Scalped Book 8: You Gotta Sin To Get Saved (#43-49)

"We come here for one thing, son... to kill a man" - Catcher

Welcome to another post on Scalped, the Vertigo series about an undercover FBI agent Dashiell Bad Horse on the fictional Prairie Rose reservation. The rez is a poverty stricken place, the tribal head is Lincoln Red Crow who also runs the new casino.  Dashiell has been place on the rez to find any murders that can be pinned on Red Crow as Agent Nitz believes he was responsible for the shooting of two FBI agents, his mentors and friends, back in 1975 when Red Crow was a member of an Indian radical group called The Dog Soldiers.  Actually the man who pulled the trigger is now an old drunk who sees  visions and believes he is being told things by the Thunder Beings.  Also present at the murder was Dash's mum Gina who was murdered by Catcher when she confronted him over turning him in as the real killer.  Dash started crumbling under the pressure of living a double life and picked up a heroin habit of Red Crow's daughter Carol. But they have parted ways with Carol now part of the Poor Bear's family, and both have gotten clean as well.  Dashiell's dad came back to town to help look for Gina's murderer. But Nitz had him arrested not wanting him to distract or interfere with Dash's mission to bring down Red Crow. Red Crow has his casino, but has steadily started to get disillusioned by his hpyer-capitalist ways and become more interested in protecting the rez in his role as tribal leader.  And after the two one-shots dealing with two men who seem superficially similar but learn different lessons from their experiences we get a five chapter arc on Red Crow dealing with a power grab by another elder, the missing officer Falls Down going through a trial and Dash finally finding out who killed his mother.

Sheriff Karnow.

A COME-TO-JESUS: Art by Jason LaTour. We're introduced to Sheriff Karnow again, a corrupt lawman who oversees the town of White Haven just over the border in Nebraska where Indians used to come and booze before the casino made alcohol legal on the rez again.  He talking to a couple of Indian teenagers relating stories from his time in Vietnam that are obvious fictions made up to make himself look good and it works, the two kids are in awe of him. Karnow tells them that:

Karnow: "The most important thing a man can do is test himself. To put himself in the middle a'something he ain't rightly prepared for and see how he comes out. Every man's got somethin' out there waitin' to test him.  He just gotta be willin' to find it. To face it.  A man that ain't been tested, well... he ain't really much of a man now, is he?"

Then a car pulls up and out gets an older man who introduces himself as "Virgil Drum, U.S. Marshals" and could he have a word with Karnow. The kids ask Karnow if he can show them the moves and how he gutted all those gooks.  J.T. the deputy chases them off.

Karnow asks Virgil what he can do for him.  Virgil shows him a photo of a man called Eugene Evers who escaped from jail and who Virgil has chased four three weeks and thinks he's holed up somewhere here. Karnow says he doesn't know of any Evers round here, but J.T. pipes up about an Evers that lived in the area but died a few years ago.  Karnow shoots J.T. a dirty look and says he was just going say that.

Virgil says that was Eugene's uncle's place which he's already checked out. He starts to leave but says if they see anything contact him. Karnow says he'll put his best men on it.  Virgil says no need he is just here as a courtesy to alert him he is in the area ans to be allowed to do his job.  "Feel free to carry on doing yours" he says and drives off,  Karnow frowns and spits tobacco.

Later J.T. gets ahold of Virgil's records and relates what a badass he is.   He was in Vietnam the same time as Karnow, was highly decorated, was a boxer and won Omaha Golden Gloves in '74 and '75.  Been in the Marshals since then, and has caught many high profile lawbreakers, "guy's a goddamn living breathing John Wayne character Sheriff. Just like you" says J.T.

Livin' the dream. Yay.

J.T. says he is going home now, he's going bowling with his wife and kids.  He says he'd invite Karnow but knows he has other plans.  Karnow just mutters that he'll probably stick around in the station.  J.T. says he thought Cheryl was coming tonight, Karnow says she may not be able to make it.  J.T. says he loves his wife and kids, but sometimes he envies Karnow going from "one gorgeous woman to another.  You're livin the dream, Sheriff.  You really are."  And Karnow is left sadly slumped in his chair, alone.

Later he drives out to the junkyard where a couple are having sex  He splits them up and gets the woman "Marilyn" to come and give him a blow job.  But he can't get himself hard no matter what she does to it, angrily Karnow says she isn't doing it right. "I didn't know there was any other way to do it" protests Marilyn.  He tosses her out of the car and leaves her walking home.

He sits and thinks then looks at the photo of Eugene Evers and drives back to Marilyn.  He asks her if she ever heard of him.  She says she has, and will say where he is if Karno gives her a ride home.  He agrees and is told his uncle had a cabin along Randolph Creek and has been staying there.  Karnow drives off without giving her a life as she shouts "asshole" after him.

He gets close to the cabin muttering jealously of Virgil's achievements saying he can "kiss my ass" as he picks his way though the wodds.  Suddenly he is knocked out by Evers and when he comes around Evers is exchanging fire with Virgil who plugs him in the shoulder.  He approaches Evers saying "don't make me kill you son".  And Evers surrenders.

While Evers sits cuffed by Virgil's car, Virgil tells Karnow he was staking the place out when Karnow showed up.  He asks if Karnow is alright and Karnow says "I'd appreciate it if... if you wouldn't tell nobody about this."  He says no one ever got the drop before not even in 'Nam, and he starts to tell a story but Virgil cuts him off with a curt, "thanks for your help" and starts to leave.

Evers though starts mocking Karnow saying he could have killed him easy, but knowing the Marshal would be coming he didn't want him to hear, "I give you back your life Sheriff" Evers says,  saying state prison would be preferable to being like Karnow.  This causes Karnow to stand up and come at Evers with his gun raised.  Virgil easily disarms and grounds Karnow and finally says the devstating words Karnow needed to hear:

Virgil: "Sheriff! Grow the hell up."

And he and Evers are gone.  Still on his hands and knees his face contorts in despair and he sits alone in the woods with his head in his hands as he contemplates the life he lives now.

Inspiration strikes.

Next say he drives past the two youths still taken in by his war stories and finds Marilyn walking home.  She says she wants no trouble, but he insists she gets in and he drives her to her house.  Then he drives to the edged of the Prairie Rose rez, the words he said at the start about testing oneself and seeing how they come out and how every man has something out there to test them, "he's just got to be willing to find it and face it".  And with that thought he looks up at the big billboard with Red Crow on it and we can now infer he has a new mission to take down Red Crow.  End of chapter.

THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN:  Arist Davide Furno. We begin with a self pitying Agent Nitz struggling though snow aimlessly, he has beaten and has a gun he sporadically holds to his head.   He reflects on being a failure as a husband and father, a friend and federal agent, as a man, as a human.  "I, am Bayliss Earl Nitz am a complete goddamn failure."  He can't pull the trigger so declares himself a "failure as a suicide" and he falls to his hands and knees.

We go back to the morning of that same day. He is listening in on some people having sex in his motel base when his superior, Terry comes in.  He says he came for agent Newsome's funeral.  Nitz says is that today, Terry says it was three days ago.  Nitz says lamely that he's been busy, Terry looks at the state of the room and says "so I see."

Busy. Uh huh.

Nitz said Newsome understood what they were doing here, Terry says he's stil the one who signs his cheques.   Nitz just demands a new agent. Terry says it appears he can't run things at all here, Newsome dead, Britt Fillenwirth missing and Dashiell Bad Horse compromised.  Nitz says Dash isn't compromised, but Terry wonders then why he's having his father indicted on charges of tampering with a federal investigation.

Terry: "I'm shutting you down. Effective immediately.  You can either be transferred to another office or you can retire. It's up to you".

Nitz says he can't do this, but Terry says he just did.  He protected Nitz for long enough and told him the day would come, "you just never listened."  Nitz yells that Red Crow is a murderer, he killed two federal agents, "then I guess you got something in common now, huh?" and he leaves.

After that he rings round the FBI trying call in any favours he has, but it turns out he has none left.  He smashes his room up in a rage, then starts drinking and stares at his gun.  On the drive to the casino he tries to compose a letter or apology to his kids, but then thinks "fuck it.  I'll never live to write it."  He walks towards the casino with murderous intent.

He stands behind Red Crow and points a gun at his head saying "suprise, asshole."  But Shunka disarms him and nuts him in the face for good measure very easily.  Red Crow cheerily tells the crowd there is nothing to worry about. They tosse him though a door into the back area.  He tells Shunka he is under arrest for striking a federal agent and the rest are also under arrest.

Red Crow said he had a very interesting chat with his boss, "or should I say... your former boss."  So it's Nitz in trouble now, "funny how things change."  Nitz just threatens to kill him and rants at all of the "fucking red nigger cocksuckers" there.  He tells Red Crow not to look at him like he's better than him, he's going to wipe the smirk off Red Crow's face.  Red Crow backhands him and Nitz slumps to the ground and vomits.

Red Crow: "You come here again, Nitz and I'll have you arrested.... how's that for fucking irony?"

He tells his men to get that "pathetic piece of shit out of his casino.".  They drive out somewhere on the rez, kick him out the car and toss him the gun saying it's loaded "so if you feel like doing the world a favour".

People do vomit a lot in this series.

He staggers on through the snow, and sees what he thinks might be salvation. He can't bring himself to commit suicide but he could go down in a blaze of glory.  He sees an isolated house with many cars parked outside and realises it's a meth lab.  He kicks down the door and the firing starts while compoing a bitter screed in his head aimed at everyone he leaves behind.

When the firing stops he's taken a couple of bullets and is faced by the last surviving member in there. Who instead of shooting Nitz like he begs four, blwos his own brains out.  Nitz can't believe he fucked even this up.  And he passes out.

