The Girl with Braided Hair (A Wind River Reservation Myste) (5 page)

She looked around. There was no one else in the parking lot, nothing but a row of parked sedans and pickups with the white vehicles of the sheriff’s department at the far end. The sound of a lawn mower whirred in the distance. The wind blowing over the asphalt was hot and sweet-smelling with the odor of newly-mown grass. A dump truck lumbered down the street, turned right, and disappeared behind the bungalows across the street.

Vicky glanced back at the massive, beige stone building. Sunlight winked in the blank-looking windows. Nothing moved; there was no sign of life. The building might have been vacant. She fished her key out of her bag and pressed the open button on the remote. The lock buttons jumped up, and Vicky slid onto the seat and reached for the envelope. The air inside was so hot, she could hardly breathe. Leaving the door open, she ran a finger under the envelope’s flap and pulled out the sheet of paper folded in three. In the center of the paper, were thick, black capital letters: STOP.

Vicky got out, slammed the door shut and hurried back to the building. In the entry, she told the blond receptionist that she had to see Coughlin again.

“He might’ve left,” the woman said. “I think he was going out.”

“Call him for me, please,” Vicky said. The man hadn’t left. There was no one in the parking lot.

The receptionist had the receiver pressed to one ear. “That lawyer again. Says she has to see you.” She dropped the receiver. “He’s on the way. He has appointments, you know, so I hope you won’t be taking too much more of his…”

The door on the left swung open. “What’d you forget?”

Vicky stepped into the corridor and waited until he’d closed the door. She had no intention of providing the receptionist with any gossip to pass around. “This was on my dashboard,” she said, thrusting the envelope into the detective’s hand. “Whoever left it got into a locked car.”

Coughlin worked the folded sheet past the flap, then stared at the word a moment. “You sure?” he said.

“It was locked, Gary. But somebody put that inside. It’s part of the message. Whoever did it can do anything, get in anywhere. Somebody knows who she was,” Vicky hurried on. “Somebody here and now knows what happened thirty years ago.”

The detective was shaking his head. “What else are you working on?” He waved the sheet of paper between them. “This could refer to anything.”

“It refers to the skeleton.” Vicky could feel the truth of it. “The women came to see me yesterday. Somebody must have found out that I’d agreed to talk to you.” She shrugged. “I’d agreed to put some pressure on you, let you know the women want this case solved. Whoever it is was waiting for me to show up here. He wants me to back off. He must be hoping that if nobody on the rez says anything, you’ll dump the case in the unsolved files.”

“Okay, okay,” Coughlin said, and she realized she’d raised her voice. “I’ll check the outside security cameras, see what they picked up. I also intend to talk to people on the rez and shake things up a little. Somebody’s bound to want to talk about thirty years ago.”

Vicky stared at the man for a long moment. That was not going to happen. People on the rez were not going to open up to a white man.

She thanked him and made her way back across the entry and the hot asphalt to the Jeep, glancing around as she went, half expecting someone to materialize out of the haze of heat and the wind. There was no one.

1973

THE LIGHTS OF
Lander glowed in the black sky ahead. The Ford’s headlights flowed down the highway a short distance before being swallowed into the darkness. Liz felt suspended in space, plunging through a dark void, the only people left in the world, she and Luna. The baby had started to stir in the backseat, and Liz could hear the faint thrusts of tiny fists against the sides of the cardboard box. The baby would be awake in a minute, awake and hungry, and, oh God, she was out of formula. She’d given Luna the last can a couple of hours ago, just before she’d gone to the meeting.

Liz hunched over the wheel, trying to keep her own breathing quiet, hoping that the hum of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of the tires on the asphalt would lull the baby back to sleep. In the dim light of the dashboard she could see the needle bouncing on empty. She tried to think how much money she had. A couple of dollars in her wallet. Some change in the bottom of her purse. There might be a few quarters in the jockey box, what whites called the glove compartment, some dimes or nickels on the floor. If she could get to Lander…

She gripped the wheel hard, willing the car to keep going, conscious of the darkness rolling like clouds outside the windows. The baby was starting to make little wake-up noises. How well she knew everything about Luna, the sounds she made when she was hungry or needed a change, or wanted company. It was odd to know so much about someone that, just a month ago, she hadn’t known at all. Except that even before Luna was born, she’d felt the light kicks inside her and known her baby wanted something. Maybe for her to turn over or sit in a different position or go for a walk. Little by little she’d come to know her baby.

The baby would want to eat. She had to get more formula, and that wouldn’t leave much for gas. Not enough to get anywhere, Liz was thinking. Not enough to get out of Lander, but Ardyth was in Lander, and in some part of her, Liz realized that, for the last thirty minutes, ever since she’d left Ruth’s, she’d been heading south toward Ardyth’s place. There was no other place to go.

