As the crow flies

5

I’d been to Artie’s mother’s house before-it was up one of the fingerling canyons that ran down to Otter Creek-and it reminded me a little of the departed Geo Stewart’s junkyard back in Durant. The rusted vehicles trailed all the way down to the main road toward the more populated areas of the unincorporated Rabbit Town. I don’t know why Rabbit Town is called Rabbit Town other than there might’ve been rabbits there at one time, but I hadn’t seen any so far today.

So far, no ’71 GMC either.

The further we went up the hill, the older the cars and trucks got, and we finally parked somewhere around 1939. It was hot, but there was a trickle of smoke whispering from the tiny cabin lodged into the hillside just like there was when I had visited the winter before last.

That time, I had remained in Henry’s truck as he’d asked the old woman about her son, but this time I was there officially. I hoisted myself out of the Yukon and looked at the place, especially the windows, since Artie was known to be in possession of ballistic oddities like FAL. 308s, MAC-10s, and even an M-50-I knew because I’d been through his closet or the dental hygienist’s at least. “Hold up.”

Lolo Long, who was already winding her way toward the cabin, looked back and immediately placed a hand on her colossal sidearm.

I pointed up-the smoke was actually coming more from the back-so I took the route around the corner of the house toward the hillside. Chief Long followed as I carefully picked my way around a rotting roll of mustard-yellow carpeting and the wire remnant of a bedspring. “Do you know his mother?”

Once again, her tone was defensive. “No.”

I studied the nearest window and could see the rags stuffed around the casing, as much for insulation against the heat as the cold. “Just for the record, I don’t expect you to know everybody on the Rez.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, do you mind if I do the talking?”

She gestured an after-you-my-dear-Alphonse and brought up the rear.

There was quite an operation going on out back, where an elderly woman was scooping preburned charcoal with a number two shovel and spreading it evenly in a pit lined with heavy stones and tinfoil. Tipped to the side was a rack made from sheep wire and rebar, which held a good-sized doe elk that had been butterflied and then stretched onto the contraption.

She froze when she saw me but then rose and rested her chin on the back of her gnarled hands, her cataract-impaired eyes staying right with mine.

“Mrs. Small Song?”

She didn’t answer, but the milky eyes clicked to my right like the buttons on a rattlesnake’s tail as she took in Chief Long’s uniform.

I walked closer and pointed toward the complicated arrangement. “Open-pit elk cooking; I haven’t seen that in quite a while. My mother used to do it.” I extended a hand. “My name is-”

“I know your name, lawman.” She turned her head and shot a prodigious stream of tobacco onto one of the forty-pound rocks, where it sizzled. The old woman then glanced past as Long joined me, but then her eyes clicked back the way they had before. “Looking for my son?”

I conceded the fact. “Say, does he still have that ’71 GMC?”

She kept her gaze on me, and I was just as glad the cataracts were there to guard me against what was most certainly the evil eye. “You wanna buy a truck, lawman?”

I smiled. “Never can tell.”

She took her time before answering and poked at the coals with the wood-handled shovel, its point worn down so that it looked indented. “Got plenty out front.”

“I need one that runs.” I looked through the window as if Artie might be inside. “Is he around?”

“No.”

I nodded and kneeled down by the rocks to stick a finger into her gallon water jug of marinade, pausing to look up at her. “May I?” She nodded with a curt jutting of her chin. It tasted pretty wonderful. “Pineapple?”

“Commodity juice; all they had this month.”

I ran my tongue around my mouth as I looked at the door, propped open with a kitchen chair, and the windows, which were curtained with all different calicos. I looked back at the elk’s body, where I could see where the death shot had pierced one side and then continued on through the other, taking a lot of meat with it. I went ahead talking about the marinade. “Sage, garlic…”

She interrupted, impatient with my novice tongue. “Cider vinegar and beer-lots of beer.”

I stood and looked down at all four-foot-ten of her, wrapped in a shawl and dressed in a full-length, layered skirt despite the 90-degree weather and the fire. She looked as if she should’ve been beside a sheep wagon telling fortunes and finding pentagrams in people’s hands. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”

She cocked her head, regarding me. “You are the lawman from the Ahsanta mountains.”

“I am.”

