As the crow flies

11

“Sure, I can get you DNA testing on the glass-it’ll take about nine weeks.”

I sat on the lip of the trapdoor and stared at the can of beer the AIC had handed to me at the scene; Cliff Cly was certainly not the usual field agent for the Department of Justice. It was even a Rainier, my brand. “That’s not the way it works on television.”

He nodded and opened his own with the rest of the six-pack dangling from his fingers by the plastic loops. He sipped his beer as his crew went about their business, and the ME’s office loaded Clarence up. “Yeah, have I told you what a pain in the ass all that TV stuff is for me?” He thought about it. “Other than I’d like to nail Kyra Sedgwick…”

“Do you think it’s really a good idea to be drinking beer at a homicide investigation?”

He ignored me and sipped his some more. “Christ, somebody siphons gas out of somebody’s car and the assholes want you to dust the garden hose for prints.” Cly watched as they zipped the body bag. “Taxes, that’s the other one I get. My taxes pay your salary; you need to find out who stole my cat.” He laughed. “That’s how I lost my first assignment, cherry, too. Georgetown-D.C.” He shook his head. “How much crime goes on in Georgetown?” He thought about it. “Punishable crime, I mean. There was this spat of cat disappearances-I shit you not-and this senator’s wife wanted Justice to look into it, so they sent me over to this mansion to talk to this woman who lost Fluffy. I get over there and make the mistake of joking with her that it’s probably the Chinese restaurant down the street. Well, she believes me and starts asking questions like, ‘Surely they just catch alley cats or strays and not domestic cats from the neighborhood?’ So I laugh and tell her, ‘Oh no, it’s the domestic ones that they get because they’re fat and stupid.’” He shook his head. “Jump-cut to promising young field agent in Absalom, Wyoming.”

I smiled and set my unopened can on the floor beside me. “That would do it.” Glancing over my shoulder, I looked back at Henry, who had grown more and more silent since the Feds had arrived. The Cheyenne Nation was seated on the windowsill in the darkness by the east wall. “What do you think?”

His voice rumbled back. “I guess we can take Clarence off the list.”

Cly turned to look at him. “You think?”

There was a pause, and then Henry spoke again. “Reasoning says that whoever killed Audrey and attempted to kill Adrian must’ve killed Clarence.”

The agent lowered his can. “Unless it was revenge.”

“Possibly, but the only one who could’ve felt an emotion that strong is being zipped up in a bag right now. Someone killed the woman and attempted to kill the child, and then they killed the man.”

Cliff made a face. “What makes you so sure it’s the same person?”

Henry stood and walked over into the light of all the propane lanterns we’d lit; the place sounded like a snake pit. “Talk of killing is talk; killing is different.”

The agent pulled a can from the plastic and held it out to the Bear, but Henry ignored him.

I figured I’d better speak up. “What he’s saying is that there aren’t that many actual killers on the Rez.”

The agent continued to sip his beer. “You guys get anything out of the shoemaker?”

“Boot maker.”

“Whatever.”

I leveraged myself up and stood so as to make way for the med-ex team and the body. “He wasn’t there, but I had an interesting conversation with his wife, who said that Clarence hadn’t been there for about a year, but we discovered that he was evidently there last night.”

“So I need to go sweat her?”

I smiled. “Good luck with that.”

“Tough?”

“Like a Flying J truck stop steak.”

We watched as they carefully turned the body and made their way down the stairs and into the darkness; but for the flashing blue lights in the parking lot that cast through the open doorway below, it was as if they were carrying Clarence into the grave.

I sighed. “. 38?”

Cly nodded. “Sure looks like to me.”

“Close. Somebody he knew.”

“Yeah.” The FBI man held the beer out to Henry again. “Sure you won’t have one?”

Anyone who knew Henry Standing Bear would’ve been able to spot the storm clouds on the horizon, but Cliff Cly’s experiences with him had been limited. Personally, I was just hoping I could stop the Cheyenne Nation from throwing the federal agent through the plateglass windows.

His voice was smooth, like the surface of the ocean with sharks underneath. “Agent, I am having a hard time believing that you are taking this investigation seriously.” He leaned in. “Somebody has almost wiped out an entire Native family.”

