Dull Knife (3 page)

He let that sink in.

Heywood had heavy cheekbones and a thick brow and bright blue eyes made brighter from the pipe. “What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Joe said.

Heywood looked around the structure as if someone there could interpret for him.

“Darrell knows everything,” Linnie said, her laugh a tinkle.

“Shut up, Linnie,” Heywood scolded, then turned back to Joe. “The sheriff has no more jurisdiction than you do here.”

“You’ve got a thing about jurisdiction, don’t you?” Joe said. “But the sheriff is calling the tribal police. They’ll be here together.”

Heywood’s face was red from the heat, but got even redder. “Get the hell out of here. Now.”

“You just left her out there,” Joe said. “She was trying to swim to the surface. In fact, her hand was sticking up out of the ice when I found her. If you’d stuck around just a few minutes longer, you might have helped her out.”

Heywood just glared.

Joe said, “You made it to shore after the truck went into the lake and called one of your friends to pick you up from the pay phone in the campground. As far as you were concerned, both Smudge and Jessica went down to the bottom together.”

“You’re crazy, man. You can’t prove that.”

Linnie, though, had withdrawn from him, and was now looking back and forth from Heywood to Joe.

“Smudge must have gotten out on his own,” Joe said. “I can’t imagine you and your friends taking him to the hospital out of the kindness of your heart, but you couldn’t just leave him there. Unlike you, he had no body fat to keep him warm. But you just left Jessica back there, didn’t you? You didn’t figure she was tough enough to try and swim out, did you?”

“Look,” Heywood said, “I told you to leave—”

“Is he talking about my sister?” Linnie asked, her voice high, unmodulated, unhinged.

“But you never saw her play,” Joe said. “You didn’t have a clue how tough she was, how talented she was. You never saw her potential. You didn’t think of her that way.”

“Jessica!” Linnie shrieked, flailing at Heywood, her bare palms slapping his naked skin, leaving white handprints.

“I thought she was in the truck!” Heywood yelled in self-defense, trying to ward off her blows. “There wasn’t anything I could do!”

“You could have grabbed her hand and pulled her out,” Joe said calmly. “You could have taken her to the hospital.”

Linnie was whaling away at him now, her hands balled into fists, swinging like an eggbeater.

“Linnie . . .” Joe said.

“Damn you!” Heywood cried, backhanding her across the face. “Stop it! I was freezing and wet. Smudge drove us into the goddamn lake! There was nothing I could do!”

Linnie was thrown back, but kicked at him hard. The heel of one of her feet caught him under the heart and brought a groan.

Joe had his weapon out, finding it in the folds of his clothes. “Darrell, you’re under arrest. I think the charge is officially ‘Reckless Endangerment.’ Kind of describes your whole life here, I’d say. You could have helped Jessica Antelope, but that wouldn’t have fit your little movie here, would it?”

Heywood howled in response, and stood up, tearing the top of the sweat lodge off, diving naked through the hole, his big body thumping the ground outside.

II WASN’T
hard for Joe to follow the footprints in the snow, weaving in and out of the brush toward the river. And when Darrell Heywood began to moan, he was easy to locate.

Joe pushed through the brush.

Heywood had slipped on the ice of the river and fallen and was now stuck fast to it, his entire belly glued to the surface.

“I’m freezing here,” he said between sobs. “I can’t get free. I’m going to freeze to death.”

Joe shuffled across the ice and squatted down in front of Heywood.

“Hey, White Buffalo,” Joe said. “A real Indian would know not to run across a frozen river naked, I think.”

Heywood spat, and cursed. Said, “I’m freezing to death.”

“You’ve got a while yet,” Joe said. “But it’s not going to feel good when they peel you off.”

Heywood sobbed, his tears freezing instantly on the ice.

Joe saw the flash of wigwag lights bouncing off of the low-hanging wood smoke, heard the sirens coming.

“You never saw her play,” he said. “You didn’t know what she could do.”

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