My only option was to go in. I looked around Dennis’s car for weapons. Nothing under the seat. Nothing in the glove box, just a car manual and some tire wheel locks. That was fine, I had my Spyder knife with me. And my fists.
I stepped out of the car and pondered my strategy. I didn’t know how many were inside or if they were strapped. My best weapon would be surprise, so I decided I’d kick the front door open and burst in, then improvise. I walked slowly over to the cabin and stood by the door, waiting for the right moment.
Just then the front door swung open, and Dennis appeared. He saw me by the door and looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What are you doing?”
“Ah, nothing. Checking things out,” I said. “You were in there a long time.”
“They’re gone. Place is empty. No one left.”
Before he could object, I went inside to see for myself. A little bit of trash on the floor in the living room, a dirty bathroom, and some food wrappers in the kitchen, but no sign that anyone was still living there. The only thing remaining was a faint odor of burned matches and some other scent I couldn’t place. I was happy to get out and go back outside.
“Where do you think they went?” I asked.
“Tough to say. They’re smart, they move around. Might have rented another place.”
“What do we do now?”
“Not much we can do. We’ll head back and wait to hear more.”
Just then, Dennis’s phone rang. He picked it up and listened, then said, “Where are you? Are you—” Then he put the phone down. I waited for him to say something.
“It was Nathan. He said he’s going to a friend’s house.”
I paused for a second.
“The emergency code,” I said. “He’s in trouble.”
25
Dennis walked away and immediately began making calls. I followed him, trying to listen in, but he held up his hand. My first thought was that Nathan was pranking us, using the code as a bad joke, but that was stupid. He was letting us know that things had gone wrong, but why had he hung up on Dennis? He hadn’t said anything about his location, which meant that the dealers must be close to him and listening in. What sort of trouble was he in? Had they discovered the wire?
After a few minutes Dennis came back, a somber expression on his face. “I called Mike. He’s heading back to the FBI field office. He’ll put out a BOLO in a few minutes—”
“What’s that? Like an APB?”
“Same thing, different word. Maybe send out an Amber alert, too. Every law enforcement agency in the state will be looking for a red Dodge Charger. Shouldn’t be tough to locate. We’ll trace his phone, too. That won’t be a problem—we already have the cell ID, no need for Stingray, but the FBI can use it if they need to.”
“Stingray?”
“It’s a device that tricks a cell phone into sending location data. Won’t be necessary. That’s our phone I gave to Nathan, so we have the cell identifier. Point is, we should have a handle on these guys soon. I ordered an aggressive search. When we find ’em, we’ll send multiple units, get Nathan back pronto.”
He stuck his phone in his pocket. “All right, let’s take off. I need to get to the field office; I’ll drop you off at your place.”
There was no point in arguing with him about going home. There was nothing I could do to help with this high-tech surveillance stuff. Dennis drove me back to my house, and I got out of the car. But I motioned to him to roll down the window. There was one last question I had to ask.
“Have you ever not found someone when you ordered a search like this?”
He looked me right in the eye.
“Never.”
“That’s good, because anything happens to him, it’s on you. Understand?”
He drove off without saying anything, the dust from the road drifting in the air.
I CALLED MARIE as soon as I walked in the door. She came over within minutes, and brought some food she’d cooked. I was too distracted to eat, so I drank some coffee and filled her in on what had happened. I told her about the call from Nathan, and the search the feds were conducting.
“What are we supposed to do now?” she said, putting away the food she’d brought.
“He said to wait for his call.”
“Are the Rosebud Police helping with the search? They know this area better than the state cops or the FBI,” she said. “All the back roads and unmarked streets.”
“Good point. I assume they’re involved, don’t know for sure.”
“Maybe I should call Ty Bad Hand? He’s tribal police—can’t hurt to check with him, right?”
“Sure, call him. See what you can find out. If the feds left the Rosebud cops in the dark, I’ll rip them new assholes.”
