Killing Custer

by Margaret Coel

  “Lay what on you?”

  “My stepmother’s theory that I had something to do with his getting shot. What did she tell you? Who did I hire to pull the trigger? Indians, am I right? I’ve heard the rumors. That’s the story she’s putting about.”

  Vicky didn’t say anything. She kept her face a mask. Unreadable. Inscrutable. Isn’t that what whites expected from Indians?

  It was a moment before the woman went on: “An Indian who thinks he’s Crazy Horse—now that’s the kind of story my stepmother would love. The perfect reenactment.”

  “She’s trying to track assets that have disappeared.”

  “You don’t say?” Astonishment flashed in Dorothy Winslow’s eyes. “You mean Dad actually hid his money from her? Maybe he wasn’t as crazy as I thought. What’s this about? Money from the ranch in Laramie?”

  “He placed the money in an account with Wyoming Central Bank.”

  “On my advice.”

  “You advised him to put the money in a bank in Lander?”

  “A bank she didn’t know about so she couldn’t withdraw every penny and blow it.”

  “You and your father were close?”

  Dorothy looked away. “Closer in the last year, after he figured out his wife wasn’t the sweet, obliging Libbie of his dreams. You ask me, Belinda played the role to perfection. Libbie Custer was hard as nails. Nobody crossed her, not even Ulysses S. Grant. Anybody who dared to suggest that Custer might have been responsible for what happened at the Little Bighorn faced the wrath of Libbie. For fifty years she wove a magical web around the battle and kept the truth from being told.” She twisted around again. “The money should have been safe.”

  “He withdrew it.”

  “All of it?” Dorothy sank against the back of the chair. The legs skittered on the wood floor. “So it worked. He had hidden the money until he found a ranch near Dubois. Naturally she didn’t want him to purchase another ranch. Tied her down too much. I mean, Autie never owned a ranch. He was free. Galloping over the plains, the horizon always ahead. She trekked along, basking in his glory.” Dorothy unwound her fingers and leaned forward as if to confide an important secret. “Invitations to appear all over the country. Rodeos, county fairs in places you’d never guess: Florida. New England. California beach towns. Everybody wanted Custer. He brought along the Seventh Cavalry. Enough troopers to give folks the idea. Brought along Libbie, the adoring wife. No ranch for her, no sirree. She nagged my father until he sold out in Laramie, which broke his heart. He loved that place.”

  “Is that how they made their living? Playing Custer and Libbie?” Vicky had seen the deposits on the bank records, sporadic, small amounts. Then the big deposit after he sold the ranch.

  “County fairs and a few head of cattle he’d sell every year.” Dorothy shook her head. “He wanted something more secure. He wasn’t getting any younger. He’d already lived twenty years longer than Custer. Saw some buddies die in Desert Storm. I encouraged him to look at ranches in this area. I knew she’d hate it. ‘Libbie’s happiest when we’re roaming the plains,’ Dad said. You want to know the real reason I encouraged him? I was hoping she’d leave him. Find another Custer.”

  She let out a little laugh, tilting her head upward and staring at something inside her head. “I’ll bet she found a way to break open his safe and get the bank records. Oh, what I would have given to see the look on her face when she saw the balance. He must have gotten his ranch after all.”

  Granite Group. It would explain the check, Vicky was thinking. The ranch was owned by the Granite Group. Except the broker at the real-estate company said the deal hadn’t closed. If it hadn’t closed, where was the money? She said, “The sale hadn’t yet gone through.”

  “Hadn’t gone through?” Dorothy drew in her lower lip and frowned. “He was worried.”

  “About what.”

  “Couldn’t make the asking price. I told him, give them a down payment, take a mortgage. You have to understand. He was from another time in a lot of ways. Don’t owe anybody. Don’t take out mortgages. Pay your own way. He said he would buy the ranch outright. Own it lock, stock, and barrel. It would’ve been his, and his money would’ve been safe from her.”

  “Did he ever mention the Granite Group?”

  She shook her head.

