Craig Johnson
As the crow flies

1

“I wanna know what Katrina Walks Nice did to get kicked out of a joint like this for sixty-one days.”

I began questioning the makeup of the negotiation team I’d brought with me to convince the chief of the Northern Cheyenne tribe that he should allow my daughter to be married at Crazy Head Springs. “Don’t call the White Buffalo a joint; it’s the nerve center of the reservation.”

My undersheriff, Victoria Moretti, shook her head. “It’s a fucking convenience store.” She smiled, enjoying the muckraking. “She must’ve done something pretty shitty to get eighty-sixed out of here for two months.” Vic gestured toward the white plastic board above the cash register where all the reservation offenders who had been tagged with bad-check writing, shoplifting, and other unsavory behaviors were cataloged for everyone to see-sort of a twenty-first-century pillorying.

My eyes skimmed past the board, and I watched the crows circle above Lame Deer as the rain struck the surface of Route 212. It was the main line on the Rez, and the road that truckers used to avoid the scales on the interstate. Before 212 had been widened and properly graded, it had been known as Scalp Alley for the number of traveling unfortunates who had met their demise on the composite scoria/asphalt strip and for the roadside crosses that ran like chain lightning from the Black Hills to the Little Bighorn.

As my good friend Henry Standing Bear says, on the Rez, even the roads are red.

I was trying to pay attention, but I kept being distracted by the crows plying the thermals of the high plains sky; it was raining in the distance, but the sun appeared to be overtaking the clouds-a sharp contrast of blue and charcoal that my mother used to say was caused by the devil beating his wife.

“She must’ve stolen the cash register.”

My attention was forced back inside and under cover, and I twisted the ring on my pinkie. My wife, Martha, had given it back to me before she died so that I could give it to Cady whenever she got married.

I looked up-the negotiations weren’t going well. It would appear that Dull Knife College had suddenly scheduled a Cheyenne language immersion class at Crazy Head Springs on the day of the wedding. We had reserved the spot well in advance, but the vagaries of the tribal council were well known and now we were floundering. The old Indian across from me nodded his head in all seriousness. I was negotiating with the chief of the Northern Cheyenne nation, and he was one tough customer.

“That librarian over at the college is mean. I don’t like to mess with her; she’s got that Indian Alzheimer’s. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

I trailed my eyes from Lonnie Little Bird to the rain-slick surface of the asphalt-Lame Deer’s main street being washed clean of all our sins. “What’s that mean, Lonnie?”

“That’s where you forget everything but the grudges.”

I smiled in spite of myself and took a deep breath, slowly letting the air out to calm my nerves, as I continued to twirl the ring on my finger. “Cady’s really got her heart set on Crazy Head Springs, Lonnie, and it’s way too late to change the date from the end of July.”

He glanced out the window, his dark eyes following my gray ones. “Maybe you should go talk to that librarian over at the college. You’re a large man-she’ll listen to you. You could show her your gun.” He glanced down at the red and black chief’s blanket that covered his wheelchair. “She don’t pay no attention to an old, legless Indian.”

Henry Standing Bear, my daughter’s wedding planner, who had made the arrangements that were now being rapidly unraveled, sipped his coffee and quietly listened.

“But you’re the chief, Lonnie.”

“Oh, you know that don’t mean much unless somebody wants a government contract for beef or needs a ribbon cut.”

Up until this year, Lonnie’s official contribution to the tribal government had been limited to falling asleep in council. A month ago, when the previous tribal leader had been found guilty of siphoning off money to a private account belonging to his daughter, an emergency meeting had been held; since Lonnie had again fallen asleep, and therefore was unable to defend himself, he was unanimously voted in as the new chief.

“She’s in charge of all the books over there and she’s full blood-that’s pretty much the worst of both worlds.”

A heavyset man with long hair and a gray top hat with an eagle feather in it stopped by the table and rapped his knuckles on the surface. “Mornin’, Chief.”

Lonnie sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that, Herbert.”

Herbert His Good Horse, the morning drive announcer on the low-power FM station KRZZ, smiled and turned to the rest of us in the crowded booth. “Do you know the story about the three Indian women who died at the same time?”

Herbert was a mainstay on the Rez, where almost everyone tuned in to 94.7 FM just to hear the outrageous jokes he told between songs.

