Death Where the Bad Rocks Live

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “From what the moccasin telegraph tells me, Ellis has other, younger women he talks to. His students, from what I hear.”

  “I don’t know about that. I just know he’s never at home long enough to be very intimate with his wife.”

  “That is a blessing. Thank Wakan Tanka he won’t have any offspring. But if he says one more thing about my cooking, I will sacrifice him to the Gods of Night.”

  Clayton slid his knife in the belt sheath. “Never heard you mention those gods before.”

  “Just made it up. I did not want to offend any real gods.”

  The cabin door burst open and Ellis ran to the campfire. “I got it!” he yelled, and stumbled in the soft dirt. He plopped onto a log beside Clayton. “I got it.”

  “What you got?” Moses winked at Clayton. “VD? Some other White man’s disease?”

  “What?”

  “By the way you’re jerking around, you would think you had the itch.”

  Ellis ignored him and turned to Clayton, shoving a paper at him, but Clayton waved it away. “Just tell me what it says.”

  Ellis folded his legs under him and turned the paper so that it caught the light of the campfire. “By my calculations, it’s here. I’m positive we can make a go of it if we get the mining permits.”

  Clayton twirled his handlebar mustache while his eyes roamed over Ellis’s paper. “Guess that’s where you come in.”

  Moses turned the turnips with a cottonwood stick. “How is that?”

  “We need you to grease the wheels for us. Talk the tribe into issuing mining permits.”

  “The tribe has never issued any permits for the Stronghold before.”

  Clayton put his hand on Moses’s arm. “They will if Moses Ten Bears says it’s all right.”

  Moses sliced into the deer meat and rotated it just above the fire. A few more minutes. “This Moses Ten Bears is not convinced you will do right by the tribe.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? I’ve done more in Washington for the Sioux than any other senator.”

  “That’s right. Senator Clayton’s done more for Indians…”

  Moses’s glare cut Ellis short. “Like bootlegging whiskey helped us so much?”

  “What about bootleg whiskey?”

  Moses sat cross-legged in front of the fire, warming his palms against the heat. “You forget so soon what your booze operation has done to so many of my people?”

  Clayton slid his knife from the sheath and once more sampled the venison. “I’ll tell you what it’s done—it’s helped finance my run for Senate, which in turn allowed me to help the Sioux where I couldn’t before.”

  “Drive around Pine Ridge at any time and see the men passed out in the afternoon from drinking their breakfasts, then tell me how your Senate position has helped us. Given the choice of drinking or going another day without jobs, my people drink to forget. The Lakota have never had to rely on the wasicu for food like we have in the last hundred years.”

  “We give food rations once a month.”

  Moses shook his head. “Sure, you dole out rations and make us feel like beggars. Look at the people lining up in the food line—you will not find an able man among the bunch of women there. All the men are passed out. Or dead.”

  “That’s just my point.” Clayton scooted closer to Moses. “This is the chance we’ve been waiting for. If we get issued these mining permits, we’ll employ all local men. We’ll pay the tribe a royalty. Things will look up for the Lakota at last. Think what you can do for your people if you convince them to mine the Stronghold.”

  “I do not know.” Moses stood as if to get away from Clayton. “I will have to pray on it.”

  “Okay. Praying’s okay. But just remember the words of a famous Oglala sacred man: trust me.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Thought you didn’t drive?”

  Reuben held the door for Manny. “Never said I didn’t. Just said I didn’t like to.”

  “What do you do for a driver’s license?”

  Reuben put his finger to his lips. “Don’t tell the OST cops. But as little driving as I do, the rez is a lot safer with me behind the wheel than you.”

  “Can’t argue there. But at least you’re familiar with this heap.”

  Reuben scowled as he started toward the Pine Ridge Hospital. “Crazy George He Crow lets me use the Buick now and again, and I let him ride the paint when he feels tradition pulling on his skirt.”

  Manny smiled, remembering Crazy George, the berdache wannabe, the cross-dresser, parading in front of his house in the latest seventies ladies fashion. “I’d just give a month’s pay to see him ride that damned junkyard horse he keeps penned up by his house.”

