CHAPTER 4
“Hoka hey.” Willie handed Manny a large foam cup
through the open passenger-side window.
“Hoka hey.” The steaming liquid instantly clouded
Manny’s sunglasses. He shook them in the air. That was the problem
with cheap sunglasses. He missed his Gargoyles, wherever they might
be. If he could kick himself in the ass for losing them he would.
But it was so normal to misplace them, Manny thought he should buy
them by the gross. It was hell to get old.
When the fog
evaporated from his shades, he climbed in Willie’s cruiser. KILI
out of Porcupine blared powwow music, its hard, steady drumbeat
pounding in Manny’s head: like polka music, only harsher. He looked
sideways at Willie, then at the radio. Willie turned the music down
and cleared his throat.
“Got something to
say?”
“You sure you want to
do this today?” Willie asked at last.
“I got to talk with
Reuben sometime. Better sooner and get it over with. Let’s drop by
the justice building and check for those fingerprint results
first.”
Manny sipped his
coffee and his glasses fogged again. As they pulled into the
parking lot, Manny took them off to air them out and he saw that
the parking lot was full. Lakota Country
Times logo on the side of one car. Rapid City Journal on another. Indian Country Today on yet another. A KELO news
van was set up in front of the building, its T-whip antenna on top
assuring some reception for television watchers.
Reporters and
producers crowded around a roped-off podium in front of the justice
building. Lumpy’s head peeked above the wooden lectern in the
center. Willie had to park the car outside the fence. As they
walked toward the entrance, Lumpy pointed. “Here’s Special Agent
Tanno now.”
The crowd swarmed
them and microphones hung in Manny’s face. Reporters fired
questions, all at once. Willie shouldered his way through to make a
path for Manny. He jerked away when someone grabbed his arm. “What
the hell’s this?”
Lumpy smiled and
waved his arm across the crowd. “News conference. They’re here to
learn from the legendary Agent Tanno.”
“I can see that. Who
called them?”
Lumpy grinned. “We’ve
been inundated with questions about the progress of the
investigation. I’d field the questions, but we’re out of the loop.
It’s your investigation, Hotshot.”
“But I didn’t prep
for a news conference.”
Lumpy’s toothy grin
again.
“You’re about as
useful as a mint-flavored suppository,” Manny called to Lumpy’s
back as he disappeared into the justice building.
Manny turned to the
crowd and held up his hand. “One at a time.”
“Sonja Myers.” Her
voice was soft, faint, and other reporters quieted to listen to
her. “Have you identified the prints on the war club that killed
Jason Red Cloud?”
Manny fought to keep
his train of thought. Blond hair overfilled a Rapid City Journal ball cap and she stepped closer
to the podium. She wore her jeans a size too tight, and her shirt a
size too small.
“The prints? Can you
identify them?”
“Who told you there
were prints on the murder weapon?”
“Sources.”
“Then ask your
sources. I can’t comment on that just now.”
“Then when can I have
that information?”
Manny ignored her and
called on another reporter.
“Were you assigned
this case just because you’re an Oglala?”
“What kind of
question is that? Who are you?”
“Nathan Yellow Horse.
Lakota Country Times.”
“I was assigned this
case in part because of my background at Pine Ridge.”
“And if you don’t
find Red Cloud’s killer, your being Oglala is supposed to appease
us country Indians?”
“Nonsense,” a voice
whispered, barely audible. Sonja Myers stepped toward Yellow Horse.
“Agent Tanno’s here because he’s solved every homicide in his
career. Isn’t that so?”
Manny nodded. If eye
candy were real calories, Manny could get fat just watching
her.
“Agent Tanno
certainly has some ideas as to Red Cloud’s killer, don’t
you?”
“Nothing’s conclusive
yet.” He’d conducted enough news conferences to know how to stall,
to parry reporters’ questions, to feed them just the right amount
of bullshit to get him out of the spotlight.
A KELO reporter
pushed his way through the crowd, a camera perched on the
videographer’s shoulder like it was a parrot waiting to throw back
whatever Manny had to say. “Is an arrest pending?” The reporter’s
hair remained pasted to his head, moving not a wisp in the strong
wind. Too much hairspray. Or starch. “Will the resort go forward
now that Jason Red Cloud is dead?”
