He took another step back and then turned quickly to get to the steps of his trailer. “Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about anything.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
Henry continued to follow him until the man barricaded himself behind the aluminum screen door. “You better get off of my property.”
The Bear’s voice was low. “You better not come after these children with anything but a smile. Do you understand me?” Kelly Joe slammed the inside door between them, and I waited the long moment it took for Henry to turn and walk back. “Do you think he took me seriously?”
“I do.”
The Cheyenne Nation returned to the children, leaned his hands on the rails of the boat, and then dipped a finger in and tasted the water. “No pee pee.”
They immediately began roaring with laughter again, Kelly Joe Burns forgotten.
Henry turned serious. “I am looking for a man; a man driving a yellow Jeep.”
The three talked among themselves in Cheyenne, and then Wiggins looked at me and back to Henry. “Les says she saw one go by last night.”
The Bear pursed his lips. “What time?”
There was another flurry of Cheyenne, and I had to admit that I was impressed that the tykes were fluent in their native language; so few children were these days. Wiggins, the official spokesman, turned back to Henry. “’Bout nine-thirty—two men.”
The Cheyenne Nation and I shot glances at each other before Henry spoke. “Two men?”
Wiggins questioned them again, focusing on the girl. “She says they were long-hairs, but she thought they were men; they had the top down, but it was a long way away.”
“Which direction?”
The boy threw a thumb over his shoulder, southeast. “Off the Rez.”
Henry nodded, thumped his chest with his fist, and extended it to bump with the smaller ones. “Nestaevahosevoomatse.” His gaze drifted to the single-wide and Kelly Joe. “You have anymore trouble with him, you let me know.” He turned, and I followed him toward Rezdawg as Wiggins called after us.
“Hey, when are you going to give me that truck of yours?”
He waved the kid away. “When I am through with it!”
We slammed the doors, and I listened as he ground the starter. On the fifth try, it caught and shuddered a cloud of bluish smoke that we had to back through.
“He can have it now as far as I’m concerned.”
We turned south on 566 and took a right on Hanging Woman Drive, the washboard surface of the gravel road attempting to rattle loose the fillings in my teeth. “Two men.”
The Bear nodded. “Two men.”
“That’s not good.”
Henry shrugged. “For one of them at least.”
I braced a hand against the dash in an attempt to augment the three-quarter-ton’s lack of suspension. “You think it’s Artie?”
“Who else would it be?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question now, isn’t it?” I shook my head. “So they rolled through here last night, stopped at the boot maker’s, and continued south, which means that it’s possible that Erma knows who was with Clarence?”
“Stoltzfus’s children said nothing about another man.”
“Would they have told you?”
“Yes.”
I smiled. “Don’t tell me they’re part of the Birney Road Irregulars?”
There was a pause. “They are now.”
“That means that Clarence picked up the mystery man somewhere down here.” I glanced out the open window at Hanging Woman Creek, which was little more than a dried-out trough. “How far are we from Painted Warrior?”
“As the crow flies?”
I looked out the window, sad for the Crow who hadn’t flown straight.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He gave me a look. “From Birney, about four miles.”
“Close.”
“Yes.”
I pulled my hat down over my eyes. “Wake me up when we get to the lookout.”
Henry had stopped Rezdawg alongside the vault toilet on the dirt parking lot. I captured my hat before it fell to the floorboards and rubbed my eyes with one hand in an attempt to get them to focus.
Diamond Butte Lookout is situated precisely in the middle of nowhere. Just off the Rez and about a mile from Sonnette Road, near, appropriately, Diamond Butte, it was a two-story, thirty-foot masonry fire tower built on not so much of a butte as a hill. Diamond is the high point in the surrounding terrain and glowed gold in the horizontal light of the setting sun.