“They say you’re a good man, Ahsanta.” She shifted her weight. “You know I had three sons?”

“No, ma’am.”

“One was killed in the Vietnam. My second son, the one you hunt, never showed no interest in the white man’s army-he’s the smart one. My grandson, Nate, the one that works at the talking box, the boy of my son up in Deer Lodge.”

I smiled. “The radio station?”

“Yes. He was going to fight in this war they have now; I don’t know which one.” She shifted the handle in her hands and rested it beside her face. “I told him no, that he couldn’t join the white man’s army, that they would only get him killed.” She studied me. “You in the white man’s army, Ahsanta?”

“I was.”

She nodded, mostly to herself. “Only the white man survives the white man’s army.”

I glanced at Lolo. “Chief Long here was in the white man’s army.”

“ Se-senovoto ema’etao’o.”

I saw Long stiffen, but she said nothing, and it was possible she was learning.

“Why you hunt my boy?”

I figured I’d just level with her. “Last night, he tried to run me over with his truck.”

She stared at me through the clouds in her eyes, then her jaw dropped and she began breathing a convulsive laugh that pulsed her tiny back like a bicycle pump. “Maybe he doesn’t like you, Ahsanta.”

I shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ve never really met him, so I can’t imagine what it is he’s got against me.”

“He doesn’t like the ones make him sleep inside.” She continued to study me, but she was making up her mind about something. Finally, she spoke. “Was here last night.”

“Your son?”

“Who we talking about?”

She had a point. “What time?”

“Night time.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

She adjusted something in her mouth, and I thought she was going to spit again, but instead, she swallowed. “Don’t own a clock.”

I slipped a hand over my mouth to pull down the corners and keep myself from smiling. “Did he stay the night?”

“Nope, can’t sleep inside no more. Told you-you people did that to him.”

I glanced back at the holes in the deer and could see where someone had slit the butts and shoulders and removed the membrane from the rib cage. It was a professional job-Artie most certainly had been there last night. “Mrs. Small Song, I’m not here to arrest your son for anything; I’d just like to talk to him.”

She motioned with the shovel handle, rocking it toward Chief Long. “What does Se-senovoto ema’etao’o want?”

I glanced over my shoulder as if I’d just remembered the young woman who was peering into the scrub pine and juniper bushes on the ridge above us. “She just wants to talk to Artie, too.”

She nodded her head but continued watching the coals, glowing red around the edges, and it was impossible to tell what she might’ve been thinking. For a moment, I thought she’d forgotten we were still there, but then she spat on the rocks again. “I tell him you was here, whenever he come back.”

“We’d appreciate that, Mrs. Small Song.” I turned and started toward the corner of the house with Lolo in tow.

We were halfway down the path when she grabbed my arm and tried to yank me around. I kept walking, but when we got to the level, she stepped in front of me. “That’s it?”

“Keep your voice down and get in the truck.”

She looked a little startled and then followed me to the Yukon, where we opened the doors and slid in. “He’s there?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the part I don’t like.” I gestured toward the ignition switch. “He’s been there, and he’s going to be there again, and I’m thinking it would be nice if we weren’t quite so conspicuous on the next visit.”

“Okay, Great-White-Detective, so how did you know he had been there?”

“Well, the elk, for one-that old woman didn’t break up that five-hundred-pound animal and rack it herself; besides, I pride myself on knowing what an M-50 can do to living tissue.”

“The very-out-of-season elk?”

“Yep, so all we have to do is wait for the prodigal and well-armed son to return.”

She started the SUV and pulled it into gear. “What are we going to do, go sit up on a hill and wait till he decides to come back?”

I pulled my pocket watch from my jeans and looked at the dial. “That elk should be done in about seven hours.” I tossed a forefinger down the red dirt road. “Let’s go talk to Herbert His Good Horse, and we’ll wander back around here come dark.” I put on my seat belt. “So, what does Se-senovoto ema’etao’o mean?”

She roared the Yukon down the hill. “Red snake.”

The tribal office buildings are a sprawling compound of warrens representing the different factions of tribal government, and there were a lot of them. The original building had burned down in the sixties and then again in the eighties. I remembered the controversy when it had been announced just what the new building was going to cost. Now it was just a question of when it was going to burn down again.