“Either way, he
leaves the rez when the case is solved.” Yellow Horse stepped
closer to Manny, and Willie stepped closer to Yellow Horse. “When
he’s done when this, he won’t care one whit about the resort or
us.”
“Of course he will.”
Sonja stepped beside Manny and turned to the crowd. “Agent Tanno is
doing the job he was assigned. He has roots here. Of course he
cares about the project over and above the homicide
investigation.”
Sonja’s hair whipped
across her face, and brushed Manny’s cheek. He drew in a breath as
he caught her essence floating by.
Two other reporters
interrupted Yellow Horse, who stepped in front of the KELO man.
Manny held up his hand as they jostled for position. “There’s
nothing I can say.” He turned to leave when someone gently squeezed
his arm. “Can I call you later?” Manny tried reading something
other than professional curiosity in Sonja’s blue eyes. “When you
have something new?”
“Of course. Call
here. The dispatcher will be able to reach me.” He didn’t trust
himself further, and hastily walked inside the justice
building.
He stopped just
inside the door and listened. Cars started and voices grew fainter.
“What the hell was that?”
“We haven’t had the
press flock here since the Wounded Knee takeover, from what Aunt
Lizzy says. We’re just not used to it.”
“We’re just lucky to
get through that unscathed.”
“You don’t know how
lucky.” Willie handed Manny a cup of coffee and led him to the
break room. “If that looker out there, Sonja Myers, had her way,
she would have torn into you. Literally. You might have been
walking around with just your BVDs.”
For a moment the
appealing thought crossed Manny’s mind but he brushed it off. A
beautiful woman tearing into him. Unlikely, unless it was to get an
exclusive on the investigation. “You can bet she has other reasons
for coming to my aid out there. Besides, I’ve got other things on
my mind this morning, like how to approach Reuben.”
Willie dropped into a
chair across the table from Manny. “What are you going to say? It’s
been thirty years since you talked with him.”
Manny shrugged. “You
know my brother?”
Willie whistled. “Who
around here doesn’t?”
“Trouble?”
Willie shook his head
and sipped his coffee. “Never. Since he was paroled from the state
penitentiary, none of our officers has had official contact with
him. He keeps to himself, spends most of his time lining up masonry
jobs for his Heritage Kids. But Reuben carries a reputation from
his AIM days that would stop a wildcat.”
Manny had researched
Reuben and learned that most of the Heritage Kids were high school
dropouts, troubled Lakota youth from dysfunctional homes, kids who
just needed a strong hand to guide them. Reuben Tanno was that
strong hand. Manny heard good things about Reuben’s kids: Many had
cast off their wild streaks and become productive. But Reuben could
not help them all, and some of his kids never changed. Some
mirrored Reuben, unable to be tamed. It brought back conversations
with Unc, how Reuben had been sent to an Indian boarding school but
ran away so many times that they gave up bringing him back.
“Reuben’s a hard worker. Or rather, he sees that his kids are hard
workers. He drives them until they’re too tired and beat to get
into trouble.”
“All their
construction contracts here on the reservation?”
“Most, because of
Reuben’s natural intimidation, as much as the quality of their
work. Even if Reuben wasn’t a ’Nam vet, people remember him from
his AIM days and he lands most contracts here.”
Manny finished his
coffee and tossed the cup into the round file. Reuben had enlisted
in the Marines when Manny was only four years old. He had missed
his brother, but Unc kept Manny’s adoration alive by reading
Reuben’s letters about actions in South Vietnam. Except for their
parents’ funeral, he had seen Reuben only once in all those years,
when he was wounded landing in a hot LZ near Hue and spent a month
recovering at home. Manny wanted to be just like him
then.
When Reuben was
discharged, he joined the American Indian Movement just in time for
the takeover of Alcatraz in 1969. Manny was only eight then, yet he
pleaded with Unc to let him join his brother. But Uncle Marion’s
disdain for Reuben had escalated with the violence and heavy-handed
tactics AIM used to enforce their ideologies, and his mood turned
foul whenever Reuben’s name was mentioned. “He’ll only end up with
a bullet in his head in some ditch, or making license plates in a
federal lockup somewhere.”