Sometime later he returns to his HQ in the motel, patched up with his arm in a sling.  There are several agents who hail him as a hero and applaued when he comes in. The people he killed were Jordanians on student visas making meth to rasie money to func terrorist actions in the USA.  Now they are all working for him to pursue accomplices and bring them to justice.  Nitz pins up a photo of Red Crow on the board and says with a smile,"All right boys... lets get to work".

A mission renewed,

YOU GOTTA SIN TO GET SAVED:  Art by co-creator R.M. Guera. We begin with Red Crow deep in thought, that how some people spend their whole lives running and never get anywhere "don't matter how long or how hard you try...their just ain't no escaping from yourself."  He and his goons are visiting the house of elder Hassell Rock Medicine,  his grandaughter Maggie tries to stop him going inside.   But Hassell invites Red Crow inside.

Red Crow says he can't believe Hassell would betray him like this, he was Red Crow's teacher.  Hassel says he is still trying to teach him.  They argue about God's will, with Red Crow saying that it isn't something you sit back and let happen, you have to make it happen.  Hassell says he is not doing God's work.  It's his own, "your problem is you don't see the difference anymore".  Suddenly Red Crow stops and stares at something and Hassell asks what he sees. 

Before we are told, we jump back to two days ago.   Things are wrapping up at a tribal council meeting and Red Crow introduces Dash, promoted to "Executive Adjunct" to the tribal president.  As the meeting ends and the tribal elders are all introduced to Dash, Red Crow says they are all thinking of ways to ruin Dash, "welcome to politics".

Dash say that politics isn't his game, but Red Crow asks why he came back after all these years?  Dash says where else was I supposed to go?  Red Crow says he came back because he knew deep down this was the only place he's have a chance. Then he shows Dash the President's chair saying he doesn't trust anyone else in the room to sit in it, he wants Dash to take on the responsibility when Red Crow leaves it.  Dash says he can't be serious but Red Crow said he saw himself as a warrior not a chief too. 

Red Crow: "But that's exactly what our people need.  A warrior who'll fight for them no matter what."

But then Maggie, Hassell and some other's come in and Maggie says what the people need is change.  They have gathered enough support to allow Hassell to run for tribal president.

Hassel Rock Medicine.

He says to Red Crow that he can't stand by and watch him sell of what's left of their pride.  He tells Red Crow, "you've failed us Lincoln. You've failed our people.  You've failed our rez.  My friend, it's time for you to go."

Maggie tells him that they have the support of half the council and once the people here about how he sold them out to drug gangs he'll be lucky not to be sitting in jail. Red Crow offers Hassell and advisory position.  But he says he's prayed and this is God's will.  He says that now this phase of Red Crow's life is ending he might remember how to serve the will of God again and with a "Toksa Ake" he and his group depart.

Shunka comes up saying he'll "dissaude" him and his grandaughter, but Red Crow tells Shunka he is to go nowhere near them.  He says he could at least dig some dirt on them even though Red Crow says Hassell is the closest thing to a saint they have.  He tells Shunka to do it anyway, and takes Dash with him which results in a jealous frown from Shunka.

Red Crow and Dash are standing in a dilapidated house.  Red Crow tells Dash that his father was a drunk and only ever lifted a finger to beat his mother.  But never hit Red Crow no matter how much he dared him too.  He died choking on his own vomit and when they came for his body, Red Crow put all of his things in the garden and burned them so he was buried in the clothes he died in.  Hassell Rock Medicine helped his mother raise him, taught him how to be a Lakota, how to be a man. "Sometimes you father is just a guy who fucked your mother" says Red Crow "He doesn't define who you are".

Dash asks what are they going to do about the election.  Red Crow thinks Hassell's age and inexperience will let them beat him fair and square.  Dash says Shunka doesn't think so. Ignoring that, Red Crow asks if Dash is still seeing Carol, Dash says no he hasn't seen her in a while.  Red Crow says "we're not our fathers, Dash.  We're better men than that. We are".  Speaking of Carol, she is fast asleep in her room at the Poor Bears.  Dino sneaks in and climbs onto the bed and lies against her, but he is gone when she wakes up.

Dino's in love.

Later Red Crow is sitting in his office  lost in thought.  Shunka is tellling him Rock Medicine could win and "take all this away."  Red Crow says he knows.  Shunka says Hassell is spotless so they'll have to go through his family.  Red Crow says he and his family is not to be touched.  "Was that Bas Horse's advice?" says Shunka snippily.  Red Crow says he's going to have to deal with his dislike of Dash.  Shunka says that makes him sound like a jealous schoolgirl, he doesn't trust Dash and neither should Red Crow.  Red Crow says Dash has come through a damn sight more that Shunka has lately.

Shunka says if he trusts him so much, why hasn't he told him about the fact Falls Down is missing while Shunka keeps searching for him.  Red Crow says Shunka has been with him a long time and he's been made a very rich man but this doesn't mean they are partners or friends or anything of the sort.   He doesn't want Dash involved in anything to do with his mother's murder, he's not asking for Shunka's opinion and if he can't follow orders anymore please tell him.  Shunka says he can follow orders as long as the man giving them hasn't forgotten who he is or how he got where he did.  And we see a montage of money and murder and Red Crow says "I haven't forgotten a thing."

There is a prayer ceremony going on at the Rock Medicine's house.  While elsewhere teenagers get drunk and fight, sitting up on a ridge completely alone is Red Crow, he drinks some booze and he cries a single tear.  And then we're back in the now and we get to see what Red Crow saw, it was himself carrying the rotted, maggot ridden stag across his shoulders.   As he looks he asks Hassell if they can pray.

Alarming.

We finish the chapter with philosophy from Catcher, that there is no escaping from yourself and no way to change the way God made us, "good or bad we all got our parts to play".  Everyone is trapped, the key is to find the freedom in that. To never want more than you're given and to make your prison as big as the whole damn world.  And we see that he is dragging along behind him the blindfolded and hands-tied Falls Down as Catcher concludes by saying "I hate to see a man who don't know when he's trapped."

We begin the next chapter with Falls Down still blindfolded and bound and Catcher telling him his trial begins now.  They are inside a cave and his trial is simply to walk out of it, the Thunder Beings have told Catcher he must test Falls Down, he gets out safe he passes, he doesn't then he isn't going anywhere.  And we pull back to see the cave is full of snakes and traps, "all ya gotta do is open your heart and start walkin'."

Catcher tests Officer Falls Down.

Red Crow has gone to the Kansas prison where Lawrence Belcourt, the only man serving time for the FBI killings has summoned him.  Lawrence tells Red Crow that Gina was angry and dejected after she last saw him and told him she was going to see "the only man alive who could get me out of here".  Red Crow realises who he means, "he wouldn't".  Lawrence replies, "wouldn't he?"

Red Crow says Catcher loves Gina, but Lawrence says could either of them say how Catcher would react to her asking him to turn himself in.  Red Crow is quiet for a moment then askes Lawrence what he would have him do.  Lawrence says he isn't asking, "you know what to do."  He then tells Red Crow to stop paying off guys to keep in safe, he'd rather get hurt, he'd rather die than be saved by Red Crow.  He then says he hears Hassell Rock Medicine is standing against him, so he better do what he is going to for Gina fast.  Red Crow wishes him a long life and departs.  Outside the prison, Red Crow's face contorts in rage as he calls Shunka to find Catcher.

Back with Falls Down, he's not doing well as he trips and falls onto a load of broken glass.  Catcher says the Thunder Beings don't seem to be giving him much help.  Falls Down says the Thunder Beings have nothing to do with this, he's here because he knows he killed Gina.  Catcher says he did, killed the only woman he ever loved.  He didn't mean to but he did.  But Falls Down needs to be more concerned with his own shortcomings and he yanks Falls Down to his knees.

Falls Down says he isn't playing along anymore, no one up there is listening to Catcher, least of all God.   Catcher gets angry and tells him not to blaspheme.  Falls Down says "it wasn't God who made you do those things Catcher.  It was you.  It's always been you."  Catcher says he is only trying to help.  Falls Down says he saw the blood splatters in his trailer, Gina didn't seem to appreciate his help.  "Sometimes... folks is beyond help" says Catcher.

Falls Down says that's him, and if he means to kill him, to shut up and get it over with "you pathetic piece of shit".  Catcher holsters his gun and brings out his knife.  And sticks it into Falls Down's side.  We cut back to Lawrence, thinking of all the ways death could come for him in prison, now he's on his own.  Then we see Falls Down still alive, swearing at Catcher who says he doesn't deserve a quick death.  Then suddenly Falls Down seems to hear a voice talking to him and it appears to be Gina.

A mystical saviour.

Falls Down stands and starts walking, negociating the traps as he does so as Catcher panics saying he can't be talking to Gina, that Falls Down is lying.  But we see Falls Down being lead by a fox spirit out of the cave and he finally reaches the outside, declares victory and promptly collapses with the blood from his side wound spreading across the snow. 

Meanwhile Lawrence is back in his cell, he didn't die today, he wonders if no one cares.  He doesn't know what scares him more, the thought of being murdered in prison, or to be "simply forgotten". Catcher goes and breaks into Dash's house, he tells him that he's come to offer Dash his help "assuming you're still worthy of it". He is going to tell him who killed his mother and then "I'm gonna help ya kill him."

We then get a chapter catching us up with Dino Poor Bear and Carol who is living at the Poor Bears and training under Granny now.  We get an ominous start as we see Dino unblocking a toilet at his work in the casino and the narration states:

Narration: "Years later, people would wonder just when it happened.  When he changed.  When he became the man nobody ever expected him to be.   Some would say it was when he lost his eye.  Others wuld guess the change came much later, aftr things on the rez got really bad."

