The Girl with Braided Hair (A Wind River Reservation Myste) (11 page)

Vicky nodded, but Donita had already flung herself against the metal door. She was swallowed up behind it, the door rattling back and forth, her slim figure bobbing behind the window.

Vicky retraced her steps across the small café and let herself out the front door. A warm gust of wind whipped her skirt against her legs as she walked past the Breakfast Specials and Best Coffee in Town signs plastered against the plate glass, cowboy hats swiveling over the tables inside. She could feel the eyes boring into her as she passed.

In the graveled alley behind the café was a collection of pickups and cars—a couple of which looked abandoned—parked alongside twin Dumpsters with cartons that spilled over the top. It was chilly in the shade of the cottonwood that towered over the wood fence on the other side of the alley. Hugging herself, Vicky walked into the rectangle of sunshine on the far side of the Dumpsters. The screened door at the back of the café hung partly open, emitting small squeals in the warm breeze. The main door looked sealed. Hot, greasy odors wafted out of a vent and mingled with the smells of trash. For a half second, she thought that the ringing phone came from inside the café, then realized it was her cell.

“This is Vicky Holden,” she said, after she’d found the cell in her bag.

“I’ve talked to someone who remembers the girl.” It was John O’Malley’s voice, and it was comforting despite the note of caution.

“Who is it?”
Someone who remembered.

“One of the park rangers. Calls himself Joe. I don’t know how reliable his information is. He might have invented the whole thing. He needed a drink badly.”

“Tell me what he said.” Vicky was aware that she was holding her breath. She had the sense that they were reaching out for the girl, that they could almost touch her.

“He said she was an Arapaho, her name was Liz.”

“Liz? That’s all he said? There could have been dozens of Liz’s on the reservation.”

“He said she’d been at Wounded Knee. She came back to the reservation, and AIM blamed her for the fact that the police had shot a member in Ethete.”

“So they killed her.” It was making sense now. Beat her up, knocked out her teeth, shot her in the head and left her to rot in the Gas Hills. Vicky could feel her heart jumping.

“That’s one of the things that’s odd, Vicky. He said he’d always thought she’d gotten away, left the reservation.”

“What’s the other thing?” Vicky glanced at the back door of the café, thinking she’d heard the knob rattle. The door still looked sealed, as if it had been painted in place.

“He says she had a baby.”

Vicky took a moment. Her heart was still pounding. “It has to be the same girl. She didn’t get away.” They were getting close—she could feel the truth of it—almost touching her, and yet the girl was slipping like smoke through their fingers.

The café door cracked open, then jiggered backward, scraping the floor. Donita stepped down onto the gravel and reached around to pull the door shut behind her. Then she shook a cigarette out of a half pack.

“I’ll call you later,” Vicky said. She pressed the end button and walked back through the shade toward Donita, who was cupping her hand over the cigarette and flicking at a lighter that stuttered in the breeze.

“
WHAT’D YOU COME
here for?” Donita said. She kept her gaze on the red glow at the end of the cigarette.

Vicky walked across the gravel between the front of a pickup and the Dumpster. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

“I don’t know about that skeleton, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. What d’ya want?”

“It’s a cold case, Donita. If I can give the sheriff some names…”

“You working for the sheriff?” For the first time, Donita looked up. There was a shadow of hostility in her eyes.

“Working…?” Vicky hesitated, aware of the blunder. If Donita thought she was connected to the sheriff’s department, she wouldn’t tell her anything. And neither would anyone else on the rez when the news went out on the moccasin telegraph.

“You some kind of informer?”

“No,” Vicky said. “I’m trying to get information for Detective Coughlin that will help the investigation. The girl was murdered in 1973. Her killer might still be around.” She paused. “He is around,” she said. “I’m sure of it. He should be brought to justice, don’t you agree?”

Donita took a long drag on the cigarette, then dropped her hand alongside her blue jeans and flipped off the cone of ashes. She was squinting into the sunshine, as if there were a message printed on the front of her eyeballs. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“I heard,” Vicky began, selecting the words—it was like trying to pick her way across the rocks in a creek; one slip and she would be in the water—“that you might have known people involved with AIM.”

“So what? Lots of people got involved with AIM. It wasn’t all bad, you know, the way people talk today. They ran schools. Did you know that? Culture schools so kids could learn their own Indian culture. Learn their own language. They kept watch on the police so they didn’t beat up on Indians and throw ’em in jail for no reason. They were always fighting for our rights.”

Vicky waited a beat before she said, “I think the girl’s name was Liz. She was Arapaho and she was part of AIM. She might’ve been at Pine Ridge for a while. Did you know anyone like that?”

