An Obvious Fact

by Craig Johnson

  “Not mine. It belongs to the mother of the accident victim.”

  Dog bounded up to Irl and nudged him with his muzzle as the sheriff rubbed his head. “A friend?”

  “Of Henry’s.”

  “Oh.”

  The sheriff disengaged himself from Dog and waved at a young deputy in a booth by the gate as we walked into the decidedly urban environment of the vehicle evidence lot. Surrounded by buildings on three sides, the fenced-in area had razor wire circling the top and myriad damaged vehicles lined up in the diagonal parking spots.

  “Did you hear about Sturgis last year?”

  “Can’t say I did.”

  “Seventy-fifth anniversary. They had over a million bikers.”

  “Sounds like a good time to spray for them.”

  He shook his head. “What’ve you got against motorcycles, Walt?”

  We walked past the cars, trucks, and SUVs to a tarped area that held a half-dozen bikes, all of them statuary testaments to the fact that the two-wheeled conveyance wasn’t such a great idea. “It’s not so much the motorcycles themselves; it’s this bogus, outlaw culture that goes along with them—the black leather, chrome death’s head crap—that I find tiresome. It’s all just fake. I’ve almost got more respect for the real outlaws than the corporate/consumerist/choreographed version, but not much.”

  The sheriff pointed toward the closest one. “Well, there’s Bodaway’s bike.”

  I studied it. “Doesn’t look that bad.”

  “Glance over here at the other side.”

  I did, and you could see where something had slammed into the motorcycle, bending all the protruding metal inward. “Wow, somebody meant business.”

  Engelhardt stooped beside me. “It’s an ’09 Cross Bones, a model they made a few years, springer front with a softail rear; they bobbed the fenders and put those ape-hanger bars on it to give it a more custom look.”

  I glanced at him.

  “Hey, I know bikes.” He stood up. “Who you got coming from Cheyenne?”

  “Mike Novo.”

  He nodded his head. “Well, Mike’ll be able to tell a lot more than you and I can.” He stared at the bent handlebars, crushed saddlebag, and mashed up floorboard. “Looks like it was broadsided.”

  I picked at the tufts of grass and dirt lodged between the bent wheels and the deflated tires. “From what I understand he went into the barrow ditch just before a culvert.”

  He clapped his hands together with a loud smack that startled me. “Bike hit that and sent the kid over the handlebars?”

  I reached a finger out and flicked at the crushed side of the motorcycle. “I’d imagine.”

  “They take him over to Rapid City Regional?”

  “Yep.”

  “How’s he look?”

  “Not so good—brain trauma.” I sighed. “I guess he woke up after six hours, but was incoherent and went unconscious again, maybe for good.” I scratched my fingernail across one of the extruding pieces of metal, held the fingernail up to my face, and studied the paint underneath.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I studied Lola’s Cadillac parked at the curb, the gold reflecting in the broad daylight.

  3

  In 1938 Clarence “Pappy” Hoel, Sturgis Indian Motorcycle dealership owner, businessman, entrepreneur, and anything-two-wheeled enthusiast, founded the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club, one of the first sanctioned organizations of that nature in America, and began the Black Hills Classic. The Classic consisted of a single race of a half mile on a dirt track with only nine participants and an audience of about the same number. The vaunted prize: beer money.

  Seeking a broader audience for the event, with the philosophy that if you wreck it they will come, the Gypsies elected to include intentional board wall crashes, ramp jumps, and head-on collisions with automobiles. The mayhem worked, and the crowds grew, with only a brief respite during World War II, when activities were curtailed by gas rationing.

  In 1961, the craziness that is the rally was elevated to a whole new level of insanity with the addition of the Jackpine Gypsies Hill Climb, where racers from all over the world partake in just what it sounds like: a race to the top of an escarpment that you probably couldn’t walk up. Over the years, the competition has escalated to the point where the bikes are modified with such things as extended travel arms and nitro-injected engines that shoot flames from their tailpipes like two-stroke blowtorches.