But they'd all be wrong, it all started with a girl he never met and had nothing to do with her death,  a fourteen year old called Brandy Two Trees who was the victim of a hit-and-run and that a reward was offered for information regarding her killers.

We then cut to him and Carol driving to White Haven to pick up some things. Dino finds Carol in the jewellry shop trying on some earrings just for fun.  Dino watches her through the window, smitten and they go for lunch.  Dino is recounting what happened to his eye when a boorish gentleman comes up and hits on Carol, but she clasps Dino's hands and says "I'm with him."  Dino once again goes quiet and looks at her with surprised intensity.

Dino is definitely in love.

They go to the car, but Dino goes back to the jewellry shop and tries to buy the earrings but doesn't have enough money.  Later that day he walks in on a happy Carol bathing his daughter Angie, while he looks on them both with love.  He goes to his friend Griff's house asking if he wants to do a run getting cold medicine for the local meth cookers but Griff slams the door in his face saying he isn't driving anywhere right now.  Dino goes and checks Griff's car and finds a dented bumper and blood.

While at work he hears the news that a $5000 reward is being offered for information on Brandy Two Trees killers.  He sees it on the news at home as well and runs out feeling torn.  He finds Carol outside crying.  She says she feels so guilty about the girl who died.  She says it doesn't seem right that her family should be so miserable, "when I've been so happy."  She looks at Dino and says that they have all saved her and she is so glad she found them.  "'I'm so glad I found you' that's all Dino heard" says the narration, "It was more than enough".

Next day he goes to Red Crow and informs him of who killed Brandy Two Trees, and we see a news report saying his three friends were arrested and confessed to the hit-and-run while intoxicated. Dino comes into Carol's room holding the box with the earrings in.  She wakes up saying she was having the weirdest dream.  She was pregnant then had the baby and everyone was there, even Dash.  And he seemed so happy.

She admits she's been thinking about contacting him again, that there still might be something between them. She apologises for dumping her problems on Dino then she tells him she loves talking to him, "I've never had a brother before, you know. But now I feel like I do."  At that a crushed Dino leaves and goes off for a walk, tossing the earrings in a dumpster on the way.

And with that, a grim new path is chosen,

The narration closes out this chapter.  It tells us that we all choose the roads we walk down, but people can also be pushed toward a road they never would've suspected.  And that's what happened to Dino, "he got pushed".  And now he has a choice coming.

Narration: "This new road that's waiting for him with all it's little surprises... all the anger and despair.  All the sickness.  All the killin'.  Well... that'll all come later".

We start the next chapter with a naked Dash outside contemplating a spiderweb.  He thinks about how a mans fate can be decided in a single moment but sometimes it's a whole series of moments, "all reflecting what was decided a long time ago".  And we see him think of Red Crow who tells him it's now or never, Nitz who wants to know what is so important and Catcher saying whatever he chooses, somebody will die.

One moment made of many moments.

We go back in time a few days, Red Crow has just finished addressing a re-election meeting when Shunka delivers him the news.  Sheriff Karnow has been turning up the heat along the border, big time. "Karnow?  Since when is he anything but a joke?" says Red Crow.  Since now it seems also Lawrence Belcourt wants to meet with Red Crow too. Shunka and Dash eye each other and Dash whispers "whenever you feel like it sweetheart" to Shunka.  Red Crow calls Dash away saying they'll be back in a day and everything will have to wait.  "No I don't think it will" mutters Shunka as they leave.

Red Crow and Dash are walking back to their car carrying groceries and Red Crow says Dash and Shunka need to knock it off especially as the whole rez is watching now.  Waiting by the car is Nitz and a couple of agents.  Nitz tells Red Crow he's a hero now because of the terrorists he killed.  Then he sees Dash and taunts him over his mother's death then punches him in the stomach. He leaves and Dash asks Red Crow who that "asshole" was, Red Crow says never mind.

He takes Dash to a sweatlodge tent he has set up and they both sit inside naked and in silence before Red Crow admits he loved Dash's mother

Red Crow: "And for far too brief a moment... she loved me.  But all I ever did was push her away.  I have more than my share of regrets.  God knows I do.  But none greater than her."

Dash admits he never knew her, never tried to know her and now she is gone... he tails off.  Red Crow tells him tonight is for cleansing the both of them.  Dash sits and watches the smoke and suddenly it transforms into a demonic face saying his name is Diesel and he is still where Dash left him.

Meditation time.

Red Crow wakes Dash up, he'd fallen asleep and they leave the tent, still naked, and go running.  They jump into an ice cold river and swim across it.  Red Crow tells Dash to call him Lincoln and to watch the sun rise with him. He then tells Dash that he'll tell him anything he wants to know, everything.  If he wants to know where the bodies are buried, "the door's open.  If you're ready to walk through.  All I need to know at the end of the day.. can I trust you?"

Red Crow: "Can I trust you to follow my orders and to carry on after I'm gone? Can I trust you to make the hard choices to do what's best for the rez.  No matter what it costs you?  Can I trust you to let go of your mother?"

Das asks why he wants him to let go when his mother's murderer is still out there?  Red Crow says if they find out who it was they will make him pay, both of them.  But he can't have him stirring up shit on the rez right now. The sun is coming up, he needs to hear Dash say it, "now or never".  We don't hear what Dash says as we cut to him in the FBI motel base.

Dash tells Nitz he has Red Crow. Then we jump forwards to Catcher in Dash's room saying he'll take him to the man who killed Gina, but he has a choice to make.  Falls Down is out there dying, the choice is go to confront his mother's murderer or help Falls Down.  They can only do one tonight.  Then we jump back to Dash telling Red Crow he is like a father to him and he can trust him, one-hundred percent.  Then we're back with the FBI saying that two more weeks and he'll be able to bring Red Crow down.  Finally he tells Catcher to take him to who killed his mother. As Dash gets his gun, Catcher mumbles to himself that he thought Dash was ready, then they both set off into the night.

They take a lengthy drive in Dash's truck.  Catcher starts describing the person who murdered Gina but of course he's describing himself.  He's old, lives alone, no one will miss him when he is gone, he's been waiting to die for a long time.  "When we kill him we'll be doing the poor bastard a favour" he tells Dash.  This person didn't even mean to kill Gina, maybe it was God or he could just be crazy.

Dash grows irritated saying he better not be getting dragged out to commune with the spirits.  Catcher tells him to keep driving.   He asks Dash if he is ready to kill a man he doesn't even know.  Dash says he's here isn't he? Catcher tells him this man has been watching Dash since he returned, he knew he was the one meant to kill and replace him.   But there is one last trial.  And when Dash was given the choice back at the house he picked the wrong one, he "let us all down son.  I'm sorry." He points a gun at Dash's head, but Dash sees Falls Down struggling along and swerves and the bullet passes through his cheek instead.  The truck hits a tree.

At Hassell Rock Medicine's house, Red Crow is there praying for "understanding".  Hassell says is it for the will of God or the will of Red Crow?  Red Crow say he prays for the understanding of everyone, Hassell included.  Hassell tells him he's not praying for understanding, he's praying for "vindication".  He wants a sign that God is on his side, that he always has been.

Red Crow: "I'm not looking for nobody's blessing.  Not even God's.  That ain't coming, and I know it.  I just want to see... I want you to see.. than a man is better than the worst of his deeds."

He stands saying that sacrifices have to be made for the betterment of all.  And if his soul is that sacrifice so be it.  All of a sudden Hassell clutches his chest and starts gasping, he is having a heart attack.

Dash and Catcher have a very close range gun fight.

Back in Dash's crashed truck, he manages to pull his gun and fires at Catcher who had been briefly stunned by the collision.  He manages to escape and Dash, nursing a shattered face staggers away from the crash site and finds Falls Down.  Meanwhile Hassell writhes on the floor in agony and Red Crow just watches. The injured Catcher sees his horse Festus and calls him over, but Festus walks past him as Catcher yells, "I only did what I was told!"
Later in the casino office Shunka congratulates Red Crow on what happened to Hassell.  Red Crow just says that he almost let him die.  He hesitated before calling 911.  The man who raised him, "the most decent man I've ever known."  Shunka says he won't be running against him now anyway because he's in hospital and they have work to do now.  Red Crow then gives the order, "shut it down."  He wants his whole drugs empire to be closed.  He said he was praying for a sign and he got one.

Meanwhile Dash is carrying Falls Down back into town, when Festus comes along and lets them both ride on him.  We finish up with Catcher in hospital who had been discovered wandering across the highway gutshot saying "Festus" over over. They put him in a room with their other Indian  who turns out to be Wade, also cuffed to the bed.  And that brings this story arc to a close.

An unlikely rescuer!

The pieces are being put in place for the finale now.  With many players playing different angles. Sheriff Karnow, so far something of a joke character turns out to be someone who when faced with the kind of man he pretended to be decided to start trying to live up to the legend he created round himself.  Nitz is still blinded by hatred and his blinkers don't allow him to see anyone but Red Crow as the man he believes is guilty.  Red Crow however has been showing disillusionment with his hyper-capitalist attitude and it feels like opening the casino has not been the key to happiness he thought it would be.  His grooming of Dash to replace him as tribal leader as well as his interactions with Hassell Rock Medicine show that taking care of the rez and the people on it has become more important to him as he regains his sense of spirituality.  Catcher himself remains the pain in the arse he's been the whole series.  The question is he just using madness or visions from God as an excuse to carry out murders in a self serving manner or is he genuinely seeing and hearing instructions from beyond. An added wrinkle to this is when Falls Down has a fox spirit show him the way out of the booby trapped cave as Gina maybe speaks to him from beyond.  But now even Festus has abandoned Catcher and he'll go even further off the rails in the final books.  Dash is placed in an interesting position in this story, he now has Red Crow's complete trust, even though Shunka knows he is hiding something (and Shunka should know about leading a double life) and he is going to use that trust to sell Red Crow out to the FBI so he can finally leave the rez.  We'll see how that pans out along with Red Crow making the momentus decision to shut down his drugs operation in the penultimate volume, "Knuckle Up."  See you in a few days.

