Psychic Detective 29 By: Jake Preston
This is a work of erotic gay fiction, intended for readers who enjoy a murder mystery in which fully developed characters interact sexually and in other ways. Their sexual encounters are sometimes romantic, sometimes recreational, sometimes spiritual, and almost always described explicitly. My attention is equally divided between narrative, character development, and sex scenes. If you don't care for this combination, there are many other excellent "nifty" stories to choose from. And remember that while nifty stories are free, maintaining a website is not. Please think about donating at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
Writing is usually a solitary avocation, but not necessarily so on nifty.org, where a longer story appears in installments. If my characters and my story grab your attention, you can always intervene with suggestions for improvements. All sincere comments will get a response!
Jake, at jemtling@gmail.com
Chapter 29 White Buffalo
In the month of September, Jack Jackson and Calvin Cohn spent time re-reading Howard Coleman's unfinished dissertation chapters. They believed Göran Svenson's prediction that a second sacrifice site would be found on the Lakota Reservation. They scoured Coleman's text for hints of more serial killings. None were apparent, until Calvin had an idea: "Let's compile a list of geographical and topographical references in Coleman's text, and check them out. Maybe we can retrace his steps in Lakota."
After two months in South Dakota, Calvin had a passing acquaintance with the Lakota landscape. He split his time between sophomore classes at Lakota College, and travel around the Res with Dark Eagle and Anna Ravitch. He searched Coleman's text for every geographical reference and (sometimes with Jack's help) noted its location on county maps. He found 36 locations. Most of them had no relevance to the serial killings, but they visited 34 of them, took notes about what they saw, and compared their observations to statements made by Coleman in his dissertation chapter.
"I think we've stuck out again," Calvin said. "We haven't learned anything that we didn't already know about the murders."
"That's not true," Mrs. Ravitch said. "We've learned that Coleman's geographical references are genuine, which means that he really visited the places that he mentions. He didn't make them up. This has a bearing on the two places that we couldn't find on any of the maps we consulted."
She was right. Coleman mentioned two places that they couldn't identify. One was a creek bed, dry in summer and autumn, about seven miles north of Buffalo Run. Coleman called it 'Staley's Creek', apparently unknown to cartography. The other was called Red Bluff. Coleman described it as an unusual rock formation above the creek bed.
"This is rather deep into Reservation land, if it exists at all," Jack said.
"You must ask for help from the Council of Elders," Dark Eagle replied. "One of the elders is sure to know about red rock formations above a creek bed, although the creek is almost certainly not called 'Staley's'. That's a name he made up."
"Maybe he named the creek after his accomplice," Mrs. Ravitch suggested.
Dark Eagle and Jack explained the problem in Tribal Council. One of the elders-a Vietnam Vet named Jonathan Sand Crane- remembered some rock formations in the region and volunteered to go with them on an expedition. "It'll take all day," he said. "We'll have to go part of the way on horseback. My sister's son must come, too- Billy Blue Heron- he could use a Lakota adventure or two under his belt."
Jack agreed. It wasn't a lot to ask. "I thought I knew everyone on the Res, but I didn't realize that you had a nephew, Jonathan Sand Crane," he said.
"He was two years behind you in school. He's been to college in Sioux Falls, where they turned him into a soft city slicker, but he speaks Lakota pretty good," Jonathan Sand Crane said.
That evening, Jack spoke to Göran by phone. "Let's go with the hypothesis that 'Brad Nails' is 'Staley', Göran said. "I'll alert Sheriff Matthews. He'll probably pass the information on to Tom Eidan. This is an FBI problem, since Staley could have lived anywhere in the Midwest or the West. That's assuming there ever was a 'Staley', but for now it's the only lead we've got."
A party of six caravanned up dirt roads and across roadless flats in three pickup trucks- loaded with camping gear, firewood, food and water, and CSI equipment, and pulling trailers with two horses in each. "If we find what we're looking for, we might be here a week," Jack remarked. Five miles north of Buffalo Run, they followed a dry creek-bed. When the path of the creek narrowed, they traveled on horseback for two miles. Jonathan Sand Crane led the way. Dark Eagle kept close to Billy Blue Heron and engaged him in conversation, seeming oblivious to his surroundings. Jonathan wore shoulder-length hair and looked like a taller version of Red Hawk. Smooth-faced and slender, anything but muscular, at age 25 he could pass for sixteen. It seemed to Jack that Dark Eagle already knew him and had taken him under his wing like a substitute father.
