White Wolf McLeod Read online

  I dedicate this book to the best friend I have ever known: Ernest Abbott, Native American and Buddhist monk, a true Red Man who befriended this White Man and made him his brother.

  PREFACE

  This work is a fictional account of a Native American Federal Marshal, set in a time of conflict in America that transcended the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

  Though the reader may be a bit skeptical about the background and exploits of Federal Marshal Samuel “White Wolf” McLeod much of the fictional material in this work was based on historical facts and biographical accounts by my best friend, to whom I dedicate this book.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Murder on the Marta

  Chapter 2: Uncle Luigi

  Chapter 3: The Fish

  Chapter 4: Sylvia

  Chapter 5: Legacy of the Wolf

  Chapter 6: The Lawyer

  Chapter 7: Mary’s Task

  Chapter 8: “Doris”

  Chapter 9: Chino in Miami

  Chapter 10: Final Destination

  Chapter 11: Mary in Lake Tahoe

  Chapter 12: Seriglio’s House

  Chapter 13: McLeod’s Attack

  Chapter 14: Mary’s Rescue

  Chapter 15: Colombia

  Chapter 16: Back at the Office

  Chapter 17: Simmons

  Chapter 18: Chino’s Freedom

  Chapter 19: Ebel’s Party

  Chapter 20: Vision Quest

  CHAPTER ONE

  MURDER ON THE MARTA

  “COME BACK TO bed, Yobo,” his Korean-born wife said. He had risen much earlier than usual, and she could just discern his silhouette standing motionless in front of the moonlit bedroom window. Alarmed, she added, “What is it?”

  Federal Marshal Sam McLeod could not sleep. He peered blankly into the completely abandoned street, turning his thoughts inward. What could he tell his wife? That a ship long suspected of transporting drugs from South America into the United States had just docked in Boston Harbor? That a dead body aboard her had given his Department and other agencies an open-door invitation into the highly criminalized world of death and corruption? That inter-law enforcement agencies were more interested in cloak-and-dagger against each other? That he had a vague impression he had more enemies in the government than outside it?

  “I hear the call of the wolf,” he replied simply.

  “I will light a candle,” his wife said. She slipped out of bed and approached the family’s Buddhist altar, found a match lying in a small drawer of the cabinet that housed it, and lit a solitary candle.

  Sam took no note of her actions. His mind sought refuge in meditation where he often worked out the knottiest problems. One of his earliest memories flooded his brain.

  FIVE-YEAR-OLD WHITE WOLF sensed a great change across the Chippewa-occupied land. It was as if the trees of the woods and the babbling streams were talking directly to him, warning him of a momentous transformation about to occur.

  He had lived among the People with his Grandfather Running Deer and his Grandmother Bird in their teepee on several hundreds of acres the White Man’s Government had allotted to them and called a reservation. He believed that these two wonderful people whom he loved more than anything else in the world to be his real father and mother. But in a single day, his idyllic world would come cascading down around him.

  “Father,” he queried the elder man, “something’s wrong. Something’s different. But I don’t know what it is. Do you?”

  Running Deer was sitting on a plank-wood bench set up outside the teepee. “What is it that you see, my son?”

  “There is a change in the Land, and I feel that it is connected to me some how.”

  “Sit here beside me, I have something to tell you,” his beside me,” his Grandfather told him. “I have something to tell you,” he said solemnly. “There is something you need to know, to understand. I have not looked forward to this day, praying that it might never come.”

  SAM OPENED HIS EYES, inhaling deeply, holding it a moment before exhaling. There is a change in the Land. He felt more assured about what he had to do.

  “SO, WHERE’S THIS Marshal already?” a gruff, tall, overweight longshoreman bellowed. “We’ve got a ship to unload.”

  “He’ll be here when he gets here,” the dock security man said pointedly. He was nearly as tall as the complaining longshoreman but presented a lean, muscular physique that brooked no argument with his authority. That and the .45 in his holster his right hand lightly rested on.

