I continued to study her.
“Garston was dead, but his foot was still on the accelerator. The wheel turned, and we were suddenly doing this graceful arc into the desert. So there I was, Medical Specialist Lolo Long with my one eye full of blood-but with the other seeing the vivid blue of the sky and the straw color of the sand.” She breathed, and I watched the muscles in her throat bunch as she swallowed. “It felt like that part went on forever; riding across the desert in a shape just like the scar on my face.”
I watched as a tear welled in the nearest eye.
She chanted again, and I knew I was hearing the mantra that had kept Specialist Lolo Long alive in that crippled, still-moving Hummer. “I love you; I love you so much-please don’t forget about me!” She laughed. “Sometime during my second deployment the battery ran out on that damn picture frame, and Cale said they didn’t replace it because it had become such an annoyance, a reminder every day that I wasn’t there.” She took a deeper breath and blew it out between her lips, pushing the emotion away. “When I got home, I threw it in the garbage.”
We sat there like that for a long time, and I pretended to study the dash as she wiped her eye. I waited a respectful amount of time before asking. “How often do you see him?”
“Twice, since I’ve been back.” She wouldn’t look at me. “My mother visits him, Barrett, too…” I waited as she composed herself. “I’m just… I think that maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother.”
Thinking I better redirect the conversation a little, I took my hat off and dropped it in my lap, rubbed my face with both hands, and then ran them through my hair. “I was in my office one day when my wife came in and sat in the chair across from my desk and told me she was pregnant.” Her eyes came back to mine. “I’ll never forget what she said next: people have been screwing this up for thousands of years; I guess it’s our turn.”
She laughed again, but this time there was a little more heart in it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The crickets were chirping, and I could even hear a few frogs down in the barrow ditch. We both watched as a couple of bats made mincemeat out of the miller moths dodging patterns in the dusk-to-dawn light in Lonnie’s driveway.
“I looked you up.”
I smiled, thankful to be on safer ground, and put my hat back on. “I’ve got a file; you told me.”
“I looked up your service record, too. You were the Sam Spade of USMC Investigators, huh?”
I nodded. “In a fitting tribute, there is an illustrious manila envelope in a file cabinet in the basement of the United States Marine Corps Archives in Quantico, Virginia, with my name in it, yes.”
“Grunt.”
“Hump.” I figured we were done here, and I was going to have to start up the hill to Lonnie’s while I still had the energy. I pulled the handle on the Yukon and stepped out, closed the door, and leaned in the window, knowing full well I was heading back out on thin ice. “When this is over, however it’s over, you should go see your son. He loves you. He loves you so much-and you better not forget about him.”
I walked the rest of the way up the hill with the two cans of beer in my hand. About halfway up I heard her start the engine, saw the GMC back down the gravel road and sweep onto 212, following its headlights and a full night of patrolling the Rez by a woman who could not sleep.
There were boxes stacked on Lonnie’s back porch amid what looked like a bone yard-skulls, horns, and the like that the real chief procured for the numerous reservation artisans he knew. I pulled the key he’d given me from my jeans and had just started to put it in the lock when I felt the edge of a large knife at my throat, and the Colt at my back was unsnapped and professionally whisked away.
The blade disappeared, and I raised my hands to telegraph my intentions, which were none, and slowly turned. The individual who had unarmed me now sat in the darkness of the porch swing with our collective weapons in his lap.
I heard the safety go off on my sidearm, but his voice was soft. “Sit.”
“Gladly.” I glanced around. “Where?”
“Right there.”
I lowered myself onto the concrete stoop and, looking up at my assailant, leaned my back against the exterior of Lonnie’s house. I tipped my hat so I could get a better look at him, but he’d situated himself in the shadows so that the bug light that Lonnie had left on for my convenience illuminated only the few miller moths that circled it and me, but not him.
“You know who I am?”
“You’re Deep Throat.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I waited a moment. “I have an idea who you are.”
The shadow of his head shifted as he studied me. “You need to stay away from my mother.”
I glanced around to show him that I wasn’t really in any position to argue. “Okay.”
“And you need to stop chasing after me.”
“That’s going to be a little more difficult.”
He started to speak, but I interrupted him. “You want a beer?” I lifted the two cans in my one hand. It seemed like all I’d done this evening was offer beer to Indians only to be turned down.
He held my. 45 steady, and I was starting to get a little concerned, when he spoke. “Open it for me.”
I pulled the tab and carefully handed it to him.
“Artie, why don’t you give me back my gun. Unless you’re specifically here to kill me, I’m going to work on the assumption that you’re here to tell me that you’re innocent.” I opened my own can, played at sipping my beer, and waited.
“I am innocent.”
“Well, I’d be more likely to believe you if you weren’t holding my own loaded gun on me with the safety off.”
He sipped but kept the Colt pointed at my chest. After a moment, I heard the safety snap back on. “That better?”
I shrugged. “We can work in increments.” I watched as he took a deep breath and his leather jacket creaked. I estimated him to be pretty good sized but rangy. “So, where have you been keeping yourself?”
“I have places.”
“I bet you do; is Diamond Butte Lookout one of them?”
