She was angry. “I’ll do something like apologize.”
“That would be interesting since I haven’t seen anything approximating an apology for anything since I’ve met you today.”
She folded her arms, then unfolded them and started to take a drink of her tea or maybe throw it in my face. “Apologies are a sign of weakness.”
I sat there looking at her, making sure I’d heard what I’d thought I’d heard as the waitress arrived with our food-she stood a little to the side to avoid the bloodshed.
I went ahead and finished my statement. “Apologies are a sign of having some semblance of an idea of what’s going on around you and not being a cocksure idiot.” I should’ve stopped there, but the rest needed to be said. “Excuse me for saying so, but you don’t have the training or, from what I can see, the temperament for the job.”
Her eyes stayed steady with mine. She took a deep breath and then stood by the table. The only sounds were the air-conditioning and the noisome jangling of the slot machines.
Again she reminded me of Vic, but without the top-notch training that the Philadelphia Police Academy had provided, or the five years of street duty, or the field commendations that the Terror had hung on her bathroom wall. It was possible that Lolo Long could become a capable officer, but she would never last that long. She would end up dead on a frontage road or bleeding her life away on a patch of threadbare indoor/outdoor carpeting.
Without another word, she turned and stalked out, taking the time only to flip one of the waiting plates from the waitress’s hand. It cascaded in a graceful arc over the startled woman’s shoulder and crashed onto the tile floor with a clatter, bits of broken china and chipotle steak going everywhere.
I dropped my head and sighed. I knew I’d been going too far, but I hadn’t considered how “too far” I’d gone and, considering the recent conversation, I figured the waitress wasn’t likely to get an apology.
The poor woman was still standing there with the other plate in her hand, so I took it from her. “I’m assuming that mine is the one on the floor, so I’ll take the fried chicken.” I held my other hand out to her. “Walt Longmire.”
She nodded and shook my fingers. “I know.” She looked through the window as Chief Long lunged the Yukon out of the parking lot. “She used to be such a nice girl before.”
Setting the plate on the table, I gestured toward the mess. “Do you need some help cleaning that up?”
“No.” She smiled. “I can get it-you eat.”
It was at this point, according to Officer Long, that I betrayed a weakness. “I’m sorry.”
The woman braided her weakness with mine. “I’m sorry, too.”
I sat and began eating the chicken with my fingers; other than the waitress, I was the only one there. I pulled a few more napkins from the dispenser as she returned with a dustpan, broom, a spray bottle, and paper towels. “My name is Loraine Two Two.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Loraine.”
She made quick work of the mess. “I heard it was Audrey Plain Feather who fell off a cliff and died today.”
I gave the chicken a momentary rest. “That moccasin telegraph never sleeps, does it?”
“I worked with her over at Human Services.” She smiled but then it faded. “They said the child, Adrian, was with her when she fell.”
I took a breath and thought about my nonofficial connection to the case. “He’s over at the hospital, but I think he’s going to be fine.”
Loraine stood but averted her eyes from mine. “It’s a troubled family.”
I nodded, still holding a leg in my hands. “That’s what I hear.”
“The man, Clarence; he was paying attention to my daughter Inez, a year ago.”
“Really?” I wasn’t sure of what else to say.
“Yes.” Loraine Two Two turned to go, but her voice carried over her shoulder. “She was thirteen.”
It was about two miles up the road to Lonnie Little Bird’s house, and I was once again regretting the loss of my truck as I trudged up Route 212, the thunder still resonating off the flat surfaces of the distant plateaus.
With my current luck, it was likely to rain again before I got there.
It was also likely that Clarence Last Bull had killed Audrey, but the final word on that would have to wait until Chief Long got the preliminary report from the Montana Crime Lab and the FBI tomorrow morning. It wouldn’t have all the details, but it would be enough to get the slow-moving wheels of justice started on their uphill journey.
Rudimentary math and tonight’s revelation told me that Clarence was having a little on the side, and the fact that it was with a thirteen-year-old girl didn’t exactly endear him to me. I still had doubts, but then I wasn’t sure what a man did after pushing his wife and child from a cliff. Would you just get in your car and drive home drunk? If you were trying to make it look as if it were an accident, you would contact 911 and stay there. It just didn’t make sense, and in my line of work the things that didn’t make sense often led you to the things that did.
I reminded myself once more that this wasn’t my case. Twirling the ring on my little finger, I again remembered that I had a daughter who was getting married in a matter of weeks.
I could hear a vehicle approaching from the rear, and just for fun I threw a thumb out to see if I could get a lift. The thought struck me that it might’ve been Lolo Long in a fit of conscience, deciding to give me a ride after all. Yep, right, and it could also have been Chief High Bear wanting to show me the ledger drawings that he had painted in the roster book he’d taken from the first sergeant of the Seventh Cavalry.
I turned to look back-by the sound, the vehicle was awfully close-and when I did, it seemed to be bearing down on me. It was an older truck with some kind of hopped-up engine and Cherry Bomb mufflers. I stood there for a moment, thinking that the driver hadn’t seen me and would momentarily turn the wheel and go by, but instead the truck continued on a course straight toward where I stood.
