As the Crow Flies

by Craig Johnson

  “Then let’s go get Clarence and get him to tell the truth.” He grunted. “Gimme five minutes with him and he’ll talk.”

  “I doubt it.” He didn’t say anything more, so I figured I’d level with him. “Clarence’s dead, Artie. Somebody put a bullet into him at Diamond Butte Lookout.”

  He lit up, and I waited.

  “Wasn’t me.”

  “Is there anybody who can corroborate where you’ve been in the last forty-eight hours?”

  “No.”

  “Do you own a .38 pistol?” Stupid question; I knew by experience that Artie owned every gun in the Jane’s Small Arms Catalog, so the answer was predictable.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind if we had a look at it?”

  He said nothing.

  “Artie, you’ve got to admit that it doesn’t look good.” I rubbed my tired eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Except for one glaring fact that I can’t see a single thing you could gain from killing these people.”

  “That’s right.”

  I took a breath. “There is the argument.”

  He laughed again. “You’re saying I killed this woman and her husband for a crummy subsidy check?”

  “It doesn’t sound all that convincing, does it?” I shrugged. “But there’s the tape. As I said, I haven’t heard it yet, but supposedly Clarence was going to give you quite a bit of money for killing his wife and child.”

  He shook his head, and I watched the end of the cigarette move back and forth like tracer fire as he mumbled from one side of his mouth. “Bullshit. I don’t know him, and I never talked to him on the phone. Ever.” The tip brightened with his inhale. “Must be somebody else, somebody who had something to gain.”

  I let the dust settle before making the next statement. “I think you should come in, Artie; turn yourself over to the authorities.”

  “No way. I’ve seen how that turns out; once they get their hands on an Indian, it’ll be the right Indian—one-way trip to Deer Lodge.”

  “I can see how this would have a limited appeal, but how do you see it ending? It’s a manhunt, Artie—you’re the guy that we’re going to have to catch and the more you run, the guiltier you look.”

  “We?”

  “Me, Henry, Lolo Long, the Feds, everybody who stands behind a badge—we’re all going to be looking for you.”

  “You’ll never catch me, none of you.” He shook his head. “I heard what you did to my little nephew; you tell Standing Bear I owe him one.”

  “I will.”

  “Seems to me, I owe you, too.” Looking off to the right and his avenue of escape, he sipped his beer and rested my sidearm on his leg. “Drink your beer.”

  “Artie, you’re also not stupid enough to do something to me. Turn yourself in.”

  He shook his head, and I listened as he clicked off the safety on my Colt again. “Can’t do it. I done time and I can’t do it again. Even short time—I just can’t do it. Not for nothin’, and I don’t wanna braid horsehair key chains up in Deer Lodge for the next forty years.”

  He started to stand, and it was then that Artie became aware of another large knife with an eleven-inch homemade blade that had been silently and professionally placed at his throat. From the sudden glow of Artie’s cigarette, I recognized the turquoise bear paw engraved in the bone.

  “Do not worry about it; maybe they will let you do hatbands as well.”

  12

  “Took you long enough.”

  After having packing-taped Artie’s hands behind his back with a roll he’d discovered on the porch, the Bear sat Artie on one of the kitchen chairs. “I decided I wanted my beer back.”

  I collected Lonnie’s boom box from the living room where he used it to listen to KRZZ and baseball games and carried it in, setting it on the table. “How long were you out there?”

  “Most of it. I saw somebody on the porch and figured it was too late for Lonnie, so I parked over at the casino and doubled back on foot. It seemed as if you were having a nice conversation with Chief Long, so I did not want to interrupt.”

  I shot him a look.

  “Then I did not want to interrupt the wide-ranging conversation you were having with Artie.”

  I took the CD and pulled it from the paper sleeve that read OFFICIAL EVIDENCE—FBI. “He says he didn’t do it.”

  The Bear watched as Artie stared at the surface of the table. “That is what most of the men in Deer Lodge say.”

