Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “We’re here to help.”

  “Who’s ‘we?’ ”

  “Friends. Hiding in the gully out back.”

  Reuben sat on a pew in front of Manny, and rested his hand lightly on the boy’s back. “I appreciate your heart, misun, but this here’s a journey you gotta sit out. I don’t know where this is going, but it’s not going to get any easier. We’ve already been here nearly two months with no end in sight. Go. Take your friends out of here.”

  Buddy Lamont, one of Reuben’s AIM friends, who would eventually die from a gunshot at the occupation, led Manny from the church that night. As he skirted FBI and Marshal roadblocks, a voice called out to him. The same voice he heard the night he was rammed. The voice that moaned for help.

  He was back at the church, but this time there was no church, just the hill overlooking the village where the Seventh Cavalry waited. Hotchkiss guns pointed toward tipis, and troopers stood poised with Springfields as other soldiers searched lodges for weapons.

  Manny shouted a warning, but no sound came out. He waved his arms wildly, but no one noticed. A young Lakota pulled a .36 Navy Colt from under his Ghost Shirt and began firing into the air. Hotchkiss guns opened up, cutting down half the village in the first rapid-fire barrage. Women, children, old men fled, and soldiers shot them in the backs as they ran. Survivors dropped into a ravine in back of the village. The soldiers re-aimed their Hotchkiss guns and fired another volley.

  Manny turned away. His stomach heaved while he forced a look back at the massacre. A young mother caught his eye as she ran clutching a baby in her arms. Looked over her shoulder. Fell. Picked herself up. Bloodied. Then the guns ripped her deerskin skirt apart. More blood. Screams, and she fell again. Her baby flew through the air and landed on corpses already melting the snow with their cooling bodies. The baby cried, and a single shot stopped it.

  Manny was beside the burial party days later. He cried as civilians, hired by the soldiers at two dollars a body, pried corpses from the frozen ground, then used the same shovels to lever them into the mass grave.

  Manny cried, and another voice cried with him. The figure that had guided him to Wounded Knee approached and Manny couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see through the cloud that covered his mind. The specter held out his hand and Manny reached for it. The apparition withdrew it and walked away, wailing with each burdened step.

  Still, Manny couldn’t look away from the genocide as burial crews performed their grisly task.

  “Wait!” Manny shouted. He ran after the apparition. “I’m here to help.”

  It kept just beyond his grasp.

  “Wait!”

  It remained just a step ahead. “Wait!” Manny cried again. And again. And again.

  “Kola!” Reuben shook him. “Kola!”

  The scene, and the apparition, faded. Manny looked up at Reuben, shirtless over him, sweat dripping from every pore of his body, a concerned look across his glistening face. “Come out of it.”

  Reuben had thrown back the covering of the door, and cool air dimpled his body with goose bumps. Reuben trickled water over Manny’s face and shoulders, then carried him outside. Reuben propped him against a cedar log, and handed him a folded towel. Groggy, Manny had to concentrate to unfold the edges that were tucked into each other.

  “You’re all right now,” Reuben said. He held a pot of water and Manny dipped the towel into it and wiped his face.

  “It was horrible,” Manny breathed, toweling his nude body. “Is this what a vision is supposed to be? A nightmare?”

  Reuben dried himself and slipped on a T-shirt that proclaimed HOMELAND SECURITY. It depicted the faded images of four Apaches posing together as they eyed the camera with a dour look. “Part of the journey you just took involves having someone help interpret your dream. You need a wicasa wakan.”

  Manny laughed. Reuben didn’t. “My brother, the holy man I came here to question about a murder? What kind of fool do you take me for?”

  “One that needs help with his vision before it drives him mad. Besides, you got any other sacred man to talk to?”

  Reuben crouched beside him, genuine concern etched across his face. Was this a true holy man kneeling beside him? Manny thirsted for answers, and he slipped on his trousers. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “Now?”

