As the crow flies

3

“You could’ve told me that you knew him.”

She banked the turns at ninety, and I was beginning to think that this was just the way Lolo Long drove, kind of like A. J. Foyt.

“And when was I supposed to have done that?”

“You could’ve jumped in at any time.”

I braced a hand against the dash and checked my seat belt. “You said you wanted to handle it, in a tone of voice, I might add, which told me that I must’ve done a bad job previously.” She didn’t say anything. “You got what you wanted; you’re the primary investigator on the case.”

“No, you got what I wanted.” She shot a look at me. “What makes you so cozy with the FBI that they just roll over and ask you to scratch their bellies?”

I took my hat off and rested it on my lap. “Not the entire FBI, just that one agent. And, as point of fact, I’m the one who patched up his belly.”

Her voice took on the melodic quality that his had, but with more of an edge. “So how do you know ‘Cliff Cly of the FBI’?”

I grimaced at the thought. “Well, first I broke his jaw.”

“You what?”

“It’s a long story.”

She nodded her head. “We’ve got plenty of time-you’re still under arrest.”

I sighed and thought about a horse that had been trapped on the Battlement… and the woman who loved her. “He was working on a case we were both involved with, ended up gutshot down on the Powder River, and I was lucky enough to get him help.”

“By breaking his jaw.”

“That came earlier.”

She took another curve as the V-8 in the GMC strained under her foot. “Lucky enough to help him, huh?”

“Yep.”

“So, you’re a lucky guy?”

We shot through another straightaway and barely missed a logging truck going in the other direction.

“Sometimes. Hey, speaking of-do you mind if we proceed somewhat under the speed of sound? My daughter’s getting married next week, and I’d like to be there to see the wedding.”

She let off the accelerator just a little, and I eased back in my seat. “Do you mind telling me why it is that you are so angry when you’re dealing with people?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way you spoke to Agent Cly and-”

“Did you hear the way he was with me?” Her knuckles bunched on the steering wheel.

“I did.”

“Well, then, you know why.” Her head bobbed in time with the words that she bit off. “He. Pissed. Me. Off.”

“You’ll excuse me for saying so since I’ve only known you for about six hours, but that doesn’t seem particularly difficult to do.” She shut down again and just stared through the windshield. “All I’m saying is that being angry with him didn’t help your situation.”

“So your suggestion is that I should’ve broken his jaw?”

I smiled and thought, that’s what you usually get for moralizing. “Not exactly.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a police chief, not a sheriff, so I don’t have to be a politician-I don’t need the votes.”

I returned my own gaze to the windshield. It was now righteously pouring down rain. “Votes notwithstanding, you keep going at it the way you are now and you won’t be a chief for very long.” We drove in silence, the emergency sirens echoing off the surrounding hills the only sound. “His jurisdiction supersedes yours, and generally when you argue with the federal government, you lose.”

She turned her lovely Cheyenne face to regard me. “Tell me all about that.”

I shook my head and tried to enjoy the ride. “Do you mind telling me where it is we’re going?”

“To see a man about a Jeep.”

After a hard left on 212, we rocketed a couple of miles west to a cutoff that had a few signs, one of which read WELCOME TO MUDDY CUSTER, HE’OVONEHE-O ’HE ’E. “What does that mean?”

“Muddy Custer?”

“No, the Cheyenne part.”

She shrugged. “Where they gather.”

We circled a development where all the houses were exactly the same design but painted in assorted vibrant colors.

She saw me looking. “Remixes. Every summer Ace Hardware comes down here and has a tailgate sale.”

She pulled into a driveway where an old Volkswagen minibus, bright yellow with the words OLD SKOOL written down the side, was sitting on blocks, and in front of that a midseventies Jeep CJ-5 with a partial convertible top.

I watched the rain pelting the canvas. “Somebody we know?”

“I do.”

I looked up through the rain that was battering the windshield and thought about how wet we were about to become.

We both got out and, as I tugged my summer palm-leaf hat down tight, I looked past the rivulets of rain dripping from the brim to examine the Jeep’s twin exhaust tips. I stooped to look at the matching differential drips rainbowing on the concrete surface of the driveway. When I stood, she was already around the other vehicle and headed for the porch to our right with her sidearm drawn.

