As the Crow Flies

by Craig Johnson

  I circled the base of the thing, held in check by the remnants of an old foundation, and figured that must’ve been how “the largest pile of beer cans in the world” had started; somebody had run a wheelbarrow out the back and dumped them into the place where a building must’ve been in the twenties, and the tradition had continued on into the twenty-first century. The smell of stale beer, even in the moderate heat of the morning, was sinus clearing.

  “Where did you lose him?”

  She screamed in frustration, finally forming words. “I followed him up over this trash heap, and when I got to this side, he was gone!” She took a step and then slid down and fell in a tumbling avalanche. “Damn it!”

  I stood there watching the slipping cascade of cans. “Well, I guess there’s only one thing to do.” She stood back up and watched as I drew my Colt and raised my voice. “Throw a few shots into this pile and see what happens. If he’s in there, I’ll probably get him.”

  There was a wheelbarrow load that hadn’t made it to the mountain proper, smaller and more scattered than would’ve hidden a man. I raised my .45, snapped off the safety, and pulled the trigger—a few cans flew into the air.

  So did Kelly Joe Burns.

  As I’d suspected, he’d slipped and fallen but had been smart enough to realize that the mountain of cans could provide a fine hiding place, at least before I threatened to shoot it.

  If we’d thought Kelly Joe was fast before, we hadn’t seen anything. The man practically levitated from the cans downgrade from where Chief Long sat and about a third of the way around the base from where I stood before remembering to throw the bag he held over the top of the pile.

  We both yelled at him to stop, but we might as well have been talking to the wind in both solidity and velocity. As I circled the base, I pointed toward the spot where he’d been buried. “Get the bag!”

  She stumbled and slid as I ran after the world’s fastest non-Indian.

  Back at USC, as an offensive tackle, I had been able to outrun any other two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man in Southern California for forty yards; we were now more than a couple of decades past that, I was coming up on my forty yard limit, and Kelly Joe Burns didn’t weigh close to two hundred and fifty pounds.

  He had run toward the road but had circled back to the front of the bar, and I could hear the sound of the Dodge’s starter, grinding away.

  I stopped at the edge of the asphalt and attempted to catch my breath by bending over and placing a hand on one of my knees for support as I pulled the coil wire from my shirt pocket and dangled it like a dead rat for him to see.

  He looked at me, threw open the door, and ran across Route 39 just as an eighteen-wheeler bellowed down the road from Colstrip. The white cattle truck locked its brakes and blew its horn, and I watched as Kelly Joe slid underneath and came up on the other side.

  “You’ve got to be kidding…”

  I skimmed around the rear end of the Freightliner full of unhappy cows when another horn sounded and caused my heart to skip like a warped record album. I was pretty sure I’d checked for oncoming traffic, but was surprised to find both of my hands, one still holding the .45, on the hood of a Baltic blue 1959 Thunderbird convertible.

  The car had stopped, and my daughter and soon-to-be in-law stared at me with stunned looks on their faces. I coughed and held up one finger as I lurched off the stationary Ford into the barrow ditch after Kelly Joe.

  Holstering the sidearm felt like the right thing to do in front of Cady and Lena, and besides, I figured I wasn’t going to really have to shoot Burns. There was a well-worn trail at the base of the ditch beside a barbed-wire fence. I looked north, then started off south—my daughter kept pace with the Thunderbird in low gear and Lena, having folded her arms on the door sill, sat up on her knees to look down at me as if she were in a parade.

  “What are you doing?”

  I coughed again and struggled to get enough air to reply. “Chasing a drug dealer.”

  “I thought you were chasing a murderer.”

  I glanced around and jogged on. “This is kind of a side bet.”

  They accelerated and kept up, Cady driving, Lena talking. “Two felonies with one stone?”

  “Something like that.”

  She turned and was talking to Cady. “The driver says to remind you that you have a luncheon in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  There was another brief conversation. “The driver says to tell you that we’re taking it on faith that since you’ve holstered your weapon, your life is not imperiled?”