  “I think better when I’m moving.” Manny used the cedar log for support and stood, stretching his legs, getting the circulation going. Reuben draped a towel over his shoulder and started walking beside him. Although Manny was still light-headed from the sweat, and the pain caused him to wince with every step, he thought he might just be able to outrun Reuben even now. Reuben limped to keep up, rubbing his leg.

  “Bursitis,” he said when he caught Manny eyeing him.

  “I thought it was arthritis?”

  “It’s one of those -itis brothers.” And they both laughed together for the first time in so many years.

  When the heat overcame Manny and the stress of his vision wore on him and weakened him, Reuben had called Willie to give Manny a ride. Willie left his patrol car at Reuben’s house, and proudly sat behind the wheel of Clara’s dusty Cadillac. “So what was it like?” Willie asked when Manny dropped onto the seat beside him.

  He wanted to tell Willie that his brother, sacred man and chief suspect in Jason Red Cloud’s murder, had guided him through the meanings of his vision and helped him understand things afterward. He wanted to tell Willie that the specter in his vision was a wandering soul, destined to roam eternity, destined never to find the Spirit Road without Manny’s help. Manny was this wanagi’s savior and the instrument by which this lost wanagi would find the road home. Most important, Manny had no idea who the spirit had been in life. But he couldn’t tell Willie, or anyone, about this most personal of experiences, so he changed the subject.

  “I found out some things. I don’t think Reuben stole that truck and ran me off the road. His story that he and Ben Horsecreek attended a wake can be easily verified. He said he doesn’t think any of his Heritage Kids are involved, though his reaction told me he was less than certain of that. But Reuben did say something, when both of us were lost in our visions. Something he denied later. But I distinctly heard it.”

  “What was that?”

  “Reuben screamed out something about Jason Red Cloud’s folks having their car tampered with. I swear he accused Billy Two Moons of killing them.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Willie turned onto Route 18 leading into Pine Ridge Village. “You want me to talk with Verlyn Horn about the Red Clouds’ accident?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I talked with him at the Rosebud powwow last year. A grouchy, unpleasant bear. Cantankerous as hell, but I’ll pay him a visit if you want me to.”

  Manny forced a grin. “I used to get along with him pretty good. I should’ve stopped to see him before now anyway.”

  When they arrived at Manny’s apartment, Clara came out and walked around her car. “Was that Willie?” She pointed at the cruiser whisking Willie back to Reuben’s to pick up his own squad car.

  Manny nodded as his eyes darted to the apartment houses.

  “Relax, Desirée left an hour ago. Guess she got tired of waiting.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  Clara nodded to her car. “It’s still in one piece. Not a scratch on it. Other than the dust, it looks fine. Guess I got Willie to thank for that.”

  “I told you I’m not as bad a driver as I’m made out to be.”

  “Then why was he driving?”

  Manny explained that he had become overheated in the sweat lodge and was too weak to drive. “I feel good enough now to go talk with Chief Horn.”

  “Am I ever going to get to spend time with you?”

  Heat rose from his neck to his face as if he’d just stepped out from the inipi. “When I wrap up this investigation . . .” He let it trail off.

  She smiled. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “I’ll
call you tomorrow.”

  “That reminds me. An Agent Niles called for you. He said time’s running out. What’s that mean?”

  Manny sighed. “It means my time’s running out. I’ll call you.”

  Manny let the cool water take away the heat of the sweat lodge, and he had to force himself to get out of the shower. After putting on clean khakis and a polo shirt, he drove to the Cohen Home. Shannon Horn had told Manny that her grandfather resented living at the retirement home the past few years. She warned him that his rosy disposition had soured, but Manny couldn’t recall Chief Horn ever having a rosy disposition.

  Manny doubled over when he stepped out of the car and caught his breath. The pain in his ribs subsided, and he straightened and entered the home. A petite woman in her early twenties sat reading People magazine at the service desk. He leaned over the counter. “Is Verlyn Horn here?”

  She put her magazine aside. “Why do you wish to see him?” She stared at Manny’s bandage. “Did he do that to you?”

  “No. I haven’t seen the chief in years. He’s an old friend of mine.”