The point had first been used as a fire lookout after World War II, and the makeshift structure that was erected in 1956 was rebuilt in 1968 with its own tower. It was abandoned almost a decade ago when the Forest Service had discovered it was cheaper, easier, and more efficient to scout for fires with airplanes rather than manning lookouts all over the high plains. As far as I knew, Poker Jim Butte was the only surviving manned lookout in the area. This meant that the tower at Diamond Butte was up for grabs at the remarkably reasonable price of twenty-five bucks a night, firewood provided.
“This must be the place.”
He looked around the parking lot. “No other vehicles.”
“You see any Jeep tracks?”
He pointed to the left—the wide tires of the CJ-5 had left plainly visible tracks where it had pulled in, reversed, and then circled back out. “There.”
“So, one of them got dropped off?”
The Cheyenne Nation nodded and pointed some more. “Yes, departed from the vehicle there.”
“Pretty lonely spot.” I glanced around, reaffirming the obvious as he peered through the blue tint at the top of the windshield. “What?”
He indicated the lookout. “Someone is still up there.”
I crouched down and followed his line of sight; sure enough, an individual seemed framed in the corner window. “You think he didn’t hear us pull up?” I found it hard to believe with Rezdawg’s Swiss cheese muffler, but we had parked at such an angle that most of the truck was hidden behind the Forest Service facilities—maybe he was hard of hearing.
“Perhaps.” I watched as he reached behind the seat and pulled out an old pair of Bell & Howell M19s from their case and focused them on the lookout. “He is armed.”
I took the binoculars and had a look for myself. It was Clarence, and it looked as though he’d dragged a chair over to the southwestern corner of the main lookout and had a rifle barrel up near his face where the butt must’ve been resting on the floor between his legs; the weapon was short, maybe a .30-.30 carbine. I lowered the multi-green-colored optics and glanced at the Bear. “If you were being pursued by somebody and wanted an even chance, what would you do?”
“It poses an interesting problem; certainly he can see anyone coming from a long way off, but he also presents a regal target up there.”
I looked through the 7×50s and sighed. “He had to see us coming; he’s facing the road where we came up.”
“Perhaps we are not who he is looking for.”
I handed him back the vintage binoculars. “You think we should honk the horn?”
“It doesn’t work.”
“Of course it doesn’t.” I shook my head. “How about we just set fire to it?”
He ignored me and returned the Bell & Howells to the case behind the seat. “We should get out of the truck before it gets completely dark.”
I glanced back at the tiny yellow bulb in the cab light fixture, which was missing its cover. “The interior light works?”
“Yes.”
I gripped the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “Of course it does; it’s inconvenient, and that is most certainly the watchword for this piece of crap.”
“You are hurting my truck’s feelings.”
I gently pulled the handle and slid out, watching as the bulb in the cab glowed feebly, a light noticeable from possibly six feet away. I met the Cheyenne Nation at th
e back of the truck, because I was trying to avoid getting sprayed on.
“Maybe he’s drunk.” I slipped my 1911 from the pancake holder and checked it—cocked and locked—snapping off the safety. “You have a weapon?”
I watched as he silently slipped the foot-long heirloom stag-handled Bowie knife from the small of his back, holding it high so that I could see the turquoise inlayed bear print in the bone.
“That should do, unless he spots you a couple hundred feet off.”
He said nothing and disappeared around the corner in order to work his way toward the side of the butte where Clarence was facing, leaving me to take the easier unobserved trail.
There was a fence at the edge of the parking lot, and I watched as the last glimmers of the day lingered above the Bighorn Mountains as if the yolk of the sun had gotten hung up on Black Tooth.
I carefully opened the gate and stared at the narrow two-track that circled to my left and then made a run up the spine to the cabin’s backside. Near the top I could see a utility wagon that must’ve been used to ferry supplies to the lonely lookout.
I was reminded of one of Henry’s sayings that you could just about escape anything on the high plains—anything except yourself. You could go to a mountaintop or back yourself into a brick wall corner, but you could always count on being bushwhacked by yourself.