  “He wrote a five-hundred-thousand-dollar check to the Granite Group.”

  “What?” The woman jumped to her feet and grabbed hold of the porch railing, as if she wanted to yank it out of the floor. She swung back. “Dad was a sucker for get-rich schemes. Give me your money and I’ll double it in two weeks? After he got back from Iraq, he took everything we had and plunked it down on a high-tech start-up. Going to make enough money to buy us a ranch. Killed my mother, all the worry. For a couple years, she didn’t know where the money was going to come from to feed us. Dad never lost faith, and you know what? Doubled, tripled his money when the company went public. Got his ranch after all. By then Mom was so sick, she didn’t care. Died a year after we moved in. Is that what he did? Another high flyer?”

  “I was hoping you might know.” The sound of Dorothy Winslow’s rapid intakes of breath broke the silence that hung between them.

  “Ask your client.”

  “She’s asked me to help her.”

  “Always the smart move. Always a step ahead.”

  “If she knew what your father did with the money, why would she have hired me to help her find it?”

  Dorothy pivoted and sank back into the chair. It rocked backward. “You’re right. He wouldn’t have told her. He wouldn’t have taken any chances on her making trouble, keeping him from investing the money. He had his heart set on that ranch.”

  “You said he lived in another time.” Edward Garrett, dressed like Custer, riding ahead of rows of cavalry down Main Street. A bugle blaring “Garry Owen.” The clip-clop of horses’ hooves on asphalt. Whinnying. Vicky could see the floats passing, she and Adam on the curb a half block away, clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee. “Who would a man who felt comfortable in the nineteenth century have trusted to invest his money? Did he ever mention anyone?”

  Dorothy took so long to answer that Vicky began to wonder if the woman had heard her questions. Finally she exhaled a long breath. “Army buddies. He felt comfortable with old army buddies. Why do you think he played a man who was made general on the battlefield? Custer was his kind of man. Brave and independent. Fighting the undesirables. Killing. Dad was in the army when Desert Storm started. Colonel. Fought for seven months. It changed him. I was still a kid, but I remember that he was different when he came back. He retired but he couldn’t break free. Oh, he wanted the ranch in Laramie all right, but the military life had taken him over. He saw himself as a soldier. Retired solder running a ranch. Then he found Custer, and he could do both. Run a ranch and pretend to be a soldier. Better than staying in the army. Going to Iraq. Afghanistan. He could relive the battle of the Bighorn, over and over and over, and nobody got killed. Until last Sunday.”

  “An army buddy like Skip Burrows?” Angela had said they were buddies, Edward and Skip.

  Dorothy nodded. “At least Burrows got out of the army and went on with his life. There were others, like Dad. Never got free. The military in their blood. Planning battles, riding off to defeat the enemy. Lived for reenactments. Couldn’t reenact Iraq, so they hit on the Civil War. Dad and his buddies specialized in Custer and the Seventh.”

  “What buddies? Who are you talking about?”

  “All of them.”

  There was the faint sound of ringing. Vicky reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. A name she didn’t recognize. “Sorry,” she said to the woman next to her.

  Dorothy gave a dismissive wave. “No matter. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done here.” She lifted herself out of the chair, yanked open the screened door. “Good luck in dealing with Libbie.”
She disappeared into the house.

  Vicky pressed the phone to her ear as she made her way down the steps and across the yard. A woman’s voice, faint. She had to stop and press the volume button. “You said to call if I seen Deborah.”

  “Deborah Boynton?” A picture was emerging—the skinny girl with white, gangly legs pushing the baby carriage outside the Realtor’s house.

  “Yeah. She come home this morning. Drove away again, most likely going to work. You can probably catch her there.”

  Vicky thanked the girl and started the Ford. Driving down the brown hills, around the curves, Lander rising to meet her, wondering what Deborah Boynton might know about Garrett’s empty bank account.

  27

  “WHAT DO WE tell them?”

  “The truth.”

