Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “A man’s lucky to have one in a lifetime.”

  “I don’t feel very lucky.”

  Ten minutes out of Pine Ridge Manny got cell service and his phone vibrated. He checked the numbers. One he didn’t recognize.

  “Might be someone with information,” Willie said.

  Manny was skeptical and called the number. “I’m so glad you got a chance to return my call.” Even over the phone her voice resonated with that mellow, bedroom-soft tone. Manny felt as if he’d just called one of those porn lines.

  “Ms. Myers, I—”

  “Sonja.”

  “Sonja. How did you get my private number?”

  “Lieutenant Looks Twice was kind enough to give it to me. Do you have time to talk?”

  “Not right now.” Manny was beat, and he didn’t feel up to phone sex. “Perhaps another time.”

  “Then I’ll call tomorrow.” She hung up.

  “Damned ignor-anus.”

  “Who? And what’s an ‘ignor-anus’?”

  “Your lieutenant. He’s stupid and an asshole. He knows better than to give out my number.”

  “Who’s the other person that called you?”

  Manny sighed. “The Pile. I better call him.”

  Niles answered on the first ring and gave Manny no time for small talk. “That was one shitty news conference. You didn’t have squat to give the press. If you’re hiding something, they’ll eat us alive. Tell me you have something more for them.”

  “I’m making progress,” Manny lied, then promised to keep Niles posted. He closed his phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “We are?”

  “Are we what?”

  “Making progress.”

  Manny laughed. “Hell no. But that prick doesn’t need to know it.”

  Manny punched in the Red Cloud Development number again and talked with the operator he had spoken to before. “I really do need to speak with her.”

  “I’ll give her the message again.”

  “Problems?”

  Manny shut his phone. “Clara Downing. If I didn’t know better I’d say she was avoiding me.”

  They pulled into Pine Ridge and Willie drove toward Manny’s apartment. “I’m feeling a little gaunt. Buy you a burger.”

  Willie slapped the wheel. “That’s what I forgot. Aunt Lizzy gave me an invite for supper tonight. I’m sure she won’t mind setting another plate.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but it’s getting late and I’m beat. I’ll just grab a quick bite before I get some road time in.” Manny had slacked off long enough from his daily routine of jogging three miles. It helped him think, helped him forget about how he missed his home in Virginia right now.

  Willie stopped the car by the gas pumps at Big Bat’s. People stared through the windows of the convenience store. Manny read their looks, their hatred, their mistrust, their hostility. It was the 1970s all over again. Such looks would be upon him during his entire stay on the reservation.

  “Pick me up at o-seven-hundred?”

  “O-seven-hundred,” Willie answered, and motored east toward Elizabeth’s house.

  A typical evening crowd dined at the only spot in town to get a hot meal. Manny ignored the stares as he walked to the counter. A young man reeking of wine nudged hard against him. Dirt and fine white powder flaked off onto Manny’s shirt and he slapped it off. The kid’s grin taunted Manny. He ignored him and ordered a burger combo, then decided to skip the fries. He wanted a preemptive strike against his middle-age spread. He was fighting to keep on his diet until he could return to Virginia, back to where his life was in order. Where he could concentrate on his diet. Besides, greasy fries would make him puke during his run later tonight.

  He filled his cup with Diet Coke and picked an empty booth. His trousers caught on something sticky on the plastic seat, but he was too exhausted and ignored it. He took his time eating as he listened to the conversations around him. Over George Strait crooning about “Amarillo by Morning,” he heard a couple in back of him plan on a beer run to White Clay.

  Two booths down, four teenage boys talked about driving to North Rapid to party with friends. And a man twice his age snored in the booth in back of him. A typical night on the reservation. What the hell possessed him to accept this assignment? Why had he come home? Thomas Wolfe was right, of course, but who the hell would even want to go home again to this? Whenever Manny was jerked from his academy assignment to take the latest Native American case, he wanted to ask Niles if the bureau could please hire more Indians. But the Pile threatened to assign him recruiting duty, to go to reservations around the country to hire those same Indians Manny prayed for. And no matter how Manny insulted him, Niles was smart enough not to fire him. The only thing left for him was to quit the bureau.

