Shelley nudged Jane. "Here she is!"
Jane breathed a sign of relief as the second, a tall, tanned woman, came into the room. She was thin, with severely short blond hair and a strong, graceful, mannish stride. She crossed the room at the front and sat down in the second row without any dithering or hesitation. She folded her arms across her chest and sat staring ahead at the front wall. No one spoke to her or seemed to recognize her.
Including Mel. "Who's that?" he asked in a low voice.
"Susan Maxwell. You know, the mysterious skier I kept seeing on the mountain," Jane replied. "I told you Shelley and I 'ambushed' her early this morning up there."
Practically on her heels, a huge middle-aged Indian in a red plaid shirt came in and took a seat in the first row. Linda Moose foot looked at Jane, pointed to the man, and nodded. He was the third necessary person.
Thomas Whitewing rose and approached the podium, tapping the microphone. Apparently it wasn't working and he looked at HawkHunter. HawkHunter made an eloquent motion indicating that it was all right, that he didn't need it anyway.
Thomas turned to the audience. "Tonight we are fortunate," he shouted, then, catching Linda's signal, glanced at his notes and lowered his voice. "We are fortunate to have a noted author, HawkHunter, with us to read from his masterwork, I, HawkHunter. This book was a New York Times best-seller for over a year, three months of that time in the number-one slot. This work, a slightly fictionalized account of HawkHunter's own heritage, spoke to our country and to the world about the life and history of America's first people."
"HawkHunter will read some selected passages and will then entertain questions and discussion from the audience. I'm honored to present John HawkHunter."
Thomas, looking proud but relieved, went back to sit down by Linda, and HawkHunter took the podium.
He read from four different sections of the book. A superb speaker, he gathered the audience in immediately with his rich, beautiful voice. The sections he chose were both profoundly poetic and troublingly inflammatory. Perhaps the whole book was, Jane thought, sorry she hadn't had time to reread it all before attending this presentation. The first part he read was from the viewpoint of a medicine woman in the sixteen-hundreds, meeting the first white men the tribe had ever seen. In a few paragraphs, the listener got to know her, to recognize her wisdom and the respect the tribe had for her, and just as quickly was made to cringe at the ignorant, lumpish whites and their dismissive, if not downright lewd, regard of her.
The second and third sections HawkHunter read were much the same, albeit of different individuals and different time periods, but with the same theme: the superior Indian — spiritual, intelligent, and inherently noble and courteous — and the marauding whites — crass, greedy, and stupid.
For a moment Jane got so caught up in the content of the reading that she almost forgot that her purpose here was not to have a literary or cultural experience, but to unmask a killer. HawkHunter's reading was, to Jane at least, only a reason for her to assemble the people needed for her plan. Still, she found herself wondering what effect this provocative material was having.
She knew the stone-faced Indian was a stereotype, but at that moment it was quite true of the people in this room. None of the tribe members whose faces she could see were overtly registering any emotion at all — no hint of a smile, no suggestion of a frown. The others, the genealogists and other resort guests, all looked slightly distressed. Their expressions ranged from sympathy to guilt to anger.
HawkHunter opened the book to another page and read a passage about himself as a child. A very different piece — at first. It was about the joy of being a boy who was part of the land, nature, and a nurturing extended family. It was a charming, romping, happy story, and then it veered off into an account of some drunken white cowboys wandering onto the tribal land and raping his young aunt. It ended with HawkHunter, as an eight-year-old boy, hiding behind a rock so that the elders wouldn't see him cry.
He finished reading, closed the book, and shut his eyes for a moment as if overcome by the emotion of the experience all over again. Then, as a fitful spatter of applause started and quickly grew, he opened his eyes, made a suggestion of a bow, and said, "Are there questions now? Or anything in particular someone would like to discuss?"
Jane stood quickly. "Mr. HawkHunter, I notice you're still missing your tooth. I found it in the snow. Would you like to have it to give to your dentist?"
There was a ruffle of sound. A little bit of amusement, some tutting disapproval.
"I appreciate that, but you're mistaken. My tooth was broken, but not lost. Other questions—?"
"No, I believe this is your tooth," Jane said, holding up a tissue that was folded and taped.
Little Feather had risen, scowling, and come hastily down the side aisle. When she reached Jane, she snatched at the little package roughly and went back to the podium. HawkHunter was looking at Jane with contemptuous amusement. "Well, ma'am, if you say so," he said with a laugh. He pointed to someone in the audience who was holding her hand up to be called on.