“But if I could only
see him for a little bit, just talk with him, Unc, I know he’d
listen to me. What he’s doing is good.”
“But it’s not good.”
Unc had hefted Manny on his enormous lap and spoke as a father
speaks to his child. “Their objective is right: Indian sovereignty
and Lakota rights. But their militant methods will destroy
us.”
Unc told him little
about Reuben after that, but Manny heard things whispered around
the reservation from AIM supporters: Reuben in the middle of the
AIM takeover of Mount Rushmore when Manny was ten; Reuben at the
Custer riot in 1973; Reuben in the lead of the Wounded Knee
takeover the same year. Reuben’s name had been venerated around the
reservation for masterminding campaigns that brought the government
to its knees. Even his being a suspect in several deaths on Pine
Ridge couldn’t dampen Manny’s idolization. Reuben would never—could
never—murder anyone. Especially another Lakota.
Until Billy Two
Moons’s death when Manny was fifteen. Reuben confessed that he
murdered Billy Two Moons and everything changed. People looked
differently at Manny, and Manny grew to loathe Reuben’s AIM
connections ever since. And even though he knew Reuben’s confession
was sound, that it was obtained legally and without coercion, a
small part of him believed Reuben was innocent. Killing another
Oglala to save himself, perhaps, but not murder.
“What do you know
about the Two Moons killing?”
“Jeeza. That’s
required reading with Lieutenant Looks Twice. Billy Two Moons, who
never had a pot to pee in, drove a new Chrysler 300 to deserted
China Gulch right out of Hill City. That’d be …”
“In 1976,” Manny
finished. “Same year they found Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash with a
bullet in her head.”
Willie nodded. “Rumor
was floating around back then the FBI got their hands dirty with
her murder.”
“But you know that’s
wrong?”
Willie nodded. “The
lieutenant goes out of his way to educate every new officer on that
period. ‘So history won’t repeat itself,’ he says. Lot of things
that AIM spouted back then were wrong. Lot of things came to light,
like some AIM women helped drive Anna Mae from that safe house in
Denver to where she was murdered here.”
“And Billy Two Moons
was just another AIM victim.”
Willie nodded. “Some
guy from Mitchell with a cabin back up in China Gulch found Two
Moons with five .45 slugs in him, and an open can of Pabst Blue
Ribbon in his lap.”
“And Alex Jumping
Bull, who went missing the same night, was never found.” Manny dug
deep into the mind of a fifteen-year-old boy whose love for his
brother had just been trashed.
“No one saw or heard
from Jumping Bull again,” Willie confirmed. “Even though he and Two
Moons were inseparable. There was speculation that Reuben killed
him, too, and dumped him somewhere that same night, but Reuben
never confessed to killing Jumping Bull.”
“I know.” Since
joining the bureau and teaching interviewing and interrogation at
the academy, Manny had studied Reuben’s confession so many times
that he knew it by heart. And every time he read it, something on
the fringes of his mind told him the confession was soured. Reuben
admitted to the murder with little prodding by the detectives, but
he couldn’t remember little details of the murder scene, such as
the position of the Chrysler, or the brand of beer littering the
car. Reuben told sheriff’s deputies he didn’t know such details
because it was dark, and he was drunk. Manny wanted the confession
to be bogus, because he wanted Reuben to be innocent. As a naïve
youngster, he had wanted to see his brother exonerated. As a
veteran lawman, he knew Reuben’s confession was legitimate. Reuben
was a murderer.
But now Manny was
back on Pine Ridge, close enough to his brother that those feelings
surfaced again. “Am I the only one that thinks it strange that Two
Moons would be on that dark road alone?”
“Why so strange?”
Willie opened his snuff can and took a dip. He put it in his lower
lip and rubbed the excess on his pants leg. “I go for drives all
the time by my lonesome. Nothing odd about that.”
“Do you park in the
middle of nowhere? Drinking by yourself?”
“I don’t
drink.”
“Then park with your
girlfriend?”
“I don’t have a
girlfriend.”