Scalped Book 7: Rez Blues (#35-42) PART ONE

"It should go without saying.  But I'll say it anyways.  This never happened" - Shunka

Time for the ongoing FBI investigation to go on hold for some more character studies.  Because this volume is more than seven chapters I have split it into two parts.  This actually works out very well as the first four chapters are two done-in-ones and a two-parter, and the rest is one four part arc.  So I am doing the three stories first with part two covering the four-parter in a few days time.   So as you probably know by now Scalped is the story of Dashiell Bad Horse's undercover FBI investigation into tribal leader and casino owner Red Crow set on the fictional Prairie Rose reservation.  Red Crow is something of criminal mastermind who has killed and schemed his way to the top his whole life. The tribal police bar a couple of exceptions is in his pocket and although he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, has his right-hand man Shunka do much of his enforcing.  We haven't learned much about Shunka so far except that's he's a glowering intimidatory prescence, devoted to Red Crow and always waiting for Dash to fuck up. This two-parter takes a look at the man with a surprising revelation about him.  The other two one-shots tell the story of an elderly Indian couple still working the rez and trying to stay self sufficient in their twilight years.  The other focuses on Dash's deadbeat dad Wade who so far has only been seen doing drugs around Dash when he was a little boy.  His story also gives us a very interesting thing that Dash and he have in common.  So without further ado, let us dig in.

LISTENING TO THE EARTH TURN:  Art by Danijel Zezelj (apologies if tht's wrong, his name is spelled two different ways on the cover and the credits page), the first fill-in artist whose work is up to R.M Guera's standard. He also did some fill-ins for DMZ.  We're introduced to Mance and Hazel making their way through heavy snow to their home, freezing cold, every step an effort.  Hazel stumbles and Mance catches her saying they are almost home.

Hazel and Mance.

We then go back in time a few days, Mance is working in the garden thinking how he's a man of simple pleasures. He likes doing the harvesting on his own as he likes being lost in his own thoughts working the same land his daddy worked and his daddy before him.  They live far away from the centre of town:

Mance: "Back when the rez was formed, the only Indians lived near town were the ones who had given up the fight and sold out.  The real Indians lived out as far from town as they could get.  The further out the more real you were".

He brings the last of the turnips to Hazel who is cooking.  She thinks to herself, "it ain't enough".  The garden used to be all they needed to sustain themselves but this year she had kidney troubles and Mance broke his ankle and now they don't have enough to support themselves anymore.  It's going to be a long hard winter and for the first time in forty-three years, "I don't know if we can make it."

They have a quiet meal, and afterwards Mance also thinks that they don't have enough food.  He thinks he let Hazel down not being able to bring the garden in this year.  If he can't do that "then what the hell good am I?" Hazel does some sewing and thinks that it was the well water that gave her kidney troubles, people said it is contaminated thanks to the uranium mining going on close by.  Mance had to tend to her and wasn't able to bring the garden in as usual.

He smokes his pipe in secret although Hazel knows he does spend money on tabacco, Mance gets a small pension and some social security so they can get groceries and Hazel's medicine.   She sells a quilt here and there, which gives them enough money to keep flowers on their son's grave.  He was in the army and died in an accident when his jeep flipped, no medals just a folded flag they keep upstairs in a chest.

Mance and Hazel, very much in love still.

They lie in bed together worrying seperately and listening to the sound of military aircraft flying low over their home. Mance thinks, "we ain't talking about what we really wanna talk about."  They both think they have not enough food and no money and that leaves them only one thing to do.  He doesn't want to say it, but he'll have to go into town.  He finally speaks the words even as he thinks Hazel is ashamed of him.  She holds him and tells him he's a good man, who has nothing to be ashamed of.  And they both think how much they love each other.

Next day he drives into town to the place he has been dreading, the "Nutrition Assistance" place where free food is handed out. He puts it off by doing some chores and catching up with friends, but finally he has to go, for the first time ever he needs a handout.   He loads up a box then he is handed a pencil and told to sign:

Mance: "I've fasted for eight days and hung by hooks from a sun dance pole until my flesh tore.  I've killed snakes big enough to eat a baby and reeled in paddlefish the size of small cows.  I once killed a coyote with nothing but a pocket knife.  I buried my only son and didn't cry.  But I ain't never done nothing as hard as this."

And he manages to force himself to sign for the goods.  He walks out feeling like a criminal like he's been forced to admit to the crime of being poor.  But thinking about being blessed to have Hazel in his life, he suddenly feels like a "very rich man" indeed.

Hard thing for a proud man to do

Later he brings in the firewood and finds her collapses on the floor.  He puts her to bed and think he should have forced her to go to hospital.  But she is thinking about how her mother died in hospital, "a cold and miserable way to go"   She was terrified and ashamed, so Hazel wants to die in her own bed or die on her feet.   Mance says he'll go into town to get her some medicine and she says she'll come with him.

As they drive she thinks about when they were young and would take drives all the time, making love the first time by the French Creek.  They never seem to drive anywhere now except for going into town and funerals, "so many funerals".  They make it into town and get the drugs Hazel needs, but on the way back home the truck's engine dies.  They walk through the snow and we get to the scene at the start with Hazel collapsing and admitting she's scared.  Mance cups her face and says he isn't scared and talks about the first time they made love.

When they did she blurted out that she loved him and he said they shouldn't rush into anything.  The reason he said that was because he was scared of growing up, and when he realised that a couple of days later he also realised he loved her. If he loved her and she loved him, "that'd take us about as far as we ever wanted to go."  He's never been scared since especially not of a bit of snow.  And that gives her strength to start walking again. 

They get within visual distance of their house and suddenly a military jet smashes into it, the shockwave hits them and they are both badly injured.  As they lie in the snow, Mance looking back on what happened narrates that the young pilot lost his way in the snow.  He was killed and they were barely hanging on, they both woke up in hospital full of tubes with Hazel saying she wanted to go, she didn't want to die in hospital, but they didn't die. Not that day.

Suddenly an aircraft!

Mance ended up full of screws and Hazel's kidney problems were brought under control so now she feels, "fair to middlin' again".  When they got out of hospital the military gave them a bunch of money and their friends all started looking for a place near town for them.  But they don't want to move and we end with the image of the pair of them checking over a blueprint for a new house where the old one was, holding hands as they do so.

THE FINE ACTION OF AN HONOURABLE AND CATHOLIC SPANIARD: Now the two-parter where we take a peek into Shunka's personal life.  Unfortunately the artist is Davide Furno, my least favorite of all the fill-in artists.  The story is narrated by a man called Joseph Crane.

He begins by saying he never knew much about the man called Shunka.   But he gets the feeling no one ever does.   He knows Shunka means "dog" in the Lakota language but he has no idea if that's his real name.   He knows he lives on the Prairie Rose reservation in South Dakota but he doesn't think he was born there.   He knows he works closely with the tribal leader Red Crow but doesn't know how he feels about the man.  He knows he's done some horrible things, "I know he has his share of secrets like the one that brought him to my house".

We see Shunka inside Joseph's house pointing a gun at him.   But Joseph says he knows he didn't come here to kill him. Shunka demands to know what he knows about him.  Joseph says he sees a man burdened by his secrets.  Shunka yells he's fucking lying and who told him?  Joseph says he didn't know for sure until Shunka came here tonight.  He stands up and when Shunka says he came to kill him, Joseph says "no you didn't.  Why did you come here?"  Shunka glowers then grabs Joseph and plants a passionate kiss on his lips.

Did not see that coming!

We cut to earlier and Shunka arriving at the "Potawatomi Palace Casino and Hotel".  After a tussle with the security that leaves one man downed covered in blood and the other having pissed himself in fear, the tribal elders come rushing up.  Turns out Red Crow sent him on a mission here because they have all the best acts and he thinks they've been telling people's management not to come to he Prairie Rose casino.

The leader says if Red Crow needs help booking acts he'll do so, but first could Shunka deal with a problem for them.  Their ex-tribal leader Joseph Crane who had united the tribe and had the idea of setting up a casino came out of the closet a year ago, "he's a berdache.  A gay.  And apparently quite proud of it all of a sudden."  He got voted out as tribal leader because they can't abide that sort of behaviour but he's making noises and wanting to have a Pride protest outside the casino.  Could Shunka maybe discourage him?  "How discouraging do you want me to be?" Shunka asks.

The tribal leader, "Bobby" Greenwood and Shunka visit Joseph.   Joseph says they didn't mind him speaking out when he was making them money.  Bobby says he should have stayed in the closet instead of telling the whole world his bedroom habits.

Joseph: "Right.  It's my fault for not being able to stick to a steady diet of strippers and barely legal cokeheads like you and the rest of the fine, upstanding gentlemen on the council do."

Greenwood says he's a sodomite rubbing everyone's face in it. Joseph says he gets a sackful of hatemail every day from people trying to "discourage" him.  And the occasional brick through his window.  Soon he believes someone with work up from a brick to a bullet.

