Barrett crossed his arms-it must have been a family trait. “Huh?”
Chief Long flipped through the register and then turned the book around on the desk and shoved it toward her brother, a finger pinning the personage on the page. “Him.”
The young man leaned forward and read the name as Karl nodded a hello to me and backed his chair out of the line of fire.
“Oh, yeah, that guy.” Barrett looked up at his sister. “He had a screaming fit down the hall. Said he was going to come back in here with an atomic bomb and blow the place up.”
“Did he threaten Audrey Plain Feather?”
“He threatened everybody on the planet.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Does that mean I can have a gun now?”
She turned and leafed through the rest of the book in a disinterested fashion. “No.”
“If he comes back, I could shoot the nuke out of his hand.”
The chief looked at me and then returned her eyes to the register. “Why don’t you tell my little brother about the 50 percent of cops that get shot?”
I shrugged.
Karl continued to study me and then spoke. “If you’re going after Artie Small Song, you better take an army with you.”
“That’s what I had in mind.”
He grinned at the floor. “Back before I lost my legs, some friends and me, we were out hunting one time and shot this whitetail deer up near Kelly Creek. When we got to it, that dude Small Song was already butchering it. This buddy of mine steps up and says, ‘That’s my deer.’ He didn’t even look at us, four of us, but stood there with that skinning knife just moving back and forth.” He looked up at me for the first time. “Swaying, you know, like a snake before it strikes.”
I smiled. “You let him keep the deer?”
Karl nodded with the self-assurance of someone who has barely escaped death, perhaps numerous times, and is wiser for it. “You bet your ass we did; the guy’s a psycho.” He shuddered dramatically.
It was dark, but from my vantage point I could still see the old woman lift the planks and check the pit-roasted elk underneath. The shower of sparks rose like a constellation of orange celestial bodies reaching out for their brethren above, lighting the face of the woman as though she was onstage.
I was lodged at the base of a Y-shaped pine, the fallen branches making for a pretty good hiding place, or so I thought until the medicine woman looked up the hillside and directly at me-even from this distance I could feel the weight of those opaque eyes.
She had pulled a rumpled CPO jacket around her shoulders and the shawl she had been wearing earlier was around her head to protect against the slight chill of the evening. She might not know exactly where I was, but she seemed to know that I was out there and that most likely I wasn’t alone. There were other eyes than mine here and maybe the eyes of Artie Small Song to boot.
Almost an hour earlier I’d discovered the spot and had carefully made my way down the slope to where I now sat. I’d learned long ago that you needed to get comfortable at the beginning of things, because you wouldn’t have the luxury later on.
I usually had plenty to occupy my mind in these situations, and tonight was no different. My daughter and the impending wedding loomed large, and I was beginning to question my motives for sitting in the woods. Was I just avoiding the oncoming disaster that was around the corner by stretching my jurisdictional responsibilities, or was I focusing on a situation and a fellow officer who needed my help? Was I just out here because it was the path of least resistance and the kind of thing I was used to doing?
I had to fight to keep from sighing.
My daughter would be here tomorrow and, so far, Henry and I had not accomplished many of our assigned duties, the most important being finding a place for her to get married. Henry had actually gone over and spoken with Arbutis about the situation, but when I’d asked him about the meeting, he’d closed his mouth and said nothing-not a good sign.
This was a nice spot. Maybe I could talk Cady into a stakeout marriage ceremony that included armed guests-I’m pretty sure the groom’s side would have no problem with that since they were almost all cops anyway.
Not only was my daughter arriving tomorrow but so was Lena Moretti, Vic’s mother and Cady’s soon-to-be mother-in-law.
The wedding was in less than two weeks.
I could just stay here; chances are they’d never find me.
The medicine woman returned to the kitchen chair that she had stationed by the back door, turned her head, and spat. She brought a forefinger up and slid it across her lip where a little tobacco residue must have remained, then flicked the offending particle away.
Despite the distance, I could still make out the erosion-filled plains of her face. It was not unique in these situations that you start developing a feeling for the person you’re watching, almost as if they become an extension of yourself. It always comes down to being able to sit quietly and wait. Most lose the ability, the honing of their skills dulled and rusting in the forgotten kitchen drawers of their minds, but it was part of my job and I could just go away without going away and become a part of the landscape.
I had all night, but Artie didn’t. It was late, and she wasn’t going to be able to leave the elk on there for much longer. How much did Artie Small Song care about this meat? How much did he care about feeding his mother?
The answer came slowly, almost glacially, as I became aware of something to my left-something in the dark, vertical shapes of the trees that hadn’t been there before.
I waited, the sides of my eyes aching from being locked in one direction. Move first and die is the maxim that had been taught to me, the one I’d followed on the high plains, in Vietnam, and in every dire situation in my life.
I waited.
It was possible that we were staking out an innocent man, as innocent as somebody like Artie Small Song could be, but an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of bloody results.
I could’ve sworn that I’d heard something behind me.
He would be at a much better vantage point to see me, front lit by the fire below. Had the old woman known from which direction he would come? Had she spoken with him? Did he know we were there? All these questions and a multitude of others attempted to dislodge me from my suddenly uncomfortable seat.
I waited.
A dark form melted into the trees to my right. I could make out a hand resting against the rough surface of the bark. The fingers flexed, no more than three feet from my head. I stopped breathing, thinking that he might hear me. Then he disappeared again, the fingers slipping away as if they’d never been there at all.
After a while I saw him again, a little further down the hill, his outline breaking with the stark form of the trees. The old woman was now looking directly at him and, consequently, me.
My eyes were momentarily drawn to the medicine woman as she took a step toward the fire pit. She gripped a knee and lowered herself so that she could move some of the boards, and another flurry of sparks rose into the night.
I could see where Artie Small Song stood, and I saw him pause for just a second before his head turned and the rifle in his hands swung around.
The Cheyenne Nation struck like a war lance, carrying the two of them down the hill, and all I could hear was grunting and heavy breathing as both combatants refused to give way to the slightest energy loss by crying out.
I threw myself from the relative comfort of my hiding place and stumbled down the hill in a striding attempt at speed, hoping I wouldn’t simply land on my face. The men continued to crash through the trees, and I heard a resounding thump as they reached the flat at the back of the house. I glanced off a creeping pine, which diverted my direction a bit, and tripped a little in an attempt to keep my footing.
The old woman had uncovered the pit and was holding one of the boards in her hands. The fire was blinding after sitting out there in the dark for so long, and I’m pretty sure that’s what she’d had in mind. Directly below me, the two men were struggling, one rolling on top of the other until they reached the rocks at the edge of the fire.