Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Unless theft for sale wasn’t the motive. Brings us back to that blackmail theory.”

  Willie stopped and turned to face Manny. “Stumper never saw the journal. He assumed Harlan had it in that cedar box. There’s the possibility that Harlan sold it sometime yesterday before he left for the reenactment.”

  “So you think Harlan stole the journal, sold it, and was going to claim that someone came in and lifted it during the show?”

  Willie raised an eyebrow. “Remember Stumper said Harlan was paranoid, built his auction house on a dead-end street so he could better monitor people coming.”

  “Go on.”

  “If he was so paranoid, why didn’t he fix his alarm system? Why didn’t he repair the broken window in the spare room? I’m thinking he didn’t because he wanted to point to those places as a way a thief could gain entry unnoticed.”

  Manny smiled, proud that Willie was working things out on his own. Just one more step toward his becoming a top investigator.

  “Or maybe the journal’s a diversion.”

  Manny fumbled with Willie’s iPod, which he’d wired into Manny’s car as a condition of going on vacation together. Willie reached over and hit the power and Creedence Clearwater Revival faded away.

  “Maybe Harlan was into something else, and the disappearance of the journal is just a diversion.”

  “Don’t get more of a diversion than getting killed.”

  Willie nodded. “I guess we can assume Harlan wasn’t counting on that.”

  “You’re talking us right into an extended stay on Crow Agency.”

  Willie slipped his Ray-Bans on. “I’m just spouting shit here. I’m sure by tonight we’ll close this as a tragic accident, then Stumper and the BIA can worry about what became of the journal.”

  They took the I-90 Hardin exit and pulled in to the Custer’s Revenge Motel. Willie stopped in front of a faux hitching rail replete with rusty horseshoes nailed to the weathered top rail. Manny started to get out, but Willie made no move to shut the car off. “You staying out here?”

  “The less time I got to spend in that place the better.” He nodded to their motel room. “That’s the last time I let you book a room.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean ‘what’? Did you think a motel by the name of Custer’s Revenge would be Indian-friendly? The last time I looked, we were still Indians.”

  “The staff is friendly enough . . .”

  “But lazy as hell. The lights don’t work half the time, and that bathroom’s a nightmare. That crack in the toilet seat pinched my butt last night and I thought it’d never let go.”

  Manny laughed. “You could have yelled a little softer. You woke me up.”

  Willie shook his head. “Custer’s Revenge. By the looks of the place, we’re the only business the place has had all year. Custer’s Revenge.”

  “Could have been called Montezuma’s Revenge.”

  “That’s all I need, a case of Montezuma’s revenge and trying to fight that toilet seat from grabbing my ass.” Willie spit tobacco juice out the window. It slid down the side of Manny’s Oldsmobile. “And this?”

  “What?”

  “This?” Willie wiped his mouth with his bandanna and slapped the green metal dash. “Don’t see why you ever got rid of your nice Accord and bought this.”

  Manny feigned pain as he wiped the dust from the dash of his ’55 Olds. “The Accord had a ton of miles on it. It kept nickel-and-diming me to death. Besides, there’s more metal here than my Honda had.”

  Willie nodded. “Guess the more iron you have the less likely you’ll be hurt when—not if, but when—you have your next wreck. Next year at this time, this thing will look like every other rez rod prowling Pine Ridge. And”—he shook his head—“you should never buy a car you can’t push. And this one’s too heavy to push.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on driving my car rather than your truck.”

  Willie shifted in the seat. “Just because you said this heap had air-conditioning.”

  “It does,” Manny said. “It just doesn’t work.”

  “I can live sweating my butt off without air. But between the lumpy bed and the toilet seat and wrestling this thing around without power steering, I woke up feeling like I’d gone ten rounds with the Turtle Tree boys.”

  “When was the last time you tangled with those rowdies?”

  Willie’s hand shot to his cheek, still sporting a faint discoloration. “Two weeks ago when I backed up Hollow Thunder. Point is, that bed about beat me to a draw.”