I spoke loudly, so as to be heard above the sheets of rain. “I don’t suppose I could have my gun back?”

She ignored me, and I watched as a curtain in the window to the left of the front door slipped back in place.

Chief Long stepped up and pounded on the frame of the screen, then turned to look at me as I joined her on the step below. “Hopefully, he’s really drunk and passed out-what we don’t want is him just a little drunk.”

I crossed my arms and tried to make a smaller target for the downpour. “Because?”

She pounded on the aluminum door again, the saturated portions of her uniform making provocative patterns. “Then he’s dangerous.”

I thought I could hear somebody moving around in the small house. “What if he’s sober?”

“Then I’ve got the wrong house.” She reached out, pulled the screen door aside, and banged on the door itself a half-dozen times with the butt of the revolver. “C’mon, you Indian taco, I know you’re home!”

I joined her on the porch under the remains of a metal awning that sifted the downpour into interesting streams that were hard to avoid, but it was better cover than nothing. “I’m assuming, and only assuming, mind you, that his real name isn’t Indian Taco.”

“Last Bull, but he’s part Mexican.” She drummed on the door again, leaving horseshoe-shaped indentations on the cheap, interior-grade surface. “Clarence, I know you’re in there-your shitty Jeep is sitting out here leaking onto the driveway!”

It sounded like someone knocked a bottle off a table inside, and I waited as Long pounded some more. After a moment the door opened about four inches and a red, bleary eye looked past the security chain while the smell of alcohol and vomit breathed out.

“What?” His voice was deep and slurred, and it looked as if the chief had gotten the condition she’d hoped for.

“Open the door.”

The eye seemed to consider it. “Wh… Why?”

“Because I said…” Her response was cut short when she noticed he had slipped the barrel of what appeared to be a shotgun into the opening.

His movements were slow, and he fumbled with the chain as he repeatedly attempted to undo it with the weapon stuffed under his arm; from my perspective, I could see that the breech was jacked and the thing was unloaded. I started to mention this to Long, but she had already reared a foot back.

“Chief, wait…”

Her foot hit the door-from personal experience I knew what the cheap, single-ply doors did in these kinds of situations-and she booted a round hole in it about ten inches in diameter, admitting her foot into the house but little else.

Clarence Last Bull dropped the shotgun and, predictably, ran-as best he could.

I reached over and grabbed Long by the collar of her wet uniform shirt and yanked her back to the side in an attempt to get her free from the door. As we fell backward alongside the concrete steps into some grandfather sage, she elbowed me, scrambled off, and charged toward the doorway.

“Wait a minute!”

She continued to ignore me and splashed up the steps with the long barrel of her. 44 leveled, careful this time to kick the more structurally rigid side.

I decided it was time to cut Clarence off at the pass.

There was a sidewalk that led to the back of the house and, after rounding the corner, I slapped open a cyclone fence to find a concrete stoop not unlike the one in the front. There was a wooden-handled garden rake leaning against the painted siding, and I grabbed it. Last Bull was pretty intent on getting to the dirt that constituted the yard, which kept him from noticing the rake handle I slipped between his legs.

Fortunately for him, he cleared the concrete steps; unfortunately, he then hit the largest puddle in the yard face first.

I had dropped the landscaping tool and started toward him when Lolo Long blew through the rear screen door and pitched herself on top of Last Bull just as he had started to get up.

He was tall but skinny and incredibly inebriated, which gave the chief the upper hand. The air had gone out of him and now they were both covered in mud. He flipped her to the side, but she wrapped her legs around the trunk of his body and pulled him over after her. He tried to reach a feeble hand back, but she struck him a nasty blow to the head with the revolver, and he slumped still.

She pushed him over and lay there breathing, looking up at me from the detonation of drops that struck the puddle surrounding her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks for the help.”

“It was nothing.”

She kicked at the dead weight of his body, and when his face slumped into the murky water, she holstered the Smith and cuffed his hands behind his back.

I looped a hand under one of Clarence Last Bull’s arms and dragged him away from the puddle before he drowned.

