CHAPTER 12
Manny ran through the
slosh and the mud and jumped into Willie’s truck. He brushed the
rain from his shirt and trousers before he took the cup of coffee
and breakfast burrito from Willie.
“This hits the
spot.”
“The rain or the
coffee?”
“Both. It’s long
overdue. The rain, that is.” Manny sipped the coffee. “You going to
a cowboy funeral or cowboy wedding?”
Willie’s powder blue,
double-breasted Western shirt fit tight against his chest. Faux
pearl buttons secured the shirt, except for the top one, which
Willie left unbuttoned to make the shirt lay open at a sharp angle
near his neck. His Wranglers were creased at least as sharp as
Lumpy’s jeans the other night, and they hung bunched at the bottom
against a pair of Justin ropers that looked a size too small for
such a large man. A tan 5X beaver Stetson poised at a self-assured
slant completed his dress, and he only needed a matched pair of
pearl-handled Colts to look the spitting image of a Lakota Tom
Mix.
Great. I’m working with Hopalong Lumpy and Willie
Mix. “You don’t have to go,” Manny said as they turned onto
Route 18. “Lumpy’d have a cow if he found out you came
along.”
“This is my day off.
Besides, one more minute lying to the lieutenant about where you
are and I’ll break down and tell him.”
Willie had called
this morning to warn Manny that Lumpy was on his trail. Niles had
talked to Lumpy and demanded he find Manny. Lumpy wanted to find
him so he could tell Niles, and so he could jump him about the
thief powder, which office rumor had it that Lumpy had proof Manny
was the perp.
“Maybe you should
call him.”
“Piss on Ben Niles.
Maybe he should catch the next flight here and see what the hell
I’ve been putting up with, see if he has any better luck than we’re
having. The one thing I’m certain of is if Lumpy finds out you
spent the day with me in Rapid City, he’ll assign you to animal
control for the duration of your career.”
“I’ll take my
chances,” Willie said, but he scooted lower in the seat until they
left the town limits. “I’m sure I won’t be in as much trouble as
you are.”
“How’s
that?”
“Here. Front page.”
Willie handed Manny the latest Lakota Country
Times. The front photo showed Manny and Sonja Myers cozying
outside the bistro in Rapid City.
“What the hell did
Yellow Horse do, follow me?”
“Must have, but it
gets better. Read it.”
Nathan Yellow Horse
quoted Sonja Myer’s recent follow-up article in the Rapid City Journal. Manny had told her information
he refused to share with other journalists. Native journalists.
Yellow Horse said Manny had given Sonja the name of the murder
suspect, and told her that Jason might have squandered the tribe’s
money.
“You read the
Journal today?”
Willie nodded. “Sonja
Myers said you told her Ricky Bell was your prime suspect, and she
quoted you saying Jason’s resort project was going
belly-up.”
Manny sipped his
coffee as he followed the story to the next page, with Yellow Horse
accusing Manny of giving inside information to a sexy White woman
that he wouldn’t share with a Lakota reporter. “That’s bullshit.
She turned my ‘no comments’ into affirmatives. She’s got it all
wrong. And so does Yellow Horse.”
“It’s your boss
you’ll have to convince, not me.”
“Great. All I need is
that prick on my ass.” Manny’s cell phone rang. He checked the
number. “This asshole got Psychic Friends on retainer? How the hell
would he know we were talking about him?”
“You going to answer
it?”
Manny put his cell
phone back in his belt holder. “Naw. Like you said, there’s not
very good reception here on the rez.”
Manny dropped Willie
off at the Rapid City Journal office.
“Humor me,” Manny said.
“But that was
twenty-some years ago.”
“The Red Clouds died
twenty-eight years ago in that car wreck, to be exact. See what you
can find. I’ll call you on my cell when I’m done.”
“But my
truck.”
“What about your
truck?”
“You have a pretty
crappy track record in the driving department.”
“It’s not that
bad.”
