Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Low growling from behind caused him to jump as he neared his door. A patchy border collie crouched as it advanced on him, its hackles standing straight on its back. Manny squatted. He had always had a way with animals. They trusted him. Liked him. It was a Lakota thing. The dog’s hackles flattened, its teeth receded back into its mouth. Manny held out his hand while the dog approached. Close. Close enough to lick his hand.

  The dog lunged. Manny jerked away, but the dog buried canines into the web of his hand. Manny instinctively reached for the gun on his belt—the gun that he hadn’t carried since he began teaching at the academy. Manny looked for something to fend the dog off, but the mongrel turned and trotted down the street in search of fresher meat.

  Manny cursed himself for not bringing a gun. Why had he reached for it after all this time of not wearing one? Not enough dangers lurked in the academy classroom to warrant carrying a gun. He had gotten used to not carrying, though he qualified as best he could every quarter, but the first thing he did tonight when danger faced him was reach for a gun that wasn’t there. As a tribal policeman, he’d practiced the basics of police work, including marksmanship and tactics. Even though he had never actually had to fire it on duty, he was always prepared back then.

  Even rookies have more street sense than he did right now, and being back here on the reservation revealed the dangers of losing his edge over the years of being—what?—civilized? Even the Living Legend needed to keep his wits about him.

  He straightened and held his hand high. Two gaping holes where the dog had nailed him dripped blood down his hand and wrist to pool in the crook of his arm. He fumbled for his door key with his other hand, as he held his injured hand away to avoid bleeding on his new sweatpants.

  He found the keyhole. Dropped the keys. Bent down to pick them up when the door next to his apartment opened. Desirée stuck her head out and looked to the street. She wore a sheer teddy that revealed everything, and Manny didn’t want to have to fight her off tonight. After a day getting no closer to solving the homicide, getting into a lame fight with Lumpy, getting waylaid by a couple kids in a one-eyed car, and getting ambushed by a Trojan mongrel, the last thing he wanted to do was come up with some excuse not to keep Desirée out of his apartment. He scurried around the corner and squatted while he willed his breathing to stop. He was certain she heard his heart beating as she stepped into the cool night air. She looked around a final time before she shut the door.

  Manny breathed again, aware that something wasn’t right. He was a young tribal cop whose awareness told him someone waited around the door with a butcher knife at a domestic fight. Or some other obscure danger that awaited him.

  He stood and swayed, light-headed. Did he stand up too quickly? Or was the dog returning for a rematch?

  A sound behind him, coming fast. He turned as something arced downward. He shot his arms up and blocked a blow that glanced off the top of his head. Dull pain turned to a stabbing sensation in his scalp, and he fell and rolled, bringing his arms over his head for protection. Blood, sticky and wet, seeping through his fingers, flowed through a wide scalp laceration as he braced himself for the next blow.

  The grim reaper, face hidden in a dark and ominous hood, straddled him. Held something thick and heavy in one hand, poised to strike again. Manny tried standing. His legs buckled. He fell back down onto the sidewalk.

  Then voices in the night. Faint, nearing voices. Running toward him. In a heartbeat the grim reaper was gone, replaced by others bending to help. He blinked the blood from his eyes and wiped his head with his dog-bitten hand. Strong hands lifted him and he jerked back. Just before he passed out, he looked up at Desirée. Brown eyes rimmed with just the right amount of makeup to allow her to once again look like the beauty he’d panted after in school. Just before he passed out, he imagined this as what it would be like in Purgatory—having both the pleasant and unpleasant at once was eternal punishment, and his cursed wanagi would roam the Spirit Road forever.

  CHAPTER 6

  Willie leaned over and opened the cruiser door. “Let’s see the stitches.”

  Manny slid into the passenger seat and eased the bandage away from the side of his head.

  “Jeeza. You were lucky.”

  “Why the hell do you always say I’m lucky? I get three stitches in my hand from some damned dog, and more from some a-hole with a club, and you say I’m lucky.”

  “Could have been worse.”

