“Levi Star Dancer.”
“Yes. She outlived Star Dancer by many years. Shortly before her death, she asked the Indian agent at Crow Agency to send Blaise some of her personal things from the time he lived in her father’s lodge. Simple things her family was not interested in. Star Dancer’s journal was among them.”
“What was Blaise’s reaction to receiving the relics?”
More coughing. “Blaise was dead by then, but she had no way of knowing. Grandfather tossed the things in a trunk with the other Indian relics Blaise had collected, and it was forgotten by most of my family.”
“Except by you?”
Emile laughed. “I was a ten-year-old boy sitting beside a musty old trunk in his father’s attic, reading a hundred-year-old journal. I imagined I was a Crow warrior, playing Cowboys and Indians. No, Agent Tanno, I did not forget about the relics.”
“Tell me about the journal.”
“The journal.” Emile Beauchamp paused so long Manny feared the line had disconnected. When he began speaking again, Emile measured every word so Manny could understand. “Levi Star Dancer witnessed his friend—White Crow—killed by two Sioux warriors overlooking the Custer battlefield. He was indisposed at the time of the attack on his friend. Running sickness he called it.”
“Running sickness?”
“What you would call diarrhea. Star Dancer had suffered from colonic problems ever since the Sioux warrior—the same one he witnessed killing White Crow—gutshot him in a fight years earlier. It is what killed Star Dancer so young.”
“He wrote about this sickness in the journal?”
“He felt guilt that the sickness caused him to be off in the grass the moment his friend was attacked and killed. He was guilt ridden the rest of his life because he could not help his friend.”
“I can imagine.”
“And there was more,” Emile continued. “The Sioux that killed White Crow next murdered his own friend.”
“The other Sioux warrior?”
“Yes. That is what Star Dancer wrote in the journal.”
Manny thought back to Wilson’s display case, to the scalp locks that seemed to talk to Manny. Somehow, he knew the answer before asking it. “Did the journal name White Crow’s killer, the one that killed the other Sioux?”
“He wrote the man’s name many times: Eagle Bull. Seems like Star Dancer developed an obsession with him. He set out to avenge his friend many times, but Pretty Paw always stopped him.”
Manny closed his eyes, letting Emile’s revelation soak in. Eagle Bull would have rode back into camp, victorious that he had killed a Crow warrior. He would have hoisted the scalp high for all the lodges to see. He would have showed his own friend’s scalp around, his war deeds claiming White Crow had killed Eagle Bull’s friend, and he avenged his death. He would have been an instant hero. His war deeds would be told for many generations; young boys would look up to him, try to emulate Eagle Bull’s deeds.
“One thing I’m still curious about—why did Pretty Paw send her things to Blaise, when Star Dancer’s own children may have wanted them?”
“Hollow Horn Star Dancer was Blaine’s natural child,” Emile said. “You’ll read that in the journal as well.”
“So Hollow Horn knew Blaise was his natural father?”
Static over the lines. “He did. But Blaise did not know she had been pregnant when he left Crow country, or he would have stayed and honored her, I believe. But Hollow Horn never wanted anything to do with his natural father. And kept Blaise a secret all his life. Only when I read the journal did I realize Blaise had a Crow son—long after Blaise died. This bothered my grandfather, and is why my father decided to donate the artifacts to the Crow Tribe.”
Manny thanked Emile and disconnected, sitting quietly at his desk digesting what he’d just learned. The journal could harm Wilson Eagle Bull. His renowned reputation for decency, handed down through generations, would be tarnished. The sins of the father revisited the sons, or in Wilson’s case, the sins of the great-grandfather. But would that be enough to want to kill someone over? Or have someone do the killing for him, like Carson Degas? As a Vietnam Marine, Wilson had surely seen—and done—his share of killing. Perhaps one more would make little difference. Perhaps this was the real Eagle Bull curse: treachery.
