Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Who said I talked with him already?”

  “I have my own ears on the rez.” Yellow Horse smiled.

  “Which I confirmed.” Reuben limped to a large pile of mortar bags sitting on a pallet. He grabbed a bag and dropped it beside a Coleman cooler. He eased himself onto the bag as he rubbed his leg. “A touch of arthritis. It’s hell getting old. But I’m not too old to rehash old times for Nathan here.”

  Yellow Horse flicked on his pocket recorder and thrust it at Manny. “Tell me why you automatically assumed the killer is Lakota?”

  “Leave.”

  “And why pick on your own brother? You got something to prove, Agent Tanno?”

  “You’re interfering with my investigation. Leave.”

  Yellow Horse stepped closer and held the recorder to Manny’s mouth, prompting Willie to step between them. “Man told you to leave, Nathan.”

  “We’ll see what Lieutenant Looks Twice has to say about this.” Yellow Horse turned on his heels and tripped over a concrete bag that had broken open. He fell to the ground as dust rose and engulfed him. He sputtered and beat his hands against his pants as he walked to his car.

  “Give Lumpy my best,” Manny called out, and turned to Reuben. He’d opened the cooler and set the water bottles aside before he tipped it over his head. Water cascaded down his face, chest, and back, and he shook his head like a wet sheepdog as he ran his hand through his gray hair to get it out of his eyes.

  “Water?”

  “Not for me,” Manny said. Reuben’s Heritage Kids peeked over the edge of the foundation.

  “At least sit so I don’t get a stiff neck looking up at you.”

  Manny grabbed a concrete block and sat across from Reuben.

  “It’s so nice to have another visit from you tribal boys today.”

  “Another visit?”

  “Your esteemed Lieutenant Looks Twice waddled over here. He felt compelled to check our building permit.”

  “Why would he do that?” Willie asked. “Not our job to enforce building codes.”

  Reuben shrugged. “Guess he’s still stuck in the past. Trying to be like one of Wilson’s goons. Back in the 1970s, they did all sorts of things that didn’t come with their job description, like whatever the tribal chairman wanted. Which often had nothing to do with police work. By the way, Officer With Horn, has my brother been teaching you anything about the lost art of homicide investigation?”

  Willie stiffened. “He has.”

  “Why’d you tell Yellow Horse I talked with you already?”

  “He already knew it.”

  “How?”

  “You’re the FBI, you figure it out. Like maybe he’s been following you around.”

  “Or maybe he’s got someone checking the radio log for him,” Willie said.

  Reuben grinned. “Sure. Like your old school chum Lumpy. But you didn’t come here to solidify our budding relationship.”

  He ignored Reuben’s comment and told him about the artifacts, as much to gauge his reaction as to explain his visit. When he said the antiquities had been returned to the Prairie Edge, Reuben sat expressionless.

  “I am glad someone returned them.” Reuben fished into his pocket for his pipe and tobacco. He tamped his bowl with a used Sun Dance skewer. Manny thought of that skewer once piercing Reuben’s chest muscles and he shuddered as much out of fear as respect. “They should have been returned. The Lakota artifacts would be impure in the hands of someone who doesn’t deserve them.”

  “But they’ll be resold,” Willie said. “Some are near priceless, and I don’t know any Indian who can afford them. Some wasicu will buy them.”

  “Then the White dude will come by them legally,” Reuben snapped. His face flushed. The old Reuben’s anger rose to the surface. Then he was calm once again, talking low, talking evenly. “If a Lakota was in possession of stolen artifacts, it shames us all.”

  Like the shame Unc and I felt, shame enough to cry ourselves to sleep because you killed Billy Two Moons. What was it that Unc had called Reuben’s disgraceful actions? Owakpamni. In the old times, men were expelled from the village forever for dishonoring themselves. Owakamni. “So you and your kids here know nothing of these items?”

  Reuben hung his head for a dramatic moment. He winced as he stood and hobbled to the basement hole. “Come up here, boys. They’re not going to arrest you or anything.” They scrambled out of the basement and stood beside Reuben. They glared at Willie, his uniform the symbol of authority. Reuben caught their look, too, and faced them.