Grayish rock formations appeared in the distance. When they got closer, the rock looked red. They climbed to the highest bluff, but saw no signs of human visitation.
"It's the hour of the shaman," Jack said, glancing at Dark Eagle, who had grown solemn.
"We're on sacred ground," Dark Eagle said. "This was an ancient Lakota burial ground, not the red rock we're standing on, but down below, by the creek bed. Once upon a time there was water, and a village."
"How could Coleman have known that?" Anna Ravitch wondered.
"Maybe he didn't," Dark Eagle said. "Maybe the Great Spirit led him here, so the remains of his victims would be found."
Calvin wrote in his notebook at breakneck speed. He sensed that his travels had carried him into the middle of Lakota history. He thought to himself, 'If Manitou has such power, why didn't He stop the murders?'- but he didn't say it.
"Manitou had a higher purpose that has yet to be disclosed," Dark Eagle said, answering Calvin's unarticulated question, as if he had read the young man's mind. "We'll have to spend the night," Dark Eagle continued. "It would be best to set up camp by the trucks while we still have daylight. But we'll observe the ceremony here on the bluff."
They returned to the trucks and set up three two-person tents, a long folding table for the Coleman stove, and lawn chairs- all the conveniences of modern camping. Dark Eagle changed into buckskin and wore an elaborate Ojibwe headdress. Jack, Jonathan Sand Crane, and Billy Blue Heron changed into buckskin too- each man wore a headband with a single brown feather. Jonathan produced similar costumes for Calvin and Anna Ravitch. "Oh, good! We get to play at being Indians," Calvin remarked to Mrs. Ravitch while they changed in the close confines of a tent. Dressed in tribal costumes, the six visitors mounted horses and carried firewood up the bluff, where they gathered brush to start a fire while Dark Eagle laid out a ceremonial blanket.
"Shouldn't we rub two rocks together to start a fire?" Calvin asked when Dark Eagle produced a box of kitchen matches.
"If the ancient Indians had matches, they would have used them," Dark Eagle grinned. "The Lakota didn't have peyote, either, but we're going to used it as an aid to communicate with Manitou."
Jack drew Dark Eagle away from the others and said, "I hope we can find a way to do this without offending the elder's sensibilities." He was reluctant to go native, if going native meant getting naked.
"Dance as you did at Apollo's and follow your heart," Dark Eagle said.
"You heard about that?"- Jack was amazed; Dark Eagle, amused: "The first time or the second?" he grinned. "Manitou will speak through another, but you'll be the one who prepares his body for Niizho-manitou." Dark Eagle didn't need to translate; Jack knew that he meant 'the Second Spirit'.
As a tribal elder, Jonathan Sand Crane distributed six peyote chips to each person seated in a circle around the ceremonial blanket. As the shaman, Dark Eagle sat in at the north side of the blanket, in the center. On his right, Jonathan sat with his water-drum. Anna Ravitch sat on his left, armed with two ceremonial rattles. Jack, Billy, and Calvin sat east, south, and west. Bourbon was passed in a bottle to soften the bitterness and moisten lophophoric mouthfuls.
While they masticated chips and felt the first traces of mescaline, Jonathan told a story about how the pastor of the Lakota Baptist Church, a certain Reverend Hughes, led an unlawful campaign to abolish peyotism on the Res. "Does it line up with God's Word?" he asked from his pulpit. "If peyote alters the mind and leads to hallucinations, then the Bible would have prohibited it!" He used equivocation to cover up the fact that he could find no relevant verse. "If God had known about it, he would have forbidden it in the Bible," Reverend Hughes said. He tried to pressure the Sheriff to bust up pagan rituals and arrest the peyote-users in their ceremonial wigwams. (This happened before Jack Jackson became Sheriff.) "Whites have been persecuting peyote-users since the 1880s," Jonathan continued. "The Baptist campaign was more of the same, but it led to increased use of peyote on the Res."
"Peyote is for spiritual illumination, not hallucination. Lakota doesn't even have a word for 'hallucination'," Jack remarked.
