As the crow flies

9

Standing in the dirt lot of the Western 8 motel in Ashland Henry and I leaned against the rear quarter panel of Lola, close to five hundred pounds of masculinity quaking before a hundred and thirty pounds of femininity. We tried not to look at each other as Cady stared at the less than a dozen units and pronounced them wanting.

“This sucks.”

I pushed my hat back, pulled off my Ray-Bans, and glanced around at the rundown convenience store, the abandoned garages across the street, and the general dilapidation surrounding us. “We could maybe get some hanging baskets with flowers.”

“Daddy.”

I did what I always did in these types of situations and looked to my Indian if not so much Scout. “Help.”

He thought hard. “There is the Whitetail Cabin in the Custer Forest, up near the Red Shale Campground.”

She folded her arms and turned and looked at us. “What kind of services are there?”

He thought some more. “Porta-Potties.”

Cady didn’t say anything and began nosing a rock in the lot with the front of her turquoise flip-flop. “Are there any other motels?”

I glanced at the Bear, and he responded quickly, realizing what dire straits we were in. “Colstrip.”

I turned and repeated the word to my daughter, as if she couldn’t hear the Cheyenne Nation from only ten feet away. “Colstrip.”

“How far is that?”

Unwilling to be the bearer of bad tidings, I looked at Henry.

He shrugged. “About an hour.”

Her eyes stayed steady on us. “What kind of motel?”

“I am not sure.”

A voice rose from behind us as Lena Moretti arrived from the convenience store with a modified six-pack holder containing juices, sodas, and two bottles of Rainier beer. What a woman. She handed over the cardboard box as she read from the phone in her hand.

“The Super 8 Colstrip is conveniently located in the center of Colstrip, Montana, is AAA rated. Property features forty rooms, Super Start Breakfast, Wireless High Speed Internet, interior corridors, large vehicle parking, pets welcomed, guest laundry, fishing lake within short walking distance, and Subway restaurant is next door.”

She slipped the two bottles of beer out and handed them to us. “Drink up, boys. I think you’re going to need it.”

Henry nodded solemnly as he twisted one open for me so that I wouldn’t argue and then unscrewed the one for him, tapping the necks together. “It’s 4:20 somewhere.”

Lena’s cell phone rang, and I recognized ‘Donna e Mobile’ from Rigoletto and smiled. She looked at the phone in her hand. “Hmm… not a number I recognize.” She hit a button and held the device to her ear. “Hello?” A moment passed, and she grinned, holding the phone out. “It’s for you.”

I looked at her, rather puzzled, and held it up to my own ear. “Hello?”

“Are you still on the fucking Rez?”

“Um, yep.”

I listened as my undersheriff repositioned herself somewhere in Omaha. “Do you know how many people are trying to find you?”

I glanced at Lena and, a little ways away, Cady. “Well, two of them found me.”

“Good, then you’re their problem now.”

The phone went dead in my hand. I smiled and handed it back to Lena as Henry watched me. “Business.”

After an embarrassing pause, Lena ran a hand through her almost black hair and continued. “There is also the Fort Union Inn with twenty rooms and within walking distance of downtown Colstrip, which I’m sure will be a comfort to the young Philadelphians, and the Lakeview Bed and Breakfast with nine rooms, more than half of which face the lake, which will be good for the Brahmans.”

Cady took a fruit juice and unscrewed the top as she spoke to Lena. “You have the list?”

“In my head; we need seventy-three rooms in all.” She immediately dialed the phone in her hands.

I thought about the chances of getting all the rooms during the height of tourist season but kept the thought to myself.

“Hi, is this the Super 8, Colstrip?”

She began walking away as Cady came in closer. “Next is the venue; what’s the hang-up with that?”

“Arbutis Little Bird, the librarian over at the college.”

Henry continued. “It would appear that the college is having a language immersion workshop at Crazy Head Springs on the date of your wedding. Lonnie, your father, and I have all tried to talk to her about it, but she is a battle-ax of a woman and is not giving any inches. We explained that we have had the date reserved now for months and that you have your heart set on the place, but nothing.”

Cady’s eyes sharpened, and she began walking back and forth almost as if she were deliberating in front of a jury, her flip-flops stirring up tiny clouds of dust as she paced. “And this Arbutis works at the library?”

“Yes.”

“Will she be there today?”