  “Enough.” His voice rose and he gestured to Willie and Manny. “How many times have I told you boys that you’re in your predicament because of choices you made. What you did, not what the law did to you. And especially, not these cops.”

  Jack Little Boy stared a hole through Manny that matched Lenny’s stare. Jack was built as if he’d tossed brick all his life, lithe yet muscular with the hardened look of someone who had walked on Reuben’s side of the line all his life. He tapped the chipping hammer against his thigh, and Manny’s elbow brushed against the Glock beneath his jacket. Instinct? As a tribal cop he had packed a gun, and as an FBI field agent he’d had to carry one. But he doubted he could even use one now, especially against this boy.

  “Jack! Lenny!” Reuben looked straight into their eyes. Lenny flinched as if Reuben intended to hit him, but Jack took a step closer in defiance.

  “That’s enough. Put the damned hammer down.”

  “But they’re not one of us. Especially that FBI man. He left—”

  “I said, that’s enough.”

  Jack looked to Reuben, then back to Manny before breaking his stare and dropping the hammer. Reuben turned to Manny. “Ask your questions.”

  Manny looked into each boy’s eyes. As with all interrogations, in the field or the interview room, Manny first asked simple, nonaccusatory questions. He watched reactions to those questions so that he would have a base of reference when he later asked the tough ones.

  “The Prairie Edge had thousands of dollars worth of Lakota artifacts stolen. Then returned.” He needed answers about the theft. If he discovered who returned the artifacts, he was certain he would find Jason’s killer. Before another attempt on his life was made.

  He studied each boy’s face as he asked about the theft of the antiquities. Brows furrowed at the implication that they were involved. Jaws clenched when they were accused of stealing. There was the twitch in one boy’s face that had been absent before, and the nervous spitting of tobacco juice from another. Others stared deadpan as they answered Manny’s questions. When he was finished, he concluded they concealed information well if they knew anything about the theft.

  Then he sprang another question on them, one that reminded him of the pain and itching that still caused him to wince whenever he moved. “Any of you know who attacked me last night with a hammer? Maybe with a masonry hammer?”

  “Are we suspects?” Jack asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you’re just fishing.”

  “Someone tried killing me last night—”

  “So we heard,” Reuben interrupted. He turned to the boys. “Finish up that last row and we’ll take a lunch break.”

  They started down the hole again when Manny called out, “And get that headlight fixed.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get it fixed as soon as I get to the Pronto,” Jack called over his shoulder.

  Reuben waited until they disappeared into the foundation hole before he faced Manny. “What was that about the headlight?”

  “Nothing.” Manny wanted to tell Reuben he suspected it had been Jack driving the car that tried running him over last night, and probably Lenny who had flung the door open and knocked him into the ditch. Both boys would be good for the assault, but he wasn’t certain if Reuben was involved. Perhaps he gave orders to his kids off the jobsite as well as on.

  “I heard someone attacked you, but I didn’t know it was that serious. Let’s see.”
>
  Manny tugged at the cloth tape holding the gauze to his head. The bandage caught matted blood, and he winced again as he pulled it away. He was certain a stitch tore loose, and again he fought the urge to run his hand over the stitches.

  Reuben whistled. Manny replaced the tape, which only partially stuck to his sweaty forehead.

  “I heard someone just wanted to scare you away, but that’s serious. My kids laughed when they heard it, but I told them Manny Tanno couldn’t be frightened off.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And everyone in that hole is a suspect.”

  “I think I’d know if any of my kids attacked you. They’d be bragging to each other about it, and then one of them would whisper it to me.”

  “You think?”

  Reuben paused just long enough that Manny knew he didn’t have as much faith in his kids as he professed. “Of course I’d know.”

  “Then where were you last night?” Reuben didn’t fit the description of his attacker, but Manny wanted to keep his brother guessing.