"The Great Spirit manifests itself in Nature," Dark Eagle said. "Through peyote visions look past human artifice to see the spiritual colors of Nature, which is Manitou. The primary attribute of Nature is Sexuality. All creatures in Nature are sexual. All plants and animals, from the lowliest cactus to the most intelligent human, are created for sex. The secret of peyote is that it closes the gap between the lowliest plant and the highest animal. That's why the dance before Manitou must be erotic."
Jack supposed that Dark Eagle gave his discourse on peyote-theology for the benefit of Jonathan Sand Crane. The Lakota elders were familiar with peyote rituals, but (unlike the Ojibwe) they had never combined peyote with sex. In fact, Dark Eagle's words were meant for Jack. He couldn't lead the dance effectively if his mind was clouded with misgivings about exposing his sexuality to an elder.
Dark Eagle started the ceremony with a prayer thanking the Great Spirit for the presence of Jonathan Sand Crane, Anna Ravitch, and Three Graces who would dance for Him-Jack Red Crest Jackson, Billy Blue Heron, and Calvin Cohn. He liked to mix Ojibwe rituals with symbolism from other cultures, like the time he asked Dmitri and his friends to perform Greek folk-dances to CD-music for Manitou. In the absence of a computer or a boom-box, Dark Eagle said that he would recite an epic about the westward migration of the Ojibwe from their Atlantic homeland to the shores of Gitchee Gumee. It wasn't a Lakota story, but it was the longest epic chant that he knew.
No one but Dark Eagle understood the words of his Ojibwe chant, but its cadence was familiar to Jonathan Sand Crane, who kept time on the water-drum while Jack danced solo in the center of the ceremonial carpet. Jonathan caught the rhythm and set the pace, with occasional half-beat deviations that inspired erotic gyrations from Jack. Anna Ravitch rolled the rattles in concert with the water-drum. Jonathan's drumbeat competed with Dark Eagle's cadence at times, like the conflict of ictus and accent in Virgil's Aeneid. In a smooth sequence of deft moves, Jack removed his clothes and danced naked. Dark Eagle's epic chant was the framework; Jonathan's drumbeat was the style; Anna's rattles added rhetorical flourish; and Jack's naked dance was the content in the dance before Manitou.
Jack took Calvin's hand and led him into the dance on the ceremonial carpet. Without missing a drumbeat, he helped Calvin out of his clothes. They danced on the carpet as a naked pair. They approached Billy Blue Heron. Jack took his right hand, and Calvin took his left. They lifted him up and he joined the dance. They helped him out of his clothes.
When all three dancers were naked, Jack led them to the other side of the ceremonial fire. Separated from their musician-spectators by firelight, the Three Graces slowed their dance while their erections swayed erotically. Calvin penetrated Billy Blue Heron from behind and fucked, sometimes to the rhythm of Dark Eagle's cadence, sometimes to the drumbeat of Jonathan Sand Crane. Their rhythm devolved into violent strokes when Calvin poured himself into Billy, but Jack recovered it, and the dance of Three Graces continued. Jack danced behind Billy, who whirled away and danced behind Jack. Jack pulled away and danced behind Billy. Calvin intervened- he faced Jack and held him in place while Billy danced behind him and penetrated his butt. He supported Jack's trembling body when Billy's sperm oozed into him.
"White buffalo at noon," was all Billy whispered in Jack's ear.
Jack led his two companions back to the ceremonial blanket. They sat in their places, still naked. Dark Eagle, Jonathan Sand Crane, and Anna Ravitch waited in silence. Was there a message from Manitou? Billy motioned for Jack to speak. "White buffalo at noon," Jack said. "The message came to Billy while we were... ah... the message came to Billy while we were dancing."
"Is there a place called White Buffalo?" Anna Ravitch wondered.
"No," Jonathan said, "but I've heard tell that an albino buffalo sometimes wanders on the Res. We've kept quiet about it. There's always a chance that poachers might encroach on the Res and hunt it down, so the white buffalo has been a Lakota secret."
Next morning, the party of six rode out on horseback in search of an albino buffalo. They traveled north and east. At noon they found a herd of thirty-some bison, but no albino. "We're going the wrong direction," Billy Blue Heron said, but he couldn't propose an alternative, so no one took him seriously except Dark Eagle. They returned to camp at dusk, without sighting a white bison.