Long parked next to the concrete steps, and we climbed up and then through the double glass doors. Human Services was immediately to the right, but Chief Long continued walking down the polished surface of the hallway toward the center of the building.

I stood there for a second, looking at the sign above the vestibule that read HUMAN SERVICES, and then shrugged and followed after her.

I noticed a young Cheyenne, tall and lean in a black T-shirt, who was seated at a metal desk across from a stairwell at the midpoint of the building. He looked to be around seventeen and stood as we approached. “Hey, Chief.”

She ignored him and signed the register, then handed the pen, attached to the desk with a piece of cotton twine, to me. “Sign in.”

The young man stood, and I thought he looked slightly familiar. His voice was overly obsequious. “Can I help you, Chief?”

Without looking at him, she spoke in a low voice. “What is your desk doing in the middle of the hallway instead of down by the entrance?”

He gave me a look of animated incredulity and then glanced down both directions of the main hall. “You know, Chief, I did a reconnoiter and discovered that there are eight entrances to the building. I thought maybe I’d split the difference.” He glanced at me again, and his eyes were playful. “It also gives me a clear view of the girls in accounting, right across from here.”

Without answering him, she turned and started back down the hall.

He looked at the sign-in book and then at me. I stood there with the pen, glanced down the hall at Lolo Long, and then back to the young man with the smiling, jasper eyes.

“Hey, Sheriff. Nice to meet you.”

I nodded and started after her, coming to a complete stop only two strides away.

There was a glass case like the kind that usually holds photographs and trophies in high schools. There on the third shelf was an 8?10 photograph of Lolo Long in her battle fatigues, steely-eyed, disciplined, and without the scar. There was also a photo of Clarence Last Bull being awarded the armed forces prize for his culinary skills, and a large silver trophy. It was almost as if it was a program for the current investigation.

My eyes came back to Lolo Long.

The young man joined me at the wall case and pointed at a toy vehicle complete with little machine guns alongside a very real Bronze Star Medal with Valor. “They gave her that one for hauling all the bodies out of the Humvee-even the dead ones.” He shot a look down the hall to make sure the coast was clear. “When she got home she was so loaded up with antidepressant, antianxiety, and antipanic medicine that everybody started calling her ‘Anti.’ Have you driven with her?”

“Yep.”

“Jesus, wear your seat belt and a helmet if you’ve got one.” He leaned in. “I swear to God she still thinks she’s in Iraq and that there are bombs and RPGs all along the roads. That’s why she drives so fast, trying to outrun ’em.”

“Are you coming?” We both glanced up to find the top half of the chief hanging out from the vestibule. “Or have the girls in accounting caught your attention, too, Sheriff?”

He yelled down the hall to her. “Hey, can I have a gun?”

She yelled back, “No,” and then disappeared.

“You’ve got one, and so does he!” He stuck out his hand. “Barrett Long.”

I shook it. “Little brother?”

“Yeah.”

Human Services was a three-office complex with a communal area and a reception desk that barred the way to the inner sanctum, along with the sign in bold print that Lolo had mentioned. When I got there, Chief Long was staring at the photographs on the desk, from the kind of photo packages taken at discount stores. There was one of Audrey holding Adrian, another of Clarence with a chef’s hat and white coat holding a casserole. There were a few more of Ado, smiling at the camera in confusion, and a piece of paper with tiny multicolored handprints.

“You guys know why the chicken crossed the road?”

We turned, and there was KRZZ’s morning drive man, still wearing his top hat with the feather, and beside him in a wheelchair a younger man with two of the most powerful looking arms I’d ever seen. “For the indigenous Indian-because it is the chicken’s inherent right.”

“Herb?”

“For the old Indian-the chicken was escaping from residential school.”

“Herb.”

“Rez Indian-what’s a chicken?”

She gave up and just stood there.

“BIA Indian-the chicken crossed the road because CFR 133, section 242, gives them the authority to do so under Department of the Interior regulations; they wrote a grant and we funded it. We are very proud of that chicken.”

The young man in the wheelchair turned and looked at us. “You’ll have to excuse my uncle-he’s retarded.”

