Another Chance (4 page)

“Wolf!” 
Her voice was shaking with fear.  “Do you hear me, Wolf?”

The fog
thinned and faded into the background pushed there by his sister’s anger.

His eyes
opened a crack and she was leaning over him, blocking out the bright
lights.  Tears dripped off her cheek onto his cheek.  “You’re…
wettin’...me,” he groaned brokenly.

Her head
dropped onto his chest and she sobbed.  “You better not start singing that
death song again or I’ll do more than cry on you.”

It was days
before he was alert enough to learn the whole story and then his captain was
the one who told him how close he had come to dying.

The shootout
in the motel had left him with a bullet wedged right up against his heart from
his back.  The doctors couldn’t explain why it had stopped there. 
With the impact of a 45 Magnum a bullet from that range should have gone
straight through him and through the floor he was lying on.  After the
surgery to remove the bullet, his vital signs had suddenly started
dropping.  The doctor had warned them that it might happen.  He had
lost a lot of blood and was weakened by the surgery.  Sometimes these
things just happened and there was no stopping it.  Maybe the bullet had
damaged the heart even though it hadn’t penetrated it.  It had come so
close it had to have bruised it very badly.  Then he had started whispering
a chant in the Lakota language.  The doctor had stepped away to allow his
sister to be beside him when he died.  She had shocked them all by
slapping him as hard as she could and yelling at him to shut up.

Everyone in
the room was surprised when he stopped chanting and his heart jumped into an
almost regular rhythm causing them all to look at the monitor that hung on the
wall beside the bed in disbelief.  The monitor drew everyone’s attention
but Feather’s.  She was warning him that he had better not die. 
Captain Ferguson chuckled softly.  “You might say she literally slapped
you back to life.”

Wolf didn’t
laugh.  It still hurt too much and he knew that was exactly what she had
done. 

Then he
learned that his undercover identity was blown.  Someone in the drug ring
had put a contract out on him and since he had been so close to death, the
department had arranged for the doctors to announce his death.  There had
been a funeral and Feather and friends had attended.  After the funeral,
Feather had been busy.  She had sold the small farm where the two of them
lived, and had gone to stay with a rancher friend of theirs up in Idaho. 
Clay and his wife had been friends with their grandfather and had insisted that
she come home with them to their farm, after the funeral.  They wanted her
to make her home with them and with the help of other friends of Feather’s,
they had sold or moved everything from the small house their grandfather had
left to them.

“Everythin’?”
Wolf asked.

Captain
Ferguson nodded.  “Everything but two horses and a few personal
things.  I think some of her friends from the reservation helped her get
stuff packed up, but she wouldn’t tell where she was going and only carried
what fit in the truck and horse trailer. 

“I was
beginnin’ to wonder why she wasn’t comin’ to visit me.  I was thinkin’
that the doctors were afraid she might attack me again.”  He managed a
weak smile.  Wolf was glad to know his feisty baby sister was not around
to get herself into trouble.  He was glad she was safe with Clay and Sue.

The captain
explained that since he was essentially dead, there was no need for her to
visit the hospital but she was kept informed about his condition daily and he
would secretly join her as soon as he was able to leave the hospital.

Wolf was not
thrilled with that news.  “Since I’m
essentially dead
already, I
could still go back undercover and bust this ring.
 
I can identify Carlos Valdez as the main
supplier.”

The captain
shook his head negatively.  “That’s not going to happen.
 
You are going to join your sister.
 
I’ll take a deposition while you’re on your
death bed, but that’s ends your involvement.
 
It’s obvious that they know you’re a cop.
 
That’s why they tried to kill you. ”

“And what do I
do now?  How am I goin’ to make a living?  Law enforcement is all I
know!”  Wolf argued.

The captain
was a stone wall.  “I’ll call whatever law enforcement agency you want me
to, once you get wherever you decide to go.  I can promise you that they
will be glad to put you to work.  But you can’t stay here.  It’s
dangerous not just for you, but for your sister too.  They know who you
are now.  You think those pushers will hesitate to get to you by using
her?”