  “My bed’s just fine.”

  “And the hot water? Do you like your hot water running out halfway through?”

  Manny had done the two-step this morning when the shower turned as cold as a mountain stream partway through. “I notified the manager. Besides, we’re not exactly rolling in the dough. It was the most cost-effective room we could get.”

  “Cost-effective? That’s just another way of saying you’re cheap.”

  “Frugal.”

  “How frugal?”

  “They gave me a veteran’s discount.”

  “How frugal?”

  Manny looked out the window. “$22.90 a night.”

  “What! Does that include that rough TP? I got a paper cut with it last night.”

  “Oh, bull.” Manny swore he’d gotten wood chips in his butt last night from the paper. But he wasn’t going to admit it to Willie. “So it’s not Charmin. When you’re trying to be frugal, you have to skimp on some amenities.”

  “The softest toilet paper a man can use isn’t splurging. It’s the highest on the priority list.” Willie slapped Manny on the arm. “You’re just cheap. For the rest of the trip, I’ll make the reservations. I’m willing to pay a little bit more for a good night’s sleep. And for a butt that isn’t healing from a thousand unkind cuts.”

  Manny opened the door, but Willie made no move to follow. “So you’re pissed, and you’re going to sleep out here tonight?”

  Willie looked away. “I’m going to catch an AA meeting in town.”

  Manny put his hand on Willie’s arm. “Wish I could be of some help.”

  Willie shook Manny’s hand off and turned in the seat. “What could you possibly do? How could you possibly know what real addiction is? It’s not like you got much stress to deal with.”

  Manny wanted to confess he struggled with his smoking habit. And his weight. And his stress level soared with his on-again, off-again relationship with Clara, reaching an all-time high level now that they were engaged. And his guilt over the Red Cloud homicide. And his relationship with his brother Reuben. Manny knew stress.

  Willie forced a smile and slapped Manny on the leg. “I know you just want to help. But I’ll be all right as soon as I hunt up that meeting.”

  Manny closed the car door and leaned in the window. “We’ll watch some TV tonight when you get back.”

  “The TV doesn’t work.”

  Manny watched Willie as he drove out of the parking lot. Damned that Olds has got nice lines. He turned to their motel room. His key caught and stuck partially into the lock. Manny pushed on the key and the door swung in, unlatched. He tried pulling the key out, but it remained jammed in the lock, and Manny made a mental note to notify the desk clerk in the morning.

  Manny clapped, but the light didn’t come on. He clapped again. And again, hoping no one saw him clapping like a fool. He had turned to leave for the manager’s office when he clapped a last time. A wagon-wheel chandelier missing two bulbs flickered on and washed the room in dirty light. It hung low enough that Manny had to duck around it as he plopped onto a stained blue sofa. A spring jabbed him in the butt, and he moved to the opposite side of the couch. He had started taking his boots off when his cell phone rang.

  “I’ve got your man on the line,” Bob McGin
nis shouted in the receiver as if he’d been hollering all the way to Paris. “But he’s hard to understand. His English isn’t very good.”

  “’Bout like your French?”

  “Piss on you, Tanno.”

  There was a short pause while McGinnis patched Adrian Beauchamp through. Between the language differences and the fact that Beauchamp had been awakened in the middle of the night, Manny strained to understand him.

  “The gendarme said you need to speak with me right away, Monsieur Tanno.”

  “Oui, mon ami.” Manny didn’t trust his French any further and switched to English, speaking slowly. After explaining he had examined the Beauchamp Collection, he asked Beauchamp about the artifacts he had donated for the auction.

  “These things belonged to Great-Grandfather Beauchamp . . . Blaise. He spent time trapping Crow country before the Custer Massacre, but he left Crow country some months before the battle.”

  The line went quiet and Manny wondered if they had been disconnected, when Beauchamp continued. “Blaise moved back east in your country. Started a trading company that dealt with Indians in your west.” Beauchamp laughed. “Your Wild West. Anyway, he made his fortune in trade before returning to France. He lived out his days here. The gendarme who woke me said the collection has caused much trouble in your country.”