  In the end, he had no choice. Police work had first crept into his bloodstream as a tribal cop. He needed investigations to challenge him. Police work, particularly investigations, invigorated him, made him something more than the criminals he pursued.

  “I don’t know why you don’t jump at the chance to go back home for a case,” Niles had told him. “See old friends. Have a good time. Do the tourist thing while you’re working on this Red Cloud murder.”

  “You ever been to Pine Ridge?”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  “Then come along if you think it’s so nice there.”

  “I would, but the wife and I got that Orlando vacation package all lined up.”

  “We got other agents capable—”

  “Well,” Niles said. “We got several training positions that need to be filled in Iraq right now. Who better to teach eager Iraqis investigation techniques than Manny Tanno. Or there’s still that field agent opening in Greenland . . .”

  “Enough. I’ll go to Pine Ridge. But under protest.”

  If Niles had been twenty minutes slower in finding him, Manny would have been gone to the Poconos on a sudden annual leave. When Manny heard FOX News break the story of Jason Red Cloud’s death, he started packing his clothes. He knew Niles would assign him the case if he found him. “But you know the tribal police never want our help,” Manny argued.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get some cooperation. I’ll make a couple calls. Get the stud duck in charge out there on the horn.” It was that stud duck who interrupted Manny’s meal.

  “People! Look here!” Lumpy yelled above the din of talk and music as he filled the doorway. “We got a genuine federal lawman in our midst.” Lumpy reeked. Sweet, loud Aqua Velva mixed with the sickening odor of beer that reached Manny even before Lumpy staggered over. Despite being drunk, Lumpy was Pine Ridge’s fashion plate. Lumpy’s Wranglers had creases so sharp that a man would cut himself if he ran his hand over them. His paisley double-breasted Western shirt had concrete cowboy written all over it, and his ostrich boots jutted like two large snowshoes beneath his stumpy legs. Pomade pasted his shiny hair against his head, and a silver and turquoise watchband glittered as he waved wildly at the crowd. “Mister Agent Man is going to solve our murder for us.”

  Manny washed his burger down. “You’re drunk. Go home and sleep it off.”

  “He can’t,” someone yelled from behind Lumpy. “His girlfriend just dissed him again.”

  Lumpy turned to the heckler. He lost his balance and caught himself on the back of Manny’s seat. “Who the hell said that?”

  No one answered. Though he was drunk, people knew Lumpy was still smarter than the average man in Big Bat’s. And he wouldn’t forget such taunts if he knew who threw them. Manny stood to leave.

  “I’m not done with you, Hotshot.”

  “Yes you are,” Manny called over his shoulder.

  The cool air chilled his cheeks. A full moon peeked between charcoal clouds, and the fresh coming of a thunderstorm reached Manny’s nose. Summer Febreze.

  “Don’t walk away from me!” Lumpy called from the doorway and stumbled after him across the parking lot. The crowd had followed Lumpy outside an
d cheered him on. Poking the bear. Getting him riled up. He spun Manny around, and swung a looping roundhouse at his head. Manny jerked his head out of the way of the punch. Lumpy staggered back, lost his balance, and fell on his butt.

  The crowd roared and clapped. Lumpy glared at them and gathered himself on all fours, then stood and teetered on wobbly legs. He dropped his head and charged Manny like a bull. Manny sidestepped. Lumpy continued headlong, tripped over the curb, and fell into the street.

  People clapped. One girl whistled while another urged Lumpy to get up. A man did his best bull imitation while Lumpy lay in the street, his head hung down, trying to get his legs under him. A pickup sped around the corner toward him, but the driver swerved sharply and missed him by inches. The crowd roared. People laughed while Lumpy tried to stand, but he rolled over like a turtle caught on its back and started sobbing. The show was over for the night. The crowd walked back into Big Bat’s, and Manny looked down at Lumpy. “You’re drunker than hell.”

  Lumpy craned his neck up. His slick black hair had fallen down into his eyes, and he peeked around a clump of locks as he held up an arm. “Help me up.”