  “Your name?”

  What difference does it make?” Manny snapped. “Why the third degree? I just want to talk with him.” He realized he was the one usually giving someone the third degree. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just doing your job and protecting the people living here.”

  She laughed. “It’s you I’m protecting. There’s a reason his granddaughter is his only visitor.”

  Manny reached into his pocket, withdrew his ID case, and flipped open his badge wallet. She frowned as she read it, and her demeanor changed from suspicious to outright hostile. “So you’re the agent they sent on the Red Cloud murder. What’s the FBI want with Chief Horn?”

  She must have had friends or relatives who were pro-AIM, anti-Wilson back in the day. She was too young to have experienced that conflict, but it probably influenced the way she viewed federal law enforcement.

  “Look, I used to be a tribal cop here. Chief Horn was my boss back then, and I just want to visit him.”

  Her facial muscles relaxed, and she walked around the counter. Was everyone on the reservation these days taller than him? Everyone except Lumpy, anyway. “I guess that wouldn’t hurt, but don’t get him wound up—that’s all I need is another night of reassuring the other residents that the chief’s not really going crazy.”

  Manny followed her down a long hallway. Apartment doors on each side stood open to allow air to pass through. The apartments appeared spartan, yet neat and tidy, and he caught her watching him.

  “There are two people to a room. At two hundred dollars a month, conditions can’t be too luxurious.”

  “Two to a room makes it pretty cramped.”

  “Except for Chief Horn’s room. He’s the only occupant.”

  “No roommate?”

  She shook her head. “No one that can tolerate him for any length of time.” She stopped at the end of the hallway and rapped lightly on the door. When she got no answer, she knocked louder.

  “Who the hell is it?” Chief Horn’s voice bellowed, the same timbre and tone that used to chew Manny’s butt almost daily.

  “You have a visitor,” she spoke to the door.

  “Don’t want one.”

  “This man’s FBI.”

  The door flew open and hit the wall behind it. The doorknob fit neatly in a hole in the plaster, an old wound on the wall from the knob slamming into it. Manny looked up at Chief Horn, with a beer poised in his right hand as if intending to hurl it. Although his posture stooped, he still towered above Manny. “Manny Tanno.”

  “Chief Horn.” The old man’s hand wrapped around Manny’s, and he felt like a rookie again.

  Horn scowled at the receptionist. “Can’t you see we want some privacy.”

  “See what I mean?” She turned on her heels and walked swiftly toward her desk at the end of the hallway.

  “What the hell’s that mean?”

  “Nothing, Chief. Can we talk?”

  Chief Horn stepped aside. Beer cans from an overflowing garbage pail littered the floor, and a fresh case of Falstaff waited on a stove beside an overflowing pot of macaroni and cheese that had burnt sometime yesterday. The only chair in the room sat in front of a small television set growing coat hangers for rabbit ears. Horn motioned to the back sliding-glass doors. “Why don’t we sit out under the cottonwood.” He grabbed a partial six-pack and led the way outside.

  He motioned for Manny to sit in a lawn chair, while he plopped into an Adirondack chair missing one arm. There were four beers left on the plastic stringer, and he placed them on a picnic table beside him. He popped the top on a beer and downed half the can in one gulp.

  “What manners. Have a cold one.”

  Manny shook his head. “Never got the taste for it.”

  “Suit yourself, kid, but why the visit? I thought you were an instructor at that FBI academy there in Quantico.”

  He wanted to tell Horn he wouldn’t be in Quantico for long unless he found Jason Red Cloud’s killer soon. “Sometimes I get field assignments.”

  “I know.” Horn’s grin showed a full set of perfect pearly whites, despite his age. “Whenever I hear your name bandied around, I remind people I trained you.”

  “And you did well.” Chief Horn wanted his new officers to be aggressive and to enforce tribal statutes. But he also pushed them to demonstrate honesty and integrity. It was those virtues Manny learned as a tribal cop that he was struggling with now, and he couldn’t get his kola out of his head as the murderer.

