As the Crow Flies

by Craig Johnson

  Cars, plural. I guess Rezdawg had gotten more than one. Good for her.

  “I was and still am under arrest, and therefore not responsible for the vehicle in question.” She straightened, a little surprised. “I’m pretty knowledgeable about vehicular codes, along with concealed-carry laws within federal jurisdiction.”

  “Lo?”

  It took a second for her to disengage from her primary target, but when she realized that it was her mother speaking to her, she locked on her. “Excuse me?”

  The large woman started to stand. “Lo, there’s been an…”

  She snapped back in the way that only family can. “Is this official business? Because I am engaged in arresting this man and unless you have something pertinent to say concerning…”

  “Lolo Louise Long, stop acting like an ass. There’s been an accident. A child is hurt, and a dead woman, who is going to be a major part of your official business, is lying at the base of Painted Warrior cliff.” She took a deep breath and shot air from her nostrils like a bull. “And, by the way, may I introduce you to Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming.”

  “You’re still under arrest.”

  “Okay.” I braced a hand against the dash as we swerved down BIA 4 at about a hundred miles an hour. “Can I have my gun back?”

  “No.”

  I glanced past the elongated hood of the Yukon as we passed another unsuspecting motorist. “You might want to turn on your siren.”

  She said nothing and continued slicing the wheel.

  “Seriously, if you…”

  She fairly screamed it. “I don’t know where the switch is!”

  I gave her my best double take, but fortunately her attention stayed on the road.

  Reaching across to the upper center console, I flipped down a small door and pulled a switch, flooding the surrounding area with the blooping noise of the hi-tech siren.

  She flashed the amber eyes at me. “Thanks.”

  I nodded and thought about how I was getting myself involved with a federal investigation on reservation land. I’d thought about asking Henry to go with her but came to the conclusion that I was probably a little less of an adversary. The Bear looked just as happy to stay at the hospital with the child, Dog, and no Lolo Long. “Are you new to this?”

  “What?”

  “Law enforcement; I assume that this isn’t what you did over in Iraq, huh?”

  The response was more than a little defensive. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “What did you do over there?”

  “None of your business.” She glanced at me, a sliver of jasper at the corner of one eye. “You serve?”

  “I did.”

  “Union or Confederate?”

  More and more like Vic. I went ahead and smiled; it was funny. “See, up until now you’ve kept that rapier wit sheathed.”

  The radio interrupted with a call from the Montana Highway Patrol, informing us that the FBI investigator would meet us on scene and would be bringing a team along with him; standard procedure on the Rez. Officer Long plucked the mic from the dash and rogered the call.

  She hung it back up. “I know you. I mean, I know of you.” She glanced at me again. “You were involved with the Melissa Little Bird rape case a few years ago.”

  I pulled the shoulder belt away from me with my thumb, my chest suddenly feeling a little tight. “Yep, I was.”

  “That was a cluster.”

  My chest got even tighter. “Yep.”

  She started to drive more steadily, braking before and accelerating into the curves, although our speed was still way over the limit. “There were a lot of rumors swirling around when those boys started showing up dead.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “One theory was that it was that buddy of yours, Standing Bear.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Another was that you were the one doing it.”

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “You caught somebody, didn’t you?”

  It took a moment, but I found words in my mouth. “We stopped the shootings, if that’s what you mean.” She rocketed past a windmill on the side of the road. “You’re going to want to take a left at the next dirt cutoff.”

  She dutifully slowed the SUV and made the turn at a reasonable speed but accelerated again, still bouncing us against the seat belts. I indicated the spotter road, and she took it as I reached across and turned the dial, putting the GMC in four-wheel-drive, her glance letting me know I’d overstepped my boundaries. “I’ll operate the vehicle from here on out, if you don’t mind.”

  We got to the ridge and parked and, pulling a crime scene pack from behind her seat, she followed me as I retraced the path to the base of the cliffs. Our approach spooked a coyote, and we could hear the buzzing of the flies before we got there.

  Chief Long was to my right as we got closer to the small stand of juniper trees, and I could see that the young woman’s naked leg was still sticking up at an odd angle beside her face.

  I turned to look at Officer Long, but she had stopped and, staring at the dead woman, was simply standing in the grass.

  I waited a moment and then took a step back, blocking her view. “You know her?”

  She looked surprised and then nodded in a distracted way, a traumatized look I’d seen before. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

  “Gimme the case.”

  She blinked once and then looked up at me. “No, I… no.”

  “Gimme the case and go sit by the creek; if I need you, I’ll call.”

  She didn’t move, even after I took the pack from her loose hand.

  “Go.”

  She stood there for a bit longer and then turned and walked down the hill.

  I moved back to the dead woman and set the case down without actually looking at her. There was a charade I played with myself in these situations, a falsehood that allowed me to do the job—telling myself that it was only an exercise. This woman was not dead to me, not yet. That part would start soon enough: the ferocious desire to find out who she was, why this happened and, if it was a factor, who did it.