Herbert glanced down at his nephew and smiled. “That’s not politically correct.” He turned back to us with a sigh. “Sorry, I was attempting to lighten the mood. I guess it’s official, then.” He looked at us. “We heard that Audrey met with an accident.”

Lolo gestured toward me. “This is Sheriff Longmire; he’s helping me with the investigation.”

“We’ve met.” He gestured toward the young man with no legs. “The one who doesn’t think I’m funny is my nephew, Karl Red Fox.”

I extended a hand and thought for a moment that he was going to pinch it off. “Hi’ya.”

Herbert looked back at Lolo. “Investigation?”

I nodded and noticed a few more people in the adjoining offices, including Loraine Two Two, quickly dodging back into their own rooms. I threw a hand toward Herbert’s doorway. “We’d like to have a few words with you if we could?”

“Sure.”

He glanced at Karl, who nodded. “I’ll roll out and talk with Barrett about the girls in accounting.” He popped a wheelie and rode it into the hallway.

Herbert led us inside, carefully closing the door of the windowless room behind him. We chose a few straight chairs, and he rounded his desk. His face and his expression were flat with the exhaustion that goes along with public service, but there was also a deep-seated concern. It was an expression I saw in the mirror every morning. “So, it wasn’t an accident.”

“We’re thinking not.”

He sat and shared his sadness with us. “So, how can I help you?”

I waited as Lolo asked the inevitable. “We were wondering if you knew of anybody who might wish Audrey ill or might want to do her harm.”

“You mean to the point of…?”

He seemed dismissive of the idea, so I softened the angle of the conversation. “We’re not absolutely sure that that’s the case, but we’re going to follow up on all the possibilities.”

I glanced at the framed photos Herbert had on his desk-there was one of Audrey, one of the Two Two mother and daughter, and of course, one of Karl-I was beginning to get worried that the entire tribal government was related. There was also a poster of Karl in the wheelchair with his arms raised in triumph as he crossed a finish line with a ribbon stretched across his chest.

I nodded toward the poster. “Where was that taken?”

He smiled as he took a cigar from his shirt pocket along with the clipper and lighter. “At the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon in Japan.” He turned to look at us. “Lolo knows, but he lost his legs in a car crash; he was drinking. We’ve got a problem in the family. You really think somebody killed Audrey?”

Lolo answered. “Can you think of anybody?”

He shook his head and then clipped the end of his cigar, gesturing toward us. “Would either of you care for one? It’s the only vice I allow myself anymore.”

We looked at each other and then back to him. “No, thanks.”

He leaned forward and lit the cigar with the cut-down Zippo I’d noticed yesterday, then switched on a fan mounted in the wall above his head. “No windows, but I’ve got my own exhaust fan, so nobody complains.” He studied me. “You were in Nam?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

He turned to Lolo. “Hey, Chief, how many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

She stared at him. “I don’t know.”

He pointed his cigar at her in an agitated fashion. “That’s right, because you weren’t there, man!”

We shared a smile as he slumped back in his chair and tossed the lighter onto the desk toward me. “Got that from a friend who was in Saigon in ’67.”

I picked up the tarnished, encrusted lighter. Across the front was SAIGON, 67–68, 101ST AIRBORNE, and on the back, WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE OVERCOMES THE LOVE OF POWER,THE WORLD SHALL KNOW PEACE

I handed it back to him. “Thoreau?”

“Hendrix, Jimi.” He sat there for a minute, puffing on his cigar. “We get the usual malcontents in here; people that are angry just because-and don’t get me wrong, they’ve got a right to be angry. We only get so much support money and we go through a lot of it at the beginning of the month. People have problems, I mean real problems, and we’re the ones with the money so they come here.” He paused to take another puff, and you could see him going through a mental list of everybody who might’ve ever threatened the young woman. “I’m not sure I want to implicate anybody on just hearsay.”

Long cleared her throat. “You’d rather whoever did this got away?”

He darted his eyes between us. “No.”

“Then why don’t you give us a few names to go on; just anybody that might come to mind.”

Even though the door was closed, he lowered his voice. “Have you spoken with Clarence?”

Long started to speak, but I cut her off. “Why would we want to do that?”

He looked around as if his office might be bugged. “She would come in with marks on her arms and face sometimes, nothing big, just bruises. I tried to get her to talk about it, and she said that he hurt her, sometimes. I mean, I assume it was Clarence.”