Willie grimaced. “If
I believe half of what the lieutenant says, you’re such a bad
driver that you’d have to go a long ways to upgrade to being called
shitty behind the wheel. No offense, but he said when he worked
with you, you wrecked more squad cars driving normal speed than all
the rest put together running code.”
“I’ve improved since
then.”
“Not by the looks of
your rental. I just don’t want my truck dinged up.”
Manny hoped his laugh
would convince Willie his pickup would be safe. “Relax. If anything
happens to your truck, you have the full backing of the FBI. Fair
enough?”
Willie nodded. He
stroked the hood affectionately, and dramatically. Manny shook his
head at Willie’s lack of faith, then pulled out into traffic and
nearly hit a passing car.
Manny drove past the
Jack First Gun Shop and Coke Plant to the Red Cloud Development
Corporation building. The front of the three-story structure would
have looked more at home in Old Deadwood than in Rapid City. The
first-floor false front depicted bawdy scenes: soiled doves waved
kerchiefs out windows to attract passing cowboys while they leaned
ample breasts over a railing. The second floor’s gunfighter mural
pit Wild Bill against a hapless victim in a street showdown. Bill
had just touched off a round and watched through black-powder smoke
as the fallen fighter bled in the street. On the top floor, Lakota
and Cheyenne warriors armed with only bows and lances fought Crow
and Pawnee braves shooting Henry repeaters.
Manny stepped inside
the building Jason had designed six years ago. Parade magazine had done a spread on it, and they
had shown off his talents well. The lobby was decorated in Old
Western motif with a scarred hardwood bar that ran the width of the
room. A mirror reflected the backside of the receptionist behind
the bar, and Manny felt his face flush. She smoothed her ruffled
lace dress, which showed off her shapely figure inside a skintight
bodice. Her hair was up in a bun, and her makeup was so heavy you
couldn’t tell if she blushed, like saloon girls of old. She leaned
forward and revealed more cleavage than a woman had a right to show
a stranger.
“Is there anything I
can help you with?” She batted her eyes, reminding him of Sonja
Myers yesterday.
“Jason Red Cloud’s
office, please.”
Her smile faded and
she pointed to the elevator. “Third floor.”
The Parade article said Jason had rescued the manual
elevator from the old Biltmore in New York. The elevator operator
played with his white handlebar mustache as he waited for a fare to
take upstairs. The building’s legend posted beside the elevator
showed the Red Cloud Corporation consumed the entire third floor.
Manny bypassed the elevator and headed for the stairs to work off
the breakfast sandwich. By the time he reached the third floor, a
bead of sweat had formed on his forehead and he dabbed at it with
his handkerchief. He sucked air, winded, but not as winded as he
was last month taking stairs in D.C.
At last Manny’s heart
rate slowed, and he stepped into the Red Cloud office. The
receptionist faced the elevator so she could greet anyone coming
off that floor. She was a Lakota half his age, and sat jotting on a
memo pad as she cradled a phone on her neck.
Manny waited,
thankful for the time to look around the office. Large photos
framed in rustic, graying barn wood hung every few feet, some
aerial shots and others close-ups. He put on his reading glasses
and looked at the captions. He recognized the Salt Lake City
Celestial, the tallest hotel on the Great Salt Lake when it was
built. The before-and-after photos showed Jason had transformed a
barren hillside into a flourishing resort.
Manny admired more
pictures showing how efficiently—almost magically—the Red Cloud
Corporation had developed land that other developers had passed up
as useless. The most recent date of any picture was six years
ago.
“Can I help you?” The
receptionist smiled easily at him.
Manny unfolded his
badge wallet. She looked first to the ID, then to Manny and handed
it back. “I’d like to talk with Clara Downing.”
“Ms. Downing is
awfully busy,” the receptionist stammered, then stopped and took a
deep breath before continuing, “I can set up an appointment for
you.”
“Is she
in?”
She shot a glance at
a door marked with Jason Red Cloud’s brass nameplate. “She’s so
busy today, with the death of Mr. Red Cloud and getting the firm in
order for auditors.”
Manny leaned over the
counter. “I’ve been calling here every day to talk with her. Now do
I need to issue a summons for her to appear at the Rapid City FBI
field office?”