Cly’s eyes searched the face of my best friend and stayed there as a strong moment passed. “Do you want me to call in the black helicopters? Because I can.” He glanced at me. “I can make a phone call and have a hundred Ivy League graduates wandering around the Rez with their heads firmly planted up their asses, and the only thing they’re going to do is make it harder for the guys that are probably going to really break this case.” He extended a forefinger from the can and first punched the Bear in the chest with it, and then me. “Batman and Robin of the Badlands. You know everybody; you know everything-and besides, Sheriff, you’re the one who wanted me to hand the baton over to the Indian Princess. I’m just waiting to share the credit so I can move on to another and better assignment.”

He sipped the beer again, and I thought it was a remarkably gutsy performance in the face of impending Indian disaster.

Tapping the can with the same forefinger, he smiled. “And this? I just think better when I’ve had a beer-one beer.” He extended the four-pack to Henry again. “How about you?”

The Cheyenne Nation didn’t move but then abruptly snagged a can from the plastic loop, pulling it free and then tapping Cly on the chest with it in return. “I just want us to be clear.”

The agent smiled a matinee idol smile. “We are.” He spread his hands and glanced at me. “Okay, boys, so where’s the next body gonna drop?”

Henry and I looked at each other, neither of us with an answer.

“Did you listen to the CD?”

I shook my head. “We are technologically deprived here in the Wild West.”

He crushed his can and stuffed it in the pocket of his Windbreaker. “Let me know if you want me to dub it onto an eight-track, but in the meantime we’ll keep looking for Public Enema Number One.”

“Artie Small Song?”

He pointed a finger at me like a gun but held his fire.

“So who gets to be Batman?”

“You do; I have the legs for Robin.”

I glanced around in vain for a clock in Rezdawg’s dash as we drove on through the night. “I am worn out; what time is it?”

He glanced at his wrist as he eased the truck up Lonnie’s drive and swung the vehicle in a circle pointed back toward the road before going up the hill. “Almost three. I’ll drop you off here so that we don’t wake up the chief.”

“Why do you suppose Lonnie wants me to keep spending the night at his place?”

“He likes the company; I would imagine he gets lonely without his daughter.” I thought about my daughter as he pulled Cly’s can of beer from the seat next to him and handed it to me. “Here. As we both know, Lonnie only has the Beer of Temptation in the house.”

I slid out of the truck, closed the door as quietly as she would allow, and spoke through the open window. “Two beers; I can have a party.” He didn’t say anything, and we listened to the crickets chirping in the velvety night. “You all right?”

“Just tired.”

I nodded. “I thought that was going to be the second ass you were going to kick today.”

The Bear shifted the truck into first, probably anxious to get home to his own bed. “Do not forget that we have a lunch appointment in nine hours.”

“Right.” I started off toward the back porch. “Get some rest.”

He said nothing, and I watched as Rezdawg rumbled down the gravel drive, turned left onto 212, and slowly disappeared.

I was about halfway up the hill when I saw another vehicle coming from the same direction that we’d traveled on 212 and watched as the Yukon signaled and drove up to where I stood.

The driver’s-side window whirred down on the official vehicle, and Lolo Long looked at me. I leaned an elbow on the sill. “You pulling double duty?”

“My one-man staff, Charles, is following Nate Small Song.”

I held up the two cans. “You want a beer?”

“No, thanks.”

I nodded and blew a breath out, extending my cheeks. “Clarence is dead.”

She gestured toward the radio. “I know.” She reached up and turned the motor off. “I think the BIA called the family.”

“Is there anybody besides Charles?”

She rolled a shoulder. “A few cousins, but nobody close.” She watched me thinking.

“No offense, but should we consider adding Charles to our ever-narrowing list of suspects?”

She laughed. “I told you, he doesn’t have enough imagination to carry on a conversation. Anyway, why would he kill his half-brother, sister-in-law, and nephew?”

“I thought maybe you’d have an idea about that.”

She shook her head. “Nope, dead end.”

There was a pause, and I could feel the exhaustion creeping into my marrow. I stood there for a moment more and then asked permission, since it seemed like she wanted to talk. “All right if I come around and sit down? I’m not so sure I can stand up for much longer.”

She pushed her shooting bag and aluminum clipboard onto the floor with a certain panache, and I circled around, opened the door, and sat. She glanced up at the dome light. “It’ll go out in a minute.” Another pause filled the cab, and I thought for a second I was going to fall asleep. “If you were going to pursue the investigation after all, did it ever occur to you to let me know?”

“It was a spur of the moment kind of thing; we went and talked to Inez Two Two, who gave us a lead on two of the places where Clarence might’ve been-one he wasn’t and, as it turned out, one he shall ever be.”

“It’s a lonely spot.”

“Yes, it is.”

