Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “I’m just going to interview him . . .”

  “Willie.”

  “All right,” Willie answered, but he didn’t have as much conviction as Manny wanted. “I’ll bring help.”

  “And call me right away when you got him. I’ll need to interview him, too, before he gets a chance to lawyer-up.”

  Willie held up his hands. “All right, all ready. But you’re the one that needs to be careful up here.”

  “Me? It’s not like we’re still at war with the Crow.”

  “It’s not the Crow I’m worried about. It’s turning you loose on Crow Agency behind the wheel.”

  “My driving’s getting better.”

  “But in the meantime, you’re driving a car with some serious iron. You scrape one of these modern cars and you’ll total it.”

  “I’ll be careful. But you be doubly careful. If Degas can swap ammo to get a man killed, he won’t hesitate to kill an officer.”

  “He’s no danger to me.” Willie laid his hand on Manny’s shoulder. “Degas thinks he has the perfect alibi. When I interview him, that’ll give me a major advantage.”

  “With someone like Degas,” Manny said, concern rimming his eyes, “I suspect no one really has any kind of advantage.”

  CHAPTER 12

  BASEE, WINTER COMING ON, 1876

  VALLEY OF THE GIVEAWAY, BIG HORN MOUNTAINS

  Levi Star Dancer smiled at Hollow Horn. Intermittent sucking on Pretty Paw’s breast caused milk to spill out of the baby’s mouth. She dabbed at milk running down Hollow Horn’s cheek, and looked up at Levi. He stood warming his hands over the fire in the middle of the lodge, content with his wife. And with Hollow Horn. The baby had been given the name just six days ago in the manner of the Apsa’alooke. Levi had humbly asked his friend and noted warrior Horse That Sings to honor his baby with a name. As was their custom, Horse That Sings appeared at the tipi of Broken Rib four days after the baby’s birth. His friend had hoisted the naked and screaming baby in front of him, elevating him higher each of the four times before Horse That Sings pronounced his name: Hollow Horn. An honorable name.

  Levi had thanked his friend with the gift of his best hunting horse, a bay that Levi had gelded when the colt was but five moons old. Levi had stood beside his friend stroking the pony, expecting Horse That Sings to ask about Hollow Horn’s eyes that shone the color of a fall sky. But he had not, and neither had Levi’s clan uncles and aunts who arrived to give Pretty Paw the cradle and moccasins as was their duty.

  Levi smiled down at her, and she smiled back. They still lived in her father’s lodge, and moments such as this alone with his new family rarely occurred. Levi bent and brushed the baby’s hair hanging over his forehead and kissed him. He heard his father-in-law, his iila’pxe, untie the buffalo-skin flap, and Levi stood.

  Broken Rib ducked inside. Frozen streaks of ice mixed with the old man’s gray hair falling in clumps over his shoulder, hard droplets clinging to his battle-scarred arms. Levi had joined his iila’pxe one morning days before Hollow Horn came to Crow country. Broken Rib had chopped a man-sized hole in the ice with his trade ax. “The Old Man keeps his bows and arrows down there.” He had smiled at Levi just before he jumped through the ice. He was under the water, lost somewhere down the hole for so long that Levi thought the old man had drowned. Then he had broken through the surface, shivering, unable to speak, his chattering teeth barely able to ask Levi for his buffalo robe.

  “This is what the Creator intended for us Apsa’alooke,” he had sputtered right before he nodded to the hole quickly icing over. “Now it is your turn.”

  Levi would have declined anyone else, but one did not say no to a warrior such as Broken Rib. Levi had stripped down, testing the water with his feet, shivering, holding his breath right before he dropped through the hole into the creek. He would later tell Pretty Paw he was certain his heart had stopped. The pain was like cactus slapping his whole body. Every day he awoke to Broken Rib greeting the Old Man as he brought sunshine just over the horizon to the east. And every day Levi managed some excuse not to join Broken Rib again in the frigid water.

