Death Where the Bad Rocks Live (20 page)

Horn nodded. “Quicker than cell phones—at least there’s no dead zones with the telegraph. You want to know if I recall anything about missing people during that time?”

Manny nodded. “Two homicides—at least I’m treating them as homicides for now—happened at the bombing range in the Stronghold we figure happened in 1944. One was Moses
Ten Bears.”

Horn sat on a chair and rested his enormous arms on his knees. “I heard they found him, and I’ve been studying on that this last week since I heard. When I hired on with the tribe as a snot-nosed nineteen-year-old wanting to arrest bad guys, one of the standing procedures was to give the rookie the Ten Bears file and a week in the Badlands to find him. I didn’t find him, of course, but I looked, using maps other officers had used unsuccessfully to find Moses. I might have walked right past that car he was in. There were so many old bombing targets left there. Never thought one would be a dumping ground.”

“There was also a geologist—Ellis Lawler—from the School of Mines in the car beside Moses.”

Horn sipped his tea delicately, his glass disappearing in his hand. “Years after he went missing, Lawler’s wife hired a private investigator out of Chicago to find out what happened to her husband. Guess she wanted him proved dead or something. Anyway, I hiked into the Stronghold with the PI and we had as little luck as everyone else. Last I heard, after a couple years the widow got the money Lawler had salted away.”

“Why would a geologist have been interested in the Stronghold? That’s miles away from the annual Pig Dig the School of Mines sponsors—geologists accompanied archeologists even back then.”

Horn shook his head. “The PI either didn’t know—or wouldn’t say—but I always thought it odd. There’s little there to interest a geologist. Now some other parts of the Badlands…”

“What do you know about where the bad rocks live?”

Horn frowned. “Now where the hell did you come up with that?”

Manny set his empty glass on a tooled leather coaster on the kitchen table. “Uncle Marion told me about a place in the Stronghold where the bad rocks live, whatever that meant.
Warned me not to go there. That bad
wakan
lived among the rocks.”

“Legend.”

“More than legend. Unc was convinced there was something to the stories.”

“Marion often had an overactive imagination. When we were kids…”

“When you two were kids, you got into a lot of trouble, or so he said.”

Horn laughed. “See, his imagination was even overactive about that. But don’t put too much store in those legends Marion spouted. He’d tell them to me and I’d just laugh. There was nothing to it.”

Manny recalled asking Unc things, all sorts of things, every question that a young boy had for the man raising him as his own. And every time Manny’s question was answered, Unc always explained it by saying, “I just know things.”

Horn checked his watch. “Sorry kid. I’m overdue for morning inspection.” He stood and grabbed a small notebook.

“For violations?”

“Damn straight. Now if I can just talk the management into authorizing actual citations for rule violations, I could issue those at the same time. I’m getting to hate residents letting their rooms get so messy.”

Chief Horn shut the apartment door, but Manny stopped him before he could wander down the hall. “There was another body placed in that old car—years after Moses and Ellis went missing—in 1969. He was shot in the head.”

Horn stopped and scratched his chin whiskers. “Don’t recall anyone missing during that time.”

“He was the roommate of Judge High Elk when they went to college.”

Horn nodded. “Sure. I recall Spearfish police wanting us to
keep an eye out for some college kid. Said he might be here, though they also thought he fled to Canada to escape the draft. We looked all over hell for him, but no luck. Sorry I can’t be more help, but I got inspections to conduct now.”

Manny hurried ahead of Chief Horn down the hallway, making his exit before the chief issued the first stern warning of the morning.

After his phone lost contact, Manny redialed Willie’s number, dropped the phone, and veered toward Spearfish Creek. As he bent to grab it under his heel, he jerked the wheel back just as a car passing in the opposite direction laid on its horn. The driver gave him the single finger wave in passing.

Manny dialed Willie’s number again. “You figure out what the judge wants to talk with you about?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Manny answered. “All he said was it was important.”

“Did you get to the judge’s turnoff yet?”