“All right then. The
point I’m making is a man doesn’t drive miles into the country to
sit and drink alone. Someone must have been with Two Moons. The
Pennington County Sheriff’s Office called in the State Department
of Criminal Investigation. Their evidence techs pulled Two Moons’s
prints from a beer bottle, but they also found another set on the
car-door handle. They didn’t have enough points for identification
because the prints were either rubbed or smudged. The only thing
the fingerprint tech could say with certainty is that the second
set didn’t belong to Two Moons.”
“Or the store
owner.”
“The deputies ran
that angle down. They rolled a set of elimination prints from the
liquor-store clerk in Custer where Two Moons bought the beer.
Nada.”
“How about Alex
Jumping Bull? He went missing the same time as the killing. Even
Lieutenant Looks Twice thinks that Jumping Bull was in the car with
Two Moons that night.”
Manny nodded. If
Reuben had copped to killing Two Moons, admitting to killing
Jumping Bull wouldn’t have added any more time to his sentence.
“All I know for certain is I’m no closer to nailing Reuben—if he’s
Jason’s killer—than I was this morning. Let’s drive.”
Willie slowed as he
turned onto Highway 41 toward Oglala. This road conjured
frightening memories of bodies dead in the roadway, pools of blood
drawing an army of ants on a humid summer afternoon. This road
memorialized a black culmination of the violence that was Pine
Ridge in the 1970s. Unc tried shielding Manny from the realities of
living in the poorest county of the nation, and the most violent.
But whenever Manny huddled with his school buddies, they swapped
stories about the bodies that had been found scattered around the
reservation like White kids traded rumors of their favorite sports
stars. And this road leading to Oglala was connected directly to
that violence; this road could take them to Cuny Table, then on to
Red Shirt Table if they wished.
But they wouldn’t be
driving there, as Agents Williams and Coler had been on that June
day in 1975. Williams and Coler had been ambushed on the
anniversary of Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn. Manny had
just gotten out of school that day after a wrestling meet, in which
he trounced Lumpy on the mat. Manny met some friends at Big Bat’s
for celebration burgers when the news came in: Two FBI agents were
shot to death on the road to Oglala. “Do you know we require
academy students to study the ambush of Williams and Coler to learn
how not to make a traffic stop?”
“I guess I got mixed
feelings about them,” Willie said. “No one had a right to kill
those guys, but they foolishly chased those militants into their
own stronghold in an unmarked car.”
Manny felt just the
same back when it happened. The moccasin telegraph quickly got word
around back then, and people said the agents had been harassing AIM
members. When the agents tried to stop a pickup-load of Indians,
they fled, and innocent, peace-loving Lakota merely defended
themselves against government intrusion.
Manny swore by that
version until he became an FBI agent, when the incidents would be
studied, the tactics dissected. He learned that the agents had no
chance that day. He read eyewitness accounts of the militants
shooting them so many times they couldn’t have survived, even if
help had arrived on time. Manny, the rebellious teen who wanted to
follow his big brother’s path, believed they deserved their fate.
Manny, the eager FBI agent who wanted to stand up for justice, came
to look with contempt upon those who murdered Williams and Coler.
Peltier was the only man convicted in the murders, and had remained
in jail since. Manny despised the FREE LEONARD PELTIER bumper
stickers that could still be seen on reservation cars even
today.
They crested a hill
overlooking a shallow valley with trailers on forty-acre lots.
“Which one is Reuben’s?”
Willie pointed to a
beige colored single-wide sitting past three others a quarter of a
mile away. On the east end of Reuben’s trailer, a corral jutted
out. A paint gelding stood three-legged in the intense morning
heat, his tail methodically swatting flies. Across from the corral,
a lean-to frame held wood stacked shoulder high, and smoke billowed
up from the rear of the trailer. “What’s he burning back
there?”
“Who knows with these
wicasa wakan.”
Manny turned in the
seat. “Reuben claims to be a holy man now?”
“Not claims. He is.
Like a lot of convicts in stir, he found religion behind bars. He’s
been studying with Ben Horsecreek up by Cuny Table, and most folks
hereabouts consider Reuben to be a sacred man now.”
“A holy man,” Manny
breathed. “I would never have believed it.” How does an AIM
enforcer who murders and goes to prison suddenly become a sacred
man people look to for spiritual guidance?