Ardyth LeConte had been living in Lander for almost a year, ever since she’d walked away from AIM last fall. “I don’t need any more of this shit,” she’d said. They were still in Washington, D.C., organizing cars for people to get back to the rez after the Trail of Broken Treaties, that had started with so much hope, had ended with so much pain. Liz had no idea how Ardyth had gotten back across the country. She hadn’t returned to Pine Ridge, and it wasn’t until Liz had moved back to the Wind River Reservation that she heard Ardyth was living in Lander. Got herself training as a nurse’s aid and a job in a nursing home. Become like
them
, that’s what Robert and Brave Bird, Loreen and Ruth and all the others said. Ardyth was whiteized.

They’d come to see her once, Loreen and Ruth and Liz. They’d wanted to see how she was making out, for old times’ sake, Ruth had said. After all, they’d been through a lot together, and what sense was there in letting it all go because Ardyth decided to become white? They could stop by, say hello, see what it was like in the white world. And who knew? Maybe Ardyth was ready to come back.

It was the beginning of June, Liz remembered, already hot, the wind blowing like a fan turned on high and the baby heavy inside her. Ardyth hadn’t been at home, so they’d hung around the yard awhile, sitting in the pickup with the doors open, feet dangling over the running board, eating the sandwiches and drinking the Coke they’d lifted off the convenience store, and waited. They were sure she’d show up, but now that Liz thought about it, Ardyth had probably been at work, because that’s what she did. She went to work every day, like a white woman in the white world.

Luna started making gurgling noises that Liz knew would progress from whimpering into full, panicked cries of hunger. The lights ahead were more distinct, like torches burning on the horizon. The gas needle lay flat on empty, but a minute ago she’d caught it jumping below, and there was something about the engine, the kind of hesitancy that meant it was about to stop. She could feel her heart thumping against her ribs. Just a little farther.

She drove around the bend into the edge of town. Streetlights flooded the pavement in front of the gas station and convenience store across the highway. Luna was crying, and the high, piercing wails almost masked the sound of the sputtering engine. Liz could feel the floorboard jerk beneath her. She shifted into neutral, coasted across the oncoming lane and rolled down the paved ramp to the parking lot in front of the store. When she shifted back into drive, the Ford jumped forward a few feet, which was enough to line up with the gas pump.

She opened the jockey box and ran her hand under the papers until her fingers brushed the cool pieces of metal. She scooped out three quarters, then leaned over and swept her hand under the seat. About sixty cents worth of dimes, nickels, and pennies. She checked the bottom of her purse, found another quarter, and pulled the dollar bills out of her wallet. Stuffing the wad of money into her jeans pocket, she got out. She lifted Luna out of her box, put the baby against her shoulder, and, patting the small back, headed into the store. “It’s okay,” she kept saying, trying to ignore the weight dropping like iron in her stomach. “Get All Your Supplies Here” flashed in red and yellow lights inside the plate glass window.

“Help you?” The man behind the counter laid a thick arm on top of the cash register, leaned sideways over the counter, and fixed her with watery blue eyes that looked as if he were weeping. He had hair that resembled yellow plastic, the way it stood out around his fleshy, red face. There were marble-sized pockmarks in his cheeks and across his forehead.

“You got baby formula?” Liz had to shout over the baby crying.

“Second aisle. I’ll walk you,” he said, swinging around the counter.

Liz started after him along shelves stacked with candy bars and breath mints and chips. He had thick buttocks that swayed from side to side, and he kept glancing back at her, making sure she wasn’t helping herself to any candy bars, as if she wanted any of his stinking candy. She stroked the round back of Luna’s head; the damp black hair clung to her palm, like corn silk.

“Here you go,” the man said, waving one hand over a shelf of baby formula.

Liz stared at the price tag fixed below the cans and jiggled the baby in an effort to calm her. She could buy two cans and still get a few gallons of gas. She picked up the first, stuffed it in the crook of her arm next to the baby, and grabbed the second. “That’s all I need,” she said, the falseness of it clanging in her ears.

“Okeydokey,” he said, ushering her ahead, not about to repeat the mistake he’d made when he let her walk behind.

“What’re you doin’ in these parts anyway?” He swung his bulk around the end of the counter and waited for Liz to set down the cans, which he picked up one by one as he pressed the keys on the register.

“What?” Luna was wailing now, tossing her head back, blinking up into the fluorescent lights. “Buying stuff. I need gas.”

“What, the convenience store on the rez run dry?”

“I’m visiting a friend,” she managed. Her throat felt dry and tight, her cheeks warm with anger. Why was she slipping into the role he expected of her? Indian girl with no rights—no rights to exist.

“How much?”

“What?” she said again.

“You got somethin’ wrong with your hearing? How much gas you gonna put on your bill? You owe me a dollar fifty for the formula.”

Liz pulled the coins and crumpled bills out of her jeans pocket and spread them on the counter with one hand. She pushed a bill and two quarters toward the register. That left two dollars and some change. She pushed the bills toward the others.

“Two dollars,” she said, patting Luna’s back. She dropped her face and kissed the top of the baby’s head. “It’s okay, okay,” she whispered.