Dark Eagle spoke to Calvin in private: "Billy Blue Heron is still in tune with the Great Spirit. He just needs a little help."
"What can I do?" Calvin asked.
"You can let Billy sleep with Jack. He'll know what to do," Dark Eagle said. "Just while we're on this expedition- then you can have him back."
Dark Eagle spoke to Billy and Calvin spoke to Jack.
Billy crawled into Jack's tent, crept under the top cover of the doubled-up sleeping bag, and snuggled next to Jack. The thrill of anticipation inspired him to place a hand over Jack's abdomen, but he also felt timid in Jack's presence. True, he had fucked Jack on the previous evening, but then they were both under the influence of peyote in a ritual. It was his first time fucking a man. Getting fucked by Calvin was a first for him, too. Jack was a Lakota legend. Billy had desired him from a distance since boyhood. Now that he had the man of his dreams in his arms, he wasn't sure what to do, or what role he should play. This wasn't romance, but it wasn't romance, either, since Jack belonged to Calvin. It was somewhere in between.
Jack sensed his reticence. He squeezed Billy's hand. By his body-language, he encouraged Billy to explore his torso. Billy stoked him and fondled. "I remember you from our schooldays," Jack said. "You were one of the younger boys, when we played soccer. I wish I had known you better, but we never had any classes together."
"Sometimes you were a team captain," Billy recalled. "Whenever that happened- it wasn't often- you chose me for your team. Those were the only times I wasn't the last kid chosen."
"I could have done more. I should have been a friend when you needed one."
"We were kids, Jack," Billy said. "Besides, you did do more. There was a time when two older boys were beating on me and calling me a faggot. You stopped them. One of them ran away with a black eye. After that they left me alone."
"I don't remember," Jack said, and changed the subject: "You should talk to CC about going to college. You'll do well there. You're a bright boy, but you need an education."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because the Lakota people deserve to have a shaman who's educated," Jack said.
"If I went to college, what would I major in?" Billy asked.
"Whatever interests you," Jack said. "Take a variety of courses in your first two years, and then decide. Art, literature, history, comparative religion, psychology, linguistics, biology- CC is majoring in Native American Studies."
"If my destiny is to be a shaman, as Dark Eagle says, what would be the best major?" Billy asked.
"If you're asking me, I'd say the Lakota people could use a local expert on biology, especially botany," Jack said. Billy's fingers graduated from stoking his abdomen to fondling his nipples. "So, Billy Blue Heron, are you gonna fuck me?"
"Really?"
"You don't think I'm man enough to take it from you?" Jack laughed.
"Taking it is one thing; wanting, another," Billy replied.
"Maybe for once it's about what you want," Jack said. "Tell me what you are, Billy Blue Heron, top or bottom? Say it."
"Maybe it depends on who I'm...."
"Tell me what you are, top or bottom. Say it," Jack repeated.
"Top," Billy said. "There, I said it. I know most guys probably think I should be a bottom, but...."
"What most guys think is unimportant," Jack said. "What's important is for us to actualize you as a top." He nuzzled Billy's pits with his nose and his tongue.
Billy drew Jack into a kiss. He guided Jack's face to his nips, and further down to his navel and pubes. Sucking cock was just the start. Jack performed oral endearments that Billy had never imagined, on his scrotum, his perineum, his cleft, and his butthole. This game was different from the peyote-ritual, where erotic dancing was their only foreplay. After Jack's demonstration of oral intimacy, he embraced Billy and kissed him. "Time for you to take over, I think," he whispered in Billy's ear.
Billy opened all the crannies of Jack, everything he had dreamed of having, especially his genitals and his ass. Jack responded with compliance, encouragement, and appreciation. "I'm keeping my butthole tight for you, Billy, since I'm about to get stung by the Queen Bee," Jack said when Billy made his first exploration with a finger. "Ooooo," Jack exclaimed when Billy's index finger- the left one, as he was left-handed- wriggled inside Jack's butt.
"My fingers are quarreling among themselves," Billy said. "The others are jealous about this one." He held up his left index finger.
"Then you must give them each a turn at some action in my ass," Jack said. "One at a time, please."
Eight fingers and two thumbs took turns fucking Jack's butt. "I think we'll call this game 'Ten Little Indians', Billy said.
