Death Along the Spirit Road (26 page)
Read Death Along the Spirit Road Online
Authors: C. M. Wendelboe
“But we didn’t want anyone thinking just like you do now. We didn’t want anyone whispering that Jason was really Erica’s father, so we concocted a ruse. Jason sent money to Harvard every month, and they told Erica it was part of her scholarship.”
Elizabeth made sense, at least on the surface, but digging below the surface was something Manny did well. “I had to ask.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Your job, right?”
“Sure, my job.” He used the edge of the desk to stand. He limped toward the door and paused. “Do you remember Alex Jumping Bull?”
Blood drained from her face. “I remember him vaguely. He moved away from here years ago.”
“Moved, or disappeared?”
She shrugged. “Why?”
Manny shrugged. “His name came up, is all. Thanks, Elizabeth. And I am truly sorry for the questions.”
“I believe you are,” she said. This time she didn’t move to help him.
Manny used the wall for support. He had to cock his head to look through his good eye. People he passed in the hallway witnessed a Halloween caricature of the mummy come trickor-treating a few months early, but that was all right. With the information he had gathered the last few hours, here and at the hospital, he might not have to be around the reservation much longer for people to stare at.
CHAPTER 14
Clara stopped the car beside the curb outside Manny’s apartment.
“Pull up a little farther.”
“Why?”
“There,” Manny pointed. “I don’t want her to see me.” Desirée stood framed by the window. She hadn’t seen them yet, and Manny hoped she would continue looking the other way until he drove off.
“An admirer?”
“More like an old nightmare.”
Clara pulled the car a hundred feet ahead and stopped. She turned in the seat and faced him. “I’m not so sure about this.”
“It’ll be fine. I still got one good eye I can drive with.” He winked it, bringing sympathetic pain to the bandaged one. “I can still drive good enough,” he insisted.
“But my car. My baby. Willie said you’re not the best of drivers with both eyes working, and cracked ribs that double you over in pain every time you hit a bump won’t help any.”
“Is that all you’re worried about? Your car?”
“I’m worried about you, too.” Clara looked at Manny and leaned over the seat. Her lips brushed his cheek.
Manny felt the blood rush to his face and blurted, “What can I hit just driving the few miles to Reuben’s?”
She sighed and ran her hand over the Cadillac’s leather seats. “I guess it isn’t that far. Besides, you need someone here to sign for your new rental car when Hertz delivers it.”
Clara had put the key in the lock before Desirée realized someone was next door, and Manny drove away before she saw him.
He turned onto the highway and digested the happenings of the last few days. He needed to do some road work, to run, to get into that zone where he sorted things out. But with his injuries, all he would be able to manage was a pained shuffle, and he’d have to think without the runner’s high. He had uncovered some facts about Jason’s murder, which caused someone to run him off the road and bury a hammer in his head. Then someone, presumably the same person who failed with the hammer, struck him with the stolen truck and left him for dead. And even though there would be many people on the reservation who wanted him out of the way, all roads led to Reuben.
As Manny continued west on Route 18, he thought of the truck that rammed him. If he hadn’t stayed motionless, his attacker would have killed him, but the thing that kept invading his thoughts was the vision he’d had as he lay hurt and bleeding inside the car. He had never experienced a vision, despite Unc’s insistence that he participate in the
hanbleceyapi
. He “cried for a vision” like other Lakota boys did at puberty when they exiled themselves to pray to
Wakan Tanka
for a dream that would guide them through life. Manny had trudged through deep snow to get to the low butte in back of Unc’s house, where he’d prayed and fasted and wrapped the buffalo robe tightly around him to keep out the cold. He clutched the pipe he had made and prayed for that vision, while frigid air stung his exposed legs and ice clung to his breech clout. After the sacred four days, he was deemed worthy to enter the sweat lodge. His vision had eluded him as a boy, only to come visit him when he was a middle-aged man in a wrecked rental car.
hanbleceyapi
. He “cried for a vision” like other Lakota boys did at puberty when they exiled themselves to pray to
Wakan Tanka
for a dream that would guide them through life. Manny had trudged through deep snow to get to the low butte in back of Unc’s house, where he’d prayed and fasted and wrapped the buffalo robe tightly around him to keep out the cold. He clutched the pipe he had made and prayed for that vision, while frigid air stung his exposed legs and ice clung to his breech clout. After the sacred four days, he was deemed worthy to enter the sweat lodge. His vision had eluded him as a boy, only to come visit him when he was a middle-aged man in a wrecked rental car.
He’d drifted in and out of consciousness, unsure what the apparition wanted. Among the wails of mothers and sisters and wives, the
wanagi
had approached, its features obscured. But the pain in its twisted face cried to Manny that it needed his help. He hadn’t been able to keep awake. He had passed out in the crumpled car, certain he would never awake from his dream, certain he could never help the
wanagi
.
wanagi
had approached, its features obscured. But the pain in its twisted face cried to Manny that it needed his help. He hadn’t been able to keep awake. He had passed out in the crumpled car, certain he would never awake from his dream, certain he could never help the
wanagi
.
When he awoke in the hospital, he didn’t understand the meaning of his vision and he desperately needed a holy man’s guidance. But he was about to question the only
wicasa wakan
he knew about a murder. He couldn’t allow his personal quest for the meaning of his vision to interfere with his duty.
wicasa wakan
he knew about a murder. He couldn’t allow his personal quest for the meaning of his vision to interfere with his duty.
