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  “Shy Deer had been sick a long time with the coughing. She told me she was tired, but I still had work to do, so she was going on ahead of me to the other side. Then she started singing her death song. I knew then that she would die. I didn’t want her to leave me, but she knew there was a reason for me to stay. I think the spirits must have told her that you and your sister would need me.”

  The boy was curious about the chanting he had heard from others even as they were dying. The old man sat before a smoldering fire and answered the questions the boy had asked.

  “When we know that death is hovering over us, we sing to the spirits on the other side to let them know we are coming and to ask the spirits here to show us the way.” The old man looked into the fire. “We call it the death chant and to each person it is personal and unique.” Over the years, the boy had grown into a man and had given serious thought to his own personal death song.

  Feeling trapped and alone within the fog of pain he somehow heard his own voice begin a weak chant. He had learned that the words of each death chant came from the heart of the one who was singing it and to his surprise; the words came easily from his heart and in his native tongue.

  “Take me oh, Great Spirit

  For I am ready for my death,

  I have walked the path You placed before me,

  I have honored the gifts You gave me,

  I have been thankful to be of The People,

  And You know who I am.

  I am ready to walk the path of stars

  And join those who await me there.”

  The voices around him grew quiet; the pain seemed to slip away into the fog. He began to whisper the words of the chant again. They came to his lips much easier this time.

  “Take me oh, Great Spirit,

  For I am ready for my death,

  I have walked the pa…”

  Then a small hand made quick, angry contact with his cheek, and he heard Feather’s furious voice. “You shut that up! You hear me, Wolf? You will not die! I cannot let you go!” Shocked by the quick slap, he stopped singing. He knew his sister’s rage. She would do whatever it took to make sure he heard her, even if it meant slapping death out of him. He groaned softly, the pain in his body becoming real again, becoming all-consuming again. The chanting had been on the verge of erasing his pain forever and he wasn’t sure he wanted to give that up. He tried to start chanting again, but he couldn’t remember the song. The pain wouldn’t let him remember, and then he heard her voice again.

  “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.

  Chapter Three

  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.

  Lambert held her back and looked at her. He was seeing her physically for the first time. Over the years they had written back and forth, he had refused to allow her to come visit him at the prison. He had instructed her to send her letters from different towns, and after a while, she arranged for a friend in Atlanta to receive her letters intended for Lambert and re-mail them so the prison officials would not know the lett
ers came from her. She had made arrangements for that same friend to receive letters from Lambert at an Atlanta post office box and to then forward them on to her. The friend had been well paid for the favors over the years. They didn’t want the prison to be able to link him to her in any way. He even made a point of burning the letters he received from her so there would be nothing left behind to associate him with her. She was so thankful that he was taking such great measures to make sure she was kept safe. She would never realize that he was completely self-serving.

  “Did you have any trouble?” He asked.

  She shook her head negatively. “None. But I’ve been scared to death the whole time. I’m so glad you made it.”

  “Did you bring the clothes?”

  Again she nodded. “Of course. They’re lying on the back seat.”

  He kissed her again quickly then pressed her back away from him and walked to the car. In record time, he had shed his prison garb and looked around for someplace to hide them. He was now wearing a pair of black jeans, loafers and a sports jacket. He located a big rock, pushed his prison jumper under a bushy shrub and pushed the rock up against it to hold it there. It wouldn’t be easily seen.

  He walked to the passenger door of the car and slipped into the seat.

  “Let’s move! They know I’m gone and I don’t know where they’ll start a road block.” He spoke softly when he actually wanted to speed off without her. “Were you able to get the driver’s license made?”

  She jumped behind the wheel and started the engine. “Yes, but that man was so nasty. I ended up paying twice what you said it would cost.”

  “But I’m free now.” To Lambert, that was all that mattered.

  She drove without lights and as they approached the highway, he cautioned her to stop and wait until they had an empty road before pulling out of the woods.

  “Lordy Frank, I’ll be glad when we get back to my place. All this dangerous stuff is making me a nervous wreck.” She whined.