Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Manny stepped around him, but Jamie moved to block his way. He stood a few inches shorter than Reuben, but was no less intimidating, with a head perched on neckless shoulders, the kind that could snap yours if he desired. Manny moved his jacket aside just enough that his holster was exposed, grateful that he’d remembered his gun. Manny recognized the indecision in Jamie’s eyes, a strained desire to break Manny in two for last night, and the fear of getting shot or doing hard time in doing so. Jamie dropped his eyes and stepped aside.

  Manny grabbed the door knocker, but Wilson opened the door before he could drop it. “This is getting to be a habit, you two coming out here. It’s like you’re looking for work.”

  “With these hands?” Manny held up hands so soft they could be in a Palmolive commercial.

  Wilson stepped aside to allow them in. His blue and red and black bone choker contrasted with his ivory shirt and pleated slacks, so unlike the man answering the door last night in tighty-whities, not nearly as regal-looking as he was now. A slight bulge under Wilson’s shirt hid the bandage on his arm.

  Stumper jerked his thumb at Jamie still staring at them from the porch. “He a bodyguard?”

  Wilson shook his head. “With Chenoa’s popularity and notoriety, he makes sure nuts don’t come calling.”

  “Like us?”

  Wilson said nothing.

  “We need to speak with Chenoa,” Stumper said.

  “I need to speak with you first,” he whispered, and led them into a den adjacent the kitchen. “Carson called a short time ago.”

  Manny tried to hide his excitement. How would he react when he found Degas? Would he goad him into a fight, or kill him outright? Manny thought a lot depended if Willie pulled through or not, but he drove the thought of killing another man from his mind. “Where is he?”

  Wilson shrugged. “He wouldn’t say, but I told him I needed to meet him at the ranch this afternoon.”

  “Did he agree?”

  “Sort of. He said he had things he needed to do. Said he could meet me there tonight.”

  Manny calculated the drive from Crow Agency to Pine Ridge. Degas could have been the shooter that tried killing him and Stumper last night. “He doesn’t know about your passenger?”

  “I told you, I had no passenger.”

  “What passenger?” Chenoa came into the study, transformed as Wilson had been since last night, wearing black jeans and a sheer white top with the top two buttons undone as if to distract Manny. It did. “Agent Tanno, I’m getting tired of this. I can’t do anything about the FBI, but him.” She jerked her head at Stumper.

  “He’s my driver today,” Manny said quickly.

  Her chest rose and fell nicely as she sighed. “What is it this time?”

  “Sam,” Manny answered. “We need to talk.”

  She studied him a moment. “You look serious. We better get some coffee.” She led them into the living room and nodded to chairs while she disappeared into the kitchen. “Did you find something out about Sam’s death?” Wilson asked. He bent and whispered to Manny: “She’s pretty upset about it.”

  “And have you been upset about his death as well?”

  Wilson looked away. “In life you have friends that stand with you no matter what. Sam was that friend. Once. Of course I was upset to hear he died in that fire.”

  Manny squinted, trying to read Wilson’s sorrow, but found none. Perhaps Sam wasn’t as good a friend as Wilson claimed. Perhaps he wasn’t any more upset over Sam’s death than Chenoa had seemed. Or perhaps it was that Vietnam was so far removed that Wilson no longer cared.

  Chenoa cursed at the crash of a cup, followed by water running in the sink. When she reappeared, she carried a platter with cups and a carafe of coffee. She held her cup in one hand as she sat on the arm of the couch beside Wilson and draped her arm over his shoulder. “I assume you finally found Sam’s killer?”

  Manny struggled not to smile. “You’ll be pleased to know it wasn’t Sam who died in that fire.”

  She stopped mid-sip, her mouth wide. “Then who?”

  “Might be Little Dave Night Tail,” Manny said, gauging Wilson’s reaction. He showed no more emotion than when Manny told him Sam wasn’t the burn victim. “Little Dave’s been missing four days. Or it could be any other acquaintance of Sam’s who was unfortunate enough to sleep in his bed the night the killer came to pay your brother a visit.”

  Wilson scooted to the edge of the couch. “Then Sam’s alive?”

