* * *
“What are you thinking about, badass?” I didn’t respond, just sat there looking out the windshield at things to come. “You know, I think I will start calling that the Little Bird Look.”
I stared at the decrepit chrome antenna shivering in the velocity of roughly forty-five miles an hour. Captain America was hanging in there. Yea, verily, though I walked through the valley of very bad things . . . I was going to have to bring Turk back up from Powder Junction, and there was a dark little part of my soul that was looking forward to it. I told that dark little part to shut up and go curl up in a corner, and it did, but not completely. It never did, not completely.
“It is the one where the eyes bug out a little, and those two little lines dig in at the corners of your mouth.” He turned back to the road. “It is very manly.” I continued to look through the glass and attempted to un-bug my eyes. “I wish I had a look like that . . .”
I needed a change of subject. “You still have your horses?”
A little breath of air came out as he responded, “My uncle’s horses, yes.” Henry never claimed the horses, even though they had been his for more than ten years. It was because they were Appaloosas. He felt about Appaloosas the way I felt about his truck; they were here just to piss him off. Henry figured that the reason the Cheyenne had always ridden Appaloosas into battle was because by the time the men got there, they were so angry with the horses they were ready to kill everything.
“We should go out and ride sometime.”
He turned to look at me again, his eyes bugged a little this time. “You hate horses.”
I didn’t hate horses, I just didn’t like them. I didn’t really want to go riding; I was just hoping the shock value of the statement would change the subject. “The founding fathers used to say that riding was good for the digestion.”
“Whose founding fathers?”
“Mine. Your guys didn’t even have horses until you stole them from the Spanish . . . We headed over to the Mission?”
He smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
Like most of the houses on the reservation, the St. Labre Mission had a basketball court out back. It was a rough looking place, with large chunks of the asphalt crumbling off at the edges in pieces as big as softballs. What little paint there had been to signify the out-of-bounds, foul, and three-point areas had long since faded into the dark gray of the asphalt’s aggregate. It had a steel backboard painted to depict a war shield in faded and chipped reds, blacks, yellows, and whites. There was a hoop with no net, and despite the cold there were four young men playing a game of pickup in their shirtsleeves; one of the T-shirts read MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS KILLED COWBOYS and another read FIGHTIN’ WHITIES in fifties script. The boys were classic Cheyenne, tall and lean, with a touch of casualness that betrayed their age. I wondered why they were here and not in school, but I figured I had enough on my plate without being a truant officer. He cut the motor and started to get out. “Do me a favor and stay in the truck.”
I looked back at him, concern in my eyes. “Even if they don’t hit the open man on the give and go?”
He closed the door, and I watched him saunter toward the court. The word insouciance was invented for Henry and, against it, the teenage version suffered. The Bear was doing vintage James Dean, and it made the boys look like a bunch of basketball-playing Pat Boones. I wondered if they knew Henry. Everybody out here was related in a complex order of extended family. I wondered how many the Bear helped. I had been with him when he made the numerous deposits into the various accounts, a hundred dollars here and a hundred dollars there. I also knew that all the groceries he bought in town didn’t end up at the bar. All of these actions made up an intricate network that provided for the individual without exacting the cost of self-respect.
Henry stopped at the edge of the pavement and leaned against the opening in the sagging chain-link fence, his thumbs hooked in his jeans. They looked at him, sneaking glances, figuring that whatever he wanted was his problem. It would be interesting to see how quickly he could make his problem theirs; it didn’t take long. After a fade away from the far corner, the ball deflected off the hoop and bounced right over to him. He didn’t move, just lodged the ball to a stop with his boot.