There was a pause, and he genuinely sounded confused. “No.”
I studied him, but my eyes were having trouble adjusting since I was in the light. “So let me guess, you’re here to tell me you didn’t kill Audrey Plain Feather?”
He sat there without moving and then stuffed the can be-tween his legs and rustled something from his shirt pocket. In the darkness I could just make out his mouthing a cigarette from a pack and one-handing a Bic lighter. There was a brief flash before he snapped it shut, and I got a pretty good glimpse of his face; lean like a coyote, with a do-rag and a goatee.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “I would never do something like that-push a woman off a cliff while she was holding her child? I would never do that.”
“You’ve done some stuff.”
He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and let it dangle in his fingers. “Nothing like that.” It was quiet, and then he plucked the beer from between his legs and sipped. “Nothing like that.”
“I guess you had a pretty big argument with her last week.”
He nodded. “At Human Services?”
“Yep.”
He laughed through his cigarette, and two plumes of smoke shot toward me. “Everybody argues at Human Services; it’s what you do there.”
“Evidently your argument made an impression.”
He grunted. “They were trying to cut off my mother’s dole checks.”
Dole check-he must’ve gotten that term from her. “They said you were cashing them.”
His voice got a little strained as he took another puff. “For her, not for me.”
I waved my hand to indicate that it was neither here nor there to me. “Why did you try and run me over with your truck the other night?”
His voice sounded genuinely surprised again. “What?”
; “Somebody in your ’71 GMC tried to run me over right down here on the Red Road two nights ago.”
“Wasn’t me.”
I pretended to sip my beer again. “Your nephew tried to take responsibility, but I don’t believe him.” It got quiet again. “I figure somebody lifted it after you loaned it to him up in Jimtown. Any idea who that could have been?”
“I don’t know.”
“For an innocent man, you don’t seem to have a lot of answers for me, Artie.”
“It wasn’t me.”
I set my still-full can down beside me and stretched out my legs, my boots almost reaching him. “I’ll be honest with you; I really didn’t think it was you who tried to run me over, for the simple reason that I can’t imagine what it is you could’ve hoped to have gained.”
He ventured an opinion. “Scare you off?”
“I don’t think you’re that stupid.” His cigarette flared. “But, then there’s the tape.”
Another silence, and when he spoke his voice sounded more unsure than it had before. He took another drag. “What tape?”
“The one where Clarence Last Bull tried to chisel you out of the money he promised you for killing Audrey and Adrian.”
He stood. “What?”
“I guess you’re on that tape, too.”
“No way. Get Clarence and let him look me in the face and say that.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible-he’s not talking to anyone.” I decided to keep at least one hole-card hidden, in case he hadn’t been the one who’d killed the man. “Have you had any contact with Clarence in the last few days?”
He slowly lowered himself back on the swing. “No, I hardly know the man.”
“Knew.” I glanced into the darkness. “Do you know a woman by the name of Erma Stoltzfus?”
He dropped his cigarette butt and nipped off another from the pack. “No.”
Strangely enough, I believed him. “Well, Artie, I haven’t listened to the tape, but if you’re telling the truth then somebody’s gone to a heck of a lot of trouble to make it look like you committed these murders.”
“Then let’s go get Clarence and get him to tell the truth.” He grunted. “Gimme five minutes with him and he’ll talk.”
“I doubt it.” He didn’t say anything more, so I figured I’d level with him. “Clarence’s dead, Artie. Somebody put a bullet into him at Diamond Butte Lookout.”
He lit up, and I waited.
“Wasn’t me.”
“Is there anybody who can corroborate where you’ve been in the last forty-eight hours?”
“No.”
“Do you own a. 38 pistol?” Stupid question; I knew by experience that Artie owned every gun in the Jane’s Small Arms Catalog, so the answer was predictable.
“Yes.”
“Would you mind if we had a look at it?”
He said nothing.
“Artie, you’ve got to admit that it doesn’t look good.” I rubbed my tired eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Except for one glaring fact that I can’t see a single thing you could gain from killing these people.”
“That’s right.”
I took a breath. “There is the argument.”
He laughed again. “You’re saying I killed this woman and her husband for a crummy subsidy check?”
“It doesn’t sound all that convincing, does it?” I shrugged. “But there’s the tape. As I said, I haven’t heard it yet, but supposedly Clarence was going to give you quite a bit of money for killing his wife and child.”
He shook his head, and I watched the end of the cigarette move back and forth like tracer fire as he mumbled from one side of his mouth. “Bullshit. I don’t know him, and I never talked to him on the phone. Ever.” The tip brightened with his inhale. “Must be somebody else, somebody who had something to gain.”
I let the dust settle before making the next statement. “I think you should come in, Artie; turn yourself over to the authorities.”
“No way. I’ve seen how that turns out; once they get their hands on an Indian, it’ll be the right Indian-one-way trip to Deer Lodge.”
“I can see how this would have a limited appeal, but how do you see it ending? It’s a manhunt, Artie-you’re the guy that we’re going to have to catch and the more you run, the guiltier you look.”
“We?”