Lonnie responded for the table. “Nope.”

“St. Peter was sitting on his throne at the gates of heaven-”

“Is this a true story, Herbert?”

He nodded his head vigorously, the eagle feather stuck in the band of his hat bobbing up and down like a crest on his head. “It’s from one of those priests over at St. Labre, and those Catholics, they sometimes tell the truth.”

Vic barked a laugh. “Fuckin’ A.” She raised an empty coffee cup to get Brandon White Buffalo’s attention in hopes of a round of refills, but the big Crow Indian was attending to another customer.

Herbert His Good Horse produced an elongated cigar from his silk brocade vest along with a cutter. “One of the women was Lakota, one was Crow, and the other was full-blood Cheyenne. St. Peter looked at them and said that they were heathens and there wasn’t anything he could do to let them into the white man’s heaven, but that he was curious because they had all three died at the same time. He asked the first one, the Lakota woman, if she had anything to say, and she said she didn’t know anything about the rules but she had always lived her life attempting to seek a balance in the red and black roads. St. Peter listened and was impressed by the spirituality of the woman and told her she could go in after all.”

Lonnie smiled and nodded as Herbert repocketed the cutter and produced a chopped-down, brass Zippo lighter, the one that he had carried in the seventies in Vietnam. “St. Peter leaned down to the Crow woman and asked her if she had anything she wanted to say, and she told him that to her, there was a spirit in the air, the land, the water, and all the creatures that populated mother earth and that she had spent her life attempting to be respectful of all these things. St. Peter was so impressed that he waved her into the white man’s heaven, too.”

Lonnie sipped his coffee, and Henry, smiling, glanced at me.

“Then St. Peter turned on his throne and looked at the Cheyenne woman. He asked her, ‘Do you have anything you’d like to say?’ The Cheyenne woman nodded and said-‘Yeah, what are you doing in my chair?’”

Lonnie laughed so hard, rolling his head from side to side with his mouth hanging open, that no sound came out. After a while he began slapping Henry on the leg; I suppose just because the Bear had both of his and because he was also Cheyenne. “Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

Herbert, who had recovered from laughing at his own joke, lit his cigar, rapped the table, and signed off with his signature slogan-“Stay calm, have courage…”

The entire booth responded with the rest: “And wait for signs.”

Henry, probably glad for the interruption, put his own cold coffee on the table, smiled indulgently, and watched the disc jockey stroll away. It really wasn’t the Bear’s fault that our site had been suddenly appropriated at the last minute; as he’d explained to me, clearing all the events of all the organizations on the reservation was akin to herding prairie chickens.

I stared down at the platinum ring with the smallish diamond that was between two inset chips. “What’s the librarian’s name, Lonnie?”

At the mention of our collective obstruction, the laughter died away in his throat. “Oh, it’s my sister Arbutis. Umm hmm, yes, it is so.”

Henry raised a hand and massaged the bridge of his nose with a powerful thumb and forefinger. “ Ahh-he ’, I had forgotten.”

I knew Arbutis Little Bird-more as Lonnie’s daughter’s aunt than as his sister. Melissa, with whom I’d been involved in a complicated case a couple of years ago, was now away in Bozeman playing point guard for Montana State. The news couldn’t have been worse for our cause-Arbutis was a steely-eyed, iron-bottomed gunboat of a woman whose natural response to everything was an absolute negative that brooked no discussion.

I looked back out the window where the crows had disappeared and the rain appeared to be winning the battle. We were doomed.

“Henry, have you thought about taking him down to Painted Warrior? That’s a pretty fine spot, um hmm, um hmm. There are crows all over the bottom land, and they circle the cliffs up where the warrior’s war paint streaks the rocks. Yes, it is so.”

The Bear released his nose. “Near Red Birney?”

They both smiled, and Lonnie nodded. “Yeah, definitely not White Birney.”

In a perverseness of geography, there were two towns by the name of Birney just on and just off the Rez. To the Indians they will forever be referred to as Red Birney and White Birney, but to the politically correct Caucasians the names had been transmogrified to Birney Day (for the day school), and Birney Post (for the post office). Like most things on the Rez, it was complicated.