In my peripheral vision, I could see Lolo’s jaw muscles tighten. “How often?”

He thought about it. “Once a month, I guess.”

“Once a month?”

“Yes.”

She spit out the next words. “Why didn’t anybody report it?”

Herbert His Good Horse leaned across his desk and spoke in a slightly more aggressive tone, dashing some ashes off his cigar into the ceramic ashtray on his desk. “You know how hard it is to get these things investigated or to press charges when the victim refuses.” He looked at me, imploring. “She didn’t even want to talk to me about it.”

I glanced at the chief. “We understand.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I’m not accusing anybody, but…”

“Right.” I waited a moment. “Is there anybody else you can think of?”

He gestured helplessly.

“Anybody who might have seemed particularly angry with Audrey-any kind of odd behavior on her part when somebody might’ve come in?” He didn’t say anything, but I could tell my soundings had touched something. “Anybody?”

He sighed. “There were a few, now that I think about it-I mean, I don’t know if this means anything…”

Long produced a small notepad and pen. “Please.”

Herbert stared at the journal and then slowly spoke. “There’s an individual from the eastern part of the Rez, a man by the name of Small Song.”

For the second time today, I completed the man’s name. “ Artie Small Song?”

“I hate to bring it up because his nephew, Nate, works with me up at KRZZ, but yes, that’s him.” The social worker nodded. “Artie was in here last week about his mother’s Elder support checks-we would give them to him to give to her. She’s a medicine woman out that way-big medicine. We were worried that she wasn’t really getting her checks and discovered she hasn’t for the last three months-so, this time we refused to give him her check. He was very angry.”

Chief Long was attempting to catch my eye, but I ignored her. “I bet he was.”

“I just remember him because Audrey read him the riot act and told him that he should be ashamed of himself.” His eyes went to Lolo. “Your brother had to throw him out. I thought he was going to kill Barrett.”

Chief Long started to close her notepad and stand. “Thank you, Herb.”

I placed a hand on her arm and reseated her. “Are there any others you can think of?”

His eyes, once again, went back and forth between us. “There are a few others.”

“Who?”

“Kelly Joe Burns down in Birney.”

I assumed it was Red Birney, which was not too far from the incident.

“Birney Day.” He quickly added.

Evidently political correctness was making headway on the Rez.

“Is that that white asshole meth-head Houdini who can run a hundred miles an hour I’ve been chasing for a month now?”

Herbert nodded his head. “There was also Louise Griffin, who got in a shouting match with her a couple of weeks back.” He thought. “You know? No, none of these people would ever…”

“Not even Artie Small Song?” He glanced up at me but didn’t say anything. “It’s not your responsibility to make those choices, Herb; we’re just relying on you to provide us with some names. It’s up to us to move forward with the investigation.”

He didn’t seem completely comfortable with my assurances. “You’re not going to mention my name; I mean, I have a small and deeply disturbed following on the radio.”

“Not to worry.” I glanced at the door. “Is there anybody here in the building, people she might’ve worked with?” I paused. “I noticed Loraine Two Two out there.”

“Well, considering what happened, they weren’t the best of friends.” He laughed. “No, God no. Audrey was a saint around here; everyone loved her. Everyone. She came in on her day off to do extra work, baked cookies on Fridays-that’s what makes this so hard to believe.” He glanced up at the poster behind him. “She ran and worked out with Karl, getting him ready for his races.” His words caught in his throat, and he placed a hand over his face. “Excuse me for just a moment.”

Lolo tapped my arm. “I think we’ve taken up enough of your time here, Herb.”

We stood, and I nodded to him in appreciation of his help. “Thank you.”

His eyes shone like puddles in his face. “Hey, there was this Indian woman hitchhiking back to the Rez in the middle of the night and this white woman picks her up. The Indian woman says, ‘Hey, thanks for picking me up. What are you doing out on the road this late?’ The white woman points to a bottle in a brown paper bag sitting on the seat between them and says, ‘I got this bottle of wine for my husband.’ The Indian woman nodded, ‘Good trade.’”

Lolo Long smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder as we turned and left.