It was dry in the Cheyenne Tribal Police Law Enforcement and Detention Center, and the environs were as comfy as could be expected; of course, I couldn’t speak for the man snoring fitfully in the holding cell with a blanket over his head. A stolid-looking patrolman with a pockmarked face, who was gently humming a tune to himself and eating portions of an apple that he carved with a yellow-handled pocketknife, was watching me.

I twirled the tiny ring on my little finger, glad that it hadn’t fallen off in the backyard melee. “Can I have a piece?”

He cut off another eighth, shoved it in his mouth, and looked at me, his expression as blank as the walls that surrounded us.

I leaned back in the chair that Long had told me to sit in and glanced around the empty office at the couple of other tables pushed against the bare walls. After placing the suspect in the holding cell, the chief had deposited me with the quiet man and had repaired to the locker room in the back. From the sound of it, she was taking a shower as the sphinx guarded me. I guess I was still under arrest.

“So, you barked too much and they cut your vocal cords?”

I looked out the vertical window next to Long’s desk and watched the wind rock the trees and plaster rain against the double-paned glass. You can learn a lot about a person by examining her desk, even if there’s not anything on it. Chief Long’s was completely vacant, except for an old, push-button line phone and one manila folder.

“Hey, do you mind if I make a phone call?”

He sighed deeply and continued to hum.

I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. After a while, I started dropping my attempts at social graces and surrendered to the exhaustion I felt. I leaned back in my chair and pulled my hat down partially over my face.

It was that way sometimes with the Cheyenne-conversation simply wasn’t required and silence was very often a sign of respect; however, even though I knew he wasn’t attempting to make me feel unwelcome, he wasn’t exactly knocking himself out to become my newfound pal, either.

Nothing happened for a while; then, from under the brim of my hat, I saw Lolo Long walk in our general direction. She sat in a chair beside the deputy, but they didn’t look at each other, preferring to sit at an angle with their eyes centered on an area roughly midwall.

As far as I could tell, the two danced around subjects-one providing a counterpoint to the other’s silences with singular responses and small sounds that I’m sure carried their own meanings of verbal sustenance. They were not whispering but were still respectful of my supposed sleep, and the consonants sounded like small, bright birds in faraway trees, the vowels like a lullaby.

His chair squeaked and he closed a door, and then she moved to my left.

I tipped my hat back up and opened my eyes. Her hair was still wet from her shower, and she had changed uniforms.

“I don’t think your staff likes me.”

She studied the folder that had been on her desk, shrugged, and kept reading. “He’s probably just pissed off because we’ve got his half-brother in the holding cell, but Charles says only about three words a week anyway, so who knows.”

“Every family has a black sheep; some have two.” I looked around at the half-dozen empty desks that were shoved against the wall. “Where are the rest of your personnel?”

She gestured with a distracted hand and continued to study the file. “I fired them.”

I turned and looked at her, expecting more but not getting it. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “I fired Charles, too, but he keeps showing up; he hasn’t been paid in two weeks. I don’t know if he understands that he’s been fired. He lacks imagination, and I have to admit that it’s a trait that’s growing on me.” Her eyes came up. “I don’t like people with imagination.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I nodded toward the sleeping man through the doorway. “That the file on the lodger?”

She looked back at the folder, and about a minute passed. “No, it’s the file on you.”

“I’ve got a file?”

She closed it. “As of today.”

“So, am I still under arrest?”

“Yes. No…” She tossed the file on her desk. “Maybe.”

“Do you mind if I ask for what?”

She puffed a breath out with her lips. “Reasonable suspicion, which covers being friends with Henry Standing Bear.”

There was a lot going on there, kind of like a nascent volcano. “What, exactly, is it you’ve got against Henry?”

Her eyes flared, which reaffirmed my concern. “He thinks he’s above the law, and I don’t like that.”

I smiled. “Maybe not above, but certainly beyond.” I stood, looking down at the phone on her desk. “I’d like to make a phone call.”

She splayed a hand and pulled a wave of the damp, raven-colored hair past her shoulder. “I already made all your calls. You’re spending the night at the tribal chief’s house, and I’m going to drop you off.” She leaned back in her chair, stretched out her arms, and left her fingertips on the edge of her desk like a kid testing her reach. “But right now I thought I’d buy you dinner.”