She dropped her eyes
and stood. “This way, please.” She escorted Manny through an
enormous door that appeared far older than any he ever saw in a
modern building. One gouge on the door looked like a giant chain
had drug itself across the wood, leaving a deep, insulting wound.
Another scar may have come from a huge fork once imbedded in the
wood. Worms had gotten to the pith and eaten holes in random
fashion on the front of the door.
Manny stepped onto
hardwood floors, glossy and reflecting the sunlight from a row of
windows. The floors matched the door, with nail holes and gouges in
deep planks of varying shades of brown and gray. The wood had been
used hard for a hundred years before being salvaged for this
office.
One wall was paneled
with decrepit, cracked, graying barn wood. A barbed-wire display
hung on the wall, completing its Western motif. The wall opposite
the windows hosted the heads of animals: deer and antelope, black
and grizzly bears, a mountain lion bigger than any Manny had seen
on the reservation.
But it was the last
display that fascinated Manny the most. A wall-to-wall glass case
containing original Lakota artifacts stood in front of a painted
mural depicting Plains Sioux Indian life. A forty-tipi tiospaye camped along a meandering creek. Off to
the right, Indians on horseback hunted buffalo, their bows cocked
at the ready. Farther yet another group crouched low, bows across
their backs and arrows clenched in their hands, and stalked enemy
Crow warriors.
Manny gasped. Next to
the hunting scene hung an original Ghost Shirt, the brain-tanned
deerskin adorned with painted geometric patterns across the breast
and sleeves. He was no expert in Lakota artifacts, but he thought
the notation “1890” was correct. Images came to him: unarmed women,
along with the elderly and children, fleeing cavalry troopers at
the massacre of Wounded Knee. He closed his eyes and said a silent
prayer for the innocents who journeyed the Spirit Road before their
time.
Beside the Ghost
Shirt hung a quiver, which was beaded to match the shirt, the same
design that the warriors had on their backs as they stalked the
enemy. Four flint-tipped arrows jutted from the
quiver.
Manny squinted. An
original Colt Army .45 caliber revolver, the patina faded on the
case-hardened frame, dangled from an elk-horn peg beside the Ghost
Shirt. The checkering on the chipped plastic grips was worn smooth
from years of hard use, and the revolver’s front sight tilted to
one side where it had once struck something hard. Dried powder
marks caked the front of the cylinder, but it showed no rust and
looked as if it could have been picked up right there and
fired.
In the bottom of the
display, a small leather pouch sat on a driftwood shelf beside a
red catlinite clay pipe, from a Pipestone, Minnestota, quarry.
Teeth marks made perhaps a hundred years ago were deeply cast into
the pipe’s stem. A beaded turtle medicine pouch like the one Manny
carried around his neck was hanging from a rust-browned Springfield
.45-70 rifle. Manny imagined a Seventh Cavalry trooper firing it at
the Greasy Grass.
“Jason liked old
things,” a voice called out. A woman in her midthirties faced him,
tall as he was even as she leaned against the doorway with her arms
crossed. A wry smile that accentuated her high cheekbones played at
the corners of her mouth, and a single hoop earring peeked out from
behind sandy hair. Her hand thrust out from her gray pinstriped
business suit. “Clara Downing. I’ve been expecting
you.”
“Now how would you be
expecting me when you haven’t returned any of my
calls?”
“What calls, Agent
Tanno?”
“If I was one to jump
to conclusions, I’d think you had something to hide.”
“What calls?” she
repeated.
Manny took his cell
phone from his pocket and checked his outgoing calls. “I tried to
reach you here four times in the last couple days. You promised to
call me back, but you didn’t.”
Clara glanced at the
closed door and her jaw tightened. “Emily sometimes takes it upon
herself to protect me.”
“Do you need
protecting?”
“Maybe,” she grinned.
“You volunteering?”
“If it means getting
straight answers from Jason Red Cloud’s executive assistant, then
I’m volunteering.”