The FBI had hired him, trained him, and made him one of the nation’s premier investigators. He had given back far more than he had received, however, and had forsaken his heritage for his position. Duty wasn’t one of the four Lakota virtues. Even before he thought of excuses not to maintain his loyalty to the bureau, he had his answer: Uncle Marion. Duty, Unc told him, was as important as the traditional virtues. Duty is what kept a man walking when he should be crawling, crawling when he should be lying on his deathbed. Generosity, fortitude, bravery, and wisdom were the four Lakota virtues. Duty was Manny’s virtue.
Then Manny’s thoughts turned to Niles the Pile. Niles had always resented Manny’s abilities as an investigator. Assigning Manny to every Indian reservation case that came along was the Pile’s way of making things rough enough that Manny would quit, but Manny wouldn’t quit, and Niles had never had cause to fire him. Until now. If Niles gathered enough evidence that the investigation was stalling because the assigned agent was spending too much time romancing women, Manny would be down the road kicking rocks. And the Pile, and Lumpy, would have won.
Manny had no doubt Niles had been fed information from Lumpy and the media, outlining the time Manny had spent with Sonja Myers and now Desirée Chasing Hawk. He imagined Niles had some distorted visualization of Manny cavorting with more women than Caligula had. But the Pile didn’t know that Manny hadn’t been with a woman in so long that he forgot what to do if he had been.
He turned off the blacktop onto the gravel leading to Reuben’s, and the Cadillac floated over the washboard road. Manny was grateful that the car softened the bumps, and he was able to breathe without the pain stabbing his ribs every time he hit a rut. The car filtered the dust and noise and allowed him to focus on how to question Reuben. The last two times he had tried to talk to Reuben, he had been evasive, even cagey. He knew he was the target of Manny’s investigation and told Manny nothing new.
He drove by Crazy George He Crow’s. Crazy George was not there, and neither was his Buick. The OST evidence tech hadn’t finished processing it yet. Crazy George remained convinced that the tribe had stolen his car, and Manny made a mental note to speed things up.
He continued past a ramshackle shanty that was missing all the windows on the west side. With winter approaching, Manny hoped that whoever lived there was able to board up the holes against the wind and snow, but he knew that wouldn’t happen. When the snow flew in the fall, the people living there would huddle against a garbage can in the middle of the floor, burning whatever they had gathered during the summer, and pray to
Wakan Tanka
to see them through until spring. He had been there with Unc many winters, making do with what firewood they could muster before winter set in. For a brief moment, Manny’s heart sank, knowing he was powerless to help those people.
Wakan Tanka
to see them through until spring. He had been there with Unc many winters, making do with what firewood they could muster before winter set in. For a brief moment, Manny’s heart sank, knowing he was powerless to help those people.
Past the shanty, four children played with sticks in the dirt. They checked out the passing Cadillac, then returned to their games. They could have been Manny’s children, if he had remained on the reservation. Was it empathy he felt for people here? Certainly any good interrogator could empathize with people to get a confession. He wept when they wept, acted frustrated when they became frustrated. But he wasn’t about to wring any confessions from these people. They didn’t want his sympathy. They didn’t even want his empathy. Pine Ridge was smack in the middle of the poorest county in the nation, yet all its people wanted was respect.
His thoughts turned back to Desirée. He rubbed his medicine bundle and silently thanked Lumpy for taking her from him. Those kids could have been his, playing in the dirt while the old man made a run to White Clay with the little lady. Desirée had become conniving and manipulative. He admitted that even Lumpy deserved better.
He turned down Reuben’s driveway and coasted the rest of the way in, feeling the reassurance of Willie’s Glock beneath his light corduroy jacket. He stepped out of the car and eased the door shut, then walked toward the house. Reuben’s pony hung its head in a feed bucket but glanced sideways at Manny before returning to the grain. Manny shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun as he looked through the windows, but Reuben wasn’t inside, and he walked around to the back of the trailer where they’d spoken that first time. When he cleared the corner of the trailer, Reuben called out from somewhere in back.
“No need to sneak around,
kola
. I’m down here.”
kola
. I’m down here.”
Manny looked for a surveillance camera, certain Reuben must have one hidden somewhere. He walked toward the sound of Reuben’s voice, but didn’t see him.
“Down here.”
“Down where?”
“By the creek.”
Manny walked to the edge of a bank leading down to a shallow stream where Reuben tended a fire ten feet down. He squatted as he fed the fire in front of a heavy bark-and-mud covered dome: an
ini kagapi
. Past the sweat lodge a trickle of water meandered in a twenty-foot-wide stream that flowed into White Clay Creek.
ini kagapi
. Past the sweat lodge a trickle of water meandered in a twenty-foot-wide stream that flowed into White Clay Creek.
“Come down here, brother.” Reuben gestured over his back with a metal poker, then turned and added more cedar branches to the fire. Manny double-checked the position of the pistol before he picked his way down the bank. Reuben wore long shorts that stopped just below his knees. Sweat beaded on his naked chest and trickled down his legs to wet his moccasins, the wornout deerskin contrasting with the one new string. Reuben set the poker by the fire and turned to Manny, and his smile faded as he eyed Manny’s head.
“I heard you got banged up again, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“How did you hear about it?”
“Drums.”
Willie had said the same thing about the information highway here on the reservation. “You got no enemies here. Come sit for a bit while I finish preparations.”
“For what?”
Reuben laughed. “It has been a long time since you been home. We’re going to sweat.”
“I don’t have time for that. We need to talk.”
“About things that happened here on the rez before you came? And things that’s happened since?”
Manny nodded.
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