  Reuben smiled. “I went over to the White River south of Red Dog Table—”

  “Drive?”

  “I rode my horse.”

  “That’s a good three-hour ride from your place.”

  “Like I said, I don’t drive. And yeah, it took me three hours of hard riding.”

  “And why’d you ride all the way up there?”

  “I was conducting a Hunka sing at the time you were being attacked. The Little Creeks and Drapeauxs were always close, and they wanted to get closer last night. The Hunka ceremony is where one person in a family ritually adopts another to bring the two clans together.”

  “I do remember some of the old ways.”

  “So you said.”

  “And how long was the sing?”

  “All night. I rode home just in time to grab a bite and head to work. Look, none of us had anything to do with you getting whacked last night.” He rubbed his leg. “Now if there’s nothing else, I got to get back to this job so we can finish it on time.”

  “Wait for me in the car, please,” Manny told Willie.

  “You sure? Those kids don’t like you much.”

  “It’ll be all right. On some level, I know my brother won’t let anything happen to me here.”

  When Willie disappeared around the mound of dirt hiding the cruiser, Manny turned and looked down at Reuben, who asked, “Something else, kola?”

  “Something’s been bothering me for a while.”

  “What?”

  “Where were you the night Billy Two Moons was murdered?”

  “I said it enough times. I was with Lizzy. We’d separated, but we weren’t divorced then.”

  “Maybe you were there all night. Maybe someone else killed Two Moons.”

  “What’s it matter now, anyway?”

  “Because I believed you didn’t do it!”

  “So that’s what this is all about, kola—that you can’t accept having a murderer in the family. You’re too much like Unc, aren’t you?”

  “Did you kill Two Moons?”

  “My confession is a matter of public record.”

  It is. But before I tie up this Red Cloud investigation, I’ll know the truth about that night with Billy Two Moons.

  CHAPTER 8

  Lumpy looked over his half-glasses first at Manny, then at Willie seated next to him. Sober this afternoon, Lumpy said nothing about last night. He cupped his face in his hand to hide the large purple stain covering one cheek and part of his ear. The other hand sported a spot matching the grotesque color of his face. Lumpy had opened the door of his new Mustang this morning after someone had smeared indelible thief powder over the door handle, and he was trying to make his futile attempt to hide it appear nonchalant.

  Manny suppressed a smile. While still a rookie, he had responded with Chief Horn to Big Bat’s one morning to investigate a break-in. The chief had used thief powder. The manager reported money missing from the till and suspected an employee. Chief Horn had smeared the oily substance on the underside of the cash register, and the new janitor got it all over his hands late that night when he went for more money. He had stained hands for more than a week, and they caught their suspect. Now Lumpy’s face and hand would be stuck with the deep purple stain, impervious to any known cleaning agent.

  Lumpy slid a teletype across the desk. “Rapid City PD got a break on the stolen artifacts from the Prairie Edge,” he said. His words came out mumbled from the hand cradling his mouth.

  “What did you say?”

  Lumpy spoke again.

  Manny shook his head. “Can’t understand you.”

  Lumpy pulled his hand away to speak and Manny fought back a laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Willie looked away as he fought down his own snicker. “Seems like it was some kid who lives across from the air base in Ellsworth stole the stuff. The Rapid City detectives are interviewing him now.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell them to hold off until I got there?”

  “None of my business, Hotshot. I figured whenever you checked in here, I’d give this to you.” Lumpy smiled. “And I have.”

  “Then we’d better get up there as soon as we can.”

  “I’ll go change into civvies—”

  “You’ll be going solo.” Lumpy winked at Manny and leaned back against Elvis. He hooked his thumbs in his duty belt somewhere under his belly. “Willie’s needed here today. With his own people.” Retribution has already begun.

  Lumpy propped his big feet on his desk and took his glasses off, while he kept smiling at Manny. A call to Niles would grease the wheels for Lumpy to cooperate, including the availability of young Officer With Horn, but Manny wouldn’t give the Pile the satisfaction.

