Death Where the Bad Rocks Live (4 page)

“But not with those closures.” Manny pointed to the Velcro securing the shoe to the foot bone.

“You’re right.” Lumpy rarely admitted Manny was ever correct. “Velcro didn’t come out until late sixties, early seventies. This stiff’s fresher than we figured.” Lumpy laughed again and slapped Manny on the back. “And with a stiff fresher than we thought, you might just be able to solve this one. At least this croaker will tie you up for a while. That means I won’t be dealing with pain-in-the-ass Manny Tanno for a while. Be like a vacation for me.”

“I understand with you being the front runner for the appointment to permanent police chief, you’ve had a lot of pain in your ass lately. I’ll bet you can suck start every car driven by the selection committee.”

Lumpy turned his back on Manny and spoke to Pee Pee. “Make sure you help our federal friend here all you can. We’re just country yokels here, but we’re all he’s got.” Lumpy turned to Janet. “And stick with sloppy boy here like flies on a gut wagon.”

Janet looked Willie’s uniform up and down. “That won’t be hard, Uncle Leon.”

Willie shot her a glance and she shrugged. “Family’s got to count for something.”

Lumpy grabbed the oh-shit handle and struggled to get into the new Suburban with
ACTING CHIEF
plastered across the hood. He tromped on the gas, kicking up dirt, pelting the old Buick where Pee Pee still worked bent over, sharp dings from rock hitting the car echoing off the steep canyon walls. Just before Lumpy disappeared over the ridge, he hit sagebrush that knocked a wheel cover off. It caromed off a rock and sailed over the side and into the deep canyon like a silver Frisbee. Another victim lost to the Stronghold.

Manny bent to help Pee Pee, but he waved Manny away. “I’ll holler if I need you guys. No sense for all of us to sweat our asses off in this heat.”

They sat in the shade of the Durango. Manny wiped the sweat from his face and neck and draped the damp bandanna on top of his head to catch the breeze.
Badlands in August
.
Just where I want to be.
Shimmering heat waves floated off shrubless spires and turtleback mounds that had eroded with the wind and rain that came upon the Stronghold with sudden anger and chipped away at the land, always angry when men invaded her privacy.
Welcome to the wonderful world of National Parks.

But the Badlands had been wonderful, back when Unc and he would travel to the rim and leave the car on top, walking down to the bottom in one of their yearly pilgrimages. “It’s so desolate down here,” Manny said on one of their hikes. “Nothing can live in this heat. And there’s no water, Unc. No food.”

Unc smiled and chin-pointed to silver and red and yellow blooming flowers crowding each other in the shade of a dead cottonwood tree. “Pick those wild onions and bee plants so we can eat.”

They had eaten over a fire fueled with sacred sage, eating cottontail Unc had snared. He thought then that Unc was the smartest man he’d ever met even though he’d never completed school. Unc had run away from the boarding school in Rapid City so many times they gave up dragging him back.

It had all been an adventure for young Manny. In retrospect, he now knew it wouldn’t have mattered if he and Unc had done nothing except walk until they dropped, as long as they were together, for Unc always knew where to lead them to show Manny the secrets of the Badlands. As if Unc talked with the spirits that Manny felt even now might be watching them. He rubbed the hair standing on his neck.

That was a lifetime ago, before Manny’s brother Reuben was sentenced for an AIM-style murder. That was before Manny vowed to do what was necessary to escape Pine Ridge. That was before Manny’s assignment to the FBI Academy as
an instructor, and before his fall from grace this summer when he’d failed to solve the Red Cloud homicide case. At least publicly.

“How did the Old Ones ever survive in this heat?” Janet wiped her face with a handkerchief and dabbed at sweat dripping down her neck. “Especially with no water.”

“They knew of water holes.” Willie took off his Stetson and wiped the inside with his bandanna. He set the hat on the ground, careful not to dirty the pheasant feather hatband. “They passed on that information to other generations.”

“Like travel guides.”

Willie smiled. “Sort of. We Lakota had to rely on each other for survival, and locations of water holes were primary.”

“But the water in this part of the reservation is alkaline. Undrinkable. Clay can’t settle to the bottom. Uncle Leon tells me nothing good ever came out of the Stronghold, including water.”

“Old Ones sliced prickly pear cactus and dropped them into their full water bladders.” Unc’s teaching came back to Manny at odd times such as now. “It cleared the water enough they could drink it. And survive.”

Janet rolled her eyes and Willie caught it. “It’s true. If you’d gotten a degree in Lakota history you’d know some of these things. Which brings up: Just what
is
your degree in?”

“Sociology. Straight 4.0.”

Willie laughed. “Just what we need on the police force—a social worker.”

“I’m no social worker!” Janet stood and kicked pieces of volcanic rock and alkaline pebbles as she stomped away from the Durango.

“See what I’m stuck with? A damned rookie.”

Manny nudged Willie. “Is that your vast experience talking? Seems like you don’t have much more experience than she does.”

“Well, she bugs me. Always asking questions. Getting underfoot.”

“Almost like she’s trying to learn?” Manny hadn’t minded Willie being underfoot. Working reservation cases with Manny, Willie had shown a desire to be a top investigator. He’d asked appropriate questions during the investigations that Manny had been happy to answer. “Like another officer I work with did recently?”