  “I hear you have a case right here on Pine Ridge.” Horn chugged his beer, placed the can between his large hands, and crushed it. He hollered and grinned at Manny. “The old fart’s still got some lead in his pencil, huh?”

  “That you do, Chief.”

  He peeled another can off the plastic. “You didn’t come here to jaw about old times.”

  Manny brought Horn up-to-date on the Red Cloud investigation. Chief Horn possessed a fine analytical mind, and Manny hoped he could tap into that logic. “I think Jason Red Cloud’s death ties in with his parents’ car wreck.”

  Horn slammed his fist on the picnic table. It bounced and came back to rest on all four legs. “That was no accident. I said so that day we found the car.”

  “Why did you think it was deliberate?”

  Horn opened the beer and took a long pull. He slammed it on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Those brake lines were cut. Not sloppy, so you’d know it, but professional-like. I had a repair shop in Gordon check it out, and they thought they had been cut, too.”

  “You’re certain it was no accident?”

  Horn leaned closer. “I investigated enough accidents through the years where the brakes had failed. Like LaVonne Drapeaux’s wreck that time, with the brake lines cut, not ruptured. Someone sliced those lines on that Red Cloud car.”

  “Is the car still around?”

  “That red Impala? Naw.” He picked up his beer and sipped it more slowly. He had come to the part of his story he was sure of, and didn’t want to rush it. “The crusher came through here a few years after that and bought up junkers for scrap, the Red Clouds’ Chevy among them. But they’d always kept their cars in top shape. Traded every other year. There’s no way those brakes could have failed.”

  “Who would have wanted them dead, and who would know how to rig a murder to look like an accident?”

  Horn shook his head. “I’ve asked myself those same questions a hundred times, and it’s always bothered me. Jason was the only one who profited from their deaths, but he never had a harsh word with his folks. AIM had more bitter enemies than the Red Clouds, so that was an angle I thought held the most promise.” Horn finished his beer and tossed it into a sack beside his chair. He reached for another. “As for who could have done it, any knowledgeable mechanic could have. It wouldn’t have been hard to pick a time to cut the lines, either. The Red Clouds drove to Scenic
every Saturday night to play bingo at the Episcopal church. Anyone familiar with their routine could have picked that time.”

  “What about my brother? Reuben was one of AIM’s enforcers.”

  Horn stood and stretched. “I interviewed Jane Afraid of All two nights after the wreck. Reuben was on my short list of suspects, and Jane had the apartment below Lizzy’s. I thought if anyone knew if Reuben was there or not, it would have been Jane.”

  “And she saw him there?”

  Horn nodded. “Jane saw Reuben going into Lizzy’s apartment about sundown that night. She knew Reuben was there until morning because the bedsprings upstairs kept her awake half the night. Reuben couldn’t have killed the Red Clouds.”

  Horn opened the beer. Manny declined once more. “Trying to cut the waistline some.”

  Horn tilted his head back and laughed. “Kid, you get to be my age, you start worrying about that. For now, live a little and don’t sweat the small shit.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, Chief, not sweat the small shit. It’s this big shit—this Red Cloud murder—that has me puzzled. A lot of things don’t add up. Like Billy Two Moons’s murder.”

  “How does that fit in?”

  Manny shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t. But tell me what you recall about him.”

  Horn set his beer on the table and leaned back. “Billy was a sneaky little bastard. He did a bit of everything, never for any length of time, just ’til he got his paycheck so he could make a run down to White Clay with the other alkies.” He rested his hands on his protruding belly. “You know, I condemned people like that back then. Now look at me.”

  Manny let that pass. “What kind of work did Two Moons do?”

  “Day jobs. Sometimes he’d help Harlan out at his shop fixing tires or doing tune-ups. Him and that other worthless piece of shit, Alex Jumping Bull. I threw the pair of them in my hoosegow for one reason or another about twice a month. When Billy was in jail, at least I got free tune-ups and repairs for the squad cars.”

  “So Two Moons had some mechanical ability?”