“You can take the ridge road, but you’ll need a four-wheel-drive if it really decides to rain. If I was you, I’d take 4 down to the windmill at Tie Creek, and then go up the dirt track till you get to the spotter road to your right-that’ll take you straight over to the base of the cliffs.”

A spotter road was the name the locals called roads used to spotlight and poach deer on the Rez. I was already losing faith. “Lonnie, Cady’s really got her heart set on Crazy Head Springs, and the wedding is in two weeks.”

He nodded again and then became somber in respect for the gravity of my situation. “Well then, maybe you should go on over to the library, but take your gun, Walter. Umm hmm, yes, it is so.”

Vic stopped at the counter to buy some chewing gum and was having a conversation with Brandon White Buffalo-probably something to do with Katrina Walks Nice.

Henry was rolling Lonnie out the door and into the stunningly mixed-up summer afternoon, the ozone hanging in the air like baskets. The Cheyenne Nation, thinking it might be wise to explore other avenues, looked back at me. “Would you like to go take a look at Painted Warrior?”

I made a face, thinking about how I was going to break the news to Cady. “Well, I really don’t want to go over to the library and tangle with Arbutis Little Bird, I can tell you that much.”

“It is possible I can do that later. Do you have your gun? I may have to borrow it.”

I slapped the small of my back, where my duty sidearm rested simply from habit. “All I’ve got is my. 45, and I don’t think that’d bring down Arbutis.” I pushed open the door and started toward Henry’s truck, which I truly despised. I’d loaned the Bullet to Vic so that she could go ahead to Billings, where she would be taking a flight to Omaha later that day for a training seminar on police public relations. That left me with Lonnie, Henry, and Rezdawg, the most pernicious vehicle on the North American continent.

Vic made her way past, reading my mind. “You’re sure you don’t need your truck?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She placed a fist on her belt and stood there, hipshot.

“I’m still trying to figure out why it is you volunteered to go to Omaha.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it.”

“Yep, but Saizarbitoria could’ve gone-Frymire or Double-Tough.”

She shrugged and turned her head.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the upcoming nuptials, does it?”

She stubbed the toe of a ballistic boot on the asphalt of the parking lot. “Mom’s going to be here the day after tomorrow.” She looked to the distance, at nothing particular. “I’m not good at this shit. I’ll be back right before the wedding, but I think I’ll just avoid the run-up to the three-ring circus-if you don’t mind.” She hit the button on my remote, and the lights blipped on my truck.

“Okay, but I assume you’re not taking Dog.”

She responded by opening the door, and we watched as more than a hundred and fifty pounds of assorted canine lineage vaulted from the front seat and circled around to the ’63 three-quarter-ton beast, first going to Lonnie. The Northern Cheyenne chief reached his wrinkled hands out the door and around Dog’s head, running a thumb over the bullet furrow and holding him as if giving a blessing. “ Ha-ay, big rascal.”

I went around the back and lowered Rezdawg’s tailgate, pinching my fingers in the chains in the process. I waited till Dog noticed me and came around. He looked at the derelict truck and promptly sat.

“Vic needs the Bullet. Come on, we both get to suffer.”

He jumped in the bed and I closed the tailgate twice because, of course, the first time it didn’t line up.

Vic rolled down the driver’s-side window of my truck. “You’re going to be all right up here playing cowboy with the Indians?”

I joined her at the door. “I think so.” We both watched as Henry put Lonnie’s blanket over his lap, folded up the chief’s wheelchair, and placed it in the bed with Dog. “I’ve got a good scout.”

“Uh huh.” She hit the ignition and fired up the V-10 and then sat there, rumbling. “I’ll call you from Nebraska.” She thought about it and pulled the three-quarter-ton down into gear. “Fuck it, what else is there to do?”

It was only a mile up the road to Lonnie’s place, which was good because that was about the distance that Rezdawg could make without breaking down.

In the numerous conversations I’d had with Henry concerning his pickup, I’d asked him why, as meticulous as he was with every other aspect of his life-his house, his business, his car-why it was that he didn’t get his piece-of-crap truck really fixed. His answer, as we’d waited by the side of the road for another of Rezdawg’s rest periods to pass, was that the truck was a holy relic of his life and that replacing parts would alter its spirit. I retorted that it seemed to me that the junk pile’s spirit was in need of a little repair, but he’d ignored me like he always did.

