It had been a long day and I had already gotten raked over these same coals twice. I was in no mood to make a third trip.
“Chief, please listen to me,” I said. “This isn’t about Vinnie getting drunk, all right? He lost his mother, he wanted to have a drink. And yes, I joined him. I was just keeping him company and looking after him. The only reason I mentioned it to his sisters is because I thought they should know. Obviously a big mistake on my part, because that’s all they seem to care about right now.”
“No, that’s not true. They’re very concerned about their brother missing his shift at work. Apparently this is the first time in several years. Their worst fear is that Vinnie suffered some kind of alcohol poisoning, and that perhaps he left his house and lost consciousness somewhere.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. When Vinnie gets back, I’m gonna have him come see every one of you guys, tell you the whole story. I really can’t wait for that to happen.”
“Well, I hope that happens, too,” the chief said. “I really do. In the meantime, I’ve got all of my men keeping their eyes open. Unless you’ve got any other ideas about where he might be.”
“If I did, I’d tell you.”
“Okay, then. You’ll let me know if something else occurs to you?”
He kept sitting there, just looking at me. I knew the drill, having done it myself a time or two. I looked right back at him.
“I understand you were a police officer yourself,” he finally said. “Back in the day.”
“I was.”
“Chief Maven over in Sault Ste. Marie, he’s got some interesting things to say about you.”
“I’m sure he does.”
“He started out by telling me you were the biggest pain in the ass he’s ever had the misfortune of knowing.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I said, even though I could have spent the rest of the night counting the reasons.
“He also told me you were a big help to him, not that long ago. He says he owes you a favor.”
“Chief Maven said that? Seriously?”
“He did,” Benally said, “which makes me inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’ll let me know if you hear from Vinnie LeBlanc, okay?”
“I will, Chief.”
He stood up and put his hat on, squaring it up just so. He wished me a good night and then he was gone.
The next morning, I rolled by Vinnie’s empty cabin and went down to the Glasgow for breakfast. Jackie had the Soo Evening News from the night before. I sat there and read all about the dead bodies in Newberry. The police still weren’t giving them many details, but drug-related executions don’t happen every day up here. I could only imagine what people would be saying about it all over the county.
“What’s next?” Jackie said to me. “What’s the plan for today?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “If you got any ideas, I’m all ears.”
“Get back out there and look for him.”
“He’s not on the rez. Where else do I start looking?”
“We can’t just sit here.”
“The Bay Mills police are all on alert,” I said. “If he’s around, they’ll find him.”
“Yeah, Indians are good at that sort of thing.”
I looked up to see if he was kidding, but he had already walked away. That’s when I remembered the one loose end from the day before. I got up, went out to the truck, and drove straight to the rez.
I went back to Buck’s house, with the beat-up old car out front and the carefully made sweat lodge in back. I knocked on the front door.
Nobody was answering, but I heard music from somewhere inside. I knocked again. Still no answer.
I walked around to the back of the house, wondering if maybe somebody was getting ready to use the sweat lodge. Kind of early in the day for it, I would have thought, but what the hell. I didn’t see any steam coming from the lodge, but I opened up the flap anyway.
“What’s up, dude?”
The voice came from behind me. I turned around, blinking in the sunlight. I couldn’t make out where the voice was coming from.
“Right here, man! In the hot tub.”
I went up to the back deck. I hadn’t noticed the hot tub the last time around, but here it was. It was big enough for four people at least, about seven-by-seven, and as the man turned a dial the water came to life and started bubbling away like a cauldron. Why you’d need to soak in hot water on one of the few warm days of the year, or for that matter how Buck could drive around in a rolling junk heap and still find a way to buy a hot tub. Yet more of life’s mysteries, but whatever. The man in the water was vaguely familiar in the way all faces here were vaguely familiar, from seeing him in the casino or at the Cozy or just walking down the road. But he definitely wasn’t the man I was looking for.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said. “I’m looking for Buck.”
“Bucky’s not here right now. I just came over to use the tub.”
“I see. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“No, man, he’s been gone a couple of days.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I was here yesterday and he had a sweat going out back.”
“Nah, that wasn’t him. That was me and a couple other guys. He lets us use all his stuff, even when he’s not around.”
The true Indian way, I thought. And as I looked around the rest of the back deck, I saw beer cans and pizza boxes and wadded-up empty potato-chip bags. It looked like the whole neighborhood had been using the back deck as Party Central.
“How long did you say he’s been gone? Two days?”
“About that, yeah.”
“Hasn’t anybody been looking for him? From work or something?”
“No, not really. He was working at the casino for a little while. But then he was at the gas station. I’m not sure he really has a job at the moment. He kinda takes the summer off usually.”
This part of the story was starting to make sense to me. A man like Vinnie, with a steady job, a steady life… If he disappears, people notice right away. But a man like Buck, who’s apparently floating in his own little boat with the motor turned off… No, he’s not gonna have people looking all over for him. Not for a while, anyway.
“He’ll be back eventually,” the man said. “Can I give him a message or something?”
“You really have no idea where he could be right now?”
“Not really. Like I said, if you want to leave a message…”
“No, that’s all right. Thanks for your time.”
I was about to step off the deck. Then I stopped.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s Buck’s last name, anyway? Is it LeBlanc?”
“No, it’s Carrick.”
“And Buck is his real first name?”
“Buck or Bucky. Take your pick.”
I wasn’t sure if that really answered my question, but I let it go. As I went back around to my truck, I ran through everything I knew about Buck. It wasn’t much. I hadn’t even known his last name until a few seconds earlier.
He was bigger than Vinnie. He had that not-really-fat but barrel-chested body you see in a lot of men on the reservation. Usually when they’re more middle-aged, but I imagine Buck was that size when he was a teenager. Beyond that, I knew he lived by himself here, and that this house was sort of the local hangout for guys around his age. Buck was the kind of guy who’d make his sweat lodge a work of perfection, but I’m sure his kitchen would qualify as a toxic-waste site. I remembered seeing him drive around Brimley in that beat-up old car, probably unregistered.
A good guy. A fun guy. A guy you’d love to hang around with even if he wasn’t your cousin. That was Buck. But at the same time, I had to figure he was probably broke most of the time. If he did lay his hands on some money, he’d obviously blow it on something impractical like a hot tub. Either way, he’d be the guy who’d come in your door and sit down at your kitchen table and eat your cereal. He’d wish you a good morning and he’d help you out in a second if you had to move some furniture, but yeah, now that I thought of it, Buck must have represented everything Vinnie had to get away from, that day he made the unforgivable decision to move away from the reservation.