“What d’ya think?” Donita’s eyes widened in surprise. “That I was one of the big shots? One of the leaders? The only time I saw them, they were driving by in some pickup. Most of them came from other places. They gave the orders. Show up at Fort Washakie and demonstrate in front of the BIA offices or the jail. Drive over to Seventeen-Mile Road ’cause we’re gonna close it down. My boyfriend—God, what a jerk—wanted to be a big shot like the AIM guys, so he says, come on, we’re gonna march, we’re gonna demonstrate, we’re gonna kiss their asses ’cause I’m gonna be one of ’em. So I did what he said, and you know what?”

She took another long drag on the cigarette before tossing it down and rubbing it into the gravel with the toe of her shoe. “I loved it, all that marching and shouting. I loved it, ’cause it was like saying ‘We’re Indian, and we’re proud. We’re proud.’ I never felt so great about anything since. We made people take notice. They couldn’t ignore us like they were used to doing, like we weren’t even there, weren’t even alive.”

“There must’ve been other Arapaho girls marching. Try to think, Donita. It’s important. Was there anyone named Liz?”

“You hear what I’m telling you? If she went to Pine Ridge, she was on the inside. Riding around in one of the pickups, how do I know? I never saw any Liz marching out in the hot sun.”

“What about your boyfriend. He might have met…”

“Yeah, he might’ve, only one night about twenty years ago he drank a bottle of vodka and smashed up his truck. Killed himself. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, you ask me. I gotta get back to work.” Donita pivoted about and flung open the screened door.

“Is there anyone else who might have known Liz?” Vicky said, stepping behind her, grabbing the edge of the screened door as Donita shoved the other door into the café. The clank of dishes and hum of conversation drifted outside. “Someone closer to the insiders.” She was talking to the woman’s back. “Liz had a child. Her child would be grown up now. He’d want justice for his mother. Or maybe it was a girl. She’d want…”

Donita turned around. She kept her arms at her side, like a soldier at attention, and stared past Vicky’s shoulder into the alley, her lips moving around inaudible words. Finally she said, “I had a friend, Loreen. She got mixed up with one of them.”

“Loreen? Where can I find her?”

“Try the cemetery over at Ethete. He shot her.”

“My God,” Vicky said.

“Got off on some kind of technicality, like it wasn’t important, you know? Some Indian girl dead. Who cares?”

“Who was he?”

“Lakota, called himself Jake. Jake Walker. Wasn’t his real name, just what he was using around here. Real name was Jake Tallfeathers. Hung around here after they let him out of jail, like it was no big deal, Loreen’s death. Then I heard he got hit by a truck.” Donita’s voice was so low that Vicky had to lean closer to catch what she was saying. “You think you’re gonna get justice? Forget it. Nobody’s gonna care about some Indian girl that got killed back in the seventies. All that marching and demonstrating and shouting didn’t mean anything. We still don’t have rights. You want to know the worst part?” She bent forward, pulling the door with her. The café noises were muffled. “Lot of Indians got killed back then by their own people. And what did the white authorities do? Nothing. You gonna get justice for all of them?”

“We can’t give up,” Vicky heard herself saying. It was the courtroom voice, and the confidence in it surprised her. “We can try to get justice for Liz.”

Donita went back to staring into the alley. Tiny spots of moisture bubbled at the outside corners of her eyes. Finally she said, “Loreen and her sister were both real tight with AIM. I heard they both went to Wounded Knee. I see her sister around the rez sometimes. Her name’s Ruth Yellow Bull. You know her?”

Vicky shook her head. She supposed she might recognize the woman if she saw her. A familiar face at the powwows or one of the celebrations, but not anyone she knew. “Where can I find her?”

“Far as I know she’s still living out on Mill Creek Road, same brown house Loreen lived in. Only thing, she won’t want to talk to you.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Do me a favor,” Donita said, throwing a glance over her shoulder into the café. “Don’t tell her I was the one that sent you, okay? I don’t want any trouble with AIM.”

“What are you saying? They’re still on the rez?”

“You don’t get it, do you! There’s people around that knew what was going on back then. They knew about some of the killings. Maybe they’re the ones who got orders to shoot people, and maybe that’s what they did. You think they’ll want you snooping around into that old stuff? I’d watch my back, if I was you.” Donita flung herself past the opened door and kicked the door shut.

Vicky walked down the alley and around the corner of the café. She slid into the Jeep, ignoring the pairs of eyes following her on the other side of the plate glass window as she backed into the parking lot. Then she shifted into forward. The right tire climbed over the edge of the curb, and she bumped out into the traffic on Federal, struggling to bring into focus this altered sense of reality. Donita might have been talking about somewhere else, not the reservation Vicky had always known. A different place, a place where killers went about everyday lives, gassing pickups at the pumps, stopping in the convenience store for sodas and chips, dancing in the powwows, going to the Sun Dance.

And one of them could have killed a girl name Liz.

ADAM WAS IN
front of the tribal offices as Vicky drove into the parking lot—pacing back and forth, glancing at his watch. The sun shone on his white shirt. He must have heard the noise of her tires cutting across the bare dirt because he swung around and watched until she’d parked a few feet away. Then he bounded over to the Jeep and flung open the door.

