Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Manny’s phone vibrated again, but he ignored it. “He must have had some money to live in that house of his.”

  Cubby laughed hard enough that he started a coughing spell. He hit his chest hard and flicked his cigarette out the window. “Chenoa felt benevolent and bought him that rattrap in Lodge Grass. She figured it was close enough to Harlan White Bird’s shop that Sam could crawl home if he couldn’t walk. I’m sure she wasn’t too broke up over Sam dying, was she?”

  “Your wife was plenty upset about the fire.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Those weren’t fake tears I saw when I gave her the bad news,” Manny lied.

  Cubby reached into his cigarette pack for another, but it was empty. He wadded the pack up and grabbed another from a carton on the seat, tapping it hard on his hand before opening the pack. “Chenoa’s good at producing tears on cue. Lord knows she’s been in the public eye enough.” He leaned out the window and met Manny’s gaze. “But you can take this to the bank: Chenoa’s damned glad Sam’s gone. Once she gets things straightened out, she won’t have to hunt his sorry ass up every time she needs something countersigned concerning the ranch.”

  “Why didn’t she go to court and have the business arrangement modified years ago?”

  “She tried.” Cubby accepted Manny’s Oldsmobile lighter again. “But Old Smoke had set the business arrangement up to be unbreakable. It was.”

  “Who gets Sam’s money if . . .”

  Cubby shook his head. “Chenoa was on him to have a will drawn up years ago. Even offered to pay for it, but he never did.”

  “Then Chenoa gets everything?”

  “She’s got everything now. Except with Sam dead, it’ll be official.” Cubby looked sideways at Manny. “You’re not figuring Chenoa for burning up Sam?”

  Manny held up a hand. “We don’t know if the victim is Sam. It’s officially accidental at this point. But if we find out Chenoa set the fire and she goes up the river, your children will be next in line to take possession of the ranch.”

  “We have no children.”

  Manny smiled. Somehow it had been too easy to set Cubby up. “Then you’ll get everything?”

  Cubby’s face flushed. He tossed his cigarette away and opened the door. “Now hold on . . .”

  Manny smiled a wide, disarming grin. “Like I said, Sam’s death is just an accident right now.”

  Cubby settled back in the seat and breathed fast like he’d been caught at something. “Sorry, Agent Tanno. It’s just that I don’t like to see my wife upset . . .”

  Manny waved it away. “But there is one other thing.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Someone called Chenoa and offered to sell her the Levi Star Dancer journal.”

  “The missing journal?”

  Manny nodded. “Or stolen.”

  Cubby slumped in the seat and closed the door. “Why did they think she would be interested?”

  “Cubby—you know well enough that the journal purports to have damaging historical information that would hurt the Star Dancer family. And, ultimately, hurt you as well.”

  “My wife and I don’t talk as often as we should,” he sputtered. He took a drag on his smoke but his hand shook and he rested it on the windowsill. “Chenoa wouldn’t be interested.”

  “The caller claimed the journal contained damning information about the Star Dancers. And about the Eagle Bulls from Pine Ridge.”

  “Him.” Cubby’s face reddened again and he looked away. “Did she buy it?”

  Manny shook his head. “She said the caller lowballed her. She figures the guy didn’t have the journal, and was just trying to shake her down.”

  “It was a guy that called?”

  “She wasn’t sure. The voice was muffled.”

  “Itchy,” Cubby said without hesitation.

  “What makes you think it’s your brother?”

  Cubby stuck another cigarette in his mouth, then grabbed it and tossed it onto the floorboard. “The son of a bitch is a drug addict. And he crashed at Harlan’s more often than not. That and he’s not smart enough to know how much to ask for the journal.”

  Manny started the engine. The Rocket Motor sprang to life. “Any ideas where I might find Itchy?”

  Cubby shrugged. “Most any rock on Crow Agency. Start looking for other meth heads—I think they gather in flocks somewhere and do their thing. Now I got to go, myself. After all, I am the working part of my marriage.”