  Hollow Horn coughed and Pretty Paw tapped his back. She rolled over and covered herself with the buffalo robe as she resumed feeding the baby. Broken Rib turned his back on them and threw his robe off, flapping his arms. He straddled the fire wearing only a breachclout, and Levi feared the fire would burn the old man somewhere he didn’t like.

  Broken Rib eased onto the hide covering the tipi floor and scooted close to the fire. He nodded to woolen soldier blankets folded beside Levi. Levi handed his father-in-law the blankets and the old man wrapped himself with them, rubbing his hair dry and warming his hands over the burning cottonwood.

  After several moments, Broken Rib got enough circulation back in his hands that he turned and grabbed his pipe bag, not the ceremonial one decorated with hawk feathers and dyed porcupine quills he’d used when Horse That Sings gave Hollow Horn his name, but the old man’s everyday pipe. On mornings such as these, Broken Rib sat around the smoke hole, the aroma of cedar and sweetgrass emanating from his pipe, regaling Levi and Pretty Paw with tales of the old man’s war deeds. Appropriately, his clan was Ashke’pkawiia, Bad War Deeds clan. Broken Rib enjoyed telling of his bravery, for such telling was rare with the Apsa’alooke: Humility was paramount in a warrior, and Broken Rib would never have bragged outside his lodge.

  Levi sat silent as his iila’pxe, water-wrinkled hands trembling from the icy creek, packed the red clay bowl with the tobacco he’d traded from some trappers near the Shining Mountains. He grabbed a smoldering, spitting cottonwood twig from the fire and touched the bowl. He watched transfixed as the smoke meandered around him before being sucked upward and out the smoke hole.

  “A warrior needs times such as these,” Broken Rib said, letting the smoke out slowly. “When a man spends his whole life caring for family, hunting, fighting the Lakota and Cheyenne from our lands, a man needs mornings to just pray to the Old Man.” Broken Rib closed his eyes, his breaths grating, and Levi knew his iila’pxe was at the fall of his days.

  “If we leave as you say,” Levi blurted out, “I’ll never have days such as this.” He took a deep breath, calming himself, steeling for the argument that he knew would come from his father-in-law. “If I go to where the White man wants me, I’ll never die a warrior.”

  Broken Rib tamped the ashes out into a small wooden bowl, quiet, as if he had not heard Levi. When he finished, he set the bowl aside and stretched out his hands to the warming fire. “It is said the Whites give each man forty acres . . .”

  “What is forty acres?” Levi stood and started to pace. “A man cannot hunt buffalo on forty acres.”

  The old man’s mouth drooped and his eyes held far away, sad times. “When was the last time you hunted buffalo?”

  “We killed a cow and her calf . . .”

  “And how long did that feed us? I tell you, there are no buffalo left. The baashchiili has killed them all. Hide hunters make their fortunes on killing what we need to feed our families.”

  “Then I’ll hunt deer. I’ll find iichiilikaashee . . .”

  Broken Rib forced a smile. “And where will you find the elk? Or deer enough that Pretty Paw and Hollow Horn will not go hungry?”

  Levi faced the fire, flickering flames framing the old man in a warm glow. “But forty acres? We do not own land, because First Maker gives land to all.”

  “The White man owns the land.” Broken Rib stretched out his legs and rubbed his calves. He left his feet close enough that spitting embers landed dangerously close to bare feet. “This is different times. The baashchiili tells us what we can own and what we cannot. You must leave.”

  Levi began pacing in front of the fire, careful not to step on the buffalo robe that covered Pretty Paw and Hollow Horn, both sleeping as if they heard nothing. “Forty acres is not enough to farm, even
if I were a farmer.”

  Broken Rib nodded to the floor of the lodge, and Levi reluctantly sat. “All the young men will receive forty acres on this new reservation the soldiers formed?”

  Levi nodded. “All will get only that small amount of land.”

  “But most will lose their land.”

  “Lose it? How?”

  Broken Rib rotated his ankle, popping noises louder than the crackling of the cottonwood twigs. “They will take the White man’s drink . . .”

