She sighed. “Where’s that?”
“Where we just left, Lame Deer.”
“Then we have to go back.”
Lena returned, sorted through the drinks, and took a Diet Coke for herself. “Thirty-seven rooms at the Super 8, all twenty at the Fort Union, and eight rooms available, including the suites, at the Lakeview B amp;B.” Turning, she looked at the ten units of the Western 8 Motel and spread her arms like Moses discovering the promised land. “And rooms to spare.” She chugged her pop and redeposited the bottle in the holder.
Cady looked at Lena. “I think we’re going to want to go take a look at the rooms in Colstrip, and I want to talk to that librarian.” She turned to Henry. “We need a car.”
He spread his own arms. “Yours to command.”
“Do you still have that shitty truck?”
He reacted as if he’d been smacked. “I do.”
“Good, run us over to Lame Deer, drop us off, and then go get Rezdawg.” She ran her hands along the glossy flanks of the Thunderbird’s fins and grinned. “We’re taking Lola.”
We dropped the ladies off in downtown Lame Deer, where they were first going to attempt to take on Arbutis Little Bird. Then they would meet us at Health Services where they would abscond with Henry’s pride and joy for a jaunt up to Colstrip to check out the lodgings.
I wished them luck in all of this, especially with the conversation with Lonnie’s sister, and accompanied Henry so that I could drive the Thunderbird back to Lame Deer. I’d turned on the radio in Lola and was trying to drive the wedding complications from my mind by listening to Nate Small Song firing up the afternoon drive with, of all things, Gene Autry’s Sioux City Sue. “Is this what they usually play on KRZZ?”
“The old people are the ones at home in the afternoons, so they play the classics; drumming and traditional in the mornings with a little rock thrown in, Cheyenne language programs around noon, then old cowboy and big band music for the shut-ins.”
He waited a while before he spoke again, lazily drifting the big, square bird down BIA 4. “You do not think Clarence did it?”
“Well, evidently he hired Artie.”
The Cheyenne Nation made a face.
“What?”
He considered his words and pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. “It takes a special kind of person to do this type of thing-to take money to kill a woman and child.”
“You don’t think Artie’s capable?”
He adjusted the sun visor. “Capable, yes-willing, no.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“I have.” He settled in his seat. He smiled, and I figured I was going to get the story. “I met him when I was fifteen. It was during Crow Fair, and I was doing a little teenage teepee creeping. There was a girl I was infatuated with and she had some brothers. We stayed out a little late and when we got back the brothers were waiting for us; I fought all three, one at a time-Crow tradition. The Crow are good that way-the Lakota would wait with a half- dozen guys and they would all jump on you.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “They went and got a friend, and it was Artie. I was pretty beat up, and I remember when I saw him that I thought this was probably going to be a good fight.” He stretched his jaw muscles at the thought of it. “You remember when we used to play ball?”
We seemed to have changed conversations, but I answered. “Yep.”
“You were a lineman so you know better than me, but do you remember lining up across from those guys who didn’t have any imagination, nothing to distract them from the job at hand?”
I laughed and thought about Lolo Long’s prejudice against imagination. “My father used to call it constructive stupidity; I got accused of it a lot in my teenage years.”
He nodded. “Artie was like that, no imagination, utterly focused. I think he might never have outgrown that behavior.”
“Who won?”
His face hardened as he thought. “It was kind of a draw.”
We drove past the dirt road cutoff and the rumpled hills leading to the Painted Warrior’s multicolored face, and my mind began playing the scenarios over in my head. If Clarence had been there, why did he hire Artie to do the deed? Why wouldn’t he have been as far away from the actual killing as possible? Maybe they were both there-Clarence to get them to the cliff and Artie to push them over.
“So, you don’t think either one of them did it?”
He smiled. “No, I do not think Artie did, and you do not think Clarence did.”
“So, who did?”
“Someone who is highly motivated.” He shifted in the seat and looked at me. “For the sake of your familial life, I am advising you to drop this.”
We drove on, but my mind raced ahead. “We saw her die.”
“Yes.”
I nodded my head and turned my face back to the window. “It’s not my case.”
“No.”
“We’ve got a wedding to help organize.”
“Yes.”
I turned the radio back up, and we drove in silence, until the words tumbled from my mouth. “But I’d like to hear those tapes. Would you like to hear those tapes?”
“Yes.”
“I think we can arrange that, don’t you?” I nodded my head some more. “I mean, it can’t hurt to just listen to them. Right?”
“Yes.”
I paused and then glanced at him. “Yes it can’t hurt, or yes it can?”
He seemed to be considering the possibilities for a long time, and it was only when I was ready to ask again that he turned to look at me. “Yes.”
I refused to drive Rezdawg but was happy enough to mosey along behind the patched-together vehicle in Lola. We parked in the lot at Health Services, and I noticed Henry nudged the three-quarter-ton’s tire against one of the concrete curbs so that we wouldn’t have a repeat demolition derby.
When we got inside, Hazel Long was once again at her station. The chief was nowhere to be seen, but her younger brother, Barrett, was, and considering how much his sister did not like the Cheyenne Nation, I was surprised by the smile with which he greeted Henry. “The Bear!”
His mother shushed him, but he stepped up to Henry and pumped his arm like a derrick. “My man.” He smiled at me. “This your cowboy sidekick?”
I took off my sunglasses, seeing no reason to stay incognito. “That’s me.”
He placed a hand on the Cheyenne Nation’s shoulder. “You ever hear about the U.S. Army Recruitment Expeditionary Basketball Tournament in Billings? It was a three-man and we were a man short, so the Bear here steps up in street shoes and scores nine three-pointers to win the tourney.” He shook his right hand as if it were on fire. “Buuuuurn.”
“Is your sister around?”
“Nope, she’s out shakin’ the bushes for Artie Small Song.” He glanced back to Henry. “Hey, did you really punch a truck driver?”
I noticed the Bear had left his Wayfarers on-obviously he was still attempting anonymity.
I leaned against the counter. “Mrs. Long.”
“Hazel.”
I nodded. “About the list of drugs from the bracelet?”
“That’s going to take a while; that patient file would be in the physical archives, and I haven’t had a chance to get down there.”
“Well, when you come up with that information you can give it to your daughter.” I leaned in closer. “Hazel,
