Death Where the Bad Rocks Live (29 page)

“That is not what I am upset about and you know it.”

“Will you let it lie for a couple hours at least?”

“How can I?” The morning sun bounced off Moses as he paced in front of Clayton. “Samuel needs you. Needs your influence right now. You could talk to the prosecutor. See if they could go easy on the boy. Cut a deal.”

Clayton propped his pack against the overhang and leaned back against it while he supported his head with his hands. “If it were just another drunk and disorderly charge, there’d
be no problem. But Samuel got himself hoary-eyed drunk and knifed that man. I’d play hell getting him out of that charge, U.S. senator or not. He shouldn’t have been liquored up at that barn dance.”

“I remember someone else getting himself drunk and on the fight at a dance some years ago. Someone that was lucky that the man he fought with did not kill him for what he did to two Indian boys.”

“That was different.”

“Was it?”

Clayton looked away. “Samuel got himself into that mess; no one twisted his arm. He went to that dance knowing he’d be the only Indian there. He went looking for trouble.”

“What else did the kid have to do with his time?” Moses sipped water from his deerskin bladder, the same water bladder he’d offered to Clayton that first wagon ride to the Charles Town Ranch. They’d come a long way together, yet they hadn’t even taken the first step as brothers should, and Moses had long ago thought of Clayton as his brother. Moses stooped to get under the overhang and dropped beside Clayton. “Your people took our land and treated us like pets. Except your people treated your dogs better than you did my people. And you have never treated Samuel properly.”

“Properly! Like you treat those scrub cows of yours?”

Moses looked to the saddle where he knew the cows wandered on the other side, looking for food and some semblance of water. “I have done what I could for those cows, but nothing helps. Think I want to ever see a living thing suffer as those critters have?”

“I might be able to help.”

“How?”

“Supplements. Cake. Hay and alfalfa. Those cattle need nourishment they’re not getting here in this damned desert.”

“Okay, then have it delivered.”

“Can’t.” Clayton shook out a cigarette. He waited until the smoke had dissipated inside the overhang to continue. “How would it look if the chairman of the Senate Indian Commission gave preferential treatment to his friend? Even if I could arrange it, it’d look like I’m buying you off. But I know a man who could do so legally.”

“Not that fat Frenchman again?”

“What’s wrong with Renaud?”

Moses kicked the dirt, and a scorpion crawled from under the dust cloud. Moses held out his hand and the creature crawled into his palm. Moses rested his hand on the rock outcropping and it scampered into a crevice. “Renaud LaJaneuse wants to get his hands on my paintings. I told him a dozen times they are not mine to give.”

“I’ve heard your argument a dozen times.” Clayton stood and flicked his butt into a clump of sagebrush. Embers shot skyward then as quickly died. He stood and dusted off his chinos. “You always say you can’t destroy them, even if the people you paint them for don’t want them. He understands that and respects your decision. The only thing he wants is for you to bring some of your paintings to New York.”

Moses chuckled. “A Lakota Picasso I think is what he called me.”

“The world deserves to know how the Lakota think of their world. There’s no better way than to let them experience the Lakota vision through your work. And your cattle might live because of it.”

Moses stood and scraped his head on the outcropping. He put his Stetson back on. “You think I would come to New York in trade for supplements for cows that will be dead by winter anyway?”

“No, I don’t.” Clayton stood and draped his arm around
Moses’s shoulder. “But you would for your own people. Renaud’s already promised food for the Oglala.”

“Let me think it over.”

“Sure, hoss. And think over another thing—the place where the bad rocks live.”

“What is to think over? We have been there…”

“I talked to this geologist friend at the School of Mines, Ellis Lawler. He’s got a notion what those rocks are.”

“Already told you they are bad. Nothing good will come out of them.”

“If what my friend says is right, good things will come out of them. For the Oglala.”

Moses looked sideways at Clayton. “What good can come out of them?”

“Jobs. Prosperity. Independence you have so long sought.”

Moses looked to the west, to the saddle that protected the rocks on the other side, as if seeing the rocks through those huge pieces of earth. There was so much to think about, with his critters fighting to survive, the sour thought of having to travel to New York with his paintings, and now, Clayton piling it on demanding to be shown the rocks. And one very pressing matter. “I will show you the place where the bad rocks live, but I cannot show you them alone.”

Clayton stepped back and looked up at Moses. “What the hell you mean, you can’t show me alone?”

“I need help guiding you.”

“Okay, get your help.”

“Not just any help. I need Samuel. Out of jail with nothing hanging over his head.”

Clayton’s jaw tightened and his lip began to quiver. “That’s bullshit! That’s blackmail. You’d blackmail a U.S. senator?”

“Absolutely.”

“Damn it.” Clayton dug a furrow into the dirt with his
boot tip. “All right. I’ll get Samuel out of that Pennington County lockup. But you have to promise to show me those rocks.”

“You sound as if you think I would go back on an agreement.”

“Just promise me you’ll show me as soon as I spring Samuel.”

Moses smiled. “We will show you. Trust me.”