  “We’re not sure the collection has caused any trouble. We are just covering our bases.”

  Beauchamp chuckled again. “Like your baseball. You wish to swat a home run.”

  “Hit a home run,” Manny corrected. “Tell me about the journal you donated.”

  “Ah,” he said after a long pause. “I sent the journal along with other artifacts sur un coup de tête. On a whim.”

  “How is it that Blaise came to own a journal belonging to Levi Star Dancer?”

  “Ah, I regret I cannot say. I have never read the journal. It is in English. I speak your language, but do not read it so well. My son Emile who fell in love with all the things Indian, and especially with Crow culture, has read it so many times he can recite it from memory. As a young boy, he and his friends would play with the collection. Emile always insisted on being the Indian.”

  That’s a first: a White man wanting to be an Indian. “Can I speak with Emile about the journal?”

  Beauchamp laughed. “Emile became tired of everything Indian as he grew. No, Emile discovered that women are so much more interesting than a musty hundred-years-old book someone scribbled in. Volages. Children are so . . . fickle these days. Emile is away.”

  Manny felt his headache spreading across his forehead. “When will he return?”

  “Whenever the snow melts,” Beauchamp laughed. “He and his lady friend found mountain climbing. He may be back tomorrow. He may be back next week. I will have him call you, Agent Tanno.”

  “Merci, Monsieur Beauchamp.”

  Manny had begun disconnecting when Beauchamp stopped him. “One thing, Agent Tanno. Emile once said that the journal holds the Star Dancer clan in a bad light. And an Indian by the name of Eagle Bull more so.”

  “In what way?”

  “I do not know, my friend. But I will have Emile call you immediately when he returns.”

  Manny closed his phone and fished into his suitcase for his bottle of aspirin. Great, the journal might have been a motive for killing Harlan. “Or it may be nothing more than a musty, hundred-year-old book,” he said aloud, hoping he was right.

  CHAPTER 7

  JULY 1876

  PRYOR MOUNTAINS, MONTANA TERRITORY

  Levi Star Dancer sat cross-legged on the floor of the tipi, thick buffalo hair tickling his bare legs. But Levi found no humor in the tickling, and he focused on slowing his breathing. He grabbed one shaking hand with the other and hid it under the blanket spread across his lap, for this was a moment most solemn.

  His eyes wandered around the tipi, to the smoke from the fire in the center rising and escaping through the smoke hole. His eyes fell on possible pouches hanging inside the lodge containing everyday things: cooking items and hunting and fleshing items. He forced his mind to focus, to concentrate on the light blue pony beads making up the background on the bags with seed beads forming a red diamond hourglass on the supple elk-hide pouches. Eyes roaming anywhere but on Pretty Paw sitting beside her father across from Levi.

  He chanced a sideways glance at Broken Rib, sitting with legs drawn under him at the acoria, the place of honor at the rear of the lodge. Wolf tails sewn to the heels of his moccasins fluttered as the old man repositioned his legs, working out a cramp, the tails a reminder that Broken Rib struck coup on an enemy. Many times.

  Broken Rib packed his pipe and brought a flaming twig from the fire and touched the tobacco. Sweet aroma filled the small space. The old man drew in the smoke, oblivious to Levi and his daughter, watching the smoke rise, a contented purring coming from him like the purring of the iishb’iia, the mountain lion.

  Levi fought the urge to begin the conversation, unsure if his shaking voice would give Broken Rib the impression that Levi feared him. So he sat looking straight ahead as the old warrior finished his smoke and emptied the ashes in a small bowl to be offered to the four winds later. He carefully and reverently separated the bowl and stem and slid them into a deerskin pipe bag bearing the same geodetic designs as the possible bags. He turned and placed the pipe bag beside him.

  Broken Rib turned to Levi and finally broke the silence. “Pretty Paw believes you are here to ask my only daughter in marriage.”