Clara smiled. “Then
straight answers it will be, and I’ll deal with Emily later. Now
can we start fresh?” Clara continued to smile, and her bright eyes
disarmed Manny.
“Fair enough. Manny
Tanno. You started to tell me about Jason’s collection
here.”
“Clara Downing.” She
stepped to the display case and tapped the glass with her ring
finger. She was single. “Jason was an ardent collector of all
things ancient belonging to the Lakota.” Then she paused. “I’m
sorry. I seem to have forgotten you are Lakota also.”
“No need to
apologize. Please continue.”
“Jason collected
these antiquities at great expense. The Ghost Shirt was such a
powerful symbol of the Lakota plight; it took him years to get an
old man on the Rosebud to finally sell it. And he claimed the
medicine bundle was Chief Red Cloud’s own. Jason said he had
thoroughly researched it, said the pouch wasn’t buried with the
chief there at the Holy Rosary cemetery, and he just had to have
it. He claimed that it was part of his heritage. But Jason never
was related to Chief Red Cloud, like he boasted.”
She paused. He wanted
to respond, but her beauty distracted him and he fought to come up
with something that would sound brilliant. But he
couldn’t.
“They tell me you
have an uncanny ability to look at cases objectively,” she said.
“To shuffle through the heap of information and come away with just
the right pieces that fit the puzzle.”
“Who are ‘they’
?”
Clara laughed.
“Newsweek for one. CNN for another.
They say you’re the only one who can catch Jason’s
killer.”
Manny’s face warmed.
“I landed the assignment, so I’m stuck on the reservation until I
solve the murder.”
“Is that so
bad?”
Manny shrugged. “I
didn’t leave anything on Pine Ridge that I needed to come back
to.”
He was speaking
frankly to this woman he had just met, and he checked himself. “I
take it this was Jason’s office?”
“It was.” She
motioned for Manny to sit in a black and white cowhide chair that
rested on a tattered rag rug. Manny placed his arms on stag-horn
armrests while she sat on the edge of Jason’s desk. “What do you
want to know, Manny?”
He hadn’t told her to
call him by his first name.
“You’re in charge of
the Red Cloud Corporation now?”
Clara smiled. “As
much as I have been the last five years. Jason called me his
executive assistant, but I had to be more than that. I had to do a
lot of his day-to-day paper shuffling. Office acrobatics. You know,
parry a bill collector here, fend off a paper server there. Protect
the ‘Donald Trump of the West.’ ”
“So it’s true, he had
made poor investments. Enough that he was on the brink of losing
the business?”
“He almost filed
Chapter 11 last year, but we pulled through.” She turned to her
phone and ordered coffee. “Jason was a gifted architect, but as a
businessman he was a dismal failure.”
“This is the first
time I heard that. I’d always heard he was some kind of icon for
Oglala prosperity.”
“He had his
successes, but I took the blame for any failures of the
business.”
“Even if the failure
was his fault?”
She nodded. “If
people blamed him for botched projects, they might not have faith
in future Red Cloud ventures. In the business world that Jason
inhabited, I was the assistant that screwed things up now and
again.”
“So that’s why she
thought you were inept.”
“How’s
that?”
“Nothing,” he said,
thinking back to his conversations with Elizabeth and Erica. “How
long had you known Jason?”
“Since before I came
to work for him.”
The receptionist
carried a silver serving tray into the office and set it on the
desk. Clara handed Manny a cup and cradled hers in her
hands.
“My folks ranched on
the Rosebud, on the same place my grandparents did. The Red Clouds’
ranch butted against ours, right across the reservation line in
Pine Ridge. They hadn’t been active in their ranching operation for
some years; the development business took all their time. When
Jason’s folks were killed in that car wreck, my parents helped him
settle his affairs. He had been out of college and working for the
corporation only a year when they died, so he was pretty unsure
what to do. My folks helped him through that.”
“Growing up on the
Rosebud must have been interesting for you.”
Clara nodded. “When I
graduated from Rosebud High, I was the only White girl walking down
the aisle to get her diploma. But I never felt out of place. I was
always at home there. After graduation, Jason called me and asked
if I wanted a job. I think he felt obligated to my folks and knew
they didn’t have the money for my college. I was grateful that
Jason hired me.”