He says if he's going to die it'll be as himself, "it's not healthy to live with secrets like that for so long".  Those kinds of secrets can eat a man alive and he starts staring at Shunka as he says that saying he looks like a man who knows a thing or two about secrets.  Shunka lunges at him and grabs Joseph by the collar saying if he wants to fuck boys, fuck them but "no parades, not ever."  And he tosses Joseph to the ground.

Hot man on man action time.

That night the tribal elders soak in a swimming pool and joke about putting the fear of Shunka into Joseph while he stands aloof drinking and a sex-worker says he can fuck her, she's already paid for.  Then we cut to Joseph and Shunka in a passionate clinch and they get to the fucking themselves.

Joseph: "He fucked angry  He didn't fuck out of hate or disgust or self-loathing.  He fucked like a man of intensity,  He fucked like a soldier on the eve of battle.  He fucked like a thing made of concrete and fire.  He fucked for hours."

Afterwards Joseph reflects, "he wasn't the best I ever had.  But he was close."  Shunka gets dressed say this never happened.   Joseph says Shunka must have a lot of nights like that, quick hook-ups when he gets out of town and can let his guard down.  He tells him it's not healthy, Shunka says meddling in his affairs isn't healthy.

Joseph starts to give him a lecture about the history of LGBT people in various Indian cultures.   Apparently almost every tribe had special classifications and roles for gay and transgender people, the "two-spirits" as some were called.  The Cheyenne had the "Hemanah" who served as matchmakers and medicine men.  Amongst the Navajo the "Nadleeh" worked as marriage counselors.  For the Lakota the "Winkte were teachers and prophets."

He goes on saying some tribes had up to seven different genders and the people were not only accepted but often revered.  It was only when the Christians came that "gender diversity suddenly became a bad thing". A monk wrote about a conquistador called Balboa who when he saw native men dressed as women had them fed to the dogs.  The monk called it "a fine action of an honourable Catholic and Spaniard".  He asks what Shunka thinks about that but Shunka just leaves without saying a word.

After that night Joseph narrates that he never thought he'd see Shunka again.  We see Shunka on the phone to Red Crow say he wants to hang around a few days as a vacation, Red Crow asks "what's her name?"  Then tells him to enjoy himself and hangs up.  Joseph wonders if he stuck around because of him, but thinks it more likely Shunka just needed a break.

Joseph: "Maybe he needed a break from the lie that leads back home.  Maybe go somewhere deep, deep down inside he was secretly hoping to trip up and get himself outed.  Whatever the reason. I knew he'd never dare come see me again. So I went to him".

We see him approach Shunka in the casino and whisper in his ear that he needs his help, but Shunka says to keep the fuck away from him or he's dead.  Joseph says he is dead if Shunka doesn't help him. But Shunka just tells him to stay away again and walks off. Then Greenwood slings Joseph out of the casino.

The proverbial straw for Shunka.

The next day Shunka is getting a taxi to the airport but traffic is backed up because there's been a murder. Shunka goes to take a look and sees it's Joseph's house.  Joseph says he'd been shot point blank in the face, "I was dead."  He says you couldn't blame Shunka for leaving, he didn't owe Joseph anything.  It would be crazy to stay and would involve a lot of bloodshed.  We see Shunka in the taxi leaving the rez.  He mutters about the "a fine action of an honourable Catholic and Spaniard" to himself.  He tells the taxi driver to pull over and strides back into the rez.

We then cut to Shunka looking into a bathroom mirror where the three tribal council members are sitting in and around a swimming pool. Joseph narrates that that when he was growing up his father was a medicine man and was extremely respected, but he got cancer and passed on his duties to a man who was known to be a two-spirit.  Gay.  That's when Joseph learned the history of LGBT people in Indian culture.

But his father died and as the members of the tribe who remembered the old days also died off people stopped going to that medicine man, "they started giggling about him behind his back or even snubbing him to his face."  His friends would make crude jokes and he'd laugh along with them, hating himself as he did so.   He doesn't know what Shunka was thinking that night but it might have been a similar story from his own upbringing.

Joseph: "I couldn't tell you exactly the sort of forces had shaped him over the years and led him to that point in his life.  But if he was like me, then he was sick of being despised for who he is.  He was an angry gay Indian with a gun... and he'd had enough".

He walks back into the pool room where one is relating a crude anecdote.  Greenwood says he though Shunka had snuck off without saying goodbye.  Does Shunka have any questions about "dead queers" or are they done?  Shunka pauses and then says there is one more thing and he turns and unloads two pistols worth of ammo into them.

One pissed off gay Indian.

We jump to a few hours earlier.  Shunka is sitting in a bar scowling.  Two men discuss Josephs death which is being spun as a suicide.  One of them says he obviously "could't live with being a butt fucker no more".  Shunka leaves his drink undrunk and departs the bar.  He breaks into the crime scene and immediately realises it was a murder which had been tampered with to look like suicide.

We see him approach the casino as Joseph tells us Shunka must have been wondering why he was here, risking discovery for a man he fucked once and didn't know.   A man who didn't save Joseph when he had the chance and meant nothing to him.  He probably came up with no answers except what happened next.  He walks into the pool room and confronts them over the messed with crime scene.  Greenwood asks what the "hell business is it of yours?"

Shunka says he was taken to the house to inimidate Joseph and he wants to make sure he isn't being set up.   Greenwood says they don't work like Red Crow.  Shunka says he's right about that.  Greenwood says that Joseph's death makes him happy.  He had nothing to do with his death though, Joseph was a sinner who flaunted his lifestyle and his end was bound to be violent.

He says when he was young his father told him when he was a boy he saw tribal elders lynch a man for "turning queer" so Joseph got off lightly, and he's burning in hell now.  People round there won't care about his death, they'll move on and so should Shunka.  Shunka asks if Greenwood has ever killed a man with his bare hands.  When you do that you're as intimate as lovers and sometimes "when I'm putting a man down, my dick gets hard" so does that make him a faggot?  Greenwood says it doesn't but it makes him a dangerous man he's glad to have on his side.  Shunka asks where the bathroom is.

Back in the bathroom, Joseph says he isn't foolish enough to think he was being avenged.  He was angry at those men for what they represented. 

Joseph: "A world where he would always have to hide.  To sneak around in the shadows to live in shame.  I think Shunka looked out at that world and for the first time in his life he admitted to himself... he wanted it to die.  He wanted to kill it. So he did.  He killed as much of it as he could."

And we're back with him shooting the three men.  Two die immediately, Greenwood manages to gurgle out out a "fuck... you".  And Shunka curb-stomps him on the edge of the pool.  He looks over the scene of carnage and then leaves.

Catharsis.

Joseph says he could have walked away that night and no one would know he had been there.  Instead he broke into the coroners office to get a look at Joseph's body.   Maybe he still wasn't convinced Joseph was dead.  Maybe it was his way of saying goodbye. Joseph never expected him to do that, and Shunka certainly wasn't expecting what he found.

Come the next day he walks to Joseph's house and kicks down his door demanding to know where Joseph is.  Joseph stands in front of him saying "let me guess you're not here to fuck me this time."  It turns out Joseph had a plan and it was his assissant  who killed himself and his body mistakenly was identified as Joseph's.  Joseph was "away on business" and was unaware of the what happened until tonight where he has just got back from sorting things about with the sheriff.

Oh and because of "the incident" at the casino where Chief Greenwood and some other members of the tribal council were killed, he's now tribal chief again, "funny how things turn out, isn't it?"  Shunka realises he'd been set up from the start.  Joseph says he has no idea what Shunka is talking about.  Shunka says he used him to kill those men, Joseph denies it.  "Fuck you Crane" says Shunka. "Yes. You did, didn't you and quite enjoyed it remember?" responds Joseph. Shunka puts a gun to his head but Joseph has henchmen now and they pull guns too.

Joseph, totally not dead.

Joseph thinks as he looks into Shunka's eyes that some people might look at Shunka and see only a mindless, hired gun of a killer.  He sees much more.  He saw in Shunka's eyes the desire to kill him more than he'd ever wanted to kill someone in his life.  But Shunka didn't, "and that makes me fear him all the more."  Joseph tells Shunka to have a nice trip back home and to tell Red Crow the new chief doesn't deal with thugs and criminals.  As Shunka goes, Joseph says his secret is safe with him.

Back on the rez Red Crow knocks on Shunka's door and asked what the fuck happened.  Shunka says it's better Red Crow doesn't know.  Red Crow says he fucked up and Shunka agrees.  He opens his door to show a woman in his bed, so Red Crow says to meet him at the casino when he's done.  When he's gone Shunka tosses the woman her cash and tells her to fuck off much to her confusion as they haven't had sex yet.  And our final image of this two-parter is Shunka, stony-faced, half-dressed, sharpening his combat knife...

Alone again.

FAMILY TRADITION: R.M Guera is back on art duties again as we finally get some backstory on Wade, Dash's dad.  He narrates that his great, great grandfather was a scout for the U.S. Marshals.  His great grandfather was in a submarine that sank during World War One. His grandfather flew combat missions during World War 2 but was shot down over the Philippines.  His dad froze to death in 1950 during the Korean War and Wade was born the very next day.

Now he's here in 1969 "carrying on the family tradition of fighting and dying for a country that never gave a damn about us."  And he stumbles over a tripwire in the jungles of Vietnam but the "bouncing Betty" grenade attached to it is a dud and doesn't explode.   His squad call him the "luckiest son of a bitch alive."  He was charmed.

Next brush with death is when a sniper rifle bullet bounces off his helmet and just gives him a headache. His squad laugh it up about his good luck. Next day him and two others are caught out in the open, they are cut to ribbons, he isn't even scratched, "this time there's no laughing."  He doesn't even tell them about the King Cobra that climbed out of his sleeping bag one night.   As he hears it bite someone else he doesn't feel charmed, he feels cursed.

