notion that the Super Chief had been taken to a Native American reservation. Which one didn’t really matter, not to him. He didn’t want to set foot on any of them. Nonetheless, he sent Maj a text message.

  Please see if any rez has a rail link that might accommodate the Super Chief.

  She’d responded: Already working on it.

  Then John called his mother. Told her of the situation.

  “Are you worried?” she asked.

  “About what I might do, yes.”

  “Because you’re still angry.”

  “Yes, I’m still mad.”

  John had found out his birth mother had died some years ago, but the idea that she’d left him as an infant to die of exposure, had stood by and watched as Coyote tried to knock him from the sepulture where he lay and eat him, that rage never went away. It was the one point in his life where his emotions ruled him, and he didn’t like it.

  Even if the woman who’d given him life was no longer alive, her family was and they were the people whose disapproval had forced his mother to abandon him. Marlene Flower Moon had told him his grandmother and a cousin, both of whom considered John a potential rival for political power in their tribe, still lived on the rez.

  He wanted nothing to do with them nor the place where they lived.

  He had been made an outcast and he liked it that way.

  It was his greatest stroke of luck to be found and saved by his true parents, and he would always live in their world.

  So he was surprised when he spoke with his true mother, Serafina Wolf y Padilla, and she told him, “John, the only hold the past has on you is the one you allow it to have. You may come and go freely wherever you wish. You are your own man, a strong and accomplished one at that. You make your father and me proud of you every day we open our eyes. If you have any enemies, they should fear you. And if they’re foolish enough not to realize that, I will make them fear me.”

  And that was that. He was a sworn federal officer, trained in self-defense and marksmanship, rising swiftly in the government hierarchy. If all that wasn’t enough, his mom would step in and kick some ass.

  He had to laugh at himself, which made him feel much better.

  He still wouldn’t choose to work on a rez, but he could make an exception if necessary.

  Now, he stood in a large empty room in a new Chicago museum which hoped to open its doors for the first time in the coming week. With him was Cullum Walker the CEO of The Museum of American Railroading.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve come to bring good news,” Walker said.

  “The federal government has committed many resources to find the Super Chief you’ve been promised, if you consider that good news.”

  “I’m happy to hear that, but I’ll feel better when we recover the train. An empty space like the one we’re in doesn’t draw much of a crowd.”

  “The museum is a non-profit, right?” John asked.

  “It is, but we do have overhead: a payroll to meet, keeping the lights on and so forth. We need a steady and predictable cash flow.”

  “How did the Super Chief figure into that picture?”

  “As a featured attraction. It was an iconic passenger train. In its heyday, it had enormous cachet as the primary means of carrying big movie stars and other notables from here to Los Angeles. It had, in a word, glamor. That’s how we mean to portray it. Celebrity is always a big draw. I hope we’ll still be able to do that.”

  The empty room was certainly big enough for a crowd. Either people who simply paid their way into the museum or hired the space for private parties. In either case, John could imagine the patrons ranging from the comfortably middle class to the wealthy and renowned.

  Might even be a spot where contemporary movie stars got together for a special occasion.

  On the other hand …

  “Has your museum had any contact with Native American organizations?” John asked.

  Walker sighed. His face sagged into a gloomy expression.

  “Yes, we have.”

  “Not a happy conversation?” John asked.

  “A definite difference of opinion, I’m sorry to say. The purpose of this museum is to celebrate the development of American rail travel. The railroad in the nineteenth century was the equivalent of the Internet in the twenty-first century. It spread communication and commerce, bound the nation together in a way that had never been seen before.”

  John said, “The objection to that point of view was?”

  “That we didn’t sufficiently display the devastation the railroads wrought on native peoples, how lives were lost, land was stolen and treaties were broken.”

  “But all of that is true,” John said.

  In a quiet voice, Walker agreed, “Yes, it is. But it’s not what we chose to emphasize.”

  “Did you give the Native American point of view any consideration?”

  “We did, yes.”

  “But not as much display space as, say, this area for your Super Chief?”

  “No, the room we set aside for the Native American experience with the railroad is considerably smaller. It’s very well done and historically accurate, but smaller.”

  “An afterthought?”


  “No, it was in our plans from the beginning and it refers anyone with a greater interest in the subject to The Museum of the American Indian in Washington.”

  That was interesting, John thought, the very place he’d suggested to Marlene that she consider as a job opportunity for Nelda Freeland.

  “Did the way you handled this matter result in any protests from the Native American community, either locally or nationally?” John asked.

  “It has, on both levels. We’ve been taken to task repeatedly.”

  “But peacefully?”

  “Yes, of course.” Then Walker got John’s drift. “You think that’s why the Super Chief was stolen?”

  “It’s certainly something to check out,” John said.

  “But you are hopeful the train will be recovered?”

  “Hopeful? Sure. Was there any name, among the people who objected to your … understatement of the Native American experience, that stands out in your mind?”

  Walker nodded. “One, a man named Alan White River. He was the most persistent, but he was always polite and well spoken. A formidable thinker, given the way he writes. Under other circumstances, I’d have been happy to meet him.”

  “But for all of his powers of persuasion he got exactly nowhere,” John said.

  “I’m afraid the direction for our museum was set before we heard from him. After that …” Walker could only shrug.

  It was John’s turn to sigh, but he kept it to himself.

  Looking at the large empty room anew, he asked, “How do you plan to get the Super Chief and the passenger car in here? Are there trucks big enough to do the job?”

  “I don’t know about that, but right out that window, what do you see?”

  “A river,” John said. “The Chicago River?”

  “Yes, the North Branch of it. There’s a rail bridge over the river about a mile away. The plan is to stop the train there and use a crane to put the locomotive and the passenger car on barges, float them down here and use another crane to bring them in here.”