The Charging Horse Casino is a strange-looking building tucked away along the main road of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, and if it weren’t the largest gaming facility on the high plains and covered in neon, you might miss it.

A thickset man a little older than me with a salt and pepper ponytail and a weathered face met us and opened the door of the casino. “Hello, Chief.”

Lolo Long didn’t respond but continued in.

I nodded to the man, who gave me the slightest smile, and then continued on to catch up with her. “Somebody you know?”

“Ex-police chief.”

“Oh.”

Most of the building was taken up by the five-hundred-seat bingo hall in the back, but the three-a-week sessions didn’t start till tomorrow night, so the place was pretty much empty except for the professionals who were scattered around the slots and poker machines. We were seated in front of one of the diamond-shaped windows in the farthest corner of the restaurant, where we could watch the late light flare with a horizontal glow just before dying out.

“Is this your usual seat?”

She looked around. “They try to keep me away from the patrons.”

I nodded and sat there, waiting; it was her party, so I figured I’d let her swing at the pinata, which gave me plenty of time to study the sickle-shaped scar that started under her right cheekbone, circled around the orbit of her eye, and disappeared into her dark eyebrow.

The waitress, a middle-aged Cheyenne woman, quietly approached with water and menus. We ordered, and the waitress came back with a pitcher of iced tea. I nodded, and she filled up two glasses, then left, giving Lolo Long time for the window and herself.

She turned back to me. “So, how did I do today?”

I felt like I’d just hit a pothole. “Excuse me?”

“On the job-how did I do?” Her eyes went to the surface of the table. “Look, I know you’ve been doing this stuff for a long time. A long time. I thought you might have some opinions.”

“It’s really not any of my business, but I think maybe you should give the badge back.”

It took a moment for her to work up a response. “I know I didn’t do everything exactly right today.”

“Well, you didn’t do much right today.” I glanced around to make sure that no one was in earshot and continued. “With all due respect, Specialist, I don’t know what your specialty was, but it wasn’t law enforcement.”

She didn’t move.

I felt bad about saying it, but she’d introduced the subject and I was beginning to think that it might be my only opportunity. I tried to soften my voice. “I’m sorry to be the one, but I have to tell you this before you get yourself or somebody else killed.”

The muscles bunched in her throat. “Well, what did I do wrong?”

I glanced around in an attempt to get a handle on the subject. “Let’s just use the altercation with Last Bull as an example: with any kind of decent public defender, he’ll walk.”

“He had a shotgun.”

“An empty one that he did not brandish toward us in any way. If you’d been paying attention rather than trying to gain admittance to a residence where you had no warrant-”

“I know him; he’s a drunk and dangerous.”

“Which makes it even worse. You approached the house with your sidearm drawn. I don’t care how dangerous he is or isn’t-you offered him up a written invitation to resist. He is a potential suspect-the operative word there is potential — and should be treated with at least a tiny bit of respect.” She started to interrupt again, but I wouldn’t let her. “What if you’re wrong? What if he’s a guy who just lost a loved one and his child and that’s all? What then?”

She was angry. “I’ll do something like apologize.”

“That would be interesting since I haven’t seen anything approximating an apology for anything since I’ve met you today.”

She folded her arms, then unfolded them and started to take a drink of her tea or maybe throw it in my face. “Apologies are a sign of weakness.”

I sat there looking at her, making sure I’d heard what I’d thought I’d heard as the waitress arrived with our food-she stood a little to the side to avoid the bloodshed.

I went ahead and finished my statement. “Apologies are a sign of having some semblance of an idea of what’s going on around you and not being a cocksure idiot.” I should’ve stopped there, but the rest needed to be said. “Excuse me for saying so, but you don’t have the training or, from what I can see, the temperament for the job.”

Her eyes stayed steady with mine. She took a deep breath and then stood by the table. The only sounds were the air-conditioning and the noisome jangling of the slot machines.