  “We do not drink their alcohol.”

  Broken Rib frowned at being interrupted, and Levi breathed deeply, regaining his composure so as not to disrespect the old man again. “Young men will drink the alcohol the White man gives them and they will lose their forty acres. They will lay lazy under the sun, wishing they were warriors once again. And they will lose their land. Some will simply walk away, but their land will remain. That is when you prosper.”

  Levi leaned closer. “Prosper? How?”

  Broken Rib took his tobacco pouch from the bag hanging on the wall of the lodge. “When the young men no longer want the land, you will buy it—in some instances, even trade for things you have at hand—and you will gain more land. Soon, those forty acres will span as far as the eye can see. And you will raise crops that the baashchiili wants. And Pretty Paw and Hollow Horn will never hunger.”

  “But I am no farmer.” Levi fought to come up with excuses why he should not give up the warrior life to farm the land. “I belong here, in the mountains, hunting, providing for my family.”

  Broken Rib refilled his pipe with tobacco. “You will learn to farm. And you will learn how to handle success in this new world that has come to Crow country.”

  Levi sat back, kicking around what Broken Rib said. As always, there was wisdom in the old man’s words; wisdom that Levi suddenly realized would see him and his family through these times of great uncertainty.

  He turned and grabbed his journal, but Broken Rib patted Levi’s leg. “There is time enough to write the White man’s words,” he said, touching a burning twig to the bowl. The tobacco caught, and the old man closed his eyes, keeping the smoke inside for a long moment before exhaling and passing the pipe to Levi. “A warrior needs times such as these.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Manny cussed himself for losing his sunglasses as he squinted against the sun driving west into Lodge Grass. He drove faster than he had a right to, hoping he’d get to Sam’s house before the sun set. The last time he and Willie were there, the lights didn’t work, and Manny wanted to get another look inside before darkness overcame the sad structure.

  When he turned the corner onto Red Bird Lane, a truck sat crooked in front of Sam’s house. The F350 Ford sprouted twin exhaust pipes jutting into the air beside the cab like twin fingers flipping off the world as if it didn’t care. The truck, newer than it first appeared because of the dust and mud hiding the camouflage paint scheme, nearly concealed the exploding star, the STAR DANCER RANCH logo, adorning both doors.

  Manny parked behind the truck, sharp noises coming from inside Sam’s house as if someone were going through what few things lay piled in the middle of the floors. He reached under the seat of the Oldsmobile and cursed: he’d left his Glock in his motel room before he drove Willie to the airport in Billings.

  He eased the Oldsmobile’s heavy door shut and stepped over the fallen picket fence. He inched up to a window and shielded his eyes against the sun as he peered in. A large man hunched over the mattress on the floor. He tossed a sweat-stained pillow across the room and flipped the mattress over. Something scurried from under the mattress and disappeared somewhere behind the wall.

  Manny duckwalked under the window until he reached the front door. He grabbed the screen door and jerked it open. The door ripped from the one remaining hinge. It fell to the porch. The man jumped. “Police!”

  “Don’t shoot.” The man stood with his hands held over his head like he’d watched too many B-western movies. “I’m not armed.”

  Neither am I. “Sam give you permission to be here?”

  “Can I put my hands down? I got a bum shoulder.”

  Manny nodded, keeping one hand behind his back as if he concealed a gun there. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’d ask you the same thing. You don’t look like any of the tribal or BIA cops here on Crow Agency.”

  Manny stepped over a pile of dirty clothes as he deftly flipped his ID wallet open.

  The man exhaled as he bent to eyeball Manny’s FBI identification. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to be shitless. People often get that way when they’re caught.”

  “Caught?” The man slumped against a rain-stained wall, mold overtaking the blistering blue wallpaper hung about a century ago. He shook out a Marlboro and replaced the pack in his pocket. His hands shook as he brought his Zippo to the cigarette. Manny thought how un-Marlboro-Man this guy was, with his oversized ALL AROUND COWBOY rodeo buckle all but lost under his sagging belly. He took off his Stetson and ran a snotty bandanna around the sweatband, dropping it on boots caked dry with cow dung. He picked it up and shook it once before replacing it in his back pocket.