“It’s a Sunday, so I’m not sure. Cady…”

“I’ll take care of it, Dad.” She sipped her juice, and I took the time to study her, for the first time noticing the preperfection of her tan-not hiding the faintly visible Cheyenne turtle tattoo at her shoulder-her nails, and even the golden streaks in her otherwise auburn hair. Thank goodness she’d gained some weight back after the accident, and the rehab in the gym had transmogrified into a twice a day regimen. I was pretty sure my daughter was in the best shape she’d ever been in her life.

“You’re beautiful.”

Cady turned to flick her eyes at me. “Thanks, Dad.” She looked embarrassed and quickly changed the subject. “Where is the list?”

“What?”

“The list you mentioned in the car; there’s a list of questions that need answers?”

My voice fell. “Oh, hell.”

“What?”

“I left it with Lolo Long’s mother at Health Services.”

She sighed. “Where’s that?”

“Where we just left, Lame Deer.”

“Then we have to go back.”

Lena returned, sorted through the drinks, and took a Diet Coke for herself. “Thirty-seven rooms at the Super 8, all twenty at the Fort Union, and eight rooms available, including the suites, at the Lakeview B amp;B.” Turning, she looked at the ten units of the Western 8 Motel and spread her arms like Moses discovering the promised land. “And rooms to spare.” She chugged her pop and redeposited the bottle in the holder.

Cady looked at Lena. “I think we’re going to want to go take a look at the rooms in Colstrip, and I want to talk to that librarian.” She turned to Henry. “We need a car.”

He spread his own arms. “Yours to command.”

“Do you still have that shitty truck?”

He reacted as if he’d been smacked. “I do.”

“Good, run us over to Lame Deer, drop us off, and then go get Rezdawg.” She ran her hands along the glossy flanks of the Thunderbird’s fins and grinned. “We’re taking Lola.”

We dropped the ladies off in downtown Lame Deer, where they were first going to attempt to take on Arbutis Little Bird. Then they would meet us at Health Services where they would abscond with Henry’s pride and joy for a jaunt up to Colstrip to check out the lodgings.

I wished them luck in all of this, especially with the conversation with Lonnie’s sister, and accompanied Henry so that I could drive the Thunderbird back to Lame Deer. I’d turned on the radio in Lola and was trying to drive the wedding complications from my mind by listening to Nate Small Song firing up the afternoon drive with, of all things, Gene Autry’s Sioux City Sue. “Is this what they usually play on KRZZ?”

“The old people are the ones at home in the afternoons, so they play the classics; drumming and traditional in the mornings with a little rock thrown in, Cheyenne language programs around noon, then old cowboy and big band music for the shut-ins.”

He waited a while before he spoke again, lazily drifting the big, square bird down BIA 4. “You do not think Clarence did it?”

“Well, evidently he hired Artie.”

The Cheyenne Nation made a face.

“What?”

He considered his words and pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. “It takes a special kind of person to do this type of thing-to take money to kill a woman and child.”

“You don’t think Artie’s capable?”

He adjusted the sun visor. “Capable, yes-willing, no.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“I have.” He settled in his seat. He smiled, and I figured I was going to get the story. “I met him when I was fifteen. It was during Crow Fair, and I was doing a little teenage teepee creeping. There was a girl I was infatuated with and she had some brothers. We stayed out a little late and when we got back the brothers were waiting for us; I fought all three, one at a time-Crow tradition. The Crow are good that way-the Lakota would wait with a half-dozen guys and they would all jump on you.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “They went and got a friend, and it was Artie. I was pretty beat up, and I remember when I saw him that I thought this was probably going to be a good fight.” He stretched his jaw muscles at the thought of it. “You remember when we used to play ball?”

We seemed to have changed conversations, but I answered. “Yep.”

“You were a lineman so you know better than me, but do you remember lining up across from those guys who didn’t have any imagination, nothing to distract them from the job at hand?”

I laughed and thought about Lolo Long’s prejudice against imagination. “My father used to call it constructive stupidity; I got accused of it a lot in my teenage years.”

He nodded. “Artie was like that, no imagination, utterly focused. I think he might never have outgrown that behavior.”

“Who won?”

His face hardened as he thought. “It was kind of a draw.”

We drove past the dirt road cutoff and the rumpled hills leading to the Painted Warrior’s multicolored face, and my mind began playing the scenarios over in my head. If Clarence had been there, why did he hire Artie to do the deed? Why wouldn’t he have been as far away from the actual killing as possible? Maybe they were both there-Clarence to get them to the cliff and Artie to push them over.

“So, you don’t think either one of them did it?”

He smiled. “No, I do not think Artie did, and you do not think Clarence did.”

