The Girl with Braided Hair (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Coel, Margaret

  “You need help, man. I can take you to detox at the hospital.”

  “I need a drink, okay? What d’ya know about it?”

  “I know a lot.”

  The Indian let out a strangled laugh. “You don’t know shit.”

  “I’m an alcoholic like you.”

  The Indian tried to stare at him, blinking several times as if he wanted to bring the alcoholic mission priest into focus, and finally looking past him into the church. “I gotta get a drink,” he said.

  “What happened to her?”

  The Indian was staring at the floor. “Heard she took off, got away.”

  “What makes you think she’s the skeleton?”

  “’Cause they was so mad at her for snitchin’. Got me to thinkin’, maybe she didn’t get away. Maybe they put a snitch jacket on her and she got killed.”

  “Who are we talking about? Who was mad at her?”

  “Everybody. We hated snitches.”

  “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “I don’t got a name now. Used to, maybe, I don’t remember.”

  “What do they call you in the park?”

  “Joe. They call me Joe. We got a deal, right? I give you her name, you give me some money.”

  Father John dug the crumbled bills out of his jeans pocket and flattened them against his palm. Six one-dollar bills. He set them in the brown hand stretched toward him, shaking and eager.

  “Come back when you’re ready to quit,” he said. “I’ll help you.” If I’m still here, he thought. Then another thought: Ian would help the man. It didn’t matter if he was here; the mission would go on.

  The Indian clutched the money a long moment before he began stuffing it into his vest pocket, as if he were reluctant to let it out of his hand. Then he turned to the door and, shifting from one foot to the other to get a firmer purchase on the floor, gripped the door knob and started to pull, floundering backward as he did so. Father John reached out to steady him, then took hold of the edge of the door and swung it open. He stayed with him down the steps and out to Circle Drive. The black pickup was no longer there, and he realized it must have belonged to the woman coming out of the church. The Indian kept going, planting one foot in front of the other, weaving a little with each step before taking another plunge ahead. Father John watched the man until he’d reached the tunnel of cottonwoods and blended into the shadows that striped the road. He’d wanted the cash, that was all, but he’d known something. The girl’s name was Liz.

  “God help you,” he said out loud, as if the Indian were still standing there. Or maybe it was the girl he was praying for, he wasn’t sure. “God help them both,” he said.

  A ROW OF pickups stood in front of the Sunrise Café, bumpers nudged against the curb. Parked on the far side of the parking lot were three semis. Through the plate glass windows, Vicky could see the cowboy hats and baseball caps bobbing over the tables as she pulled in between two of the pickups. The minute she opened the door, aromas of coffee, hot grease, and cinnamon floated toward her on the low-pitched sounds of men’s voices. She walked over to the end of the counter, conscious of the heads turning along the counter, the eyes staring at her across rounded, thick-set shoulders. She kept her own eyes on the white woman with hair bleached the color of a yellow crayon and a white apron tied around her wide waist, jaws working a piece of gum as she poured coffee into a cup halfway down the counter. After a moment, the woman set the metal pot onto a burner and started toward Vicky. “What can I get ya?” she said.

  “Is Donita in?”

  “Donita?” She tossed her head toward the swinging metal door with a window at the top that framed a small view of the kitchen. “She’s cookin’. Who should I say wants to see her?”

  “Vicky Holden,” she said.

  “You that Indian lawyer I heard about?”

  Vicky ignored the question. It hit her that it might make things uncomfortable at the café for Donita if the owner thought she was in some kind of trouble with the law. “Would you mind telling her I’d like to see her for just a moment?” she said.

  The woman chewed on the gum for a half second, considering. Then she turned and disappeared through the metal door that swung behind her, squealing on the hinges. Through the window, Vicky watched her sidle next to a tall woman with black hair caught in a donut-shaped bun who was flipping pancakes at a grill. Another moment passed before the waitress pushed back through the metal door. “You’re gonna have to wait. Donita’s busy now. Want some coffee?”