I’d also pointed out that the thing didn’t have its original gas, tires, or oil, but that hadn’t gotten me anywhere, either.

I rolled the chief up the incline to his picture-perfect home. Lonnie had had some wilder days when he was younger and had played baseball and drunk on a professional level until losing his legs to diabetes. He was still under parole with a cadre of sisters, headed by the formidable Arbutis, and had to negotiate with his sisters for visitation rights whenever Melissa, the point guard, came home, but he complained that that was less and less.

“She has lots of friends up there in Bozeman. I can see why it is she’d rather stay there than come home and watch stories with me.” The stories Lonnie referred to were the soap operas he watched religiously and reported on as if the characters were actual friends. “But it just makes me love her more when she does come home-um hmm, yes, it is so.”

I paused on the porch so Lonnie could collect his mail from a box attached to the house; most residents on the Rez had post office boxes and didn’t get this kind of attention to delivery, but Lonnie was special.

“They toy with our hearts, these daughters of ours-don’t they, lawman?”

“Yes, they do.”

He patted my hand in reassurance. “Don’t worry; we’ll get your daughter’s wedding sorted out.”

“Thanks, Lonnie.”

I started to roll him into the house, but his hands fastened around the chrome runners of his wheelchair. “I think I will stay out here and watch the rain; maybe listen to some baseball. The Rockies are at home and playing the Phillies this afternoon.”

I looked at the sky with its patchwork of sun and storm clouds-the devil must be beating his wife indeed. I bet I was the only one who used that phrase anymore.

I adjusted Lonnie’s chair so that he could look northwest and watch the rain come in or not, whatever its choice. The laden clouds were reflected in Lonnie’s thick glasses and joined with the tiny rainbows that had a tendency to magically appear there, confirming the impression that Lonnie was a pot of gold.

“The devil must be beating his wife. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

A damp Dog joined us on the bench seat as we headed back toward town, and I continued to spin the ring on my finger as I aired an elbow out the passenger-side window that only partially rolled down. “It’s not your fault.”

The Cheyenne Nation ignored me and stared out the cracked windshield.

“Look, whatever happens, she’ll forgive you-just not me.”

The Bear nodded and then moved on to one of our other myriad problems. “We have maxed out the Western 8 motel in Ashland.”

There were no other motels for about fifty miles.

He shifted gears, and I listened to them grind. “There is my home.”

“I don’t want you to have to do that.”

“It would be an honor.”

If you hung around with the Cheyenne long enough, you learned when not to argue with their generosity. “Thank you.” I stretched my hand across Dog’s broad head and scratched behind both ears, something he enjoyed as though it was a religious experience. “Strange weather.”

Henry didn’t say anything but glanced at the ring on my pinkie. I tried to change the subject. “Why do you suppose the old-timers used to say that the devil must be beating his wife?”

He spoke over the aged engine as he made third, breezed through the stop sign at the corner of one of Lame Deer’s few intersections, and headed south on Bureau of Indian Affairs Route 4, the rumble strips sounding like war drums underneath us. “It is a universal folkloric phrase.” He threw Rezdawg into fourth, and we tooled back through the main part of town past the White Buffalo Sinclair Station, the Big Store IGA, which Henry says stands for Indians Grab Anything, and the tribal government buildings. “The Italian version is the same as ours but the French one is Le diable se marie avec sa fille, or the devil becomes his daughter’s husband.”

I stopped petting Dog, threw my arm over the back seat, and looked out the rear window. “Perverts.”

“The German proverb is Wenn’s regnet und die Sonne scheint, so schlagt der Teufel seine Gro?mutter: er lacht und sie weint, which means that the devil is beating his grandmother: he laughs and she cries.”

A black Yukon with a heavy grille guard and Montana plates had started following us in town and was a little close to Rezdawg’s back bumper, at which point I noticed that there was an understated halogen emergency light flashing red on the dash.

“There are similar phrases in Hungary and Holland.”

“Have you been hanging around Jules Beldon?” The emergency lights in the vehicle behind us were definitely signaling us to pull over. “Hey, Henry?”