“Damn it, you know what I mean. She wants to learn so she can take over my job when Uncle Leon decides he wants to stick me back on patrol.”

“Over here!” Pee Pee yelled.

Before Pee Pee’s words died out Willie had jumped to his feet and ran to the car, with Janet and Manny close behind. “What’s the yelling about?”

Pee Pee popped a PEZ into his mouth and gummed it as his one fang shone through his wind-cracked lips. “Bonus round!”

Pee Pee used the car to help himself stand and pointed to the windowless opening. “Bonus round. Some lucky contestant will have the pleasure of investigating two more croakers.” Pee Pee gave them a come-hither gesture with his finger and dropped back onto his knees. Red flannel fluttered, still attached to an arm bone jutting up from the exposed sand. Beside the white cloth a brown muslin shirt clung to the remains of a breastbone.

“When I got to stiff one”—he turned to Janet—“that’s what we call our customers, ‘stiffs’.” He winked at Manny and turned back to Janet. “When I finished digging stiff one out of the dirt, I saw an arm bone with red cloth still attached to it underneath him, buried to the wrist. Now, I got no fancy degree like you three, but I suspected stiff one didn’t come from the factory with three arms, the other two which I had already carted off to the evidence van. So I got to sculpturing some
more and uncovered two more lovely souls. My uneducated guess is those two would be that sixty-five- or seventy-year-old case that the chief mentioned. I’d wager they’ve been here since the bombing range was active, given the amount of dirt that’s blown into the car.”

“Sixty or seventy years,” Janet said under her breath. “How will we ever figure out who they are, let alone what or who killed them.”

“FM,” Willie said, brushing dirt from his uniform trousers.

“FM?”

“Friggin’ Magic. We can do wondrous things nowadays,” Pee Pee said, meeting Manny’s stare as if he were defending his years of evidence experience. “Stuff like DNA profiles, missing persons records, dental records.”

Janet turned away from the two skeletons. “But if we don’t know who they are, how are we ever going to find out who their dentist was?”

“If you’d gotten a degree in criminal justice instead of sociology”—Willie smiled—“you’d know these things.”

“When’s he going to be done with that mumbo jumbo?” Janet chin-pointed to Willie. He stood beside the Buick, his black uniform shirt coated with white alkaline dust, settling heavier around the armpits and middle of his back where the sweat broke through, his singing rising and falling in time with the gusts of wind that coated the Durango with dirt.

“He needs to do a Sending Away ceremony for the spirits that still linger.” Goose bumps grew on Manny’s arms, and he wished Janet hadn’t asked.

“That’s old superstitious stuff they tried to teach us in school. We’ve evolved beyond that now.”

Three months ago Manny would have agreed with her, before he’d experienced visions of Wounded Knee, and visions
of Jason Red Cloud that screamed for Manny to find his killer and allow Jason’s
wanagi
to travel south along the Spirit Road, the
Wanagi Tacanku
. He had denied his Lakota heritage then, as Janet did now. He knew how she felt, knew she tossed aside the old ways, just as he had, forgetting where he came from as he lived comfortably in the White man’s world to the east. Now he wasn’t sure, and a part of him sympathized with Janet’s rejection of tradition.

“What’s he doing now?”

Willie dipped into his
wopiye
, his medicine pouch, and tossed
peji wacanga
into the air. The sweetgrass seemed to hang on the breeze for solemn moments before being carried away. “He’s praying to the four winds. Have you never heard that a man has four
wanagi,
four spirits? Those victims’ first spirits—their
niya
—are gone, but the other three are there. Willie’s wishing them well as they travel along the Spirit Road.”

“Right.” Janet sat back in the seat, arms crossed, looking out the side window. Willie’s voice—singing the
Lowanpi
. The
wakan
songs rose and fell with an eerie staccato captured by the ashen rock formations comprising the Badlands. Nothing escapes the Stronghold.

Manny dozed, his head falling back against the headrest, lulled by Willie’s voice as he performed the Sending Away ceremony under the blistering noonday sun. Manny dreamed of long ago times when the Oglala were one with others of the Oceti Sakowin, Seven Council Fires, strong and able and capable of driving their enemies from this place that sheltered them in times of crises. Old Ones came to this Sheltering Place to pray to the Great Mysterious. And so many would be buried in this Sheltering Place where their spirits would be helped south to the Milky Way.

Manny sat upright when Willie’s voice stopped, realizing he was here in the Durango, with Janet snoring in the backseat. Sweat beaded on Manny’s forehead and he wiped it with his shirtsleeve. He breathed deep to ease his heart thumping in his chest. Had he been dreaming just now when he felt someone tug at the corner of his sleeve? The hairs stood on the nape of his neck just like they had when he came here with Unc, feelings a boy could never explain, any more than the grown man could now.

Willie climbed back into the car. Janet leaned over the seat and started to speak, but Manny shook his head and she dropped back, arms crossed, glaring at Manny. Willie started out of the Badlands bottom and was nearly to the top when he stopped and grabbed his cell. “Shit! No signal.”