  Vicky said that would be fine and settled onto the stool still warm from the buttocks of the trucker who had just gotten up and was ambling over to the cash register by the door. She sipped at the coffee when it came and kept one eye on the metal door. The coffee was almost gone when the door finally swung outward. The woman walking over was probably in her sixties, with slim shoulders, honey-colored skin and black hair gone to gray and pulled back so tightly that it gave her face a strained look. She resembled other members of the White Hawk family, Vicky thought. Donita’s brother had been a couple of years ahead of Vicky at the mission school.

  “You tryin’ to get me fired?” she said. “Boss don’t like personal business on his time.”

  “Sorry,” Vicky said. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble. Is there someplace else we could meet? I’d like to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “The seventies on the reservation.” Vicky paused a moment, then she said, “AIM.”

  Donita White Hawk’s jaws clamped together. A long hiss sounded through her teeth. “About that skeleton,” she said, her voice so low that Vicky had to lean across the counter to catch the words. And yet, it wasn’t a dismissal. The woman’s shoulders curled forward with a kind of inevitability. “Ten minutes, out in back,” she said. “I’ll take a break.”

  Vicky nodded, but Donita had already flung herself against the metal door. She was swallowed up behind it, the door rattling back and forth, her slim figure bobbing behind the window.

  Vicky retraced her steps across the small café and let herself out the front door. A warm gust of wind whipped her skirt against her legs as she walked past the Breakfast Specials and Best Coffee in Town signs plastered against the plate glass, cowboy hats swiveling over the tables inside. She could feel the eyes boring into her as she passed.

  In the graveled alley behind the café was a collection of pickups and cars—a couple of which looked abandoned—parked alongside twin Dumpsters with cartons that spilled over the top. It was chilly in the shade of the cottonwood that towered over the wood fence on the other side of the alley. Hugging herself, Vicky walked into the rectangle of sunshine on the far side of the Dumpsters. The screened door at the back of the café hung partly open, emitting small squeals in the warm breeze. The main door looked sealed. Hot, greasy odors wafted out of a vent and mingled with the smells of trash. For a half second, she thought that the ringing phone came from inside the café, then realized it was her cell.

  “This is Vicky Holden,” she said, after she’d found the cell in her bag.

  “I’ve talked to someone who remembers the girl.” It was John O’Malley’s voice, and it was comforting despite the note of caution.

  “Who is it?” Someone who remembered.

  “One of the park rangers. Calls himself Joe. I don’t know how reliable his information is. He might have invented the whole thing. He needed a drink badly.”

  “Tell me what he said.” Vicky was aware that she was holding her breath. She had the sense that they were reaching out for the girl, that they could almost touch her.

  “He said she was an Arapaho, her name was Liz.”

  “Liz? That’s all he said? There could have been dozens of Liz’s on the reservation.”

  “He said she’d been at Wounded Knee. She came back to the reservation, and AIM blamed her for the fact that the police had shot a member in Ethete.”

  “So they killed her.” It was making sense now. Beat her up,
knocked out her teeth, shot her in the head and left her to rot in the Gas Hills. Vicky could feel her heart jumping.

  “That’s one of the things that’s odd, Vicky. He said he’d always thought she’d gotten away, left the reservation.”

  “What’s the other thing?” Vicky glanced at the back door of the café, thinking she’d heard the knob rattle. The door still looked sealed, as if it had been painted in place.

  “He says she had a baby.”

  Vicky took a moment. Her heart was still pounding. “It has to be the same girl. She didn’t get away.” They were getting close—she could feel the truth of it—almost touching her, and yet the girl was slipping like smoke through their fingers.

  The café door cracked open, then jiggered backward, scraping the floor. Donita stepped down onto the gravel and reached around to pull the door shut behind her. Then she shook a cigarette out of a half pack.

  “I’ll call you later,” Vicky said. She pressed the end button and walked back through the shade toward Donita, who was cupping her hand over the cigarette and flicking at a lighter that stuttered in the breeze.