Manny sipped the
coffee. “I got the feeling Jason was lucky to have someone loyal
working for him.”
Clara chuckled.
“Jason was like a big kid. He would lose his show-and-tell books
when he met with clients. He would forget appointments. He would go
away weekends to the casinos and never say when he’d return. Before
long, the business suffered. He was constantly distracted. He had a
series of failures, projects that could discredit him, all kept
hush. This Pine Ridge resort was his chance for a
comeback.”
“But how did he keep
his business problems a secret?” Manny’s cup warmed his hand, and
he felt the warmth from Clara as well. “If he had that many
failures, someone would know.”
She stood and
refilled their cups from a carafe. “Like I said before, I’d always
take the heat for his screwups. Besides, there was always that
‘legendary’ Jason Red Cloud charm. People just believed whatever he
said. Like the Jackson Hole project.”
“Tell me about
that.”
“There was no Jackson
Hole project. Jason designed the Wyoming resort to compete directly
with Teton Village. Skiing. Shopping. Five-star restaurants. But it
was just one more pipe dream to sell people on the corporation.”
She pointed to an artist’s rendition of a resort built on the side
of a mountain in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, eight miles from
Jackson Hole. “He landed some high rollers, big investors. Until he
lost his shirt on the stock market and gambling. Then the
investors—some were less than honorable themselves—threatened him.
They pressured him to come up with either the resort or their
money—with interest. That’s where the Red Cloud Resort on Pine
Ridge came in. It was Jason’s escape from a nasty situation, from
the threats he got every week.”
“Who threatened
him?”
Clara shrugged. “All
he’d say is that people had bad intentions toward him and he needed
to come up with the thirty million the tribe was going to lay out
for the resort. He claimed he’d have enough leftover after paying
off the investors to get the Jackson Hole project under way. But I
always knew there was no Jackson Hole project.”
“How could he rope
investors into something that didn’t exist, on just his architect’s
rendering?”
“That, plus the
strength of the Red Cloud name. This company has never had to
forfeit a bond in any project it promoted. But there’s more to your
investigation?”
“There is. A lot
more. Though I’m not certain where it’s leading.” Manny told her
about the artifacts that Ricky Bell stole on Jason’s
behest.
“That doesn’t
surprise me. I can see him hiring Bell to steal those items for
him, just to get his mojo back. Put himself on top once
again.”
“And Lakota
antiquities would help him get back on his feet?”
Clara nodded. “My
folks said that when Jason first started working here out of
college, the Red Clouds allowed him leeway to develop clients on
his own, get his feet wet, get a feel for what it took to become
successful. Early on he made some bad decisions, and the company
lost a bundle. But after his parents’ death, he got the hang of the
business. He always said Chief Red Cloud’s spirit was helping him
succeed. He had a string of successes that boosted the firm’s
reputation and helped expand the corporation. The Red Clouds had
built up a thriving development business, reclaiming land thought
unusable by any other developer: desert land deemed too harsh to
live in or forest acreage that no one else wanted to fight the
permitting process to acquire. When they died, Jason was the sole
heir. There is no corporation.”
Manny stood and
stretched. “How’d he handle his success?”
“People who worked
here before me said Jason was almost giddy after his parents died.
People here chalked it up to the stress of losing both parents at
once. Jason’s success and the power of the company made him
intoxicated on his own ego. But each time a project came up short
of his expectation, he’d be devastated and despondent for weeks. I
know he placed a lot of store in old artifacts, in things that he
could call upon for luck. I can see Jason praying to his collection
just to get himself back on track. Keep himself from
wandering.”
Manny’s own mind
wandered off track as he took in the beauty of the office, and
especially the beauty in front of him. He took in her primrose
perfume that suggested springtime, took in her flawless makeup,
took in the way she carried herself as she spoke. He found himself
uncharacteristically daydreaming. And got caught—
“What’s
that?”
“Is there anything
else you wish to know?” she repeated.
