Death Where the Bad Rocks Live (16 page)

“That was the fight that you were arrested for?”

“Wasn’t much of a fight.” The sides of Ham’s mouth downturned
and he shook his head. “Like I said, Gunnar was frail. Even when he planted a pool cue across my back, I was willing to let it go. But when he went after Agenta…”

“The cops were called.”

“In force. Every one of them. I even held Gunnar so the officer could get the cuffs on without hurting him. The officer had the one set of handcuffs, but I went along peaceably.” Ham stood and leaned over the balcony. “The fight wasn’t what it seemed, like many things aren’t what they first appear. Take those swastikas down there.”

Manny joined Ham at the railing. Out of his periphery, Manny saw the bald biker stand from his seat on the staircase. Ham nodded to him, and Baldy sat. Ham pointed to the Hawaiian-garbed man he’d seen earlier, now joined by an equally gaudily dressed, portly woman with two cameras draped around her wattled neck. They pointed to the bricks embedded in the floor. “Did you know some native craftsman painted that symbol in the brick when they built this hotel?”

“My uncle Marion told me that once when we came to Rapid City to see
Bigfoot
.”

Ham’s eyebrows raised. “Bigfoot? Here in town?”

Manny laughed. “Not quite. Uncle Marion thought there were Bigfoot creatures living on Pine Ridge.”

Now it was Ham’s turn to laugh. “I remember those local legends.”

“That’s all they are, legend, but Unc thought otherwise. When he heard the Diamond Theater would be showing
Bigfoot
, he just had to see it. For three months he saved the money he got for selling baskets he’d woven so we could come here. The flick was so bad we left ten minutes into the film and wandered around Rapid. We ended up sightseeing here, Unc showing me the swastikas on the bricks, which was far more interesting than John Carradine and that awful film.”

“I imagine it was terrible moviemaking.” Ham clasped his
hands behind his back and turned to Manny. He stood a full head taller, but didn’t appear to be looking down on him as he spoke softly, slowly, as the judge and educator Alexander Hamilton High Elk, and Manny felt as if Unc were there teaching him. “The painting on the brick is the Whirling Log of the Navajo. Another legend— more credible than the Bigfoot rumor—has one of the Navajo outcasts hiding in a hollow log floating down a river to a safe place. Four deities had sealed him in the log, and only when he’d suffered through the ordeal of a mighty whirlpool did they rescue him. Am I boring you?”

“Not at all.” Manny had to remind himself why he was interviewing Judge High Elk, mesmerized by his tale.

“The deities gave our wayward brave some corn,” he continued, “which he planted, and eventually harvested. And he was taught to paint with the sand, to return to his tribe and tell of his fortune. So the Whirling Log represents prosperity, not death as many White men associate it with. I guess you can say I am much like the Navajo Whirling Log.”

“How so?”

“I represent the best in jurisprudence, not some nominee that will say anything to win the appointment. Not at all like the newspapers have been reporting.”

“They haven’t been very supportive of you.”

“At least the
Rapid City Journal
wants to do a spread of my accomplishments. I’m to meet a Sonja Myers for an interview this afternoon.”

Manny frowned. “A word of advice—be cautious what you say to Ms. Myers. She has a way of twisting the truth around.”

“I’ll remember that. Now if we’re finished, I really do have to meet her.”

“Will you be in the area for a few days, if I have any more questions?”

Ham smoothed his jeans. “I have a cabin in view of
Roughlock Falls in Spearfish Canyon.” He jotted the address on another business card and handed it to Manny. “I’ll be there for most of the week prepping for the hearings.”

Ham had started down the steps when Manny stopped him. “One last thing—where could I find Joe Dozi?”

“The business card,” Ham said. “That’s his shop address.”

Manny turned the card over. A drawing of a biker on a lowrider engulfed by smoke proclaimed
VINTAGE IRON
.

“Joe’s there most of the time when he’s not helping me prepare for the confirmation hearings.”

Manny followed Ham down the steps, and Baldy stood and walked beside Ham. People in the lobby stared, and a couple close to the door stepped aside to allow them to pass. Ham nodded to Baldy. “This is Joe, by the way.”

Baldy gave Manny a menacing stare and went back to studying the crowd. “Call him anytime, except tonight. We’re rehearsing questions over a pitcher of Moose Drool at a local watering hole.”

Manny followed them out the door ahead of the crowd that watched as Ham and Joe Dozi straddled their motorcycles that were parked in front of Willie’s Durango. Dozi swung his leg over a Harley Panhead, restored to perfection, while Ham sat astride a bright red Indian Chief. Naturally. Just as he kick-started his bike, he turned to Dozi. “You remember that hunting guide Gunnar hired on the reservation the week before he went missing?”

