Death Along the Spirit Road

by C. M. Wendelboe

  But they wouldn’t be driving there, as Agents Williams and Coler had been on that June day in 1975. Williams and Coler had been ambushed on the anniversary of Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn. Manny had just gotten out of school that day after a wrestling meet, in which he trounced Lumpy on the mat. Manny met some friends at Big Bat’s for celebration burgers when the news came in: Two FBI agents were shot to death on the road to Oglala. “Do you know we require academy students to study the ambush of Williams and Coler to learn how not to make a traffic stop?”

  “I guess I got mixed feelings about them,” Willie said. “No one had a right to kill those guys, but they foolishly chased those militants into their own stronghold in an unmarked car.”

  Manny felt just the same back when it happened. The moccasin telegraph quickly got word around back then, and people said the agents had been harassing AIM members. When the agents tried to stop a pickup-load of Indians, they fled, and innocent, peace-loving Lakota merely defended themselves against government intrusion.

  Manny swore by that version until he became an FBI agent, when the incidents would be studied, the tactics dissected. He learned that the agents had no chance that day. He read eyewitness accounts of the militants shooting them so many times they couldn’t have survived, even if help had arrived on time. Manny, the rebellious teen who wanted to follow his big brother’s path, believed they deserved their fate. Manny, the eager FBI agent who wanted to stand up for justice, came to look with contempt upon those who murdered Williams and Coler. Peltier was the only man convicted in the murders, and had remained in jail since. Manny despised the FREE LEONARD PELTIER bumper stickers that could still be seen on reservation cars even today.

  They crested a hill overlooking a shallow valley with trailers on forty-acre lots. “Which one is Reuben’s?”

  Willie pointed to a beige colored single-wide sitting past three others a quarter of a mile away. On the east end of Reuben’s trailer, a corral jutted out. A paint gelding stood three-legged in the intense morning heat, his tail methodically swatting flies. Across from the corral, a lean-to frame held wood stacked shoulder high, and smoke billowed up from the rear of the trailer. “What’s he burning back there?”

  “Who knows with these wicasa wakan.”

  Manny turned in the seat. “Reuben claims to be a holy man now?”

  “Not claims. He is. Like a lot of convicts in stir, he found religion behind bars. He’s been studying with Ben Horsecreek up by Cuny Table, and most folks hereabouts consider Reuben to be a sacred man now.”

  “A holy man,” Manny breathed. “I would never have believed it.” How does an AIM enforcer who murders and goes to prison suddenly become a sacred man people look to for spiritual guidance?

  Dust settled around the squad car as Willie stopped in front of Reuben’s house. “You sure you want me to come along?”

  Manny nodded. “I may need a witness. Or at least someone who’ll keep me honest until I see where this goes.”

  Manny climbed out of the cruiser first, and caught in his peripheral vision Willie unsnapping his holster. Manny smiled. He was comfortable around Willie, assured the young policeman could handle most things that came his way, including ex-felons more than twice his age. Maybe it was Willie’s attitude, or his size, that caused Manny to feel safe, and he was thankful that Willie was with him.

  As they walked toward the back of the trailer, cedar smoke hung heavy in the air, pungent yet enticing enough that Manny forgot for a moment that he came to question a murder suspect. They walked around the corner of the trailer, and Manny saw his brother for the first time since Unc’s funeral sixteen years ago. Reuben sat facing a fire that crackled and snapped from cedar and pitch pine burning. He bent over as he worked on something, oblivious to the occasional ember that escaped the fire ring and landed in the dirt at his feet. This is a holy man? Reuben’s sweatpants had fallen a bit too far south, exposing his plumber’s smile. His long gray hair was tied in a ponytail that ended midback, matted with what appeared to be yesterday’s lunch.

  They didn’t sneak around the trailer, but they weren’t noisy either. Reuben called over his shoulder, “I figured you’d be paying me a visit soon.”

  Manny jumped.