“So, who did?”

“Someone who is highly motivated.” He shifted in the seat and looked at me. “For the sake of your familial life, I am advising you to drop this.”

We drove on, but my mind raced ahead. “We saw her die.”

“Yes.”

I nodded my head and turned my face back to the window. “It’s not my case.”

“No.”

“We’ve got a wedding to help organize.”

“Yes.”

I turned the radio back up, and we drove in silence, until the words tumbled from my mouth. “But I’d like to hear those tapes. Would you like to hear those tapes?”

“Yes.”

“I think we can arrange that, don’t you?” I nodded my head some more. “I mean, it can’t hurt to just listen to them. Right?”

“Yes.”

I paused and then glanced at him. “Yes it can’t hurt, or yes it can?”

He seemed to be considering the possibilities for a long time, and it was only when I was ready to ask again that he turned to look at me. “Yes.”

I refused to drive Rezdawg but was happy enough to mosey along behind the patched-together vehicle in Lola. We parked in the lot at Health Services, and I noticed Henry nudged the three-quarter-ton’s tire against one of the concrete curbs so that we wouldn’t have a repeat demolition derby.

When we got inside, Hazel Long was once again at her station. The chief was nowhere to be seen, but her younger brother, Barrett, was, and considering how much his sister did not like the Cheyenne Nation, I was surprised by the smile with which he greeted Henry. “The Bear!”

His mother shushed him, but he stepped up to Henry and pumped his arm like a derrick. “My man.” He smiled at me. “This your cowboy sidekick?”

I took off my sunglasses, seeing no reason to stay incognito. “That’s me.”

He placed a hand on the Cheyenne Nation’s shoulder. “You ever hear about the U.S. Army Recruitment Expeditionary Basketball Tournament in Billings? It was a three-man and we were a man short, so the Bear here steps up in street shoes and scores nine three-pointers to win the tourney.” He shook his right hand as if it were on fire. “Buuuuurn.”

“Is your sister around?”

“Nope, she’s out shakin’ the bushes for Artie Small Song.” He glanced back to Henry. “Hey, did you really punch a truck driver?”

I noticed the Bear had left his Wayfarers on-obviously he was still attempting anonymity.

I leaned against the counter. “Mrs. Long.”

“Hazel.”

I nodded. “About the list of drugs from the bracelet?”

“That’s going to take a while; that patient file would be in the physical archives, and I haven’t had a chance to get down there.”

“Well, when you come up with that information you can give it to your daughter.” I leaned in closer. “Hazel, did you by any chance save that list I had you copy down concerning my daughter’s wedding?”

She looked surprised. “I gave it to her.”

“Cady was already here?”

“They’re still here. She said she wanted to see your dog, and I let them into Adrian’s room.”

I glanced at Henry. “I’ll be right back.”

I gently pushed open the door and could see Lena Moretti standing on one side of the crib and my daughter sitting in a chair with Dog’s head in her lap, the baby clutching her forefinger as he slept.

Once again, she had tears in her eyes, and I watched as the trunk of her body shuddered with her breath. She looked up at me. “He’s so small.”

I joined them at the foot of the crib. “They start out that way.”

Her eyes were drawn back to the sleeping child. “He’s all right?”

“That’s what the doctors say. A few bumps and scrapes, but evidently she was able to protect him from the bulk of the impact.” I leaned over and looked down at the lone survivor.

“She died.”

“Yep.”

“But there’s a father?”

“Yes, but he’s been implicated. The FBI says they have tapes of him negotiating with another man about killing both mother and child.”

Lena Moretti’s voice sighed from the other side of the crib. “My God.”

“It’s all pretty sordid.” I dropped my voice when I saw Adrian roll his head to one side. “We should probably get out of here.”

Cady stood and then whispered. “What about Dog?”

“He doesn’t really want to leave; he’s the one that found him.” The two women joined me at the foot of the crib. “We saw them fall and got to the woman, Audrey, as quickly as we could, but Adrian here had rolled down the hill bundled up in a blanket and Dog found him.”

I moved them toward the door, but Cady balked. “Wait a minute, did you say you saw them fall? You mean you were actually there?”

I cracked open the door, but she still didn’t move. “We were researching another area for the wedding and happened to be below when they fell. I even had Henry’s camera, which reminds me…”

Lena looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.” I scooted the two of them out. “How did the meeting with Arbutis Little Bird go?”

“Umm,” Cady answered, preoccupied. “She’ll be there tomorrow morning, and we’ll meet with her then.”

