As the crow flies wl-8

by Craig Johnson

  She held out her capable hands, and I deposited my life’s problems into them. As I turned around, I almost bumped into Lolo, who had walked over with Last Bull. “What’s up?”

  “I’m going to take Clarence home and then make a run to Rabbit Town over on the other side of the Rez, and I think you’d better come along.”

  I glanced back toward the room they had come from. “Is Dog in with Adrian?”

  “Yeah.” She gestured toward her mother, who was still scribbling away. “Mom put food and water and even a bed in there, but he hasn’t touched any of it. Do you want to look in on the two of them before we go?”

  I cracked the door open and could see Dog’s large head rise up from the other side of the bed. I whispered, “Just because you’re on guard doesn’t mean you have to go without food and water, you know?” He wagged once and then settled in again as I studied the sleeping child, who seemed to be resting comfortably. The little body was so small, and I thought about what Henry had said one time about the world being hard on little things. Adrian Plain Feather had overcome some pretty spectacular odds so far, and who knew, maybe he’d be all right.

  I closed the door and crossed back to the group, joining Chief Long as she studied me. “You don’t really think that dog understands what you’re saying, do you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The automatic doors swooshed aside, and we were suddenly confronted with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, complete with a smiling Cliff Cly and a phalanx of two other federal agents. The AIC straightened the folder under his arm. “How’s the kid?”

  I shrugged. “Still not talking.”

  “I hate using the rubber hose on infants, but you gotta get results.” He folded his arms. “Am I mistaken or are you not only out of your jurisdiction but in the wrong state?”

  “You are not mistaken. I’m in Montana because Cady’s getting married up here next week and I’m making arrangements.”

  He looked genuinely surprised, but with Cly you never knew. “This the daughter I talked to on the phone at the bar in Absalom?”

  “Yep.”

  He levitated his eyebrows, a look which expressed a loss of options. “Damn, I was hoping to meet her before she got hitched.”

  I leaned into him, the brim of my hat about two inches from his forehead. “I would not let you anywhere near my daughter-even on a bet.”

  He smiled a becoming smile and stuck a hand out to Last Bull. “Really sorry about your loss, Clarence.” He glanced back at me for a second. “You’re in good hands, and I’m sure we’ll find who did this.”

  He then pulled a thick manila envelope from under his arm and held it out to me. “Full ME’s report; I thought you might need it.” He watched as I shifted my eyes to Chief Long and pivoted his arm as if he’d meant to hand it to her all along. “There you go, Chief. I would’ve put it on your desk back at the office, but I didn’t want to clutter things up.”

  After we’d dropped Clarence off, she drove up the hill from Lame Deer on 212 at a regular speed for once. “Do you want to explain to me what just happened?”

  I was studying the file on my lap. “I would say that the federal government just ceded jurisdiction on this case to the tribal police.”

  “Obviously they don’t think he did it.”

  “I’d guess not.”

  She settled back in the seat and upped the air-conditioning. “How did you know about Inez Two Two?”

  “Her mother told me.”

  “Who?”

  “Her mother, the waitress at the casino you slapped the dish away from last night.”

  “Oh.”

  “See, if you’re nice to people they tell you things.”

  We drove along in silence for a while.

  “Is fooling around with thirteen-year-olds indicative of Clarence’s character?”

  She thought about it. “I guess.”

  I read the white placards on the fence posts that warned passing motorists to not shoot the prairie dogs because the Department of Wildlife and Parks was conducting an experiment.

  “He… I knew him before he enlisted-real ladies’ man. They say he was in a mortar shell raid that did some damage to his private parts. I don’t know if that’s what happened to him over there, but whatever it was, it messed him up. Anyway, he came back and he and Audrey hit a rough patch and he meets this kid, Inez, down at the White Buffalo.”

  She placed an elbow on the driver’s-side doorsill and ran her fingers into the thick mane of her hair. I was struck by her monochromatic beauty-the jet-black hair, the jasper-colored eyes, and the sunset-colored skin.

  “So pretty soon they’re an item, but Audrey, who is pregnant at the time, mind you…”

  “I guess Clarence wasn’t messed up too badly.”

  “Yeah, well, she gets wind of this little tryst and catches Inez at the IGA and about beats the shit out of her.”

  “This Audrey was pretty tough.”

  “Yeah.” The hand disengaged with the hair. “Was.”

  “Maybe we should go talk to Inez Two Two.”

  She nodded. “Maybe. Look, I really don’t like Clarence, and I’ve never liked the way he treated Audrey, but I don’t think he pushed her and Ado off a cliff.”

  I continued to watch the scenery pass.

  “Why did you ask about Audrey’s work?”

  I shrugged. “Home and the office-those are usually the places of conflict; people spend most of their lives at one place or the other. What kind of position did she have at Human Services?”

  “Secretary, receptionist, or something-I mean, she was the first face you saw when you came in the door-well, along with Herbert His Good Horse and Loraine Two Two.” She put her finger in her mouth.

  “Something?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about the sign they have on the wall beside her desk about how if you use strong language or raise your voice you will be physically ejected from the building.”

