Death Etched in Stone

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Bring her over.”

  “Who said it was a woman?”

  “Get the hell out!”

  “One last thing,” Manny asked, “where did you ditch the Lincoln?”

  “Screw you. I got nothing to say to you. I invoke. I want my attorney.”

  “Big brother Neville?”

  “Who else?”

  Manny stood, their interview over, and pocketed his notebook. He opened the door to leave when Tony called after him: “I’ll get out of this hospital room eventually. If I hear you’re bothering Aunt Della again, I’ll hunt you down, Mister Agent.”

  *****

  “You’re lucky I’m needing a new car,” Willie whispered into the phone.

  “What are you talking about?” Manny asked.

  “Hertz. The bridal boutique is across the street from Hertz rental. I was going to call Lander first, then thought I’d stop here. I told Doreen we needed to check out cars, and what better way than Hertz. The guy let her sit in his rentals while I asked him about anyone renting a pearl colored Lincoln.”

  “You going to tell me, or let me guess?”

  Silence on the line. “I thought Doreen was coming back into the office,” Willie said. “Anyways, they rented a pearl Lincoln to a guy the day Johnny went missing. They took a photocopy of the driver’s license for their records: Tony Charging Bear.”

  “Then I’ll contact McDonald. This would be a good federal case, but if he can tie this into Devlon Thomas’s murder . . . Where’s the car now?”

  “Back in their lot.”

  “I’ll get Rapid PD to send their evidence tech to process it.”

  “It won’t do any good. The car had been abandoned at Rushmore Mall the morning we found Johnny floating. When mall security contacted Hertz, they sent a driver over to pick it up. And they did their usual spotless cleaning. We’d be lucky to get a speck of dirt out of that car.”

  “Great. A piece of evidence like that, and we can’t use it.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Willie said. “When they popped the trunk to clean it, they found that the jack had been taken from where it normally rode. I pulled up the trunk liner and took a peek at the jack. It has the same outline as the post mortem stain on Johnny’s back.”

  “Then I’d say we got a pretty good case against Tony.”

  “Even better,” Willie said, “I found out they stuffed everything in a property bag to give back if he showed.”

  “I hate to ask, but what was in the bag?”

  “Usual stuff for a road trip: empty potato chip bag and Styrofoam coffee cup. Nothing that’d show any prints.”

  “Then that doesn’t do us any good.”

  “It does,” Willie s added. “There’s also a receipt from the Riverton Rocky Mountain Discount Sports store. For a Zebco reel, cheap fishing line, and a spinner.”

  “That I’m sure was just as clean as the one we found beside Johnny at the lake,” Manny said.

  Chapter 32

  Manny pulled into Reuben’s drive just as the sun was rising and followed the smell of wood smoke around back of the trailer house. Reuben stood in a clearing, passing smoldering sage smoke over his body with the eagle feather fan as he prayed to the four directions and Mother Earth. When he’d finished by praying to Unci Maka, he reverently returned his eagle feather back into its protective cedar case and faced Manny.

  “If you would have come earlier, you could have prayed, too.” Reuben nodded to the sun just peeking up over the horizon. “The Old Man is already dancing.” He reached out and brushed Manny’s face. He jerked back. “You said you’d gotten cut up in an accident.”

  “A little. And I told you I’d be here at sunrise. Not easy getting up this early after driving all night. I got three hours sleep before I had to get up.” Manny rubbed his neck. “It’s especially hard this early since someone tried drowning me at Thermopolis. And I had to wake Clara up.”

  “She doesn’t go to work this early?”

  “She had to make me breakfast.”

  Reuben laughed. “I guess you got her trained.”

  Manny shook his head. “It’s not that. She’s worried I’ll stop and grab a donut for breakfast. She’s worried about my diabetes.”

  “I don’t have that problem.”

  “So you keep reminding me.” Manny looked around Reuben’s back yard. “Where’s Shawna?”

  Reuben took his sweat pants off. He stood in his underwear and motioned to the dirt bank overlooking the creek that ran behind his house. “You know I’m not going to tell you where I’ve stashed her. Trust me: She’s safe. With someone I trust.”