Again she reminded me of Vic, but without the top-notch training that the Philadelphia Police Academy had provided, or the five years of street duty, or the field commendations that the Terror had hung on her bathroom wall. It was possible that Lolo Long could become a capable officer, but she would never last that long. She would end up dead on a frontage road or bleeding her life away on a patch of threadbare indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Without another word, she turned and stalked out, taking the time only to flip one of the waiting plates from the waitress’s hand. It cascaded in a graceful arc over the startled woman’s shoulder and crashed onto the tile floor with a clatter, bits of broken china and chipotle steak going everywhere.

I dropped my head and sighed. I knew I’d been going too far, but I hadn’t considered how “too far” I’d gone and, considering the recent conversation, I figured the waitress wasn’t likely to get an apology.

The poor woman was still standing there with the other plate in her hand, so I took it from her. “I’m assuming that mine is the one on the floor, so I’ll take the fried chicken.” I held my other hand out to her. “Walt Longmire.”

She nodded and shook my fingers. “I know.” She looked through the window as Chief Long lunged the Yukon out of the parking lot. “She used to be such a nice girl before.”

Setting the plate on the table, I gestured toward the mess. “Do you need some help cleaning that up?”

“No.” She smiled. “I can get it-you eat.”

It was at this point, according to Officer Long, that I betrayed a weakness. “I’m sorry.”

The woman braided her weakness with mine. “I’m sorry, too.”

I sat and began eating the chicken with my fingers; other than the waitress, I was the only one there. I pulled a few more napkins from the dispenser as she returned with a dustpan, broom, a spray bottle, and paper towels. “My name is Loraine Two Two.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Loraine.”

She made quick work of the mess. “I heard it was Audrey Plain Feather who fell off a cliff and died today.”

I gave the chicken a momentary rest. “That moccasin telegraph never sleeps, does it?”

“I worked with her over at Human Services.” She smiled but then it faded. “They said the child, Adrian, was with her when she fell.”

I took a breath and thought about my nonofficial connection to the case. “He’s over at the hospital, but I think he’s going to be fine.”

Loraine stood but averted her eyes from mine. “It’s a troubled family.”

I nodded, still holding a leg in my hands. “That’s what I hear.”

“The man, Clarence; he was paying attention to my daughter Inez, a year ago.”

“Really?” I wasn’t sure of what else to say.

“Yes.” Loraine Two Two turned to go, but her voice carried over her shoulder. “She was thirteen.”

It was about two miles up the road to Lonnie Little Bird’s house, and I was once again regretting the loss of my truck as I trudged up Route 212, the thunder still resonating off the flat surfaces of the distant plateaus.

With my current luck, it was likely to rain again before I got there.

It was also likely that Clarence Last Bull had killed Audrey, but the final word on that would have to wait until Chief Long got the preliminary report from the Montana Crime Lab and the FBI tomorrow morning. It wouldn’t have all the details, but it would be enough to get the slow-moving wheels of justice started on their uphill journey.

Rudimentary math and tonight’s revelation told me that Clarence was having a little on the side, and the fact that it was with a thirteen-year-old girl didn’t exactly endear him to me. I still had doubts, but then I wasn’t sure what a man did after pushing his wife and child from a cliff. Would you just get in your car and drive home drunk? If you were trying to make it look as if it were an accident, you would contact 911 and stay there. It just didn’t make sense, and in my line of work the things that didn’t make sense often led you to the things that did.

I reminded myself once more that this wasn’t my case. Twirling the ring on my little finger, I again remembered that I had a daughter who was getting married in a matter of weeks.

I could hear a vehicle approaching from the rear, and just for fun I threw a thumb out to see if I could get a lift. The thought struck me that it might’ve been Lolo Long in a fit of conscience, deciding to give me a ride after all. Yep, right, and it could also have been Chief High Bear wanting to show me the ledger drawings that he had painted in the roster book he’d taken from the first sergeant of the Seventh Cavalry.

I turned to look back-by the sound, the vehicle was awfully close-and when I did, it seemed to be bearing down on me. It was an older truck with some kind of hopped-up engine and Cherry Bomb mufflers. I stood there for a moment, thinking that the driver hadn’t seen me and would momentarily turn the wheel and go by, but instead the truck continued on a course straight toward where I stood.