My eyes traced over the profile of the hillside, but the Bear had disappeared like he always did. Keeping an eye to the reflective surface of the windows that surrounded the structure on all sides, I walked carefully up the gravel path. There was an overhang on the fire tower, and I was concentrating on that when I saw something move down below.
Standing still, I waited and watched as the heavy metal door that provided the only access to the place swung back just a little. I waited, but it just hung there, about two-thirds open, and I half expected to receive a Winchester slug in the chest.
After a moment I noticed a soft breeze, something not uncommon in summer on the high plains when the light changed, and watched as the door slowly closed again. Ghosts.
Keeping my Colt aimed at the darkened doorway, I carefully made my way across to the safety fence that stood by the drop-off to the left of the walk that led to the bottom floor of the lookout. I heard the slightest creak of the boards in the room above. I swung around, slowed my breathing, and listened for another footstep, but there was nothing.
Swallowing, I went through the open doorway to my left and rolled the .45 around the empty room, only slightly illuminated by the square window on the other side. I checked behind the door and took a look at the clasp and lock hanging from the surface where it had been pried off with the tire iron that now lay on the gravel.
Inside there were some tools and a wall full of firewood, but nothing else except the wooden stairs that started up to a landing in the corner and then hugged another wall before dead-ending into a trapdoor where Clarence sat.
I crossed the patchwork rock floor, stopped at the base of the stairs, and looked up at the trap, which was slightly ajar.
There were no more sounds, so I carefully put my weight on the first step and wondered where the hell my Indian scout was. There was a slight sound, but I was pretty sure the only way you could’ve heard it was if you’d been in the room with me. I continued up, made the landing, and clutched the two-by-four railing in my free hand.
I could see a sliver of yellowish light at one edge of the trap that hadn’t been there before, carefully fanned my finger over the floor’s undersurface, and slowly pushed upward.
The trap faced the majority of the room, and I’d turned so that I was facing the corner where Clarence had been sitting. There was a table and a couple of chairs in the way, along with a propane stove and a few bunks. I stuck my head the rest of the way out but the table had a blanket draped over it, obscuring the view.
I soundlessly leaned the trapdoor back against the wall. Easing the rest of the way up the stairs, I could now see that one of the propane lamps on the far wall had been lit and gave out with an unrelenting hiss. I led with the Colt and looked over the table top where an empty bottle of Old Crow and two pint Mason jars were lying on their sides.
I could now see that there were two individuals in the corner, Last Bull in the chair still facing the dead sunset and another man leaning against the narrow facing between the windows, holding something and following Clarence’s gaze.
“Those stairs are noisy.”
I came the rest of the way up and could now see clearly that it was Henry, palming the great blade as it flashed in the propane light.
“How did you get here?”
“I pulled myself up on the walkway to the east.”
I kept the .45 out and circled around the table. “He must be dead drunk.”
The Cheyenne Nation turned to look at the man in the chair as I got there. The shirt at the center of his back was exploded with blood and the material was burned from the close proximity of the gun that had shot him.
The Bear’s voice was resigned. “No, just dead.”
11
“Sure, I can get you DNA testing on the glass—it’ll take about nine weeks.”
I sat on the lip of the trapdoor and stared at the can of beer the AIC had handed to me at the scene; Cliff Cly was certainly not the usual field agent for the Department of Justice. It was even a Rainier, my brand. “That’s not the way it works on television.”
He nodded and opened his own with the rest of the six-pack dangling from his fingers by the plastic loops. He sipped his beer as his crew went about their business, and the ME’s office loaded Clarence up. “Yeah, have I told you what a pain in the ass all that TV stuff is for me?” He thought about it. “Other than I’d like to nail Kyra Sedgwick…”
“Do you think it’s really a good idea to be drinking beer at a homicide investigation?”
