Death Where the Bad Rocks Live Page 26

  The voice stopped as abruptly as it had begun. A meadowlark flew overhead, talking to him, in time with the distant rumble of thunder miles to the west, to the storm that approached.

  But no crying. Perhaps it had been his imagination, and he turned back to the cabin.

  A shot erupted, muzzle flash like tiny lightning bolts. A bullet whizzed close enough to his head it sounded as if a yellow jacket had strafed him. Manny dropped to the ground. Another bullet hit the sagebrush he’d stood beside a heartbeat before. Another shot, kicking up dirt an inch from Manny’s face. The shooter had his location bracketed.

  Manny scrambled on all fours to a tall clump of purple sagebrush, unholstering his auto as he dropped behind the bush. He peered around the sage and squinted against the fading light, grateful for the flashes of lightning that gave him some illumination. Whoever had shot at him had lured Manny out of the cabin and within gunshot range with the expertise of a seasoned hunter that lures the coyote with a predator call, knowing Manny would respond to wails of help. But the prey shot back. Manny ripped two quick shots in the direction of where the muzzle flash had been, dropping down low to the ground.

  Lightning flashed, closer this time, illuminating for a brief moment another vehicle parked behind his Malibu, a vehicle that had not been parked with Ham’s ’Burb or Marshal’s truck. The vehicle’s driver door stood open: the shooter had not risked shutting it.

  He strained to hear above the thunder. Quiet. He gathered his legs beneath him and duckwalked toward cactus closer to the cabin when two shots in quick succession came his way, and he dropped as much from surprise as from the throbbing pain from one slug that hit his shoulder. He rolled to one side, avoiding another bullet that kicked dirt where he had lain a foot away. Whoever the shooter was, he knew how to target prey.

  Manny lay on his side, concentrating on where he thought the shots had originated, watching the area between him and the cabin as he slipped his bandanna from his pocket and stuffed it under his shirt to stop the bleeding in his shoulder. He chanced moving his arm in a tight circle, wounded but not broken.

  Finished with his field dressing, Manny rolled back on his stomach, holding his pistol like a divining rod in front of him, a divining rod that would do him no good if he couldn’t even spot his attacker. And if he couldn’t get within pistol range of the shooter.

  A bullet tore into the sagebrush and drove a piece of branch into Manny’s cheek. The shooter was working around one side of the cactus for a clean shot.

  Manny gritted his teeth against the burning in his shoulder and waited until lightning flashed between black, roiling storm clouds. Just as the lightning died, Manny low crawled to a piece of sage ten feet away. He paused, timing the lightning again, and scrambled for a dead cottonwood ten feet past that. He hugged the ground and dropped behind the tree. He chanced a look around the trunk. Nothing stirred, yet he knew his attacker lay in wait for him to make a sound, cause movement that would betray his position. If I can hold out for another half hour, he thought. If I can hold off until the sun sets fully, darkness will be my ally.

  He reached inside his shirt and grabbed his beaded turtle containing his medicine hanging from a leather thong. How many times had his wopiye helped him through some crises? Wakan Tanka unsimalye. Wakan Tanka pity me, he whispered, then laughed to himself. Reuben would be proud of his little brother intoning the Great Mysterious in such a time of need. Give me strength, and a whole lot of old-fashioned Lakota luck right about now.

  Manny rolled onto his back and dabbed at the bandanna, which was soaking up blood. He peeled off his polo shirt and gathered his leg under him as he sat poised to time his move between lightning flashes. Thunder close enough to reverberate inside his aching head accompanied a mighty flash. When it died, he draped his shirt over the cactus and backed into an arroyo thirty feet away, dropping down below a dirt bank just as two quick shots accompanied more thunder, as if the Thunder Beings themselves were angered at the desecration of their sacred ground.

  Manny didn’t wait to see what damage his shirt sustained or how close the shooter had gotten. He ran hunched over along the arroyo bottom, deep and offering him the protection he needed. When he’d gone fifty yards, he dropped onto his stomach and crawled to the top of the bank. A figure, indistinct in the darkness and lit by lightning flashes, hunched over studying the tracks, looking toward where Manny had scurried after he’d tossed his shirt over the cactus. The figure seemed to be studying the terrain, deciding whether to follow an armed man into the brush, then turned toward the cabin and was lost to the night.

