Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Erica looked up from her salad and straightened in her seat. “I suppose you’re right, but it doesn’t make it any less painful. That’s my home, my people he was about to sell out. And I was part of it.”

  “It was his home, too, long ago,” Manny reminded her. “Did you tell anyone else about the embezzlement?”

  “Just Mom. I tell her everything. And she’s the tribe’s finance officer; she needed to know what was coming down. She needed to stay on top of things in case any tribal members needed updates. Besides, she heard Jason and I had a huge argument and asked about it.”

  Manny nodded. He was content to spend the next hour in the company of his niece, charming in her own right. They discussed the state of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in the wake of the recent tribal court shake-ups. They talked about the positive things developing there since she’d returned to the area. They talked about the local economy, how the tribe was attracting new businesses, and how Russell Means might change that if he were elected tribal president. They talked about all these things, but one thing Erica never once asked about was Reuben and how he was doing. Perhaps she had finally forgotten her father.

  Why was Manny fighting the urge to ask Erica how she was able to put her past, her pain, her father behind her and get on with her life, even coming back to the reservation? Maybe her answer would help him bury his past, but she had enough troubles of her own right now. So, he ate and enjoyed the company of his niece for the rest of the evening.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I know the crazy coot’ll be there,” Willie insisted. He turned onto the road leading to Crazy George He Crow’s secluded fiveacre lot. “You think this ties in with Jason?”

  “Remember what I said,” Manny cautioned. He fingered his empty pocket for the pack of Camels. “Whatever we find will be just one more brick in building our case, nothing more. Certainly no smoking gun. It would be a hell of a coincidence, though, and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  Manny recalled the lightbulb coming on last night when he returned to Pine Ridge from Rapid City. He’d marked down the mileage in his government-issue log book, as policy dictated. Give or take, the trip odometer of the rental showed two hundred and fifty miles. Just about the same mileage Crazy George said someone put on his car before they returned it. What if someone made a round trip to Rapid City with George’s car?

  “And what if it had been stolen? I’ll guess I’ll look like the ass.”

  Manny smiled. “You and every tribal cop that doesn’t take Crazy George seriously, but don’t worry. Every agency has a chronic bitcher that all the cops ignore. Just be grateful if this pans out.”

  “I should have spent more time on Crazy George’s complaint. Bet you didn’t screw up this bad when you worked here.”

  Manny laughed. “You have Crazy George. We had Helen Afraid of Horses. And afraid of everything else in this world. She complained once that her neighbor’s cows ate so loud it kept her awake, and once that a passing train caused her to grow plantar warts on her feet.”

  “We don’t have trains here.”

  “That’s what we told her. Then one evening she called, convinced that the Soviets were conducting weather modification right above her house as she spoke, that they’d conjured up a tornado that was headed straight for her. Our whole shift cracked up laughing when that call came in to dispatch. That is, until we started getting calls from the National Weather Service that a twister had touched down west of Kyle. When Lumpy and I raced to Helen’s house, we found her shack scattered over the prairie for a hundred yards in either direction. But no Helen.”

  “Where did they find her?”

  “Never did. Sometimes I look up expecting the crazy old bat to drop out of some wall cloud. Perhaps she just clicked her heels and returned to Kansas with Toto.”

  Willie laughed as they neared Crazy George’s trailer, which sat at the edge of a treeless prairie, a single-wide made in the 1960s, early 1970s at the latest. One side had been repaired with free-for-the-taking railroad ties, blocking out any windows that might have been there. There was no propane tank, but firewood stood stacked by the door, and duct tape covered two broken windows. The poor bastard must knock icicles off his ass every winter trying to heat that shack.

  Crazy George hunkered down drawing in the dirt with a long stick. When he saw the police car, he grabbed the corral fence and stood.

  Manny took in a quick, short breath. George wore a plaid dress that stopped just above his knees, and he teetered on high heels several sizes too small. His hairy legs exposed below the dress made him look like he was wearing a pair of woolly chaps. He used the stick for balance as he picked his way toward the road in his elevated shoes.