  Cubby started his truck, but Manny stopped him. “And if you get wind of just who has the journal, you’ll call me?”

  Cubby laughed. “Sure.”

  Cubby started toward the ranch house, and Manny thought he’d lost interest in the journal that he was looking for at Sam’s house. Either Cubby knew who had it, or he knew it had burned up in the house fire.

  Manny waited until the dust had settled from Cubby’s Cowboy Coupe before he fished his phone out and dialed his voice mail. Lumpy had called three times, and all messages were identical: “Call me at Rapid City Regional Hospital ICU. ASAP.”

  Manny drove to the highest point on the road so as not to lose the signal, and tapped in Lumpy’s number.

  CHAPTER 17

  Willie shot bad. Hanging on by a thin thread. A dull rewind of Lumpy’s voice kept playing in Manny’s mind, the record skipping to the thin thread part. He floored the Olds and went around two Harleys as their riders gave him the finger when he passed them. If only they knew he needed to catch a flight from Billings to Rapid City.

  “Willie had been staking out Wilson Eagle Bull’s bunkhouse for Carson Degas,” Lumpy had said in broken gasps. “I don’t know why the hell I ever authorized Willie to help you. This is a federal case. And on another damned reservation at that!”

  “Willie knew the risks,” Manny tried to convince himself as well as Lumpy. But had Willie really taken Degas seriously? Willie stood a formidable foe, and at his young age, in his mind, he was bulletproof to boot. “He should have had backup.”

  There was a long pause on the other end. “I didn’t have any officers to spare.”

  “Because it was my case?” Manny bit his lip, salty blood mixing with saliva on his tongue. He breathed deep, reminding himself that Willie came first now, and that there would be enough blame later to go around. If anyone were to blame. “I’m chartering a flight to Rapid City.” But the charter pilot was four hours away. Four hours that could mean an eternity for his wounded and dying friend.

  He turned off into Hardin, killing time more than anything else, to take his mind off Willie. He had stopped by the Custer’s Revenge office and killed more time chewing the super’s butt, getting the reassurance that he’d fix the door and the silly clapper light switch and the toilet seat that grabbed him with a vengeance. Ultimately, Manny ran out of things to take his mind off Willie. Manny had been bedside with a dozen wounded officers, tubes sticking out of every orifice, jutting from places where there was no natural hole, hooked up to monitors that brought nurses running whenever any slight change occurred. Manny needed to put that out of his mind for now, or he’d be a wreck on the flight to Rapid. He feared flying enough, let alone dealing with the anxiety of Willie’s condition.

  He drove to the Big Horn County Courthouse and jail and parked around back. Captain Miles had no new information about Degas. “Damned shame about your friend getting shot.”

  Manny thought he’d thanked Miles for the concern, but he didn’t recall. He started driving out of town and passed the sign on the Four Aces Bar with the VFW POST 7481 screwed to the side of the building. He checked his watch: three hours and some change. He circled the block and pulled to the curb on Third Street. He had prayed to God. He had prayed to Wakan Tanka. But now was one of the few times in his life when he needed to pray to a stiff drink.

  He entered through the side door and sidled up to
the long bar, taking a seat on the opposite end from two afternoon professionals who sat swapping war stories, both teetering close to the edge of their wobbly stools. One older vet hugged a boilermaker with an extra shot of house swill parked beside his drinks, his thin arm circling it as if someone intended sneaking up and stealing it from him. He paused in his story to his compadre to give Manny the once-over through bleary eyes.

  His drinking buddy looked around his friend, coming dangerously close to falling off the stool. He tipped his glasses up and stared. A piece of peanut shell stuck to his scraggly beard, and he batted at a fly that strafed his mustache for last night’s dinner. He downed his beer and turned his back on Manny as he ordered another.

  “What’ll it be, pardner?”

  The bartender stacked glasses in a giant pyramid behind the bar and talked over his shoulder as he worked. A tire billy jutted from his back pocket, and his shirt bulged just under his left arm from the shoulder holster. Cheers this wasn’t.