  I hit the EJECT button, dropped the CD in, and glanced at the silent Small Song. “Well, since Artie isn’t talking, let’s see what he had to say.” I punched the button, and we listened as there was a fumbling of a receiver, and then the conversation started; it sounded as if it had been picked up midway and had been recorded through a barrel of bourbon. Someone cleared his throat, and then the voice of Clarence Last Bull mumbled something that ended with, “So, do you think you can help me out with that thing?”

  Artie’s voice resounded through the phone lines—he sounded angry but it was still hard to hear him over the music playing loudly in the background. “I’ll kill the bitch!”

  Clarence’s voice dropped, as if he were trying to get Artie to lower his. “Yeah, yeah, that thing that we talked about. I was just wondering how much?”

  Artie’s voice continued to rise. “Twelve hundred God-damned dollars!”

  Clarence pleaded. “Hey, keep your voice down.”

  “Fuck you. Twelve hundred dollars is what I’m talking about!”

  I glanced up at Artie, who continued to look at the surface of the table. Henry was watching him with an impassive expression on his face, and I was one of the few who knew that it was when the Cheyenne Nation appeared the least emotional that he was the most.

  Artie: “I’ll kill the whole family!”

  Clarence: “Right, right. Look, Artie, we’re going for a picnic up on the cliffs at Painted Warrior and I was thinking that would be a good time to do the job. You know what I mean?”

  The receiver rattled again as Artie must have changed his position. “I don’t give a shit!”

  Clarence: “I know, I know. Look Artie, it’s gotta seem like it’s an accident or the whole thing is off.”

  There was a loud noise as if Artie had struck something on his end. “Fuck it, man!” There was a woman’s voice in the background, but I couldn’t make out who she was or what it was she was saying, but it sounded as if she was in the same heightened emotional state as Artie.

  Clarence’s voice rose a little now. “Artie, I need you to keep a lid on this stuff till we can get it planned out.”

  “Fuck yeah, man.”

  The two men hung up, and I reached over and hit the STOP button. I looked at the culprit. “That you, Artie?”

  He said nothing.

  I glanced at Henry. “That sounded like Artie to me.”

  The Bear stood, taking him by the arm. “We should go.”

  Artie didn’t move.

  The Cheyenne Nation used a little more force and Small Song rose slightly and then, wrapping his feet around the chair legs in protest, slumped in his seat, “I’m not going to jail.”

  I figured we were looking at a struggle but wasn’t sure what it was that we could do to get Artie over to the Law Enforcement Center against his volition other than an epic wrestling match. I glanced at Henry, and the Bear looked at Artie and then reached to the small of his back and slowly drew the bone-handled Bowie knife, letting it drape down beside his thigh, clearly in Small Song’s view.

  Artie shrugged, and you could’ve cut the air in the room with, well, a knife. “Kill me; I ain’t goin’ to jail.”

  I wondered how Henry was going to play the bluff when he suddenly raised the butt end of the elk-bone handle and brought it down on the back of Artie’s head with expert precision.

  I watched as the man’s forehead rebounded off the table, and he fell to the floor in a heap, unconscious.

  I looked up at the Bear as he flipped the knife
and gestured the business end toward me with a hard look. “Do not say anything.”

  I raised my hands but found my mouth opening of its own accord. “You…”

  “Do not.”

  I glanced down at the captive, a not insubstantial lump on the floor. “You couldn’t have knocked him out a little closer to the truck?”

  The only one on duty at Tribal Police Headquarters was the taciturn, unpaid-in-weeks patrolman Charles Last Bull. “How’s it going, Chuck?”

  He stared at us and glanced at Artie’s dead weight hanging between the Cheyenne Nation and me.

  “You mind if we come in?”

  We struggled in the door—I backed my way past the front counter, the bulletproof glass, and continued on toward the closed door that entered the hallway. Charles caught up with us and produced a ring of keys that he used to allow us access to the holding cells. “I thought you were off for the night, Charles.”

  He said nothing and, swinging the door wide, unlocked the same cell where his brother had been held, whereupon we deposited Artie Small Song on the steel bunk anchored to the concrete wall. “Thanks.”