  The first time Henry Standing Bear attempted the hill climb, he was a high school senior and rode on his newly acquired ’63 Swedish-built Husqvarna 250 cc with the nifty red and chrome gas tank. The results were: three broken fingers, one shattered radius, a broken tooth, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a totaled bike.

  He did not win, but that didn’t keep him from continuing to try. He finally won in 1974, but one victory was not enough, and he had been trying to win it again ever since.

  If I were to catalog the bizarre things my friend the Bear has done in his life, I’m pretty sure it would make the Sears Wish Book look like a pamphlet, but the Sturgis Jackpine Gypsies Hill Climb would be listed in the section A Special Kind of Crazy.

  Henry has unique friends for his more eccentric activities, and I watched in the late afternoon’s horizontal light as Jamey Gilkey adjusted the nitro injectors on the newest brand of idiocy, a KTM 450 SX-F named Rosalie that looked more like a four-stroke rocket ship than a motorcycle.

  It was the time trials, a preliminary before the big race tomorrow. “Who was Rosalie?”

  The Bear adjusted some elbow pads on the outside of his INDIAN DUNES MOTOCROSS, VALENCIA, CALIFORNIA 1975 jersey sporting, of all things, a war-bonnet-wearing, tomahawk-swinging motorcyclist. “A woman I used to date.”

  “A woman, huh? You usually say girl.”

  “Rosalie Little Thunder was, by all accounts, a woman.”

  I turned and watched as one of the riders came unglued, as they call it, and tumbled back down the hill with his bike cartwheeling on top of him. “What was Lola?”

  Henry glanced up and watched as the combination rider/motorcycle crashed in a heap at the bottom of the hill. “That was a bad line.” Then he glanced back at me. “When I met her, a girl.”

  “Well, she’s all grown up now, with a son.”

  “Bodaway.” He considered the name, tasting it. “Apache?”

  “Yep.”

  He nodded. “The last I heard of her, she had moved to Arizona.”

  “Well, she’s got a problem, and she thinks you’re going to solve it.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re some kind of bad motor scooter.”

  He put on his old open-face helmet and tightened the chin strap. “And what is the problem?”

  “In case it slipped your mind, somebody tried to kill her son.”

  His eyes cut to mine. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yep, but there’s a twist.”

  Jamey stepped back as the Bear threw a leg over the motorcycle, straddling it for action. “With Lola, there always is.”

  I sidestepped around him and stood in front of the motorcycle so he’d have to run over me to escape. “I went to the impound lot in Rapid and took a look at the kid’s bike, and it had gold paint on it where it had been broadsided.”

  His face was impassive as he adjusted his goggles. “So?”

  I gestured toward the parking lot behind a chain-link fence, where the Caddy sat, quite prominently. “Lola’s car is gold and has damage on the right front fender.”

  He shook his head. “Have you spoken to her about this?”

  “No. When she had me at gunpoint we discussed other things—mostly you.”

  “Gunpoint?”

  “Yep, she showed up at the cabin with a .38, but then things got more conversational and I joined her in going to the h
ospital, where she was kind enough to loan me her car.”

  “The one she ran over her son with?”

  “Well, we’re still not clear on that. I figured I’d ask her about it when I return the Cadillac to the Hulett Motel later this afternoon.” I folded my arms and looked at him, still steadfastly in his way. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t seem all that interested in the case.”

  “It is a case?”

  I shrugged. “As a favor to Corbin, sure.”

  “In answer to your question, no.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, I do not mind you saying I do not seem all that interested in the case.”

  A younger rider rapped the throttle on his bike and shouted through his face shield as he pulled up in front of Henry. “You gonna give it another shot, old man?”

  The Bear showed his teeth. “‘My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.’”

  The kid studied us questioningly and then sped away, throwing dirt and gravel.