  Reuben stood to his full height and faced them. He wore a dirty T-shirt that said MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS KILLED COWBOYS. Patches of white hair covered his temples. He had gained forty pounds since Manny last saw him, but he carried almost no fat. The wise old men, the nige tanka, would have said that Reuben possessed bloka. The Big Bellies would have said he projected the power of masculinity, symbolized by the buffalo to describe a man’s bravery and strength. Despite his age, his eyes remained bright and clear. And transfixed on Manny. He stepped forward. “Hau, kola.”

  Reuben’s hand encircled Manny’s; his grip firm, though not punishing. Manny turned Reuben’s hand over, his skin soft and supple and smooth. The last time Manny shook his hand it displayed the deep, dry cuts of a mason’s palm. “You give up bricklaying?”

  “Naw, I still do some. But my kids do most of the work.” He pointed to formed wet clay shaped into a bowl glistening on a potter’s wheel. “I picked up pottery in the slammer. Keeps me sane. And my hands soft as a baby’s behind.”

  Reuben turned to Willie. “My little brother took my hand after all these years, but he’s not polite enough to introduce us. I’m Reuben Tanno.”

  “William With Horn.” Willie hesitated before he shook Reuben’s hand. Reuben smiled. “Tribal. Good. At least you’re not BIA. Or worse, some . . .”

  “FBI?” Manny finished.

  “You said it, little misun,” Reuben said. “But you didn’t come over here to jaw about your cushy job. I hear you’ve been assigned to investigate Jason Red Cloud’s murder.”

  Reuben didn’t wait for an answer as he turned his back and motioned to a chair and a tree stump. Willie took the stump and Manny sat in the chair opposite Reuben. He walked barefoot, holding a small, circular knife in one hand and tanned deer hide in the other. He cut narrow strips of hide and allowed them to drop to the ground while he spoke.

  “Making some repairs,” he said. He pointed to a pair of wellworn moccasins warming by the fire. “You guys want some tea? Lemonade? I’d offer you something more substantial, but we all know hooch is illegal here on the rez. Besides, I quit it for good while I was in Sioux Falls. Never got the urge to start again.”

  Willie shook his head, and Manny ignored the offer. As he studied Reuben, he wondered if all this posturing, all this mockfriendlessness had a purpose. “We really don’t have time for that,” Manny said. “I just want to know—”

  “You forget your manners since you escaped to the big city? First we country Indians jaw a little before we get around to talking about your investigation. It’s been so long since I saw you, little brother.”

  “Unc’s funeral.” Manny cursed under his breath. Reuben had sucked him right into a conversation he’d dreaded.

  “That was long ago.” Reuben picked up one of his moccasins and threaded the new string through the top. “In all that time, you never wrote your big brother in prison, never indicated that you cared if I was still breathing or not.”

  Willie stood and started for the car, and Reuben rested his hand on Willie’s arm. “Stay awhile, Officer With Horn. This bit of reservation history might interest you.”

  “I’ll wait in the car. I’ve got some school notes to go over anyway.”

  Manny waited until Willie disappeared around the trailer before facing Reuben. “You know damn well how I felt. It’s not every day a boy’s brother murders another Lakota.”

  “But you strutted around your little friends because of my involvement with AIM. That was cool back then, wasn’t it?”

  “Being involved with AIM wasn’t synonymous with murder.”

  “What the hell do you think we did back then?” Reuben put on his moccasins and stomped his feet to feel the new string. “We weren’t exactly Boy Scouts.
”

  “But you didn’t murder.” Manny was a teenager again, pleading with Unc that Reuben didn’t commit the terrible crime he was charged with; pleading that Reuben didn’t kill Billy Two Moons, or Alex Jumping Bull as people rumored.

  “You may have been suspected of killing, but I just knew you never murdered anyone. Some other AIM, but not you. You stood up for Native rights and I always knew you couldn’t murder anyone, especially another Oglala.”

  Reuben looked down at him. “Didn’t we kill each other? How about the sixty-odd dead found scattered around the rez in the years after Wounded Knee? Some died of exposure, compliments of the booze. Some staggered onto the highway and got themselves waffled. Wilson’s goons killed some. But AIM was at least as responsible as they ever were.”

