'Did Bluebird have any people besides his wife and kids?'
'Huh.' Dooley stopped to think. He was halfbreed Sioux, with an Indian father and a Swedish mother. 'He might have an aunt or an uncle or two out at Rosebud. That's where they'd be, if there are any left. His ma died in the early fifties and his old man went four or five years back, must have been.'
Dooley stared sightlessly through the sunny window. 'No, by God,' he said in a creaking voice after a minute. 'His old man died in the summer of 'seventy-eight, right between those two bad winters. Twelve years ago. Time passes, don't it?'
'It does,' Lucas said.
'You want to know something about being an Indian, Officer Davenport?' Dooley asked. He'd stopped cutting Lucas' hair.
'Everything helps.'
'Well, when Bluebird died-the old man-I went off to his funeral, out to the res. He was a Catholic, you know? They buried him in a Catholic cemetery. So I went up to the cemetery with the crowd from the funeral and they put him in the ground, and everybody was standing around. Now most of the graves were all together, but I noticed that there was another bunch off in a corner by themselves. I asked a fellow there, I said, 'What's them graves over there?' You know what they were?'
'No,' said Lucas.
'They were the Catholic suicides. The Catholics don't allow no suicides to be buried in the regular part of the cemetery, but there got to be so many suicides that they just kind of cut off a special corner for them… You ever hear of anything like that?'
'No, I never did. And I'm a Catholic,' Lucas said.
'You think about that. Enough Catholic suicides on one dinky little res to have their own corner of the cemetery.'
Dooley stood looking through the window for another few seconds, then caught himself and went back to work. 'Not many Bluebirds left,' he said. 'Mostly married off, went away east or west. New York and Los Angeles. Lost their names. Good people, though.'
'Crazy thing he did.'
'Why?' The question was so unexpected that Lucas half turned his head and caught the sharp point of the scissors in the scalp.
'Whoa, did that hurt?' Dooley asked, concern in his voice.
'Nah. What'd you…?'
'Almost stuck a hole in you,' Dooley interrupted. He rubbed at Lucas' scalp with a thumb. 'Don't see no blood.'
'What do you mean, 'Why?' ' Lucas persisted. 'He cut a guy's throat. Maybe two guys.'
There was a long moment of silence, then, 'They needed them cut,' Dooley said. 'There weren't no worse men for the Indian community. I read the Bible, just like anybody. What Bluebird did was wrong. But he's paid, hasn't he? An eye for an eye. They're dead and he's dead. And I'll tell you this, the Indian people got two big weights off their backs.'
'Okay,' said Lucas. 'I can buy it. Ray Cuervo was an asshole. Excuse the language.'
'I heard the word before,' Dooley said. 'I wouldn't say you was wrong. And not about this Benton fella, either. He was bad as Cuervo.'
'So I'm told,' Lucas said.
Dooley finished the trim above Lucas' ear, pushed his head forward until his chin rested on his chest, and did the back of his neck.
'There's been another killing, in New York,' Lucas said. 'Same way as Cuervo and Benton. Throat cut with a stone knife.'
'Saw it on TV,' Dooley acknowledged. He pointed at the black-and-white television mounted in the corner of the shop. 'Today show. Thought it sounded pretty much the same.'
'Too much,' Lucas said. 'I've been wondering…'
'If I might of heard anything? Just talk. You know Bluebird was a sun-dancer?'
'No, I didn't know,' Lucas said.
'Check his body, if you still got it. You'll find scars all over his chest where he pulled the pegs through.' Lucas winced. As part of the Sioux ceremony, dancers pushed pegs through the skin of their chests. Cords were attached to the pegs, and the dancers dangled from poles until the pegs ripped out. 'There's another thing. Bluebird was a sun-dancer for sure, but there's folks around saying that a couple years ago, he got involved in this ghost-dance business.'
'Ghost dance? I didn't think that was being done,' Lucas said.
'Some guys came down from Canada, tried to start it up. They had a drum, went around to all the reservations, collecting money, dancing. Scared the heck out of a lot of people, but I haven't heard anything about them lately. Most Indian people think it was a con game.'
'But Bluebird was dancing?'
'That's what I heard…' Dooley's voice trailed off and Lucas turned and found the old man staring out the window again. There was a park across the street, with grass worn brown by kids' feet and the fall frosts. An Indian kid was working on an upturned bike in the middle of the park and an old lady tottered down the sidewalk toward a concrete drinking fountain. 'I don't think it means much,' Dooley said. He turned back to Lucas. 'Except that Bluebird was a man looking for religion.'
'Religion?'
'He was looking to be saved. Maybe he found it,' Dooley said. He sighed and moved close behind Lucas and finished the trim with a few final snips. He put the scissors down, brushed cut hair off Lucas' neck, unpinned the bib and shook it out. 'Sit tight for a minute,' he said.
Lucas sat and Dooley found his electric trimmers and shaved the back of Lucas' neck, then slapped on a stinging palmful of aromatic yellow oil.
'All done,' he said.
Lucas slid out of the chair, asked, 'How much?' Dooley said, 'The regular.' Lucas handed him three dollars.
'I haven't heard anything,' Dooley said soberly. He looked Lucas in the eyes. 'If I had, I'd tell you-but I don't know if I'd tell you what it was. Bluebird was the Indian people, getting back some of their own.'
Lucas shook his head, sensing the defiance in the old man. 'It's hard to believe you said that, Mr. Dooley. It makes me sad,' he said.
Indian Country was full of Dooleys.
Lucas quartered through it, touching the few Indians he knew: a seamstress at an awnings shop, a seafood broker, a heating contractor, clerks at two gas stations and a convenience store, an out-of-business antique dealer, a key-maker, a cleaning lady, a car salesman. An hour before Bluebird's funeral was scheduled to begin, he left his car in an alley and walked across the street to Dakota Hardware.
A bell over the door jingled, and Lucas stopped for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Earl May came out of the back room wearing a leather apron and flashed a smile. Lucas walked back and watched the smile fade.
'I was about to say, 'Good to see you,' but I guess you're here to ask questions about Bluebird and that killing in New York,' May said. He turned his head and yelled into the back, 'Hey, Betty, it's Lucas Davenport.'
Betty May stuck her head through the curtain between the back room and the store. 'Lucas, it's been a while,' she said. She had a round face, touched by old acne scars, and a husky voice that might have sung the blues.
'There's not much around about Bluebird,' said Earl. He looked at his wife. 'He's asking about the killings.'
'That's what everybody tells me,' Lucas said. Earl was standing with his arms crossed. It was a defensive position, a push-off stance, one that Lucas had not seen before with the Mays. Behind her husband, Betty unconsciously took the same position.
'You'll have trouble dealing with the community on this one,' she said. 'Benton was bad, Cuervo was worse. Cuervo was so bad that when his wife got down to his office, after the police called her, she was smiling.'
'But what about this guy in New York, Andretti?' Lucas asked. 'What the hell did he do?'