  I was getting a little of my air back and responded, “He may run me to death, but he’s not armed, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want our help? We do our best work from concours vintage automobiles.”

  I waved them on. “I bet.”

  They sped off, and I watched as the driver didn’t spare the horses.

  Good girl.

  It was pretty much a straight shot along Rosebud Creek, so other than a few high stands of grass, I could see about a hundred yards heading south and left toward Lame Deer. I glanced out at the swathed fields to my right and could see all the way across that flat area as well. No one.

  I stopped as I remembered something Henry had once told me—something about a culvert nicknamed the “time tunnel,” which was somewhere in the area. It was reputedly filled with mattresses so that those who had imbibed and didn’t want to run the risk of becoming the forgotten dead up on Route 39 could sleep it off. Dire stuff, but better than being roadkill.

  I turned and looked north. I had automatically followed the flow of the traffic on my side of the road and started south, but what if the time tunnel was north? It was a crap shoot.

  Standing there for a moment more, I made a decision, turned, and began trotting back up the path. After about three hundred yards, I came to a culvert and stopped. The grass was high and only a little water spilled from the corrugated pipe, which was almost as tall as a man.

  I thought about the last time I’d climbed in one of these things and had almost been killed by a big Crow by the name of Virgil White Buffalo. I reached around to my back and felt for my venerable Maglite, but then remembered I wasn’t wearing my duty belt.

  Standing there, I could see that there was an uneven light at the end of the tunnel where it opened out on the other side. The smell of the place was less than inviting, but in I went, crouching down and once again pulling the Colt from the small of my back. “Kelly Joe, if you’re there I want you to know I’m coming in!”

  Nothing.

  I kept a wide stance and trudged over the first mattress that smelled more disgusting when I stepped on it. I cleared my throat and tried to breathe shallowly, in hopes that the odor wouldn’t overtake me before I got out.

  Stepping to one side, I watched as some sort of snake slithered from under the mattress and continued on in the direction from where I’d come. I started talking to the animals again. “You’re not the variety I’m looking for.”

  I turned and reached the halfway point, where one of the mattresses was bunched against another. Thinking that it was pretty much the only place where someone could hide in the confined space, and with a few more flashbacks to the other culvert down on Lone Bear Road, I put a foot on the mattress and pushed. Burns once again flung himself from cover and ricocheted down the culvert like a pinball. I thundered after him but tripped on the corner of a soggy sleeping bag and fell forward. I scrambled to get to my feet, but it was slippery and I knew in my heart of hearts that I was going to lose him.

  God hates a quitter, so I staggered forward and watched as he got to the opening at the other end and the bright sunlight lit him up like a candle.

  That was when the candle snuffer came down with a vengeance.

  Lolo Long must’ve been waiting above the tunnel on the other side, and I watched with a great deal of satisfaction as she landed on Kelly Joe with all six feet of everything she
had. She planted him face first in the mud with a knee at his back as she grabbed two fistfuls of his wifebeater T-shirt.

  He struggled to get at her, but it was like a replay of the events at Clarence’s house when she’d pig-wrestled him.

  I staggered out into the light as she slapped her cuffs on Burns and dragged him to his feet, his entire body smeared with blackish mud.

  “I want a lawyer.”

  She smacked the side of his head. “You’re gonna see a lot of lawyers, trust me.”

  I took a couple of deep breaths and could smell the strong scent of stale beer coming off of her. “Did you find the bag?”

  She smiled as she took the drug dealer’s arm. “I did, and inside was about five hundred grams of methamphetamine in tiny, individual-serving baggies.” I took his other arm, and we walked him up out of the ditch toward the Jimtown Bar parking lot. “That’s almost a pound of Schedule II substance, and you know what that means, don’t you Kelly Joe?”