I ran across the shoulder and down the hill by the side of the road, passed by a signpost for Route 212, clawed my way up the slight embankment to a barbed-wire fence, and threw myself over into the wet grass. The jacked-up pickup followed me into the ditch and swerved just past, slapping a few posts and shooting sparks from the barbs on the wire that attempted to bury themselves into the sheet metal. The truck slid sideways as it struggled to get back up the hill and onto the highway, then drifted to a slower speed as the driver tried to get purchase.
It was about then that I noticed the elk tied to the hood.
I really started missing my gun.
Soaking wet from the rough landing, I stretched the old three-strand wire, scrambled back over, and started after the half-ton as it slid sideways some more, the bald tires unable to get a grip. There were brake lights and headlights but no license plate on what looked like an old, red Chevrolet.
The driver was sawing at the wheel in an attempt to escape a return trip into the ditch, but all I could see was a mantle of long, dark hair.
I was having trouble getting up the grade in my slick-soled boots but got to the edge of the road and ran along the white line. The Chevy wasn’t making particularly good time going down the road sideways, but it didn’t seem as if I was catching up.
The wide tires on the rear finally got to the gravel, and I watched as the vehicle squirreled to the right, the elk swaying on the hood.
My second and third winds were giving out as I watched, but the driver corrected again and shot ahead east toward Ashland with a roar like a top-fuel dragster. Forcing the air in and out of my lungs, I stopped and placed my hands on my knees, the V-8 echoing off the hillsides and disappearing around the far turn a mile away. “Good God…”
I swallowed and stayed bent over until my blood pressure and adrenaline level approximated normal but kept my eyes on the road just in case the crazed driver decided to turn around and take another pass at me. After a while, the only sound other tha
n me breathing was the cry of a few night birds and the croaking of some of the frogs in the ditch. I finally stood, pulled in two lungfuls of air, and coughed.
It was the time of the evening that was playing with night, and I walked up the road a few steps until I noticed something odd on the gravel. It was a carved piece of buffalo horn about the size of three of my fingers, with a smoothed tip, a piece of rawhide tied in a loop toward the end. There were a few holes drilled into the thing and a larger opening about a quarter down the length.
I popped it in my shirt pocket and glanced up the road-it was still a couple of hundred yards to the cutoff to Lonnie’s place.
I knocked and shuffled my feet on the welcome mat of the tidy house-I wasn’t sure if the chief was awake or not. I glanced down the concrete ramp that led to the front door and was glad it was a warm night; if worse came to worse, I could always sleep on the hanging swing on Lonnie’s porch.
I knocked again and could hear someone rustling around inside; after a moment, the door opened, revealing the chief in his wheelchair. He looked up at me through blurry eyes but with a grin. “ Ha’ahe, lawman. They said you were sleeping over, but I’d given up on you. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”
I opened the screen door and followed Lonnie along the hallway, where there were numerous photographs of him in his major-league ball-playing days and ones of his daughter in jingledress dance outfits and playing basketball.
I sat at the table in the kitchen as Lonnie examined my soaked, mud-covered clothes and the torn jeans where the voracious barbed wire had gotten me in my leap over the fence. “Rough night?”
I took a deep breath and wished Lonnie still drank, but he had given that up in a successful attempt at getting his daughter from the clutches of his sisters. “Somebody tried to run me over.”
“Where?
I jerked a thumb past my shoulder. “Walking, right out here on 212.”
“What were you doing walking?”
“Oh, I had a difference of opinion with your police chief.” I tried to deflect the conversation. “Hey, Lonnie, do you have any of that really good root beer?” I knew the chief kept a single can of Rainier in his refrigerator as a token to alcoholic temptation, but I wasn’t going to ask for that.
“Um hmm, yes.” He wheeled over to the fridge and opened the door.
“You don’t know anybody with an early-seventies pickup, Chevy, red or maroon, with a loud exhaust, do you?”
He returned to the table with two cans and parked his knees next to mine. “That sounds like a couple of trucks I know.”
The can made a soft hissing sound as I opened it. “Can you make me a list?” I knew from experience that Lonnie liked making lists.
He had put on his glasses, and the reflection in them made it hard to see his eyes. It took a while for him to answer. “Yes. Is there something going on?”
“A woman and her child fell off Painted Warrior this afternoon.” I tried to think if it was this afternoon, my body telling me it had been three days ago. I stretched my eyes to try and keep them open and took a sip of the pop. “Anyway, I helped that police chief of yours today, and I can’t think of another reason in the world why somebody would want to make roadkill out of me.” I felt in my shirt and pulled out the carved object I’d found, tossing it on the table between us. “Any idea what that is?”
He put his can down and picked it up. He studied it for a moment and then blew into it, moving his fingers over the holes to make a trilling sound just at the height of human audibility. He lowered it and looked at me. “It’s an elk whistle made out of buffalo horn-the old type.” He looked at it again in admiration. “This is a good one. Um hmm.”
