“Well, think about staying for the Show and Shine. Vic may be flying into Rapid City.”
He studied the hill, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.
He had been here at sunup, slowly climbing the course on foot, studying the terrain, and getting a read that you couldn’t get even from the closeness of a motorcycle. He’d taken his time and stooped to look at the rocky knobs, the tufts of prairie grass, and, most important, the ruts and berms left by the other racers. There would be no surprises for Henry Standing Bear on the run this morning, and if he lost, he would be satisfied in the knowledge that he had done everything humanly possible to win and more. “Or not.”
I sighed. “I’m headed over to the peanut gallery where I can join the throngs in safety.” I could see the third-row spot that Corbin and Lola had saved for Jamey and me. “Looks like your old flame wants to see you in action.”
“She would probably not mind seeing me bust my ass all the way down that hill.”
“Or that.” I patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you in the winner’s circle.”
He gave a curt nod and then kicked the dirt bike to life, circling toward the starting line as Jamey ambled along with me.
“That kid posted a 14.01—that’s faster than Henry’s ever been able to climb that hill and nobody’s ever broke 14.”
I noticed that the Bear had pulled up at a respectful distance to watch the other riders try their luck. “Why do you think he does it?”
The biker shrugged. “You’d know better than me, dude.”
We went through the gate in the chain-link fence and moved over to our seats as the EMT van pulled away. “Not about this. I’ve never understood it.”
“If it was anybody else, I’d say they were trying to recapture their youth, but not him. I think it’s just the challenge.” He looked back and smiled through his bushed-out beard. “I don’t think he’s used to partial success, Walt.”
“You’re probably right about that.” The others made way, but Jamey motioned toward his truck in the pits. “My tools are all out over there, so I think I’ll watch from the tailgate in the cheap seats.”
Lola watched him go and then turned, studying me through a large pair of Italian movie-star sunglasses. “I don’t think he likes me.”
I turned back to the hill. “There seem to be an awful lot of people who don’t particularly care for your company.”
She adjusted the glasses and studied Henry. “And here I’ve always thought of myself as such a likable person.”
I turned toward Corbin. “What are you doing out of uniform, troop?”
He shrugged. “I go on at noon, so I thought I’d get out of town for a few hours before the real rally starts.”
We watched as the smart-aleck kid backed into the log and made ready to make his run. There was a lot of screaming and yelling as the crowd began cheering for the odds-on favorite. The flag on the hill dropped, and he rooster-tailed it, rocketing through the short straightaway and then timing the loop-de-loops. He got a little sideways but was able to pull it out just before the prairie grass got hold of him and bounced him like a pinball. He started to stall but then gassed it and flew over the top with a flourishing cross up. The kid was good, you have to admit.
“Hey, I met a patron of the Hulett Police Department last night.”
“Who’s that?”
“Bob Nance.”
Dougherty looked genuinely surprised. “Where in the world did you see him?”
I leaned forward and looked toward the hill where the young rider had posted a 14 flat, and then glanced at Lola for her response, but there didn’t seem to be one. “On the ninth green with a very expensive shotgun in his hands.”
“You were at his house?”
“Eventually.” I turned a little toward Lola. “Hey, do you know if your son was associated with a young woman by the name of Chloe Nance?”
The corner of her lip nearest me curled up just a bit. “Associated?”
“For lack of a better term.”
“Chloe Nance?”
“Yep.”
“Never heard of her.” She turned toward me, but it was difficult to read her expression through the glasses. “But like I told you, he had lots of associates.”
Corbin interrupted the interrogation. “Wait, you met Bob and Chloe?”
“Yep. Last night after you dropped off Bodaway’s phone, I plugged it in and a text came from Chloe wanting him to meet her at the golf course. I got dressed and went up there and met her father, too.”
We all watched as another rider made an emergency dismount and did a comic bow as his bike catapulted back down the hill. Corbin checked his wristwatch, probably estimating the time it would take to get back to Hulett and his shift. “She’s a pain in the ass, but the old man’s all right.”
“Sure, he just bought you guys a million-dollar truck.”
Lola broke in. “Hey, don’t knock people that buy you things.”
We watched as Henry got closer to the starting point. “How did he make all his money, anyway?”
“He worked for the automobile industry—developed some kind of ceramic stuff they use on exhaust manifolds and still holds the patent. He’s rich about ten feet up a bull’s ass.”
“So it would appear.” The Cheyenne Nation was having a brief conversation with the officials—it seemed as though there was a problem up top. “Any idea how Chloe could’ve been involved with Bodaway?”
“Nope.”
I turned to Lola. “You?”
“Me what?”
“Any idea why this young woman might’ve gotten in touch with your son?”
I got the curve at the corner of the lips again. “I told you, he’s popular.”
“Your son wasn’t dealing in anything illegal, was he?”
I got the full sunglasses this time, and it was like looking at two identical versions of myself. “Like what?”