  Manny wrapped his arms around him and lifted him. Lumpy fell against his shoulder. “Where are you living?”

  He draped his arm around Manny. “The housing.”

  An odd couple, they staggered toward the finish line in an uncontested drunken three-legged race as Manny struggled to keep the shorter, heavier Lumpy from falling. They stumbled the four blocks to Lumpy’s building and he motioned to a downstairs duplex. He jabbed at the keyhole, failed, then handed Manny the keys.

  Manny helped Lumpy inside and dropped him on the couch. Psychology Today and National Geographic magazines fought for what little space remained on the table in the tiny, claustrophobic apartment. Beside the table were stacks of Law and Order and Police Times. There was a narrow path toward the kitchen barely devoid of empty Budweiser cans, and another pathway that led to a bathroom that reeked of Lumpy’s Aqua Velva.

  How had Lumpy come to this? Sober, the man was the most knowledgeable lawman Manny had met on any reservation. Drunk, Lumpy was just another down-and-out Lakota chasing his next buzz into a blackout. In some perverse way, he supposed he was one of Lumpy’s few friends, if rivals could ever be friends.

  Manny turned to leave.

  “Lizzy’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Is that who those people back at Big Bat’s were talking about dissing you? Elizabeth?”

  Lumpy nodded. “But she’s not my girl. I thought she was once, back in the day, but now she’s just too damned good to be with me on a Saturday night.”

  “You see her tonight?”

  Lumpy laughed and grabbed a pack of Marlboros from beside the couch. He shook one into his hand, and four more dropped onto the floor. He ignored them and grabbed his matches. When coordinating matches and cigarettes failed, Manny helped him. Not my brand when I was smoking, which was what, a month ago. But damn they look good. Manny felt that trembling he got whenever he had the urge for a smoke, the jitters that only nicotine could calm. He fought down the temptation to snatch one from the floor and light up, and concentrated on watching the Indian Marlboro man bring his lips to the cigarette.

  “I saw her in the finance office tonight. I came back from White Clay with a case of Bud. I saw Lizzy’s office light on and sat outside. When I ran out of beer I figured my courage was up enough to talk to her. But she was too good for me. She said she was busy, but I know she wasn’t doing anything official there tonight.”

  “What did you want to talk to her about?”

  “Just talk,” Lumpy answered. “A man likes to talk with a woman now and again. Especially an old flame. At least I thought she was an old flame once. Right after Desirée left me.”

  “So you said. Get some sleep.”

  “Lizzy and Jason were having an affair!” Lumpy blurted out as Manny turned again to leave.

  “You see this yourself?”

  “Yeah.” He belched and flicked his ash into an empty beer can. It bounced off the rim of the can. Manny tamped out the ember that had landed on the carpet with a shower shoe growing mold. “A couple weeks before he was murdered, I was on my way home from work when I saw Lizzy’s Impala at the finance office. It was dark and I was surprised to find the lights were still on. I was even more surprised to find her door unlocked. Remember when we had to check building doors when we were rookies?”

  Manny nodded.

  “When I went inside, I heard a commotion. Terrible yelling from her office. Shit hitting the wall. Lizzy and Jason were fighting something awful. There was file folders scattered all over. One file drawer had been ripped from the cabinet and turned upside down. Another was wide open. Lizzy never had a thing out of place in that office, and Jason was going through drawers, with Lizzy yanking on his arm. She tried to pull him away, but he was too big. Things would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t put the run on him that night.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  Lumpy brought his face to his cigarette for another drag. “Don’t know. But there’s only one reason a man and woman fight like that: lovers’ spat. After I kicked him out, I thought she’d be friendlier. But all she wanted was for me to leave, too.”

  Lumpy paused, and Manny knew that the pause would last until morning. Snores arose from Lumpy’s head, tilted back on the pillow. Drool formed on one corner of his mouth and dripped on his shoulder.

  Before Manny left, he took Lumpy’s cigarette from his fingers and dropped it into a beer can. He propped Lumpy’s limp legs on the couch and slipped his boots off. His head lay off to one side of a cushion, and a hollow snoring continued from his open mouth. Lumpy had popped the top buttons of his shirt, exposing his flabby, hairy chest. Manny laughed. I’ve found the elusive Lakota yeti.