  She was happier than I’d ever seen her as she informed him of his Miranda rights. When she finished, Kelly Joe continued to say nothing so she turned to me. “I’m sorry it took so long and that I smell like an old brewery, but the cans covered up the bag when it hit on the other side of Mount Rainier and it took a while for me to find it.”

  “No big deal.”

  “Do you know how long I’ve been looking to get this rat?” She laughed, and I was glad I hadn’t spoiled her moment in the sun. “Two months, and this is by far the biggest bust of my career.”

  I was happy for her; there’s a camaraderie and euphoria that goes along with these situations, when you get the bad guy with so much evidence that there’s no way an informed jury or sober judge will ever let them walk. It’s a feeling that is amplified only by the fact that no one was hurt and that everybody, with the exception of the perp, got away clean—well, mostly clean.

  My mind kept drifting back to the case at hand, though. I thought about the dead father, the injured child, and the woman we’d watched fall. I kept my mouth shut as she stuffed the drug dealer in the back of the Yukon and turned to look at me with her hands on her hips.

  The smile, a million watts, only slightly dimmed. “Audrey.”

  I focused on the tribal police chief’s face. “What?”

  “On the recording; the woman’s voice.”

  I waited.

  “It’s Audrey.”

  14

  We had deposited Nattie Tyminski in the BIA jail, where there was a female docent. She would probably walk as we hadn’t actually seen her in possession, but a little time behind bars wouldn’t do her any harm.

  We sat on the folding chairs in the Tribal Police Headquarters and stared at Kelly Joe—he sat on the bunk in the corner of the holding cell with his knees drawn up in protection. So far, Artie Small Song hadn’t made any aggressive moves toward him, but the drug dealer was playing it safe; I didn’t blame him—it was like being trapped in a Havahart with a pissed-off badger.

  Artie’s fingers were wrapped around the bars like the kind of vines that choked trees to death. “I don’t have any idea.”

  “You must have had some kind of interaction with her.”

  “No, I didn’t.” He flung himself from the bars and started pacing back and forth, Kelly Joe’s eyes tracking him like radar. “The only time I ever laid eyes on the woman was there at Human Services when I was trying to get my mother’s support check.”

  “No other time?”

  He turned the corner at the far end of the cell and started back past me. “Never.”

  “Not even on the phone?”

  He stopped on the next pass. “Ever.” He grabbed the bars again, and Kelly Joe jumped. “And I wasn’t at that bar that night! You ask and see if anybody remembers me being there.”

  “Your truck was there.”

  “My nephew was driving it.”

  “With your elk on the hood?” I got up and leaned an elbow between the bars and paid a glance to Burns. I would’ve been lying if I’d said I wasn’t enjoying the drug dealer’s discomfort. “Then where were you?”

  “Hunting!” The spit flew from his lips, and his face moved near mine. “You had part of that elk; you saw it, did it seem fresh to you?”

  I nodded. “It did.”

  “I went after another one; now let me out.”

  “It’s not that easy, Artie. The Feds are convinced that you did it because of the recording, and we haven’t come up with anything that counters that very impressive piece of evidence.”

  “That conversation never happened.” He pushed off the bars. “I never spoke to her husband, what’s his name?”

  “His name was Clarence.” Burns’s voice rose from the back, and one look at him told you that he wished he’d kept his mouth shut, but he was Kelly Joe after all, and silence was not one of his strong suits.

  “Clarence?”

  I nodded.

  “I had an argument with a guy named Clarence in the parking lot of the White Buffalo one time.”

  “About?”

  “He left his stupid Jeep in front of the gas pump while he was serenading some teenager. I told him to move it or I was going to get all Crazy Horse on his ass.”

  I looked past Artie and raised my voice so that Kelly Joe would know I was speaking to him. “You ever have any dealings with Clarence Last Bull?”

  He pulled at the collar of his T-shirt, feeling the heat from me and his tattoo, and then tried to cover it by resting his chin on his knees. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Okay.” I pushed off the bars, leaving a few fingers on the steel like I was loath to leave. “I can see how it is that you wouldn’t want to bother to help Artie with his problems. Chief Long and I are going to walk out of here in about two minutes anyway, so you two are going to have plenty of time to talk about things and work it all out.”