  Levi nodded and cleared his throat as he remembered what he had rehearsed. “She will be my first,” he blurted.

  The old man’s eyebrows rose. “She may be your first, but she will also be your only wife, the way the world changes. If I allow the marriage.”

  Levi waited quietly for Broken Rib to continue. “What happened at the Greasy Grass two moons ago was a great victory for the Lakota and Cheyenne.” He spit into the fire as if in disgust. “But it will be a victory as hollow as horns of a buffalo on a hungry anthill. The horse soldiers will return. In even greater numbers to avenge the soldier leader with the sun-bleached hair. And they will ask you to scout for them once again.”

  Levi straightened. “I want to raise a family.” Finally, he had gathered courage enough to tell the man seated across from him. “My scouting days are over. I want . . .”

  Broken Rib raised his hand. “These things you want—they will have to wait. You will have to scout for the soldiers looking for our enemies when they ask.”

  Levi felt the rage build, bolstering his courage to confront the old man. “So you are saying you will not allow the marriage until I am done with the soldiers?”

  Broken Rib shook his head as he grabbed a lodge pole and stood, arching his back. “I do not think she can wait that long.” He turned and faced her. “How long, my daughter?”

  Pretty Paw rubbed her belly. “The child grows faster than I wish. Soon, I will not be able to conceal the baby even with skirts big enough for you.”

  Levi bit his lip, breathing to keep his temper controlled. This was Broken Rib’s lodge, and Levi would remain silent until spoken to.

  The old man arched his back, popping noises coming from worn joints older than Levi had any hope of attaining, and he looked away. By Crow standards, Broken Rib lacked attractiveness because of his size. Towering over every warrior in the camp, people considered him too tall to be handsome. Yet, his very stature drew people to him, asking his advice, seeking out his wisdom. After a long pause, he looked down at Levi still sitting on the buffalo robe. “How many ponies will you give for my daughter?”

  “Father!” Pretty Paw grabbed onto the lodge pole and struggled to stand. Both men watched her, neither wishing to insult her by helping her. Her belly protruded and she leaned back to ease the pressure. She faced her father, her face flushed, her jaw tightening, reminding Levi why he loved her s
o. “This is not about ponies.”

  Her father began speaking, but she interrupted him. “No one else would marry me if they knew.” She rubbed her belly. “This baby is not even Levi’s. You know that. Yet he would be a father to another man’s child.”

  Broken Rib backed away from his daughter. “This I know is the truth. The trapper—Beauchamp—is without relatives. I should never have let him share my lodge.”

  Levi nodded; in some small measure it pleased the old man to insult the Frenchman in the worst way a Crow warrior could. Beauchamp is without relatives, for certain. And without honor for leaving his responsibility of fatherhood behind. If I were close enough to lay my hands at the man’s throat . . .

  “But he did share your lodge.” Pretty Paw’s voice rose, her hands cradling her belly. “But to ask Star Dancer for ponies . . .”

  Broken Rib raised his hand and she quieted. “Now it is time I talk over you, my daughter.” He took her hand and eased her back down onto the buffalo robes covering the tipi floor. “I may be poor by Crow thinking, but there are those that say I am rich in wisdom. I believe First Maker gave me such wisdom for times such as these.” He hunched over and sat cross-legged beside Pretty Paw and stretched his feet to the fire, rubbing his toes.

  “Tell me, my daughter, what would people think if they knew Beauchamp was the father of the baby growing inside you?”

  “They would shun me. You know that. And they would shun the baby whenever he or she comes. But this man”—she nodded to Levi—“wishes to be with me.”

  Broken Rib smiled for the first time. “In the words of the White men, Levi wishes to make an honest woman of you.”

  Pretty Paw looked down.

  “People can be cruel in times like this.” Broken Rib’s braids danced on his chest. “And the baby would have no one.” He nodded to Levi. “He is of the Whistling Water clan, but babies could not—by our custom—ever belong if they are born out of marriage.”