  Manny slid on his butt down the slippery dirt to the canvas covered initipi. Manny stood in silence and in reverence as Reuben prepared the sweat lodge, which he kept erected year-round. Manny thought about what had brought him to request this ceremony. Legend Rock had kept gnawing at his guts all the way to the bath house to Ten Sleep to Tony running him off the road to his fitful sleep last night. If he didn’t get right with Wakan Tanka about what had overcome him at the petroglyphs, and in the mineral bath, it would drive him mad.

  Reuben finished scooping up hot rocks with a pitchfork. He leaned into the opening and dropped the rocks into the pit in the center of the lodge.

  Manny stripped to his underwear, the blowing snow pelting his bare legs and chest, and he wrapped his arms around himself as best he could. Reuben seemed immune from the weather, snow accumulating on his bare back as he heaped more rocks inside.

  At last Reuben finished, and he stretched his back before ducking inside the lodge. Scars from decades ago across his chest and shoulders, some from when he’d served in Vietnam and some from when he’d fought with the Minneapolis Police Department and lost, had left their lasting impression. Other scars—ones that Reuben would only say he’d gotten while he was in prison for a Seventies homicide—were scattered across his arms and stomach like a Rand McNally.

  Reuben entered the initipi first, crawling sunwise, and Manny followed. He closed the flap. Darkness engulfed the inner womb of the lodge, except for hot rocks glowing from a dirt pit in the center.

  Reuben scooped water from a pail with a buffalo horn ladle and trickled water onto the rocks. Angry steam hissed and fought its way upward, trapped by the canvas covering, and Reuben trickled more water. At first the heat felt good to Manny following the frigid waziyata blowing outside. He soon wished he was back out in the killing cold north wind. The longer he sat in the tight confines of the sweat lodge, the more difficult it became to fight to breathe, steam-filled air filling his lungs.

  Reuben said he had “winterized” his sweat lodge, and Manny rocked back and forth on that winterization: wool Army blankets laid on the dirt floor. The cold rising through the blankets from the earth below contrasted with the crippling hot air, and Manny squirmed.

  Reuben ladled more water, and on the wall of scorching steam that rose, Manny sensed motion. More water and his chest tightened. His heart raced. Hot blood pumped, temples throbbing.

  Then gradually, the figure on Legend Rock cast his rope across a vast barrier, and it landed on the other side, waiting to snare someone. Manny called to Reuben, but his dry, constricted throat let no words escape. Steam cloaked Reuben. The rock man continued rising up. Distinctly. Powerfully. Manny needed Reuben to open the flap, to let in cool air that would dissipate the image he knew existed only in his mind. Still, nothing escaped his mouth except searing air.

  Manny tried looking away, but the figure turned to face him. One of his exaggerated long fingers beckoned to Manny, calling him to join him, to be one with the petroglyph drawing that a Shoshone shaman had pecked thousands of years ago.

  Manny became aware that Reuben chanted seemingly in time with the rising steam, the ladle now resting at the edge of the stone pit. Manny’s head swirled and he leaned back, fearfu
l he’d fall over if he didn’t rest his head against the canvas wall of the lodge. The figure snapped his rope and brought it back. Snapped and brought it back. Like a fisherman playing his line. Manny felt the urge to reach out, the urge to tie the rope around his waist and follow the rock man. He would follow to the other side. But the other side of where?

  Reuben suddenly scrambled past Manny, knocking him to the floor of the lodge, and flung the flap back. Cold, refreshing air rushed inside, over Manny’s sweat covered body. Reuben took Manny by the shoulders and eased him outside. He shuddered, awakening. Reuben stood Manny up. He collapsed in Reuben’s arms, and Reuben led him up the embankment. He sat him on the tree stump and rubbed snow over Manny’s chest, his back, his neck.

  Manny trembled as the wind blew over his sweaty body, the snow whisking away the heat of the initipi. He was only vaguely aware that the rock man had vanished as Reuben was leading him into the warmth of his trailer.