And the journal revealed the half-French child Hollow Horn. Levi Star Dancer and Pretty Paw had kept the family secret. Such a child from a Crow woman and French trapper would prove Chenoa hadn’t the Crow purity she claimed. Had Chenoa found out who had the journal and arranged to have someone steal it back? Or was the information contained so damning that she arranged for Sergeant Tess’s ammunition to be switched to prevent Harlan from telling the world what it contained? Or was Harlan putting the bite on her, receiving periodic blackmail money?
Sampson Star Dancer had been an unexpected iron bar jammed in the cog of whoever wanted the journal’s secrets to remain so. Sam had read it. Sam could tell the world what it contained. And someone had strangled a man presumed to be Sam in his ramshackle house before setting fire to it.
A door slammed outside Manny’s office and he peeked out. Hard Ass Harris walked to the coffee station and grabbed the pot in passing as he headed for the watercooler. Manny eased his door closed as he flattened himself against the wall and silently made his way to the front door, escape just feet away. His cell phone beeped a message. The SAC spun around, eyes wide, a slight grin widening across his face.
“Just the man I want so see.”
Manny dropped his head and started for the ass chewing, and checked his message from Clara just before he closed Hard Ass’s door: “Get to the hospital ASAP.”
CHAPTER 25
1887
CROW AGENCY, MONTANA TERRITORY
Pretty Paw dabbed sweat from her husband’s forehead with her apron. Levi forced a smile. “Aho.” Thanks.
With one hand Hollow Horn squeezed his father’s hand, the other wiping tears from his eyes with his shirtsleeve. The boy had just turned ten, yet he was much older, having seen death many times before. Hollow Horn turned away, and Levi knew his son didn’t want his father’s last image of his son to be crying. Levi painfully sat a little higher on the pillow. He brought Hollow Horn’s hand to his parched and cracked lips and kissed the back of the boy’s hand. Even that slight movement brought pain shooting through his gut and he slid lower, flatter on the bed.
“Lay there,” Pretty Paw scolded him. “The sacred man is coming . . .”
Levi laughed, and he was rewarded with an intense pain that shot clear through his gut. “Can’t you leave me and my baachilape in peace, woman.” Levi knew that inner person that always dwelled within him, his constant companion, perched on the end of the bed. His baachilape would be with him when he traveled to the Ammilliwaxpe, west where the sun sets, west where the dead have gone. West where First Maker waited for him.
Pretty Paw’s sobs brought him around, and he patted her hand. “Even on the other side there are homes. I will be all right.”
“Lay there quiet.”
“And linger another hour?” Pain shot through Levi anew, pinning him to the feather-ticking mattress soaked with sweat from hours of agony.
His breathing came in gasps now, and sweat stung his eyes as he forced them to remain open, wanting to see his family to the end, wanting to tell the Old Ones what a blessing they had been his entire life.
Pretty Paw laid a wet rag across his head, but he brushed it away. “The journal,” he said to Hollow Horn. “Get it for me.”
Hollow Horn grabbed Levi’s possible bag from where it hung from antelope horns beside the fireplace mantel and withdrew the journal. He held it away in front of him as if, by bringing it close, some terrible affliction would consume him. Levi tried untying the thong holding the journal closed, but dropped it. He moaned in pain, and Pretty Paw untied it and took out the journal. Levi flipped t
o the middle pages and grabbed a stack of folded-up papers and handed it to Hollow Horn. “These are land deeds, and one day they will make a difference to our clan.”
Hollow Horn clutched them close and backed away as if the deeds were deeds to a gold mine. “I will keep them safe until your return.”
Levi nodded his approval and turned to Pretty Paw. “A pencil. Please.”
She reached behind his ear and grabbed a stub with just enough lead left for one entry. “What will you write, my husband?” Her sobs drowned out Levi’s grated breathing. “If you stay with us, I’ll let you teach me the White man’s words.”
Levi smiled.
“I promise I will learn.”
“I do not have time.” He patted her hand again. “The One Who Is Not Here awaits me on the other side.”
Pretty Paw stroked Levi’s head. “Do you not think the Old Ones will forgive you if you speak White Crow’s name just this once?”