  Surely the Marlboro Man never smelled this bad, and Manny was trying to figure out if it was the cow crap on the man’s boots or his shirt with dark sweat stains under the arms. Or if he smelled this bad because he’d just awoke from an all-night bender with the bottle.

  “I haven’t been caught at anything,” the man blurted.

  Manny said nothing. Often, silence was his best weapon in getting at the truth.

  “I said, Mister FBI man, I haven’t been caught at anything.”

  “So you said.” Manny smiled, enjoying the man’s predicament. He had been caught at something. Manny just had to figure out what.

  The man took a can of Copenhagen from his back pocket and stuffed his lip. Manny had never seen anyone dip snuff between drags of a cigarette.

  “You stay here with Sampson?”

  The man laughed and gestured around the room with his hand. “This pigsty? Not hardly. It’s my brother-in-law’s crib.”

  “So you’re Iron Cloud?”

  He drew in a deep breath that puffed his chest out, threatening to snap shirt buttons holding his belly up. An image flew by Manny, thinking that if the man did a handstand that belly would slap him in the face. “I’m Cubby Iron Cloud.”

  Manny nodded.

  “And I’d have shit myself if you’d come in with your gun pointed at me.”

  “I did show restraint.” Manny walked the small room. Except for things being scattered about even more, the place looked as unlivable as it had the first time he was here.

  Cubby seemed to anticipate his question. “I was hunting Sam.”

  “Under the mattress?”

  Cubby’s face flushed. “I thought I might figure out where he might have gone. Chenoa needs him to sign some papers. Ranch business.”

  “So she said earlier. Selling bred heifers to Wilson Eagle Bull. You must have better things to do than make a special trip into town.”

  “Tell me about it. Chenoa . . .”

  “Got you wrapped around her finger?”

  Cubby dropped his cigarette onto the floor and snubbed it out with his boot. A couple years ago, Manny would have bent and grabbed the snipe and smoked what was left. In my smoking days. Cubby looked at Manny and forced a smile. “The only time Chenoa sends me to this dump is when she needs me to hunt up her brother.”

  “She demands and you jump?”

  “Every time.” Cubby left it hanging in the air like the stale odor that permeated Sam’s ramshackle house.

  “And you always come in here tossing things around as if Sam’s under all this trash?”

  Cubby remained silent.

  “Or were you looking for a
journal that Harlan White Bird was to auction?”

  Cubby’s head snapped around and he glared at Manny. “I don’t know anything about no journal.” He looked quickly away, and Manny knew he’d just caught him in a bald lie. Manny let it rest, keeping it in the back of his mind that Cubby wanted desperately to find Levi Star Dancer’s journal.

  “I take it you didn’t find Sam under the mattress, or piles of trash?”

  “One day they’ll find Sam floating in the Big Horn River with a point-three-oh blood alcohol content, and I won’t have to worry about him anymore,” Cubby blurted out. “But for now, it’s important I find him and have him sign the sale papers.”

  “I detect a hint of hostility toward him.”

  “They teach you to pick up on obvious shit in the FBI academy? A first-year rookie could figure out I hate my brother-in-law.”

  Manny smiled. “It’s an acquired skill. Like obeying the wife’s orders.”

  Cubby spit onto a pile of newspapers stacked beside a potbellied heat stove. “I got no choice. While Chenoa and Wilson went to God-knows-where on business, I’m stuck with the dirty jobs.”

  “Well”—Manny gestured around the room—“it doesn’t get any dirtier than this.”

  * * *

  Manny rolled over and hit the snooze button, but the jangling continued and he hit it again before realizing it was the room phone jarring him awake.

  “I didn’t get any answer on your cell so I called the front desk and asked for your room.” Manny was certain Willie smiled at him from the other end.