Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Considerable, though he was rarely sober enough to take advantage of it.”

  “Was he ever connected with the FBI or the BIA?”

  “Never, though we tried to turn him more than once, to get him to snitch for us. He wouldn’t bite, said he had another source of lucky bucks that would be coming due soon, and he didn’t need government money. Besides, he made it known that he’d join AIM if they’d have him.”

  “But they didn’t?”

  Horn shook his head.

  “Then the rumor that he was an FBI informer was false?”

  “Totally. But most folks thought he was a snitch anyway, like they thought Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash was a snitch.”

  “But she wasn’t.”

  Horn shook his head. “All that mattered is the wrong people thought she was. That’s another case that’s bothered me through the years. If I could ever have identified those women that hustled her from that Denver safe house, I would have been a step closer to nailing her killer.” He eased back into his chair, and the wood slats creaked beneath his weight. “But getting back to Two Moons, the weasel didn’t hang with anyone except Alex Jumping Bull.”

  “Whatever happened to him?” Manny asked.

  Chief Horn shrugged. “He disappeared the same time Two Moons was killed. I always thought Reuben was good for that, too, but he just wouldn’t come off it. Jumping Bull’s body was never found, and the Pennington County deputies searched that area around China Gulch for days, but came up short. I always figured some deer hunter would come upon his body at the bottom of a deep ravine someday. For all I know, he could still be alive still getting drunk somewhere.”

  Chief Horn’s eyelids drooped, and Manny switched subjects to the old times, amazed at how sharp the old man’s memory was. They talked about their old department, and the growing pains it experienced following the AIM-BIA feuds of the 1970s. They talked about Lumpy, and Horn regretted not firing him before he retired as tribal police chief. The chief said Lumpy was a political animal even back then, and would get ahead by whatever means he could.

  Chief Horn’s head nodded, then settled onto his chest. He woke long enough to say good-bye, and Manny left him sipping beer under the cottonwood as he stood quietly to leave. He wished he had Horn’s investigative talent. The chief had fingered Two Moons for the brake-line job, and with the Red Clouds’ anti-AIM stance, killing them might have curried favor with AIM members and they might have accepted him. And if that was the case, did Jason find out about Two Moons cutting the brake lines that killed his parents? If Jason learned that and then killed Two Moons, then Manny could lobby for a pardon for Reuben. Thoughts filled his head fast, and what he needed most right now was to feel well enough to put some miles in his running shoes—he needed to get into his zone to sort things out.

  As he drove away from the Cohen Home he passed Nathan Yellow Horse’s truck. Manny watched in the rearview mirror as Yellow Horse got out of his car and started into the Cohen Home. He knew Yellow Horse would interrupt Chief Horn from his nap. And perhaps the chief would take care of Manny’s reporter problem for him.

  CHAPTER 16

  Manny pulled into the public safety parking lot beside Lumpy just as he grabbed on to his doorjamb and, with a grunt, pulled himself out of the car. He gently closed the door of his new Mustang GT, white and sporting-blue racing stripes running the length from the hood to the trunk, and sauntered to Manny’s car.

  “What you here for, Hotshot?” The dark purple stain from two days ago was lighter. Lumpy put his hand over his cheek to hide it. “If you’re here for Willie, I can’t spare him today either.”

  “I’m checking on any more lab results that might have come in.”

  “None yesterday.” Lumpy grinned as he eyed Manny’s rental, then glanced back at his own car. “What kind of ride you got there in Virginia?”

  “Nothing like that fancy machine you got, just an eight-year-old Accord. How long you had that?”

  Lumpy smiled wide. “I got it last month. Still got the dealer tags on it. Why, you looking to upgrade?”

  “Not me,” Manny said. “Guess we don’t get paid what you tribal cops do. I was just looking at those new tires. Kind of odd.”

  Lumpy laughed nervously as if he had missed an important point in their debate. “What’s your point?”

  Manny hung his head out the window, and looked down at the tires. “They’re new, just like those impressions of new tires we found at Jason’s murder.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Lumpy stepped between Manny and his car, as if shielding the Mustang from suspicion. “You implying something?”