I ran across the shoulder and down the hill by the side of the road, passed by a signpost for Route 212, clawed my way up the slight embankment to a barbed-wire fence, and threw myself over into the wet grass. The jacked-up pickup followed me into the ditch and swerved just past, slapping a few posts and shooting sparks from the barbs on the wire that attempted to bury themselves into the sheet metal. The truck slid sideways as it struggled to get back up the hill and onto the highway, then drifted to a slower speed as the driver tried to get purchase.

It was about then that I noticed the elk tied to the hood.

I really started missing my gun.

Soaking wet from the rough landing, I stretched the old three-strand wire, scrambled back over, and started after the half-ton as it slid sideways some more, the bald tires unable to get a grip. There were brake lights and headlights but no license plate on what looked like an old, red Chevrolet.

The driver was sawing at the wheel in an attempt to escape a return trip into the ditch, but all I could see was a mantle of long, dark hair.

I was having trouble getting up the grade in my slick-soled boots but got to the edge of the road and ran along the white line. The Chevy wasn’t making particularly good time going down the road sideways, but it didn’t seem as if I was catching up.

The wide tires on the rear finally got to the gravel, and I watched as the vehicle squirreled to the right, the elk swaying on the hood.

My second and third winds were giving out as I watched, but the driver corrected again and shot ahead east toward Ashland with a roar like a top-fuel dragster. Forcing the air in and out of my lungs, I stopped and placed my hands on my knees, the V-8 echoing off the hillsides and disappearing around the far turn a mile away. “Good God…”

I swallowed and stayed bent over until my blood pressure and adrenaline level approximated normal but kept my eyes on the road just in case the crazed driver decided to turn around and take another pass at me. After a while, the only sound other than me breathing was the cry of a few night birds and the croaking of some of the frogs in the ditch. I finally stood, pulled in two lungfuls of air, and coughed.

It was the time of the evening that was playing with night, and I walked up the road a few steps until I noticed something odd on the gravel. It was a carved piece of buffalo horn about the size of three of my fingers, with a smoothed tip, a piece of rawhide tied in a loop toward the end. There were a few holes drilled into the thing and a larger opening about a quarter down the length.

I popped it in my shirt pocket and glanced up the road-it was still a couple of hundred yards to the cutoff to Lonnie’s place.

I knocked and shuffled my feet on the welcome mat of the tidy house-I wasn’t sure if the chief was awake or not. I glanced down the concrete ramp that led to the front door and was glad it was a warm night; if worse came to worse, I could always sleep on the hanging swing on Lonnie’s porch.

I knocked again and could hear someone rustling around inside; after a moment, the door opened, revealing the chief in his wheelchair. He looked up at me through blurry eyes but with a grin. “ Ha’ahe, lawman. They said you were sleeping over, but I’d given up on you. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

I opened the screen door and followed Lonnie along the hallway, where there were numerous photographs of him in his major-league ball-playing days and ones of his daughter in jingledress dance outfits and playing basketball.

I sat at the table in the kitchen as Lonnie examined my soaked, mud-covered clothes and the torn jeans where the voracious barbed wire had gotten me in my leap over the fence. “Rough night?”

I took a deep breath and wished Lonnie still drank, but he had given that up in a successful attempt at getting his daughter from the clutches of his sisters. “Somebody tried to run me over.”

“Where?

I jerked a thumb past my shoulder. “Walking, right out here on 212.”

“What were you doing walking?”

“Oh, I had a difference of opinion with your police chief.” I tried to deflect the conversation. “Hey, Lonnie, do you have any of that really good root beer?” I knew the chief kept a single can of Rainier in his refrigerator as a token to alcoholic temptation, but I wasn’t going to ask for that.

“Um hmm, yes.” He wheeled over to the fridge and opened the door.

“You don’t know anybody with an early-seventies pickup, Chevy, red or maroon, with a loud exhaust, do you?”

He returned to the table with two cans and parked his knees next to mine. “That sounds like a couple of trucks I know.”

The can made a soft hissing sound as I opened it. “Can you make me a list?” I knew from experience that Lonnie liked making lists.

He had put on his glasses, and the reflection in them made it hard to see his eyes. It took a while for him to answer. “Yes. Is there something going on?”