  He turned and dropped a paper napkin onto the bar. “We got Bud and Miller on tap.”

  “You got Moose Drool?”

  “A connoisseur.” The bartender smiled, revealing a neat gap where his teeth had once been—the result of a fight? Or of opening too may beer bottles with his choppers. “You from the rez?” he asked from somewhere down inside a cooler in back of the bar.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Manny sized him up. Younger than Manny, he stood a full head shorter. He was thinner, with a scar that ran down one cheek to intersect with his mouth. Manny imagined he tried pushing one of the rez boys around once too often, as he was certain the tooth fairy hadn’t snuck up and snatched his teeth. “Just killing time.” And killing this feeling of dread consuming me. Any other damned time visions come sneaking up on me when I don’t want them. Why the hell not now? Why the hell can’t I see if Willie is going to pull through?

  Manny stood, sipping the dark ale while the bartender draped a towel around his neck and went back to drying and stacking glasses, all the while keeping Manny in his peripheral vision. He sipped again, the bite of the ale just enough that Manny feared he could get used to drinking. But not today.

  He walked to one wall and slipped Clara’s reading glasses from his pocket. The bartender did a double take when he put them on, but Manny paid him no mind as he examined the military photos hung the length of the wall. The photos were arranged by service, the army taking up most of the space, with sailors, marines, and airmen competing for what remained, further clustered together depending on what war they represented.

  Manny walked past the World War II photos, and something compelled him to stop at the Korean War area of one wall. A photo showed soldiers hunkered down inside a snow and frozen dirt barricade, the photographer catching their agony, their frozen beards bent against the wind. Manny fought the urge to reach out and touch the photo, but the urge won. As his hand ran over the photo, his fingers rested on two soldiers manning a Browning .30-cal, both men later dying in the battle when Chinese forces overran their position. How he knew this he suspected was his ongoing blight, and he silently cursed Reuben for convincing him that Wakan Tanka had gifted Manny with the powers of the sacred men.

  Manny pulled away, careful to stay well back from the photos as he moved along the wall, sipping his beer, when he choked on it. He turned his head and coughed violently, clearing his throat. The two drunks at the bar turned rummy eyes his way, while the bartender reached to his back pocket for his tire billy. Manny cleared his throat and set his mug on a table. The bartender eyed him suspiciously for a long moment before turning back to his glass chore while he kept Manny in his side vision.

  Manny walked down the wall to the Vietnam photos, and one picture drew his eye. He leaned closer and pushed his glasses farther up on his nose. There was no mistaking Wilson Eagle Bull, tall, sweaty green utility shirt rolled up over thick forearms, the faded eagle, globe, and anchor faded over one pocket. He stood beside a shorter, almost emaciated Marine, a green sweat-stained towel draped around his neck. They posed in front of a tunnel entrance, the camouflaged lid tossed aside. The small man grinned at the camera as he held up a stringer with four human ears.

  “This picture,” Manny called to the bartender. He draped his towel over his shoulder and walked to the wall. Manny tapped the photo. “You know this man?”

  He shrugged. “Just another Indian.” Indian sputtered from his mouth as if he were ashamed to have Indians adorning the walls.

  “He’s from Pine Ridge.”

  “So?”

  “This other one isn’t.”

  “Look, I got shit to do. You want a travel show, go someplace else.” The bartender smirked and returned to his chores behind the bar, and Manny realized how he’d lost his teeth.

  “He’s a genuine tunnel rat.” The drunk nursing the boilermaker had staggered over and stood reverently in front of the picture, one hand crossed over the other. He jerked his head at the bartender. “The kid’s got no respect for those that fought for his silly ass.”

  Manny tapped the photo. “Know him?”

  The drunk stood for a moment as if praying. “He’s from Crow Agency. The big guy was only seen in here once. The little one the post commander says is a real hero. And he gets what he wants. On the house.”

  “I didn’t catch his name.”