  Lowering the arm that had protected my face, I made a guess. “Obviously not an Arthur Conan Doyle fan.”

  The Bear watched him go. “Last year’s winner.” He gave the KTM a violent kick, racked the throttle a few times, and sat there, looking at me. I waited a moment, then stepped aside, gesturing toward the hill with a touch of dramatic flair and watched as, balancing on the pegs with his old Roger DeCoster boots, he sped off toward the starting gates.

  I fanned away the dust and exhaust and turned to look at the bearded man who was standing next to me. “Was it something I said?”

  He shook his head and walked back toward his truck with the tools he had gathered, throwing them in before sitting on the tailgate in preparation for the show. “It ain’t you; it’s Lola. She spins his crank whenever he gets around her.” I joined him on the tailgate of the GMC. “I’m pretty sure that if you look up ‘drama queen’ in the dictionary, the illustration is Lola Wojciechowski.”

  “Were you around when they met?”

  He laughed. “Oh, yeah.”

  We watched as the Bear spun up to the starting rack and waited for his chance to lodge his back wheel against the massive log they had chained there for a backstop.

  “Well?”

  “I’m not so sure it’s a story I should be telling. Why don’t you ask Henry?”

  “I have, and he’s not talking.” I raised an eyebrow, applying pressure.

  “You know she was a dancer, right?” He leaned back, his hands splayed on the metal. “I mean, not the Bolshoi Ballet kind.”

  “Right.”

  We watched the riders in the lineup perform as they rode their best for time, the queue slowly moving toward the end where Henry waited. One or two actually made it to the top, but most flipped out, did dramatic U-turns, or just dug into the reddish dirt, burying their bikes and themselves before casually stepping off their mounts, one even kicking his.

  “You remember that itty-bitty-titty bar that used to be out on Tilford Road, about halfway between Sturgis and Rapid—the Cattle Kate?”

  “The one they used to launder money for the mob?”

  “Yeah, that one. Well, there were about a half dozen of these guidos who were giving one of the dancers a hard time—you know, trying to drag her into one of the back rooms. Henry happened to be there saying hey to this monster buddy of his who was a bouncer, Brandon White Buffalo.”

  The time-trial adjudicators with the clipboards had finally gotten to Henry, and we watched as one of them at the top of the hill raised a green flag. “I know Brandon.”

  “Well, he had ’em stood off, but they had guns, so Henry backed Brandon’s play. There was a lot of shouting and the usual stuff when Henry proposed that they pick out a couple of representatives, one from each group, and then let the two of ’em go out in the parking lot and settle things like real men.”

  The flagman dropped his arm, and the Bear was off.

  “The guidos went along with it, but said it had to be Henry and not Brandon because Brandon is so big, you know?”

  Henry sped across the short flat and dug in, the KTM bouncing from one berm to another, chewing up a few sparse patches of sagebrush.

  “Big mistake.”

  “No shit. The mob guys selected this weight lifter that they had with ’em. The guy swings this haymaker at the Bear, who does a double arm block, pivots his elbow into the guy’s gut, and then brings the back of his fist up into the guy’s face—three seconds, done.”

  Henry shot up the hill and bounced over the approach rollers that kept the rider from establishing too much speed too quickly. He flew a good twenty feet and then navigated to the side of the devilish curve to dig in and then caught traction, again shooting up the hill through the tufts of prairie grass.

  “What did the mob guys do?”

  “They didn’t know whether to shit or go blind, so they just stood there and then carried the guy back to their car and went back to Jersey, I guess.”

  Henry was approaching the top but had lost some momentum as the front tire began slowly lifting from the turf.

  “So, the dancer was Lola?”

  “No, but Lola was there, and I guess she liked the cut of the Bear’s jib or something like that.”

  Both Jamey and I slid off the tailgate, unconsciously drawn to the hill like spectators to a train wreck. The front wheel of the KTM kept rising, even with all of Henry’s weight hanging over the handlebars, but he was so close to the precipice that I thought for sure he was going to make it.