Dust settled around
the squad car as Willie stopped in front of Reuben’s house. “You
sure you want me to come along?”
Manny nodded. “I may
need a witness. Or at least someone who’ll keep me honest until I
see where this goes.”
Manny climbed out of
the cruiser first, and caught in his peripheral vision Willie
unsnapping his holster. Manny smiled. He was comfortable around
Willie, assured the young policeman could handle most things that
came his way, including ex-felons more than twice his age. Maybe it
was Willie’s attitude, or his size, that caused Manny to feel safe,
and he was thankful that Willie was with him.
As they walked toward
the back of the trailer, cedar smoke hung heavy in the air, pungent
yet enticing enough that Manny forgot for a moment that he came to
question a murder suspect. They walked around the corner of the
trailer, and Manny saw his brother for the first time since Unc’s
funeral sixteen years ago. Reuben sat facing a fire that crackled
and snapped from cedar and pitch pine burning. He bent over as he
worked on something, oblivious to the occasional ember that escaped
the fire ring and landed in the dirt at his feet. This is a holy man? Reuben’s sweatpants had fallen
a bit too far south, exposing his plumber’s smile. His long gray
hair was tied in a ponytail that ended midback, matted with what
appeared to be yesterday’s lunch.
They didn’t sneak
around the trailer, but they weren’t noisy either. Reuben called
over his shoulder, “I figured you’d be paying me a visit
soon.”
Manny
jumped.
Reuben stood to his
full height and faced them. He wore a dirty T-shirt that said MY
HEROES HAVE ALWAYS KILLED COWBOYS. Patches of white hair covered
his temples. He had gained forty pounds since Manny last saw him,
but he carried almost no fat. The wise old men, the nige tanka, would have said that Reuben possessed
bloka. The Big Bellies would have said
he projected the power of masculinity, symbolized by the buffalo to
describe a man’s bravery and strength. Despite his age, his eyes
remained bright and clear. And transfixed on Manny. He stepped
forward. “Hau, kola.”
Reuben’s hand
encircled Manny’s; his grip firm, though not punishing. Manny
turned Reuben’s hand over, his skin soft and supple and smooth. The
last time Manny shook his hand it displayed the deep, dry cuts of a
mason’s palm. “You give up bricklaying?”
“Naw, I still do
some. But my kids do most of the work.” He pointed to formed wet
clay shaped into a bowl glistening on a potter’s wheel. “I picked
up pottery in the slammer. Keeps me sane. And my hands soft as a
baby’s behind.”
Reuben turned to
Willie. “My little brother took my hand after all these years, but
he’s not polite enough to introduce us. I’m Reuben
Tanno.”
“William With Horn.”
Willie hesitated before he shook Reuben’s hand. Reuben smiled.
“Tribal. Good. At least you’re not BIA. Or worse, some
…”
“FBI?” Manny
finished.
“You said it, little
misun,” Reuben said. “But you didn’t
come over here to jaw about your cushy job. I hear you’ve been
assigned to investigate Jason Red Cloud’s murder.”
Reuben didn’t wait
for an answer as he turned his back and motioned to a chair and a
tree stump. Willie took the stump and Manny sat in the chair
opposite Reuben. He walked barefoot, holding a small, circular
knife in one hand and tanned deer hide in the other. He cut narrow
strips of hide and allowed them to drop to the ground while he
spoke.
“Making some
repairs,” he said. He pointed to a pair of wellworn moccasins
warming by the fire. “You guys want some tea? Lemonade? I’d offer
you something more substantial, but we all know hooch is illegal
here on the rez. Besides, I quit it for good while I was in Sioux
Falls. Never got the urge to start again.”
Willie shook his
head, and Manny ignored the offer. As he studied Reuben, he
wondered if all this posturing, all this mockfriendlessness had a
purpose. “We really don’t have time for that,” Manny said. “I just
want to know—”
“You forget your
manners since you escaped to the big city? First we country Indians
jaw a little before we get around to talking about your
investigation. It’s been so long since I saw you, little
brother.”
“Unc’s funeral.”
Manny cursed under his breath. Reuben had sucked him right into a
conversation he’d dreaded.