“Me, Henry, Lolo Long, the Feds, everybody who stands behind a badge-we’re all going to be looking for you.”
“You’ll never catch me, none of you.” He shook his head. “I heard what you did to my little nephew; you tell Standing Bear I owe him one.”
“I will.”
“Seems to me, I owe you, too.” Looking off to the right and his avenue of escape, he sipped his beer and rested my sidearm on his leg. “Drink your beer.”
“Artie, you’re also not stupid enough to do something to me. Turn yourself in.”
He shook his head, and I listened as he clicked off the safety on my Colt again. “Can’t do it. I done time and I can’t do it again. Even short time-I just can’t do it. Not for nothin’, and I don’t wanna braid horsehair key chains up in Deer Lodge for the next forty years.”
He started to stand, and it was then that Artie became aware of another large knife with an eleven-inch homemade blade that had been silently and professionally placed at his throat. From the sudden glow of Artie’s cigarette, I recognized the turquoise bear paw engraved in the bone.
“Do not worry about it; maybe they will let you do hatbands as well.”
12
“Took you long enough.”
After having packing-taped Artie’s hands behind his back with a roll he’d discovered on the porch, the Bear sat Artie on one of the kitchen chairs. “I decided I wanted my beer back.”
I collected Lonnie’s boom box from the living room where he used it to listen to KRZZ and baseball games and carried it in, setting it on the table. “How long were you out there?”
“Most of it. I saw somebody on the porch and figured it was too late for Lonnie, so I parked over at the casino and doubled back on foot. It seemed as if you were having a nice conversation with Chief Long, so I did not want to interrupt.”
I shot him a look.
“Then I did not want to interrupt the wide-ranging conversation you were having with Artie.”
I took the CD and pulled it from the paper sleeve that read OFFICIAL EVIDENCE-FBI. “He says he didn’t do it.”
The Bear watched as Artie stared at the surface of the table. “That is what most of the men in Deer Lodge say.”
I hit the EJECT button, dropped the CD in, and glanced at the silent Small Song. “Well, since Artie isn’t talking, let’s see what he had to say.” I punched the button, and we listened as there was a fumbling of a receiver, and then the conversation started; it sounded as if it had been picked up midway and had been recorded through a barrel of bourbon. Someone cleared his throat, and then the voice of Clarence Last Bull mumbled something that ended with, “So, do you think you can help me out with that thing?”
Artie’s voice resounded through the phone lines-he sounded angry but it was still hard to hear him over the music playing loudly in the background. “I’ll kill the bitch!”
Clarence’s voice dropped, as if he were trying to get Artie to lower his. “Yeah, yeah, that thing that we talked about. I was just wondering how much?”
Artie’s voice continued to rise. “Twelve hundred God-damned dollars!”
Clarence pleaded. “Hey, keep your voice down.”
“Fuck you. Twelve hundred dollars is what I’m talking about!”
I glanced up at Artie, who continued to look at the surface of the table. Henry was watching him with an impassive expression on his face, and I was one of the few who knew that it was when the Cheyenne Nation appeared the least emotional that he was the most.
Artie: “I’ll kill the whole family!”
Clarence: “Right, right. Look, Artie, we’re going for a picnic up on the cliffs at P
ainted Warrior and I was thinking that would be a good time to do the job. You know what I mean?”
The receiver rattled again as Artie must have changed his position. “I don’t give a shit!”
Clarence: “I know, I know. Look Artie, it’s gotta seem like it’s an accident or the whole thing is off.”
There was a loud noise as if Artie had struck something on his end. “Fuck it, man!” There was a woman’s voice in the background, but I couldn’t make out who she was or what it was she was saying, but it sounded as if she was in the same heightened emotional state as Artie.
Clarence’s voice rose a little now. “Artie, I need you to keep a lid on this stuff till we can get it planned out.”
“Fuck yeah, man.”
The two men hung up, and I reached over and hit the STOP button. I looked at the culprit. “That you, Artie?”
He said nothing.
I glanced at Henry. “That sounded like Artie to me.”
The Bear stood, taking him by the arm. “We should go.”
Artie didn’t move.
The Cheyenne Nation used a little more force and Small Song rose slightly and then, wrapping his feet around the chair legs in protest, slumped in his seat, “I’m not going to jail.”
I figured we were looking at a struggle but wasn’t sure what it was that we could do to get Artie over to the Law Enforcement Center against his volition other than an epic wrestling match. I glanced at Henry, and the Bear looked at Artie and then reached to the small of his back and slowly drew the bone-handled Bowie knife, letting it drape down beside his thigh, clearly in Small Song’s view.
Artie shrugged, and you could’ve cut the air in the room with, well, a knife. “Kill me; I ain’t goin’ to jail.”
I wondered how Henry was going to play the bluff when he suddenly raised the butt end of the elk-bone handle and brought it down on the back of Artie’s head with expert precision.
I watched as the man’s forehead rebounded off the table, and he fell to the floor in a heap, unconscious.
I looked up at the Bear as he flipped the knife and gestured the business end toward me with a hard look. “Do not say anything.”
As the crow flies wl-8 Page 20