I took the time to study her some more; mostly the muscles in her neck. She was tall with a broad-trunked body, but it was sexy the way she carried herself, like she was built for go. She took a deep breath, which gave me plenty of time to study the sickle-shaped scar, almost as if her face itself had been marked with the crescent of Islam.

She looked at me. “I don’t sleep.”

“Ever?” I looked out the window. “I didn’t either until 1972.”

“What happened in 1972?”

“I got tired.”

She laughed a deep, throaty laugh.

“Later, I got married, had a kid; I guess it took my mind off of it.”

“Been there, done that.” She unbuckled her seat belt and turned a little to look at me as I stared at her. “You should see the look on your face right now.”

“You have a child?”

She ran a hand over the leather-clad steering wheel. “He’s with my husband in Billings.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cale Garber; ranch kid from up near Judith Gap. We met in school; I was already ROTC, so he knew he was marrying a soldier…” The words trailed off.

“I meant your son.”

“Danny.”

“How old?”

“He’s five.” She smiled, but the joy was missing in it. We sat there for a long time before she felt the need to fill the silence. “Before my first deployment I went over to Radio Shack and bought one of those talking picture frames and put a photo of me in it. I was smiling.” She cleared her throat and touched the scar on the side of her face. “Before I had this.” She dropped her hand and picked at imaginary lint on her uniform pants. “I recorded this stupid message, you know… I love you; I love you so much-please don’t forget about me! The frame had a motion detector, and every time they’d walk into the living room the thing would go off. I love you; I love you so much-please don’t forget about me! It became a joke around the house; you know, a catchphrase.”

I sat there staring at the elliptical scar and remained silent.

Her hand came back up and stayed at her temple. “We were in Sadr City when this thing went off, concave, like a dinner platter with something like sixty pounds of explosives underneath-made to go through a Hummer like it was lard.” She turned her head to look at me, consequently hiding the scar. “It killed the driver, Garston, instantaneously; didn’t even know what hit him. Took Van Holt apart and sliced off Kestner’s legs. Stevenson got it in the chest and bled out fast. I mean, we’d been hit by EFPs before, even multiple arrays, but this thing, this one…” She placed her hand on the wheel again, but kept her eyes on me. “It sounded like something ripping-like the air was made of canvas.”

She said the lines again, with the same singsong tune. “I love you; I love you so much-please don’t forget about me!”

I continued to study her.

“Garston was dead, but his foot was still on the accelerator. The wheel turned, and we were suddenly doing this graceful arc into the desert. So there I was, Medical Specialist Lolo Long with my one eye full of blood-but with the other seeing the vivid blue of the sky and the straw color of the sand.” She breathed, and I watched the muscles in her throat bunch as she swallowed. “It felt like that part went on forever; riding across the desert in a shape just like the scar on my face.”

I watched as a tear welled in the nearest eye.

She chanted again, and I knew I was hearing the mantra that had kept Specialist Lolo Long alive in that crippled, still-moving Hummer. “I love you; I love you so much-please don’t forget about me!” She laughed. “Sometime during my second deployment the battery ran out on that damn picture frame, and Cale said they didn’t replace it because it had become such an annoyance, a reminder every day that I wasn’t there.” She took a deeper breath and blew it out between her lips, pushing the emotion away. “When I got home, I threw it in the garbage.”

We sat there like that for a long time, and I pretended to study the dash as she wiped her eye. I waited a respectful amount of time before asking. “How often do you see him?”

“Twice, since I’ve been back.” She wouldn’t look at me. “My mother visits him, Barrett, too…” I waited as she composed herself. “I’m just… I think that maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother.”

Thinking I better redirect the conversation a little, I took my hat off and dropped it in my lap, rubbed my face with both hands, and then ran them through my hair. “I was in my office one day when my wife came in and sat in the chair across from my desk and told me she was pregnant.” Her eyes came back to mine. “I’ll never forget what she said next: people have been screwing this up for thousands of years; I guess it’s our turn.”

She laughed again, but this time there was a little more heart in it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The crickets were chirping, and I could even hear a few frogs down in the barrow ditch. We both watched as a couple of bats made mincemeat out of the miller moths dodging patterns in the dusk-to-dawn light in Lonnie’s driveway.

“I looked you up.”

I smiled, thankful to be on safer ground, and put my hat back on. “I’ve got a file; you told me.”

“I looked up your service record, too. You were the Sam Spade of USMC Investigators, huh?”

I nodded. “In a fitting tribute, there is an illustrious manila envelope in a file cabinet in the basement of the United States Marine Corps Archives in Quantico, Virginia, with my name in it, yes.”