  “Misun!” Reuben said, shaking him, a concerned look on his face as he sat Manny in a kitchen chair. “Come back, Little Brother.”

  Manny shook his head to clear it, gradually realizing where he was. And that he had once again escaped the clutches of the figure on the rock.

  Reuben brought Manny’s clothes, and he dressed in the kitchen while Reuben brewed fresh coffee. Manny looked over his shoulder, expecting the figure on the rock face to appear beside him, calling him again. He shuddered, this time not from the cold air, but from what he had seen inside the lodge. He slumped in the chair and pulled his boots on.

  “What did you see in there, Misun?” Reuben set a steaming mug of coffee in front Manny. He backed away for a moment, half-expecting the figure to present itself from the coffee steam.

  “What did you see that makes you tremble in fright still?”

  Manny would tell no one about his visions, for a man’s visions were a highly personal matter. But he would have to tell a wicasa wakan if he wanted to learn the meaning, and Reuben was the only sacred man he knew. Or trusted.

  He told Reuben about his experience at Legend Rock, and how he had envisioned Johnny there praying. How a shadowy figure had crept up behind Johnny with a large rock poised overhead. How Johnny’s killer had been interrupted by the tourists.

  “Who was with Johnny that day?” Reuben asked, toweling himself off. “Who wanted to kill Johnny?”

  “I don’t know,” Manny answered. “I never saw his face. But everything points to Tony Charging Bear.” He leaned into Reuben. “Just tell me: Why me? Why do I always get these damned visions, when it does me no good?”

  Reuben pulled on a hoodie and pair of sweat pants torn in the butt. “It might not get you any closer to wrapping up your case, but it does help you.” Reuben doctored his coffee with heavy cream and four teaspoons of sugar. “Your visions help you to discover who you are. This is your gift from Wakan Tanka.”

  “I’ve told you before, I know who I am. I don’t need this . . . gift.”

  “Don’t you?” Reuben asked.

  Manny wrapped his numb fingers around the coffee mug. “What do you think that figure wants with me?”

  Reuben looked out the window. He stood in silence, thinking, for a long moment before he turned back to the table. “A holy man prayed at that place, so very long ago,” Reuben explained. “His vision was the manifestation of the rock man spanning two worlds. Others have come after him and prayed there. The rock man represents the divergence of the human world from the spirit world.” He sipped his coffee delicately. “The one who recorded that vision at Legend Rock was a lot like you. The Creator overcame him, entered into him. That was his gift from Wakan Tanka. The sacred man recognized that. Just as you must recognize that.”

  “But what’s that got to do with me?”

  Reuben stood and filled their cups. He grabbed a plate of cookies and set them on the table. Manny declined at first but then thought, What the hell, if “Rock Man” gets me, at least I’ll have something in my gullet.

  “Tell me, Kola,” Reuben said between bites, “in the vision you just had, what would have happened if you had grabbed onto the tether the rock man baited you with?”

  Manny shrugged. “I guess I would have been pulled into the spirit world. If one believes such things.”

  Reuben smiled. “I think you are starting to believe more than you’d like to admit.”

  Manny objected, but Reuben held up his hand. “Perhaps if you had grabbed onto the rope, you would have been guided by the Old Ones back into the world they meant for you. Perhaps you would have been shown how to live in the Old Ways. Perhaps you would have embraced your Lakota heritage.”

  Manny nodded, and nibbled another cookie. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Chapter 33

  “How’s Shawna taking it?” Manny asked.

  “How would you take it if your love had been killed?” Chief Horn answered. “She is taking it hard. But she is young. She will bounce back, if that Bobo Groves does not find her.”

  Manny shook his head in disbelief, as much from Reuben trusting Chief Horn as from the chief propping his short shotgun behind his door. But it made perfect sense: Chief Horn and Sadie Moon had been more than just friends. Some said Shawna’s mother, Isabella, looked a lot like the chief, with her broad shoulders and the way she had hobbled around pigeon-toed, just like the chief. But unlike Chief Horn, Isabella had gotten under the influence of booze. She got waffled one night staggering back from Whiteclay. Manny suspected that the chief would have protected Shawna for reasons more personal than that he was still—in his mind—a lawman.