“Drugs?”
“What makes you say that?”
“The young woman’s father mentioned that his daughter had a substance abuse problem, and I was just wondering if that might’ve been a connection.”
“There isn’t.”
“You seem pretty sure of that.” I waited and then continued. “He’s had a few run-ins with the law.”
“Nothing involving drugs.”
“No, but . . .”
“But what? He’s an Indian kid, a biker with a few brushes with asshole cops and so he must be bad news, huh?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what you were thinking.”
I smiled and started getting the feeling that Henry was right to keep Lola at arm’s length. “You know, I can hardly do enough thinking for myself, so if you’d like to do some of mine for me, feel free.”
She studied me for a good long time and then stood. “I’m taking a walk. I’ll see you later.” She sauntered away toward the pits.
“Do you think it was something I said?”
“Absolutely.”
I nodded and watched as the Cheyenne Nation backed up against the starting log and looked at that hill the way I’m sure his ancestors had studied the Seventh Cavalry. There was a war about to happen, and I wasn’t going to miss it because Lola Wojciechowski was having a fit of pique.
I’ve seen some pretty amazing feats of derring-do, but I could tell this was going to be special. We watched as the Bear leaned up over the handlebars and made ready, the official at the top raising the green flag.
It wasn’t a complete hush, but there was a stillness in the crowd. All the old Jackpine Gypsies knew Henry and respected him for his one triumph and the years he’d spent attempting to replicate it. They knew he was a tough competitor, but there is a time when you stop doing certain things, and I think that the Bear was there an
d everybody knew it.
The flag fell, and the Cheyenne Nation was off.
The reason the loop-de-loops are there at the beginning of the course is to keep the riders from gaining too much momentum, allowing it to carry them halfway up the hill, but the Bear was having none of it and the KTM’s motor screamed as he shot off the log like a clean-hit baseball from a gigantic wooden bat.
I’m pretty sure his front wheel never touched the ground till he hit that first hill, but I can guarantee nothing touched the second. He landed on the downslope at a much higher rate of speed than the other riders had, and the front wheel levitated again as his right hand peeled back the throttle and he blew up the hillside in a direct path, ignoring the routes that the others had taken.
There was a reason why no one else had tried the more direct route: there was a concave area dug into the hillside that, if you took it head-on, was likely to shoot you back out into open space where a fall the rest of the way down the hill was certain.
The Bear hit the indentation but then kicked to the right, taking a slight berm that shot him back toward the middle. I was wondering what the next part of his plan would be when he threw the handlebars to the side and leapt up the center third of the hill at a ferocious diagonal.
I wasn’t even aware that I’d been drawn to my feet but then noticed that the hundreds around me were standing, too.
Henry couldn’t keep going in that direction or he’d go out of bounds, so he slammed into another hillock, teetering for only a second, and used the force of impact to ricochet back up the hill with the same momentum he’d started with. Unlike all the other racers, he didn’t pause at the sandy precipice but took another diagonal that flew both the KTM and him over the heads of the scrambling officials in one final blast, like a Saturn V rocket headed for the ghostly shape of the moon in the blue South Dakota sky.
13:59.
• • •
Henry and Jamey were seated on the tailgate of Jamey’s truck and passed a bottle of champagne back and forth, each smoking a cigar as Lola and I approached through the crowd that surrounded them. KOTA Territory News was interviewing the Bear, and it looked like all of Sturgis was trying to have a word with him.
We waited at a respectful distance, and when the crowd began to thin, she sidled up to him and they looked at each other. I wasn’t close enough to hear what she said, but I guess it was pretty important because he reached out a hand and stopped her when she started to walk away. He stood and said something to her, and she said something back. He stood there for a moment more and then let his arm drop.
Whatever it was she said, I’d never seen a look like that on the Bear’s face.
She gave him one last hard stare and then turned and walked away.
I’d been in enough wars and a few relationships to realize when a bomb had been dropped, so in deference, I stood back a moment before leaning over the side of the pickup bed. “Pretty good trick for an old Indian.”
He turned but didn’t smile. “Not bad at all.”
He handed me the trophy, and I looked for his name on the plaque, but it wasn’t there. “When do they engrave it?”
“This afternoon.” He thought about it, staring at the crinkled leather of his old motocross pants. “I suppose if we stay for the Show and Shine, I could go to the ceremony this evening and pick it up.”
“If you win the Show and Shine, you might get two trophies out of it.”
“And leave them in a dumpster here in Sturgis.”
I handed him back the trophy and studied him. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem like it.”
“I have some things on my mind.”
“Has Lola finally leveraged you into this investigation?”
He barked a short laugh with no humor in it and then carried his gaze back toward the hill he’d finally conquered. “It is beginning to look like that might be the case.”
“Well, congratulations.”
“For what?”