He shook his head; he dared not speak, his strength was fading so quickly. He had just enough strength to wet the pencil with his tongue and make a final entry before leaving to meet White Crow, his final entry cursing Eagle Bull.
CHAPTER 26
The elevator thumbed its nose at Manny, taunting him, as it rode slow enough for a second chorus of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Christmas music in June made no sense to Manny, and he sure as hell didn’t feel merry. Clara’s text to get to the hospital had betrayed Manny as he tried sneaking past Hard Ass Harris, and Manny had been brought into his office for a closed-door session. The senior agent in charge had grilled him about his questioning of Wilson Eagle Bull. The bureau, Manny had reminded him, often stepped on toes during the course of an investigation. Manny just had to convince him toe flattening was needed in this case, and he was grateful Hard Ass had let him off with just a brief ass nipping.
He slapped the button for the fifth floor as if doing so would make the elevator go faster. “Come right to ICU,” Clara had texted again. Manny leaned his head against the elevator and closed his eyes, praying Willie’s condition had improved. He became aware of gears whining, of the elevator shaking ever so slightly as it crept upward, of the odor he had not noticed before. The odor of death? Manny shook his head to clear it. No, this was the odor of a hundred people riding the elevator today, and he had newfound respect for wee people riding elevators with smelly, gassy people.
The tiny bell brought him off the wall and he poised, the doors remaining closed long enough that Manny felt the taunt as if the machine fueled his anxiety. When it finally opened, Manny squeezed through before the doors fully opened and ran down the hall. He passed the nurse’s station, grateful the bulldog-jawed biddy that had kicked him out before was not on scowling at him from behind her magazine. The duty nurse gave Manny a curious look before she went back to charting.
Clara met Manny at Willie’s room and stepped into the hall, closing the door after her. She hooked her arm in his and led him to the waiting room.
“Willie’s come out of it and he wants to talk with you.”
“That’s great.” Manny turned to Willie’s room, but Clara held him back.
“He’s come out of it long enough to make a declaration.”
“Declaration?” Manny struggled to make meaning out of it. “Declaration of what?”
Clara’s mouth turned down and she ran her sleeve over her eyes. “His dying declaration. At least that’s what Lumpy called it.”
Dying declaration. Then Willie thinks that his death is imminent. “Dying? I thought the doctors drained the fluid in his lungs?”
“They did,” Clara muffled through her hand covering her mouth. She turned back, eyes red, regaining her composure. At least one of us has it under control. “He developed pneumonia, and the medication’s not working.”
“What do the doctors say? He’s not going to die?”
Clara squeezed Manny’s arm. “What’s important is that Willie thinks so. He’s lucid enough that he ordered the nurses to take the feeding tube out of his stomach. He’s given up.”
Manny patted his back pocket for his bandanna, anticipating his condition when he talked with Willie. If Willie intended making a dying declaration, Manny intended holding it together long enough to record it and convict the SOB that shot him.
Manny eased the door open, and Doreen stood from the chair beside the bed. She glared at Manny as she brushed past him. “He wants to talk with you alone.”
“I understand.” What Manny understood was that Willie was about to make his way to the Wanagi Tacna, and he didn’t want to travel the Spirit Road alone.
“Hell of a predicament I got myself into this time.”
Manny barely made out Willie’s whisper, and pulled a chair close. Willie’s heavy eyes, red and bleary, found Manny. He turned away for a heartbeat, breathing to control himself. He needed to maintain composure in order to get through this, but it was difficult for Manny to see his friend’s sallow, drooping cheeks. Willie had lost twenty pounds in the few days since the shooting despite the feeding tube, and Manny wouldn’t have known him in the dark.
“Doubt if I’ll get a chance to top this.” Willie coughed violently. Manny grabbed the call button but Willie waved his hand away.
“I’m all right for now.” Spittle dripped from one side of Willie’s mouth, and Manny dabbed it with a towel draped over the bed stand.
Manny patted Willie’s cold, clammy, fragile hand, Manny’s palm resting on the IV tube sticking out. He never thought he’d ever see his friend this fragile.
“I need to make a statement.”