  Manny strained, eyes adjusting to the darkness. The lightning played tricks on his eyes, illuminating a dark figure that shadowed his shooter. Was the attacker nearing where Manny hid? Was the shooter out there still, waiting for Manny to move, to reveal himself for another ambush? Manny rubbed his eyes. The shadow had disappeared.

  Manny’s questions were answered as a car door slammed moments later and an engine started. Headlights burst the darkness and ruined his night vision. Manny turned his head, knowing the receptors at the sides of the eyes were much more sensitive, better able to cut through the lack of light looking sideways. The car crept up the slope on that trail leading from the cabin to the rim of the Badlands, light and sound fading, staying in the Stronghold. Nothing leaves the Stronghold, including the noise of the shooter leaving.

  Manny checked his watch when the lightning flashes were bright overhead. The storm approached rapidly as did all summer thunderstorms in the Badlands, swooping down as if to catch Manny in a flash flood and drown him.

  He felt foolish, cowering in the arroyo rather than working his way around to get the advantage on his attacker. But Manny had been afraid. He’d frozen in fear, as much from the persistence of the shooter as from not knowing who it had been. Or where the next shot would come from. A man should at least know his executioner.

  Manny breathed deep, his racing heart slowing. He breathed again of the air heavy with moisture, heavy with a different kind of assault: thunderstorm approaching fast, as if the Thunder Beings themselves were animating the clouds and the wind and the lightning.

  He gathered his legs beneath him and crawled out of the gully as occasional drops of rain, cold on his bare back, harbingers of something more violent coming his way, stung his cheeks. He hunched over and scrambled to his car, as much as to try to pick up tracks of his attacker as to make himself as small a target as possible. The shooter’s car had driven away, but had there been more than one person? Was the shooter still lying close to the cabin, waiting for Manny to show himself?

  Marshal’s truck and Ham’s Suburban were still parked by his Malibu. When Manny opened the car door to climb in, the dome light failed to come on. He grabbed the key hidden in the ashtray. The starter was as dead as the lights.

  He fumbled in the glove box and his hand fell on his flashlight. He looked the way the shooter had driven off while he popped the hood and shone the light around. He was no mechanic, but battery cables had been cut. In law enforcement, we call that a clue.

  He squatted and opened Ham’s Suburban’s door. The dome light weakly illuminated the inside, and he slammed the door. He felt under the floor mat, above the visor. The key dropped down and he jammed it into the ignition. The Suburban burped once, then died as the dome light went out.

  He crept hunched over to Marshal’s truck, expecting a shot. He reached for the door handle; sticky blood dripped onto his hand and made it slip off the handle. He wiped his hand on his Dockers and eased the door open. The hinges creaked loud enough he thought someone nearby could have heard it over the noise of the thunder. Manny checked the usual places, but no keys.

  He slammed the hood of his Malibu as the rain started in earnest. He hopped inside to get out of the rain and lay down in the seat before he realized how dumb that move was. If the shooter returned, he’d have nowhere to go. He’d be a captive audience to his own execution.

  He stuffed the flashligh
t into his trouser pocket and double-checked the snap on his holster before running for the cabin. His feet slipped on gumbo and he fell on the slippery wooden walkway in front of the shack. Pain shot up his shoulder as he fell against the door. He rolled onto the floor and kicked it shut. He scooted on the floor, backed against one wall as the rain came in great torrents, the Wakinya Oyate, the Thunder Nation, yelling in unison, shaking the cabin with their noise as they threw fierce lightning that flickered through the chinks in the logs.

  Manny reached for an oil lamp on the table and fumbled for a match. He sat back down in the darkness, the adrenaline dump catching up with him, causing him to feel more exhausted than he ever remembered. He knew as he jumped with each thunder clash that his diabetes had stolen his strength, and he cursed himself for not getting it under control before. If I ever get out of this, Clara, I’ll go to the doctor. Promise.