“Well, Lonnie says to bring a gun.”

Henry met us at the counter, and we moved as a group to the parking lot, where he dangled the keys above Cady’s hand. He dropped, she caught, and we started moving to our neutral vehicles.

“Daddy?”

“Yep.”

She steered me aside, placing her arm through mine and walking me away from both Henry and Lena. “What if I had something that would solve this woman’s murder and I didn’t use it. That’d be pretty bad, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

Unwilling to look me in the eye, she lowered her head, and I stood there staring at the strands of gold, auburn, and strawberry blonde, a combination that became more evident in the summertime. Her voice echoed against my chest. “What if I knew a way to make sure whoever killed Audrey Last Bull would be brought to justice?”

“I’d say that there’s no such thing as a sure thing.”

The eyes came up slow but sharp. “I would.”

She rose up on tiptoes and kissed the grizzle on my chin, then pirouetted away with the keys dangling between her fingers. “Lena and I will spend the night up in Colstrip, but we’ll meet you for lunch, here, tomorrow at noon.”

I watched her sashay over to the Thunderbird, and the two of them climbed in, fired Lola up, and roared away like a high plains Thelma and Louise.

As I stood there watching them turn left and head north, the Cheyenne Nation rejoined me. “So, what just happened?”

I breathed a soft laugh. “Unless I’m mistaken, we just got put back on the case.”

Henry drove us over to the Law Enforcement Center, but the place was vacant and the door was locked. Lolo Long’s cell number was listed on the door as one of the emergency contact numbers, but I figured we’d just go do a little snooping on our own.

“What makes you think he is with Inez Two Two?”

“Inez’s mother told me that Clarence was having an affair with her daughter a while back, and if Clarence is involved, then she might be a good place to start looking for him. If she doesn’t know where he is, then she might have other ideas where we could look.”

The Bear drove down Main Street and took a right toward the high school gym, which remained open on Saturdays and Sundays in conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club. We parked the ugliest truck on the high plains next to the outside basketball courts with their chain nets and cratered asphalt and walked in down the hall to the unlocked doors of the gym. I could see why the Bear had had no doubts as to Inez’s whereabouts-the place was packed with young people. “So this is the place to see and be seen?”

The Cheyenne Nation snatched a worn ball from the rack just as a fat man with a whistle was about to yell at him.

“ Ha-ho, Monty. Wassup?”

“Hey, you lookin’ for a date, bad man?”

They shook hands and clutched each other’s arms. Fortunately, Henry played youth basketball with Monty Farris, the coach, so there had been no trouble when the Bear asked if we could use one of the smaller, more private, half-court gyms to discuss things with the young woman.

“You realize, of course, that without jurisdiction she can just tell us to go jump in a lake.”

Henry dribbled the ball and flipped it spinning in his hands, shrugged, and then began dribbling to the outside reaches of three-point land.

After about five minutes, a heavyset young woman opened the door and looked at us; she wore an oversized letterman’s jacket despite the season, and a black straw cowboy hat decorated with a gold concho, the stampede strings slung to the back.

“Howdy.”

She had the look of a whitetail that had just discovered two mountain lions at the watering hole.

I slipped off my own hat and stuck out my hand. “I’m Sheriff Longmire, and this is my friend, Henry Standing Bear.”

She took my hand with a great deal of trepidation and allowed the door to slip shut behind her, the sudden sound in the empty gymnasium causing her to jump. I gestured toward one of the fold-out wooden bleachers. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

She did, and I took the one beside her.

I waited a moment, but she just watched the Bear as he dribbled and strolled the arc. “I don’t know where he is.”

I waited a good long time and placed my hat on the bleachers brim up; I needed all the luck I could get. “And who’s that?”

That got a glance. “Clarence.”

Henry twirled the ball in his hands. “We understand you know him pretty well.”

She glanced at him, and her voice became flirty. “I know you.”

“Yes, but not in the same sense.” The Bear’s face remained immobile as he turned and effortlessly sank a thirty-footer. She looked at him and smiled as he retrieved the ball and dribbled back toward center court.

I shook my head at his prowess. “Can I ask you some questions, Inez?”

She took off her hat, which she placed brim down; evidently she didn’t need any luck.

“When is the last time you saw Mr. Last Bull?”

She sniffed and took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her coat. “Can I smoke?”

I looked around the school property for emphasis. “I don’t think so.”

She stuffed the pack back in her jacket. “About a week ago.”

I paused again. “Before the accident.”

