things, and I truly believe I could have searched the world over and never found someone better at diversion than the man who now stood beside me. George’s life hung on Henry’s every word, and I watched as the dark eyes peered into the dilated pupils and scooped up a subject that would carry the young man to safety. “George, I need to talk to you about being an Indian…” He glanced toward me and whispered, “She will be here any minute.” He looked back down. “George, if you are going to live on the reservation with us I have to teach you some things…” We transferred hands, and he held the makeshift bandage against George’s crushed shoulder. He continued to talk to him in a hypnotic rumble. “We need to talk about finding a harmony and a wholeness within yourself that you can share with all your relations, but I need you to listen carefully because the things I am going to say to you are very important. You need to hear every word, yes?” The trembling subsided, and George actually nodded his head. “Good.” Henry continued to smile. “You are going to make a good Indian.”
I tried not to think of the rest of that old statement and pulled away to look back up the road in time to see Vic’s unit come over the hill. She barely made it through the curve where George had gone off the road, cut her truck through the opening, and pulled up alongside the Bullet. With her sunglasses, she looked like a fighter pilot; she drove like one, too. “You shoot him?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I’ll tell you later. We need to get him into Durant. Now.” She followed me around her truck and opened the passenger-side door, and we laid George across the backseat and trussed him up carefully with the seat belts. I looked at Henry as she rounded the truck and got in. I noticed he was holding something out to me. It was another. 45–70. I stared at it for a moment, then back up to his face. His eyes were grim. We both knew the ending, and it was a bad one. “This land used to belong to the Espers…”
He didn’t move. “Yes.”
“You know who it is.”
He nodded and then looked off into the distance of the shot. “Yes.”
I took the bullet and stuffed it in the pocket of my jeans. “Get him in there alive, would you?”
“Do not worry about him.” He climbed in and sat on the floor beside George. He continued to apply pressure to the wound. I closed the door as he turned back to me and looked through the open window. His eyes were a warning. “Be careful.”
Vic looked at me questioningly, but I only nodded to her and slapped the side of the door in dismissal. I turned and walked back to the river and the rifle as she backed around the corner of my truck and rushed away to Durant. She took a left and continued down Powder River Road without my even telling her. I watched as the dust receded into the distance, and then the only sound was the water and a wandering band of Canada geese staging a late season getaway south. I watched them for a moment as they made their way along the water, keeping a steady pace between the darker hills on both sides of the storied river. The hills were contusion purple, and there were lengthy wounds of burnt-red scoria. It seemed like the whole valley was bleeding.
I picked up the Sharps at the cut bank and noticed a slight discoloration around the breech as I held it. It was still warm. I looked into the distance of the shot but could see nothing but rough terrain. I pulled the lever down, plucked the spent shell from the receiver, and replaced it with the live round Henry had given me. I tossed the empty into the river so that it would never be reloaded again. I crouched over the three inches of rushing water, cradled the rifle on my legs, and took a moment to wash George’s blood from my hands. The blood mixed quickly with the clear, cold water and disappeared north toward Montana.
I crossed the river and kept a straight path, even as the current attempted to drift me northward in its direction. When I got to the other side, I paused to steady myself and to breathe away the nausea that had overtaken me. I looked back at the Bullet to triangulate my shot’s trajectory, took a reading on the horizon, and began walking. I could feel the warmth of the setting sun on my back as I negotiated the clumps of sage, buffalo grass, and cactus, and I scared up a few western cottontails as I went. Just at the foothills, there was a small band of pronghorn antelope.
It didn’t take as long as I had hoped. I stood there with the rifle in both hands and looked at the elevated section of tracks marking the coal freight line’s direct path farther on east toward Gillette. It was lonely country and was a good spot, no matter what your intent, with a clear line through the wash that made for a perfect view of the river.
I kneeled down by the dark stains in the dirt and pressed my hand against the coarse texture of the land. It was sticky where blood had already begun drying into the earth. The Powder River country would accept moisture from any source, no matter what the cost. There wasn’t a lot, but there was enough. I stood up and took another look around before checking the road. There was a depression on the ground where the shooter had fallen, and I could tell from the pattern of the blood that the shot had hit left. Vasque, size nine tracks were all over the place, and as I knelt to examine one I saw the faintest glint of brass underneath a patch of sage. I went over and picked up the empty casing. There was no need for gloves or pens, so I held the spent shell up to the fading sun and looked at the dented primer and the base, which read. 45–70 GOVT. I was feeling a little sick again, so I stood and deposited the shell in my shirt pocket.
I followed the blood trail back to the access road and knelt by the last splatter. In the dry dust it looked black, just like the ones at the center of the road. A vehicle had been parked here long enough to leave traces of motor oil and transmission fluid; a vehicle with a pretty wide axle spread and, from the spin, it wasn’t positraction. The tires were a narrow ranch ply, and the depressions told me it was heavy, approaching a ton at least. There was a single exhaust blow where it had been started: carbon and condensate, with a little oil mixed in. I was willing to bet it was an older truck, and I was also willing to bet that it was green.
The shadows were lengthening, and I had someplace to go. I worked my way back across the Powder and to my truck, leaned against the bed, and thought about what was going to happen in the next few hours. My stupor was broken by the radio.
Static. “Come in, Unit One.” Static and a worried, “Walter, are you there?”
I swallowed, reached in, and grabbed the mic. “Yep. What’s the word on George?”
Static. “They made it in; he’s at the hospital right now.”
“Alive?”
Static. “Yes. Ferg took the Espers over there just a few minutes ago. Turk is getting ready to leave now, on his way out to you.”
“Don’t send anybody out. I’m on my way in, but I’ve got to take care of a few things.” I waited for a moment. “Is Lucian there?”
Static. “I think he’s still in the back with Bryan.”
“Will you get him for me?”
As I waited, I thought about how personal and ugly things had gotten over the last forty minutes. A breeze picked up a little in an attempt to scour the countryside. I wished it all the luck in the world. Static. “What the hell do you mean don’t send anybody?”
I smiled. “Good to hear your voice, old man. How’re you doin’?”
Static. “You woke me up to ask me that?”
I took a deep breath and laid the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead on the seat. “Lucian, do you remember back when Michael Hayes killed himself?” A long pause.
Static. “What the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
“What kind of gun did he use?” There was another long pause.
Static. “Son of a bitch.”
There were clouds at the mountains, and the snow pack reflected the sour-lemon sun into one of the most beautiful and perverse sunsets I had ever seen. The clouds were dappled like the hindquarters of an Appaloosa colt, and the beauty kicked just as hard. The head wind rattled the bare limbs of the cottonwoods as the longer branches swayed, and the remnants of grass and sage shuddered close to the ground. The buffeting of the wind against the truck reminded me that I had lost both of my jackets.
I started at the beginning, working with the most innocent facts and making my way toward the most damning. I thought about the history first. No one knew exactly why Michael Hayes had killed himself. I was just a teenager when it happened, but I remember her saying that he had killed himself in the tack shed. Someone at the time had said he had done it with a large-caliber rifle, and anyone who knew Mr. Hayes would be happy to tell you he was not the type to take half measures. I remember someone making the statement that his brains had been