He ignored me and sipped his some more. “Christ, somebody siphons gas out of somebody’s car and the assholes want you to dust the garden hose for prints.” Cly watched as they zipped the body bag. “Taxes, that’s the other one I get. My taxes pay your salary; you need to find out who stole my cat.” He laughed. “That’s how I lost my first assignment, cherry, too. Georgetown—D.C.” He shook his head. “How much crime goes on in Georgetown?” He thought about it. “Punishable crime, I mean. There was this spat of cat disappearances—I shit you not—and this senator’s wife wanted Justice to look into it, so they sent me over to this mansion to talk to this woman who lost Fluffy. I get over there and make the mistake of joking with her that it’s probably the Chinese restaurant down the street. Well, she believes me and starts asking questions like, ‘Surely they just catch alley cats or strays and not domestic cats from the neighborhood?’ So I laugh and tell her, ‘Oh no, it’s the domestic ones that they get because they’re fat and stupid.’” He shook his head. “Jump-cut to promising young field agent in Absalom, Wyoming.”
I smiled and set my unopened can on the floor beside me. “That would do it.” Glancing over my shoulder, I looked back at Henry, who had grown more and more silent since the Feds had arrived. The Cheyenne Nation was seated on the windowsill in the darkness by the east wall. “What do you think?”
His voice rumbled back. “I guess we can take Clarence off the list.”
Cly turned to look at him. “You think?”
There was a pause, and then Henry spoke again. “Reasoning says that whoever killed Audrey and attempted to kill Adrian must’ve killed Clarence.”
The agent lowered his can. “Unless it was revenge.”
“Possibly, but the only one who could’ve felt an emotion that strong is being zipped up in a bag right now. Someone killed the woman and attempted to kill the child, and then they killed the man.”
Cliff made a face. “What makes you so sure it’s the same person?”
Henry stood and walked over into the light of all the propane lanterns we’d lit; the place sounded like a snake pit. “Talk of killing is talk; killing
is different.”
The agent pulled a can from the plastic and held it out to the Bear, but Henry ignored him.
I figured I’d better speak up. “What he’s saying is that there aren’t that many actual killers on the Rez.”
The agent continued to sip his beer. “You guys get anything out of the shoemaker?”
“Boot maker.”
“Whatever.”
I leveraged myself up and stood so as to make way for the med-ex team and the body. “He wasn’t there, but I had an interesting conversation with his wife, who said that Clarence hadn’t been there for about a year, but we discovered that he was evidently there last night.”
“So I need to go sweat her?”
I smiled. “Good luck with that.”
“Tough?”
“Like a Flying J truck stop steak.”
We watched as they carefully turned the body and made their way down the stairs and into the darkness; but for the flashing blue lights in the parking lot that cast through the open doorway below, it was as if they were carrying Clarence into the grave.
I sighed. “.38?”
Cly nodded. “Sure looks like to me.”
“Close. Somebody he knew.”
“Yeah.” The FBI man held the beer out to Henry again. “Sure you won’t have one?”
Anyone who knew Henry Standing Bear would’ve been able to spot the storm clouds on the horizon, but Cliff Cly’s experiences with him had been limited. Personally, I was just hoping I could stop the Cheyenne Nation from throwing the federal agent through the plateglass windows.
His voice was smooth, like the surface of the ocean with sharks underneath. “Agent, I am having a hard time believing that you are taking this investigation seriously.” He leaned in. “Somebody has almost wiped out an entire Native family.”
Cly’s eyes searched the face of my best friend and stayed there as a strong moment passed. “Do you want me to call in the black helicopters? Because I can.” He glanced at me. “I can make a phone call and have a hundred Ivy League graduates wandering around the Rez with their heads firmly planted up their asses, and the only thing they’re going to do is make it harder for the guys that are probably going to really break this case.” He extended a forefinger from the can and first punched the Bear in the chest with it, and then me. “Batman and Robin of the Badlands. You know everybody; you know everything—and besides, Sheriff, you’re the one who wanted me to hand the baton over to the Indian Princess. I’m just waiting to share the credit so I can move on to another and better assignment.”
As the Crow Flies Page 19