  “It’s your funeral, pal,” the longshoreman complained. “Every minute that stuff stays aboard that ship, everybody’s losing money. And, it’s going to be on your head for holding it up!”

  “Consider the cargo impounded, then,” the security man snapped. “There’s a dead man in there, and that makes that entire ship a crime scene.”

  Another uniformed man walked up and said to the first officer, “The Marshal’s here.” His tone, however, belied his confidence.

  A small man in his early thirties approached the three men, his stride exuding confidence and the authority vested in him by the U.S. Government. It also communicated to anyone who had doubts about him that he would tolerate no interference in the execution of his sworn duties or the investigation of a case that had been delegated to him. Conversely, however, he was dressed in green jeans and a blue and green checked flannel shirt. A faded blue windbreaker had been thrown over his shoulders to block the chill morning air. If it hadn’t been for the shiny tin star over his breast pocket, no one would have taken particular notice of him.

  “Now, who the hell is this scrawny, little runt?” the longshoreman sneered.

  “Who’s asking?” the Marshal returned quietly, redirecting his steps so that he came to a stop a pace and a half, facing the huge man. He planted his feet to become an immovable object.

  “I am!” the longshoreman challenged and stepped towards the smaller man menacingly.

  The big man never saw the Marshal move. In a flash, the lawman crossed a distance of about three feet, kicked the legs out from under the larger man, which drove him to his knees, gripped the greasy, stained lapels of the man’s shirt, and peered coldly with his pale blue-green eyes into the man’s stunned and surprised brown ones.

  “I’m United States Marshal Sam McLeod,” the shorter man told him, a grim smile etched on his face. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Why, you’re just a gawd-damned Indian!” the longshoreman exclaimed. And then he made a mistake moving his arms upwards in an attempt to grab the Marshal. A deft move here, using the weight of the larger man against him, McLeod slammed the longshoreman face down into the pavement. “You broke my gawd-damned nose!” the longshoreman wailed amidst his yelling and screaming.

  “Officers,” McLeod turned to the security men who were completely awed by his lightning-fast moves. “Hold him for questioning. I’ll think about pressing charges for assault on a peace officer later.”

  He turned behind him and signaled his team of four men and one woman to join him. They were a little slow in catching up. “Now, let’s go have a look,” he told them when they were within earshot.

  McLeod left the gathered onlookers with the impression that the encounter had not ruffled a single feather of his resolve as he led his investigators up the gangplank of the Columbian-registered ship, the Marta, which curiously, but not uncharacteristic of similar ships engaged in this type of commerce shipping, flew the Norwegian flag. She was a twenty-ton ship designed to haul exports throughout the Americas and only occasionally to and from Europe. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) had abundant rumors of alleged drug smuggling by this ship and several of its sisters, but to date they had not one shred of evidence to
convince a judge to issue a warrant for a legal search of its confines, logs, and manifests. McLeod hoped that this murder so conveniently brought into Boston and the jurisdiction of the United States would be the single break ATF needed to shut one door out of countless thousands that pipelined narcotics and other poisons into this country. If he succeeded, it would be his form of repayment for a favor he had requested of the Bureau.

  McLeod had a rough sketch of the events that had preceded his involvement in the case. The ship’s captain had radioed the Coast Guard of the death as he steered the vessel into the twelve-mile territorial jurisdiction off the U.S. coastline. What piqued the interest of the ATF was the degree of cooperation the captain had demonstrated. If any of the crew of the Marta were indeed involved in smuggling contraband, it would have made more sense to weight the body and dump it overboard in international waters, where it probably would have never been recovered. It would have also been impossible to link the Marta to the body should a missing person report ever be filed. Now that these options had been obviated, the poised question that was raised was why the crew would risk exposure to its illicit operations? Either they were among the most brazen of criminals or just happened to experience a fit of dumbness. Their actions also seemed to indicate that the crew had either already off-loaded the contraband outside the twelve-mile limit or felt very secure in their methods of hiding contraband. The ATF had developed a great deal of sophisticated counter-drug devices, but the enemy kept coming up with ingenious ways to thwart detection.