“Just coming up to Savoy now. You sound exhausted.”

“Worse,” Willie breathed into the phone. “She’s driving me nuts.”

“Doreen?”

“Janet. Chief Looks Twice—she even has me saying it now—ordered that I take her along, take her under my wing. Whenever she winks at me like she does, I get the feeling she wants to be under something besides my wing.”

“That’s love.”

“That’s a pain in my behind. She asked me—no, told me—to put on a clean shirt this morning. A clean shirt when I’ll get sweaty and dirty today anyhow.”

Willie had been wearing more dirty shirts than clean ones lately. Manny recalled the neat, young tribal officer he’d first met, his uniform pressed, his shoes shined, his gun belt polished as if he intended to use it. That was before he helped put his aunt in the loony bin. “You must have ditched Janet for a little while at least.”

Willie’s voice broke up as if he were looking over his shoulder as he spoke into the phone. “We’re at the White River Visitor’s Center. She’s in the ladies’ room. Her hair was mussed up, and she wanted to touch up her makeup.”

“You could always drive off. She’d hate you forever for that, but it’d solve your dilemma.”

“And risk being animal control officer for the duration of my career?”

“I told you before the bureau would love to have you.”

There was a long pause before Willie answered. “Thanks for the offer. Again. But I’ll stay on the rez. I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but I’ve been a tad messed up. I’ll just have to suffer through Janet’s company.”

“You’ll pull through, whatever’s bothering you.” Manny tried convincing himself as much as Willie. “Does Marshal Ten Bears know you’re coming?”

Willie’s voice faded, then came back clear. Reception in the Badlands was sketchy, at best. “We couldn’t find a phone number for him, not even a cell, though one wouldn’t work where his cabin is located anyway.”

“How do his customers contact him if they need wood?”

“They tack up a note on the bulletin board at Sioux Nation Grocery. Oh crap, here comes Miss Lakota Nation all fixed up. Gotta run.”

“Go get ’em tiger.”

Manny closed his phone and laughed at the thought of Willie and Janet alone in a remote part of the Badlands, alone away from anyone, alone with Janet sporting fresh makeup, and alone with Willie sporting a declining will to resist her. And sporting morning wood. He laughed again until he realized Janet did Willie no good. He had enough going on in his life without having to referee Janet and Doreen.

Manny came to the turn leading to Ham’s cabin, passing the Latchstring Inn on one side of 14A, and the Spearfish Canyon Inn on the other. He took the gravel road heading west up into the hills. Four hikers waved as Manny passed them on their way to Roughlock Falls. The falls had developed into one of the true scenic spots in the Black Hills. Marriages took place against the backdrop of the waterfall, and families went there to renew relations.

Unc had taken him to the falls once as a boy, at a time when tourists hadn’t yet discovered it; at a time when picnic areas hadn’t yet been built; at a time when the access to the falls was by a narrow hiking trail. They had entered the sacred Black Hills, the spirits of their ancestors yet moaning among the trees, or so Manny had thought at the time and he’d huddled closer to Unc. They remained four days, praying and offering sweetgrass and sage to those
wanagi
that lingered awaiting the Black Hills to be returned to the Lakota. Even then, Manny felt a connection to the Old Ones, especially here in the sacred He Sapa.

The road cut between ponderosa pine and Black Hills spruce narrowed, and Manny drove past Ham’s driveway. He backed up. A tiny mailbox proclaiming
HIGH ELK
was set apart from aspen and birch trees. A flowering lilac bush hid half the mailbox. The driveway was even narrower than the road and he slowed. He didn’t need a tree to jump out and hit him right now.

Manny stopped to allow a whitetail doe and her fawn to cross. They watched him intently until they reached the sanctuary of trees across the driveway before they bent their heads and continued their foraging.
They’ll be even more skittish when hunting season opens in a couple months.