  Manny held up his hands. “Of course not. Just not many cars here with new rubber. That’s why it’s so important that old Crazy George’s car be processed, just in case those tire marks at the crime scene match his old Buick.”

  “I’ll get Pat Pourier on it this morning.” Lumpy turned and tripped over his own feet, caught himself, and disappeared into the station. Manny had too easily convinced Lumpy that processing Crazy George’s car was a priority, but he had scant moments to savor his small victory when his cell phone rang. “Niles here. Good morning.” The Pile didn’t intend it to be a good morning for Manny. “How’s the investigation going?”

  “Slowing.”

  “I’m not surprised. What the hell you doing out there in the Wild West? Reports I get, you’ve been chasing skirts rather than chasing leads.”

  “Don’t tell me: Lieutenant Looks Twice.”

  “And a reporter for the local rag, a Nathan Yellow Horse. Seems like his paper is up in arms that you’re lovin’ this babe Sonja Myers, who landed an exclusive. How’s that going to look for the bureau?”

  “Take a breath, Niles.” And rub yourself with some Preparation H. “I’m not sleeping with her.”

  “Bullshit! Yellow Horse says Lieutenant Looks Twice and you are feuding over her. He swears you’ve been dissing his paper because this Myers woman has been sleeping with the lieutenant, and you gave her a story to woo her back.”

  “First I’ve heard about it. Look, the fact is that I’ve run up against a stone wall here. Actually, a stone wall would have felt much better.” Manny filled Niles in on what little information he had uncovered, and how his injuries from his two assaults had delayed things. “That sound like I’m having fun? How about you come out here. Give me a hand.”

  Niles laughed. “You know I don’t do fieldwork.”

  “Then how about sending a couple agents from the Rapid City office down here?”

  “Can’t do,” Niles said. “Like I told you before, we don’t have any other agents with a background in Pine Ridge.”

  “But Harlan LaPointe’s Lakota from Rosebud. I talked with him a couple days ago in Rapid. He doesn’t have anything on his plate right now.”

  “But he’s not full blood,” Niles said. “He’s one-eighth Sicangu Lakota. That’ll just remind people there that he’s seven-eighths White, and he’ll get nowhere on Pine Ridge. But I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know.” Then, after a long pause, he added, “I called you just as a friendly reminder that the academy begins in a week. And I need you to leave that woman alone.”

  There was no convincing Niles that he wasn’t womanizing, so Manny promised to be at the academy when the next session began. When Manny hung up, he wasn’t so sure he would. And Niles never even asked him how he was doing after being attacked. He had little time to be pissed at the Pile when his phone rang again.

  “The auditor finished and I need to go through Jason’s things,” Clara said. “Would you like to meet me here and we can go over his report?”

  Did Manny detect something more than business in her voice? “Sure.” At least he hoped he did. “I’m doing no good here today. I’ll meet you there in two hours.”

  Manny bounded up the stairs at the Red Cloud Development Building. At the first landing, he doubled over from the pain in his ribs. When he caught his wind, he co
ntinued up as he held his side.

  “Ms. Downing is expecting you. Please go in.” Manny detected some hostility in Emily’s tone, probably because Clara had chewed her out for not relaying his messages all week. She put her headset on and resumed typing without looking up.

  Manny reached for his comb as he walked to Clara’s office, formerly Jason’s, then realized he didn’t have enough hair to comb and left it in his pants pocket. He paused at the door long enough to pop a piece of gum in his mouth before he swung the huge old door open.

  Clara sat in Jason’s chair pouring over papers scattered across the desktop. She smiled and dropped her glasses. They dangled from a silver chain around her neck, and rested in brimming cleavage. Manny averted his eyes and concentrated on the green business suit and black pumps that illustrated her professionalism.

  “I’m glad you could make it.”

  “How could I refuse?” They fidgeted as they eyed each other. “You said you had something to show me.”