  “That’s not a riding horse.” Reuben grinned. “That’s a watch horse. Even he can’t sit it. Besides, he’s raising goats now, too.”

  Manny chuckled. “Great. Now he’ll be complaining someone took his goats. Or fed them the wrong treat. Or any one of a number of nutty stuff to complain about. What prompted him to want to raise goats?”

  Reuben adjusted the volume on the radio so that KILI’s music bounced around the car. “He says he was at an auction north of Kyle last week and just fell in love with her. He just had to have Josey—that’s what he named her.”

  “That would account for the smell.” Manny wrinkled his nose and Reuben jerked his thumb toward the backseat.

  “You got it. He brought her home seat belted in the back like a cheap date he didn’t want his mom to see.”

  “Where else to put the one you love.”

  They pulled away from Willie’s apartment. He had stayed at Willie’s last night and felt more like a big brother worrying about his kid brother. Manny looked around but didn’t see Willie’s pickup.

  “He’ll be home.”

  “Not like Willie to take off and not tell me.”

  “It’s not like you adopted him.” Reuben moved the seat back, his bulk scrunched behind the wheel making him look like a monkey screwing a football. “Maybe he and Doreen Big Eagle went someplace for the night. Maybe he’s getting his ashes hauled right now.”

  Manny shook his head and patted his shirt pocket. What he wouldn’t give for a Camel at this moment of stress. “He knows we got to move on this investigation. And I told him I needed a ride for my checkup today so Clara will let me back home.”

  “You should have made the appointment sooner like you promised. I don’t feel sorry for you getting kicked out.”

  “But stay with Willie? I need to get back in Clara’s good graces so I can go home.”

  “Ah, that’s love, kola.”

  Reuben slowed and allowed a mangy black cur to cross the road. The dog stopped for a moment as if daring Reuben to run him down. Damned suicidal dog. “You know both of the folks had diabetes. I read some letters they wrote when Dad was away on that road project in Interior. He was worried they might not be able to afford the insulin. If they hadn’t gotten into that car wreck they would have suffered because they couldn’t afford proper care.”

  “Indian Public Health wasn’t worth a shit back then, either.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Been better since the seventies though.”

  “Back when AIM protested?”

  Reuben pulled into the parking lot of Pine Ridge Hospital. “You bust on AIM, but the public health wouldn’t be as advanced as it is today if we hadn’t raised hell about Red Rights.”

  Manny laughed. “Oh it’s advanced all right. Pity the poor slob that gets sick after midyear when Health Services runs out of money. People on the reservation would be better off going to a medicine man.”

  Reuben extracted himself from the Buick with much difficulty and stretched against the car. “There’s so few pejuta wicasa hereabouts anymore, they’d all be up to their asses in alligators treating folks.”

  “Well, besides having diabetes, I got my belly full of that damned alligator with hair camped out in Clara’s garage.” Manny rubbed his leg, still throbbing f
rom the cat attack.

  “Didn’t you hear”—Reuben smiled—“we Lakota have a way with animals.”

  Reuben held the door, and they entered the waiting room. Even though it was eight o’clock, the ER was packed with patients. Reuben led them to the last two empty chairs on the far side of the waiting room.

  “She was here the other day.” Manny chin-pointed to Adelle Friend of All, who huddled with Morissa. She hugged her mother close as she coughed constantly into Adelle’s arm. “Looks like she’s gotten worse.”

  “Red Shirt Table?”

  “What?”

  “Red Shirt Table. She lives around Red Shirt Table?”

  Manny nodded. “Cuny Table, but Adelle’s sister babysits for her every day and she lives around Red Shirt Table. Know her?”

  Reuben shook his head. “No, but lot of folks that live there get sick a little too often. Especially those that spend time around the Cheyenne River.”

  Adelle stroked Morissa’s hair. Wispy strands came away in her hand. Adelle looked around before she stuffed the hair into her pocket as if she could glue them to Morissa’s head later. “I know some people living in Red Shirt Table. None of them get sick any more than I do.”