Wolf didn’t
like this conversation or the track it had taken.  He had never been a
person to give up on a job until it was finished and he liked this even less,
because his superiors had announced that he had been killed.  “You know,
I’m sure there’s a dirty cop in your office.  How do you know that he
hasn’t already figured all this out?”

Captain
Ferguson shook his head negatively.  “Because no one else but me and the
chief know you’re still alive.”

“And the
doctors and the nurses.  That’s too many people to assure security. 
This won’t work.  You need to let me grow a beard or long hair and go back
undercover.”  Wolf wanted to get another chance to bust the ring and get
rid of the contract on him and there was also the matter of the shooters who
had put him in this bed.  He was sure he had wounded one of them but
didn’t know how bad.  He hated not finishing what he had started.

Again Captain
Ferguson shook his head from side to side.  “They know your voice, the way
you walk; it’s too much to risk.  Your sister would come back and take my
scalp if I did that.  She almost lost you once and you
are
her only relative.  I won’t do
that to her again.  You are leaving here soon as you’re able, as a
corpse.  You will be transported to a local mortuary by hearse.  I
will meet you at the mortuary and from there, you will go join your sister. 
The two of you will have new identities and will build new lives.  You are
not
to come here again.  The department has selected a very nice
stone to mark your grave.  That is the way it
will
be.”

“So I am officially dead?”

The captain
nodded.  “Hank Silver Wolf is dead and buried.”

“So, who
leaves the hospital?”

Ferguson
shrugged.  “The corpse of a John Doe.”

Silence and
acceptance settled on the man lying in the hospital bed.

“Who am I
now?”

“Whoever you
want to be.  I think Feather chose the name Chetan (Chee-tan) to be her
last name.”  Ferguson said, a shrug moving his tired shoulders.

A slight smile
played at the edge of the lips of the man before known as Wolf.  “It was
what Grandfather was called.  She would like to honor his name. 
Translated from the Lakota language, it means, Hawk.”

Ferguson
watched the younger man’s face for a moment.  “I hate to lose you, but
better like this than to another bullet.  You will walk away from this
alive, but dead.  However, you have done good work for your people and for
all our citizens in this area.  Among honorable men around here, you will
be remembered as a hero.”

A dry ironic
chuckle came from the throat of the man on the bed.  “Just remember me as
an honorable man who died in the line of duty.  A corpse that will live
again.”

A little
later, lying alone in his hospital room, he remembered his past and wondered
about his future.

His father had
been full blooded Lakota from the Brule people.  He had grown up on the
reservation being called Silver Wolf, but took the name Joseph Silver Wolf and
left the reservation when he finished school.  He didn’t keep in touch
with his father or his people.  He just wanted to stop being an
Indian.  Joseph was working in construction when he fell in love and
married a white girl.

She was his boss’s
daughter and when the white boss found out she had married an Indian, he
disowned her and fired Joseph.  They drifted down to Texas and it was
there that their son was born.  They named him Henry Silver Wolf, but
called him Hank, after his white grandfather.  Somehow, his mother hoped
that naming her half white son after him, might heal the breech between her and
her father, but it didn’t work.  Three years later, Hank was presented
with a small sister who was named Rita Silver Wolf.

The family
stayed in Texas and Joseph continued to struggle with not being white.  He
didn’t understand why he didn’t want to be an Indian, and it wasn’t even being
an Indian that was the problem.  It was not being born a white that drove
him down.  Down into the darkness of alcoholism and depression. 
Finally one night in a drunken blur, he had smashed his car head on into a
telephone pole and died there, alone and drunk.  His widow, Barbie, called
her parents and they told her she was welcome back with them, but there would
be no Indians allowed, and no half Indians either.  She sobbed and pleaded
but her father was adamant.  If she came home, she came alone.  Still
young and tired of the struggle of living with racism, she gave her children to
Children’s Services and went home to rebuild her shattered life.  The one
good thing she did for her children at that point was to contact the Brule
Tribal Council and tell them who her husband had been and where her children
were.