In the hallway, Barrett and Karl were chatting up who I assumed was one of the girls from accounting, who beat a hasty retreat when she saw Lolo coming. “You had a wrestling match with Artie Small Song last week?”

Barrett crossed his arms-it must have been a family trait. “Huh?”

Chief Long flipped through the register and then turned the book around on the desk and shoved it toward her brother, a finger pinning the personage on the page. “Him.”

The young man leaned forward and read the name as Karl nodded a hello to me and backed his chair out of the line of fire.

“Oh, yeah, that guy.” Barrett looked up at his sister. “He had a screaming fit down the hall. Said he was going to come back in here with an atomic bomb and blow the place up.”

“Did he threaten Audrey Plain Feather?”

“He threatened everybody on the planet.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Does that mean I can have a gun now?”

She turned and leafed through the rest of the book in a disinterested fashion. “No.”

“If he comes back, I could shoot the nuke out of his hand.”

The chief looked at me and then returned her eyes to the register. “Why don’t you tell my little brother about the 50 percent of cops that get shot?”

I shrugged.

Karl continued to study me and then spoke. “If you’re going after Artie Small Song, you better take an army with you.”

“That’s what I had in mind.”

He grinned at the floor. “Back before I lost my legs, some friends and me, we were out hunting one time and shot this whitetail deer up near Kelly Creek. When we got to it, that dude Small Song was already butchering it. This buddy of mine steps up and says, ‘That’s my deer.’ He didn’t even look at us, four of us, but stood there with that skinning knife just moving back and forth.” He looked up at me for the first time. “Swaying, you know, like a snake before it strikes.”

I smiled. “You let him keep the deer?”

Karl nodded with the self-assurance of someone who has barely escaped death, perhaps numerous times, and is wiser for it. “You bet your ass we did; the guy’s a psycho.” He shuddered dramatically.

It was dark, but from my vantage point I could still see the old woman lift the planks and check the pit-roasted elk underneath. The shower of sparks rose like a constellation of orange celestial bodies reaching out for their brethren above, lighting the face of the woman as though she was onstage.

I was lodged at the base of a Y-shaped pine, the fallen branches making for a pretty good hiding place, or so I thought until the medicine woman looked up the hillside and directly at me-even from this distance I could feel the weight of those opaque eyes.

She had pulled a rumpled CPO jacket around her shoulders and the shawl she had been wearing earlier was around her head to protect against the slight chill of the evening. She might not know exactly where I was, but she seemed to know that I was out there and that most likely I wasn’t alone. There were other eyes than mine here and maybe the eyes of Artie Small Song to boot.

Almost an hour earlier I’d discovered the spot and had carefully made my way down the slope to where I now sat. I’d learned long ago that you needed to get comfortable at the beginning of things, because you wouldn’t have the luxury later on.

I usually had plenty to occupy my mind in these situations, and tonight was no different. My daughter and the impending wedding loomed large, and I was beginning to question my motives for sitting in the woods. Was I just avoiding the oncoming disaster that was around the corner by stretching my jurisdictional responsibilities, or was I focusing on a situation and a fellow officer who needed my help? Was I just out here because it was the path of least resistance and the kind of thing I was used to doing?

I had to fight to keep from sighing.

My daughter would be here tomorrow and, so far, Henry and I had not accomplished many of our assigned duties, the most important being finding a place for her to get married. Henry had actually gone over and spoken with Arbutis about the situation, but when I’d asked him about the meeting, he’d closed his mouth and said nothing-not a good sign.

This was a nice spot. Maybe I could talk Cady into a stakeout marriage ceremony that included armed guests-I’m pretty sure the groom’s side would have no problem with that since they were almost all cops anyway.

Not only was my daughter arriving tomorrow but so was Lena Moretti, Vic’s mother and Cady’s soon-to-be mother-in-law.

The wedding was in less than two weeks.

I could just stay here; chances are they’d never find me.

The medicine woman returned to the kitchen chair that she had stationed by the back door, turned her head, and spat. She brought a forefinger up and slid it across her lip where a little tobacco residue must have remained, then flicked the offending particle away.