Unaware that some sort of official vehicle was dogging us, or more likely ignoring the summons, he continued to navigate our way out of town. “The Polish say that when the sun is shining and the rain is raining that the devil is making butter.”

I fully turned in the seat to get a better look. “Henry…”

The GMC made an aggressive move and started to pull up beside us; the Yukon’s engine surged, and the Bear finally noticed it.

“The Russians call it a blind rain; somewhat depressing but still poetic.” He waited a moment for the SUV to go around and when it didn’t, he pulled Rezdawg over to the gravel between the reflector posts at the side of the road. “Either way, the devil gets the blame for everything.”

I watched as the Yukon, in direct violation of standard police procedure, pulled slanted in front of us as if we might make a run for it, which, considering it was Rezdawg, made the situation that much funnier. There were no markings on the vehicle, and I watched as the driver’s-side door was jerked open and a very tall, athletic-looking woman with dark hair got out.

Resting a hand on the roof of the GMC, she concentrated her Oakley reflective sunglasses on us. She stood there for a second, then slammed the door and, ignoring the few cars that swerved to avoid her, started around the rear of her vehicle. She had high, wide cheekbones and a strong jaw that balanced the features framed in the blue-black hair that was braided to her elbows. Late twenties, she was wearing black jeans, a Tribal Police uniform shirt, black ropers, and a matching gun belt with a very large caliber Smith amp; Wesson N-Frame revolver banging against her hip.

She looked like one of those ultimate warriors who can step out on the sidewalk and run a marathon at the drop of a war bonnet.

“License and registration.”

Henry didn’t move, just continued to look at her. I didn’t blame him.

She made the statement again, this time with a little more force, separating the words as she spoke. “License. And. Registration.”

Henry glanced at me and then pulled the naked, cardboard sun visor down, the vinyl covering having disintegrated and shed like snakeskin long ago. The registration and insurance card fluttered onto his lap like a shot bird. He leaned up on one side and pulled his wallet from his back pocket and removed his license, adding it to the collection he handed her. “What is the problem, Officer?”

She studied the collection of documents and then gestured toward the black Yukon. “Do you see that vehicle?”

Henry made a production of lowering his Wayfarers and placing the flat palm of his hand above his eyes like some B-movie Indian spotting a wagon train. “Yes, I think I do.”

The next statement had even more heat in it. “That is an official vehicle, and when it indicates for you to pull over-you pull over.” She glanced down at the license and studied it for a moment. “I know you, Mr. Henry Standing Bear.”

He studied her in an indifferent manner. “And I have heard of you, Ms. Lolo Long.”

I noticed that this time when he called her by name, he did not proffer the title of officer.

Her chin came out as she locked eyes with him-something not too many people would or could do. “And what have you heard?”

“I have heard that you are the tightest…”

I interrupted, sensing that what the Cheyenne Nation was about to say wasn’t likely to help our situation. “Why didn’t you hit your siren?”

A long moment passed as she shifted her gaze from Henry, past Dog, to me. She lowered her own sunglasses to get a better look into the gloom of the cab, and her jasper-colored eyes leveled on me like the twin-bore of a battleship turret. “Excuse me, but was I speaking to you?”

I shrugged a shoulder and smiled inwardly at her resemblance to Vic. “Well, I guess it’s none of my business, but there are no markings on that vehicle and this thing sits awfully high and as close as you were I had to really look to see your emergency lights-if you’d have just hit your…”

She threw an arm up on the door sill and interrupted me. “You know, Mister…?” She left the statement hanging there like her arm.

“Longmire.”

She shook her head ever so slightly, as if my name was an annoyance in itself. “That first part, the one about this not being any of your business?” She pointed a no-nonsense fingernail in the air, as if pinning my words, like bugs in a collection. “I liked that; let’s stick with that one.” The iridescent glasses came back up, and she turned to face Henry. “I know a lot of people around here consider you to be something kind of special, but that doesn’t exclude you from the rules of the road.” She raised a hand, gesturing back toward town. “That sign back there at the intersection says stop, not pause, not hesitate-stop is what it says, and whenever I’m around you better damn well stop.”

I watched as she took his cards and disappeared back toward the Yukon, her wrist-thick braid held fast by a beaded barrette bobbing in counterpoint to her strut and the slap of the revolver.