She walked away to the other room with her cell phone. While she made her call, I considered the drug buy and what we knew. Rick Crow had been with them, along with two people from the Denver gang, but not their leader, the one called Loco. Their cabin was empty, but they may have gotten another one in the area. Finally, Nathan felt worried enough to make a call with the emergency code. So where were they going? Maybe they had a new spot where they kept the heroin, and Nathan was trying to alert us to the new location. On the darker side, maybe they suspected—or discovered—that Nathan was wearing a wire. But how? He wasn’t wearing one of those old-fashioned microphones under his shirt. The wire was his phone and key fob.
I stared out the window and let my mind travel, trying to tease out the answer. Then I thought I saw something, far off in the fields beyond my house. It was just beyond my field of vision, but it looked like a pair of buffalo, slowly trotting in the grass. An older bull and a calf. But that was impossible. There were some bison over in Pine Ridge, but none around here.
Marie came back into our little living room, a somber expression on her face.
“I talked with Ty. He says they got the alert—whatever it’s called.”
“BOLO. Guess it means ‘be on the lookout.’”
“Okay. He says they’re helping with the search. That’s the good news. The federal cops included our people.”
Marie sat down and started picking at a hole in her jeans. The hole was about the size of a quarter, but she began to really go after it. Before long, the hole was the size of a half dollar. At this rate, her entire pant leg would be gone by the time I finished my coffee.
“Did he say anything else?” I asked. “About how the search is going?”
“No, he didn’t say anything about that. I’m sure they’re getting close.” Now she started to pull threads out of the hole and curl them into a little ball. It looked like a tiny globe in her hands, twisting and rotating as she fidgeted with it.
“Marie. Is there something else? I need to know.”
“Well, Ty Bad Hand is just local police. He’s not the best person for this sort of information.”
“Marie.” I moved over and sat closer to her. “Tell me.”
She took her little thread globe and put it on the table between us, a tiny planet of her making.
“Well, he said the first few hours are, you know, critical if an informant is taken. He said that if they don’t find the person in a day or so, he’s probably been . . .”
“Killed,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, just picked up her thread world and crushed it between her fingers, the little sphere now in disarray.
AFTER HEARING THAT, there was no way I could just sit around and do nothing. I told Marie that I was going to drive around and look for Nathan. I took my old car and drove aimlessly around the streets of the rez. There were children playing, packs of stray dogs roaming, and random men and women sitting, walking, talking. I wanted to shout at them, tell them to help me look for my nephew, that he was missing and needed to be found. Instead I drove up and down the byways of the reservation, looking for a red Dodge. Then it hit me. Why not check out Rick Crow’s trailer? I was sure the cops had already been there, but what could it hurt?
I pulled up to the gray metal trailer. No cars that I could see. The front door that I’d kicked in before was still broken, but it had been propped up to keep out the wind and the animals. I pushed it open, no longer caring about being quiet or stealthy. The same piles of trash that I’d seen so many weeks ago were still there, the same devastation. I poked around the place, looking for anything that might give me a clue. I looked in drawers, cabinets, closets. Nothing. I pulled up the mattress and looked under there. The box of ammo that had been stashed there was gone. So someone had been here, most likely Rick himself.
I tore apart the dirty bedroom and the living room, taking care not to fall through the rotted floor. Then I sorted through a mound of food wrappers and garbage in the tiny kitchen. Used rags, discarded matchbooks, old pizza boxes. A Runza wrapper. That couldn’t have come from Rick. Midwest chain Runza, with their signature loose meat sandwiches, called “loose bowels” by locals. Then I spotted a scrap of paper on the counter, a receipt, with the words “Cropper Cabin” on it.
What was Cropper Cabin? A vague flash of recognition. I wasn’t sure, but it might be one of the crappy motels down in Valentine, the kind that catered to the less wealthy in northern Nebraska. I called Marie and had her look it up on her phone.