  Was it an accident, a suicide, or a homicide?

  I put away my sunglasses and raised my face, getting a clear look at the cliff and watching the clouds race over in bleached streaks, leftovers from the storm that had hovered near Lame Deer. There was another crime scene up there where the majority of the questions would probably be answered, but that could wait.

  I judged the distance and did a quick calculation of the physics, which were not unlike the deceleration and impact forces found in automobile accidents in which the occupants neglect to wear seat belts. In the tenth to twelfth second of free fall, terminal velocity is obtained—terminal velocity being one hundred and ten miles an hour. She wouldn’t have made that, but she’d gone fast enough. There would be fractured bones and lacerated damage to internal organs as well as to the head and spine. She had told me that in those last few seconds—I only wish she could’ve told me more.

  I felt the falsehood of ritual flow over me, insulating me from the lingering results of death, humanity’s ultimate adversary. I unzipped the crime scene case and was immediately faced with another adversary, a camera. All these years and I still hadn’t mastered the art of anything except the IPH model.

  This reminded me that we had left Henry’s camera on the ridge near where we had parked the Yukon, and I made the mental note to pick it up on the way back to the vehicle. The camera from the kit was large-bodied like Henry’s but of a simpler design, which I appreciated. I switched it on and began the photographic procedure of shooting the entire scene—the relationship area, distance of fall, and the point where she had struck the cornice.

  When I began photographing her, I noticed that there were bruises on her face and arms, some of them older than those caused by her fall. There were also scratches on the backs of her arms that looked like they might’ve been inflicted by someone grabbing her with great force, maybe a week a
go.

  The devil must be beating his wife.

  I continued photographing.

  The fingernails on her left hand were bloody and bent back, some even missing, but other than this and the indications of abuse, she appeared to have been a normal, healthy young woman. I noticed that there was even a small purse still trapped under her arm as I covered her with the plastic sheet from the case.

  I was tempted to move her and go through the purse, but I assumed the Montana authorities would just as soon do it themselves, making sure to use special care not to disturb any trace evidence. It seemed odd that she had decided to walk the air with her child. I thought that, at that horrible moment when I’d seen her fall, her only concern had been something in her arms. I finished up and put the camera away. My work would be preliminary in comparison to the crime lab that would soon be here from either Hardin or Billings.

  Besides, I had other resources.

  I walked down the hill to the creek and found Chief Long tossing small pebbles into a pool a little downstream. A small, brown trout had risen from the depths but then disappeared under my shadow. “How you doing, troop?”

  She turned, sheltering her eyes with a hand, and looked at me. “What’d you just call me?”

  I crouched down beside her and watched the lazy water coat the rocks so that she wouldn’t be self-conscious about her red-ringed and still-damp eyes. “Troop. It’s a term my old boss used to use on me when I was starting out; I use it with my deputies.”

  “Well, don’t use it with me.” She took a breath and tossed another pebble; this time the fish ignored it.

  “We’re pretty much done down here.”

  She looked at a simple Luminox wristwatch, the kind that Spec Ops used. “What the hell is taking them so long?”

  I raised my eyes and looked at what now seemed desolate surroundings; as unlikely as it was that Cady would have gone for this site before, it was surely out of the question now. “Hopefully they didn’t get lost.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Looks like it’s still going to rain.” I studied her, judging whether now was a good time and figuring the basics wouldn’t hurt. “What’s her name?”

  She didn’t move, and her voice might as well have been coming from the trees or the cliffs above. “Audrey Plain Feather; she was half Crow.”

  Audrey. “And the child’s name—the boy?”

  “Adrian.”

  I nodded to myself and looked up the slope; there was a more manageable route to the west, an area where the ridge fell back—it would be easier to make the grade, especially at an angle. “I’m going up.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Somebody’s going to have to stay here and wait for the crime scene folks.”

  She shrugged off my hand and stood, partially pulling the radio from her belt. “I’ve got this, and I figure they’ll be able to get close on their own. I can spot them on the main road easier from up on the ridge anyway.”

  “Well then, can you do me a favor?”

  “Depends.”

  I sighed. “It’s going to take me a lot longer to get up this cliff than you, so I want a head start.” I smiled, but she didn’t smile back. “On the next ridge over there and toward the saddle?” I pointed to the area across the creek. “There’s another camera sitting in the grass where Henry and I dropped it when we saw Audrey fall; would you mind going to get it and bringing it with you or putting it in your vehicle?”

  She took a second to respond. “All right.”

  I looked up at the gathering gloom and then called after her. “You’re sure you want to go up there?”

  “Yes.” She turned back and opened an ear stem of her sunglasses with her teeth, then carefully navigated them onto her face. “Besides, you’re still under arrest. Now get moving—I don’t want to have to wait for you.”

  She started up the hill, her broad back and strong legs aiding her climb effortlessly.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The grade was indeed easier up to the right, and there was a gully to the left with trees in it to lean against; the older you get the more important things like that become.