  The bishop placed an open hand against the door frame and leaned into it, as if he were leaning against the wind.

  “I meant, to give them peace of mind.”

  Father John sat back in his chair and studied the cottonwood branches swaying outside the window. They moved silently, and yet he knew the soft, whishing sound they made. The phone had been ringing all morning, and he and the bishop had taken turns fielding the calls. Who could have strangled that poor girl? What did she do to deserve that? Who cares about her?

  He looked back at the old man in the doorway, the shadows of the corridor falling behind him. “We have to trust that the police will conduct a fair and impartial investigation.”

  “They’re Arapahos.”

  “Yes.” Father John took the point. How many times had the police come to Bishop Harry’s mission in Patna looking for those without resources, the most vulnerable? Easy way to conclude an investigation. Records closed. Case solved. He wanted to say, It’s not like that here. He remained quiet. Bishop Harry was no fool.

  The rumbling noise came from far away, then grew closer, like the sound of horses stampeding. He got up and went over to the window as the black truck with the white horse trailer came around Circle Drive, the trailer shimmying, dried leaves and little clouds of dust in its wake. Darleen Longshot peered out through the windshield.

  “Here to collect Brownie, I take it,” the bishop said. “Rather nice to have him around. I enjoyed speaking with him on my walk this morning. Very intelligent animal.”

  The phone had started ringing again, and Father John realized how pleasant the last ten minutes of quiet had been.

  “You’ll probably want to say good-bye,” the bishop said, starting along the corridor toward his office in the back.

  “I’ll tell him good-bye for you.” By the time Father John reached the front door, the telephone had stopped ringing. The bishop’s voice drifted behind him. “St. Francis Mission. Bishop Harry here.”

  Darleen had already opened the tailgate and was jiggling the chain at the fence when Father John came down the driveway. “Let me help you,” he said, hurrying around the rig. He took hold of the chain, worked it loose, and swung open the gate. The sun burned down; there was no shade. The metal fence was like a hot iron. Brownie pawed at the thin grass in the enclosure, tossed his head, and snorted until Darleen stepped over and extended a hand. The horse nosed toward her and began licking the sugar cubes that glistened in her palm. “You miss him, don’t you, boy?” she said, running her other hand over the horse’s withers. He shivered beneath her touch, then settled down and nuzzled her palm.

  A few motions, and the bridle was on Brownie’s head, the lead rope clipped to a ring under his chin. Fluid. Smooth. “We’re going home.” She led him out the gate, her round face red in the sun. Clicking her teeth, urging the horse up the ramp into the trailer.

  She shut the tailgate and turned to Father John, a deliberate motion, like the final step of a powwow dance. Little circles of sweat spread in the armpits of her pink blouse. “Where’s Mikey?” Brownie blew a gust of air and tapped out another dance routine.

  “He’s not here.”

  “I know that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have left Brownie. Where did he go?”

  “Darleen,” Father John said, grabbing a moment. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “I get it. You didn’t ask, so he didn’t tell. That way neither of us knows. Right? Cops come around, and we can tell the truth.” She let out a loud cough. “The Jesuit Way.”

  “Something like that.” He could feel the sun burning across his shoulders and searing his head. He’d run out without his cowboy hat, and now he squinted at the woman standing guard behind the horse trailer, as if she could protect everything—her son, the horse.

  “Alone?” She put up one hand. “Don’t tell me. Something else we shouldn’t know.” She glanced away, eyes darting across the mission grounds, the expanse of wild grasses and stunted bushes that ran to the Little Wind River. From somewhere came the faint sound of sirens.

  “Cops are all over the rez.” She turned in the direction of the sounds. “They want Mike and Colin. How can they think they had anything to do with killing that girl? Colin loved her his whole life. But the cops think they have it figured. Shot a white man, killed an Arapaho girl. Cops can solve two murders, they don’t care how. Moccasin telegraph says the cops have witnesses. Witnesses! Some Arapaho that’s scared his parole will be revoked, so he says what the cops want to hear? He saw Crazy Horse shoot Custer? Mike covering for Colin, riding in to shield him so nobody would see? Mike could do it. He could do anything with horses. But he didn’t help kill anybody.”