“Winning.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” He stood, still holding the half-full bottle of cheap champagne, and, puffing on his cigar, walked toward the hill.
I studied him for a good long time and then figured if he wanted to really talk he’d get around to it on his own. I glanced over at Jamey, who was quietly packing up his tools and trying his best to appear uninterested. “When is the Show and Shine?”
He stopped working and smiled. “Noon, over in Sturgis near the Bucket of Blood Saloon.”
“Then I guess we’d better get going.”
I helped Jamey load up the tools, paraphernalia, and the KTM, and we strapped it down on the trailer as Henry continued to study the hill.
Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Lola. Maybe it was just what happens when you finally get something you want and it turns out not to be what you wanted after all. You spend most of the time in life running after things that aren’t that important, and the pursuit becomes more desirable than the prize.
I started out toward where the Bear stood but stopped. “I’m thinking he needs some time.”
The biker joined me. “Maybe so. You got somewhere you have to be?”
“A friend of ours is flying into the Rapid City airport this morning, and I was thinking I should pick her up, but it’s supposed to be a surprise, so maybe I’m not.”
“Not what?”
“Supposed to pick her up.”
“Oh.” He glanced at Henry and then back at me. “You can borrow my truck, but is there anybody you can call to ask whether or not she’s really coming?”
“Well, I could call the person in question, but that’s going to blow the surprise, too.”
He shrugged. “If it was me I’d call; life has enough surprises as it is.”
I fished Bodaway Torres’s cell phone from my pocket; it was evidence, but there was no reason why it couldn’t be useful.
I punched in Vic’s cell phone number and listened as it rang. After a moment she answered. “Who the fuck is this?”
“It’s me.”
“What’s me doing with a strange cell phone?”
“It belongs to a young man named Bodaway Torres. He wasn’t using it; he’s in the hospital.”
“You put him there?”
“No.”
“You just stole his phone.”
“I borrowed it—it’s evidence.”
She snorted a laugh. “This is getting better and better.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Philadelphia.” She sniffed. “Why?”
“A little bird told me you might be surprising us and flying into Rapid City.”
There was a pause. “You know, that little bird has a problem keeping things to herself.”
“Yep, it’s not her strong suit.” I smiled. “So, where are you?”
“About twenty feet behind you.” I turned and looked. “I bet you turned and looked just now.”
I turned back around. “I did not.”
“I’m getting my bag at the luggage carousel at Rapid City Regional Airport, which looks remarkably like a Mayan shopping mall with nothing in it. I heard you rode with Henry, so I figured I’d rent a car.”
“You don’t have to—Jamey says I can borrow his truck.”
“What is it?”
I studied the vehicle. “It looks to be a late seventies—”
“I’ll rent a car.”
“Right.”
“Where do I meet you?”
“I think we’re headed for the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Sturgis for the motorcycle show.”
“Did Henry bring Lucie?”
“He did.”
“Cool—he owes me a ride. I’ll meet you there.”
She hung up, and I shook my head; lif
e as we know it was about to get interesting. I looked at the phone and then tapped Jamey on the shoulder. “Hey, do you know anything about these phones?”
He shrugged. “A little—why?”
“Can you track the previous calls on this thing?”
• • •
The Bucket of Blood Saloon during Sturgis is a marvelous place to get puked on, but then, during the rally, pretty much all of the town met that qualification.
Jamey knew the owner of the Bucket and was able to get Henry the prime corner spot for Lucie. The 1940 Indian Four was designed when the Indian Motorcycle Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, absorbed the assets of the Ace Motorcycle Corporation. Into the thirties, even though there was low demand for luxury motorcycles, Indian continued to develop and refine the inline four cylinder until the thing was capable of more than a hundred miles an hour, an unheard-of speed at that time.
With its large, decorative fenders, it looked like a jukebox on wheels, but its pedigree was so great that in 2006 it graced the 39-cent stamp and was part of the Smithsonian Motorcycle Collection at the National Museum of American History.
The Bear’s was nicer.
Adding to its worth was the matching factory sidecar, which I thought resembled a chrome-trimmed prow of a boat. “Who in the heck would ride in that thing?”
Jamey studied the vintage contraption. “I guess it’s as safe as riding the motorcycle.”
“My point exactly. You know, Pete Conrad died on a motorcycle.”
“Who’s Pete Conrad?”
“The third man to walk on the moon.” I sipped my canned iced tea and looked up and down Sturgis’s crowded Main Street for what might pass as a rental car. “Where’s Henry?”
“Inside having a drink.”
I pulled out my pocket watch and frowned, placing it back in my jeans. “A little early for that, isn’t it?”
“He didn’t look like it was open for discussion.”
“Oh, boy.”
About a half block down I could see a neon-orange coupe moseying its way through the throng. Every once in a while, when someone was a little slow getting out of the way, the driver revved the engine, causing the offender to hop a little quicker.
An Obvious Fact Page 9