They fanned out as they came, like coyotes approaching their first wolf. One of them, the tallest one, said something, and Henry nodded by throwing his head back a bit and inviting them closer. The tall one started to stoop for the ball but pulled up short. The Bear must have said something. Nobody moved, then I saw the back of Henry’s head shift slightly, and the teenagers started laughing, all of them except the tall one. He cocked his head to one side and said something back, and I would bet it wasn’t pleasant. A brief moment passed, and Henry bent over and came up with the ball, spinning it in both hands. From the movement of his head, I could tell he was talking trash. The tall kid nodded, turned, and started walking back toward the court as Henry took one step after him, lined up, and shot. It wasn’t anything all that miraculous, about a twenty-five foot jumper that bounced off the rim twice and fell through, but for a guy who hadn’t held one of the things in ten years, it wasn’t bad. The tall kid turned and looked at him. Henry spread his hands out in an apologetic gesture and walked over to the young man. Throwing a paw around his shoulders, he steered him back over to the group. They were all talking and laughing now, with a few gestures from the boys indicating the road behind the Mission’s Indian School and beyond. They tossed Henry the ball again as he turned and started back for the truck. I saw him stop, look at the much greater distance to the basket, then shrug and throw the ball back to the tall one. It would have been showing off. The boys helped push start the Rezdawg, and we got going again. “You know, I remember a time when you would have made that shot, nothing but net.”
* * *
Artie Small Song’s mother lived up a dirt road off 566 going toward Custer National Forest. It looked like a cliff dwelling with the parted-out vehicles and abandoned, lesser trailer homes wedged into the rock walls of the little canyon. It was a grand location, if a little cluttered, and the farther you went back into the place, the older the vehicles got. By the time we climbed our way to the trailer that had a little stovepipe with a trail of smoke coming out, I was looking for the original wheel. I asked him to park the truck headed down the hill, which he did after a little grumbling. Once again, I waited and wondered why it was I was even here.
I rolled down the window as far as it would go, about halfway, and breathed. The sharp contrast of the canyon air mingled with the musty warmth of the truck. There was one thing I liked about Henry’s truck, even if I never told him: its comfortable smell of old steel, earth, and leather. I had grown up in old trucks like these, and there was a security there, a sense memory that transcended brand names and badge loyalties. I looked around at the assembled vehicular dreams and thought about the mobility of western longings. None of the wheels around me would likely ever roll again, but were there any deep-seeded passions still harbored in the sun-dried interiors and slowly rusting bodies? It was doubtful, but hope does tend to roll eternal.
He was on the makeshift porch, talking to an older woman through a closed screen door. His hands hung loose to his sides; after a while the inside door closed, and he returned. He grinded the starter a few times, then quietly turned the wheel and coasted down the hill, hopes dashed.
“Well?”
Once the truck lurched to a start, he mumbled, “A different girl-friend.”
We followed 566 to 39, took a right, and headed north. “Would the gun be there or with his mother?”
The response was a little ominous. “Artie always keeps his guns with him.”
Artie Small Song’s latest hit didn’t live too far from the cutoff that headed back to Lame Deer. Alice Shoulder Blade was a dental hygiene student at the college in Sheridan but spent her weekends back on the Rez with Artie. Henry said that chances were she wasn’t there, it being a Wednesday, but you never knew when Artie might pop up. It was a smallish, white house with wooden clapboard sides and a bare dirt yard that had a number of dogs asleep alongside the foundation and under the porch. When we drove up they roiled out at us from all directions and made a great show of attacking the truck and raising a general Cain. There was one blue-heeler/border collie mix; the rest were anybody’s guess. Henry rolled down his own window as he parked and growled very loudly, “Wahampi!” The dogs slid to a stop, yelped, and ran back under the porch, so far back I couldn’t see them. As he opened his door, he paused and looked at me. “Lakota for stew. Those dogs are Sioux from Pine Ridge.”
“How can you tell?”
Henry knocked. “Cheyenne dogs would wait quietly, till you got out of the truck.” Nobody answered, so he knocked again. This time, the force of his knocking jarred the door open about two inches, and we looked at each other. “On the reservation, this constitutes an invitation.”
I thought about the numerous laws, both federal and local, that I was breaking as I crept in after him. There wasn’t a whole lot there, only a few pieces of furniture and a framed picture of Alice at what I’m sure was her senior prom. There were lots of boxes scattered around the living room, filled with hunting clothes, old lace-up boots, videotapes, and reloading equipment. It was difficult to discern whether Artie was moving in or out. “Maybe Alice doesn’t live here anymore.” This to the roll of the eyes and a turn of the back as he checked the small kitchen.