  “He could be,” Stumper said, his mouth slightly upturned, enjoying this as much as Manny. “We haven’t found him yet, so there’s a good possibility Sam’s still alive.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Chenoa stood, coffee sloshing onto the floor. She paid it no mind as she paced in front of the couch. “If Sam’s alive, where could he possibly be?”

  Manny shrugged. “He could have felt threatened and gone underground. With his Marine experience, he could have, right?”

  Wilson nodded. “If he stayed off the sauce, he might make it in hiding.”

  “Or he could be lying dead somewhere here on the rez,” Stumper added. “Just waiting for some hapless hunter or rancher to find him rotting.”

  Chenoa set her cup down and rubbed her face that had paled the last few moments. “But Sam was identified.”

  “An ID based on probability.” Manny topped his and Wilson’s coffee cup off and motioned to Chenoa. She shook her head, and he set the carafe back onto the serving tray. “The ME positively ruled Sam out as the victim.”

  “Now what the hell am I going to do?” She stopped and faced them, once again in control, the color returning to her face. Her anger had reddened her cheeks and her eyes narrowed, focused on Manny and Stumper, the bearers of bad tidings. “I just signed papers on selling another eighty heifers, and signed lease papers on the section to the north.”

  “You sound so concerned about your brother,” Manny blurted out. “Don’t you even care where he is?”

  “Of course I care. But if he’s alive—or at least not declared dead—none of this ranch business this week will be binding.”

  Manny stood, and Chenoa stepped closer, glaring at him. “You’d better find Sam, Agent Tanno, whether he’s alive or dead. Or I will make a call to the Billings FBI office and have you replaced on the case.”

  “Promise?”

  “What?”

  Nothing would make me happier than to be replaced by another agent on Crow Agency. “We’re all looking for him, now that we learned he may still be alive. But look at the bright spot.” He smiled at her as he started for the door. “At Sam’s memorial service, you put on a good feed. And you had a lot of friends over. There’s not much that can replace good times like that.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Right after takeoff, Wilson told Manny they’d be flying at eight thousand feet at one hundred forty knots. But the only knot he remembered the whole flight was the one in his gut, twisting, churning, and twice he’d grabbed for an barfbag. And twice he’d managed to keep his supper down.

  “Now after we land, Harvey will pick me up in his truck. You stay hunkered down and he’ll never know you’re there.”

  “Like the passenger you had a couple days ago?”

  “I told you, I had no passenger. What you saw—or thought you saw—was me grabbing my duffel from the backseat.”

  Stumper had checked the reports when the BIA knew meth came onto Crow Agency to the time Wilson visited the Star Dancer Ranch. In nearly every case, Wilson was on Crow Agency during those delivery dates. Stumper argued that Wilson was dirty, that he made deliveries of drugs onto the rez for the main supplier, Carson Degas. Manny wasn’t so sure. Was he defending Wilson because he’s Lakota? But what Manny was certain of was that he could lead him to Degas. If this little aerial jaunt wasn’t a setup.

  “You ask me, it’s stupid t
o trust Wilson,” Stumper had argued. “He’s got too much to lose if you find Degas.”

  “He’s got too much to lose if I don’t. He knows if I don’t find Degas soon, the newspapers will pick it up that senatorial candidate Eagle Bull has been harboring a suspected murderer. Now think what that would do for his Senate chances against Arvid Johansson?”

  “His chances will greatly improve if you’re out of the way.”

  “If Wilson is setting me up on the Pine Ridge side, that means he’ll have to make arrangements for others privy to the investigation to be taken care of.” He nudged Stumper. “So I’d watch your ass up here as well.”

  The Cessna hit an air pocket, and Manny’s gut fought to catch up. “That wasn’t a duffel you were talking to the other night.”

  “You’re the first rider I’ve had in years.”

  “Sure.” Manny held his roiling stomach.

  “It’s true. I gave up passengers when I gave up giving flight lessons. It’d take someone special to get me to give them lessons. And to give them a ride. Count yourself privileged.”

  “You flew home for a three-hour pleasure ride, landed for ten minutes, then back to Crow Agency again that night? My money’s on you flying someone to Pine Ridge. No other reason to be on the ground only a few minutes.”