  We paused there for a moment as Henry produced the knife again and freed the prisoner’s hands from the impromptu packing tape handcuffs, even taking the extra time to pull out the blanket at his feet and cover him up.

  I glanced at Charles, who closed the door and returned the keys to his belt.

  Henry stepped over to the small fridge in the commissary, stooped, and took a tray of ice cubes from the freezer compartment.

  I patted Charles on his shoulder, which felt like a fifty-five-gallon drum filled with concrete. “Where’s the chief?”

  He stared at me for a full ten seconds but couldn’t find a way not to respond to my direct question. “Sleep.”

  Henry placed the tray on the counter and took a plastic bag from the shelf, filled it with some ice, and came back to the bars where we stood. The Bear gestured toward the door. “Open.”

  Charles regarded him through sloped eyelids. “This the man who killed my half-brother?”

  The Bear said nothing but just stood there holding the bag of ice.

  Charles’s eyes returned to the breathing lump on the bunk and placed a hand on his sidearm. “The hell with him.”

  The expression on the Cheyenne Nation’s face never changed, but he leaned a little forward so as to make eye contact with Charles.

  I spoke again, if for no other reason than to keep Henry from decapitating Lolo Long’s only staff. “You know, Chuck, he’s already knocked one guy unconscious tonight.”

  I snatched the keys from the patrolman’s belt and unlocked the door in one quick move, tossing the ring back to him before he could react badly; the Bear entered and placed the bag of ice under Artie’s head. Charles had advanced and was now standing in the doorway as Henry started out. They stood there like that for a moment, chest to chest, and I was reminded of the bulls that had sometimes locked horns in the pastures on my father’s ranch.

  Slowly, the Cheyenne Nation raised a hand and spread his fingers over Charles’s chest, pushing him until the man was forced to step back in an attempt to catch his balance.

  I closed the cell and gestured toward Charles to lock it back up.

  He did, as Henry and I moved into the hallway. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to leave an unconscious Artie Small Song here with Charles Last Bull.”

  He nodded his head. “I will stay.”

  “No, I can sleep anywhere. You go on ahead home, and I’ll crash here.”

  Charles joined us in the hallway, and I made the pronouncement. “I’m waiting in here till Chief Long checks in.”

  The patrolman shrugged and turned between us, facing Henry and looking into his face. Henry followed him toward the door but shot me a look with a dramatically raised eyebrow. “I will see you in the morning.”

  “I hope so.”

  I made a makeshift bed with a lineup of chairs and a few more blankets from the closet in the hallway. About halfway through the process, Charles came in and studied me as I attempted to get comfortable. “You don’t have any extra pillows, do you?”

  He continued to stare.

  “Down would be nice—I’m not allergic.”

  He stood there for a moment more and then left.

  Fighting a yawn, I mumbled mostly to myself, “Could you flip off the lights?”

  The disgruntled patrolman did but left the one on in the hallway as I collapsed onto my front-row bed. I’d folded another blanket up for a pillow, scrunched it a little, and tilted my hat up to where I could keep an eye on Artie, who had begun snoring like a water buffalo. Henry must’ve done a job on him, seeing as how to knock somebody out you had to come within an ace of killing them. Whenever I thought of such things, I always remembered the dent in Lucian’s head where his in-laws had tried to beat some sense into him; as far as I could tell, it hadn’t worked—didn’t think it would work in this case, either.

  I thought about my transportation needs and figured I could get someone to drive my truck from the airport in Billings so I wouldn’t have to rely on Rezdawg, which was like relying on the wind. Lolo Long probably wouldn’t like the idea of an Absaroka County Sheriff’s vehicle driving around the Rez, but since I’d helped out with the investigation she might be a little more forgiving.

  I yawned so deeply that I thought my jaw was going to dislocate and then pulled the grey blanket up to my chin. Maybe I was overtired, but I was having a hard time falling asleep; first I blamed it on the indelicate rhythm of Artie’s snoring and then on the peyote, even though I knew that neither was what was plaguing me.

