Hole in One by Walter Stewart

overline was supposed to say, “Look at the Twist on This Teen!” but that is not the way the proof read. When I had gone out into the backshop to get it changed, Wilson told me it wasn’t his page, and the guy responsible had left for the day. That was when I started screaming, and, after much cursing, he replaced the offending type, but we were never what you might call close after that. Now, he gave me an up-and-down look, spat deliberately, and grunted. “You didn’t know I was Ojibwa. It’s not exactly the sort of thing you boast about around here.”
    That was a point. In small, tightly knit, neighbourly communities like Silver Falls and Bosky Dell, the firm handshake of friendship can be replaced by the knuckled fist of bigotry faster than you can say “Indian.” If you can get away with passing as white, you do so, and I guess Chuck, who was swarthy but not obviously Indian, had decided to keep his native background to himself, at least during working hours. He gestured somewhat impatiently towards the still-closed door of Cabin 10.
    â€œGet on with it,” he said.
    â€œLet me make sure I understand the position,” I replied, punctuating my words with waves of the key. “Inside this cabin, I am going to find the body of someone recently, and unpleasantly, deceased.”
    â€œRight,” said Joe, and Chuck nodded.
    â€œAnd you guys want somebody else to report it, is that it?”
    â€œThat’s it,” Joe agreed.
    â€œBut that’s crazy,” I said. “It doesn’t matter who reports a murder, unless . . . Oh, that’s it.”
    â€œBless you, my child,” said Hanna, “for finally working it out. Now come open the door.”
    I fumbled with the key. “Yeah, but, there’s a body in here,” I said. “A dead body.”
    â€œThat’s often the case with bodies,” said Hanna.
    â€œAnd there’s something wrong, some reason these guys want outside witnesses in on this.”
    â€œRight.”
    I stopped. “If I go in there, and find the body, and call the cops, maybe they’re going to think I had something to do with it. Cops,” I added, for I had reason to know, “are liable to leap to conclusions.”
    â€œThat’s exactly why Joe and these other fellows want you to do the finding. So the cops won’t leap to any wrong conclusions. After all, there’s a whole bunch of witnesses here, if you need us.”
    I was still holding onto the doorknob. “Joe, do you know who’s inside here?”
    He nodded.
    â€œIs it anybody I know?”
    He shook his head.
    I was satisfied. “Okay, Hanna,” I said, “you go first.”
    â€œFine. And you’ll take the pictures, right?”
    â€œHow come I’m always the fall guy?” I asked no one in particular. I opened the door on the word “guy” and very nearly fainted dead away. Sprawled across the bed directly in front of me was the body of an elderly man, obviously deceased. His eyes were open, but that was not what drew the attention of the onlooker: there was a large, fierce-looking, ceremonial tomahawk buried in his chest and, across his stomach, a sort of banner of white paper, on which was written “Death to Desecrators!” This was in the very large type you can generate on a computer, if you have a good printer.
    â€œI just remembered,” I told Hanna, “I promised to have those screens painted by this evening over at the Jowetts. I’ll have to go back to Bosky Dell.”
    â€œForget it, Carlton,” the heartless female replied. “You’re in this now, and you’re staying in.”
    â€œThe cops aren’t going to be pleased,” I pointed out. “They’re going to ask a lot of rude questions I can’t answer. What am I supposed to say? I just happened to be passing the Bide-a-Wee and thought I’d check out Cabin 10 on a whim,