  “He fancies himself a berdache.” When Manny’s look failed to register comprehension, Willie explained. “A cross-dresser. The old ones used that term to refer to men who were dressed like women and took on female roles. George thinks he’s the last of the berdache cult.”

  “I’d rather be remembered as the last of something else besides a cross-dresser, especially if I was as ugly looking as he is in that getup.”

  George bypassed Willie and stopped in front of Manny, pausing to smooth his dress before he spoke. “Who’re you? You’re too damned old to be a tribal cop.” Crazy George held a stump of cigar between fingers stained dark yellow.

  “I’m Senior Special Agent Tanno. FBI.”

  George tilted his head back and cackled while he looked sideways with the whites of his eyes showing. Manny understood why people called him “Crazy George.”

  “Since when does the FBI give a damn about an old man’s car?” He stepped close enough to Manny that the stench of his sweat permeated the air between them. “Don’t you guys usually investigate bombings? Threats to the president. Fake money. Crap like that?”

  “Your car may have been involved in a murder.”

  “A murder! Hot damn!” Crazy George slapped his leg, and a wide smile spread across his cratered face. “I told young With Horn here that my car was stole, but he figured it weren’t. He figured that old Crazy George just reported one more crazy thing. Didn’t you?”

  Willie looked away.

  “I wasn’t here the other day, Mr. He Crow, when—”

  “Crazy George. Everyone calls me Crazy George ’cause I see a lot. And report a lot to these yokels.” He jerked his finger at Willie. “Not that it does any good.”

  “Let me see your car.”

  Crazy George’s skirt fluttered as he sashayed around to the far side of his shed. As they neared the corral, a roan mare nickered. She hung her head over the top of the corral and pushed against the rickety boards that bowed with her weight. She plowed the ground with one hoof, and her teeth snapped as she stretched to reach Manny.

  The mare’s eyes followed his as she looked sideways at him, much like Crazy George did a moment ago, and Manny knew she would stomp him if she could. Unc had taught him some things about horses, and his inveterate Lakota knowledge filled in the rest. He had not been close to a horse in years, yet he knew this one would kill him if she had the chance.

  He often got close to the mounted police horses in D.C., felt the need to stroke the animals’ withers, to somehow communicate with them. But then he’d always had a way with animals. He rubbed the stitches in his hand. All right, except for the dog that bit me the other night and this loony horse, I have a way with critters.

  “Don’t mind Clementine.” George stepped to the corral and cradled the horse’s head in his arms. “As long as you’re on this side of the fence, you’re safe.”

  George led them past the corral to a barn with one side caved in from age. The collapsed roof listed dangerously far to one side, threatening to fall over. On the far side of the barn, George pointed to his old Buick. “I don’t drive this here car much, but I do keep it running good. When I do got to use it, I know it won’t leave me stranded along the side of the road in the middle of a blizzard.”

  Excep
t for one faded brown fender, and one door still in primer, the Buick’s sky blue color showed shiny beneath a layer of fine dust. Manny walked around the car. Tiny rubber flecks still stuck out of the sidewalls. “New rubber.”

  “Guess I missed that the other day,” Willie said from somewhere behind them.

  “No harm.” Manny was certain Willie wouldn’t make the same error again.

  “What’s that you say?” Crazy George blurted out. “No harm! The thief—the killer—has two days’ head start on you. How are you ever going to find him?”

  Manny ignored him and walked around the car again before opening the driver’s-side door. Keys dangled from the ignition switch. “You always leave your keys in the ignition?”

  “Of course. No one would ever steal a beater like this.”

  “Until a few nights ago.” Manny bent and peered inside. The seat was too far forward for Crazy George, who towered over Manny and had a protruding belly several inches bigger than his. If George drove it, he would need the seat back farther than it was. “You drive with the seat that close?”

  “Hell, no. That’s what I tried telling young With Horn the other day, but he looked at me like a cow looking at a new gate.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Manny caught Willie writing in his pocket notebook, taking for gospel everything George said now.