“What about Jason’s
associates? Anyone want him dead besides his gambling
cronies?”
Clara shook her head.
“I’ve wracked my brain over that. I can’t think of anyone, but I
might find something when I start going over his things. I have an
audit of the books scheduled in a few days.”
Manny thanked her and
had started for the door when she called after him: “Will you be in
town long? Perhaps we could catch dinner tonight.”
Manny turned and
faced her. His face warmed with a blush that he prayed wouldn’t be
obvious. He had never been asked on a date before. The thought of
dinner with Clara had earlier crossed his thoughts, before being
beaten back as improbable. “I would love to, Ms.
Downing.”
“Clara,
please.”
He smiled. “I would
like to, Clara, but I have a young tribal policeman I have to pick
up and take back to Pine Ridge. Rain check?”
She smiled back, a
warm smile that brought out even more blushing. “A rain check it
is. Now don’t let me down. I won’t eat a bite until I eat it with
you.”
Manny turned on his
heels and quickly excused himself. A lovely woman asking him to
dinner? Where Sonja and Desirée had their own agendas for coming on
to him, he could only think of one that Clara would have: She knew
more than she was telling him about Jason and the business, and
wanted to find out how much Manny knew. Still, Clara was one woman
whose company he was certain he’d enjoy. This time he bounded down
the stairs two at a time, feeling young, thinking about cashing in
that rain check soon.
Manny pulled up to
the curb outside the Rapid City Journal
office. Willie got up from the wino bench and walked around to the
driver’s side. Manny slid over and Willie started climbing behind
the wheel when he froze. He frowned as he ran his hand over the
dented fender.
Manny looked at him
and anticipated the question. “A light pole came at me a little
faster than I could avoid it. Let’s just say it was self-defense.”
Again.
“Must have come after
you pretty quick. The tire’s rubbing against the
fender.”
Manny nodded. “Get it
fixed and give me the bill. Price is no object. Your tax dollars at
work.” He forced a laugh, but Willie didn’t. “What did you find
out?” Manny asked to get Willie’s mind off the damage.
He slid the seat back
before he reached into his rear pocket for his notebook and flipped
pages. “There was a ton of info about the Red Cloud Corporation,”
he began, “but not much about Jason. I researched the date of his
parents’ accident that Verlyn Horn investigated. The Journal quoted him as claiming the brake lines had
been cut, not ruptured as they’d initially reported. The Red Clouds
came down that long hill just south of Interior and lost their
brakes and plunged off a steep ravine. They lay there four days
until a rancher found them.”
“What? I didn’t catch
that.”
“I know you didn’t,”
Willie agreed. “It’s like you’re in a dream or
something.”
If Manny were in a
dream, Clara Downing was there with him.
“I said, Verlyn Horn
was certain they lost their brakes on that steep hill out of
Interior.”
“I know the hill he
was talking about.”
“Me, too,” Willie
said. “The one before you come to Badlands Grocery. I could see
them losing control if they had a head of steam and no
brakes.”
“What else did you
learn about the accident?”
“Not much.” Willie
pinched Copenhagen between his thumb and forefinger, then offered
the can to Manny. He shook his head, and Willie put the can back in
his shirt pocket. Manny looked lovingly at the tobacco.
It could be rolled tight in a piece of paper,
and if it were dried just a little bit, it might light.
“Because the accident happened on the rez, there wasn’t much
coverage. The only reason it got written up at all is because the
victims were Red Clouds.”
“Any mention of AIM’s
involvement?”
He handed Manny a
photocopied front page of the Rapid City
Journal. Yellow marks dotted the copy where Willie had
highlighted parts he felt were important. “There was mention of the
Red Clouds opposing AIM, despite their son’s former involvement
with the organization. Why do you ask?”
Manny shrugged. “Call
it a hunch. A man should always listen to his hunches in this
business. That car wreck had AIM written all over it, just like
Jason’s murder.”
“AIM involved in
Jason’s death? They haven’t been active for decades.”
“But they’re not all
dead. There’s some holdouts still lurking on Pine
Ridge.”