Three weeks later they charge up a hill and mortars start falling, everything goes black and he thinks he's dying.  He's found the next day sitting there, the only survivor of a massacre, "the whole fucking platoon."  The chaplin says he was saved by God for a great destiny, he was given his papers and told he was free to leave the army, "free to face my destiny".

Wade and his destiny.

Six years later we see him laying in bed with a Vietnamese woman smoking what looks like opium.  The woman asks if he is leaving and he says yes today would be the day to do it.  She wants to come with him saying she'll be a good wife and give him lots of kids.  Wade asks what would he want with kids, he can barely look after himself.  She calls him a fucking asshole and without anger he says "yeah.  I know."

Now he's going to make one last deal before this place goes up in flames.  She says she'll be here when he comes back but he says he isn't come back.  She calls him a coward and that everyone says "Wade the Indian, he big fucking coward".  She says he's too scared to go home, too scared to stay here.  Where is he going to go now?  "Hell. I guess.  If it'll have me."

It's April 29th, 1975.  Saigon.  He hasn't much time, the NVA are encircling the city and the South Vietnamese government is crumbling.  The American embassy is being evacuated.  Once the troops roll in the Vietnam war will be officially history.  Everyone is trying to get out except for him, he still has a job to finish.

He meets up with a dope dealer he's been working with.  The man asks him how Wade thinks he'll smuggle sixty pounds of heroin out of the city.  Wade says he hasn't given it much thought.  The man says they had quite a run and their two friends back in the states must be disappointed.  They are great men the man says, Wade says they're "fucking bastards". The man asks why he works for them, and Wade says he's a bastard too.

Wade and his drug hook-up.

The dealer asks about the rumours that Wade can't be killed.  Wade says if they stick around when the NVA roll in they'll find out.  The man says he is going to Laos next, where he'll continue to produce heroin.  Vietnam has been good to him but the communists can have it now, he has two crates of poppy seeds, thirteen suitcases of US currency and even his work force.  He doesn't want to leave them behind now he has them specially trained.

He says his business will continue, Wade must also be a rich man but Wade says he spent the money he's dirt poor.  The dealer says is Wade heading home to South Dakota which he told him was a shithole.  But Wade says it's "the most beautiful place on Earth".  He trails off and looks at the workforce crammed in the back of a truck and sees them as Indians.   He drops his bags of drugs and shoots the dealer through the head and takes down his non-workforce men. 

The workforce get out of the truck as Wade says "I'm so sorry. God. I'm so sorry" and hands one of them his gun telling him to use it on him he deserves it.  But the man doesn't shoot him, he just spits on him and they walk off leaving a devastated Wade still kneeling on the ground. He leaves his bags of drugs and races to the embassy where the last choppers are evacuating Americans, he manages to make it aboard one, a soldier grabs his hand and pulls him up.  His name is Dashiell, Wade says he likes that name.

Wade comes to the rez.

Back in the USA he drives to the Prairie Rose rez and who should he be meeting but FBI agents Bayer and Berntson the two killed by Catcher and whose deaths are fuelling Agent Nitz's present day mission of vengeance.   They tell Wade they are suprised he didn't die over there, they heard the commies killed the dealer and his whole crew so Wade got out in the nick of time.  They've now got more work for him.

We get a flashback to when the two agents were MPs in Vietnam were they first offered Wade a job running drugs.  His new job will be legit this time, as they tell him he'll be working for the FBI.  Wade imagines himself killing both of them but doesn't draw his gun.

Wade: "I'm a coward.  I will always be a coward.  I should have died in Vietnam.  This is not my destiny.  Then again...maybe I've found my destiny after all."

And as he says that he sees a photo of Gina Bad Horse in the file the agents have on the Dog Soldiers who they want him to infiltrate.   And that brings his backstory to an end.

A greater destiny awaits.

Well some amazing character work in these three stories.  The story of Mance and Hazel was just what was needed after seeing so many failed and destructive relationships in the series.  Their love for each other is so pure and beautiful I found the story profoundly moving.  And the great art from Danijel Zezelj really complimented the story too.  Shunka's story despite sub-par art is also superb.  When I turned the page to see him lay a massive smooch on Joseph I was completely surprised.  I have never been in the closet myself, but I dated a woman in the US military for a while when being found to be gay was ground for being kicked out so she was a similar "Armour Closet Gay" as TV Tropes would have it.  And I recognised a lot of the same burdens of secrets, having to pretend to be someone she wasn't and only able to let her guard down round at my flat.  So I found myself really sympathising with him and his double life and it explains a lot about his attitude towards Dash which will be fully revealed in a couple of volumes time.  And of course we get yet another character living a lie, an on-going theme of the series.  The history lessons Joseph gives us are fascinating, I don't know how rose-tinted they are, but it's still interesting to know and sad that the acceptance of LGBT now in Indian circles isn't what it one was thanks to the corrupting influence of westerners and the Christian church.  I have to applaud Joseph despite his rather cruel manipulation of Shunka, it was a hell of a plan to get back to being the tribal chief, he really knew which buttons to press in the taciturn man.  Finally we have Wade's story, he always comes across as a someone pathetic individual and I have to wonder what Gina saw in him.  Tying him to the murdered FBI agents was very clever, and shows the "saints" that Nitz paints them at were just as grubby and corrupt as Nitz's ex-wife Marci said they were as well as explaining why they were coming onto the reservation clandestinally, and who the FBI mole
 was. All-in-all fantastic story telling and character work from Jason Aaron.  Come back in a few days for part two which will move focus onto Carol's story.

Scalped Book 5: High Lonesome (#25-29)

"I swear to you I'll save your son" - Catcher

Continuing with our look at Scalped, the crime thriller set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian reservation. The backstory is that in 1975 two FBI agents were murdered on the rez by one of a group of four Indian radicals, Lincoln Red Crow, Gina Bad Horse, a man known as Catcher and the one man found guilty of the crime, Lawrence Belcourt who is serving life in prison. Another FBI agent called Nitz has fixated on bringing the other three to justice and has placed Gina's son Dashiell who is also an FBI agent undercover on the rez to find any murders he can pin on Red Crow.  Gina has also been murdered by Catcher, although only we the audience know he did it right now.  Dashiell is having a hard time coping with the stress of being undercover, where one wrong move will mean his death and in the previous book began a heroin habit to help deal with it.  Red Crow has headaches of his own, his new casino was part-funded by money from an East Asian criminal gang and their leader Johnny Tongue sent his sadistic enforcer Mr. Brass to deal with any extra-curricular crimes that might threaten his investments.  At the end of the previous book, Red Crow discovered Mr. Brass gouging out the eye of Dino Poor Bear and broke Mr.Brass's nose before having him arrested.  This plotline goes on hold for this volume as we get to see just how close to bottom Dash's life has quickly become as well as some one-shots exploring already established characters further as we hit the halfway point of the series. Artists are R.M. Guera who did issues one, four and five.  Davide Furno did two and Francesco Francavilla three.

THIS THEN IS THE REZ: An unseen narrator tells us that in 1876 Crazy Horse dreamed himself into the world and Custer got what was coming to him on the banks of the Little Bighorn.  In 1890 the Lakota believe the "Ghost Dance" will protect them from bullets.  They were wrong and at a place called Wounded Knee there is a massacre.  By the end of the century the Lakota warchiefs have all been murdered.  The Black Hills ripped of their gold and a great reservation reduced to tattered scraps of the least desirable land. Then the Christians came and beat them for speaking their native tongue and worshipping the wrong gods.  And then ultimately everyone forget them. But even now, over one hundred years later "they're still here".

The narrator is revealed to be a black man travelling onto the rez via a coach.  Now he's a confidence trickster who goes by many names and his real one is never told us, so to make quoting him easier I will call him "Styles" the first name he takes on in the story as he talks to an Indian travelling back to the rez, asking him why they stuck around here all those years. The Indian says it was so they could keep themselves sovereign and also keep their culture alive, "we fight back every day by surviving".

He asks Styles if he is an anthropologist, Styles just says he is a history buff.  The Indian introduces himself as "Bob Winslow" and tells Styles they have a lot of history here.  There's Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn and the Red Cloud school and also a new casino.  Styles says he might check the casino out.

"Styles"

Later as he checks into a hotel under the name "Winslow Griffith" he thinks that it's sad how that old man believes his own bullshit about "fighting back against the white man" by staying out in the middle of nowhere, dirt poor and forgotten. He himself escaped a poverty stricken childhood and believes the problem is that the Indians have "never learned to deal with the white man".  He opens his cases to reveal make-up kits and various disguise accessories.

He's gone from street hustles and email scams to multi-million dollar swindles that involve whole teams.  He was a confidence trickster and swindler, a loanshark and pimp.  He walks into the casino and sits down at his favourite game, blackjack.  He counts cards but is careful to do it in such a way he is undetected not always successfully.  Because if you are caught in a joint run by the likes of Red Crow you're in serious trouble.

Styles: "Back in the old days, I never woulda set foot in a shithole casino like this.  Especially not one run by a mad dog like Red Crow.  But things change.  When times is hard, you do what you gotta... just to get by."

Later he is admiring a pole dancer as he thinks about the most successful crew he ever ran, but one is in jail and the other dead and he's "working Injun joints in the middle of fucking nowhere". He pays the pole dancer to come back to his hotel room and have sex with him.

We cut to them post-coital.  She asks if his name is really "Moses Johnson?"  Styles says his mother was a religious freak.  He thinks that actually she was a trailer park whore.  She asks if he has kids, he says no while thinking "two or three at least".  She says she does have kids and needs to get home.  He offers her another two-hundred bucks to stay the night. He thinks:

Styles: "Fuck your kids.  You're mine now.  I bought you".