“That was long ago.”
Reuben picked up one of his moccasins and threaded the new string
through the top. “In all that time, you never wrote your big
brother in prison, never indicated that you cared if I was still
breathing or not.”
Willie stood and
started for the car, and Reuben rested his hand on Willie’s arm.
“Stay awhile, Officer With Horn. This bit of reservation history
might interest you.”
“I’ll wait in the
car. I’ve got some school notes to go over anyway.”
Manny waited until
Willie disappeared around the trailer before facing Reuben. “You
know damn well how I felt. It’s not every day a boy’s brother
murders another Lakota.”
“But you strutted
around your little friends because of my involvement with AIM. That
was cool back then, wasn’t it?”
“Being involved with
AIM wasn’t synonymous with murder.”
“What the hell do you
think we did back then?” Reuben put on his moccasins and stomped
his feet to feel the new string. “We weren’t exactly Boy
Scouts.”
“But you didn’t
murder.” Manny was a teenager again, pleading with Unc that Reuben
didn’t commit the terrible crime he was charged with; pleading that
Reuben didn’t kill Billy Two Moons, or Alex Jumping Bull as people
rumored.
“You may have been
suspected of killing, but I just knew you never murdered anyone.
Some other AIM, but not you. You stood up for Native rights and I
always knew you couldn’t murder anyone, especially another
Oglala.”
Reuben looked down at
him. “Didn’t we kill each other? How about the sixty-odd dead found
scattered around the rez in the years after Wounded Knee? Some died
of exposure, compliments of the booze. Some staggered onto the
highway and got themselves waffled. Wilson’s goons killed some. But
AIM was at least as responsible as they ever were.”
Tribal president Dick
Wilson’s bodyguards shadowed him wherever he went, and he needed
them. AIM swore they would see Wilson buried, and Wilson swore he
would do whatever it took to rid Pine Ridge of AIM thugs. “There
goes Wilson’s GOONS,” people would comment behind their backs. “The
mighty Guardians of the Oglala Nation.”
Manny stood and put
his hands up to shove his brother back. “But not you. I knew you
enforced AIM’s policies, and I lived with that all right. Right up
until you killed Billy Two Moons. That changed everything, Reuben.
A justifiable killing was one thing. People died because they
defended themselves. But a murder—cold and confessed. You became
like the rest of them. You shamed me and Unc.”
“Manny,” Reuben said,
his voice softened now. He took a step toward him, but Manny backed
away. “I remember when I came home for the folks’ funeral and I
held a little five-year-old boy just long enough to bury our
parents, then return to ’Nam.”
“What the hell’s that
got to do with murder?”
“You’re the only
family I got left. Sure, I confessed to the murder, and yes, I
served my time.”
“You paid the price?
Is that it?”
Reuben nodded. “I
paid a bigger price than you’ll ever know. That gated community of
the state penitentiary wasn’t exactly paradise, you know. You
forgot me. But I never forgot you. Or the pride I feel for what
you’ve become. I may publicly denounce you because you joined the
FBI, but I’m still proud of my kola.”
Manny dropped onto
the tree stump and grabbed his handkerchief from his back pocket.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and face. He didn’t want to be
Reuben’s kola. He didn’t want memories
of a time when he adored Reuben. He just wanted to solve his case
and get away from Pine Ridge. “I didn’t come here for a social
visit. Like you said, I’m here to investigate Jason Red Cloud’s
murder.”
Reuben nodded and sat
back in his lawn chair. He grabbed a pipe from his back pocket. He
filled the bowl from a Prince Albert can and lit the pipe with an
Ohio Blue Tip and tossed the match in the fire. Stalling. Manny read Reuben’s smoke ritual as
taking time to anticipate questions and have answers ready in his
mind. “All right. Ask away.”
Manny dug a small
notebook from his shirt pocket, not because he needed to refer to
his notes, but as a distraction while he gauged reactions to his
questions. “When was the last time you spoke with
Jason?”
Reuben blew another
smoke ring and shrugged. “I can’t recall.”
“Besides the argument
at Big Bat’s?”
Reuben laughed. “You
have been busy. My ears on the rez heard right after
all.”