  “Could have been better—I could have kicked the shit out of them.”

  “Maybe breakfast will help.” Willie drove to Big Bat’s without waiting for an answer.

  Music blared from speakers hung above the gas pumps: Waylon, Willie, and Johnny sang about the “Highwayman.” Odd music to eat breakfast by. Manny felt so out of his element here. He was used to entering a five- or four-star restaurant at the least, with the Three Tenors piped in to aid the digestion. Or live performers drifting between tables taking requests to help set the mood of the meal. Yet a part of him enjoyed this music and the rustic atmosphere here. He was becoming comfortable with the reservation—and that worried him.

  With Willie and Manny her only customers this morning, Angelica smiled as she recognized him from the night with Lenny the loser. She handed the order slip to an old, short, fat man in a sleeveless T-shirt sweating over the griddle. They filled their coffee cups and took a seat facing the street while they waited for their food.

  “What’s so funny?” Willie asked.

  “Does it show? In D.C., chefs prepare a work of culinary art. I forgot what this was like.”

  “You’ll be pleased when Franklin there gets done with your order.” Willie jerked his thumb to the cook, who wielded his spatula like a swordsman limbering up his rapier. “Who do you figure for that little souvenir?” He nodded to Manny’s head.

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering.” Angelica brought their food, and Manny waited until she left before he took his first bite of the sandwich. The sweetness of the sausage, the gooeyness of the cheese melted over the egg that ran down the side of the bun surprised him. “Reuben would be capable of this. He’s slung masonry hammers long enough.” Pain shot through his head, and Manny tried to ignore the intense urge to scratch at the stitches, so he occupied his good, unbandaged hand with his coffee cup. Stitches always hurt the worst for the first few hours, and he just had to keep himself busy and distracted.

  “When I talked to Reuben yesterday, he was friendly enough. He even acted like a big brother for a few moments, given that we haven’t talked in years.”

  Johnny Cash sang how he would rest his spirit if he could. Manny put his sandwich down and pressed a hand against his head, which was throbbing along to the beat of the song. He wished he could join Johnny in resting his own spirit this morning.

  “Your brother’s damn well unpredictable enough. He’d be at the top of my list.”

  “And who’s right underneath him in the suspect cesspool?” Manny had grown accustomed to bouncing ideas off his fresh mind. “There’s others here besides Reuben who would love to see me gone.”

  Willie dropped his eyes. “Like Lieutenant Looks Twice?”

  “You heard about our discussion last night?”

  “The jungle drums. Or at least the reservation drums. One of the guys called me last night after someone attacked you. Word is that you embarrassed the lieutenant big-time here last night.”

  Manny took small bites of his sandwich. At least tiny bites didn’t aggravate the pain. He washed it down with coffee before giving Willie the headline version of the argument. “As far gone as he was when I left him, I doubt Lumpy could have crawled to his own bathroom, let alone stagger to my apartment.”

  “He sure doesn’t like you. He might have been faking it.”

  “Might have,” Manny agreed. Then dismissed the idea, since as a tribal cop he’d dealt with enough drunks to spot a scammer. Lumpy was dead drunk last night, and Manny would lay odds he was still drunk this morning. “I
don’t think that’s his style.” Lumpy would have played on his panache and set Manny up on another unannounced press conference to make him look like a boob. Or give some other reporters Manny’s personal phone number to call and pester, as he had Sonja Myers.

  Willie refilled their cups and sat across the table. “Who else did you talk with yesterday?”

  “Just your aunt Elizabeth. But you two had supper last night.”

  Willie shook his head. “I was late for supper, ’cause the lieutenant dispatched me to a call right after I dropped you off. When I finally got to Aunt Lizzy’s, her note said she’d gone into the finance office for a while and to help myself to tuna casserole. So I popped a plate in the microwave and watched the Braves play the Phillies in a twilight doubleheader. I caught the last half of the game. When it was over, I crashed in the spare room. I couldn’t wait up for her any longer.”

  “What time did she come home?”