He says they don't have to have sex while he thinks of all the degrading things he wants to do to her and she can do to him. He lies about what he does when she asks then says he's never met an Indian before while thinking "tell me your secrets whore, so I can steal them.  Just keep talking so I can keep lying".

Next night he is made-up to look different and is back playing cards.   He's narrates that card counting needs to be done by a team, one counts the cards until he knows the deck is "hot" and then signals another player who swoops in and lays down the big money.  When done by yourself you have to strategically lose hands so the house doesn't get wise, "unfortunately for me, if there's one thing I ain't never been... it's patient".  And he gets a menacing hand on his shoulder.

Styles gambling away.

That night he is back with the same sex-worker.  His getting caught in the casino has affected his sexual performance and he can't get it up.   When she natters on about her being in stable employment, he repeatedly calls her a whore in his thoughts, "you beautiful little whore."  He asks her why she stays here, it's where the government left her people to die.  It's like the Jews deciding to settle at Auschwitz.

Styles: "I want to take you away from here.  I want to tell you my secrets and I want you to love me for them. I have no one.  I want you."

But as his thoughts run out of control he realises, "now I've gone and done it... now I'm even lying to myself."  She sees all the make-up in he bathroom and asks him about it but he brushes the question off to try having sex again.

Next night he's "whited up" and is playing cards while he thinks this is no way for him to be living.  He needs one last big score and this time he won't blow it on cars, pills and women. He fantasizes about "one last score and I can leave the nickel and dime life forever."  Then Dash stumbles past him and upon seeing him Styles whispers "holy fucking shit" to himself.

Outside on the payphone he rounds up some mates to help him with something he has now just planned, he just has a couple of loose ends to clean up and they need to get down here in two days.  Back in his hotel room he starts cleaning every surface as the sex-worker lies in bed watching with bemusement.  He tells her it's time to go and puts a pillow over her faces and shoots her in the head, the pillow acting as a silencer.

Styles blackmails Dash.

Then he goes back to the casino on the day his big score is planned and confronts Dash who is obviously as high as a fucking kite on smack.  Styles says he remembers Dash and he knows he's a fed, he busted him three years ago, and who must be here investigating Red Crow and if he doesn't help him rob the casino tonight he will "rat you out to Red Crow in a second.  I will sign your fucking death warrant".  And he tells a barely coherent Dash to come with him, right now.  And if you want to find out what happened next, that tale is told in the final issue of this collection so keep reading!

BEEN DOWN SO GODDAMN LONG THAT IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME: We join Britt "Diesel" Fillenworth in prison due to his murder of a woman and her twelve year old son.  And he's praying for them.  He also prays for his people, the Kickapoo, who never accepted him.  He prays for his mom who killed herself when he was ten.  He prays for his father even though he was beaten by him. 

Diesel: "About the only person I don't pray for is myself... never have.  Me and God got something of an arrangement going.  He fucks with me from on high.  And I endure.  I endure like a motherfucker.  So bring it on, God, you cocksucker you.  Diesel can hack it. Amen."

In the other cells the Indians in there mock his prayer and one-sixteenth Kickapoo identity.  They say him murdering a woman and child sounds like what a white man would do. Diesel grits his teeth and stays silent.

We go back twenty-four years and we see young Britt armed with a bow and arrow playing on his own.  Some young Indian men appear and ask what he's doing and he tells them he is being a Kickapoo brave. They say he's pretending then but Britt says he's not pretending, he's one-sixteenth Kickapoo.  Or he used to be until him and his mom got kicked of the rez because he didn't have enough Kickapoo blood.

Young Britt, desperate to be an Indian,

One of the Indian gang says he has the makings of a fine Indian and he'll talk to the head of his tribe about making him a member.  Britt just needs to be there tomorrow with a "membership fee". Britt enthusiastically agrees.  He's living with has dad now his mother is dead, his father is a deadbeat who "never taught me nothin' in life except how to take a beating".  He takes his father's money stash then goes to bed thinking he'll be "a real Indian. Acknowledged and accepted.  At last."

Next day he returns to the meeting place jumping up and down with excitement at the thought of joining their tribe which appears to be the Commanche.  He starts spouting all sorts of trivia, but the gang leader takes his money and they go and buy cigarettes. They tell him to wait there while they go to a secret tribal meeting.  So Britt says he'll wait and they drive off. He waits. And waits.  And waits.  Finally come the night he realises he's been tricked and trudges sadly back to the place he and his dad live in.

Once there he is confronted by his father who yells at him for stealing his money and thrashes Britt with his belt.  Next day a bruised and battered Britt confronts the men who took his money and attacks the leader with a knife.  He is taken down easily and the gang leader says that'll cost him another fifty bucks.  But Britt tells them where they can find a lot of money and pot too, just please stop hitting him.

He returns to the trailer.  His father is passed out drunk so Britt takes his gun and puts it by his hand. Then he quietly calls the police saying someone broke into the house.  We cut to twelve minutes later.  Britt is standing watching the Indian gang being arrested for breaking into the trailer and killing his dad.  He had told them when to come and emptied his father's gun of bullets so he'd definitely die in the shoot-out.  The cops haven't told Britt yet, they think he probably thought his life couldn't get any worse.  But he's alone now.  Britt just grins to himself and in that moment, Diesel is born.

The birth of a bad guy.

Back in the preset he contemplates the fact that after his dad's death he "gave up on the idea of ever really belonging anywhere anymore".  He was sent to an orphanage and we cut between his first day their as a kid and his exercise in the prison yard in the present.  He stabbed a kid who tried to bully him in the eye with a pencil, while the Indian that taunted him does it again and Diesel smashes his face in before using a shiv to scalp him.

Diesel: "You motherfuckers will learn to fear me, I promise you.  Even if I gotta scalp every last fucking one of you. The Diesel has spoken".

And with those defiant words, this chapter ends.

THE BALLAD OF BAYLIS EARL NITZ: It's time for some backstory on Nitz whose vendetta is fueling the plot and why he's kept that vendetta alive over thirty-odd years.  It begins with Diesel in prison talking to Agent Newsome.  He wants to know why he's still in jail and Newsome says he killed a woman and a twelve-year old boy, "we can't just snap our fingers and get you out of there."  Diesel demands to talk to Nitz but Newsome says he's away on business.  Actually he's in the room perusing a porn magazine. 

Diesel hangs up in a rage saying Nitz owes him after what he got from Red Crow's office, and Nitz comments that maybe he should stop scalping other prisons if he wants to get out.  Newsome asks what it was Diesel got for him but Nitz changes the subject and asks about Dash who he's told hasn't checked in for two weeks.  Nitz decides to fuck it, he'll sort it all out when he gets back and leaves.

As he packs he thinks that he didn't used to believe in spiritual journeys, but the trip he's doing now counts as one. It's not about God or anything:

Nitz: "This is spiritual in the sense that men who've been through war together know spiritual.  This is the kinda shit you don't talk about you just do."

He's been waiting a long time to do it.  And we see him thirty-two years ago at the murder scene of the two agents killed by one of the Dog Soldiers in tears, swearing he'll kill every one of "those fucking redskin cocksuckers".
Back in the present he visits his first ex-wife, Marci.  She tells him to fuck off, he says he was in town and thought he's drop by.  She says after thirty years, really?  He says she doesn't have to let him in as she lets him in.  They have lunch together as they make small talk, he has two sons with her who don't ever ask about him.  She then asks him "so you wanna fuck or what?"  He grins and says "I thought you'd never ask."

Nitz and ex-wife.

Eleven minutes later they finish copulating and she tells him he can't stay, if he wants to be coddled he can try his other ex-wives.  There are five, though one died a year ago and he celebrated by finding the ugliest prostitute he could and fucked her for three days straight.

Marci starts checking out his scars, one where his dead wife stabbed him, one where she stomped him, one from a mechanical bull and booze and several bullet wounds.  Then there is the long scar across his belly that causes Marci to turn her back and tell him to get out.

He silently gets dressed thinking that scar is the one that still scares her, "it's the reason she left me."  A criminal called Maggart took him down and slashed him so deeply he nearly disemboweled him before leaving him to die.   But two agents found him, Robert Bayer and Steve Berntson and saved his life.   They were old school, met in Vietnam joined the bureau under Hoover.  They visited him every day in hospital, more than Marci did.

Things changed after that between him and her.  He couldn't let it go and when Maggart got let off on a techincality he was waiting outside the courtroom about to shoot him.  But Bayer and Berntson stopped him, "they saved my life a second time.  Six months later they were dead".  They were the two FBI agents murdered on the rez. He thinks that those two men were saints, good family men, great lawmen and the best friends he ever had.  

Nitz: "And on June 26, 1975, somebody shot them both in the face, and then took a knife and cut their fuckin' scalps off.  Somebody will pay for that.  I'll see to it. No matter what the courts say.  No matter what it takes. What lines I have to cross.  What laws I have to break.  No matter who gets hurt."

He reaches the graveyard and walks over to their graves holding an evidence bag.  He mulls that he could have moved on a long time ago.  Transferred to a cushy job and retired.  The young agents are all chasing Jihadists now, "they got their war on terror.  I got mine."  He isn't going anywhere until his friends have been avenged and their killer has been made to answer.

Nitz at his friends graves.

We flashback to four years ago.  Red Crow is shackled on his knees and Nitz is holding a gun to his head.   He yells at Red Crow to tell him that he killed his friends or he'll shoot him in his lying face.  Tell him he shot and scalped them.  He's seen a photo of his office and two scalps in his trophy case.  Are they his friends scalps?  Red Crow just grins silently at him and no matter what Nitz threatens, he doesn't say a word.

