MARIE KNOCKED ON THE back door of the homeless shelter in Belltown, a downtown Seattle neighborhood that was a strange combination of gentrified apartment buildings and dive bars, trendy restaurants and detox centers. Marie knocked again. No answer. Impatiently, she kicked the door with her boot. She was in a bad mood because she’d been forced out of Dr. Mather’s Native American literature class. He was a liar and she was being punished, if not seeing or hearing his rubbish could be called punishment. Still, she had been in class long enough to let the other students know the real story, and no matter what those white men said or did, she would never retreat. She’d contradict them. She’d get her degree and make them eat it. She’d beat them at all of their games.
Rumor had it that the Indian students were going to be asked to keep a lower profile until the Indian Killer was captured. Marie had no idea how Indian students could have kept any lower profile at the University without leaving it altogether. The whole situation infuriated her. She kicked at the shelter door again, was about to go around to the front when the door swung open. Boo sat in his wheelchair with a loaf of bread in his lap and a smear of mayonnaise on his forehead. He had obviously been constructing sandwiches for the van.
“Mayo?” she asked. “We can’t use mayo. We can’t afford it, and it goes bad.”
“It’s good to see you, too,” said Boo, smiling.
Marie had to smile back. Boo was a nice white guy, not intimidated by her in the least. He obviously had a crush on her, and had written poems for her. He had been helping her make sandwiches for a few months, though he was not all that dependable. When she hadn’t seen him for a couple of days, she knew she would find him later, drunk or drugged, with a sheepish look on his face. But he knew a thousand jokes and was the fastest sandwich maker in the world when he was sober. Marie had once bought him a T-shirt that gave him that title, and Boo had hidden it away in a special place.
“How we doing?” asked Marie.
“I don’t know how you’ve been, but I’m doing fine. Just a couple dozen sandwiches to go.”
Marie rolled Boo into the kitchen, a relatively small space for the number of meals that were prepared there. Industrial sinks and ovens, stand-up freezer and two large refrigerators, a small door that led to the large pantry. A big table in the center of the kitchen was stacked high with sandwiches and sandwiches-to-be. For the thousandth time, Marie wondered why she kept returning to this depressing place.
“Hey,” said Boo. “Earth to Little Dove. You having a vision or something?”
“What did you say?” Marie was startled back to the kitchen.
“Are you communing with the Great Spirit?”
Boo often teased Marie about her supposedly genetic connection to Mother Earth and Father Sky. And she did enjoy a walk in the woods as much as anybody else. But the earth could take care of itself. She had learned that, every once in a while, the earth would cram a hurricane or earthquake down people’s throats as a little reminder. Other people, Indians and not, could run around on the weekends pretending to be what they thought was Indian, dancing half-naked and pounding drums, but Marie knew there were hungry people waiting to be fed. Dancing and singing were valuable and important. Speaking your tribal language was important. Trees were terrific. But nothing good happens to a person with an empty stomach. Suddenly, she laughed, pushed Boo’s chair into a corner between boxes, and left him stranded.
“Hey, hey,” he said. “No fair.”
Marie picked up a loaf of bread and lay down a row of slices. She quickly set a slice of bologna on each piece of bread, then threw another piece of bread on top of that. A very simple sandwich.
“Man,” said Boo after he finally managed to free himself and roll up beside her. “I don’t know how you expect us to choke down those dry sandwiches.”
“No mayo!” shouted Marie, surprised by the anger in her own voice.
“Listen to you,” said Boo, just as surprised. “You sound like that Indian Killer or something.”
“That’s not funny,” she said sharply.
Boo had been trying to lighten the mood but he realized his mistake. He tried to make up for it.
“I was just kidding. I mean, it’s not like you’re the Indian Killer, right?”
Marie stared at Boo. He swallowed hard.
“You’re not the Indian Killer, are you?”
Marie wanted to scream at him. She felt the anger in her belly and hands. But she could not lose her temper.
“I mean,” said Boo, “it’s not like a woman could have done those killings. A woman wouldn’t have kidnapped that kid.”
“Why not?” asked Marie.
“A knife just ain’t a woman’s weapon of choice.”
“Of course it is. Men kill with guns. Women kill with knifes. It all goes back to the beginning of time, Boo. Men hunted and women cooked. We use what we’ve been taught to use.”
“But these are men being killed. It would’ve taken a big man to kill them.”
“Or a magical woman,” said Marie, as she picked up a butter knife and waved it in the air. She turned toward Boo with a crazy look in her eyes. She vaguely threatened him with the knife. Boo feigned, and felt, fear. He rolled back in his chair.
“You know what I’ll turn you into, don’t you?” asked Marie as she tossed the knife from hand to hand.
“Yeah,” said Boo, at last. “Toast.”
Boo helped Marie with the last few sandwiches. As they loaded them into the delivery truck, Marie kept thinking about what Boo had said about the knife. Marie thought about John Smith. He was huge and had easily disarmed that cab driver outside Wilson’s apartment building. When he had towered over Wilson and the cabbie in the sandwich truck’s headlights, Marie had briefly wondered if John was going to kill the white men. No. No, that was not it at all. She had wondered if John was going to hurt them, maybe rough them up a little. She had never worried that he was going to kill them. John was a little strange and quiet, but most Indian men were kind of strange and quiet. Besides, John had not hurt either of the men. He threatened them with that sawed-off golf club and then ran off. After all, that golf club was the cabbie’s weapon, and Wilson was a vulture. She remembered being a little disappointed that John had not hurt them.
“Hey,” Marie said to Boo. “Come to think of it, what makes you think this Indian Killer is an Indian man? How many Indian serial killers do you read about?”
Boo shook his head.
“None is right,” said Marie. “Everybody is talking Indian Killer this, Indian Killer that. Reporters all over the place. What if the Indian Killer isn’t an Indian guy? What if this Indian Killer is just trying to make people think an Indian guy did it?”
Marie picked up a bologna sandwich that had fallen to the floor and threw it at Boo, who fielded it cleanly and tossed it into the back of the truck. Marie rolled Boo into the back of the truck, secured his chair, and then climbed into the driver’s seat. She started the truck, let it warm up for a few minutes, and pulled out of the shelter’s parking lot.