  “So the driver was a lot shorter than Crazy George,” Willie announced.

  “Not necessarily,” Manny said. He stood up, and his knees crackled and popped. “It might have been someone shrewd enough to know that seat position is something we’d look for. Could have been a taller person who just moved the seat up when they brought it back.”

  Willie nodded and wrote in his notebook before he looked in the car. He grabbed a small SureFire from his duty belt and shined the light onto the floorboard. “What do you make of that?”

  Manny followed the beam of light to a piece of leather under the brake pedal. He bent and grabbed it. “A piece of leather thong,” he said as he held it to the light. “Could be from anything. A moccasin thong. A choker. Maybe a jacket pull. Could be used for most anything.”

  Manny shined Willie’s flashlight on the floorboard. He lifted the mat and picked up a small, dried stem and held it to the light. “What’s this?”

  Willie studied the foliage. “Peji wacanga. Sweetgrass. Same as we found at the murder scene. This significant?”

  “You tell me.” Manny used the car door to help him stand. He knew he’d have to lose a few more pounds. “You’ve been studying with Margaret Catches: What do you use sweetgrass for?” Like an attorney asking a witness questions that he already knew, Manny wanted Willie to think on his own. He had asked Willie that question at the murder scene, and now he wanted to know if Willie had been thinking about it since then.

  Willie faced Manny with that deer-in-the-headlights look, until finally his own bulb came on. “Ceremonies. Sings. Just like Reuben said he was doing the night Jason was murdered.”

  “But Reuben isn’t the only holy man on the reservation. Or holy woman. Sweetgrass can be picked up most places a person walks in these parts. Someone could have walked through sweetgrass before climbing back in the car.”

  “But Reuben lives only a half mile from here.”

  “Whoa.” Manny held up his hands. “We don’t even know that this car was involved with Jason’s murder. George has other neighbors that live close besides Reuben. Call for a wrecker. Your evidence tech needs to process it.”

  “Just wait a minute.” Crazy George stepped between them. “You’re telling me my car’s been stole. But I got it back. Only now you tell me the police are going to steal it again.”

  “We’ll release it as soon as we can,” Manny said. “Until then, maybe you can ride that mare of yours around.” If you can find a sidesaddle, he thought as he admired George’s dress flapping in the breeze. Then he told himself he’d better be good to George: with his own age and paunch going against him, this might be the closest Manny got to a skirt anytime soon.

  CHAPTER 12

  Manny ran through the slosh and the mud and jumped into Willie’s truck. He brushed the rain from his shirt and trousers before he took the cup of coffee and breakfast burrito from Willie.

  “This hits the spot.”

  “The rain or the coffee?”

  “Both. It’s long overdue. The rain, that is.” Manny sipped the coffee. “You going to a cowboy funeral or cowboy wedding?”

  Willie’s powder blue, double-breasted Western shirt fit tight against his chest. Faux pearl buttons secured the shirt, except for the top one, which Willie left unbuttoned to make the shirt lay open at a sharp angle near his neck. His Wranglers were creased at least as sharp as Lumpy’s jeans the other night, and they hung bunched at the bottom against a pair of Justin ropers that looked a size too small for such a large man. A tan 5X beaver Stetson poised at a self-assured slant completed his dress, and he only needed a matched pair of pearl-handled Colts to look the spitting image of a Lakota Tom Mix.

  Great. I’m working with Hopalong Lumpy and Willie Mix. “You don’t have to go,” Manny said as they turned onto Route 18. “Lumpy’d have a cow if he found out you came along.”

  “This is my day off. Besides, one more minute lying to the lieutenant about where you are and I’ll break down and tell him.”

  Willie had called this morning to warn Manny that Lumpy was on his trail. Niles had talked to Lumpy and demanded he find Manny. Lumpy wanted to find him so he could tell Niles, and so he could jump him about the thief powder, which office rumor had it that Lumpy had proof Manny was the perp.

  “Maybe you should call him.”