  Willie shrugged. “All I know is that she was there when I got up this morning.” Then his head jerked up and he dropped his sandwich. He leaned across the table, close enough that Manny could smell the egg and bacon as he spoke. “You don’t suspect her of attacking you last night? I know my aunt Lizzy, and—”

  Manny held up his hand to stop him. It could have been a woman. It could have been Elizabeth. But he had known her since they were teens, when she and Reuben first became an item. More than former in-laws, she and Manny remained friends. That, and she had too much to lose, with her finance officer position, her status here on Pine Ridge. Yet with the hatred of federal law enforcement still prevalent around here, anyone could be guilty. When his attacker had bent over for another strike before being frightened off, all Manny had seen was the hood. His head pounded from the swelling that surrounded the stitches, and the fresh itchy pain snapped him back to the present and he fought to keep from scratching.

  “I doubt your aunt did it. I got more old enemies still living here that’d love a piece of my ass than to suspect her.”

  “How about that car that tried running you over, that peckerwood that opened the car door on you? When they didn’t get the job done the first time, maybe they came around for another try.”

  “I’ve thought of that, too.” Manny sipped his coffee from the side of his mouth that pulled less on the stitches. “I got the impression they were only trying to scare me. They could have run me over with little effort; when I get in the zone, I run with my head up my rectum.”

  “Jason’s killer would want you dead,” Willie blurted out. “Somebody doesn’t want you solving that murder.”

  Their investigation had stalled yesterday. Reuben’s interview had yielded little new information. “We’re not much closer than when we started, but someone must think we are.” Whoever thought he was close enough to the truth was getting nervous. And dangerous.

  They finished their meal and stayed. They were on Lakota time now, in no rush. “What did the investigating officer tell you?”

  Willie grabbed a spiral notebook from his shirt pocket and flipped pages. “Martin Slow Elk said two young couples were walking toward your apartment when someone attacked you. They saw you go down and started for you, but Desirée Chasing Hawk beat them to it. She held you until the paramedics came.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Close. To her bosom. Slow Elk said he couldn’t even see you when he ran up. All he saw was Desirée Chasing Hawk bent over you and cradling your head. Took three of them to pry her loose, but he didn’t mind.”

  “Didn’t mind?”

  “Didn’t mind grabbing her all over and pulling her away.” He winked.

  “Did she see the person?”

  Willie flipped pages again. “No. She came outside just in time to see you going down. She saw what the others did: somebody with a hoodie running off.

  “The couples?”

  “Their description won’t help much. It was dark, and they only got a glimpse. Short to medium height, not fat. If there were no bulges under the sweatshirt, that rules out Reuben.”

  “Unless he was hunkered over,” Manny suggested. “And none of the witnesses recognized the runner?”

  “None.” He stirred creamer into his coffee. “Hoodies can cover a lot of sins. The one thing they all agree on is that your attacker wielded that hammer like it was an extension of an arm.”

  “What else did Slow Elk say?”

  “Only that Ben Niles called for you when the doc was patching you up.”

  “Now what did the Pile want?”

  “He just left the message that school starts in a week. What’s that mean?”

  “It means I’ll have a permanent desk on some reservation if I don’t wrap this up in time to start the next academy class.”

  “Jeeza!” Willie slammed his cup on the table so hard that it bounced off and rolled onto the floor. He sprang from his seat and ran to his police car. He returned with a manila folder under his arm, and dropped back into the booth as he fumbled through the folder. Some papers fell out, and Manny recognized one as an Oglala Sioux Tribal incident report on a stolen car. It bore yesterday’s date.

  “Stolen car yesterday?” Manny’s eyebrows arched. Stolen vehicles should be big news to a young tribal cop, and he wondered why Willie hadn’t mentioned it to him.

  “That was the call the lieutenant sent me on last night after I dropped you off. I had to run back out to Oglala. Crazy George He Crow wanted to report his car stolen. So I took the report is all.”

  “You don’t sound too enthused.”