  12

  “WHAT’D YOU COME here for?” Donita said. She kept her gaze on the red glow at the end of the cigarette.

  Vicky walked across the gravel between the front of a pickup and the Dumpster. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

  “I don’t know about that skeleton, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. What d’ya want?”

  “It’s a cold case, Donita. If I can give the sheriff some names…”

  “You working for the sheriff?” For the first time, Donita looked up. There was a shadow of hostility in her eyes.

  “Working…?” Vicky hesitated, aware of the blunder. If Donita thought she was connected to the sheriff’s department, she wouldn’t tell her anything. And neither would anyone else on the rez when the news went out on the moccasin telegraph.

  “You some kind of informer?”

  “No,” Vicky said. “I’m trying to get information for Detective Coughlin that will help the investigation. The girl was murdered in 1973. Her killer might still be around.” She paused. “He is around,” she said. “I’m sure of it. He should be brought to justice, don’t you agree?”

  Donita took a long drag on the cigarette, then dropped her hand alongside her blue jeans and flipped off the cone of ashes. She was squinting into the sunshine, as if there were a message printed on the front of her eyeballs. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “I heard,” Vicky began, selecting the words—it was like trying to pick her way across the rocks in a creek; one slip and she would be in the water—“that you might have known people involved with AIM.”

  “So what? Lots of people got involved with AIM. It wasn’t all bad, you know, the way people talk today. They ran schools. Did you know that? Culture schools so kids could learn their own Indian culture. Learn their own language. They kept watch on the police so they didn’t beat up on Indians and throw ’em in jail for no reason. They were always fighting for our rights.”

  Vicky waited a beat before she said, “I think the girl’s name was Liz. She was Arapaho and she was part of AIM. She might’ve been at Pine Ridge for a while. Did you know anyone like that?”

  “What d’ya think?” Donita’s eyes widened in surprise. “That I was one of the big shots? One of the leaders? The only time I saw them, they were driving by in some pickup. Most of them came from other places. They gave the orders. Show up at Fort Washakie and demonstrate in front of the BIA offices or the jail. Drive over to Seventeen-Mile Road ’cause we’re gonna close it down. My boyfriend—God, what a jerk—wanted to be a big shot like the AIM guys, so he says, come on, we’re gonna march, we’re gonna demonstrate, we’re gonna kiss their asses ’cause I’m gonna be one of ’em. So I did what he said, and you know what?”

  She took another long drag on the cigarette before tossing it down and rubbing it into the gravel with the toe of her shoe. “I loved it, all that marching and shouting. I loved it, ’cause it was like saying ‘We’re Indian, and we’re proud. We’re proud.’ I never felt so great about anything since. We made people take notice. They couldn’t ignore us like they were used to doing, like we weren’t even there, weren’t even alive.”

  “There must’ve been other Arapaho girls marching. Try to think, Donita. It’s important. Was there anyone named Liz?”

  “You hear what I’m telling you? If she went to Pine Ridge, she was on the inside. Riding around in one of the pickups, how do I know? I never saw any Liz marching out in the hot sun.”

  “What about your boyfriend. He might have met…”

  “Yeah, he might’ve, only one night about twenty years ago he drank a bottle of vodka and smashed up his truck. Killed himself. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, you ask me. I gotta get back to work.” Donita pivoted about and flung open the screened door.

  “Is there anyone else who might have known Liz?” Vicky said, stepping behind her, grabbing the edge of the screened door as Donita shoved the other door into the café. The clank of dishes and hum of conversation drifted outside. “Someone closer to the insiders.” She was talking to the woman’s back. “Liz had a child. Her child would be grown up now. He’d want justice for his mother. Or maybe it was a girl. She’d want…”

  Donita turned around. She kept her arms at her side, like a soldier at attention, and stared past Vicky’s shoulder into the alley, her lips moving around inaudible words. Finally she said, “I had a friend, Loreen. She got mixed up with one of them.”

  “Loreen? Where can I find her?”

  “Try the cemetery over at Ethete. He shot her.”

  “My God,” Vicky said.