  “Of course.” She shuffled through papers on a corner of the desk. “I found where Jason has been mailing checks to a Clifford Coyote at a Pine Ridge post office box.”

  “How much?”

  “Two thousand dollars. Every month since 1976.”

  Manny couldn’t recall Clifford Coyote ever coming up during the investigation or in his memory, and few people on the reservation actually had post office boxes. Most received their mail General Delivery. “Who’s Clifford Coyote, and why the monthly checks?”

  Clara shrugged. “Don’t know. Jason didn’t confide in me where he spent his money. With him, it could have been anything.” Manny made a mental note to call Willie and have him check on that post office box, and to see if the post office had a residential address for Coyote.

  “You said there was more.”

  “There is.” She put her glasses on and walked around to the back of the desk. She shuffled through papers and snatched one from the pile. She handed it to him and leaned closer, and her perfume distracted him. The receipt marked BUSINESS VOYAGES showed that two weekends before Jason died he had booked a round-trip flight to Minneapolis on the charter service based in Rapid City.

  “But you said he often traveled on business.”

  “He did.” She walked around to sit on the edge of the desk next to Manny. “But he never flew. This trip must have been so important he sucked it up—or it wasn’t Jason who flew that day. I also found this.” She handed Manny a note ripped from a spiral notebook. It was written in clear, neat letters, threatening to expose Jason if he didn’t resume payments. The note was signed “Alex.”

  “Tell me you know something about this Alex.”

  “I wish I could, but I don’t know any more about him than I do any of Jason’s associates.”

  Chief Horn was adamant that Alex Jumping Bull and Billy Two Moons were inseparable. Was Alex Jumping Bull still alive all these years, as the chief suspected? If he was, what did Alex have on Jason? And why send Clifford Coyote a check every month?

  “Do you think this Alex may have known Jason intended embezzling the tribe’s money?”

  Clara shook her head. “I don’t know. Jason had a lot of contacts, knew everyone, and he could have told this Alex. Maybe Alex was in with Jason on the scheme.”

  “That’s a thought. Do you have a paper sack I could have?”

  Clara nodded and stepped out of the room. She returned with a brown paper Albertson’s grocery bag. Manny placed both the envelope and letter from Alex inside, and sealed it with tape from a dispenser on the desk. “I’ll overnight this to Quantico to get the letter and envelope fumed for prints.”

  “They can do that on paper?”

  Manny smiled. “Ve have our vays,” he said. It came out as a silly impression of Colonel Klink of Stalag 13. “There’s a lot of prints on the envelope by now, but maybe I’ll luck out. Because you handled the letter, you’ll have to go down to the police department here and have a set of elimination prints taken.”

  Clara nodded and her face lit up as she looked at the clock over her desk. “Speaking of lucking out, it’s quitting time and I’m famished. We have a great Olive Garden by the mall. Be my treat.”

  Before Manny could stammer his way out of the offer, she had threaded her arm through his and started for the door. As they left, even Emily wore an approving smile.

  CHAPTER 17

  Manny drove across the reservation boundary along Highway 41, past Red Shirt Table and later Cuny Table, though he didn’t notice the scenery as his mind relived the night’s dinner conversation with Clara. They stayed until the restaurant closed, drawing out their time together, until Clara drove him back to his car parked at her office. As he climbed out of her car, she pulled him back in and kissed him full on the lips. A good-night kiss, nothing more. But her lips had lingered there longer than they should have. Manny didn’t object and kissed her back.

  He pulled away, breathless, and her perfume conjured up images of things forbidden at this point in their relationship. And it conjured up something else: how different it was from the scent he had smelled that night his car was rammed, and later as he lay in his hospital bed. He fought to think where he had smelled it before, but another kiss erased all thoughts of anything except Clara.

  “Let’s do this again soon,” she said. “When we have more time.”

  Manny thought he had agreed, though he didn’t remember that part very well. He only recalled Clara inviting him for a romantic rematch.