  And I don’t buy that your fund-raiser was called off in-flight. You’d have lain over in Pine Ridge.”

  “Like I said before, don’t you think Chenoa’s worth coming back for?”

  She was worth it, with her timeless beauty that took Manny’s breath—and every other man’s in the room—whenever she entered, or when he opened that tourism brochure or flipped pages on that Montana calendar. He thought of last night, when she’d sashayed down the staircase, her robe falling away revealing her negligee clinging in just the right places, making no attempt to hide herself from him or Stumper.

  Manny believed she was worth it, up until the time they gave her the news that her only brother might still be alive. Her beauty had faded as she ranted on how ranch business would be more difficult now that Sam might be alive. “Unless he’s found,” she’d said last night. “Dead or alive. Makes no difference to me.” Suddenly, Chenoa’s beauty had left her as surely as if she’d aged before his eyes, and he thanked God that he had Clara to come home to.

  The Cessna dropped a hundred feet and Manny grabbed for the air bag. Wilson laughed. “I thought you FBI guys were supposed to be tough? But don’t worry, I’m sure the worst is yet to come.”

  Manny kept his mouth tightly closed as he shut his eyes, leaning back in the seat, hoping the drone of the aircraft would settle him and override his fear of flying, like the motor drone when he was a boy. He had been four or five—he wasn’t sure, only that Reuben had been deployed to ’Nam by then. His folks had driven to Hot Springs for Christmas shopping, the steady motor of their old Pontiac driving over the expansion stripe on the highway, their slap-slap-slapping keeping time with the heavy snow, putting Manny to sleep.

  That had been his last memory of his parents before the fatal accident that sent them to an early grave and sent him to live with his uncle Marion. “Close your eyes and imagine you are on Oglala Lake with the wind gently lapping the bank,” Unc told Manny during one trip to Rapid City when Manny felt sick riding in Unc’s old pickup. “That will relax you. That will take you to other places in your mind.”

  And Manny had taught himself to relax, a skill that he used whenever the bureau flew him somewhere.

  “Let your mind calm itself and the Old Ones will speak with you later in your life.”

  “But Unc, I don’t want to speak with anyone except you. I don’t want to speak with the Old Ones. When they try to speak with me, I see scary things.”

  Unc smiled and drew Manny close to him. “One day the wisdom of the Old Ones will come to you.”

  Manny wrapped his arm around him and shuddered. “But they show me bad things . . .”

  “Not bad things.” Unc stroked Manny’s head and scooted closer to the fire. “True things. Things that you need to deal with in this life, so when you travel the Wanagi Tacanku you will meet me waiting for you.”

  “No, Unc, you won’t ever die.”

  But Unc’s image, and their conversation so long ago, abruptly ended when the Cessna hit another air pocket and Manny woke with a start.

  Wilson chuckled but said nothing, and Manny shook his head to clear his thoughts. Wilson, descendent of the Eagle Bull who had murdered his own friend, flew him into danger that Manny might not recover from. He told himself Wilson was basically a good man, and refused to believe Stumper’s theory about Wilson being in cahoots with Degas in selling drugs. Would Manny one day meet Wilson along the Spirit Road? He was uncertain, but Manny was sure he wouldn’t meet Conte Eagle Bull there, his treachery against his fellow Lakota warrior sentencing him to eternity never finding the Milky Way, never finding the Wanagi Tacanku.

  And would Wilson follow in his great-grandfather’s treacherous footsteps, setting Manny up so Carson Degas could kill him? Manny was unsure enough that he had dialed Philbilly’s phone on the way to Wilson’s plane earlier, hoping Reuben would answer. He had.

  “I thought you were going to give Phil his phone back?”

  Reuben laughed. “I told him I’m kinda getting used to this thing. I told him I’d give it back in a couple days. It must have been all right with him ’cause he didn’t argue any.”

  Manny explained he was flying to Wilson’s Oglala ranch, and asked Reuben to be there when they touched down. “Lumpy’s got no one to spare.”

  “Because it’s Wilson Eagle Bull?”