  The ground was soft where the earth had sloughed from the ridge above, and after a while I gathered a rhythm that seemed familiar and similar to the one that had carried me up Cloud Peak only two months ago. The thought of that adventure brought a chill, even though the ambient temperature lingered around ninety.

  I removed my hat and took a breather about three-quarters of the way up. From this height I could see Lonnie’s crows harassing an eagle that was lazily circling in patterns along the valley. The crows probably had nests nearby and were protecting their young, or just getting their exercise before the thunderheads massed and we had a real frog strangler.

  I inhaled and started up again still using the smaller trees as walking sticks, finally getting to the depression at the ridge. When I did, I looked to the right and could see Lolo Long making mincemeat of the more difficult direct route.

  I would’ve yelled to her, but I didn’t have the breath.

  There was a two-track dirt road that stretched in both directions just a little bit back from the precipice, so I turned right and worked my way along the ridge. After a few minutes, I noticed that the grass was flat and there were tread marks in the dirt; I stopped and kneeled down to look—someone had driven up here and back out and not long ago. My eyes followed the tracks where the vehicle had parked, made a two-point turn, and then gone out the way it had come. The depressions were deeper where the vehicle had sat for a period of time—there were even two small oil leaks with matching soot marks from where what I was assuming was a truck had been parked.

  After a couple of hundred yards the grade leveled and the rounded surface of the rock fell away to the cliffs—a dangerous place. Lolo Long, looking out into the distance with her hands on her hips, stood about ten feet from the edge.

  “Hey, Chief.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody drove a four-wheel-drive up here and not too long ago. There are two patches of differential fluid, and the tires are wide and the duel exhausts are set close—I’d say a Jeep, something like that.”

  She turned to look at me. “How do you know where the exhaust was?”

  I pointed. “The two soot marks from where it was restarted.” I stood. “They’re going to need a ring job before too long.” Something further back on the trail caught my eye, and I walked over to where it was lodged among the taller stalks of Johnson grass; it was a plastic bag, the kind you find at any grocery or convenience store. “Did she have a vehicle like that?”

  Her lips tightened into a line, and the muscles in her jaw worked. “No, the guy she was shacking up with, Adrian’s father, does.”

  I pulled the blue plastic sack from the weeds. It was full of crushed beer cans, a couple of empty chip bags, and some candy wrappers. There was a receipt in the bottom of the bag, soggy from the remnants draining from the containers.

  I pulled the receipt out and held it up. Across the top were the words WHITE BUFFALO SINCLAIR and listed below were the items that were in the used bag, with the exception of the beer and a pack of cigarettes, as well as thirty-two dollars’ worth of regular gasoline; the date was today at 11:22 A.M.

  Chief Long approached, and I handed the sack to her, along with the receipt; she read it, withdrew a couple of evidence bags, and carefully placed the slip of paper inside one, the blue plastic into the other.

  I took out the camera and began taking pictures again, sucked in a breath, and trudged along to the precipice.

  The surface was a loose scrabble of sedentary shale that looked like shattered terra-cotta in a wild cathedral floor; the footing was unstable, and a few lizards scrambled like ball bearings over the hard surface. I moved toward the edge and kneeled down to look at the disturbed rock shelves at the point where the woman had fallen. The wind picked up a little, nudging me from behind, as I allowe
d my eyes to drift toward the clouds again, some of them trailing low enough to almost reach out and touch.

  The crows and the eagle continued to flirt with them, pinwheeling and passing away from each other, circling, and using the rising thermals and gusts of wind for lift.

  There was a rapid movement that pulled me from my trance—a little pygmy rattler swiveled from a small outcropping to my left—probably after the lizards. I picked up a small rock and tossed it toward him to let him know he should keep going away from us, and he obliged by disappearing.

  I could see where Audrey had gone over the edge, and where she’d desperately attempted to hold back the inevitable with one hand—must have been the one that was missing fingernails. There was another area of disturbance in the rocks right in front of me, possibly where she had tripped or possibly where there could’ve been some sort of struggle.

  I shot a look back at Chief Long and pointed to the edge. “Do you see that?”

  She stood her ten feet back and made no effort to move. “What?”

  “The marks in the rocks.”

  She glanced over my shoulder. “Yeah.”

  “You can see it better from over here.”

  She adjusted the strap of the crime scene bag on her shoulder. “I can see fine.”

  I took another series of shots, the rocks crumbling and shifting under my boots. Catching my balance, I took the few steps back to where she stood like a pole. “You okay?”

  “Yes.” It was a quick answer and was meant to cut off any more conversation on the subject—the kind of response I’d learned to ignore.

  “What’s up?”

  She gave me the full kaleidoscope eyes, and I felt like I’d been kicked.

  “I don’t like heights.”

  I gazed back at the cliff and gestured toward it. “Well, it’s only natural, considering…”

  “That’s not it.”

  I tipped my hat back and studied her; she really was beautiful, and I could see the complexity of conflicting thoughts as they played across her face. I raised a hand toward her. “What then?”