White Ghost Ridge

by Carol Coffey

  “The same day that the braves shot the wagon train, an illness began to spread across the reservation. Our people thought the White Ghost had put a curse on them and felt that the spirits had abandoned them because they believed that illness can only enter the body if it is not protected by the spirits. Soon the old and very young began to die. Offerings were made but more and more of our people died until only the very strong were alive. Wanduta’s younger brother Eyota knew it was not because of a curse. He told his father, Red Cloud, that some of the soldiers at Wounded Knee had been ill and their people who survived the attack had returned to Pine Ridge and had spread the disease on the reservation. But Red Cloud did not believe Eyota and sided with Wanduta. He said the spirits had spoken to him and that the illness was a punishment for mixing their sacred blood with the blood of the white man who had no respect for the land or for their beliefs. He ordered that any woman who had been raped by white soldiers should have her male relatives kill the child when it came into the world. Some women with older mixed-blood children could not take their children’s lives so they took them into the scrub at night and made them walk into the desert in the hope that they might survive. Indian men who had taken white wives drove them out of the reservation and abandoned them. Wanduta enforced this rule when he became chief until his death and it was carried on by his son. Some of the old folk in Pine Ridge believe in that curse to this day.”

  Locklear pondered this for a moment. “You said this guy was an antique dealer in Rapid City?”

  “Yeah. I remember because the article said he sold a lot of Native crafts in his store. Worked closely with the Native population. Guess he didn’t hold a grudge.”

  “Hmmm,” Locklear replied as he got to his feet. He put out his hand. “It’s been good seeing you, Grass.”

  Eddie stood and took Locklear’s hand. “You too. Make sure you check in with the local cops. Let them know you’re in town looking into something. Better that way.”

  “Sure.”

  Locklear walked to his car and waved before he sat in.

  He turned and followed the dark lonely road back to Route 18 where he swung a right towards Oglala and onwards to the Prairie Winds Motel where he would spend the night. Tomorrow he would drive to Pine Ridge and follow up on the leads Grass had given him. He had a lot to tell Mendoza and was looking forward to updating her. He slowed the car as he turned into the motel and checked into his unremarkable room. He wondered if the mounting cost of his and Mendoza’s unauthorised investigation would be covered by the station when Kowalski returned. He showered and shaved and lay on his bed, wondering what Mendoza was doing right now.

  Tomorrow he would go to Pine Ridge. Tomorrow he would find Jim Hunter and the pieces of the puzzle would begin to fall into place.

  Exhaustion overwhelmed him and he fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 20

  Mendoza reached out from her bed to stop the shrill buzz coming from somewhere in her hotel room. She felt around the top of the bedside locker for an alarm clock. When she found nothing that she could silence, she pulled a pillow over her throbbing head and cringed as memories of what had happened the night before came rushing back. She groaned at flashing images of a hotel reception worker holding her up while a female security guard searched her purse to see what room she was checked into.

  She felt her body to check that she was still fully clothed and was relieved to find that the security guard had obviously just placed her face down on the bed and left her to sleep off the copious amounts of alcohol she had consumed.

  Mendoza had no idea how she had even got back to the hotel. A fuzzy image of her looking for her shoe on the pavement surfaced and then the face of a man who had tried to help her to stand while she vomited into a street bin. Mendoza lifted the pillow and looked at the carpeted hotel-room floor which revealed only one gold shoe. She moaned out loud at the spectacle she must have made of herself. She swallowed. Her throat was dry and she could smell vomit in her hair. Then she remembered Ann, the beautiful woman she had spoken to, waving her finger angrily at her outside the club and her asshole brother laughing on the pavement. She closed her eyes shut as she tried to remember what had brought the pleasant woman to such a frenzy of anger and sat up.

  “Oh God!” she said as she remembered.

  Ann had listened intently as an inebriated Mendoza spoke about her complex relationship with her boss: about how much he irritated her yet had taught her so much about being a good cop, but how she had found herself more recently attracted to him which had confused her and unnerved her boss who she respected and who would not welcome the feelings she had for him. Ann had her own stories, a failed marriage to her high-school sweetheart, single parenthood, work pressures, and together they laughed and cried and laughed again.

  And then Ann tried to kiss her. Mendoza put her hands to her face and took deep breaths as she remembered pushing Ann away and trying to stand. She remembered suddenly feeling like she shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be sitting with Ann. She tried to find her way out of the maze of small bars in the club which seemed more packed than it had been when she arrived and Ann followed her, looking worried. What time had it been? How long had she been there? She rubbed her temples as images flashed of her standing, or rather trying to stand outside the bar with Ann trying to hold her up.

  The noise that had been drilling into her head had stopped but started up suddenly again. She looked around for its source and realised the din was coming from her purse. She stood and stumbled across the room to the purse which was thrown onto a table outside the bathroom. She looked at the unknown number flashing on the screen and another memory surfaced. Mendoza rejected the call and put her hands to her face as she remembered the drunken message she had left on Manuel’s cell phone in the early hours of the morning, berating him for asking their son about her drinking.