“Yeah.”

“And where did you see him?”

The shrug was one I remembered my daughter perfecting at that age. “Where we always meet, at the Buffalo.”

“The White Buffalo convenience store?”

She watched Henry some more and then spoke. “Yeah.”

“Did you arrange a meeting there, or did you just run into each other?”

“Just ran… what you said.”

I nodded and thought about what kind of chance Inez Two Two had in this world and was not overcome with confidence. The Reservation schools were consistently ranked as the worst in the state. The pay scale for teachers wasn’t bad, but the turnover rate was horrific and truancy was rampant; the student dropout point was around sixth grade and wasn’t improving.

“I didn’t know he had a kid.” She continued to watch the Bear. “He told me he couldn’t have kids.” She called out. “I bet you can’t do that again.”

The Cheyenne Nation shrugged, turned from the top of the key, and drained another twenty-five-footer.

Even I was impressed. I looked back at her. “Inez, I doubt that anybody would blame you for the responsibility of that relationship. Clarence is a grown man, and I think it would’ve been his responsibility to know how old you were.”

“I liked his Jeep.”

Henry bounced the ball off the wall and slowly dribbled toward us.

“His car was cool.” There was a trace of a sneer in the next part. “So we took a ride. That’s how it all started.”

I thought about it. “Did he ever take you to the cliffs at Painted Warrior?”

“Yeah, it was one of his favorite places.” She made a face. “Or used to be.”

Henry arrived and stood there flexing his fingers into the ball.

“What were some of his other favorite places?”

She thought about it. “He used to work for one of those Amish guys who’d fallen out with the others and lived down near Birney. The guy did handmade boots and had a cabin on the Tongue River near his place.” The shrug again. “Clarence promised me a pair of boots, but I never got them.”

“Do you happen to remember the boot maker’s name?”

She laughed, and I could sense she was in the act of shutting down. “Stoltzfus, try and forget that one; but they had a falling out and I don’t think Clarence was welcome there anymore.”

“Anywhere else, places where you think he might go if people were looking for him?” I was losing hope. “Anywhere at all.”

She actually smiled. “No.”

The Bear interrupted. “Hey, Inez?” She took her time, turning to look up at him. “You know who the smartest man I know is?” The fingers laced around the ball and he palmed it, one-handed, in my direction. “Him.” The Cheyenne Nation took a few steps back onto the court. “Now he may come on with the ‘just-an-ol’-cowboy routine,’ but when he does that it means the wagons are circling and pretty soon there is not going to be anywhere to go.” He bounced the ball to her, and she caught it. “You and me, we are going to play a game of TALK; you win-you walk, I win-you tell us Clarence’s hiding place. These are the rules-you shoot and miss, it is a letter for me. I have to match the shot to keep the letter. You shoot and make the shot, I will subtract a letter, two letters if I miss. That sound fair?”

She smiled and slipped off her coat, allowing it to fall to the floor. “You’re on, Old Bear.”

“I’ll give you a couple of warm-ups.”

I leaned back to watch and, spreading my arms, rested my shoulders on the next seat level.

Inez threw the ball back to the Bear. “Don’t need ’em.”

Evidently the hook had gone out with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, because after Henry’s graceful arc that hit nothing but net, Inez tossed a brick.

The Cheyenne Nation pivoted with a reverse layup and deposited the ball in the hoop. Again. He caught the ball and tossed it to her. “T. Reverse, left-handed.”

Inez misjudged and bounced the ball off of the underside of the rim, almost crowning herself.

He went to the three-point line again, this time to the far end of the baseline, and sunk another. “A.”

Inez took a deep breath and followed suit, and this time the ball rebounded off the rim.

He continued in his around-the-world venture and paused at the top of the key, raised his arms and, with his thick wrist, flicked the ball and swished another one. “L.”

“Jesus.” I whispered the word before I knew it.

She moved to the same spot, but you could see her enthusiasm was flagging. She shot again, and this time she made it. “Take that, Old Bear.”

Henry gripped the ball and dribbled for a moment, possibly having pity on the kid, but it wasn’t in him and he moved another thirty degrees along the perimeter, took a deep step into two-point territory, and drained another. “Back to A.”

Inez moved to the spot and shot, but this time it jumped off the backboard over to me. I picked up the ball and stood, giving the Bear a good chest-to-chest pass.

Henry moved to the top of the key again and drained it. “L.”

She slumped and slowly moved out to the spot to give the shot a try. “One step?”