  “I’m not. Crazy George is one of our chronic bitchers. He’s always making some harebrained report on something or other. Last night he wanted to report someone stole his beat-to-hell old Buick at ten thirty night before last.”

  “Did he see the thief?”

  “See him?”

  “The car thief. He sounds positive of the time.”

  Willie laughed. “Oh, that. Crazy George’s junkyard horse raised hell at precisely ten thirty, he told me. That’s how he knows.”

  “Junkyard horse?”

  “Mean-ass roan mare of his. Got a hell of an attitude. Stomp a man quicker ’n Mike Tyson. No one gets around Crazy George’s place without that mare letting him know. Damned thing’s better than a watchdog. He’s positive on the time.”

  Manny finished his coffee and reached for a cigarette in his empty pocket. Of course it was empty. Would he ever get over craving a smoke at the end of a meal, of reaching for a pack that wasn’t there? Just a drag. One small draw from Mr. Camel. “But the thief was able to distract the horse long enough to steal the car?”

  Willie shook his head and retrieved his can of Copenhagen. “The car was parked by Crazy George’s toolshed. It’s outside the corral, so the horse couldn’t get to the thief. Odd thing is the car was still there when Crazy George woke up that morning.”

  “Then why does he think it was stolen? Did his horse whisper it to him?”

  “Mileage,” Willie winked. “Crazy George knows it was stolen because there’s exactly two hundred fifty more miles on the odometer than when he drove it last.”

  “That’s a pretty good memory.”

  “Crazy George is crazy,” Willie said. “Not stupid.”

  Manny eyed the fresh sandwiches. On cue, his stomach growled in mock hunger. He felt a tug at his waistline from a belly bigger than he wanted, and passed on another sandwich. Jenny Craig wouldn’t approve, and neither would his side stitches when he hit the road tonight. “What’s all the rest in that folder?”

  “Lab tests,” Willie answered. “At least some results are back on the homicide.” Willie rifled through the papers. He licked his thumb, then turned a page. Lick and turn. Lick and turn.

  “You going to tell me what the tests results are, or just watch me squirm?”

  Willie dropped the folder on the table and handed Manny the fingerprint report. “They developed a set of partials on the handle of the war club,” Willie pronounced as if educating
a jury. “Five points on one latent, seven on the other. Report says they appeared smudged and unreadable.”

  “Wiped?”

  Willie shrugged. “Can’t tell. Not enough points for an ID. But there was a second set of prints.” He handed Manny another report. Twelve full points had been developed on this second set, enough to identify a suspect. “The lieutenant sent the prints into Pierre and faxed a set to Quantico.”

  “And the prints on the blood around the handle?”

  Willie grabbed another sheet. “Unidentifiable, same as the other set.”

  “DNA?”

  Willie laughed. “Here on the rez? Now where would we get the funds for a private lab to do DNA testing?”

  “I’ll take care of that. I’m certain the blood will match Jason’s.”

  Willie stood to refill both cups again when two girls walked into the convenience store. “Han, sic esi,” one said to Willie. She smiled as she passed him.

  “Hau, hankasi,” he answered back, and matched her smile. Willie’s glance wandered down to the girl’s tight Levi’s.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the girls as he walked back with the coffee. Was Manny ever that young? Not worried about what to do about his diet, not worried about what to do about his nicotine withdrawal, not worried about what the hell to do with himself when retirement came. “Pretty friendly there.” Manny snapped his fingers in front of Willie’s eyes. “Girlfriend?”

  “Who, Doreen? Nah, she’s in one of my college classes.” When Manny just looked at him, Willie blurted out, “She’s a Big Eagle. Moved here from Crow Creek this last year to go to college. She’s just a friend.”

  “Well, you talk the talk pretty good with her.”

  “Margaret’s been teaching me that, too,” Willie said, and leaned sideways around Manny to watch the girls. “Besides teaching me the healing ways, Margaret’s teaching me Lakota. She says if we don’t keep our language alive, it will die as surely as the mazaska, the corn, dies every fall.”