Anne Brooks & Angelina Sparrow - Glad Hands.pdf - 04-30-11-15 - jessab

Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks

Prologue

It was the Lakota who started it. Of course.

In the nineteenth century, the Lakota took the Ghost Dance, a Ute ritual designed to

bring prosperity through peace, and put a new interpretation on it. U.S. soldiers killed

Sitting Bull because he would not stop his people from trying to dance away the white

man and all his works.

So, when certain Lakota leaders announced in December of 2007 that they had

endured far too many broken treaties and that the United States no longer had any

claim on their territory, the way was opened for the Dis-Unification.

When the Mideast oil stopped flowing, three hundred million people realized they

were in a country far too large to sustain itself in the way it had grown. Cities starved as

crops rotted in the fields. Farmers struggled to harvest what they could, using horse

and muscle power and the occasional biodiesel or alcohol engine.

In time, things resumed normalcy of a sort.

Texas, who always claimed they still had a secession clause written into the

constitution, took Oklahoma along for the ride and formed Lone Star.

Neo-confederates, states-rights fanatics, dominionist theocrats and others revived

the old Confederacy, the South rising again as they had always claimed it would. And

the Bonnie Blue Flag flew once more over Birmingham.

The middle of the country retreated into the past, patterning itself off the media of

the middle of the twentieth century. Bucolic small towns and thriving farms were all

visitors to Heartland saw.

The northeast still called itself the United States, and stretched from Maine to

Indiana, being in a perpetual border dispute with Heartland over Illinois.

The California Conglomerate and the newly formed Azteca kept close ties with

Mexico, while Deseret cut itself off from nonbelievers after a new revelation.

In Pacifica, tankers of Bering Strait oil still docked, but not as fuel. The

petrochemicals were limited to industrial and manufacturing use.

Biodiesel no longer came from precious food crops, but rather from industrial-grade

hemp. Eighteen-wheelers, in greatly reduced numbers, carried goods once more over

Eisenhower’s international highway system. But the breed of man behind the wheel

never changed. Not since the days when he turned in his mule team for a Cat under the

hood.

Glad Hands

Chapter One

‘Hey, Chuck!’

Chuck Hummingbird turned on the steps of the little café outside Missoula,

Montana, Tribal Lands, and saw Dave Williams climbing out of the cab of his rig. He

smiled at the sight of his former partner. As he waited for Dave, he leaned against a

pillar of the porch, crossed one leg over the other, getting comfortable. Dave was

obsessive about walk-arounds at every stop. He picked at a fraying place on the seam of

his well-worn jeans.

‘Hi, Dave. It’s been a while.’

‘Been forever, Chuck.’ Dave hugged the tall Cherokee man, his hand going to stroke

the ponytail that fell to Chuck’s waist before he stopped himself. He looked a little

embarrassed. ‘Let me buy you breakfast, for old times.’

Chuck grinned. ‘You know I never pass up free food.’

They went in to the café and the pretty dark-eyed waitress brought them coffee and

toast. Dave shed his leather jacket and Chuck took off his shearling-lined suede coat.

Dave ordered for them both, remembering what Chuck liked. They’d run team for a

couple years, running together and more, so much more. Dave had been a nice guy and

they’d parted on good terms.

‘So, you still with the little Iroquois guy, Shenandoah, wasn’t it?’ Dave asked.

‘Nah. Will Skenando and I split a couple years ago. We were just too different and

he hated Seattle. Couldn’t take the rain and needed more trees. You still with Betty?’

Dave nodded. The pretty blonde accountant had been the final wedge in their

partnership. She refused, quite rightly in Chuck’s opinion, to marry a man who was

gone all the time and sleeping with his team driver to boot.

‘You’re a ways out of Pacifica, Dave. What brings you out to the Tribal Lands, white

man?’ Chuck winked, letting him know there was no malice in the words.

‘High Chief Mankiller has a job for me. My papers are in order. You still running

petroleum for Seattle?’

Chuck nodded and tucked into his eggs. Lisa always scrambled them right, so he

always stopped here. ‘It’s a steady job. I make one run a week, sleep in my apartment

weekends.’

‘Sounds sweet.’ They ate, talking of what they’d been doing for the last few years.

Lisa made a second pot of coffee for them and delivered it with a smile.