  “Now if you don’t mind, Hotshot, Willie’s got work to do.”

  They started for the door when Lumpy called after them, “Close the door on Agent Tanno and me.”

  Manny turned back to Lumpy after Willie closed the door. “What the hell was that all about? I need Willie today.”

  Lumpy dropped his boots on the floor and used Elvis to stand. “You think this shit’s funny?”

  Manny smirked. “It’d be funny if you did it to me.”

  “That a confession?”

  Manny shook his head. “I never confess to anything. How about you? This confession time?”

  “Confess to what?”

  “Butting into my investigation.” Manny walked to Lumpy’s candy machine, but dropped his change back in his pocket as he remembered how hard the run was last night. “You didn’t go out to Reuben’s jobsite to check his permits.”

  “You’re more observant than I remember.”

  “Why’d you go there?”

  Lumpy’s smile faded and he stepped closer to Manny. “I drove there because of your assault, Hotshot. Witnesses said a car damned near run you over right before you got clubbed. A car with a busted headlight. I knew the Little Boys would be good for it, and I made the building permit an excuse to check their car out. Only now you’re pissed ’cause I’m a step ahead of you. Like I always was.”

  “Not hardly. Little Boy admitted he drives a car with one headlight.”

  “Oh it’s Jack Little Boy’s Pontiac all right, but I’m biding my time. I’ll bring him in when he figures he’s gotten away with it.”

  “You could have told me.”

  “Your assault is a tribal case. I intended telling you when I got a confession out of them. Get over it.”

  “You’re still an asshole.”

  “Why? ’Cause I even work my ass to solve the assault of some fancy damned city Sioux that hasn’t even been back home in years?”

  “I’ve been busy with academy classes.”

  Lumpy laughed and stood in front of the candy machine, looking at it like it was a television and he wanted to change channels. When the clink of change fell into the coin box, he pushed a button. “While you were off rubbing elbows with every wasicu in D.C., I was
back here working my ass off for my people. Your people, too, in case you don’t remember.”

  “Oh, I remember. I remember a ruthless patrolman who edged everyone out for sergeant, then used his position to stick it to us.”

  “Street sergeants have a job to do, too.”

  “You didn’t have to be such a jerk about it. But it looks like you made it just to lieutenant and stopped.”

  “People had it in for me.”

  “Bullshit.” Manny sat on the edge of the desk. He recalled this was one of Lumpy’s absolute no-nos, and he glared at Manny. “It’s the same all over, Lumpy. People in authority go too far left, too far right, and they start making bad decisions. You walked the progressives’ road . . .”

  “You think I want those AIM thugs popping up here again? Like Reuben?”

  “You deserved Desirée.”

  Lumpy’s mouth drooped and he broke his gaze. “I didn’t deserve what she did to me.”

  Manny realized he had gone where he had no right, and he stood from the desk.

  “You’re always digging in the knife about my battles.”

  Manny straightened the papers he’d sat on. “I won’t mention her again . . .”

  “Just go to Rapid. And send in Willie on your way out.”

  Willie walked Manny to his car. When they got outside, Willie laughed. “Hell, that stain on his face couldn’t be worse if some kid tagged him with a can of Rust-Oleum.”

  Willie laughed again, then the smile faded and deep furrows creased his forehead. He eyed the fresh gouge along the driver’s-side back quarter panel of Manny’s rental. “Wish I could go along with you today. You look like you could use a driver.”

  Willie was dying to ask about the fresh damage. Manny had rehearsed his story just in case: The gas pumps at Big Bat’s moved a bit too fast and clipped the rental. The accident had been in self-defense.

  “I was looking forward to sitting in on one of your interviews.”

  “I’d like you there, too.” Manny would miss their discussions, Willie’s fresh insight. Besides, Willie was right: He drove better. “But keep your ear to the tracks. You never know when some tidbit of useful info will come your way.”

  He waited until Willie went back inside the station before he called the Red Cloud Development office. Again. “I gave Ms. Downing the message,” the receptionist said. “She said she would call you when she could.”