He lay pressed
against the bed of the truck, scarcely daring to breathe.  He knew the
truck was approaching the gate and this was the most critical time of his
escape.  If his absence had been discovered on his cell block, this would
be where they would stop the truck.  So far there had been no wailing
sirens to alert the guards.  His heart was hammering so hard that he was
almost sure the driver could hear it through the back window.  He felt the
driver apply pressure to the brakes and slow the truck to a crawl.  Sweat
dripped off his brow onto the smelly tarp he was lying on.  One single
layer of the tarp covered his body and he had bet everything on the guards not
looking very close.  He heard voices but couldn’t determine what was
said.  Then he relaxed as he felt the truck pick up speed again and in a
few seconds he sat up just enough to push back the tarp and watched the prison
that had housed him for the last five years grow smaller.  It finally
disappeared amid the dust raised by the truck speeding down the dusty road. 
He smiled, knowing it would soon be dark and his escape was working like a
charm.  He slowly drew in a long deep breath.  It was the first free
breath he had drawn in five long years.

He lay back on
the tarp, smiling broadly to himself.  For five years he’d watched the
routine of deliveries coming and going through the gates, taking time to grow
their drivers trust and gradually learning about their traveling routine. 
He had been a model prisoner, joking with the guards and doing favors for them,
doing everything in his power to cultivate their trust.  It had taken a
lot of planning on his part but now he was out.  After about thirty
minutes of steady driving, the truck slowed and turned off the highway into a
parking lot.  It wasn’t very well lit, which was to Lambert’s
advantage.  He could hear the music banging away inside the small honky
tonk as the driver parked his truck and stepped out.  The door slammed and
Lambert froze as the driver walked to the back of his truck.  The sound of
quickly approaching steps announced the arrival of someone else.

“Hey, Arnie,
did you hear there was a prisoner escape from the prison?”

“You’re
kidding!”  From the driver.

“No, the
sheriff just stopped by and alerted us.  Didn’t you just make a produce
delivery out there?”

“Sure.  That’s
why I’m here.  Unloading all those potatoes gave me a thirst.”

“How d’you
think the prisoner got out?”

Arnie
laughed.  “Aw, he probably jumped in the back of my truck.  You want
to check it out?”

The two men
laughed loudly as they passed behind the truck and walked to the door of the
bar.  This was part of Arnie’s routine.  Lambert had learned about it
by volunteering to help unload the produce from the truck every time the farmer
made a delivery.  He and Arnie had made their labor more pleasant by making
jokes and exchanging information about their lives.  One day Lambert
confided that the thing he missed most about being on the outside was being
able to drop into a bar after a hard day at work and enjoying a nice cold
beer.  Arnie had laughed and confessed that he always stopped at the first
bar he came to and indulged himself, before going on home.  He had
promised to lift a glass for Lambert.  It had become a standing joke
between them.  Every time Arnie showed up, he would remind Lambert that he
had lifted a glass for him after the last trip and the two men would laugh
together.

Lambert lay
still for some time, trying to steady his heartbeat.  Gradually he
collected himself and sat up, pushing away the tarp.  No one appeared to
be out and about so he slipped over the side of the truck and disappeared into
the darkness.

He made his
way back toward the highway, then melted into the trees that bordered the road
for miles in either direction.  He walked quickly in the dark, hurrying to
a meeting he had carefully arranged.  About a half mile up the highway, a
small logging road led back, deep into the woods.
 
His favorite female pen pal had reconnoitered
the area for him and told him about the now seldom used road.  If he had
been convincing enough, she would be there, waiting for him.

She was. 
The car was already turned around to go back the way she had come.  He
knew she was afraid in the darkness so he called out to her, alerting her of
his approach.  Her heart was pounding with fear and anticipation as she
stepped out of the driver’s door and rushed to meet him.  He embraced her
and made a show of how pleased he was that she was there.