“Sure, they have the
occasional AIM member run for councilman from time to time; Russell
Means made an unsuccessful run for tribal chairman a few years ago,
even made it to the primary again this year. But they’re just a
bunch of hangers-around now. Just old men playing dominoes and
wishing they had the power again like they did in the
1970s.”
Manny grabbed a piece
of gum from his shirt pocket and peeled back the foil. It was gooey
from body heat. He popped it into his mouth and licked his sticky
fingers. “Jason’s resort was to be at Wounded Knee. On sacred
ground, at least that’s the way it’s been played in the media.
Wounded Knee is sacred to AIM.”
“Most people I know
on the rez think the massacre site is sacred, too. AIM doesn’t have
a monopoly on that.”
“That’s true, but
AIM’s been more vocal about it. Some members are opposed to any
outsiders even coming onto Pine Ridge at all. They’ve pushed to ban
Whites from even watching a Sun Dance.”
“Then how did the
permits for the resort get through the tribal council?” Willie
asked. “AIM doesn’t have the muscle it once did, and I doubt the
threat of protests hold fear like it once did. But I’d have thought
there would be an uproar over allowing the project to be built on
sacred ground.”
“Economics.” Manny
reached for the radio, found powwow music faint and breaking up on
KILI, and turned it low. “People are no different here than they
are elsewhere. Jason promised prosperity for the tribe. He claimed
the resort was just the start. People got hungry, got greedy, and
the measure passed the council.”
“That brings us back
to AIM involvement.”
“So we better talk
with whatever militants are left.”
“I only know one,”
Willie said. “Reuben. He’d be the first one I’d visit
with.”
Manny agreed. “But I
better talk with him alone this time. Find anything
else?”
Willie flipped
another page in his notebook. “Sonja Myers. That’s one shark that’s
out for herself.”
Manny recalled the
softness of her voice, the way she sat close to him at the bistro.
He wouldn’t describe Sonja as a shark. Opportunistic and conniving,
but not a shark.
“The networks have
their eyes on her,” Willie continued. “She has the looks and the
education. The ability to make people tell her things, all sorts of
things. All she has to do is break one story and she’s rocketed
right out of Smallville to the big time.”
“That what
Journal people told you?”
Willie smiled. “I
found a lot of people who’d talk with me about her. Except for her
making the majors, everyone would like to see her move on—soon.
People warned me to watch her, so I’m warning you. She took things
out of context before and she’ll do so again.”
“Thanks for the
advice.” Manny settled back in the seat while his mind switched
from Sonja to Clara.
They drove out of
Rapid City past the green fields that melded into prairie grasses
as tall as antelope. Both sat quiet, and Manny was thankful for
that. He had other things on his mind: Clara Downing. She had been
something more than charming. She had allowed him to forget his
problems with Nathan Yellow Horse and Sonja Myers and Niles the
Pile and the stitches in his head and hand.
He fought down the
urge to rip the bandage off and rub his wound raw. Instead, he
concentrated on remembering his time in the Red Cloud offices.
Clara had treated him as an equal. Even though Manny had been hired
as a minority in the bureau, he had a reputation as a top
investigator and academy instructor. But he never quite lost the
feeling that people treated him as Indian first and senior special
agent second. The bureau always went out of its way to be racially
tolerant with other minority agents. Indians were treated
differently, although Manny could not exactly quantify
it.
But here where
Indians were populous, old racial biases rose to the surface once
again. Relations had improved since he’d lived here, but his Lakota
heritage was never far beneath the surface when he talked with
people. But Clara had respected him. He wanted to cash in the rain
check for dinner sooner than later.
Then Reuben pushed
thoughts of Clara aside. Though Manny never concluded a case in his
mind until he had uncovered sufficient facts, he had to admit that
Reuben rose to the top of the dung heap as the prime suspect in
Jason’s murder. Tomorrow he might have his answers from his
brother, for what happened to Jason as well as what happened to the
Red Clouds nearly thirty years ago. Tomorrow he would reinterview
Reuben.