Chuck checked his watch. ‘Gotta roll. The crude isn’t going to deliver itself. Thanks

for breakfast. Let’s not make it four years next time, Dave.’ He snuck a peek at the bill

and left a more-than-generous tip.

Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks

Dave paid the tab and followed him out. He caught Chuck checking the lines

between his cab and the tanker he was pulling. ‘You’re right, let’s do it more often.’ He

kissed Chuck hard, stroking Chuck’s hair this time, letting his hands wander all over

Chuck’s body. It had been five years since they split, but he clearly still knew what

Chuck liked. Chuck felt an erection to match his own growing one, pressing against him

through Dave’s jeans. Then Dave reached down and rubbed them both, grasping the

hard shafts through the hemp denim.

Chuck returned the kiss for a few moments, then pulled away when Dave’s

roaming hands got too personal. ‘I said thanks for breakfast. I don’t fool around with

married men, Dave. Give Betty a hug from me.’ He climbed into the cab and made sure

Dave was clear of the truck before he started the engine.

He arrived in Great Falls by eleven. The gate guard gave him a grin, his teeth

flashing and his traditional Mohawk haircut limp in the chilly drizzle. ‘If it’s lunchtime

on Tuesday, it must be the Hummingbird rolling in. How ya doing, Chuck?’

‘Fine, Stan.’ He smiled back as he signed the log. ‘Is John here today?’

‘Sure is. Saw his blinds twitch about five minutes ago. He’s probably looking for

you.’ The guard checked the seals on his tanker’s valves and nodded approval. ‘Drop it

in lot C, slot twenty-six.’ He made a note on his clipboard. ‘Crude, SeaTac, 1115, 9 Oct

91.’ He looked up. ‘John’ll tell you which one to hook.’

‘Thanks.’ Chuck knew the drill, knew it better than Stan, in fact, because he’d been

doing it for six months longer. He idled over to lot C and found slot twenty-six. He

loved the refinery lot, since it had plenty of room to park. He hated tight parking lots.

He especially hated trying to get a fifty-foot tank into a slot without enough room to

maneuver. Here, he could do a straight line back, just pulling forward and backing

straight up. He had the tanker in the hole in less than five minutes.

He lowered the landing gear, cranking it down hard and level, and made sure it

would hold. Then he uncoupled the air lines and hooked the glad-hands at the ends of

the lines to the storage rack on the back of his tractor. Last, he pulled the fifth-wheel

lock. ‘Gear, hoses, pin,’ he muttered as he did every time he dropped a trailer. He idled

the tractor out from under the tanker, pausing to make sure the landing gear held. He

parked the Hummingbird at the office, and checked over his paperwork, making sure

he had signed everything.

Chuck grinned as he opened the office door. It was time for one of his favorite

games. He wiped the smile off his face and assumed the standard ‘Stoic Indian’ face

from the old movies as he put the bill of lading on John’s desk and raised his right

hand. ‘How. Dropped ‘um heap big load, Littlefeather. You got ‘um place hitch steel

pony?’ He made his voice low and gravelly, almost expressionless.

John looked up at him, his face equally impassive. ‘Hitch ‘um to wagon in slot two

tens, Hummingbird. Great White Mother on coast send red errand boy to steal tribe’s

wampum again.’ He furrowed his brow and added, ‘Ugh.’

Glad Hands

‘Great White Mother send with much black stink water. You got firewater for

thirsty brave?’

They could go back and forth for hours, each trying to make the other laugh with

the ridiculous pidgin. The loser had to buy the winner lunch. So far they were tied.

Fred Halfmoon opened the door as they launched into a third volley and slammed

his clipboard down on John’s desk. ‘How dare you? A century and a half of work and

every damn time I walk in, you two are in here acting like…like Hollywood savages.’

Both men looked at him and laughed. Chuck looked back at John. ‘I think we’re

both buying Fred lunch today, huh?’

‘I don’t want your lunch. I want this to stop.’ Fred scowled. ‘Chuck, you of all

people should know what prejudice does. You Cherokee got run out of Georgia and

then out of Oklahoma on top of it.’

Chuck turned on him, the move slow and fluid, his face very serious. The Second

Trail of Tears was one of his earliest memories and he didn’t like being lectured by a

Crow who still lived on land that had been his people’s for two centuries. Land that had

been given to them for collaborating with the U.S. government, land bought with the

blood of other tribes.