  The drunk laughed. “Did I forget? That’s Sampson Star Dancer, and I’m proud to tip a drink with him whenever he drops in.” The old vet grew silent once again and Manny stood quietly beside him. “Sampson earned four Purple Hearts,” he slurred at last. “Last one when he stepped on a Willie Pete and busted hell out of his leg. I’m proud to tip the jar with him whenever he comes in.”

  “Come in often?”

  He shook his head. “Just when he can catch a ride from the rez.”

  “How about the other one?” Manny tapped Wilson.

  “Once. He came in with Sampson. Said the big guy was his CO in I Corps, and the owner bought everyone a round. It was great.”

  The bartender returned to the never-ending chore of cleaning and stacking glasses; the drunk returned to holding the bar stool in place, and Manny returned to studying the picture. Sam and Wilson had served together in ’Nam, and a dozen reasons why he hadn’t mentioned that raced through Manny’s mind, something he’d jump Wilson about. Right after he visited Willie in Intensive Care.

  CHAPTER 18

  1884

  CROW AGENCY, MONTANA TERRITORY

  Hollow Horn, all five developing years of him, nocked an arrow into his tiny bow. Missing the string, he fell to the ground and kicked his legs up in the air like a grounded turtle. Levi started to help his son when thoughts of his own father emerged. Bull Moose had watched as Levi successfully nocked his first arrow, sitting on the sidelines watching his son send the arrow over a cliff, forever lost. But forever proud of Levi.

  Hollow Horn plucked the arrow from the ground, nocked it, and clutched the bowstring in his tough little fingers. He drew the bow and let loose the string, aiming it at the pu pua, the grass target Levi had fashioned and propped against a clump of sagebrush ten feet from Hollow Horn. He let loose the bowstring and the arrow dropped out of the string and stuck in the ground in front of the boy.

  Soon, Levi thought, he’d be able to give Hollow Horn the bow he would carry all his life, one made from the mountain sheep covered in rattlesnake skin, one that would cost Levi a good war pony. War pony. What need would any Crow have now for war ponies? Or for that matter, when would Hollow Horn have need of a bow? Things had changed in Crow country faster than Levi could write about them, and he yearned for times past.

  Hollow Horn gave a cry of frustration and dug the arrow from the ground. He nocked it once again, and once again the twang of the bow as the string rode past the arrow. It sailed two feet in front of the boy and dropped to t
he ground. Perhaps tomorrow, little warrior.

  Levi stood from the chair made of willow, padded with a fine trade blanket, yet his back ached. The pain had become worse this past year, that sharp pain that was the running sickness digging itself deeper inside him. He had visited Seeds, a fine as’bari’a, a physician, of the Whistling Water clan. Seeds had given him herbs to chew and make into a drink. Levi had drunk the bitter tea and chewed the rancid herbs until his mouth puckered to the point where he could barely protest.

  And still Seeds insisted Levi had no faith, for only with faith would he ever be cured. “Speak to masa’ka,” Seeds had urged. “The god of the sun will hear your prayers.”

  “I have prayed to him until I am hoarse and my voice threatens to leave me forever,” Levi insisted. “Still the pain persists. Perhaps if I visit the White doctor . . .”

  “Then never come back to my lodge!” Seeds had turned his back and remained there until Levi assured him he was only thinking aloud, that he would never think about seeing the baashchiili doctor. And even though the running sickness had saved him that day the Lakota Eagle Bull had killed White Crow and Eagle Bull’s companion, he still cursed the pain that plagued him always.

  Levi turned his attention to the field a half mile down the valley, and he shielded his eyes from the sun. His eyes remained keen, one of the reasons Colonel Custer had picked him to scout, one of the reasons General Crook had recruited him to scout for Lakota and Cheyenne after the Battle of the Greasy Grass. If Levi had that long scope of White Crow’s that his friend had that day he was killed, Levi could better see the haying operation going on in those fields of his. He shielded his hand over his eyes. He barely recognized the tiny outline of a man walking behind a team of grays, imaging the reins slack in his hands, pulling another man sitting an iron seat atop the hay rake. He imagined the man pulled the rope whenever the rake became full, to be picked up and stacked in a wagon later.