In the present he is sitting drinking beer by their graves.  He wonders if he should have killed Red Crow there and then but instead he intends to tear down everything Red Crow worked to build, eventually he'd admit what he's done and then he'd die.

Marci comes up behind him saying she knew she'd find him there.   She says those two agents were a "horrible influence" on him.  Their wives don't miss them as much as Nitz does. "Fuck their wives" retorts Nitz. Marci says he knows he sends money to their kids whereas he hasn't seen his own children in years.  Nitz says she doesn't understand.

She asks what happened to Maggart, Nitz says he moved away and he never saw him again.  Marci says she knows when he is lying and he's going to pay for the things he's done.  "You were a good man once.   I remember that.  Do you?" she tells him.  Nitz says Bob and Bernie were good men, "they're all that matters to me now."

Marci says they've been dead thirty years now, where does that leave Nitz?  "With a goddamn job to do" says Nitz.  And what will happen after that she asks?  She came to remind him he has family and if he wants to catch up he still has the time.  Because no matter what, these men will still be dead and Nitz will be alone.  Nitz says without them he'd have died a long time ago, she says he did.  And she walks away.

Yeah real saints.

We then get a flashback to good ol'Bob and Bernie showing Nitz a "surprise".  They have Maggart tied up in the boot of a car.  They stopped Nitz killing him outside the courthouse because that was the wrong way of doing it.  But Nitz still deserves his revenge and they offer him a gun.  But Nitz asks for a knife and Maggart screams and screams and screams.

Back in the present Nitz takes the scalps out of the evidence bag and with a trowel buries them on the two graves.  He tells them he hasn't got their killer yet, but the day of their revenge is coming.  Having finished, he thinks maybe he should say a few words but all he can think of is "fuck it".  He fucks everyone from Marci, through to Red Crow, the bureau, everyone. "Fuck'em all.  Who fucking needs 'em.  Not me, that's for goddamn sure." And that brings this chapter to a close.

I'LL NEVER GET OUTTA THIS WORLD ALIVE: We begin with tribal cop Officer Falls Down returning to the rez after his trip up to Kansas to talk with Lawrence Belcourt. He has a murder to attend to, it's the sex-worker "Styles" killed in the first chapter. Also attending the scene is FBI Agent Newsome who says women are dropping like flies round here.  Falls Down says it wasn't an Indian who did this, it was a black man who rented the room.

Falls Down comes back to the rez.

He snipes at Newsome saying he must be what passes for FBI these days.  He asks where Nitz is and is told he's away on business.

Falls Down: "Whoring it up, most likely. He still got that thing for underage girls?"

Newsome asks who the woman was, Falls Down says she was a dancer at the strip club called Margarette.  Newsome asks if this has anything to do with what happened at the casino afew nights ago.  Falls Down doesn't know what he's talking about, he was away when whatever it was happened.

Newsome asks how the Gina Bad Horse murder is going, Falls Down says about as well as their investigation into Red Crow.  He wants to talk to Nitz because he thinks Gina's murder is linked to the FBI murders in '75.  He then asks Newsome if he ever worked a murder before. He suspects Newsome wasn't top of the class which is why he ended up out here and he's working a murder now so get to it.

We cut to Lawrence in prison.  He walks out into the yard and speaks with the leader of the black gang in there.  He tells the man he knows Red Crow pays him to look out for Lawrence.  The man won't admit to it but say Lawrence shouldn't rock the boat.  But Lawrence tells him to get a message to Red Crow, "tell him I know who killed Gina Bad Horse".

Back with Falls Down he goes into his office with the files on the FBI murders with a post it note from Newsome telling him  not to ask him for anything again, "asshole".  Falls Down smiles and says to himself "thanks Newsome, but you're still a prick." He then goes over the files in detail.  The FBI agents came under fire when driving onto land occupied by the Dog Soldier Society.   When more agents arrive on scene the agents are dead from multiple gunshots, all native suspects have fled.  In 1978 three are acquitted of the murders due to lack of evidence and eye witness testimony.   In 1980 Lawrence Belcourt was convicted, witnesses who say he bragged about the murders later recanted  claiming FBI intimidation. The debate over who fired the shots continues to this day, no one present at the murders have ever spoken publically about it and presumably never will.

The FBI killer finally revealed.

We then get a flashback to the murders.  The agents and Red Crow exchange fire.  Lawrence is terrified and Gina is pleading with Red Crow to stop shooting.  Catcher is hit but only wounded.   The two agents sit injured against their car having thrown their guns away and surrended.  Gina demands to know why they shot at them, the FBI say they started it.  Lawrence tries to calm the situation as an angry Gina points a gun at them. Red Crow also tries to calm Gina down and she turns away from the agents to argue.  Suddenly the FBI agents are taken out with one head-shot each courtesy of Catcher.  Gina runs to a tree and leans against it to vomit.

In the present Catcher is standing by Gina's grave.  He apologises to her saying "it was all my fault.  Always was.  I wish I'd listened to you."  He says he never should have shot the agents and let Lawrence take the fall.  If he hadn't maybe he never would have lost her, "I'm sorry I had to kill you Gina".

Catcher: "I always loved you, you know.  I dreamed about you for years before we even met.  I wish just once I'd had the courage to tell you that.  Maybe if I had you woulda listened. Maybe we could have saved each other. Maybe you'd still be alive."

In the past, Catcher watches Red Crow and Gina embrace and kiss.  Lawrence is panicking.  And then Catcher takes his knife and scalps the two agents, "you wanted a war, didn't ya Lincoln?  Well now you got it. Hoka Hey motherfuckers!"

Catcher escalates what he did.

In the present Catcher muses that they'll be coming for him soon and may already be on their way.  This narration takes place over Falls Down reading the files and wondering whatever happened to Catcher.  Catcher says that a Bad Horse has to lead if the rez is ever going to make it out of the darkness.  He promises he'll do anything to save Dash and this chapter ends.

ROCK BOTTOM, POP. 1: We jump back a few days to "Styles" and his plan to use Dash to rob the casino.  We see that after sex with Carol he smoked heroin, then went out to buy more and the dealer gave him a hypodermic loaded with heroin as an extra for being a good customer.  Sat wasted at the casino bar, Styles tells him it's time to rob the casino.  Dash is completely out of it though.

He staggers over to the garage door where the armoured truck will be coming in and opens it before collapsing.  One of Style's gang says Dash is in no fit state, he'll blow it for them.  The door opens and the security guard asks what the hell, and one of the gang stabs him through the nose into his brain. Angrily Styles tells Dash if he fucks up again he'll join the guard in death.

Dash starts remembering things. In the army, as a kid seeing his dad doing blow, just a few hours ago smoking drugs with Carol.  As the gang load up on cash he slumps to the ground cuffed to a rail. The rest of the gang move out with the cash, but Styles stays to deal with Dash.  He notes how the undercover life seems to have taken it's toll on Dash so his death seems somewhat inevitable.  Dash asks who he is:

Styles: "I'm Wesley Willeford.  I lie for a living.  But now it's time for a moment of truth."

He turns and points his gun at Dash.  And somehow the hypodermic needle full of drugs that Dash had in his pocket gets stuck in Styles.  He'd swiped Dash's jacket after the security guard was killed and got blood on his so he accidentally stuck himself that way.

Very convenient.

Anyway the syringe wasn't just filled with heroin, the dealer remembered Dash from a bust a few weeks ago.  So he put rat poison in his little extra.  Styles collapses, foaming at the mouth.  Security bang on the door, Styles starts firing at Dash who manages to dodge the flailing bullet aiming.  He keeps trying to say Dash is FBI but by the time the guards get in he's died and Dash is suddenly feeling very, very sober.

Released from his cuff and knowing there is the rest of the gang out there who know he's FBI, he takes a shotgun and walks out to where they were waiting and methodically blows away each one of them.  Then he walks off.  Red Crow arrives on the scene and picks up the syringe and asks where Dash is.  He's gone back to Carol.  He wakes her up and says he has something important to talk about, "what do you know about the FBI?"

Dash clears up loose ends.

Well as the series reaches the mid-point we get a volume of revelations and character history that help explain why certain people are acting the way they are. First of all we see how Dash has crumbled under the stress of the undercover life spending his days stoned out of his mind.  It's interesting that it takes a man who lies for a living to exploit a man who is living a lie.  Dash is in desperate need of someone to talk to hence is decision at the end to open up to Carol, and we'll see how she takes that in the next volume.  We also finally get the true story on who killed the two FBI agents that fateful day, the mysterious Catcher who seems to live entirely off the grid as even Falls Down, who is doggedly pursuing leads in Gina's murder case, doesn't know where to find him.  We also get his confession of killing Gina as well, presumbably because she was going to out him as the murderer.  Despite all his mysticism, self pity and apologies he's well... kind of a dick. Talking of dicks, we get some insight into Diesel and Nitz finally.  Nitz comes across as repugnant and corrupt and the men he sees as "saints" party to a sadistic murder they set up.  Diesel is more interesting, as I said you can see the precise moment the enthusiastic young kid died and the Diesel persona began.  It does give his character more depth although it doesn't excuse his actions one bit.  The vast majority of people who grow up in shitty households don't turn into full blown psychopaths, Britt unfortunately was one who did. Jason Aaron taking time to flesh out all the major characters is what gives this work its richness and depth, and the chapters drawn by R.M Guera continue to be impressive. Next volume we return to Red Crow's dealings with Mr. Brass and the Hmongs in "The Gnawing".