  He grabbed his Glock and placed it on the floor beside him, expecting the storm to announce his attacker coming through the door to finish him off. Well, bring it on. I’m not the best shot but I can shoot across the room accurately enough. Come through the door. And sometime during the night, the Thunder Beings lulled him to sleep.

  CHAPTER 29

  The cabin door burst open and Manny awoke, aiming his Glock at the man filling the doorway.

  “Whoa,” Willie said, his hands raised to shoulder level. “You been here all night?”

  Manny set the gun back on the floor beside him and rubbed the sleepers from his eyes. He looked past Willie to the open doorway. Light, bright and devoid of any thunderstorms. Manny squinted. He offered his good hand and Willie grabbed on, hoisting him up. “How’d you know where to find me?”

  “Clara. Sort of.” Willie frowned as he eyed the blood-crusted bandanna stuck on Manny’s shoulder. “She called me last night when you didn’t come home. She knew you’d be there for her birthday and she was worried sick. So Janet and I split up and started making the rounds of the most likely places.”

  “Where is your sidekick?” Manny asked between clenched teeth. Willie pulled the bandanna away from the bullet wound. Stuck to dried blood, the cloth ripped away with a sickening sound.

  “She went with her Uncle Leon to look some other places. Better let me attend to that before we get you to the ER.”

  “I don’t need…”

  “Don’t even argue with me about this.” He dipped the ladle in the water bucket hanging beside the bunks and dribbled it over the bullet wound. Dried blood started to dissolve. He returned the ladle to the bucket and began looking around the cabin.

  “Under the washbasin. A first-aid kit, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  Willie bent and moved some rags aside and came away with a Johnson & Johnson, the plastic so old it had begun fading to yellow, like an old meerschaum pipe that’s been smoked for too many years. He doubled over a gauze pad and slapped white tape over it to hold it to Manny’s shoulder. “Now we get to the ER.”

  Manny brushed past Willie. “I got to see something first,” he called over his shoulder and stumbled toward the first small hill that had hidden him from his attacker last night. A pale yellow shirt, embossed with the FBI logo, flapped like a distorted, miniature scarecrow held up by the cactus barbs. A scarecrow that had given Manny just enough time to distract the shooter and slip away. He snatched the shirt. Light shone through four tiny holes. “Couldn’t tell last night for all the thunder.”

  “Couldn’t tell what?”

  “If I was being shot at with a large or small caliber weapon. Now I know. I’ll fill you in on the way to the ER.”

  “You’d think they’d give a man with a gunshot wound some priority. Even Doc Gruesome would be a welcome sight about now. Whatever happened to triage?”

  Willie smiled. “You want quick, you go to the doctor in Gordon or Hot Springs or Rapid. Pine Ridge has only so many ER docs.”

  A pregnant woman sat huddled across from them, a toddler clinging to her as she rocked him. He groaned and held his stomach, while an older couple sat next to her, eying Manny with suspicion. He appeared to be slouching, wearing one of Willie’s T-shirts that was three sizes too big.

  “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  “Doreen?”

  “Janet.”

  Willie looked sideways at him. “Funny man. She’s hot on the trail of the dude that broke into my outfit and stole my flashlight.”

  “That happened in Rapid…little out of her jurisdiction.”

  “She says it connects with the broken window from the week before, that the same man did both. And her suspect is right here on the rez.”

  “Does she know who did it?”

  Willie nodded and pinched a lip full of Copenhagen. The old couple across from them glared but remained silent. “Henry Lone Wolf.”

  “Henry? That’s not like him. What would he have against you?”

  Willie shrugged. “He must be pissed at me because I’ve arrested him for public intox so many times.”

  “If that were the case, he’d break into every officer’s car working the rez. Besides, most of the time Henry wants to get arrested. At least he gets a warm place to stay and three squares when he’s in the hoosegow. Why does Janet think he’s your man?”

  “She found my flashlight next to Henry when he was passed out under the bleachers at the powwow grounds. And she says she can place Henry in Rapid City the day my Durango got keyed in front of the Alex Johnson.”