“You of all people know Lakota tradition,” Manny said. “First we jaw a little before getting down to business.”
Willie’s eyes closed, and Manny’s heart jumped. He couldn’t tell if Willie was breathing, and only the steady beeping of the monitor above him showed he was still living. “I got no time to jaw,” he said at last. He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, and his eyes met Manny’s. “I need to make a statement. For court. When you catch the bastard.”
“There’ll be time enough for that when you get up on your feet.”
“I won’t be around to make a court appearance.” He lapsed into another coughing fit, and Manny held the towel under Willie’s chin. He slumped back onto the pillow, his breaths coming in wheezing gasps. “You need to get this asshole. Before he kills someone else.”
Manny suddenly became very proud of his protégé—putting others ahead of himself. With fortitude like that, the Old Ones would be proud of Willie. “Of course.”
Manny grabbed his notebook and pocket recorder from his briefcase. Although he rarely needed notes, this was different. These would be Willie’s final words, used to catch and convict the shooter.
“I spotted Degas coming out of Wilson’s barn in that big Dodge dually. I didn’t . . .” He started coughing, chunks of green spitting onto his bedsheets, and Manny grabbed for the call button. Once again, Willie stopped him. “I don’t want that female drill instructor coming in here and kicking you out.”
“She’s not on duty.”
“She’s always on duty.” Willie smiled for the first time, and continued. “I learned Degas was working for the Eagle Bull Ranch and waited until I saw some activity down at the bunkhouse.” Willie sputtered, coughing. Manny grabbed for a metal pan beside the bed. Willie spit phlegm into it and wiped his mouth with his hand.
“I put the binos on them. Cubby Iron Cloud was riding in the passenger seat.” Willie breathed, rasping breaths coming hard. “They got to within a hundred yards of where I was hidden and turned around. Like he forgot something in the barn.”
Manny wrote legibly. For court. “What did they do then?”
Willie closed his eyes. “They went back to the bunkhouse and parked. I was sure they didn’t spot me, but I’d been sitting there all night waiting
for Degas; I was running out of gas myself. I decided to drive in there. Talk with Degas. Arrest him if I could.”
Manny started to speak, but Willie interrupted. “I know what you and Chief Looks Twice said about confronting him alone. I messed up.” His eyes closed, and Manny quickly wrote what he had just told him. Willie remained motionless and Manny nudged his arm. Willie opened his eyes.
“I’m not sure what happened then.”
“Wilson’s foreman said the ranch hands surrounded you.”
Willie nodded. “That’s right. They started pushing me around when I told them I needed to talk with Degas.”
Manny wrote quickly. “And Cubby?”
Willie shook his head. “Don’t know. I didn’t see him after that time riding in Degas’s truck.”
Manny waited until Willie found the strength to continue. “After they let me go, I took off down Wilson’s driveway. Got a quarter mile when I saw Degas was parked across the road. Hood open. I didn’t know it was him at the time as it was a different truck than he drove earlier. I stopped. Thought someone had problems. But it was him.”
Willie slumped back on his pillow and motioned for the water glass. Manny held it up and Willie sipped through the straw. “He was friendly enough. At first. He said he’d come into the police station for an interview. But wanted to know what I wanted him for. I said he was a suspect in Harlan’s death. At the reenactment.
“He laughed. Said he wasn’t there. Said he was in jail in Hardin when Harlan was shot. I told him we had him on a camcorder swapping ammo.”
Manny flipped the page and finished writing what Willie had told him. “Maybe you ought to rest a bit . . .”
“I got no time,” Willie sputtered. “Listen, Degas started getting real agitated when I said we had proof he was in Harlan’s tent. He demanded who else knew. He was especially interested if you knew about it.”
“What did you tell him?”
Willie motioned for another sip of ice water. “I didn’t. I kept quiet. That’s when he pulled that gun from the small of his back. I knew Degas intended killing me,” Willie said, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling. “I could see it in those black eyes of his. Heartless eyes. I’m not ashamed to say he scared the hell out of me.”
Death on the Greasy Grass Page 20