“Grunt.”

“Hump.” I figured we were done here, and I was going to have to start up the hill to Lonnie’s while I still had the energy. I pulled the handle on the Yukon and stepped out, closed the door, and leaned in the window, knowing full well I was heading back out on thin ice. “When this is over, however it’s over, you should go see your son. He loves you. He loves you so much-and you better not forget about him.”

I walked the rest of the way up the hill with the two cans of beer in my hand. About halfway up I heard her start the engine, saw the GMC back down the gravel road and sweep onto 212, following its headlights and a full night of patrolling the Rez by a woman who could not sleep.

There were boxes stacked on Lonnie’s back porch amid what looked like a bone yard-skulls, horns, and the like that the real chief procured for the numerous reservation artisans he knew. I pulled the key he’d given me from my jeans and had just started to put it in the lock when I felt the edge of a large knife at my throat, and the Colt at my back was unsnapped and professionally whisked away.

The blade disappeared, and I raised my hands to telegraph my intentions, which were none, and slowly turned. The individual who had unarmed me now sat in the darkness of the porch swing with our collective weapons in his lap.

I heard the safety go off on my sidearm, but his voice was soft. “Sit.”

“Gladly.” I glanced around. “Where?”

“Right there.”

I lowered myself onto the concrete stoop and, looking up at my assailant, leaned my back against the exterior of Lonnie’s house. I tipped my hat so I could get a better look at him, but he’d situated himself in the shadows so that the bug light that Lonnie had left on for my convenience illuminated only the few miller moths that circled it and me, but not him.

“You know who I am?”

“You’re Deep Throat.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” I waited a moment. “I have an idea who you are.”

The shadow of his head shifted as he studied me. “You need to stay away from my mother.”

I glanced around to show him that I wasn’t really in any position to argue. “Okay.”

“And you need to stop chasing after me.”

“That’s going to be a little more difficult.”

He started to speak, but I interrupted him. “You want a beer?” I lifted the two cans in my one hand. It seemed like all I’d done this evening was offer beer to Indians only to be turned down.

He held my. 45 steady, and I was starting to get a little concerned, when he spoke. “Open it for me.”

I pulled the tab and carefully handed it to him.

“Artie, why don’t you give me back my gun. Unless you’re specifically here to kill me, I’m going to work on the assumption that you’re here to tell me that you’re innocent.” I opened my own can, played at sipping my beer, and waited.

“I am innocent.”

“Well, I’d be more likely to believe you if you weren’t holding my own loaded gun on me with the safety off.”

He sipped but kept the Colt pointed at my chest. After a moment, I heard the safety snap back on. “That better?”

I shrugged. “We can work in increments.” I watched as he took a deep breath and his leather jacket creaked. I estimated him to be pretty good sized but rangy. “So, where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I have places.”

“I bet you do; is Diamond Butte Lookout one of them?”

There was a pause, and he genuinely sounded confused. “No.”

I studied him, but my eyes were having trouble adjusting since I was in the light. “So let me guess, you’re here to tell me you didn’t kill Audrey Plain Feather?”

He sat there without moving and then stuffed the can be-tween his legs and rustled something from his shirt pocket. In the darkness I could just make out his mouthing a cigarette from a pack and one-handing a Bic lighter. There was a brief flash before he snapped it shut, and I got a pretty good glimpse of his face; lean like a coyote, with a do-rag and a goatee.

He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “I would never do something like that-push a woman off a cliff while she was holding her child? I would never do that.”

“You’ve done some stuff.”

He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and let it dangle in his fingers. “Nothing like that.” It was quiet, and then he plucked the beer from between his legs and sipped. “Nothing like that.”

“I guess you had a pretty big argument with her last week.”

He nodded. “At Human Services?”

“Yep.”

He laughed through his cigarette, and two plumes of smoke shot toward me. “Everybody argues at Human Services; it’s what you do there.”

“Evidently your argument made an impression.”

He grunted. “They were trying to cut off my mother’s dole checks.”

Dole check-he must’ve gotten that term from her. “They said you were cashing them.”

His voice got a little strained as he took another puff. “For her, not for me.”

I waved my hand to indicate that it was neither here nor there to me. “Why did you try and run me over with your truck the other night?”

His voice sounded genuinely surprised again. “What?”

“Somebody in your ’71 GMC tried to run me over right down here on the Red Road two nights ago.”

“Wasn’t me.”