The Bear looked bored and supported his chin with a fist and placed an elbow out the window. “So, when did you start wearing a pinkie ring?”

I stopped twirling it. “It belonged to my great-grandmother.”

“The witch?”

I sighed at the Bear’s knowledge of my family history. “She wasn’t a witch; she was just one of those herb doctors.” He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t agree. “Martha wore it but gave it back to me to give it to Cady when she got married. The problem is that Michael already got her an engagement ring so I don’t know what to do with it.”

He mumbled into his fist. “Give it to her.”

“People are weird about that kind of thing sometimes.”

“Just give it to her.” He reached out and smoothed a piece of duct tape that held the instrument panel to the dash. “Is that why you are wearing it, to remind you?”

“Kind of. I lost it a while back and then discovered it in a little cedar box I’ve got on my dresser. I thought maybe if I kept it on my finger I wouldn’t lose it again.”

The Bear didn’t say anything but looked back at the Yukon. I could still see the adhesive where the sticker price had been on the inside of the window-and ventured a question. “Who’s Ms. Lolo Long?”

“The new tribal police chief, an appointment from the last tribal chief.”

I nodded. “The indicted one.”

“Yes-the one whom Lonnie replaced.” He pursed his lips and pointed them toward the Yukon, where it looked as if Officer Long was in the act of writing a lengthy ticket. “Iraqi war vet; I do not know what she did over there, but she came back wired tight like a Montana-made mandolin. I guess the old chief was trying to make up for his tenure and thought he was doing everybody a favor by installing a by-the-book police chief, but so far as I can tell, all she has done is made the lives of everyone miserable.”

I watched as she opened the door and approached, the hi-tech sunglasses now secured in her breast pocket. “Including yours?”

He smiled the close-lipped smile. “Lately.”

Officer Long stopped at the door and handed Henry his papers along with an aluminum clipboard and pen. “I’ve cited you for failure to stop at the intersection, failure to respond to an official vehicle, and the fact that you have no brake lights.” She glanced down the dented, mottled-green length of Rezdawg and then back to the Bear. “I’m sure I could find plenty of other violations attached to this particular vehicle, but seeing as how this is our first official meeting, I thought I’d take it easy on you.”

The Cheyenne Nation looked at me, but I didn’t say anything and continued to pet Dog. The beast looked at Lolo Long with expectation, all smiles and wagging tail.

Traitor.

“You have thirty days to respond in the mail or in person at the law enforcement and detention center-you know where that is?”

“You mean the jail?” Henry smiled. “I do.”

“I bet you do.”

Henry signed the ticket and handed it back to her.

“Do you understand the violations as they have been explained to you?”

“Yes.”

She pulled the space-age sunglasses from her pocket and dramatically placed them over the opaque chalcedony eyes, ripped his copy of the ticket from the clipboard, and handed it to him. “Have a nice day.”

He continued to smile, pushed his old-school Ray-Bans over his eyes again in response, and handed me the $262 ticket as she started to turn and go. “Here, file this in the glove box-under chicken shit.”

She paused for only an instant and slightly turned her head.

I watched as she took a breath and tasted in her mouth the words she wanted to say. I half expected her to draw the big. 44, but instead she hitched her thumbs in her gun belt, held that last look, and then walked off, punishing the roadway with the heels of her boots.

It was the most professional thing she’d done during the entire interaction.

She started the SUV, did a tire-smoking reentrance to BIA 4, and continued south with a full head of steam.

Henry yawned, placed his license back in his wallet, and flipped it onto the dash. “I do not think that I ever have had brake lights.”

The lower ridge that leads to Painted Warrior cliff runs for about a mile north and west from Red Birney, and the only way to the site is from along the ridge or back up through the dirt roads below. I doubted that Cady and Michael would want to be married on a cliff, but Henry assured me that the area at the base was as picturesque as it was dramatic.

He was right.

We’d followed Lonnie’s instructions and eased Rezdaw g off the road between the grass-covered hills that ringed the base of the cliffs and a large sedimentary rock cairn. We climbed steadily until we reached a saddle and a scattering of large boulders and parked at the top of a small ridge, just as wisps of steam were floating out from under Rezdawg’s hood.