  “Jesus Christ!” she screamed as the phone began to ring again.

  The caller gave up and Mendoza quickly checked her phone to see if she had made any other calls. She sat on the side of the bed and took deep breaths when she saw that she had made two other calls. One was a two-minute call to her mother which didn’t worry her too much. It wasn’t the first drunken call her mother had received from her and it probably wouldn’t be the last. The second call worried her more. The call to her boss was less than fifty seconds in duration but what she had said to him in that time or if she had spoken with him directly she could not remember. She was a fool, a stupid fool who had given her ex-husband ammunition against her and had probably said things to Locklear that were best left unsaid.

  She went to the bathroom where she vomited again and was glad that her boss was not there to witness this and have another opportunity to admonish her. She showered and ordered coffee to her room. It would be hours before she’d be able to put food into her raw stomach. When she was finished trying to wash away the shame of the night before, she replayed the messages on her phone. It was David Horowitz who had phoned twice, apologising for not being available sooner and offering to meet her that night at eight at Toscano restaurant to discuss Alec Holton. She sighed and texted the journalist, saying yes she would meet him, and giving the man a description of herself. She texted Locklear, saying she would be one more night in DC, following which she would take the next plane to meet him and hopefully finish the investigation that right at that moment seemed to be taking forever to solve.

  More than fifteen hundred miles away Locklear was already in his car, having played the 4am message from Mendoza that he would probably never speak to her about. His trooper was obviously going through a rough time and was seeing him in a light that he did not deserve or want. It was not in his best interests, or more importantly, in hers.

  He was glad that the anxiety he felt driving through the reservation was somewhat distracting him from thinking about her. He remembered how unnerved he had been the last and only time he had driven through it. He passed a pretty white Episcopal church on his r
ight on the corner of Yards Road and SD 407 and the colourful windows of the elementary school to his left which was not yet open. Locklear kept straight on SD 407, passing the Shell service station on his left and an equally pretty Catholic church on his right. The land rose up and he passed several more houses set atop redbrick foundations and small businesses operating out of rundown, dilapidated buildings. The feeling that he’d had when he came to the town as a young man returned. He shivered as he tried to shake off the sensation that he was being watched, as though a force from above was flying overhead, following his path, directing him down unknown streets.

  He instinctively turned onto Route 18 which ran through the middle of the town and served as Pine Ridge’s main street, hoping that he would find Hank Paul’s Antique and Native American craft store. As the stores and businesses thinned and the scenery changed to dry, empty fields, Locklear knew he was lost. He signalled off the highway into a large dusty lot which housed a small gas station and convenience store. The lot was empty save for a broken-down truck parked at the gable end of the store. Locklear parked at the store’s one and only gas pump and got out. He looked up at the sign over the store’s entrance which read Maggie’s Native American Gift Store, thered paint of which was chipped and faded from the hot Dakota sun.He filled up his tank as he looked around the desolate place. He noticed a car pass slowly on a steep dirt road behind the store and he wondered briefly where the road led. He shook the gas pump, placed the cap back on his fuel tank and walked slowly to the store.

  A bell rang as he opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit store. To his left, two local women pinned a photo of a teenager onto a huge notice board which was crammed with photos of other children and local news notices. One of the women was crying. Locklear wondered if the young Natives in the photos were missing and made a note to go back to the board to see what its contents might tell him about the town and its inhabitants. He looked straight ahead of him at the three rows of shelving which ran the length of the store and held dry goods and convenience foods. There were no fruit or vegetables to be seen and no hot coffee which was what Locklear wanted most. He picked up a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and a couple of donuts from a tray. He walked to a long counter which ran across the store at the end of the aisles and placed his items on it. The young Native American girl behind the counter did not look up as she scrolled through her cell phone. The girl was wearing long black braids and a traditional buckskin dress. Behind her was a narrow, open door. The remainder of the wall housed hand-made Native American weaves and jewellery.

  “Nice dress,” Locklear said as he took out his wallet.

  The girl looked up from her phone, rolled her eyes and returned to whatever social-media platform she happened to be browsing.

  “Are those rugs made here in town?” he asked.

  The girl looked behind her as though she had not noticed the items before.

  “What the sign says,” she replied sarcastically.

  Locklear stared at the girl for a moment and decided how best to leave the store with the information he wanted. He moved the items he wanted to buy even nearer to the unhappy server.

  “I’m not from around here,” he began.

  “No shit!” the girl replied.

  Locklear ignored the young girl’s attitude and persisted. “I’m looking for Hank Paul’s craft store. Would you tell me how to get there?”

  “Something wrong with the stuff we have here? He just sells the same stuff and some creepy old stuff too,” the girl snarled.

  Locklear heard a voice coming from the room behind the counter. The door opened into what he assumed were the store owner’s living quarters. It was the voice of a woman. An older woman.