I kneeled by the box containing the reloading equipment and took a look at the dies; the ones that were in the machine read .223. Henry came back through and wandered farther down a short hallway, checking each room as he went. I carefully rummaged through the loading box and came up with a small wooden container of dies in separate cardboard; the third one I pulled out was old and didn’t have any markings. Automatically, I reached to the pancake holster at the small of my back. By the time I had popped the safety strap and pulled the .45 out, Henry had returned from the hallway. When he saw the gun, he stopped and quickly looked around the little house, finally returning his look to me. “What?”
“What?”
“The gun?”
“Checking the caliber on his dies.”
He stretched his shoulder muscles. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”
I smiled and unlocked the safety, pressing the side of my thumb against the button, allowing the magazine to slide into my other hand. I rested the die on the closed wooden box and thumbed a shell from the Colt, setting the bullet next to the die. The circumference was identical. Artie Small Song could reload Sharps .45-70s. “Okay, if I were a gun in this house, where would I be?”
We both said it at the same time, “Closet.”
I carefully repacked the dies, placing everything back in the box as it had been. Then I popped the bullet back in the magazine, reloaded my weapon, and replaced it in the holster. I followed Henry down the hallway to the only bedroom at the end, turned the corner, and saw him standing with his hands on his hips. “You better come look at this.”
I walked over to the open door of the closet and looked in. There were enough weapons in there to arm a small platoon. There were FAL .308s, AK-47s, MAC-10s, and the M-16s leaned against the inside wall. There was even an Armalite M-50 and a collection of Mossberg 12 gauge, short barrel, and tactical shotguns. Even sitting on the wooden cases of ammunition, in a dental hygienist’s closet, they looked deadly. Some of the guns were civilian versions, but others were fully automatic and fully functional. I leaned against the doorjamb and crossed my arms. “Wow.”
“Yes.” He looked sad. “I am guessing Artie does not have a federal license for all this automatic stuff.”
“Maybe he’s gonna open a store?”
“Yes. Guns-R-Us.” He leaned in for a closer look. “Is that an M-50?”
“Looks like to me.” I poked my head in and looked in the other corners. “I bet if we dig in those crates down there we’ll find ourselves a couple of .45 ACPs that match the dies in the other room.” I looked around. “Maybe this is a conversation we should have in the truck?”
He followed me out after closing the closet door, and I felt a lot better when we were standing on the porch. I think I heard a few low growls as we walked off the steps, but the mad rush for our heels didn’t come. We leaned against the front of the truck’s grill guard and talked. It had turned out to be a beautiful day, and the temperature was rapidly approaching forty-five. I unbuttoned my jacket and put an arm up. “Well, I’ll tell you what I didn’t see in there . . .”
“Yes. Artie’s taste in weapons seems to run au courant.”
I turned to look at him. “I’m pleased to see that some of that high school French took.”
He continued to look at the house. “Oui.”
“What do you know about Artie, other than his momma don’t love him no more?”
I waited while he composed himself. I don’t know if not knowing Artie was a full-fledged militia-ist or if weighing the odds on his being guilty of murdering Cody Pritchard embarrassed him, but his jaw set and the eyes hardened.
“Artie is an angry young man.” He paused. “What do you know about him?”
I had looked Artie up and came clean. “He’s got two cases of aggravated assault, one pending. He did a domestic for spousal abuse over in South Dakota and has two unpaid speeding tickets here in Wyoming.” I waited a moment. “You seem to be taking this personally.”
He shook his head. “I am reacting to the lost potential.”
“Yep, I know you wouldn’t know anything about that angry young man stuff.”
We both shook our heads. “No.”
I had to push the truck this time, twice. The first time, it jumped when he let out the clutch and barked all the skin off my right shin. The second time, with my arm locked straight with the effort of moving the two-ton beast, it stoved my shoulder and blew a sooty cloud of smoke and unburnt gas in my face. I climbed in and shut the door. “I hate this truck.” We drove back toward Lame Deer on 39, and I peeled off my jacket and laid it on the seat between us. I thought about where we were headed, about Lonnie.