  That was interesting. “What, exactly, does Human Services do that they have to worry enough about abusive behavior to post a sign like that?”

  “They’re in charge of the federal support checks, and when the money runs out toward the end of the month, the natives get restless.”

  “So Audrey could have enemies through work.”

  “Indirectly, I suppose.” She passed a slow-moving truck hauling a trailer with about five tons of small-bale hay. “I mean, it wasn’t like she was the one who wrote the checks or anything-she just handed them out.”

  I nodded and repeated her words back to her. “But she was the first face you saw when you came through the door.”

  She rolled her eyes. “All right, when we get through in Rabbit Town we’ll head back to Lame Deer and have a talk with Herbert.”

  “The disc jockey?”

  “The bit he does for KRZZ is a second income. His Honorable Herbert His Good Horse is Audrey’s boss; nothing goes on at tribal HQ without his knowing about it.”

  I raised a fist. “Stay calm, have courage-”

  She smirked. “And wait for signs.”

  The trees were all stunted on the highlands of the Cheyenne Reservation. After the Baby Dean fire swept across the ridges and carried sixty thousand acres of Ponderosa pine with it, the remains were sold at salvage, including the three trailer-loads of logs Henry Standing Bear brought down to my place that had built my house.

  Her voice interrupted my wandering thoughts. “What I’m trying to figure out is why he didn’t respond when you and the Bear yelled?”

  I found it interesting that she’d just mentioned Henry in such a personal way but decided not to remark. “He says he was drunk, woke up, and they were gone. There are more than a couple of scenarios-maybe he was passed out and didn’t hear us, another is that they did as he suspected and left.”

  “How do you explain both she and Adrian falling off the cliff then?”

  “They came back after Clarence drove home, or somebody brought them back.�
��

  She shook her head. “Did you see any other tracks?”

  “No, but just because I didn’t see them doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

  She didn’t answer.

  I leaned back in the seat, determined to enjoy the ride. “Do you mind telling me who we’re going to see?”

  “Fella by the name of Small Song.”

  “Artie Small Song?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, you know him?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “He’s got the only ’71 red GMC registered on the Rez. Closest thing I could find to your Chevy.” She studied me. “How do you know him?” She watched as I pulled the Colt from my back, dropping the clip and reinserting it back in the grip. “You’re not going to shoot yourself, are you?”

  I had to smile. “If it’s the only way out of this chickenshit outfit.” I holstered the Colt. “Are we going to the mother’s place or the dental hygienist he’s been shacking up with?”

  She flicked some jasper shards at me. “And might I ask how it is that you are so intimate with Artie Small Song’s personal life?”

  “We liked him for the Little Bird case.”

  She concentrated on the road, for which I was thankful. “The only address I’ve got is the mother out on Otter Creek Road. Did you read his file?”

  “I didn’t have time; why?”

  I twisted my wife’s engagement ring on my little finger. “He’s what my undersheriff, Vic, would call a bad motor scooter.”

  Lolo glanced at my finger. “Priors?”

  I let go of the ring and draped my hand out the window. “Beaucoup, and he has a tendency to be well-armed-really, really well-armed.”

  She smiled as she accelerated, slapping a hand on her overloaded holster. “Maybe you’ll be glad I’ve got this. 44 after all.”

  I looked out at the burnt husks of dead trees, like black veins in the crystal-blue sky. “I doubt it.”

  5

  I’d been to Artie’s mother’s house before-it was up one of the fingerling canyons that ran down to Otter Creek-and it reminded me a little of the departed Geo Stewart’s junkyard back in Durant. The rusted vehicles trailed all the way down to the main road toward the more populated areas of the unincorporated Rabbit Town. I don’t know why Rabbit Town is called Rabbit Town other than there might’ve been rabbits there at one time, but I hadn’t seen any so far today.

  So far, no ’71 GMC either.

  The further we went up the hill, the older the cars and trucks got, and we finally parked somewhere around 1939. It was hot, but there was a trickle of smoke whispering from the tiny cabin lodged into the hillside just like there was when I had visited the winter before last.

  That time, I had remained in Henry’s truck as he’d asked the old woman about her son, but this time I was there officially. I hoisted myself out of the Yukon and looked at the place, especially the windows, since Artie was known to be in possession of ballistic oddities like FAL. 308s, MAC-10s, and even an M-50-I knew because I’d been through his closet or the dental hygienist’s at least. “Hold up.”

  Lolo Long, who was already winding her way toward the cabin, looked back and immediately placed a hand on her colossal sidearm.

  I pointed up-the smoke was actually coming more from the back-so I took the route around the corner of the house toward the hillside. Chief Long followed as I carefully picked my way around a rotting roll of mustard-yellow carpeting and the wire remnant of a bedspring. “Do you know his mother?”

  Once again, her tone was defensive. “No.”

  I studied the nearest window and could see the rags stuffed around the casing, as much for insulation against the heat as the cold. “Just for the record, I don’t expect you to know everybody on the Rez.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now, do you mind if I do the talking?”

  She gestured an after-you-my-dear-Alphonse and brought up the rear.