  “Okay, misun. But remember what I said about that area when you go traipsing in that part of the country around where the bad rocks live.”

  “Right now I got more than that old legend to worry about. I got to survive this checkup so I can get back in the house again.”

  “Maybe you should worry about the checkup because we Lakota have a history of diabetes, our family included.”

  “How about you? When are you getting checked out?”

  Reuben smiled and puffed his chest out even farther. “You’re looking at the picture of health. At least that’s what the VA docs in Fort Meade say. ‘For a man pushing sixty, you have the physique of a thirty-year-old,’ the doc said. Blood sugar is that of a twenty-year-old. Blood pressure like I could run a marathon. That’s ’cause of my clean living.”

  “That’s ’cause you lived the last twenty-five years of your life eating bland, restricted meals in that gated community.”

  Reuben shook his head. “That an obligation of you FBI agents—keep reminding people when they’ve spent time in prison?”

  Manny fought for a quick comeback, but had none, and he stood, stretching his cramping leg. “Let me know when they call my name,” he called over his shoulder and walked past the chairs, rubbing the bandage covering the cat scratches, and through the door outside. A light breeze from the west cooled his face and he took his hat off to let it dry the sweat in his thinning hair. He hobbled to the wino bench in front of a flower garden someone had forgotten to water. The petunias wilted against one another as if finding comfort in their drought that they shared with daffodils.

  The door creaked and Manny half turned in his seat. Morissa peeked her head out and stared at Manny for a moment before letting the door shut behind her. She stood with her back leaned against the door before she braved a step closer. Manny produced a pack of Juicy Fruit from his pocket and held a piece to her. She smiled and inched close, sitting on the bench beside Manny, and popped the gum in her mouth.

  She started coughing and Manny was certain she was choking on the gum when she stopped. She looked up at Manny, the whites in her eyes red, the controlled pain etched in her face. She slid closer to him. “Momma tells me you’re one of the good guys.”

  Manny smiled. “I try to be.”

  Morissa forced a smile in return, looking up at the clouds lazily drifting by, and pointed to them. “I’ll be up there soon, won’t I?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to die like my cousin Julie, aren’t I?”

  Manny wasn’t sure how to answer her. Being one of the Good Guys, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt this little child. But she was just sharp enough to know if he was lying. “You ever just lie on your back outside at night and look up at the Milky Way?”

  Morissa nodded. “In the summer when it’s so clear, I lay on a blanket outside. It’s just wonderful. Momma said she can’t afford a yard light, but that’s okay. It brings out the stars better, don’t you think?” She scooted closer to Manny, now touching him, and he forgot all about his itching and cramping in his leg. He draped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him.

  “Those stars you see up there—they’re the Wanagi Oyate, the Spirit Nation.” It surprised Manny how naturally Unc’s lessons returned to him. “When one dies, your sicun guides you south along the Wanagi Tacanku.”

  “The Ghost Road?”

  Manny nodded. Adelle was teaching her children the old ways as Unc had taught Manny. “So those stars twinkling and winking down at us”—Manny brushed at the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand—“are those that have gone before.”

  Morissa patted Manny’s hand. “It’ll be okay, Mr. Tanno. I’ll be up there winking at you soon.”

  Before Manny could convince Morissa she had a long life ahead of her, Adelle burst through the door. “Morissa, it’s our turn.”

  Morissa, coughing and doubling over, stood and started for the door when she turned back. She kissed Manny’s hand and nodded upward as if they shared a secret before taking her mother’s hand and disappearing through the door.

  Before the door closed, Reuben moved out into the foyer and sat beside Manny. He bent around and looked at him as he reached into his back pocket and grabbed a bandanna. Manny started to object, but Reuben shoved it in his hand. “Dry your eyes, misun, or everyone will think all you agent types are bawling wimps. Little kid got to you, huh?”

  Manny dried his eyes with the cleanest portion of Reuben’s snot-rag. “What the hell can I tell a little girl like that? She knows she’s dying, and yet she’s braver than anyone I know. What do I tell her when she knows she’ll die soon?”