“I’ll give you two,” he said, unsmiling.

It was the Cheyenne Nation’s form of charity.

The young woman heaved the ball up to where it bounced off the rim twice and then kicked back off the backboard. He retrieved the ball and casually sunk another hook shot. “K.”

He strolled over to her, slipped his arm around her shoulders, and brought her over to the bleachers, even going so far as to kiss the top of her head. “I guess we cannot call you Inez Two Two anymore.”

She laughed in spite of herself and stooped to pick up her coat. After a moment she turned to look up at me, and I smiled.

“There was a fire lookout tower that he took me to down near Black’s Pond. It was locked up, but he broke the clasp off and we spent the night there one time. Diamond Butte Lookout, I think.”

Henry tucked the ball under his arm. “Anywhere else?”

“Not really; he was always looking for a place where we could, you know…” She turned to me and then back to him. “When he could.”

Henry asked. “Meaning?”

She glanced down and shrugged. “He had problems, down there.”

I threw her a line. “Inez, do you know a man by the name of Artie Small Song?”

Her eyes widened just a bit. “I don’t want anything to do with that guy; he’s crazy.”

“Do he and Clarence know each other?”

“I guess. They had a run-in one time.”

“In all honesty, we’re looking for both Clarence and Artie. Do you have any idea where Artie would be?”

The answer was hard and fast. “No.”

“Is there any chance they would be together?”

“No.”

“You make it sound like they don’t like each other.”

She looked at me, incredulous. “They don’t; when I saw the two of them together they were screaming at each other and threatening to do things, kill each other and shit.”

“And when was that?”

“About a month ago.” She was silent for a while and then took a deep breath. “Can I go now?”

“Sure.”

She took her hat and started for the door.

“Hey, Inez?” She stopped when she heard Henry’s voice but didn’t turn. “Be good, because I will be watching.”

She nodded solemnly, but she didn’t say anything as she opened the door and escaped.

Henry looked after her. “Rarely do you see the promise of a man in a boy, but you almost always see the threat of a woman in a girl-and sometimes the threat is not hollow.”

“She’s young.”

“Not that young.”

I tipped my hat back down. “Well, that was an interesting departure from the good-cop/bad-cop-the good-cowboy/bad-Indian.”

He sighed. “Her family has a history of playing hand games. I knew I could count on her sportsmanship, if not her honor.”

He easily evaded me when I attempted to slap the ball from under his arm.

“You never did have the guts to play in the paint, Henry.”

He laughed.

The agent in charge was standing by Rezdawg when we got outside, along with two other agents, one still in the Crown Vic and the other examining Henry’s truck, probably wondering if it ran.

“So, do I have to go talk to Inez Two Two, or have you done my work for me?”

I walked over and stopped, laying an arm on the bed of the truck. “I didn’t know you guys worked on Sundays.”

He slipped off his sunglasses, and we both looked around at the gorgeous day. “Neither rain, nor snow…”

“That’s the postal service.” I thought about it and quoted. “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the whole thing.”

I nodded. “They stole it from Herodotus, about 500 B.C. during the Greek/Persian war-he said it about the Persian mounted postal couriers.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Are you sure you’re a sheriff?”

I ignored the remark and joined him, tipping my hat back and absorbing the warmth of the sun. “Hey, you don’t happen to have a copy of the phone recordings between Artie and Clarence on you, do you?”

He gave a small laugh. “Those recordings are FBI property.”

“You don’t have a copy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“How ’bout we trade you what Inez said for a copy of the recording.”

He lounged against the scaly surface of Henry’s truck. “Not a good enough trade. I can always just go inside and question the girl myself.”

“You might not get anything; she’s tough.” I gestured toward the Bear. “And you don’t have an Indian scout.”

Henry spun the basketball in his hands and glanced up at the outside hoop about thirty feet away. “I will play you for it.”

The agent in charge’s head came down, and he smiled at the Cheyenne Nation. “As much as I’d like to, I don’t have time.”

“Three letters.”

Cliff Cly studied my friend for a moment, and then a broad grin spread across his face. He ceremoniously pushed away from the truck and then carefully took off his jacket, folded it, and placed it on the side of the bed and began loosening his tie. “I should probably warn you that I played JV ball at Rutgers.”

Henry looked impressed. “Wow.”

Rolling up the sleeves on his dress shirt, the FBI AIC paused. “Do I get to pick the three letters?”

The Bear dribbled the ball once, and then held it, his dark eyes studying the federal agent. “Funny, I was thinking A-I-M.”