“The argument?” Manny
asked, fishing now as he often did in interviews. He thumbed
through pages in his notebook as if he possessed secret information
that would trip Reuben.
“OK,” Reuben said. He
tamped out his pipe bowl on the side of the chair and pocketed it.
Killing time. Concocting his answer.
“Jason and I argued. His resort needed retaining walls built along
with pads for the showers and RVs. We haggled on the price, and he
awarded my Heritage Kids the contract. A few nights before he was
murdered—last Wednesday—I was in Big Bat’s when Jason came in and I
confronted him.”
“About?”
“I heard he’d given
the job to a contractor from Black Hawk, and screwed my kids out of
work. He blew me off. He said he’d thought it over, that it would
hurt the corporate image if he hired an ex-con. He laughed and said
it was just business.”
“And you were mad at
him.”
“Livid.”
“Enough to kill
him?”
“Slowly.
Deliciously.”
“And did
you?”
Reuben laughed, but
deep creases furrowed his forehead. “I got no intention of going
back to the joint. But as a matter of record, I grabbed him and
threw him against the wall by the pop dispenser. Hard enough that a
picture hanging on the opposite wall crashed to the
floor.”
“Your contacts from
the old days didn’t do you any good?”
“Not one
bit.”
As Manny sat across
from him, a deep sadness for Reuben overcame him that had nothing
to do with Reuben’s butt sagging through missing slats in the seat
of his lawn chair. It was Reuben’s choice of associating with the
likes of Jason Red Cloud and AIM back in his youth. Jason had been
there with Reuben at all of AIM’s major headline grabbers. But the
year Reuben was sentenced for the Two Moons murder, the year
Jason’s parents died in that wreck, Jason quit AIM for the easy
life of college and the family business. Even now, Reuben held a
grudge against Jason.
“Why the hell didn’t
you get an attorney and make him honor the contract?”
Reuben retied his
moccasins and flexed his foot for the feel. “A verbal contract with
an ex-con, a murderer who lined up work for a bunch of delinquent
kids? Who the hell would believe me?”
Reuben was right.
Jason’s reputation as a businessman was beyond reproach, and Reuben
would have been laughed out of any courtroom.
They looked at each
other, saying nothing, for there was nothing more to say between
them. They had rehashed the past. They had traded guilt trips.
Manny had the information he came here to get: Reuben and Jason had
argued, but for different reasons than Elizabeth thought. And
Reuben, by his own admission, had been angry enough to kill Jason,
and was quite capable of it.
Manny stood and
stretched. “One other thing: How long would it take you to drive to
Wounded Knee?”
Reuben chin-pointed
to the corral where his pony still panted in the heat. “I don’t
drive anymore, kola. Don’t even own a
car. There’s a whole lot of dangerous drunken Skins on the road to
worry about. I’ll stick to my pony. And by the by, you’re free to
come around here any time. Maybe someday we’ll patch things up,
no?”
“Patch things up? You
tell me what really happened the night Billy Two Moons was
murdered. Then maybe we’ll pass the pipe.”
“Where’d that come
from?”
“That night,” Manny
pressed. “What happened?”
“I told it all
already. Dozens of times. Billy was going to buy beer and meet me
by Hill City. When I saw him driving that fancy White-man’s car, I
knew he’d snitched for Dick Wilson or the FBI, and I just lost
it.”
“How many times did
you shoot him, big brother?” Manny had committed the information to
memory.
“Six times. Six
rounds of .45. One would have been enough, but I was always
thorough.”
“Why would Henry Lone
Wolf claim he saw you with Elizabeth that night?”
“Because he did see
me at Lizzy’s. But he was wrong on the time. I left Lizzy’s early
that night and drove to meet up with Billy. Don’t you know I would
have used Henry as a witness if I thought it could have helped
me?”
Manny always believed
something else happened that night, that Reuben was involved in
more than just the murder of a suspected AIM informant. And even
though he was still tormented by the thought of Reuben being the
murderer, reopening a thirty-year-old case to satisfy his own
curiosity wouldn’t help him solve Jason Red Cloud’s
death.
Reuben started to
speak, but Manny turned on his heels and left before he had to
listen to his brother anymore.