The root beer tasted good, and I could feel some of the knots in my shoulders and neck starting to release. “You know who made that one?”
He turned the flutelike whistle over in his hands. “No, but I can find out.”
“Add it to the list.”
We smiled at each other, but then his faded like an eclipse. “What was the woman’s name?”
“Audrey Plain Feather.”
“I know this woman, her family.” He looked up. “She is dead?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “And the child?”
“Alive, and being checked at the hospital.”
He reached out a hand and patted my arm. “Thank you for looking into this thing, Walter.”
“Oh, I’m not-”
“It is good that you are a friend to the people.”
Before I could answer, there was a knock at the front door. Lonnie’s expression was one of mild surprise. He held up a single bony finger to keep me from responding. “I am popular tonight. Yes, it is so.”
He wheeled the chair around the table, and when I started to stand, he sat me back down with a quick movement of the palm of his hand. He disappeared down the hall, and I listened as he opened the door. There was a brief, but fierce, conversation in Cheyenne. I figured it was Henry, who had come to pick me up, but as I listened to the tone of the conversation, it became obvious that somebody was receiving a royal dressing-down.
After a few moments, Lolo Long entered and stood by the wall in the hallway. Lonnie rolled by her and went straight to the refrigerator again; without saying a word, he placed another can of root beer on the table. As he passed by me on his way back to the hall, he stopped to address the room as a whole. “I am going to bed, but I’m sure that you two professionals have a great deal to discuss. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”
The kitchen was quiet; the tribal chief of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, having spoken, had rolled to his bed in his portable throne.
Her arms were crossed, and her hair hung down over her face like a shroud. She lifted her head slowly, her voice a murmur. “I’m sorry.”
I folded, like I always do in the face of female conciliation, and gestured toward her root beer and the only available chair. “Have a seat.”
She did and then looked at everything in the place but me. “They’re going to try and take my case.”
I took a sip of my own soda and waited.
“The guy you know, the agent, he called and said that the Medical Examiner’s report showed enough reasonable findings to consider this a homicide, so they are going to proceed with their own investigation.”
Nodding, I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “That’s pretty much standard procedure with the bureau.” I leaned forward in my chair and rested my elbows on the table. “Maybe you should let them have it.”
I got the eyes. “No.”
“Why?”
She took a slug of her root beer and absentmindedly played with the whistle. “She was a friend.” Lolo held the whistle up to her face and studied it. “We had a house in Billings together once when we were both going to school. We had hopes, and I was kind of a mentor. She got pregnant…” She sighed in exasperation. “And came back here-I went in the military.”
I did some quick math. “Adrian’s only…”
“It was before him, another pregnancy that ended up being a miscarriage, but she came back here anyway.” Long glanced around the room in an attempt to find the words that must’ve been lying around somewhere. “Look, Sheriff, I want justice.”
“Whose justice?”
The eyes again, but I was getting eyeproof.
“Help me.”
I leaned back in my chair, took a breath, and thought about the soon-to-be-married greatest legal mind of our time. “I can’t.”
“You can. I’ve seen them with you; they’re afraid of you.”
That made me laugh. “They’re not afraid of me.”
“Well, they respect you, and the new AIC owes you his life.”
I narrowed my own eyes at her. “And what does that have to do with you?”
She set the buffalo horn back in its place, folded her hands on the table, then reached over and lifted the corner of the place mat. She looked at the floor and then lowered the mat back to the surface and smoot
hed it with her fingers. “I know you think I don’t know what I’m doing.”
I smiled. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She nodded very slightly in agreement, and her voice was losing its energy. “And you may not even like me.” I didn’t say anything. “But you could teach me.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Please.”
4
I was drinking my coffee and watching the swirl of light foam that formed a riptide against the far side of the cup, crashed against the edge, and then split to circle around and rejoin with one another where they started. I would look at anything to avoid watching Clarence Last Bull cry.
Long had offered him coffee, offered him donuts, and even offered to let him go to the bathroom, but all Last Bull said was that he wanted to die.
I wanted to die just watching him.
The chief went so far as to get a box of tissues from God knows where, then placed it on his lap over the inert hands that draped between his legs.
I pushed the folding chair that I had been sitting on against the wall and went to the hallway with the man’s file under my arm, Long following me. We stood there, the chief with her arms folded and me sipping my coffee.
Her voice was gruff, but I could see that she was a little shaken. “How long is this going to take?”
I dropped my head and took a deep breath. “As long as it takes.”
We waited there like that for a good ten minutes, neither of us saying anything, just listening. It got suddenly quiet, and I could hear him stirring in the cell.
I raised my head, leaned a little to the side, and peered back through the opening at the end of the hall-he was slumped on the bunk and had his arms wrapped around his lanky legs, as if trying to keep them from running away.
My legs carried me back into the room, and I could feel Lolo behind me as I tossed my empty cup in the trash can by the door.
He looked up. “You’re sure it’s her?”
I nodded and kept my eyes on him. “I’m the one who got to her first; me and a good friend.” I glanced at Lolo. “Chief Long here ID’d her right away.”
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