  Tribal president Dick Wilson’s bodyguards shadowed him wherever he went, and he needed them. AIM swore they would see Wilson buried, and Wilson swore he would do whatever it took to rid Pine Ridge of AIM thugs. “There goes Wilson’s GOONS,” people would comment behind their backs. “The mighty Guardians of the Oglala Nation.”

  Manny stood and put his hands up to shove his brother back. “But not you. I knew you enforced AIM’s policies, and I lived with that all right. Right up until you killed Billy Two Moons. That changed everything, Reuben. A justifiable killing was one thing. People died because they defended themselves. But a murder—cold and confessed. You became like the rest of them. You shamed me and Unc.”

  “Manny,” Reuben said, his voice softened now. He took a step toward him, but Manny backed away. “I remember when I came home for the folks’ funeral and I held a little five-year-old boy just long enough to bury our parents, then return to ’Nam.”

  “What the hell’s that got to do with murder?”

  “You’re the only family I got left. Sure, I confessed to the murder, and yes, I served my time.”

  “You paid the price? Is that it?”

  Reuben nodded. “I paid a bigger price than you’ll ever know. That gated community of the state penitentiary wasn’t exactly paradise, you know. You forgot me. But I never forgot you. Or the pride I feel for what you’ve become. I may publicly denounce you because you joined the FBI, but I’m still proud of my kola.”

  Manny dropped onto the tree stump and grabbed his handkerchief from his back pocket. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and face. He didn’t want to be Reuben’s kola. He didn’t want memories of a time when he adored Reuben. He just wanted to solve his case and get away from Pine Ridge. “I didn’t come here for a social visit. Like you said, I’m here to investigate Jason Red Cloud’s murder.”

  Reuben nodded and sat back in his lawn chair. He grabbed a pipe from his back pocket. He filled the bowl from a Prince Albert can and lit the pipe with an Ohio Blue Tip and tossed the match in the fire. Stalling. Manny read Reuben’s smoke ritual as taking time to anticipate questions and have answers ready in his mind. “All right. Ask away.”

  Manny dug a small notebook from his shirt pocket, not because he needed to refer to his notes, but as a distraction while he gauged reactions to his questions. “When was the last time you spoke with Jason?”

  Reuben blew another smoke ring and shrugged. “I can’t recall.”

  “Besides the argument at Big Bat’s?”

  Reuben laughed. “You have been busy. My ears on the rez heard right after all.”

  “The argument?” Manny asked, fishing now as he often did in interviews. He thumbed through pages in his notebook as if he possessed secret information that would trip Reuben.

  “OK,” Reuben said. He tamped out his pipe bowl on the side of the chair and pocketed it. Killing time. Concocting his answer. “Jason and I argued. His resort needed retaining walls built along with pads for the showers and RVs. We haggled on the price, and he awarded my Heritage Kids the contract. A few nights before he was murdered—last Wednesday—I was in Big Bat’s when Jason came in and I confronted him.”

  “About?”

  “I heard he’d given the job to a contractor from Black Hawk, and screwed my kids out of work. He blew me off. He said he’d thought it over, that it would hurt the corporate image if he hired an ex-con. He laughed and said it was just business.”

  “And you were mad at him.”

  “Livid.”

  “Enough to kill him?”

  “Slowly. Deliciously.”

  “And did you?”

  Reuben laughed, but deep creases furrowed his forehead. “I got no intention of going back to the joint. But as a matter of record, I grabbed him and threw him against the wall by the pop dispenser. Hard enough that a picture hanging on the opposite wall crashed to the floor.”

  “Your contacts from the old days didn’t do you any good?”

  “Not one bit.”

  As Manny sat across from him, a deep sadness for Reuben overcame him that had nothing to do with Reuben’s butt sagging through missing slats in the seat of his lawn chair. It was Reuben’s choice of associating with the likes of Jason Red Cloud and AIM back in his youth. Jason had been there with Reuben at all of AIM’s major headline grabbers. But the year Reuben was sentenced for the Two Moons murder, the year Jason’s parents died in that wreck, Jason quit AIM for the easy life of college and the family business. Even now, Reuben held a grudge against Jason.