  Artie Small Song turned to look at Kelly Joe Burns.

  The drug dealer slowly raised himself up and stood on the bunk with his back against the concrete blocks. “Hey, hey, wait a minute. I want my own cell.”

  I kept my eyes on Burns but tossed my voice over to the chief. “Anything available?”

  She shrugged. “Not just now—housekeeping might have something later.”

  I turned back to him. “Looks like you’ve got a roommate for a while.”

  His hands came out, attempting to hold the air between himself and Artie. “Look, it was purely business. Clarence dealt in bud—that was all. Sometimes he ran short, and I’d front him product. That’s all.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, Kelly. Why would the Feds be interested? It’s not exactly high on their substance abuse table.”

  The drug dealer continued to keep his eyes on Small Song. “How the hell should I know; go ask them. What the fuck—you think they’re pals of mine?”

  Lolo’s voice sounded from the hallway where she now stood. “That’s okay, white boy, they’re gonna be.”

  I joined her, and we started out.

  “Hey, wait a minute!”

  I turned and looked back at him—Artie had moved closer to Kelly Joe and was now standing in front of the corner bunk where you could hear his fists clinching, the sound like bark tightening.

  “What?”

  “I could make you a list of users.”

  Chief Long crossed her arms. “Oh, you and the Federales are going to get along.”

  Small Song leaned in closer to him. “You scumbag.”

  “Artie?”

  He turned his head and looked at me. I suppressed the smile that was growing on my lips and gestured for Small Song to move. “Give him a little room, Artie.” I waited until he stepped away. “How is that going to help us, Kelly Joe?”

  He seemed relieved to have even the smallest amount of breathing room. “It would be all the people that Clarence had anything to do with.”

  I turned to Lolo. “You think we can trust Mr. Burns in your offices if we give him a pencil and paper to
make a list?”

  She looked at him. “If we handcuff him to the radiator.”

  I turned back to the drug dealer. “You right- or left-handed?”

  I joined my family at the Law Enforcement Center parking lot as they sunbathed in Henry’s convertible. The Cheyenne Nation leaned against the front fender and pointed at a mark on the hood of the ’59 Thunderbird about a quarter of an inch in length. “You scratched my car.”

  “I’ll buy you some rubbing compound or one of those bulldog hood ornaments with the eyes that bug out and light up.”

  He closed his eyes, canting his head toward the sun’s rays like some Algonquin sunflower, as he always did. “I understand you arrested Kelly Joe Burns?”

  “The chief did.”

  The Bear silently applauded. “Bravo.”

  I looked at Cady, who was applying suntan lotion to her feet. “How was your discussion with Arbutis Little Bird?”

  “I made a deal with her. They won’t reschedule, but I convinced them that we could combine the wedding with the language immersion retreat.”

  Lena adjusted her sunglasses. “I am beginning to think that your daughter could litigate ice from an Eskimo.”

  I walked the rest of the way around Lola and looked at the two exquisite women, replete with bikini tops and suntan oil, towels lying over the reclined seats of the T-Bird. “A Cheyenne language immersion retreat and your wedding—how are you going to manage that?”

  “It’s going to be traditional, performed entirely in Cheyenne.” Cady tipped her Prada sunglasses up and looked at me with her frank, gray eyes. “We convinced her that it was a wonderful opportunity for the students to experience the Cheyenne language in a unique context.”

  I glanced at Lena, who had yet to move. “How does the Moretti contingency feel about that?”

  The mother-in-law-to-be rolled her head toward me. “He’ehe’e, na-tsehese-nestse.”

  I shook my head and watched the traffic on 212. “The two of you wouldn’t want to work on this homicide case, would you?”

  Cady removed her glasses completely but shaded her eyes with a hand. “I thought you arrested somebody?”