Thomas Blackhorse's Arc

Chapter 3 of 17

Thomas drove to the school the next morning with Maria's words still working on him. Martin Talltree was not a man to be cornered. He was a tribal elder, a principal, and a name people spoke carefully. Push him wrong and every door in town would close. Thomas needed him talking, not defending. So he came empty-handed, no folder, no notebook, and parked at the far end of the lot. The schoolhouse sat pale yellow in the sun, its little bell tower throwing a short shadow on the steps. Children's voices came from behind it. Thomas climbed the front stairs and pulled the heavy door. Inside, a woman in blue coveralls was mopping a slow arc across the tile. A ring of keys hung at her belt. She looked up and smiled without stopping her work. "You lost?" she asked. "Looking for the principal." "Down the hall. He's in early." She nodded at his boots. "Wipe those, please. I just did that stretch." Thomas wiped. He liked her already. He filed her face away for later. The janitor who had been here eight years ago had moved to Yuma. This one would know the building he had left behind. Martin Talltree's office door was open. The old man sat behind a desk stacked with folders, a bolo tie loose at his collar, reading glasses low on his nose. A tabby cat lay curled on the windowsill in a square of sun. Martin looked up. His face did not change, but his hand stopped moving on the page. "Thomas Blackhorse," he said. "I heard you were back on it." "Then you know why I'm here." "Sit down." Thomas sat. He kept his voice low. "I'm not here to accuse you. I came to you first because you're owed that." He watched the old man's eyes. "Maria says a man was in this building the week her daughter died. Talking to you. She reported it. Nobody followed up." Martin took his glasses off. He set them on the desk with care. "I have run this school for thirty years," he said. "I have kept it standing when the county wanted it closed. If I speak on this, I speak once. Do you understand what you're asking me to spend?" "I understand." The cat shifted. Martin looked at the window a long moment. "His name I will not give you here," he said finally. "Not in this office. Come to my house tonight. After dark. Alone." He picked up his pen. "And Thomas. If you bring a badge or a tape, we are done, and so are you in this town." Thomas stood. "Tonight." He walked out past the woman with the mop. She was working near a battered green locker at the end of the hall, one no student seemed to use. She caught his eye and held it a second longer than she needed to. Thomas nodded and kept walking. He had his meeting. He had also, without meaning to, made a promise he could not take back.