I pretended to sip my beer again. “Your nephew tried to take responsibility, but I don’t believe him.” It got quiet again. “I figure somebody lifted it after you loaned it to him up in Jimtown. Any idea who that could have been?”

“I don’t know.”

“For an innocent man, you don’t seem to have a lot of answers for me, Artie.”

“It wasn’t me.”

I set my still-full can down beside me and stretched out my legs, my boots almost reaching him. “I’ll be honest with you; I really didn’t think it was you who tried to run me over, for the simple reason that I can’t imagine what it is you could’ve hoped to have gained.”

He ventured an opinion. “Scare you off?”

“I don’t think you’re that stupid.” His cigarette flared. “But, then there’s the tape.”

Another silence, and when he spoke his voice sounded more unsure than it had before. He took another drag. “What tape?”

“The one where Clarence Last Bull tried to chisel you out of the money he promised you for killing Audrey and Adrian.”

He stood. “What?”

“I guess you’re on that tape, too.”

“No way. Get Clarence and let him look me in the face and say that.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible-he’s not talking to anyone.” I decided to keep at least one hole-card hidden, in case he hadn’t been the one who’d killed the man. “Have you had any contact with Clarence in the last few days?”

He slowly lowered himself back on the swing. “No, I hardly know the man.”

“Knew.” I glanced into the darkness. “Do you know a woman by the name of Erma Stoltzfus?”

He dropped his cigarette butt and nipped off another from the pack. “No.”

Strangely enough, I believed him. “Well, Artie, I haven’t listened to the tape, but if you’re telling the truth then somebody’s gone to a heck of a lot of trouble to make it look like you committed these murders.”

“Then let’s go get Clarence and get him to tell the truth.” He grunted. “Gimme five minutes with him and he’ll talk.”

“I doubt it.” He didn’t say anything more, so I figured I’d level with him. “Clarence’s dead, Artie. Somebody put a bullet into him at Diamond Butte Lookout.”

He lit up, and I waited.

“Wasn’t me.”

“Is there anybody who can corroborate where you’ve been in the last forty-eight hours?”

“No.”

“Do you own a. 38 pistol?” Stupid question; I knew by experience that Artie owned every gun in the Jane’s Small Arms Catalog, so the answer was predictable.

“Yes.”

“Would you mind if we had a look at it?”

He said nothing.

“Artie, you’ve got to admit that it doesn’t look good.” I rubbed my tired eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Except for one glaring fact that I can’t see a single thing you could gain from killing these people.”

“That’s right.”

I took a breath. “There is the argument.”

He laughed again. “You’re saying I killed this woman and her husband for a crummy subsidy check?”

“It doesn’t sound all that convincing, does it?” I shrugged. “But there’s the tape. As I said, I haven’t heard it yet, but supposedly Clarence was going to give you quite a bit of money for killing his wife and child.”

He shook his head, and I watched the end of the cigarette move back and forth like tracer fire as he mumbled from one side of his mouth. “Bullshit. I don’t know him, and I never talked to him on the phone. Ever.” The tip brightened with his inhale. “Must be somebody else, somebody who had something to gain.”

I let the dust settle before making the next statement. “I think you should come in, Artie; turn yourself over to the authorities.”

“No way. I’ve seen how that turns out; once they get their hands on an Indian, it’ll be the right Indian-one-way trip to Deer Lodge.”

“I can see how this would have a limited appeal, but how do you see it ending? It’s a manhunt, Artie-you’re the guy that we’re going to have to catch and the more you run, the guiltier you look.”

“We?”

“Me, Henry, Lolo Long, the Feds, everybody who stands behind a badge-we’re all going to be looking for you.”

“You’ll never catch me, none of you.” He shook his head. “I heard what you did to my little nephew; you tell Standing Bear I owe him one.”

“I will.”

“Seems to me, I owe you, too.” Looking off to the right and his avenue of escape, he sipped his beer and rested my sidearm on his leg. “Drink your beer.”

“Artie, you’re also not stupid enough to do something to me. Turn yourself in.”

He shook his head, and I listened as he clicked off the safety on my Colt again. “Can’t do it. I done time and I can’t do it again. Even short time-I just can’t do it. Not for nothin’, and I don’t wanna braid horsehair key chains up in Deer Lodge for the next forty years.”

He started to stand, and it was then that Artie became aware of another large knife with an eleven-inch homemade blade that had been silently and professionally placed at his throat. From the sudden glow of Artie’s cigarette, I recognized the turquoise bear paw engraved in the bone.

“Do not worry about it; maybe they will let you do hatbands as well.”