Jane felt her face flush, but Shelley nudged her and she went on, overriding the woman who was attempting to ask about HawkHunter's research. "Mr. HawkHunter, the odd thing about that tooth is that it doesn't belong to an Indian."
He glanced at her with irritation. "Certainly not this Indian," he said. He turned to the other questioner. "My research began with a childhood of stories, stories told by my grandmother and grandfather—"
"What were their names — your grandparents'?" Jane all but shouted.
"Look here, lady, I don't know what you're trying to do, but you're disrupting this meeting and I suggest you find someplace else to go."
"How about the Sheepshead Bay court?" Jane asked. "They have very interesting records, you know."
At that, HawkHunter grabbed the podium with one hand as if to keep his balance. "I don't know what—"
"I think you do," Jane said. "Let me tell you about one of those records." She had the sheet of fax paper in her hand and ready. She held it up and said, "This is a copy of the record of Johan Aulkunder changing his name to John HawkHunter on his eighteenth birthday. And this" — she flourished another sheet of paper—"is a picture of Johan Aulkunder in his high school yearbook. Even on a fax, it's apparent how much he resembles the picture of you on the back of your book. Of course, neither of those pictures resembles you today very much. You've had a lot of plastic surgery, haven't you, Mr. HawkHunter? But you couldn't change the shape of your teeth, or the characteristics of your skull. It's very easy to disprove American Indian heritage. And Doris Schmidtheiser knew that. She was very indiscreet, too, and mentioned to you that she'd found this record when she was rummaging around for evidence of Gregor Roman changing his name."
HawkHunter's mouth was working, but words wouldn't come. He turned and looked at Little Feather. She ripped open the little tissue package and held up a small, hard item. "This is just a rock!" she said, flinging it toward Jane. Her aim was bad. Frantic. The bit of gravel pinged off the wall.
The room was deathly still. HawkHunter groped to recover the situation. "This is exactly the kind of libelous nonsense the whites have always used on Indians! The nitpicking pseudo-science that is meant to discredit. Next she'll be spouting nonsense about brain size—"
The dauntingly large man in the red plaid shirt in the front row had stood up and joined him at the podium. He took hold of HawkHunter's arm in a vise-like grip. "I'd like to hear what more this lady has to say," he said in a deep voice.
"What I'm saying is this: that man is no more a Native American than I am," Jane replied. "In fact, I've probably got a couple of generations on him as far as our tenure in America goes."
There was a nasty undertone in the room. Whether it was directed at her or HawkHunter or both of them, Jane couldn't guess.
"Don't you see, Leon, what's she's trying to do?" HawkHunter said. "Just what the whites have always done — tried to turn us against our own people. And once again it's working! You can't believe her! You're betraying your own people!"
"It's easy to prove," Jane said. "Will you agree to have a skull X-ray and your teeth examined?"
"No! He will not!" Little Feather shrilled. "He doesn't have to prove a damned thing to you, you white bitch!"
This time the rumble of discontent had a clear target. Little Feather had made a big mistake.
"Maybe not, but he has to prove it to me," the big man named Leon said. He still had a grip on HawkHunter's arm and was looking down at him.
"Excuse me, sir, but are you Leon Whitewing? The president of the tribal council?" Jane asked.
"I am."
"Then it was you who signed the contract with HawkHunter on behalf of the tribe," Jane said, brandishing a copy that Linda Moose foot had made for her.
"I did," Leon Whitewing said.
"Would you give the gist of that contract?"
"I don't see why not. It's not a secret. We engaged HawkHunter to represent our interest in regard to the legal ownership of Flattop."
"And what are you paying him for that?" Jane went on.
"Nothing," Leon said. "It's a pro bono situation."
"Is it?" Jane asked.
Leon responded slowly, as if his mind were running about ten times as fast as his mouth. "Well, officially he's to get ten percent of the profits from anything that's done with the land if he wins the suit. But since we'll just restore it to its cemetery status—"
He seemed startled as the tall woman in the second row whipped her head around to look at Jane. Jane nodded to her and the woman stood up.
"Mr. Whitewing, this is Susan Maxwell," Jane said. "You may have seen her around lately in a red ski outfit. She's with a firm of architectural engineers. Susan, would you tell Mr. Whitewing what you've been doing?"