  Manny had nodded into his cell. “He says because it’s just another of my cockamamie theories. Can you put the sneak on Wilson’s ranch by the time we land?”

  “I’ll have to steal a car.”

  “What about Philbilly’s bread truck?”

  “I gave it back. It smelled like greasy Indian tacos. Besides, it was about out of gas anyway.”

  “Can you get it back?”

  Reuben laughed again. “I doubt Phil would answer any phone call from me after I sentenced him to an evening entertaining Crazy George.”

  “Well find a car. I might need you.”

  Their conversation faded as Manny became aware of a gradual descent. He sat up in his seat and looked out the side window just as Wilson grabbed the CB mic and spoke with Harvey. “I’m entering landing pattern in five minutes.”

  Lights below flicked on.

  “That where we’re landing?”

  Wilson nodded.

  “Not much to land by.”

  Wilson pulled the throttle gently toward him, the motor slowing, the nose dipping slightly. “I’ve flown this so many times I probably wouldn’t even need Harvey and the guys down there with their truck lights.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier just to install landing lights in that field?”

  Wilson shook his head. “We raise corn in that field in the off years. I’d have to move the lights to a different pasture. But sit back and relax.” He nudged Manny. “We’ll probably land safely.” The green glow of the instrument lights cast an eerie light on Wilson’s smile. “Statistically, most aviation accidents occur on takeoff or landing.”

  Manny groaned and cinched his seat belt tighter.

  “We’re on the final leg. Better climb in the back and scoot down.”

  Manny eyed Wilson. “I’d have to take off my seat belt.”

  Wilson laughed. “A seat belt’s just to make us feel good as we plow through the windshield or get crushed by the weight of the plane in a crash. It’s just for looks.”

  The nose dipped steadily down as Wilson put on ten degrees of flap. Manny scrambled into the backseat and hugged the floorboard. “Where will Degas be?”

  Wilson made a correction and the wings dipped slightly as h
e kicked the rudder to ease into a cross-wind landing. “He wouldn’t say, except that he’ll come to the house tonight. Wait the better part of an hour before you chance slipping out in case he’s hiding and watching the plane. I’ll leave the yard light on so you’ll know where to go in the dark.”

  The Cessna’s tail swung into the wind and the plane rolled onto the ground, choppy as it bounced over corn stubble and clumps of dried field dirt. Wilson eased the throttle back while he taxied to where headlights illuminated the far side of the field. “When you go in the house, skirt the steps leading up, and wait in the hall closet until you hear him.”

  “How will I know it’s him?”

  “I’ll call his name.”

  “And Harvey?”

  The plane bounced along corn stubble. “I’m sending him and the other hands in those pickups into Hot Springs. Twofers at the Legion Club Saturday nights.” Wilson eased back on the throttle, the plane moving at walking speed toward Harvey’s headlights. “And I’ll put the dog in the garage.”

  “I appreciate it, but tell me just why I should trust you? Seems like I’m trusting you with my life. Seems like I’m taking all the risks here.”

  Wilson kept his gaze steady out the window as he spoke out the side of his mouth. “You can trust me because I wouldn’t do anything to hurt that lady at Crow Agency. If scandal comes back to her, she’ll be ruined. Besides, I’m taking a big chance, too. If Carson finds out I’ve set him up, he’ll slit my throat as surely as he will yours.”

  Wilson pushed the throttle in slightly. The prop moved the plane toward the waiting headlights, and Wilson cut the power. Manny resisted the urge to fall out of the plane and kiss the ground.

  “Hey Boss,” Harvey called. He slammed his truck door and approached the plane. “I’ll get your bag?”

  “I’m good,” Wilson answered quickly and grabbed his duffel on the seat beside where Manny lay.

  He remained hunkered on the floor until he heard Harvey’s truck driving away before he took a chance. He rose from the floor enough to stretch out a cramp forming in his calf as he peeked out the window at the disappearing taillights. He grabbed his bandanna from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his face and neck, his polo shirt soaked despite the cool air. He shuddered with the realization that he’d just survived a plane ride with Wilson. Or did he sweat from fear of an Eagle Bull setup, where he would face a killer cunning and ruthless enough to get the best of Willie?