“We’re headed to Cuny Table to meet up with Benny Black Fox.” The sound of the police dispatcher in the background echoed in Willie’s phone.

“We?”

“We. As in me and Janet.” Willie sounded as if he expected Doreen Big Eagle to ride up and deliver another verbal whipping.

“But Marshal Ten Bears has agreed to take us right where he found Micah’s body,” Manny said. Marshal had found Micah Crowder’s body within walking distance from his cabin this morning.

“Don’t think I’m not pissed over this. I planned to go with you, but these are orders from Acting Frigging Chief Looks Twice—orders that I take his niece along.”

“Can’t talk him out of it?”

“Not today. He’s upset that someone outbid him on that pair of Elvis boots on eBay and needs to take it out on someone. Who better than the man training his niece to be the next
tribal investigator. Shit, here she comes. Wouldn’t do to get caught talking about Uncle Leon.”

“Keep me posted.”

The line went dead, and Manny called Pee Pee. He’d meet him at the justice building and go to the scene in the evidence van. Manny knew his limitations, and his ineptness behind the wheel. He’d trade Pee Pee’s sick graveside humor for a safe ride any day.

“Come in here while Pee Pee’s warming the evidence van up.” Lumpy held his office door for Manny.

“It’s one hundred degrees. What’s to warm up?”

“Humor me.”

Lumpy shut the door and dropped into his Elvis chair. The King wrapped his vinyl arms around Lumpy, who reached over and turned off his stereo. “Love Me Tender” faded into silence.

Many waited while Lumpy fiddled with a pencil, making increasingly smaller circles on his desktop planner. The tip of the pencil broke and flew across the desk. “Willie. I just don’t know what to do with him.”

“You got him meeting up with Benny Black Fox this morning.”

“Not that. He’s not the same Willie that hired on.”

“People change.” Manny stood and poured a cup of coffee. Lumpy waived it away.

“People change, but not everyone changes for the worse. Have you seen how he wears his uniform these last months?”

“So he hasn’t time to stop at the Laundromat.”

“Laundromat? I can tell what the hell he’s had to eat for the last week by looking at his uniform shirt. And he’s got more bags under his eyes than Hillary Clinton.”

“He mentioned he’s been having a hard time sleeping.”

“You know what’s going on with him?”

Manny shrugged. He wanted to tell Lumpy that Willie was having some prostate problems, but thought better. Young Lakota men didn’t want their private lives bandied around their bosses’ offices. And he sure didn’t want to mention Willie had taken up drinking lately. “Maybe it’s the stress of training his replacement.”

Lumpy slammed the pencil on the table. “He better be able to handle stress like that or he won’t make it in law enforcement. There’s something else bothering him. I’m thinking he’s been having a hard time after his aunt Lizzy wound up in the state hospital.”

“It didn’t help any that you kept reminding him she’ll never get out of there.”

“He feels responsible.”

“And what responsibility do you have? You pushed him…”

“I didn’t force him into anything.” Manny stood and walked across the room. “He was an officer doing his job.”

“He looked up to the legendary Manny Tanno. That was enough. Then to heap insult on top, you talk down to him like he’s a rookie.”

“I don’t talk down to…”

“You talk down to everyone, mister hotshot agent.” Lumpy turned to the wall, and Manny couldn’t tell if he was smiling at his victory or angry. “Guess you have to do that when you abandon your people and go to D.C.”

“That’s about enough!”

“Or what?” Lumpy turned and stepped closer. Even though Manny had trounced Lumpy every time they’d wrestled as schoolboys, Lumpy showed no fear now. “You going to beat me again? How about you try talking down to me?”

Manny stood and walked around the desk, his knuckles whitening with each step. He took deep breaths and shoved his hands in his pockets. The hand with the cat bite shot pain
through his entire arm. “Maybe I got into the habit of talking down to my students.”

“That’s not right, either. You didn’t use to be such a condescending bastard.”

“At least you don’t mince words.”

“Did I ever?”

Lumpy had always told Manny just what he thought. It had remained the one thing Manny could count on—even though it was often painful. “I thought you wanted to talk about Willie.”

Lumpy nodded and dropped in his chair. He scooted it close to the desk so his short arms could reach across and shoved a notebook at Manny. “That lists the times Willie’s been late. And sick. And just plain not calling in when he’s supposed to be working.”

Manny looked over the list. “What explanation did he give?”

“He just shrugged. Said ‘like whatever,’ or something as vague. Even the threat of Janet replacing him for the investigator position—and I can tell you he wanted that job badly—can’t seem to snap him out of his rut.”

“How about ordering Willie to talk with a counselor?”

Lumpy shook his head. “I can’t mandate that.”

“If he worked for the bureau, we could mandate it.”

“Is that how you handle everything? Force people into it?”

One fender of Micah Crowder’s blue Catalina jutted from one side of a short hill as if drawing attention to the car’s final resting spot. “I saw it when I was out this way gathering herbs.” Marshal Ten Bears pointed to a trail adjacent to Cottonwood Creek. “You can get there along that two-track.”