  He came to the stop sign at Oglala, and a dark-colored Dodge pulled beside him. He was vaguely aware that the Dodge’s passenger window rolled down. The darkness obscured the driver, but not the passenger who pointed a long-barreled pistol at Manny. The image took a moment to cut through his brain, foggy with thoughts of Clara. Quick movements eluded him as he reached for his gun in the shoulder holster. Was it stuck, or was he just drawing slower than he should?

  His firearms instructors at Quantico had talked about the phenomenon that slows a man’s perceptions in a crisis and causes everything to move in slow motion, as it was doing now. The shooter cocked the hammer on a single-action revolver, like in Old West movies. Except it wasn’t the Old West, it was the New West, starring Manny Tanno, who didn’t want his ass ventilated by any gun, let alone a movie hogleg.

  He jerked the Glock free and hurled himself across the seat just as the man fired. Muzzle flash bright. Night vision destroyed. Tiny explosions of yellow light popped across his one good eye. Another shot. Glass shards cut his cheek, and one piece tore his ear as the side window shattered.

  He looked over the jagged window as the shooter cocked his gun again, and the slow motion faded. Manny was pissed.

  He fired through the open window at the driver. He fired again. And again. The Dodge spun gravel. Manny shot twice. Double tapped. Double tapped. A round struck a taillight, and Manny floored the accelerator.

  The Dodge swerved across the road and hit a reflector post, the back end breaking away and the driver almost losing control. The car straightened and sped toward Pine Ridge Village, swerving across both lanes. Manny shot. The back window shattered and the car careened off another post, but the driver regained control. Manny gained on the car.

  Manny jammed the Glock under his leg and fumbled for his cell phone. He hit speed dial. Tribal Police dispatcher Shannon Horn’s voice calmed him as he screamed that he was in a pursuit. She urged him to breathe slowly, speak slowly, and he sucked in a deep breath, the pain sharp in his ribs. He blurted out he was in pursuit of two men who had shot at him, driving recklessly, wildly, possibly from a bullet that struck the driver.

  Before Shannon could confirm his position, the Dodge braked hard and Manny slammed into its trunk. His cell phone flew beneath the seat as his head hit the steering wheel, pain shooting deep into his injured face. Fresh sticky blood ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He brushed it away with his sleeve as he squinted to see the road in front of him.

  The Dodge acce
lerated, dragging the front bumper of Manny’s car with it. He hung the pistol out the window and pulled the trigger, but the slide was locked back: empty. He clawed at the inside of his jacket pocket for the spare magazine.

  Manny pressed the magazine release and the empty clip dropped on the floorboard. He squeezed the gun tight between his legs and slapped the magazine into the butt of the weapon. With one hand, he hit the slide release while he wrestled the steering wheel, struggling to control his car. Pieces of his tire flew into the air and a chunk landed on the windshield, obscuring his vision for a moment before flying off.

  The Dodge dropped over a hill and Manny came fast on brake lights. Someone rolled into the ditch just before the Dodge accelerated and pulled away from Manny.

  On the first hill east of Oglala, three marked patrol cars blocked the road. One blocked the Route 18 and Route 33 intersection, while the other two cars set up a choke point to funnel the Dodge over hollow spike strips laid across the road. It drove over the strips and they flew violently in the air seconds before the two blocking patrol cars squealed tires and pursued. Manny slowed, driving around the spikes still laid across one lane, the thumpa-thump of a flat tire loud in his ears. He cleared the first curve a half mile farther, where the police had apprehended the driver, whose car had three of its four tires flattened.

  Manny was careful to stay off the brakes as the steering wheel jerked in his hands to the side of the flat tire, and he stopped just before the police roadblock. He controlled the urge to run up to the shooter and screw the barrel of the Glock in his ear. He stepped out of his car and his legs shook. He leaned against the Taurus for support as he brushed shards of glass from his clothing. Cuts from tiny pieces of glass had peppered his face, and his cheek oozed blood from a dozen slices. A flap of skin hung from his ear like a grotesque earring, and the head wound from the steering wheel caused blood to stream into his eyes. Shit. More stitches.