Sure enough, it was listed as a “modest roadside motel” in her search results, located on the outskirts of town. Marie wanted to know more, but I cut her off, told her I’d call later. It was unlikely that Nathan was there, but it couldn’t hurt to see for myself.
I started walking out to my car, but stopped. Should I call Dennis and tell him what I’d found? He’d said there was an aggressive search ongoing for Nathan and the dealers, so it made sense to contact him, let the professionals investigate.
Fuck that.
It was time for me to step up and do what I could to find Nathan. Not to mention, I wasn’t bound by legal rules and procedures, like probable cause and search warrants. Time to take some action.
CROPPER CABIN WAS a run-down, shoddy, piece-of-shit motel; that was clear at first glance. The kind of place that rented by the week—at inflated prices—to families down on their luck, itinerant workers, and gang members, six to a room. Peeling paint, and a large dilapidated sign that advertised FREE CABLE and WEEKLY RATES. Below that, VACANCY and AMERICAN OWNED & OPERATED. An assortment of older cars was parked in front of the rooms. I cruised around the parking lot slowly, looking for a red Dodge Charger or any car with Colorado plates.
No luck. There was a light on in the office, but I didn’t see anyone inside.
I opened the door and did a double take. It was like someone had vomited American flags all over the room. There was a framed flag, a flag made out of painted wooden panels, two smaller flags on miniature flagpoles on the front desk, some American-flag pillows, and red, white, and blue curtains. The lone non-flag item was a Nebraska football sign that read HUSKER POWER. Not surprising, as Nebraska football fandom approached religious fervor levels in the state, even this close to the border.
I rang the bell on the front desk and waited. After a minute a middle-aged white guy came out wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed GOD, GUNS, AND GLORY. He looked me over, up and down, and I could tell he didn’t like what he saw. It wasn’t hard to figure out that this guy probably hated Indians, thought we were all a bunch of welfare-cheating, food-stamp-loving drunks that had interfered with his God-given right to possess our land. That was okay with me; I didn’t plan on having a long discussion about Native property rights with this dude.
“Help you?” There was no hint of a smile on his face, not even a facade of shopkeeper friendliness.
“Yeah. I’m looking for a few guys that might be staying here. One Indian, some Hispanics, maybe a teenager—Native boy. Anybody like that here?”
“You a cop?” He had the flat Kansas-Nebraska accent, which told me he was a local shit-kicker.
“No, just looking. Important I find them.”
“We don’t give out information about our guests. Company policy.”
“I understand. Not looking to cause any trouble, but the kid with them needs help. Just need to know if they’re here, or if they’ve been here, and I’ll be on my way.”
The guy puffed out his chest. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. We don’t provide personal information on our residents. No exceptions. Now why don’t you get the hell out?”
I took a step closer. “I don’t need personal information. Just tell me if they’re here. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to go open up every goddamn door in this shithole. Don’t want to do that, so why don’t you spare me the hassle?”
“You bother anyone here, you’ll answer to me. And I’m a veteran. Of the armed forces. The Merchant Marine. Not that you’d know anything about serving your country—you people are too cowardly to fight.” He turned his back to me, and I heard him say, “Fucking prairie nigger.”
I reached over the counter and wrapped my arm around his throat, choking him. He gasped and coughed as he used his arms to try and free himself. I increased the pressure around his throat, cutting off his air almost completely. I held him tight as he flailed and flapped his arms.
All of a sudden I heard a sound. The front door opened, and an older man and woman dressed like bikers walked in. The woman screamed, and I lost my focus for a second. The shithole manager broke free, gasping for air. The couple, dressed in their Harley Davidson gear, quickly ran out of the building, and I saw the guy move to a drawer behind the counter. He was fumbling with it, trying to get it open.
Nope. He wasn’t going to get his gun.