  Upon setting foot on the first deck of the ship, McLeod was met by a Captain Martinez, a medium-sized old salt who looked much more weathered by his profession than his professed age of forty-three. He spoke passable English while exuding a semblance of cooperation that poorly masked a veneer of contempt for American authority. He personally led the investigators down into the hold, which was filled to only half its capacity, comprised mostly of large crates that were marked as sundry items.

  “We don’t touch him,” Captain Martinez declared, pointing at a corpse dangling from the business end of a long, wicked-looking hook attached to some block and tackle used to hoist cargo in and out of the hold. “You take him. We lose money waiting.”

  “All in good time, Captain,” McLeod told him. “Mary,” he addressed the female member of his team, “you take the good Captain here and start organizing the crew to give their statements.

  Mary Gonzalez, a Hispanic woman of medium build with dark eyes speckled with bits of color and short-cropped hair, spoke fluent Spanish and could easily slip into a number of dialects prevalent and unique among the Latin countries. Her use of the vernacular was well-known in the Department and, properly used, could redden the face of the crustiest sailor. McLeod felt confident that she would not miss much while listening to a variety of tales from the crewmembers who had probably already been rehearsed by an underling of the perpetrator of this death—perhaps, the Captain himself—as to what they were allowed to say and/or reveal. She curtly requested in Spanish for the Captain to be escorted to a dayroom where she could interview the crew individually.

  “Charlie, I want this area gone over with a fine-toothed comb,” McLeod directed.

  Charlie Gonty, a tall thin man of various European extractions in his late thirties with a nearly baldpate, started handing out assignments to George Alvarez, a light-brown complexioned stout man with a background in Army intelligence (who had been temporarily assigned to McLeod), and Jack Chino, a wiry native of Guam with a background in forensics. The three then divided up and started their investigation.

  “Who’s coordinating the local authority?” McLeod asked.

  “I got it,” Tim Robbins piped up.

  Tim Robbins, with a physique of a linebacker and skin so dark he could hide in the night, sauntered up to McLeod with a wry smile on his lips. He peered up at the hapless victim. “They’re on standby until we give them the word.”

  “Good. I want to look at the body myself and get an idea of the crime scene as a whole.”

  “Unless he were kinda athletic, I don’t suppose he could have just vaulted up there and speared himself,” Tim quipped.

  “He was put up there,” McLeod stated the obvious. “Probably as a warning to others in their dark trade. From the lack of blood on the floor,” he pointed to the deck beneath the dead man, “I doubt that he was killed here. The local forensics will be able to tell us more. In the meantime, why don’t you see if you can find a way to lower him to the floor.”

  “Right.” Tim unstrapped a camera from his shoulder and snapped off a half dozen shots from several angles. “Too bad he didn’t know any of your fancy martial arts. You did real good back there, boss.”

  “Just get him down,” McLeod responded dryly. “Then have the locals come pick him up.”

  Tim’s comment set him on edge. He did not particularly like having to resort to physical force, but at the same time he was not opposed to using his martial arts skills if the situation warranted it. He did not like bullies, no matter on which side of the law they chose to stand. And if an opponent thought his slight stature was an invitation to impose their will on him with impunity, that was his last mistake followed by a painful physical lesson: no one messed with this Indian.

  HIS FIRST FIGHT had occurred the second day of school in the White Man’s world. Fresh off the reservation, White Wolf still wore his hair in braids, the mark of a warrior and a man. A couple of the other first graders decided to take issue with him looking like a girl—in their opinion—and were justly taught a lesson. Of course, White Wolf had yet to learn the finer moves of martial arts, but he managed to inflict a good deal of damage on his attackers with his fists, feet, and teeth before a male teacher burst into the classroom to break up the fight.