“Your friend better be close by.” The white man jabbed at the keys. The register made a series of clanking noises before the drawer popped open. He stuffed the money into the narrow compartments, slammed the drawer shut and tore off the white receipt that had popped out of the top.

“You got two bucks on number two,” he said, nodding toward the red and yellow lights blinking in the plate glass window. “You know how to pump gas?” His fingers were working the receipt into a ball. “Don’t want nothing busted up out there.”

Liz picked up the cans of formula and, pressing them against her, pushed the glass door open with her foot and hurried back to the car. She set the baby into the cardboard box and crawled in alongside. It took a moment to locate the baby bottle wrapped in the diapers in her bag, pull the tab on one of the cans, and fill the bottle. All the while, Luna was screaming, arms and legs flailing. Liz picked her up and squeezed a drop of milk out of the nipple onto the baby’s pink tongue. A look of surprise came into Luna’s black eyes, then she latched onto the nipple, making loud slurping noises.

Liz settled against the backseat watching the shadows and light move across the tiny face and the hungry way the little pink mouth worked at the nipple. For a moment, the fear and worry gave way to a sense of hope. “Baby, baby,” she sang. “We’re on the train to happiness now. See the light shining ahead for us. You got that light in your eyes, baby. I see it shining there for us, just for us…”

She shut her own eyes and there was Jake Tallfeathers, watching her from across the room at the meeting, his fist knocking the countertop—tap, tap, tap. Her eyes snapped open. The white man was leaning down, tapping on the window.

“Get your gas and move on,” he yelled. “Can’t have no loitering around here.”

Liz pulled the bottle away and laid Luna back in the box. The baby was gulping screams as Liz got out. She opened the gas tank, jammed in the nozzle and stared at the black numbers jumping in the white box on top of the pump, conscious of the muffled sound of Luna’s crying, the white man watching her from the other side of the car. It was never like this when they were together—Arapaho, Sioux, Crow, Blackfeet, Ojibwa, and a lot of tribes she’d never heard of, gathered together, standing up to the white man.

The hose bucked to a stop in her hand. She put it back into place, closed the gas cap, and got in behind the wheel. The white man loomed in the side mirror as she drove past the pump. She pulled into the vacant lot next to the station, and crawled into the backseat. She gave the bottle to Luna again and made herself sing, trying to focus on the song she’d written when she’d learned she was pregnant. Her voice was trembling; she couldn’t keep it calm: “Baby, baby, it’s a long way to go. The road is hard, I’m telling you now. I love you so. Pick up your pack and keep on going. Keep on going. Keep on going.”

She thought Luna’s eyes were drooping, but she couldn’t be sure in the darkness pressing around the car. Beyond the darkness, across the vacant lot, the gas station stood in a well of light, red and yellow neon lights flashing through. The sucking noise stopped, leaving only the trace of her own voice humming the song. She was singing at the bar in Rapid City when Jimmie Iron had walked in. Another song she’d written—
Mama said, you get in the car, girl. We’re gonna ride outta here, ride into a new life and everything’s gonna be fine. I promise you, promise you. Mama lied. Girl, there’s a new man gonna take care of us and everything’s gonna be fine. He’s got eyes like diamonds and gold in his pockets. I promise you, promise you. Mama lied.

She could see Jimmie smiling as he lowered himself onto the bar stool. He spoke out of the side of his mouth when the bartender walked over, because he hadn’t taken his eyes from her. Pretty soon he was drinking a bottle of beer, but she could tell he wasn’t paying attention to the beer. And that had made her want to laugh right in the middle of the song. She’d strummed a wrong note on the guitar, thinking that the bartender could have handed Jimmie any kind of drink and he wouldn’t have even noticed.

She switched to another one of her songs, one she usually didn’t feel like singing, but that night, with Jimmie watching her, it had just come out, almost on its own.
Indian girl, you’re a long way from home, that’s what they told me. Indian girl, you’d better get along. I didn’t listen, no I didn’t listen, ’cause there were dreams I had, dreams waitin’ for me. Oh, I had dreams waitin’ for me.

It was good then.
Ni isini.
She’d felt warm all over, like summer sunshine coming over her after the long, freezing winter. When she’d finished the set, he’d walked over. “What’s an Indian girl doing here?”

“Singing. Didn’t you hear?”

“Yeah, I like what I hear,” he’d said. “Like what I see, too. Like that long braid you got down your back.”

“You from around here?” She’d never seen the likes of Jimmie Iron at Pine Ridge. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but strong looking with dark eyes that looked straight at her and a feeling of power in the way he held his head and walked, like he owned a piece of the world. He was from Minneapolis, he’d said. Moved onto the rez for a while to get things organized. She ever heard of the civil rights business going on? Happening for everybody ’cept Indians. Now things were gonna be changing, did she know that? We’re gonna get what’s ours, get our rights. White folks don’t think we got any rights. We gotta teach ’em otherwise. It’s gonna be a good ride. You wanna come along?