  “Got off on some kind of technicality, like it wasn’t important, you know? Some Indian girl dead. Who cares?”

  “Who was he?”

  “Lakota, called himself Jake. Jake Walker. Wasn’t his real name, just what he was using around here. Real name was Jake Tallfeathers. Hung around here after they let him out of jail, like it was no big deal, Loreen’s death. Then I heard he got hit by a truck.” Donita’s voice was so low that Vicky had to lean closer to catch what she was saying. “You think you’re gonna get justice? Forget it. Nobody’s gonna care about some Indian girl that got killed back in the seventies. All that marching and demonstrating and shouting didn’t mean anything. We still don’t have rights. You want to know the worst part?” She bent forward, pulling the door with her. The café noises were muffled. “Lot of Indians got killed back then by their own people. And what did the white authorities do? Nothing. You gonna get justice for all of them?”

  “We can’t give up,” Vicky heard herself saying. It was the courtroom voice, and the confidence in it surprised her. “We can try to get justice for Liz.”

  Donita went back to staring into the alley. Tiny spots of moisture bubbled at the outside corners of her eyes. Finally she said, “Loreen and her sister were both real tight with AIM. I heard they both went to Wounded Knee. I see her sister around the rez sometimes. Her name’s Ruth Yellow Bull. You know her?”

  Vicky shook her head. She supposed she might recognize the woman if she saw her. A familiar face at the powwows or one of the celebrations, but not anyone she knew. “Where can I find her?”

  “Far as I know she’s still living out on Mill Creek Road, same brown house Loreen lived in. Only thing, she won’t want to talk to you.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Do me a favor,” Donita said, throwing a glance over her shoulder into the café. “Don’t tell her I was the one that sent you, okay? I don’t want any trouble with AIM.”

  “What are you saying? They’re still on the rez?”

  “You don’t get it, do you! There’s people around that knew what was going on back then. They knew about some of the killings. Maybe they’re the ones who got orders to shoot people, and maybe that’s what they did. You think they’ll want you snooping around into that old stuff? I’d watch m
y back, if I was you.” Donita flung herself past the opened door and kicked the door shut.

  Vicky walked down the alley and around the corner of the café. She slid into the Jeep, ignoring the pairs of eyes following her on the other side of the plate glass window as she backed into the parking lot. Then she shifted into forward. The right tire climbed over the edge of the curb, and she bumped out into the traffic on Federal, struggling to bring into focus this altered sense of reality. Donita might have been talking about somewhere else, not the reservation Vicky had always known. A different place, a place where killers went about everyday lives, gassing pickups at the pumps, stopping in the convenience store for sodas and chips, dancing in the powwows, going to the Sun Dance.

  And one of them could have killed a girl name Liz.

  ADAM WAS IN front of the tribal offices as Vicky drove into the parking lot—pacing back and forth, glancing at his watch. The sun shone on his white shirt. He must have heard the noise of her tires cutting across the bare dirt because he swung around and watched until she’d parked a few feet away. Then he bounded over to the Jeep and flung open the door.

  “Where’ve you been?” he said, annoyance and impatience beating in his voice. “Our appointment was ten minutes ago.”

  “You could have started.” Vicky slid out and headed for the entrance. The door slammed behind her.

  “It’s an important meeting.” Adam’s footsteps sounded behind her. “We both have to be there from the beginning.” He reached around and yanked open the glass door.

  Vicky was aware of him beside her, their footsteps beating a rhythm down the corridor past the doors opened onto different offices of the Arapaho Nation: Natural Resources, Tribal Registration, Blue Sky Education. She turned into the office next to the sign that said, Tribal Economic Development, aware of Adam’s annoyance nipping at her with the razor sharp teeth of a puppy.

  A woman, probably in her thirties, with long black hair and dark, serious eyes, looked up from behind the counter that separated the narrow waiting area from another corridor of offices in back. “Hey,” she said, rolling back in her chair and fixing them with a calm, deliberative stare. “Charlie’ll be with you in a minute.”