  “Piss on Ben Niles. Maybe he should catch the next flight here and see what the hell I’ve been putting up with, see if he has any better luck than we’re having. The one thing I’m certain of is if Lumpy finds out you spent the day with me in Rapid City, he’ll assign you to animal control for the duration of your career.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Willie said, but he scooted lower in the seat until they left the town limits. “I’m sure I won’t be in as much trouble as you are.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Here. Front page.” Willie handed Manny the latest Lakota Country Times. The front photo showed Manny and Sonja Myers cozying outside the bistro in Rapid City.

  “What the hell did Yellow Horse do, follow me?”

  “Must have, but it gets better. Read it.”

  Nathan Yellow Horse quoted Sonja Myer’s recent follow-up article in the Rapid City Journal. Manny had told her information he refused to share with other journalists. Native journalists. Yellow Horse said Manny had given Sonja the name of the murder suspect, and told her that Jason might have squandered the tribe’s money.

  “You read the Journal today?”

  Willie nodded. “Sonja Myers said you told her Ricky Bell was your prime suspect, and she quoted you saying Jason’s resort project was going belly-up.”

  Manny sipped his coffee as he followed the story to the next page, with Yellow Horse accusing Manny of giving inside information to a sexy White woman that he wouldn’t share with a Lakota reporter. “That’s bullshit. She turned my ‘no comments’ into affirmatives. She’s got it all wrong. And so does Yellow Horse.”

  “It’s your boss you’ll have to convince, not me.”

  “Great. All I need is that prick on my ass.” Manny’s cell phone rang. He checked the number. “This asshole got Psychic Friends on retainer? How the hell would he know we were talking about him?”

  “You going to answer it?”

  Manny put his cell phone back in his belt holder. “Naw. Like you said, there’s not very good reception here on the rez.”

  Manny dropped Willie off at the Rapid City Journal office. “Humor me,” Manny said.

  “But that was twenty-some years ago.”

  “The Red Clouds died twenty-eight years ago in that car wreck, to be exact. See what you can find. I’ll call you on
my cell when I’m done.”

  “But my truck.”

  “What about your truck?”

  “You have a pretty crappy track record in the driving department.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  Willie grimaced. “If I believe half of what the lieutenant says, you’re such a bad driver that you’d have to go a long ways to upgrade to being called shitty behind the wheel. No offense, but he said when he worked with you, you wrecked more squad cars driving normal speed than all the rest put together running code.”

  “I’ve improved since then.”

  “Not by the looks of your rental. I just don’t want my truck dinged up.”

  Manny hoped his laugh would convince Willie his pickup would be safe. “Relax. If anything happens to your truck, you have the full backing of the FBI. Fair enough?”

  Willie nodded. He stroked the hood affectionately, and dramatically. Manny shook his head at Willie’s lack of faith, then pulled out into traffic and nearly hit a passing car.

  Manny drove past the Jack First Gun Shop and Coke Plant to the Red Cloud Development Corporation building. The front of the three-story structure would have looked more at home in Old Deadwood than in Rapid City. The first-floor false front depicted bawdy scenes: soiled doves waved kerchiefs out windows to attract passing cowboys while they leaned ample breasts over a railing. The second floor’s gunfighter mural pit Wild Bill against a hapless victim in a street showdown. Bill had just touched off a round and watched through black-powder smoke as the fallen fighter bled in the street. On the top floor, Lakota and Cheyenne warriors armed with only bows and lances fought Crow and Pawnee braves shooting Henry repeaters.

  Manny stepped inside the building Jason had designed six years ago. Parade magazine had done a spread on it, and they had shown off his talents well. The lobby was decorated in Old Western motif with a scarred hardwood bar that ran the width of the room. A mirror reflected the backside of the receptionist behind the bar, and Manny felt his face flush. She smoothed her ruffled lace dress, which showed off her shapely figure inside a skintight bodice. Her hair was up in a bun, and her makeup was so heavy you couldn’t tell if she blushed, like saloon girls of old. She leaned forward and revealed more cleavage than a woman had a right to show a stranger.