“Where’ve you been?” he said, annoyance and impatience beating in his voice. “Our appointment was ten minutes ago.”

“You could have started.” Vicky slid out and headed for the entrance. The door slammed behind her.

“It’s an important meeting.” Adam’s footsteps sounded behind her. “We both have to be there from the beginning.” He reached around and yanked open the glass door.

Vicky was aware of him beside her, their footsteps beating a rhythm down the corridor past the doors opened onto different offices of the Arapaho Nation: Natural Resources, Tribal Registration, Blue Sky Education. She turned into the office next to the sign that said, Tribal Economic Development, aware of Adam’s annoyance nipping at her with the razor sharp teeth of a puppy.

A woman, probably in her thirties, with long black hair and dark, serious eyes, looked up from behind the counter that separated the narrow waiting area from another corridor of offices in back. “Hey,” she said, rolling back in her chair and fixing them with a calm, deliberative stare. “Charlie’ll be with you in a minute.”

Vicky avoided Adam’s eyes. Indian time, she was thinking. The meeting would start when everyone had arrived, but she and Adam—she had to be honest—they were both on white man’s time, old habits from law school and practicing law in the outside world—three years in a Seventeenth Street law firm in Denver for her, and a good seven or eight years, first in L.A., then in Casper, for Adam.

She was about to take one of the plastic seats pushed against the wall next to the door when Charlie Crow emerged from the corridor behind the counter. He handed the black-haired girl a folder stuffed with papers, then leaned over her shoulder and jabbed at the folder with a ballpoint, speaking in a voice that was almost a whisper. Finally he looked up. “Adam!” he said. “Good to see you, man. Come on in.” He waved toward the opening between the end of the corridor and the wall.

“You know my partner, Vicky Holden.” Adam stepped back and ushered her ahead.

“Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Charlie Crow said, sticking out his hand. His grip was hard, Vicky thought, the palm roughened with old blisters. He was an Ojibwa, somewhere in his sixties, she guessed, but with the energy and easy motion of a younger man. His hair was still black, and he had narrow eyes wedged between the canyon of his forehead and his prominent cheekbones. His face was pockmarked, the leftover of some childhood disease, she guessed. He might have been slim once—he had that look about him—but now he carried pillows of fat around his middle.

She watched him shake Adam’s hand—patting him on the back, as if they were the oldest of friends, and tried to recall the article about Charles Crow in the
Gazette
. The tribes had hired an economic development director to bring new jobs to the reservation, encourage companies in the area to hire Indians, initiate job training programs. He’d held the same position on other reservations. He was an expert, like other experts her people brought in when they needed them. He’d been on the rez for about six months. It occurred to Vicky that maybe that was why Crow had called her and Adam—Adam was also an outsider. He was Lakota.

“First door on the right,” he said, waving toward the corridor. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Vicky could hear the low exchange between Crow and the girl at the counter as she and Adam stepped into a small office with papers and photographs tacked to a corkboard on the wall behind the desk, a computer taking up most of a side table, and books stacked in a bookcase. She took one of the two chairs in front of the desk. Adam remained standing a moment, then dropped down in the other.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that tribal business…”

She looked away from the intensity in his eyes.

“We’re top on the list of law firms the tribes use now, Vicky. We’re getting the reputation for being the Arapaho and Shoshone law firm. We can’t blow it. Lawyers are lining up behind us waiting for us to stumble so they can get a crack at the tribal business. So where were you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Vicky told him about talking to Donita White Hawk at the café in Riverton, ignoring the way Adam started shaking his head the minute she mentioned that Donita had taken part in some of the AIM demonstrations in the seventies.

“What are the chances somebody’s going to know the murdered girl? Look…” He hesitated, as if the ground he’d found himself crossing had started to shake. “We have more important things…”

Vicky shifted toward him. “More important than justice for a murdered girl?”

“Sounds very serious.” Charlie Crow walked into the office. Behind him was another Indian, also in his sixties, but with the look of an old man—thinning gray hair pulled back into a ponytail from a narrow brown face etched with lines. His mouth seemed set in a downward curve. He wore jeans and a red plaid shirt that clung loosely to his concave chest. “Meet Mister,” Charlie said.

“Mister?” Adam got to his feet and reached past the corner of the desk to shake his hand.

“Real name’s Bennet, Lyle Bennet,” the Indian said. “Picked up the nickname along the road somewhere. Most folks call me Mister.”

“Have a seat.” Charlie snapped open a wooden folding chair that had been leaning against the side of the filing cabinet. “Mister’s the reason we’re having this little meeting,” he said, making his way around the desk. He sat down in the swivel chair, opened a file folder and started spreading out the papers, taking his time, studying each one as he set it into place. Then, directing his gaze at Adam, he said, “Mister’s been working out in the oil fields now for—” He turned toward the other man. “How long’s it been? Ten, twenty years?”