  She stretched a hand between the slats of the trailer and ran it along the horse’s flank. “Brownie here could tell them a thing or two. Mike talked to him all the time. Brownie talked back. Told each other secrets.” She withdrew her hand, buckling, knees giving in, and Father John reached for her arm to steady her.

  “We can’t give up hope.”

  “It’s not much, is it?”

  “It’s all we have.”

  The sirens had swelled to a screech that echoed through the hot, dry air. She pulled away and, hanging on to the side of the trailer, made her way to the driver’s side of the truck. She flung open the door. “I have to get out of here.”

  Past the corner of the administration building, Father John saw the line of gray police cars, roof lights flashing through the cottonwoods. “It’s too late,” Father John said. “Wait here.”

  He jogged to the end of the driveway, turned into Circle Drive, and walked toward the vehicles swinging into the curb. In an ambush, go to the enemy. It was what Crazy Horse had done.

  Detective Madden was lifting himself out of the passenger seat of the first car. He came along the drive, dark uniforms behind him, waving a white piece of paper, like a flag. “Where are they?” he called.

  Father John waited until he had closed the space between them. White detective, alone on the rez, out of his own territory, BIA Police backup, dark, serious faces and intense black eyes watching, ridge of black hair below their caps. “Who are you looking for?” Playing for time again.

  “I have warrants to arrest Colin Morningside and Mike Longshot for first degree murder and conspiracy to commit—”

  “On what evidence?” Father John locked eyes with the man until he looked away, still waving the white sheet of paper.

  “Enough evidence to convince the district court judge. No disrespect, Father, but this is out of your jurisdiction.”

  “You have the wrong men.”

  “Well, see, that’s the problem. We don’t have them yet. We will get them, however. They cannot hide on the rez forever.”

  “I’m telling you, they’re not guilty of murdering anybody.”

  “You know that how?”

  “I know them,” Father John said. “They aren’t capable of it.”

  “A priest telling me that? I wonder if you believe it. Maybe you haven’t heard enough confessions. Let me tell you, I’ve heard more than I want to think about. Cle
anest-cut, best-looking, best sons in the world, until they took a few too many shots of whiskey, got to brooding on all the wrongs done them, picked up a knife or a pistol or a baseball bat, and went looking for revenge.” The detective moved in closer, head bent, staring up at Father John. “You think we can really ever know another person?”

  “I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong men.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re not here.”

  “We can search the entire mission.”

  “Help yourself.”

  Off his shoulder, Father John heard the familiar rumble and clank of the truck and trailer. Brakes squeaking followed by the ragged sound of gears shifting, engine revving. Father John glanced around as the rig drove straight for Detective Madden and the mass of blue uniforms. Darleen Longshot hunched over the wheel, hands on the top, white-knuckled, and the wildness of a grizzly in her eyes.

  “Stop!” He leapt out in front, holding up both hands, the truck only a few feet away. Barely aware of the police officers stumbling and scattering, flinging themselves off the drive and into the grass. A hand, like iron, gripping his arm, yanking him backward, the bumper knocking against his leg.

  “Are you crazy?” Madden’s voice was a half octave higher, terror and shock racking the words.

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Father John saw the officer crouched on the curve, in shooting position. God! The pistol pointed at the cab of the truck heading into the curve on Circle Drive.

  “Don’t shoot!” Father John yelled. “For godssakes, don’t shoot.”

  Time stopped. The pistol poised in the air, moving slowly, tracking the trailer, the horse stamping. Then the trailer turning into the curve. Now, a clear view of the dark head in the rear window.

  “Don’t shoot her!” He shouted into the abyss of a battlefield, nothing but confusion, instinct, adrenaline pumping.

  “Stop!” The detective’s voice now, and the pistol slowly came down, and there was silence except for the receding rattle of the trailer heading through the cottonwoods.