  “Why the hell didn’t you get an attorney and make him honor the contract?”

  Reuben retied his moccasins and flexed his foot for the feel. “A verbal contract with an ex-con, a murderer who lined up work for a bunch of delinquent kids? Who the hell would believe me?”

  Reuben was right. Jason’s reputation as a businessman was beyond reproach, and Reuben would have been laughed out of any courtroom.

  They looked at each other, saying nothing, for there was nothing more to say between them. They had rehashed the past. They had traded guilt trips. Manny had the information he came here to get: Reuben and Jason had argued, but for different reasons than Elizabeth thought. And Reuben, by his own admission, had been angry enough to kill Jason, and was quite capable of it.

  Manny stood and stretched. “One other thing: How long would it take you to drive to Wounded Knee?”

  Reuben chin-pointed to the corral where his pony still panted in the heat. “I don’t drive anymore, kola. Don’t even own a car. There’s a whole lot of dangerous drunken Skins on the road to worry about. I’ll stick to my pony. And by the by, you’re free to come around here any time. Maybe someday we’ll patch things up, no?”

  “Patch things up? You tell me what really happened the night Billy Two Moons was murdered. Then maybe we’ll pass the pipe.”

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “That night,” Manny pressed. “What happened?”

  “I told it all already. Dozens of times. Billy was going to buy beer and meet me by Hill City. When I saw him driving that fancy White-man’s car, I knew he’d snitched for Dick Wilson or the FBI, and I just lost it.”

  “How many times did you shoot him, big brother?” Manny had committed the information to memory.

  “Six times. Six rounds of .45. One would have been enough, but I was always thorough.”

  “Why would Henry Lone Wolf claim he saw you with Elizabeth that night?”

  “Because he did see me at Lizzy’s. But he was wrong on the time. I left Lizzy’s early that night and drove to meet up with Billy. Don’t you know I would have used Henry as a witness if I thought it could have helped me?”

  Manny always believed something else happened that night, that Reuben was involved in more than just the murder of a suspected AIM informant. And even though he was still tormented by the thought of Reuben being the murderer, reopening a thirty-year-old case to satisfy his own curiosity wouldn’t help him solve Jason Red Cloud’s death.

  Reuben started to speak, but Manny turned on his heels and left before he had to listen to his brother anymore.

  CHAPTER 5

  Willie closed his textbook. “You all right?”

>   “Do I look all right?” Manny shut the car door. He rested his head on the seat back and rubbed his forehead.

  “You look like you need something. Maybe a stiff drink.”

  “I don’t drink either.”

  “Well, you need something. You’re shaking worse than a dog passing a peach pit.”

  Manny’s hand trembled as he reached for the pack of cigarettes. A smoke would hit the spot: an old friend helping him through stressful times. Most men had a wife to comfort them. Some a dog. Manny had a damned Camel—or used to before he quit being a two-lighter-a-day smoker. His Camel would have been there if he hadn’t been so foolish to quit right before coming back here. “It’s just been so long since I talked with my brother.”

  They started down the gravel road away from Reuben’s trailer. When they pulled onto Highway 18, Willie turned in his seat. “Did I hear Reuben call you ‘kola’?”

  Manny nodded. He had hoped that had gotten by Willie, but Manny figured few things got by Willie. “Reuben first called me kola at our folks’ funeral, and I can’t shake it.”

  “You got no choice. Margaret says a man’s kola is a lifetime commitment. The wicasa yatanpi, the shirtwearers of the old days, praiseworthy and honorable men, taught that a man’s kola was his for life. If a man’s kola went down during battle, he had to rescue him.”

  Once Manny had been proud of being Reuben’s kola when Unc explained the obligations. “A person must never betray his kola, never reveal secrets about him. The old ones cherished this relationship, and a kola’s bond is greater than tiospaye, than family. You have both a brother and a kola.” Could he arrest his kola for Jason’s murder?