“Marshal Ten Bears.”

Ham paused putting on his helmet and turned to Dozi. “You sure? That was Moses Ten Bears’s grandson?”

“I ought to know.” Dozi rotated the kick lever to stop dead center in preparation to kicking the bike to life. “I talked with him while you hiked around Red Shirt Table back in ’69.”

Before Manny could ask more questions, vintage motorcycles roaring to life drowned him out, rapping up as they
rode east on Sixth Street. He got out his notebook and wrote the name of the hunting guide, not because he would forget, but to remind him how coincidences rarely happen in real life. Marshal Ten Bears.

“I thought you wanted to sit in when I interviewed Judge High Elk. Last we spoke, you were going to finagle a parking spot close to the hotel.”

“Fat chance.” Willie turned onto Main Street on his way to Clara’s house. “As soon as I started up the stairs, that Secret Service guy blocked my way. Told me the stairs were now closed and to take a hike.”

“The one in leathers looking like a squat Mr. Clean or a bald fireplug?”

Willie nodded.

Manny laughed. “He’s not Secret Service—he’s Judge High Elk’s personal friend. I made the same mistake myself.”

“You? Make a mistake?”

Manny ignored him. “Doesn’t answer where you were.”

“Well, the biker got a little personal there. Wouldn’t let me come any farther into the lobby. Said the judge was in a special meeting upstairs. If I’d known he wasn’t government, I’d have put a boot in his rectum.”

“He would have planted one back. Remember what Micah Crowder said: three tours in ’Nam with Special Forces.”

Willie nodded in recognition. “Either way, I wish I would have stayed with the vehicle and not hung out in the lobby. Some SOB keyed the side of this outfit.”

“What SOB?”

Willie shrugged. “Don’t know, but I’d bet money it was that bald-headed SOB.”

Willie turned into Clara’s driveway. “Where’s Norman?”

“Who?”

“That psycho Norman Bates of the feline world.”

Manny looked from the garage to Willie to the garage. “If he’s still in the garage I’m going to make friends with him today.”

Manny climbed out of the Durango and punched in the code for the garage door. It whined as if protesting the door opening, protesting Manny’s access to Norman. Manny squatted on his heels and looked under Clara’s car. “Kitty. Kitty.”

“I’d leave him alone.”

“He’s all right. I think he’s warming up to me.”

Manny spotted the cat curled under Clara’s car and reached in to ease the cat out. It came alive, hissing, leaping on Manny’s bandaged arm. Manny shook his arm violently and the cat lost its hold, skidded into the far wall, and retreated back under Clara’s car. It squatted on its haunches, hissing, demanding a rematch.

“Looks like he’s warming to you just fine.”

“Give him time,” Manny said as he walked away, all the while expecting Norman to leap again.

“Speaking of time, what time will you be on the rez tomorrow?”

Manny, his eyes darting to the front door of the house, whispered to Willie through the open window. “All depends what time my Viagra loses its potency.”

OCTOBER 8, 1927

“I would aim two inches over his back.” Moses studied the four-by-five mulie through his binoculars. The buck’s wide rack peeked through heavy sagebrush, the deer’s body hidden by the brush. “Yes. Two inches. He is two hundred yards.”

“I think he’s farther than that.” Clayton snuggled behind the rifle stock.

“Things seem farther away here in the Badlands. Two inches. Trust me.”

The .45-70 barked and the muzzle flew up. It settled back down onto the dead juniper where Clayton had rested the gun. Clayton recovered just in time to point at the deer disappearing over the embankment. “Shit! Right over the top of him.”

“Maybe next time you’ll listen.” Moses stood and cradled his rifle as he started through sagebrush.

“Where the hell you going?”

“Get supper.”

“With a .22?”

Moses smiled. “I have killed most game with a .22. Trust me.”

“We should be eating venison.”

Moses prodded the rabbit roasting over the fire with his knife; the fat dripping down onto the flames crackled and hissed. “We would be if you had listened. We will go out again tomorrow morning and find your trophy buck.”

Clayton sat cross-legged on the ground in front of the fire and wrapped his saddle blanket around his shoulders. “Gets colder than a well digger’s ass here at night.”

“Cold and clear.” Moses pointed up to a sky that never ended. As far as he could see,
Wakan Tanka
had provided the two-leggeds with wonderment they could never fully comprehend.

“Big Dipper is full tonight.” Clayton shivered and inched closer to the fire.

“The Old Ones would have said the Seven Council Fires are alive tonight, talking and deciding what they will do tomorrow.” The constellation seemed to move, to wink and to gyrate as it fought to remain free of low clouds obstructing their vision.

“All I know is a man could freeze to death here in the middle of summer. If we get lost, we’re done for.”