I leaped over the counter and pushed him away from the drawer. He stumbled, then straightened up and threw a roundhouse punch at my face, connecting solidly. He still had some power left, I was surprised to find out. I feinted with a left jab, then threw a right hook that hit him in the temple. He went down with a thud. I put my knee on his lower back and grabbed his right arm, twisting it behind him.
“You’re lucky I don’t have time to take out your goddamn kneecaps. You’d roll around in a wheelchair, then you could really pretend to be a soldier. Merchant Marine, my ass. My grandpa stormed Normandy Beach, you heard of that?”
He didn’t say anything, so I put more pressure on his arm until he shouted “Yes!”
“And let me tell you one more thing, shitbag. More Indians serve in the military than any other group. Defending the country that broke every promise. So keep your goddamn mouth shut, or I’ll knock out any teeth you got left. Agreed?”
More pressure to the arm. He gave a muffled grunt.
“All right, answer me and you get to walk away. Is there a group staying here, bunch of Latino guys, maybe one Indian man with long hair, and an Indian boy? Tell me now.”
He said something, but I couldn’t make it out, so I twisted some more.
“They left! A few days ago! But no kid! Let me go!”
I let go of his arm and removed my knee from his back. He rolled over and started moving the arm back and forth, trying to determine if it still worked. I took a look out the window. No police yet. Likely the couple had run off, too scared to get involved. Still, it was smart for me to get out of there.
I looked down at the piece of shit, now laying on his side and softly whimpering. I thought about what he’d said—prairie nigger—and I reared back and kicked him full in the face with my boot.
“Thank you for your service,” I said, and walked out.
I WENT OUT TO THE CAR, the adrenaline still flooding my body and making it difficult to stand still. My right hand hurt like a son of a bitch from the punch I’d landed. I drove off quickly, as fast as my shitty car could go, my hands trembling and my body shaking, looking for a spot to pull over and get myself together.
There was a dirt road off the main street, so I turned onto that and shut off the car, the engine ticking like a homemade explosive device. After I calmed down, I thought about what the clerk had said: the gang had been at the motel, but left. None of
this made sense: Why had they switched from the Pay-E-Zee, and why did they leave Cropper Cabin? Perhaps it was like Dennis had said—the gang moved around a lot to avoid detection. But why now? And where had they gone?
My phone rang as I was thinking all this over. It was Dennis.
“Got some news,” he said. “About the search.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think you know, we issued a multi-state BOLO for the vehicle. Well, we found it. The Dodge Charger.”
“Is Nathan okay?”
“The car was abandoned. No one in it. Located it off I-90 near Murdo.”
“Murdo! I thought they were heading south.”
“So did we. Looks like they ditched the Charger and switched cars.”
“But you’re still tracking Nathan’s cell phone, right? So you’ll be able to find out where they are.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the bad news,” he said.
There was good news?
“We found Nathan’s phone. It was on the ground next to the vehicle. Crushed. Appears they left it there and took off. It’s not good.”
MY BRAIN WAS a mass of white noise, and I couldn’t focus on anything except the road in front of me. I drove mindlessly, on autopilot, as I sorted through what Dennis had told me. The gang had abducted Nathan, switched cars, and smashed his cell phone. That could only mean they’d discovered he was an informant. I understood what this meant, but didn’t even want to think it, because voicing it would give it form and shape. Everyone knew what happened to snitches.
Dennis had tried to put a hopeful spin on things, but I was no idiot. The feds didn’t even know what type of car to look for, or where they might be going. They’d issued another BOLO for four male suspects, but without a vehicle description attached, the odds were shit they’d be found. I told him about Cropper Cabin and what I’d learned there, and he said that his people would look into it immediately. He tried to tell me that they knew everything about the gang and where they usually gathered, but I knew that time was critical. Marie’s friend had said the first day was the most important, and that made sense. The longer they had Nathan, the greater chance I’d never see him again. I used evasive maneuvers in my head to avoid what Dennis had told me about Loco, the resident torturer of the cartel, and the tactics he used.
Winter Counts Page 23