Despite the distance, I could still make out the erosion-filled plains of her face. It was not unique in these situations that you start developing a feeling for the person you’re watching, almost as if they become an extension of yourself. It always comes down to being able to sit quietly and wait. Most lose the ability, the honing of their skills dulled and rusting in the forgotten kitchen drawers of their minds, but it was part of my job and I could just go away without going away and become a part of the landscape.

I had all night, but Artie didn’t. It was late, and she wasn’t going to be able to leave the elk on there for much longer. How much did Artie Small Song care about this meat? How much did he care about feeding his mother?

The answer came slowly, almost glacially, as I became aware of something to my left-something in the dark, vertical shapes of the trees that hadn’t been there before.

I waited, the sides of my eyes aching from being locked in one direction. Move first and die is the maxim that had been taught to me, the one I’d followed on the high plains, in Vietnam, and in every dire situation in my life.

I waited.

It was possible that we were staking out an innocent man, as innocent as somebody like Artie Small Song could be, but an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of bloody results.

I could’ve sworn that I’d heard something behind me.

He would be at a much better vantage point to see me, front lit by the fire below. Had the old woman known from which direction he would come? Had she spoken with him? Did he know we were there? All these questions and a multitude of others attempted to dislodge me from my suddenly uncomfortable seat.

I waited.

A dark form melted into the trees to my right. I could make out a hand resting against the rough surface of the bark. The fingers flexed, no more than three feet from my head. I stopped breathing, thinking that he might hear me. Then he disappeared again, the fingers slipping away as if they’d never been there at all.

After a while I saw him again, a little further down the hill, his outline breaking with the stark form of the trees. The old woman was now looking directly at him and, consequently, me.

My eyes were momentarily drawn to the medicine woman as she took a step toward the fire pit. She gripped a knee and lowered herself so that she could move some of the boards, and another flurry of sparks rose into the night.

I could see where Artie Small Song stood, and I saw him pause for just a second before his head turned and the rifle in his hands swung around.

The Cheyenne Nation struck like a war lance, carrying the two of them down the hill, and all I could hear was grunting and heavy breathing as both combatants refused to give way to the slightest energy loss by crying out.

I threw myself from the relative comfort of my hiding place and stumbled down the hill in a striding attempt at speed, hoping I wouldn’t simply land on my face. The men continued to crash through the trees, and I heard a resounding thump as they reached the flat at the back of the house. I glanced off a creeping pine, which diverted my direction a bit, and tripped a little in an attempt to keep my footing.

The old woman had uncovered the pit and was holding one of the boards in her hands. The fire was blinding after sitting out there in the dark for so long, and I’m pretty sure that’s what she’d had in mind. Directly below me, the two men were struggling, one rolling on top of the other until they reached the rocks at the edge of the fire.

I was still a good thirty feet away when Mrs. Small Song swung the board in her hands and comically struck at the Bear in an attempt to get her son free. I landed on the two of them, receiving the majority of the medicine woman’s pummeling as Lolo Long joined us from around the side of the house, where we’d stationed her.

I was able to yank the rifle out of Artie’s hands and tossed it to the side, somewhat surprised that it appeared to be a simple single-shot bolt-action. 22.

His mother was screaming as the chief pulled her away from us; she was surprisingly spry, and it was all Lolo could do to hold on, finally resorting to wrapping her arms completely around the old lady and lifting her from the ground.

We dragged Artie to his feet. I’d seen pictures of Small Song but hadn’t ever met him face to face. With all the stories I’d heard about him cleaning out bars, I’d assumed he was a bigger man, but he stood only about shoulder height.

Once I got my breath back, I gasped out a few words. “Lolo, are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She sat on the kitchen chair with the old woman in her lap and continued to hold fast.

I looked at Henry. “How about you?”

The Bear nodded and felt the back of his head, where the medicine woman had landed a telling blow. “Yes.”

Artie took the opportunity to elbow me and try and make a break for it, but Henry grabbed him with both hands and stood him up, locking an arm into his back. “He is an active little rascal, is he not?”

He tried to head-butt Henry, the man’s hair flying away from his face as he looked defiantly first at me, then at Chief Long, and finally at the Cheyenne Nation.

“There is only one problem.”

I glanced up from Artie’s surprisingly youthful face. “What’s that?”

Henry grabbed the young man’s jaw and examined him like a horse he was intent on buying. “This is not Artie.”