  Reuben leaned his elbows on his knees. “I think we owe it to tell them the truth. And to fight what’s killing them.”

  “I’m trying my damndest. Doctors told Adelle that Morissa was malnourished. Hinted of child abuse. I’m trying to get to the bottom of what’s been happening there in the Stronghold, but the doctors are too worried about HIPAA. Too worried about their damned licenses to give a hint of what they really think.”

  “I wish I had an answer for you.” Reuben accepted the bandanna, blew his nose, offered it to Manny again. Manny shook his head and Reuben stuffed it back in his pocket. “Maybe talking about something else will get the little girl off your mind. Like just why did Clara give you the boot?”

  “Because I didn’t get a checkup soon enough.” Manny’s quickness with an answer surprised him.

  “Bullshit. Clara wouldn’t have kicked you out just for that. From what you tell me about your woman, she wouldn’t toss you out for that.”

  Manny looked around and lowered his voice as if those in the waiting room could hear through solid glass. “I’ve been, well, less than stellar in the bedroom lately.”

  “No lead left in the pencil, huh?”

  “Just say the lead’s been worked to a frazzle and it’s duller than hell.”

  “How about the little blue pill?”

  Manny shook his head. “I took it once but it didn’t do any good. Guess all those warnings about having a four-hour erection scared me or something.”

  Reuben laughed. “Hell, if I got an erection lasting four hours I’d have thought I’d died and went to Heaven.” He stopped laughing and leaned closer. “What else is going on, misun? Clara’s a good woman. I don’t want to see you lose her.”

  “We’ve had arguments lately. Things besides my bedroom problems.”

  “What, like you talk down to her?”

  “You and she been comparing notes?”

  Reuben shifted on the wino bench trying to get comfortable. Like Willie, seats never seemed to fit Reuben. “You do that to everyone.”

  “Do what?”

  “Just like now with that tone.
You’re damned condescending to most folks I talk with about you.”

  “So now you’re going behind my back?”

  Reuben shook his head and nudged Manny’s arm. “I’m your big brother. Of course I don’t go behind your back. The moccasin telegraph has it you treat most folks that way. Whenever I hear it, I chalk it up to you living in a White man’s world—away from the rez—for so many years. I tell folks you’ll come back to the blanket, that you’ll find your Lakota voice, once you get used to the idea that you’re back home permanently.”

  Manny turned and looked through the window at the people in the waiting room. Many were his age, younger even, looking as if they had one foot on the banana peel, waiting to slip on that peel and travel along the Spirit Road early. People just waiting to die.

  “I just don’t want you to blow it with Clara.”

  Manny scratched his leg. “As soon as this doctor sets the record straight that I don’t have the disease, Clara and I will have our talk we should have had long before now.”

  “Manny Tanno.” The receptionist scowled at Manny as she held the door leading back into the waiting room for him. Manny recognized her from before, and she knew he was federal law enforcement, her tone hostile. He stood and started for the door, turning back to Reuben amid the scowl of the receptionist. “Maybe we’ll get together this week and sweat. Maybe I’ll find some courage when I cleanse myself to talk with Clara.”

  “You asking me to sweat with you? That’s a change. Maybe you’re coming along after all.”

  Manny shrugged. “Nothing else I’ve done has worked. Maybe a hint of the old ways…”

  “Better hope so, kola. You’re not getting any younger. And you won’t get much older if you ignore what the doc’s gonna tell you about your diabetes.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “Pine Ridge has become a damned dumping ground like it was when we were kids.” Lumpy sat behind the wheel and toyed with his newest acquisition—a reproduction of the patent leather belt Elvis wore on his tours. Lumpy insisted it was an original until Pee Pee was gracious enough to point out the MADE IN HONG KONG sticker under the buckle. “First those three ancient homicides in that car. Then that old Spearfish cop. Now Judge High Elk’s personal friend.” Marshal had called in to the dispatcher, surprisingly calm. He’d found a man dead in the Stronghold, and Marshal had lifted the man’s driver’s license before he called: Joe Dozi. “Feces will hit the wind rotating device when the judge finds out.”