There was a thick-bodied mule deer a little off to our right, heading down toward Tie Creek, and I allowed her a substantial lead before opening the door and letting Dog out to patrol the area. He immediately went to where the doe had been standing and watched impatiently as she bounded through the scrub pine and clamored over the rocks toward the base of the cliffs.

“You never would’ve caught her anyhow.”

He turned to look at me as I closed the door and joined Henry, who was leaning on the homemade, Day-Glo orange grille guard and partial steam bath at the front of the truck. “What do you think?”

It was just the way Lonnie had described it. I had heard of the site and might’ve even been here when I was a kid, but I guess I’d never really seen it. Framed by a box canyon below, the Painted Warrior raised his face from the ridge and looked toward the sky. As with cloud images, you had to look at the thing for a while before you saw it, but he was there. The features reminded me of another friend, Virgil White Buffalo, all the way down to the deep furrows that indented the rock visage’s face. The majority was a khaki-colored stone, but there were a few massive streaks of war paint, the rocks stained by the deposits of scoria that ran vertically down the giant’s face-hence the name, Painted Warrior.

It was a straight-up climb of about two hundred feet to the base of the ridge where the sheer cliff began.

The Bear tripped the latch, lifted Rezdawg’s hood, and watched as a ghostly cloud of steam trailed away in the breeze. I wondered if it too would turn into something recognizable. Henry was gently working the radiator cap off with a red shop rag he’d retrieved from the cab. “When I was young, we used to hunt deer here; just run them up through the canyon and have somebody waiting at the ridge.”

I looked around at the surrounding saddle studded with Krummholz pines, stunted by the altitude and atmospheric conditions. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t think that the diminutive trees were actually hundreds of years old. Reflecting the sun that peeked through the assembled thunderheads were small outcroppings of rocks that surrounded the ridge like a wreath. “Is this the spot Lonnie was thinking of?”

“Here, or possibly just past the creek.” He finally loosened the cap enough for a gurgling release and antifreeze dribbled down the radiator.

I glanced back at the panoramic display. “Where the opening in the rock walls leads toward the cliff?”

He rested the cap on the inner fender and turned to look along with me. “Yes.” He glanced back at the steam continuing to roil from Rezdawg. “Would you like to hike over there and see it?”

“I guess I’d better. I just wish I’d brought a camera so that I could send Cady pictures.”

“I have one in the truck.” He wiped his hands on the rag, which he returned to the cab, and came back with a medium-sized bag with a strap that he threw over his shoulder. “I also have two bottles of water. I am prepared.”

Tie Creek was at the base of the ridge, but it was summer and the water was only ankle deep. We forded the stream by walking on the rounded stones-Dog just splashed through-and continued among the trees to the next hill. There was a clearer view of the lower cliffs reflecting the bright sunlight that cascaded down in beams like some biblical illustration, the cliffs surrounding the bottom of the more impressive rocks above, and I had to admit that the whole area was pretty breathtaking.

I stopped at the top of the hill to catch my breath and stared up at something that had reflected near the top of Painted Warrior. I stood there and took in a few lungfuls, wondering what it was I thought I’d seen. I’d had quite the adventure in the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area only two months earlier, and the effects were still lingering. The Cheyenne Nation was watching me.

“Thought I saw something up there.”

He turned and looked. “Where?”

“Near the top; something flashed.”

His keen eyes played across the uppermost ridge. “I do not see anything.”

I nodded. “Probably just a reflection off some quartz or an old beer can. Speaking of, can we get a beer after this?”

His eyes scanned the ridge. “Sure.” He checked his wristwatch. “We can go up to the Jimtown Bar and get a drink before the professionals show up. We might not even get into a fight.”

“In the meantime, can I have one of those bottles of water?”

He slung the bag from his shoulder, unzipped one of the compartments, and handed me a bottle, the condensation slick on the outside.

I sipped my water, slipped my hat off of my head, and wiped the sweat from inside the band. “Is that professional courtesy, when you visit somebody else’s bar?”

He nodded and then squatted down and began pulling a large camera body and lens from the bag. “You bet.” Having assembled the camera, he popped off the cap and pointed the lens toward me.