  Manny started out of Lumpy’s apartment and noticed a portable evidence kit among the rubbish. He opened the case and glanced over the contents until he spotted what he was after.

  Raindrops peppered Manny’s neck. He looked up at the moon peeking around dark storm clouds. He never noticed storm clouds in D.C., though he was certain they lingered somewhere between the smog and the fog that occasionally rolled in from the ocean. Either he was too busy to look, or the pollution prevented such a sight. He was glad to see them again.

  Kids stuffed into a multicolored International pickup drove by him and shouted obscenities. They disappeared around the corner, but soon they drove by him again, tires squealing, dark smoke billowing from a broken exhaust manifold. Three kids sat in the truck bed. Their pants were pulled down, and their bare butts waved to him in passing. Manny laughed. Not because he wanted to, but because these kids represented all the kids on all the reservations, so far behind the times. He wanted to run them down and tell them that mooning died out about a century ago, but he was too busy laughing. If it made them happy to moon an FBI agent, let them have their fun.

  He finished stretching his hamstrings, checked his laces one final time, then started off for a run that would take him past the powwow grounds and around the housing toward Oglala Lakota College. Within the first mile, his lungs lost their familiar burning and he settled into his pavement-eating gait. It was the same lope that he had as a cross-country runner in high school when he tried so hard to impress Desirée Chasing Hawk. The same lope that followed him during his army days. The same lope that caused him to fall far behind his younger academy instructors, then allowed him to pass them miles farther down the road. No matter how hard he’d tried altering his running style, no matter how hard he worked to increase his speed, his lope was predestined. Unc said it was that lope that all Lakota warriors possessed, back in the days when it meant something to be able to run for hours without stopping.

  He knew that the abuse he’d piled on his body wasn’t supposed to be part of his heritage. Unc had died from diabetes, the bane of the Oglala. Manny was determined to live long enough to be a pain in the ass—like old Chie
f Horn.

  The fresh scent of the impending thunderstorm helped him through the first agonizing mile, and he entered his zone, where thoughts came fast at him like arrows on steroids. The zone slowed down those arrows just enough that he could catch each one and analyze it. Nothing had changed on Pine Ridge. He knew he wasn’t welcomed here by the tribal police. The Lumpys of the reservation, the progressives, saw themselves as the future of Pine Ridge; they wanted to put the run on traditionalists whenever they could. Traditionalists wanted things to remain just as they used to be, without the need for federal intervention. In many ways, they wanted what AIM and all the Reubens of the reservation had wanted: to return to the very basics of life that once made the Lakota the strongest nation on the Plains, their defiant independence their staunchest ally. In any case, no one on the reservation had any use for the Mannys.

  Sweat stung Manny’s eyes and he wiped it with his sweatshirt as Reuben popped into the zone. Manny recalled how conversational he had been when he interviewed him, like they had only parted the day before. Like they were two brothers who weren’t separated by Reuben’s twenty-five-year stint in the state pen and Manny’s decision to enter law enforcement. Reuben had answers for everything. Manny knew his brother had his lines memorized. It was his challenge to look for the opening that would finally prove—or disprove—Reuben was Jason’s killer.

  A car came up on his six, and he hugged the side of the road. A single headlight followed him, closer than it should be, and he shot a look behind him. The car veered right for him, tires biting the gravel, accelerating. Manny took a dive for the ditch as a car door opened in passing. The door clipped him on his shoulder and sent him rolling to the ground. He caught sight of two boys as the car passed by and sped off.

  Manny stood and brushed dirt off his running shorts and pulled his shirt down over his paunch. He stretched his shoulder where the car door had hit him, and a deep scratch across one delt was throbbing, but he was in one piece. He resumed his run, vigilant for the car. When he came around the corner by the powwow grounds again, he slowed to a fast trot, then a slow walk. He sucked in air to purge the fire in his lungs and bent over when a stitch came to his side. After a minute, the pain disappeared and he walked the remaining three blocks to his apartment.