He rolled up the sleeve of the blue plaid wool workshirt and looked at Fred,

pinning him with his dark eyes until the Crow fidgeted. The old, faded tattoo of a

Cherokee-patterned armband stretched around his right biceps. ‘I know exactly what

prejudice does, Fred.’ He saw Fred flinch at the sight of it.

Chuck’s quiet, cold voice continued, without pity or ceasing. ‘It puts tattoos on

scared three-year-olds and exiles them with their families in the middle of winter. But I

also know a sense of humor is a powerful weapon and I can mock the stupid

stereotypes.’ He rolled down his sleeve and buttoned the cuff of the shirt back around

his wrist. He would never take Fred to task for his ancestors’ actions.

Fred stared at the tattoo until Chuck covered it. ‘Chuck, John, I know it’s only a

joke. It offends me anyway.’ He sounded more subdued, the visceral reminder that

Chuck had a great deal of firsthand experience with prejudice obviously hitting him

harder than any physical blow.

John nodded. ‘We won’t do it in front of you again.’

Chuck agreed. ‘And we’ll still buy you lunch if you want.’

‘You’re all heart, Hummingbird.’ Fred finally smiled at him. ‘Look, High Chief

Mankiller’s here.’

Everyone startled, but the high chief was legendary for her hands-on management

style. A schoolroom in Lame Deer. A hemp textile mill in Mitchell. A mine up by Coeur

d’Alene. Any of these could find her visiting without warning and talking to the people,

learning what they needed. A refinery in Great Falls was not at all unheard of.

‘She has a deal for you, Chuck. Maybe you should take her to lunch instead.’

Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks

‘Here? I thought she was in Missoula.’ Chuck remembered what Dave had told him

over breakfast about a cotton run deep into the Confederated States.

While Lone Star allowed Native Americans to be shot on sight for a bounty, like

coyotes and other nuisance animals, the C.S. was more subtle. Violation of any one of

their many racial or religious laws would get a foreign driver a prison sentence…if he

was lucky.

Lucky was a very relative term. Less than forty percent of Confederation prisoners

left the prisons as free men. But foreigners could also be enslaved permanently or

executed under C.S. law. Ignorance of which bit of minutiae had been violated was no

excuse. Dave had been nervous about the run and Chuck was very glad he hadn’t been

tapped to go to Huntsville.

The handsome fiftyish woman stepped through the office door in time to hear this.

Littlefeather stood up, and Chuck gave her an acknowledging nod.

‘No need for lunch. I will be brief.’ Elizabeth Mankiller, elected High Chief of the

Western Tribes, sat down in the battered plastic chair and planted a ceremonial cane

between her knees. She ran one hand through her short, damp hair and then polished

her glasses with a handkerchief from her suit pocket. ‘Mr. Hummingbird, I need a favor

of you. You will take this load to Seattle and tell your bosses you need a week, maybe

two. Since you own your truck, this should not be problematic. We need you to deliver

a shipment of plastics throughout Heartland, slip over the Confederation border and

pick up a load and bring it back here.’

Chuck nodded, adrenaline already racing. ‘Yes, High Chief.’ He had no choice. He

liked his nice secure petroleum run, and keeping it depended on the good graces of the

Tribes. It might make him nervous, but it sounded like an adventure, and how much

trouble could he get into on a quick flit across the border? It wasn’t as if he’d be running

two hundred miles deep into C.S. territory like Dave.

‘It will be an easy run. We require cotton here and cannot grow it. We hired white

drivers for the two loads that must be picked up deeper in the country. Yours is less

than five miles over the border. We have a special pass for you and will pay quite well.’

Chuck named a figure, doubling what he would usually charge for going into

Heartland. The pay had to be worth the risk he would be taking. ‘And you pay for all

the diesel and a per diem of fifty dollars on top of that.’

High Chief Mankiller nodded. ‘You shall have it. Hazard pay as well. Mr.

Littlefeather will have the per diem pay for six days when you pick up the Heartland

load. We have arrangements with a truck stop in Holland, Missouri, to refuel you at no

charge to you.’ She offered her hand and Chuck shook it. ‘Thank you, Mr.

Hummingbird. This is a great help to our folks.’

‘I’m always pleased to help out, High Chief.’ He wouldn’t show her his nerves

about this run.

She tipped him a wink. ‘Your mother sends greetings and said to tell you that you

were brave but foolish if you took it. And she is proud of you.’

Anne Brooks & Angelina Sparrow - Glad Hands.pdf

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