Ham’s cabin loomed out of the tree line, and Manny stopped in front of Ham’s red Indian Chief parked on the other side of his black Suburban, complete with twin silver feathers painted on front fenders and dark tinted windows. It reminded him of every cheesy movie where black government ’Burbs were armored and every world leader riding inside got shot at. Except Ham wasn’t getting shot at. He was seated in a sun-faded Adirondack chair protected by a covered porch, smiling under a large dream catcher, the colored feathers keeping time with the wind chime that kept time with the easy breeze that blew from the west. Ham closed his book and stood.

“Glad you could come, Agent Tanno.”

“What choice did I have when a federal judge requests my presence? But I wanted to come anyway, just to see your shack, as you called it.”

Ham smiled and waved his hand around like those game show hosts Pee Pee Pourier was so obsessed with. “Took the builders two years to figure out how to squeeze two thousand square feet of log into this space so I’d have a view of Roughlock Falls from my porch. Please sit and enjoy the view while I get refreshments. Beer? Wine cooler?”

“Tea?”

“Sugar?”

Manny yearned for calorie-dense, nutrient-bankrupt sugar, but he wanted to survive Clara’s inquisition when he came home. And survive his next diabetes screening. “Sweet’N Low?”

Manny nodded, and Ham disappeared inside.

Manny positioned another weather-beaten Adirondack chair
so he could watch the falls. This had been a wet year for the Black Hills, and the water gently rumbled as it dropped over the top and collected in a frothy pool below on its way along Spearfish Canyon.

Ham emerged with a beaker of iced tea and set it on the cedar table in front of Manny, then sat in his chair next to him and cradled a Corona Light. The sun jostling through the trees played off the slice of lime stuck into the top of the beer bottle, which Ham squeezed while he gestured to the waterfall. “Did you know Roughlock Falls got its name from pioneers?”

“Like Ralph Roughlock or something?”

Ham laughed and sipped his beer. “In the winter, early freighters used to rough lock their wagon wheels—roped logs around them to keep them from turning, then hitched their horses to the rear of the wagons and slid down the slope. That’s how they got back down this hill in deep snow.”

Manny stirred the sweetener into his tea and wrapped his hand around the glass. The water sweating the sides felt cool in the intense heat, and he brushed his forehead with his wet hand. “You didn’t call me up here for a history lesson.”

Ham smiled and set his beer on the table. “You don’t beat around, Agent Tanno. I like that. No, I’m curious how your investigation into Gunnar’s death is progressing.”

“It’s advancing.”

“Any leads?”

“Some.”

“Am I still in your suspect column?”

Just like an attorney, beat around the juniper bush until coming to the real question. “Don’t have a choice but to put you there—you’re the last one that saw Gunnar. But I find it awkward that someone from the suspect list wants to talk with someone from the investigator list.”

Ham laughed. His eyes laughed, like the photos on Sophie’s wall. Disarming laughs, able to put one at ease sitting next to him on his grand porch. “On the other hand I’m quite comfortable talking to someone I have solidarity with.”

“How so?”

“We’re quite alike, you and me. We were both left without parents at an early age—me when my father died of exposure and mother couldn’t afford to feed me, and you when your folks died in that car wreck.”

“You have a habit of checking into investigators’ lives?”

“We’re alike.” Ham ignored the question. “You were the first Lakota to be hired by the bureau, and I was the first Lakota to be appointed to the federal bench.” Ham dropped his lime slice into a wicker basket between the chairs. “I just want you to solve this before the Senate hearings convene. The last thing I need is to go on Capitol Hill with the shadow of Gunnar’s murder hanging over my head. I can pull some strings if you need help.”

Manny shook his head. “The tribe’s assigned two investigators to work with me.” He could have added that the two tribal investigators were a criminal investigator with two months of experience who was on the verge of a breakdown, and a snotty, arrogant hottie who had been little help except to distract the criminal investigator. These were his army of assistants, but it wouldn’t hurt to stretch the truth to the good judge. “Some things just take time: lab tests need to get analyzed. Identification of next of kin. I hope to have this wrapped up by the time of the hearings.”