  “Anyway, they hooked up after that and were together off and on for a while.”

  The Bear held on till the last second and then flipped over backward.

  “Uh oh.”

  We watched as Henry rolled to the side to get out of the way of the out-of-control motorcycle that missed him only by inches and then cartwheeled down the hill before slamming to the ground. He sat and watched it.

  “More off than on.”

  • • •

  When I got over to the Hulett Police Department, Chief Nutter was inside the MRAP, trying to figure out how to start it. “We’re going to drive it through town.”

  I stood below, looking up into the cab at him. “Why on earth?”

  “Gape and awe—we’re going to show these bikers what they’re up against if they start anything.” He gave me a thumbs-up like a fighter pilot and held the tough-guy look for as long as he could but then broke up laughing. “Gas station is on the other side of town, and if we don’t put fuel in the damn thing, it’s going to be useless.”

  “Bill, you don’t want my opinion on that.” I stepped on the running board and glanced around at all the hi-tech. “Why don’t you bring the gas over here?”

  “Do you know how much fuel this thing holds?” He glanced around the cab, looking for a gauge he could recognize. “Hell, I don’t know how much fuel the thing holds. You think it’s gas or diesel?”

  “You better hope it’s diesel, if you’re aiming to get even a mile to the gallon.” I took a look down the crowded street. “I’m trying to find Corbin.”

  “Last I heard he was settling a dispute at the campground, but he should be back any time.” He gestured toward the dash. “Hey, you were in the military; you should know how to start this thing.”

  “Not really.” I glanced around the interior at all the monitors and switches. “The stuff we had in Vietnam was decidedly less advanced, but I’ll go hog wild and venture an opinion: Does it have a key?”

  “No, just had a padlock and a chain holding the doors closed, which are hydraulic like in Star Trek. Took us forever to figure out how to open and close ’em.”

  “Then there’s a switch.”

  “No, there’s not.”

  “It probably
doesn’t look like any switch you’ve ever seen, and there’s probably a coil preheating mechanism.” I started climbing up. “Get over in the passenger seat and let me take a gander.”

  He did as I said and turned to look at me as I scanned the dash. “What do you need Deputy Dog for?”

  Spotting the less-than-obvious switch, I glanced at it to see if, as in most diesels, you just turned it in the opposite direction to preheat, but there was nothing. Finally spotting a safety toggle to the left, I hit it and watched as a red light came on beside the ignition along with a spiral coil that lit, then flickered and went out. “He supposedly has the Torres kid’s cell phone, and I’d like the name of the woman who found Bodaway after the accident.”

  “Bodaway?”

  “The kid that was in the wreck. That’s his name—Apache.”

  “Oh.”

  I hit the starter, and the gigantic engine in the MRAP rattled to a lopsided cant, sounding a lot like Steamboat, an old B-25 I’d flown in years ago. Reaching over and tapping the fuel gauge—a habit I’d picked up from my old Doolittle Raider boss who had piloted the vintage bomber—I glanced at Chief Nutter. “How far is it to the gas station?”

  “About a mile.”

  “You might make it.”

  “Well, let’s go then.”

  I laughed. “I’m not driving this thing.”

  “Then who is? You’re the one who was a jarhead and all.” He nodded toward the crowded street. “I’m likely to run over a building or something.”

  I sighed and hit the push button to engage the drive, assuming R was reverse. “All right then, let’s bring the mountain to Mohammed.”

  He shook his head. “You sure do know a lot of biblical quotes for a fellow that doesn’t go much for churchin’.”

  I started easing the fifteen-ton behemoth backward, attempting to see if there was anything behind me on the street. “That’s not the Bible—it’s Francis Bacon, from an old Turkish proverb.”

  He shook his head some more and looked at me. “Hey, you’re good with names; what should we call it?”

  “How about the Pequod?”