  “But how would Henry get to Rapid? He hasn’t driven since I was a tribal cop.”

  “He caught a ride. Both ways. Janet dug up records that show Henry was at Mother Butler’s the day the Durango got keyed at the Alex Johnson and the day my truck got broken into. She speculates he might have heard that Doreen and I were going to Rapid and decided to extract some revenge. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’ll keep her busy and out of my hair.”

  “Agent Tanno,” the receptionist called out.

  Manny stood, eyes in the waiting room following him as he made his way to the door. Willie stood with him and held the gauze on his shoulder, though he needn’t as the bleeding had stopped hours ago.

  “Want me to go in there with you?”

  “And do what, hold my hand?”

  “I’d offer to hold something else, but you probably still don’t have feeling down there.”

  “Smart ass.”

  Manny followed the ER nurse through the receiving doors and into an examination room. She tossed him an undersized gown and motioned to a stainless steel table. “Put this on.” She made no attempt to leave the room.

  “Can’t you leave?”

  “I’d just have to come back in.”

  “But it’s not my butt that’s been shot. It’s my shoulder. I shouldn’t need to put this on…”

  “The gown.”

  She stood with hands perched on meaty hips, and Manny calculated the chances of bucking her. She had him by forty pounds and, by the looks of her, a whole lot of mean. Even on a good day he doubted if he could take her. He unzipped his trousers and draped them over a chair.

  She nodded to the boxers. “Hearts. That’s kind of sweet.”

  He stuck his arms in the gown while keeping his butt to the wall. “I was going to my lady’s birthday party. Except I got a little sidetracked.”

  “So you were hoping to get lucky?”

  “Isn’t there some place you have to be?”

  “Not right now.” She grinned.

  Manny finished putting on the gown and tried securing the back. Like all hospital gowns in the western world, it lacked sufficient material to cover him. You had to be an Eagle Scout to tie the strings, so he held the back closed. He speculated the nurse had given him a gown two sizes too small for entertainment purposes.

  The blond Doctor Kildare entered the examination room, the same one that had treated him for the cat scratches. “Wish I got a commission on you. I could retire today.”

  Manny forced a smile. “If you se
e me naked once more I’m going to have start charging you.”

  The physician donned latex gloves and began peeling away the gauze stuck to Manny’s shoulder. “I’m not even going to ask.”

  “Thanks.”

  Doctor Kildare lowered his glasses from the perch atop his blond locks and bent close to the wound. “Irrigate it,” he told the nurse. “And give Agent Tanno a tetanus.”

  The doctor left the room, and the nurse went to work. She wheeled a cart close to the table and opened a bottle of sterile water. Manny gritted his teeth as she ran water over the bullet wound. When she was done she turned to a cabinet and came away with a nasty-looking needle. “Now you see why your butt’s exposed. Bend over.”

  The thought crossed Manny’s mind that he should resist, realized he couldn’t, and he pointed his butt at the smiling woman with the needle poised in her hand. She’d just withdrawn the needle from his butt when the ER doctor reentered the room.

  “He’ll survive,” the nurse called over her shoulder, still grinning.

  “We’ll see.” The glasses dropped over the doctor’s nose again. He opened a surgical kit. After working a lidocaine-filled needle around the wound to deaden it, he pinched a vein with a hemostat and grabbed a forceps. He spread torn skin and muscle apart and came away with a bullet fragmentation. He started to drop it into the bedpan when Manny stopped him.

  “Won’t do you any good,” the physician said, handing Manny the piece of lead. “It’s too broken up to tell you much of anything. I watch CSI religiously.”

  “I should have known.” Manny held the bullet to the light. The doctor was right: The bullet had fragmented when it nicked his bone and no rifling remained to compare it with a suspect gun, if he had one. But there was something: the bullet was pure, soft lead. And a small caliber, judging by its base. He’d have Pee Pee look at it.

  The doctor had just closed the wound with three staples and dressed Manny’s shoulder with gauze when the nurse came into the room. “Officer With Horn brought you a clean shirt.” She looked at the shirt and smirked. “One that fits.”