  Manny followed Chief Horn through the hallway of the Cohen Home to the commons area. Sadie Moon sat between two residents, a woman older than Sadie and another male elder Manny didn’t recognize. Shawna would pick a card for one of them to toss out, then turn to the other one and help her with her hand. “See,” Chief Horn beamed, “she is a natural at Hearts. Besides, who would ever think to look for her at a retirement home?”

  “I can’t argue with your logic.” Manny backed out of the room and stood in the hallway out of earshot of Shawna. “Why do you think Bobo is so set on finding her? He likely killed Nate, probably as a statement to anyone else stealing his stuff. But why Shawna?”

  “I asked her that,” Chief Horn said. “She has no clue. She just wishes Nate had not stolen Bobo’s car. She cried herself to sleep on the couch last night.”

  “Maybe she needs a distraction,” Manny said. “Like a new puppy.”

  “Like the one somebody dropped off here this morning?”

  Manny looked away.

  “I got an appointment at Indian Health tomorrow,” Chief Horn said, “and Sadie is giving me a ride there. I will give her the puppy to give to her granddaughter when this is all over.”

  “Why don’t you keep the puppy?” Manny found himself pleading with his old chief. “He’s a cutie. And you’ve always had a dog . . . ”

  Chief Horn rested his callused hand on Manny’s shoulder. “Thanks for the thought, but I really do not have time for a dog, so do not drop another off. But it will be good therapy for Shawna. If we find Bobo before he finds her.”

  *****

  Manny stopped at Big Bat’s for a tall coffee before heading home for the night. Between the long days working, and damn near drowning at the State Bath House, his muscles were catching up with him. Not to mention the air bag kicking the hell out of him after that chase with Tony. He wasn’t a spring chicken any more. Then he thought of Reuben. His brother was fifteen years older yet showed no signs of slowing down. If Reuben could compete in a Toughman Contest—and win—at his age, Manny could surely make it long enough for Clara to wrestle him across the altar.

  He sat in a booth, the convenience store nearly empty on a Tuesday night, and slowly sipped his coffee. A sudden loneliness overcame him. And something else. Jealousy, perhaps, tha
t Willie was soon to tie the knot with the one he loves. Or that Reuben never felt his age as he went about the reservation helping people connect with their Lakota spirituality. Or that Chief Horn was too busy to have time for a new puppy. Four years ago, Manny never felt these stirrings. He’d lived a contented life instructing at the FBI Academy in Quantico. Only when he had been reassigned to the Rapid City Resident Agency did he begin to doubt his life.

  That, Reuben had reassured him many times since, was how one grew.

  He flipped open his cell, loneliness requiring him to talk with someone. He found Willie’s number on speed dial and was about to hit it, when he canceled. Willie had been working long hours, too, and he needed to spend an uninterrupted night with Doreen.

  In desperation, he dialed Lumpy’s number. He picked it up at the fourth ring, and Manny could tell he was already drunk this early in the evening. “I was trying to get a hold of you, Hot Shot. All day. Where you been, hanging out with that felon of a brother again?”

  Manny rubbed his forehead to still the headache he developed every time he spoke with Lumpy. “I called to find out if Kyle Wells identified Bobo’s picture as the one who beat him?”

  “Kyle never made it to Fort Thompson,” Lumpy mumbled. “The tribal cops there have been looking for him. We put out a BOLO for him, but who the hell looks for an Indian boy wandering around South Dakota.”

  Even drunk, Lumpy’s logic rang true. Law enforcement would put out about as much effort looking for an Indian who failed to show up to another reservation as they did looking for a lost dog. “Was Joey One Feather’s dad any help?”

  “I haven’t talked with Homer yet. He was down in Chadron to the funeral home when Willie stopped by his house.”

  “Don’t mind if I go visit him?”

  Lumpy laughed on the other end of the line, and something akin to the hiss of a beer can opening came across loudly. “Since when have you ever asked to butt in? Go ahead, Hot Shot. Talk with the old man.”