windows, which were curtained with all different calicos. I looked back at the elk’s body, where I could see where the death shot had pierced one side and then continued on through the other, taking a lot of meat with it. I went ahead talking about the marinade. “Sage, garlic…”
She interrupted, impatient with my novice tongue. “Cider vinegar and beer-lots of beer.”
I stood and looked down at all four-foot-ten of her, wrapped in a shawl and dressed in a full-length, layered skirt despite the 90-degree weather and the fire. She looked as if she should’ve been beside a sheep wagon telling fortunes and finding pentagrams in people’s hands. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”
She cocked her head, regarding me. “You are the lawman from the Ahsanta mountains.”
“I am.”
“They say you’re a good man, Ahsanta.” She shifted her weight. “You know I had three sons?”
“No, ma’am.”
“One was killed in the Vietnam. My second son, the one you hunt, never showed no interest in the white man’s army-he’s the smart one. My grandson, Nate, the one that works at the talking box, the boy of my son up in Deer Lodge.”
I smiled. “The radio station?”
“Yes. He was going to fight in this war they have now; I don’t know which one.” She shifted the handle in her hands and rested it beside her face. “I told him no, that he couldn’t join the white man’s army, that they would only get him killed.” She studied me. “You in the white man’s army, Ahsanta?”
“I was.”
She nodded, mostly to herself. “Only the white man survives the white man’s army.”
I glanced at Lolo. “Chief Long here was in the white man’s army.”
“ Se-senovoto ema’etao’o.”
I saw Long stiffen, but she said nothing, and it was possible she was learning.
“Why you hunt my boy?”
I figured I’d just level with her. “Last night, he tried to run me over with his truck.”
She stared at me through the clouds in her eyes, then her jaw dropped and she began breathing a convulsive laugh that pulsed her tiny back like a bicycle pump. “Maybe he doesn’t like you, Ahsanta.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ve never really met him, so I can’t imagine what it is he’s got against me.”
“He doesn’t like the ones make him sleep inside.” She continued to study me, but she was making up her mind about something. Finally, she spoke. “Was here last night.”
“Your son?”
“Who we talking about?”
She had a point. “What time?”
“Night time.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
She adjusted something in her mouth, and I thought she was going to spit again, but instead, she swallowed. “Don’t own a clock.”
I slipped a hand over my mouth to pull down the corners and keep myself from smiling. “Did he stay the night?”
“Nope, can’t sleep inside no more. Told you-you people did that to him.”
I glanced back at the holes in the deer and could see where someone had slit the butts and shoulders and removed the membrane from the rib cage. It was a professional job-Artie most certainly had been there last night. “Mrs. Small Song, I’m not here to arrest your son for anything; I’d just like to talk to him.”
She motioned with the shovel handle, rocking it toward Chief Long. “What does Se-senovoto ema’etao’o want?”
I glanced over my shoulder as if I’d just remembered the young woman who was peering into the scrub pine and juniper bushes on the ridge above us. “She just wants to talk to Artie, too.”
She nodded her head but continued watching the coals, glowing red around the edges, and it was impossible to tell what she might’ve been thinking. For a moment, I thought she’d forgotten we were still there, but then she spat on the rocks again. “I tell him you was here, whenever he come back.”
“We’d appreciate that, Mrs. Small Song.” I turned and started toward the corner of the house with Lolo in tow.
We were halfway down the path when she grabbed my arm and tried to yank me around. I kept walking, but when we got to the level, she stepped in front of me. “That’s it?”
“Keep your voice down and get in the truck.”
She looked a little startled and then followed me to the Yukon, where we opened the doors and slid in. “He’s there?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the part I don’t like.” I gestured toward the ignition switch. “He’s been there, and he’s going to be there again, and I’m thinking it would be nice if we weren’t quite so conspicuous on the next visit.”
“Okay, Great-White-Detective, so how did you know he had been there?”
“Well, the elk, for one-that old woman didn’t break up that five-hundred-pound animal and rack it herself; besides, I pride myself on knowing what an M-50 can do to living tissue.”
“The very-out-of-season elk?”
“Yep, so all we have to do is wait for the prodigal and well-armed son to return.”
She started the SUV and pulled it into gear. “What are we going to do, go sit up on a hill and wait till he decides to come back?”
I pulled my pocket watch from my jeans and looked at the dial. “That elk should be done in about seven hours.” I tossed a forefinger down the red dirt road. “Let’s go talk to Herbert His Good Horse, and we’ll wander back around here come dark.” I put on my seat belt. “So, what does Se-senovoto ema’etao’o mean?”
She roared the Yukon down the hill. “Red snake.”
The tribal office buildings are a sprawling compound of warrens representing the different factions of tribal government, and there were a lot of them. The original building had burned down in the sixties and then again in the eighties. I remembered the controversy when it had been announced just what the new building was going to cost. Now it was just a question of when it was going to burn down again.
Long parked next to the concrete steps, and we climbed up and then through the double glass doors. Human Services was immediately to the right, but Chief Long continued walking down the polished surface of the hallway toward the center of the building.
I stood there for a second, looking at the sign above the vestibule that read HUMAN SERVICES, and then shrugged and followed after her.
I noticed a young Cheyenne, tall and lean in a black T-shirt, who was seated at a metal desk across from a stairwell at the midpoint of the building. He looked to be around seventeen and stood as we approached. “Hey, Chief.”
She ignored him and signed the register, then handed the pen, attached to the desk with a piece of cotton twine, to me. “Sign in.”
The young man stood, and I thought he looked slightly familiar. His voice was overly obsequious. “Can I help you, Chief?”
Without looking at him, she spoke in a low voice. “What is your desk doing in the middle of the hallway instead of down by the entrance?”
He gave me a look of animated incredulity and then glanced down both directions of the main hall. “You know, Chief, I did a reconnoiter and discovered that there are eight entrances to the building. I thought maybe I’d split the difference.” He glanced at me again, and his eyes were playful. “It also gives me a clear view of the girls in accounting, right across from here.”
Without answering him, she turned and started back down the hall.
He looked at the sign-in book and then at me. I stood there with the pen, glanced down the hall at Lolo Long, and then back to the young man with the smiling, jasper eyes.
“Hey, Sheriff. Nice to meet you.”
I nodded and started after her, coming to a complete stop only two strides away.
There was a glass case like the kind that usually holds photographs and trophies in high schools. There on
