I walked the rest of the way up the hill with the two cans of beer in my hand. About halfway up I heard her start the engine, saw the GMC back down the gravel road and sweep onto 212, following its headlights and a full night of patrolling the Rez by a woman who could not sleep.
There were boxes stacked on Lonnie’s back porch amid what looked like a bone yard-skulls, horns, and the like that the real chief procured for the numerous reservation artisans he knew. I pulled the key he’d given me from my jeans and had just started to put it in the lock when I felt the edge of a large knife at my throat, and the Colt at my back was unsnapped and professionally whisked away.
The blade disappeared, and I raised my hands to telegraph my intentions, which were none, and slowly turned. The individual who had unarmed me now sat in the darkness of the porch swing with our collective weapons in his lap.
I heard the safety go off on my sidearm, but his voice was soft. “Sit.”
“Gladly.” I glanced around. “Where?”
“Right there.”
I lowered myself onto the concrete stoop and, looking up at my assailant, leaned my back against the exterior of Lonnie’s house. I tipped my hat so I could get a better look at him, but he’d situated himself in the shadows so that the bug light that Lonnie had left on for my convenience illuminated only the few miller moths that circled it and me, but not him.
“You know who I am?”
“You’re Deep Throat.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I waited a moment. “I have an idea who you are.”
The shadow of his head shifted as he studied me. “You need to stay away from my mother.”
I glanced around to show him that I wasn’t really in any position to argue. “Okay.”
“And you need to stop chasing after me.”
“That’s going to be a little more difficult.”
He started to speak, but I interrupted him. “You want a beer?” I lifted the two cans in my one hand. It seemed like all I’d done this evening was offer beer to Indians only to be turned down.
He held my. 45 steady, and I was starting to get a little concerned, when he spoke. “Open it for me.”
I pulled the tab and carefully handed it to him.
“Artie, why don’t you give me back my gun. Unless you’re specifically here to kill me, I’m going to work on the assumption that you’re here to tell me that you’re innocent.” I opened my own can, played at sipping my beer, and waited.
“I am innocent.”
“Well, I’d be more likely to believe you if you weren’t holding my own loaded gun on me with the safety off.”
He sipped but kept the Colt pointed at my chest. After a moment, I heard the safety snap back on. “That better?”
I shrugged. “We can work in increments.” I watched as he took a deep breath and his leather jacket creaked. I estimated him to be pretty good sized but rangy. “So, where have you been keeping yourself?”
“I have places.”
“I bet you do; is Diamond Butte Lookout one of them?”
There was a pause, and he genuinely sounded confused. “No.”
I studied him, but my eyes were having trouble adjusting since I was in the light. “So let me guess, you’re here to tell me you didn’t kill Audrey Plain Feather?”
He sat there without moving and then stuffed the can be-tween his legs and rustled something from his shirt pocket. In the darkness I could just make out his mouthing a cigarette from a pack and one-handing a Bic lighter. There was a brief flash before he snapped it shut, and I got a pretty good glimpse of his face; lean like a coyote, with a do-rag and a goatee.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “I would never do something like that-push a woman off a cliff while she was holding her child? I would never do that.”
“You’ve done some stuff.”
He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and let it dangle in his fingers. “Nothing like that.” It was quiet, and then he plucked the beer from between his legs and sipped. “Nothing like that.”
“I guess you had a pretty big argument with her last week.”
He nodded. “At Human Services?”
“Yep.”
He laughed through his cigarette, and two plumes of smoke shot toward me. “Everybody argues at Human Services; it’s what you do there.”
“Evidently your argument made an impression.”
He grunted. “They were trying to cut off my mother’s dole checks.”
Dole check-he must’ve gotten that term from her. “They said you were cashing them.”
His voice got a little strained as he took another puff. “For her, not for me.”
I waved my hand to indicate that it was neither here nor there to me. “Why did you try and run me over with your truck the other night?”
His voice sounded genuinely surprised again. “What?”
“Somebody in your ’71 GMC tried to run me over right down here on the Red Road two nights ago.”
“Wasn’t me.”
I pretended to sip my beer again. “Your nephew tried to take responsibility, but I don’t believe him.” It got quiet again. “I figure somebody lifted it after you loaned it to him up in Jimtown. Any idea who that could have been?”
“I don’t know.”
“For an innocent man, you don’t seem to have a lot of answers for me, Artie.”
“It wasn’t me.”
I set my still-full can down beside me and stretched out my legs, my boots almost reaching him. “I’ll be honest with you; I really didn’t think it was you who tried to run me over, for the simple reason that I can’t imagine what it is you could’ve hoped to have gained.”
He ventured an opinion. “Scare you off?”
“I don’t think you’re that stupid.” His cigarette flared. “But, then there’s the tape.”
Another silence, and when he spoke his voice sounded more unsure than it had before. He took another drag. “What tape?”
“The one where Clarence Last Bull tried to chisel you out of the money he promised you for killing Audrey and Adrian.”
He stood. “What?”
“I guess you’re on that tape, too.”
“No way. Get Clarence and let him look me in the face and say that.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible-he’s not talking to anyone.” I decided to keep at least one hole-card hidden, in case he hadn’t been the one who’d killed the man. “Have you had any contact with Clarence in the last few days?”
He slowly lowered himself back on the swing. “No, I hardly know the man.”
“Knew.” I glanced into the darkness. “Do you know a woman by the name of Erma Stoltzfus?”
He dropped his cigarette butt and nipped off another from the pack. “No.”
Strangely enough, I believed him. “Well, Artie, I haven’t listened to the tape, but if you’re telling the truth then somebody’s gone to a heck of a lot of trouble to make it look like you committed these murders.”
“Then let’s go get Clarence and get him to tell the truth.” He grunted. “Gimme five minutes with him and he’ll talk.”
“I doubt it.” He didn’t say anything more, so I figured I’d level with him. “Clarence’s dead, Artie. Somebody put a bullet into him at Diamond Butte Lookout.”
He lit up, and I waited.
“Wasn’t me.”