“A woman and her child fell off Painted Warrior this afternoon.” I tried to think if it was this afternoon, my body telling me it had been three days ago. I stretched my eyes to try and keep them open and took a sip of the pop. “Anyway, I helped that police chief of yours today, and I can’t think of another reason in the world why somebody would want to make roadkill out of me.” I felt in my shirt and pulled out the carved object I’d found, tossing it on the table between us. “Any idea what that is?”

He put his can down and picked it up. He studied it for a moment and then blew into it, moving his fingers over the holes to make a trilling sound just at the height of human audibility. He lowered it and looked at me. “It’s an elk whistle made out of buffalo horn-the old type.” He looked at it again in admiration. “This is a good one. Um hmm.”

The root beer tasted good, and I could feel some of the knots in my shoulders and neck starting to release. “You know who made that one?”

He turned the flutelike whistle over in his hands. “No, but I can find out.”

“Add it to the list.”

We smiled at each other, but then his faded like an eclipse. “What was the woman’s name?”

“Audrey Plain Feather.”

“I know this woman, her family.” He looked up. “She is dead?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “And the child?”

“Alive, and being checked at the hospital.”

He reached out a hand and patted my arm. “Thank you for looking into this thing, Walter.”

“Oh, I’m not-”

“It is good that you are a friend to the people.”

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the front door. Lonnie’s expression was one of mild surprise. He held up a single bony finger to keep me from responding. “I am popular tonight. Yes, it is so.”

He wheeled the chair around the table, and when I started to stand, he sat me back down with a quick movement of the palm of his hand. He disappeared down the hall, and I listened as he opened the door. There was a brief, but fierce, conversation in Cheyenne. I figured it was Henry, who had come to pick me up, but as I listened to the tone of the conversation, it became obvious that somebody was receiving a royal dressing-down.

After a few moments, Lolo Long entered and stood by the wall in the hallway. Lonnie rolled by her and went straight to the refrigerator again; without saying a word, he placed another can of root beer on the table. As he passed by me on his way back to the hall, he stopped to address the room as a whole. “I am going to bed, but I’m sure that you two professionals have a great deal to discuss. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

The kitchen was quiet; the tribal chief of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, having spoken, had rolled to his bed in his portable throne.

Her arms were crossed, and her hair hung down over her face like a shroud. She lifted her head slowly, her voice a murmur. “I’m sorry.”

I folded, like I always do in the face of female conciliation, and gestured toward her root beer and the only available chair. “Have a seat.”

She did and then looked at everything in the place but me. “They’re going to try and take my case.”

I took a sip of my own soda and waited.

“The guy you know, the agent, he called and said that the Medical Examiner’s report showed enough reasonable findings to consider this a homicide, so they are going to proceed with their own investigation.”

Nodding, I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “That’s pretty much standard procedure with the bureau.” I leaned forward in my chair and rested my elbows on the table. “Maybe you should let them have it.”

I got the eyes. “No.”

“Why?”

She took a slug of her root beer and absentmindedly played with the whistle. “She was a friend.” Lolo held the whistle up to her face and studied it. “We had a house in Billings together once when we were both going to school. We had hopes, and I was kind of a mentor. She got pregnant…” She sighed in exasperation. “And came back here-I went in the military.”

I did some quick math. “Adrian’s only…”

“It was before him, another pregnancy that ended up being a miscarriage, but she came back here anyway.” Long glanced around the room in an attempt to find the words that must’ve been lying around somewhere. “Look, Sheriff, I want justice.”

“Whose justice?”

The eyes again, but I was getting eyeproof.

“Help me.”

I leaned back in my chair, took a breath, and thought about the soon-to-be-married greatest legal mind of our time. “I can’t.”

“You can. I’ve seen them with you; they’re afraid of you.”

That made me laugh. “They’re not afraid of me.”

“Well, they respect you, and the new AIC owes you his life.”

I narrowed my own eyes at her. “And what does that have to do with you?”

She set the buffalo horn back in its place, folded her hands on the table, then reached over and lifted the corner of the place mat. She looked at the floor and then lowered the mat back to the surface and smoothed it with her fingers. “I know you think I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I smiled. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

She nodded very slightly in agreement, and her voice was losing its energy. “And you may not even like me.” I didn’t say anything. “But you could teach me.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Please.”