What Billy liked best about Jack was his backside. Like any gay guy he appreciated cock, but it was butt that got his attention. Jack pronated so Billy could play in the backyard. He arched so Billy could play 'Ten Little Indians' again. Billy's fingers lingered in the valley between two moons, for Billy a newfound trail that led to a magic well, and beyond it, two cannonballs and a rocket. What's the best term for the trail, he asked Jack- cleavage, crevice, chasm, canyon, creek-bed, cranny, crack, cleft? Jack looked back at him, and handed him a lube-tube.
"Fissure, furrow, fault, fosse"- Billy delivered verbal and digital frottage to the cleft while Jack slowly parted his legs.
"Recess, rift, McCrackus, path to the portal, glute gutter, glute gap, gape, Gape of Good Hope...."
"Fuck already!" Jack said impatiently.
Billy hot-dogged the Gape of Good Hope and then rammed his rod into the portal. Jack groaned, but he muffled a yelp, as he wanted to keep Billy's penetration a secret. He could have howled like a wolf if he wanted to, because everyone in camp knew he was getting shafted. To prolong his pleasure and possession of Jack, Billy slid his dick in and out slowly. He branded Jack with hickies at the back of his shoulders and neck. When the 'call of the loins' caught up with Billy, he humped. He shot spooge into Jack. He soaked his rod in seminal fluids that once was his but now belonged to Jack. His rod half-way receded, but hardened again when Billy grew conscious of pheromone fragrance that wafted from Jack's sweat-glistening shoulders and pits. Billy humped Jack more fiercely than before.
Jack flipped over, panting, and praised Billy's double penetration. Naturally he didn't mention that Calvin was capable of this, too, but he recognized that the feat was exceptional and worthy of praise. Billy frotted Jack's erection, and took advantage of his heightened eroticism by extracting a promise that they would continue to be occasional lovers on their return to Lakota. He knew that Jack was a promise-keeper, and said no more about it, but Jack told Calvin, who agreed to threesomes as a compromise.
Next morning, Billy led the way up the creek-bed on horseback. He seemed to know where to go. When they reached a second group of red rock-formations, Billy turned up a narrow trail between two red boulders. The trail led over a hill to a small grassy valley, hidden by surrounding cliffs. In the late morning sun, Jack removed his shirt. The riders behind him couldn't help but notice fresh red marks on his shoulders and neck. "Branded by the new shaman," they must have thought, but their speculation about Jack's anatomy was soon diverted by the sight of a mammoth white buffalo and her equally albino calf, grazing in the hidden valley. Billy walked in close. The mother buffalo looked at him briefly and returned to her grazing.
At noon, the two white buffalos sauntered across the tiny valley to a solitary tree, shaded by the cliffs. The buffalo stood in the shade of the willow for a few minutes. They lapped water from a spring that nurtured the tree, and returned to their original grazing spot. Jack led the way across the valley. Twenty yards south of the tree, they found the remnants of five human skulls. One of them was still attached to its neck and shoulder-bones. It was evident that this one (and probably the others) had been planted vertical in holes in the ground and left to die of thirst or exposure, or maybe they were devoured by army-ants.
"This crime scene needs to be handled as an archeological dig," Jack said. "Four of the skulls were scattered by scavengers. If it's done scientifically, we can recover the skeletons."
"Are you sure you want outsiders coming here to solve our problems?" Jonathan Sand Crane asked.
"I was thinking of an archeology professor at USD, perhaps with some student assistants and some locals," Jack said. "But I'm willing to try another shamanist ritual, but we must also bring in Göran Svenson. He can be something of a 'skeleton whisperer', and when it comes to shamanism, he's a believer." So it was agreed.
Although it isn't found on any map, Red Bluff became famous among the Lakota people. It was a triumph for Dark Eagle, who succeeded in his double task of finding a shaman and demonstrating the power of shamanism. No one had actively opposed his mission, but at first he met with apathy. The crime scene investigation changed all that. A new triangulation of decision- makers emerged in the tribe. As senior elder, Jonathan Sand Crane was chief. His two-spirited nephew, Billy Blue Heron, was the shaman. Jack Red Crest Jackson, as sheriff, was the consummate warrior. The tribe looked to these three, and to shamanism, as a way of asserting Lakota independence.