I held my hat up to block the shot. “Just the surroundings, please-not the inhabitants.” Dog sat beside me and looked at Henry. “Take a picture of him; he doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Your daughter would like a photo of you, I’m sure, and since we are in the position of negotiating our way out of disaster…”

I put my hat back on my head. “All right, but then you have to let me take one of you for her.”

He raised the camera and directed it toward me. “I am like Dog-I do not mind; I am photogenic.”

When I laughed, he took the picture.

I held my hand out for the camera, and he gave it to me without argument. I turned it around and looked at the multitude of dials and buttons. “I’m used to the IPH cameras…” I looked up at him. “You know, Idiot Push Here.”

He took it and set the focus on automatic, then handed it back to me. “There, just push the big button on the top.”

I raised the expensive device and looked through the viewer. “Thanks.”

The Painted Warrior background made for an interesting effect, with one native face mirroring the other. I watched with my one eye as the autofocus first defined the features of the Cheyenne Nation and then the sandstone cliffs behind him, searching for whatever my wandering hand chose to photograph.

He repeated patiently through his close-lipped smile, “The large button on the top.”

“Okay.” I readjusted my aim, but the automatic function on the camera continued to focus on the cliffs just over the Bear’s shoulder-almost as if the Painted Warrior was demanding a photograph of itself. “Damn.”

It was right as I went ahead and pushed the button that I could see something scrambling at the top, above the giant Indian’s forehead, and then plummet from the face.

I yanked the camera down just as a high-pitched wail carried through the canyon walls, and someone fell in an awkward position, almost as if holding something. Henry turned quickly and we watched, helpless.

The body struck a cornice once on the way down, then splayed from the side of the cliff and landed at the bottom where the grass-covered slope rose to meet the rocks. The liquid thump of the body striking the ground was horrific, and we continued to watch as whoever it was rolled down the hillside with a cascading jumble of scree and tumbling rock.

We were both running, the Cheyenne Nation ahead of me and moving at an astounding pace. Dog followed as we thundered down the hillside between the rock walls and back up the other side.

It was so surreal that I couldn’t believe it had actually happened, but the adrenaline dumping high octane into my bloodstream and the Bear’s reaction told me that it must’ve been true.

By the time I got to the last hill leading to the base of the cliffs, I could see Henry looking from side to side, trying to find where the person that had fallen might be. There was a copse of juniper to the left, and I watched as he started and then ran toward it. I was there in an instant, and what I saw was like some surrealistic painting. I felt as if the world had been pulled out from under me, too.

Her right leg was contorted to the extreme with her foot up above her shoulder, and there were deep lacerations on one side of her body. The eyes were unfocused as she stared at the rocks above, and her head lunged involuntarily, the brain attempting to send signals through the broken spine.

Henry kneeled beside her and cupped the side of her head in his hands, attempting to provide some kind of support without adjusting her. “Do not move.”

A breath escaped her lips as a fresh flow of tears drained down her cheeks. She gulped air into her bleeding mouth three times, then turned her head toward the Bear’s hand-and died.

I kneeled beside him and looked at her, reached up to her throat, and placed my fingers where her pulse had been. “Do you know her?”

He lowered her head and brushed back his hair with bloody fingers, the smears trailing from the corner of his eye to the clamped jaw like macabre Kabuki makeup. “No.”

Dog began barking behind us, and I yelled at him, “Shut up!”

Henry and I must’ve had the same thought at precisely the same time, because we both looked up simultaneously. From this angle, we couldn’t see anything at the top of the cliff-only a few pebbles that rained down on us that must’ve become dislodged during her fall.

I went ahead and yelled, “Hey, is there anybody up there?” My voice echoed off the rocks above and below, along with Dog’s incessant barking. “Shut up!”

I threw my head back and yelled louder this time. “Hey, is there anybody up there?” I took a deep breath and shouted again, “We’ve got a woman who’s fallen!”

Nothing, just Dog’s continued barking.

I turned and saw him standing down the hillside. “I said, shut up!”

The big beast’s head rose and cocked in a quizzical cant. After a moment, the huge muzzle dipped and nosed at something-and it was only when he gently pawed at the blanketed bundle in front of him in the high stalks of buffalo grass that I finally saw the tiny hand and heard a baby cry.

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