  My mind kept racing through the events of the last few days, and how tidily things had worked out; perhaps too tidily. I thought about the conversation with Artie and how he had seemed genuinely surprised by Clarence Last Bull’s murder. Was it possible that Artie had killed Audrey but not Clarence? But the man’s vehement denial of the contract murder had been convincing, especially at the price of just over a thousand bucks. So in essence, I was lying here for good reason—to protect a man who I didn’t think perpetrated either act.

  That was about the size of it.

  Maybe Clarence had killed his wife, but he certainly hadn’t killed himself.

  Then there was the tape. Why would the man attempt to hire Artie for the job and then turn around and do it himself? With all the bravado that Artie had shown in the phone conversation, it certainly seemed as if he had been ready to perform the deed. Maybe, and then again, maybe it’s one thing to agree to do such a thing but another to look into the eyes of a young woman holding her child and push them off a cliff.

  I thought about Clarence, and the response he’d had to Audrey’s death and the attempt on his son, and how I didn’t think he was guilty, either.

  So everybody was innocent?

  Some detective.

  The pivotal point of evidence was the wiretapped conversation between Clarence and Artie, which had been an odd one. Clarence’s voice had seemed normal enough, but Artie’s heightened responses struck me as weird. Maybe he was drunk; maybe he was upset about the twelve hundred dollars.

  And the woman in the background; who was she? What was she saying? I’d heard a word or two that I’d maybe understood—dome, dose? Maybe there was more going on between Clarence and Artie than we knew about.

  I dozed off for a while and then repositioned my head—I thought I might’ve heard some noise from out in the lobby, but it was hard to tell over Artie’s snoring. I’d just settled back into my folded blanket when I heard the door at the end of the hallway open and the dangling wind-chime noise of Charles’s ring of keys.

  I saw his shadow and spoke to him as I removed my hat from my face. “You find that feather pillow?”

  The light switch was flipped on, and I have to admit that while I wasn’t surprised to find Charles looking down at me, I was surprised to see Artie’s nephew, Nate, with a small revolver jammed into the polic
eman’s neck. He nudged the patrolman forward. “Open the door.”

  I started to sit up but kept one hand underneath the blanket at the small of my back. “Nate, what are you doing?”

  “Shut up, man.” He pushed Last Bull toward the holding cell.

  I unsnapped the safety strap on my Colt and drew it from the holster as I sat the rest of the way up, still keeping it concealed. Bleary as I was, I gave him a good look to make sure he wasn’t drunk or otherwise impaired. He wasn’t, but he looked excited and pretty scared at the same time. I tried to sound as lifeless and bored as possible, which wasn’t so much of a reach. “Nate, have you lost your mind?”

  “Shut up!” He pushed Charles’s shoulder. “Unlock it.”

  Charles looked at me.

  I blinked my eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”

  Nate pushed the patrolman again. “I said unlock it.”

  I didn’t say anything more and watched as Charles flicked up the right key and turned it in the lock, swinging the cell door wide. Nate pushed the patrolman inside and held the revolver on him. Charles backed against the bars with his hands raised, the key ring still in his fingers.

  “Nate, what are you gonna do? Take your uncle and run off into the wild? Every law enforcement agency on the high plains will be looking for you.”

  “Shut up!”

  I yawned and wondered if I was ever going to get any sleep. “Does your grandmother know that you’re here?”

  He redirected the pistol at me; the hammer was not pulled back. “I told you to shut up, man!” His attention went to his uncle on the bunk, and I noticed he’d stuffed Charles’s sidearm in the back of his jeans. “C’mon, Artie, I’m bustin’ you out.”

  The elder Small Song did not move but continued snoring loud enough to rattle the only window on the far wall.

  “C’mon, Artie!” He waited a moment and then reached out a hand to jostle the big man’s shoulder; still no response. He looked at the ice pack Henry had placed at the nape of Artie’s neck. “What did you guys do to him?”

  I stood and now held the .45 behind my hat. “He’s asleep—like everybody else except for you.”