  “Olowa!” the voice said.

  Presumably, Locklear reasoned, a warning for the girl to treat customers better.

  “Alright, Grandma! I know.” The young woman slammed her phone onto the counter and began scanning Locklear’s items.

  Locklear grinned as she glowered at him.

  “What do you want with Mr Pauls?” she asked as she placed Locklear’s items into a paper bag.

  “It’s business.”

  “You a cop?”

  Locklear laughed. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Kinda. What’s your name?”

  “Detective Sergeant Locklear.”

  The girl shrugged and took the money Locklear held out to her.

  “Go back up three blocks. Take the second left past the pizza place. His store is green. It’s kind of a dump. We got much better stuff here.” She had raised her voice, no doubt hoping her grandmother would hear her improved customer-service skills.

  A motorbike pulled up outside the store. Locklear watched as a young man took his helmet off and waved in to the store assistant.

  “Grandma, that’s all I can help you today!” the girl yelled as she pulled the buckskin dress over her head and threw it underneath the counter. Underneath the dress she wore tight blue jeans and an even tighter white T-shirt. Locklear laughed as she then pulled the wig of long braids off her head revealing a short, modern haircut.

  “Have a nice day!” she said as she escaped from the behind the counter.

  As Locklear made his way back to the front of the store he was disappointed to find that the two women were still standing in front of the noticeboard. The younger of the two was being comforted by the older who had placed her arm around her companion. He took a quick look at the board which was filled with photographs of Native American teenagers, but found the women soon moved their focus from the photo of the teenage boy to him. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet and decided he’d try to return later to see what information the board might hold.

  He walked to his car and placed his purchases on the passenger seat, then went around to the other side. He found himself looking upwards once again at the road which ran behind the store. When he looked back at the store front, he noticed a Native woman staring at him. She was not one of the women who had been blocking his access to the noticeboard and there had been no-one else in the store. He wondered if she was the woman who had admonished her granddaughter from the room behind the store counter. There was something about her that struck him and he stood rooted to the spot, looking back at her. Her lips moved but she was too far away for him to hear what she had said.

  He opened his car door, sat into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine. As he drove out of the lot and turned back in the direction he had come from, the woman was still standing in the same spot, staring at him.

  “Mendoza, I just scared another Native!” he said aloud even though his trooper was a long way away from Pine Ridge.

  Five minutes later he pulled up at Hank Paul’s Antique and Craft Store. The young Native’s directions had been good – and she was right – the store looked like a dump. He opened the door and walked in. It was stifling hot, incredibly small and held only a small amount of goods. He wandered about, picking up the items for sale, none of which cost more than $20. He wondered how the guy made a living selling what looked like junk. Olowa was also right about her grandmother’s store having better stuff for sale.

  When he had seen pretty much everything, Locklear waited for another five minutes. “Mr Paul?” he then called towards the beaded curtain which hung to the side of the counter. There was no answer.

  Locklear dug his hands into his pockets and began to look at the photos on the wall. They were mostly prints of Native Americans in traditional dress which tourists obviously had an interest in buying. He spotted an old photo of a young Native American man standing beside Robert Kennedy on the reservation. Beside it was another photo of the same man, now elderly, with President Obama and a third photograph of the man standing in the front row of a protest group. He scanned that photo to see if Rosenberg, Sartre or Holton were there but the only face he recognised was that of Albert Whitefeather standing right beside the man.

  Another five minutes passed so Locklear left
the store and walked down the side entrance to see if Pauls was there. There was no-one in the yard. He walked down to a wood cabin at the back of the property and looked around. He knocked on the door and waited but could hear no sound coming from inside the cabin. He looked through the windows which sat on either side of the wooden door but could see no-one. One of the rooms appeared to be a library. It had a small wood-burner and an old-fashioned TV which sat on a stained black coffee table. An empty wheelchair sat in the corner of the room, its occupant nowhere to be seen. There was only one armchair in the room. Locklear moved to the second window which was a bedroom. He could see a door off to the side of the room which was closed. He wondered if it was a bathroom and if Pauls was inside. He stood back from the window and waited until he heard the sound of footsteps on the pathway behind him. He turned to find an old Native standing there with a pile of firewood in his arms. It was the man from the photos inside the store. The old guy wore two long braids, jeans and a check shirt. His chest was barrel-shaped and his face worn and withered by his advancing years.

  “Little hot for a fire,” Locklear said but the man did not answer. “Are you Hank Pauls?”

  “Han,” the man said, giving his Native name as he threw the wood onto a pile outside his front door.

  “I want to speak to you about Albert Whitefeather,” Locklear said.

  “Don’t know him.” The man dusted off his hands on his jeans.

  “Really? There’s a photo of you standing right beside him in your store.”

  Han Pauls looked Locklear up and down. He inhaled and looked away as he considered his options.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Locklear from Richmond where Whitefeather died. I know he was a member of your movement. I want to know what he did for you.”