  He soon found himself in the principal’s office, glaring at the overstuffed, pompous White Man who was accustomed to intimidating the other students with his large bulk and overbearing demeanor. White Wolf’s countenance challenged the principal, and his silence, as well as his refusal to cower under the elder’s stern gaze, caused the man’s face to redden with both anger and frustration at the young boy’s impudence. The eyes staring down the bulbous nose through a pair of rimless glasses would have given White Wolf reason to laugh at the cross-eyed man if he was not already filled with rage over being the supposed perpetrator of the fight with the two boys and the teacher who had earlier threatened him with a stick.

  His father appeared shortly thereafter and did not even try to hide his displeasure at being summoned to the principal’s office to the detriment of the family business. White Wolf looked up at the stranger who called himself his father, but there were no bonds yet to link the man to him. He did not trust him. He wondered skeptically who this man would support.

  “Mr. McLeod,” the principal whined, “your son was involved in a fight with two of his classmates. We had to send the other two boys to the hospital with bruises and bites.”

  “Is this true, Junior?” his father interrogated him. White Wolf never really understood why his father chose that moniker, except that maybe it was because he was the youngest and the smallest of the family.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Why?” Ernest did not like to waste a lot of vocabulary in either his secondary and official job as a town constable or during informal discourse. He found that being direct cut to the chase, especially with miscreants that ran afoul of his law. The same with his children. He wanted the facts without delay or embellishments, and if punishment had to be meted out, so much the better if it were swift and just.

  “They called me a girl.”

  “It’s those braids, Mr. McLeod,” the principal complained. “He may have been allowed to run wild on a reservation, but plain folks here don’t cotton to men wearing their hair long. We pride ourselves in this community on being civilized people. And, the sooner your son begins to act like a normal human being the better!”

  Ernest fixed a cold stare on the pri
ncipal. “Watch your words carefully, White Man.” His eyes appeared to be telegraphing a dire warning. White Wolf felt some satisfaction that the overbearing prig of a White Man had blanched at the look. But then his father did the unforgivable.

  “Well, we’ll fix that problem right now. Junior, you have your knife?”

  “Yes sir.” White Wolf extracted his favorite possession from a scabbard that hung down his back and handed it to his father.

  “Good heavens and all that is sacred!” the principal exclaimed. “Why, if I had known that he carried a lethal weapon—!”

  Ernest silenced him with another look and then deftly cut off White Wolf’s braids. “Now,” he said as he handed the boy his knife back, “there won’t be any long hair.”

  “Mr. McLeod,” the principal protested, “we don’t allow weapons in school.”

  “If you think you can get it away from him, you try it. Me? I wouldn’t try it.” The half smile on his father’s face spoke volumes.

  THE CORPSE HANGING from the hook incensed him a little. McLeod had seen enough death to last many lifetimes, so the sight of a dead man did not bother him. It was the callous or cavalier way that a human being treated another human, even in the act of killing. Death is inevitable, and oftentimes it has to be meted out by man. But there should still be honor in the killing: swift, not drawn out; deserved, not just for killing’s sake; and a respect for the enemy.

  A FEW YEARS later, the same two boys who had mocked him for his braids had yet to learn a lesson of respect.

  White Wolf was riding his new bicycle and enjoying the sense of freedom it gave him. As he approached a large tree growing between the sidewalk and the curb, the two boys, hiding behind its girth, ambushed him in the street. After taunting him with a few derogatory names, which did not elicit the response they desired, they made the mistake of debasing his mother. While White Wolf was yet to be a match for two kids his own age, much less larger in size, but an insult about his mother was more than he could bear, and he struck out at them in defense of his mother’s honor. The two boys managed to pummel him and beat him into the ground, but he never uttered a word or allowed a tear to fall from his eyes.