  There was quite an operation going on out back, where an elderly woman was scooping preburned charcoal with a number two shovel and spreading it evenly in a pit lined with heavy stones and tinfoil. Tipped to the side was a rack made from sheep wire and rebar, which held a good-sized doe elk that had been butterflied and then stretched onto the contraption.

  She froze when she saw me but then rose and rested her chin on the back of her gnarled hands, her cataract-impaired eyes staying right with mine.

  “Mrs. Small Song?”

  She didn’t answer, but the milky eyes clicked to my right like the buttons on a rattlesnake’s tail as she took in Chief Long’s uniform.

  I walked closer and pointed toward the complicated arrangement. “Open-pit elk cooking; I haven’t seen that in quite a while. My mother used to do it.” I extended a hand. “My name is-”

  “I know your name, lawman.” She turned her head and shot a prodigious stream of tobacco onto one of the forty-pound rocks, where it sizzled. The old woman then glanced past as Long joined me, but then her eyes clicked back the way they had before. “Looking for my son?”

  I conceded the fact. “Say, does he still have that ’71 GMC?”

  She kept her gaze on me, and I was just as glad the cataracts were there to guard me against what was most certainly the evil eye. “You wanna buy a truck, lawman?”

  I smiled. “Never can tell.”

  She took her time before answering and poked at the coals with the wood-handled shovel, its point worn down so that it looked indented. “Got plenty out front.”

  “I need one that runs.” I looked through the window as if Artie might be inside. “Is he around?”

  “No.”

  I nodded and kneeled down by the rocks to stick a finger into her gallon water jug of marinade, pausing to look up at her. “May I?” She nodded with a curt jutting of her chin. It tasted pretty wonderful. “Pineapple?”

  “Commodity juice; all they had this month.”

  I ran my tongue around my mouth as I looked at the door, propped open with a kitchen chair, and the windows, which were curtained with all different calicos. I looked back at the elk’s body, where I could see where the death shot had pierced one side and then continued on through the other, taking a lot of meat with it. I went ahead talking about the marinade. “Sage, garlic…”

  She interrupted, impatient with my novice tongue. “Cider vinegar and beer-lots of beer.”

  I stood and looked down at all four-foot-ten of her, wrapped in a shawl and dressed in a full-length, layered skirt despite the 90-degree weather and the fire. She looked as if she should’ve been beside a sheep wagon telling fortunes and finding pentagrams in people’s hands. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”

  She cocked her head, regarding me. “You are the lawman from the Ahsanta mountains.”

  “I am.”

  “They say you’re a good man, Ahsanta.” She shifted her weight. “You know I had three sons?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “One was killed in the Vietnam. My second son, the one you hunt, never showed no interest in the white man’s army-he’s the smart one. My grandson, Nate, the one that works at the talking box, the boy of my son up in Deer Lodge.”

  I smiled. “The radio station?”

  “Yes. He was going to fight in this war they have now; I don’t know which one.” She shifted the handle in her hands and rested it beside her face. “I told him no, that he couldn’t join the white man’s army, that they would only get him killed.” She studied me. “You in the white man’s army, Ahsanta?”

  “I was.”

  She nodded, mostly to herself. “Only the white man survives the white man’s army.”

  I glanced at Lolo. “Chief Long here was in the white man’s army.”

  “ Se-senovoto ema’etao’o.”

  I saw Long stiffen, but she said nothing, and it was possible she was learning.

  “Why you hunt my boy?”

  I figured I’d just level with her. “Last night, he tried to run me over with his truck.”


  She stared at me through the clouds in her eyes, then her jaw dropped and she began breathing a convulsive laugh that pulsed her tiny back like a bicycle pump. “Maybe he doesn’t like you, Ahsanta.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ve never really met him, so I can’t imagine what it is he’s got against me.”

  “He doesn’t like the ones make him sleep inside.” She continued to study me, but she was making up her mind about something. Finally, she spoke. “Was here last night.”

  “Your son?”

  “Who we talking about?”

  She had a point. “What time?”

  “Night time.”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  She adjusted something in her mouth, and I thought she was going to spit again, but instead, she swallowed. “Don’t own a clock.”

  I slipped a hand over my mouth to pull down the corners and keep myself from smiling. “Did he stay the night?”

  “Nope, can’t sleep inside no more. Told you-you people did that to him.”

  I glanced back at the holes in the deer and could see where someone had slit the butts and shoulders and removed the membrane from the rib cage. It was a professional job-Artie most certainly had been there last night. “Mrs. Small Song, I’m not here to arrest your son for anything; I’d just like to talk to him.”

  She motioned with the shovel handle, rocking it toward Chief Long. “What does Se-senovoto ema’etao’o want?”

  I glanced over my shoulder as if I’d just remembered the young woman who was peering into the scrub pine and juniper bushes on the ridge above us. “She just wants to talk to Artie, too.”

  She nodded her head but continued watching the coals, glowing red around the edges, and it was impossible to tell what she might’ve been thinking. For a moment, I thought she’d forgotten we were still there, but then she spat on the rocks again. “I tell him you was here, whenever he come back.”

  “We’d appreciate that, Mrs. Small Song.” I turned and started toward the corner of the house with Lolo in tow.