Craig Johnson - As the crow flies

“Open the door.”

The eye seemed to consider it. “Wh… Why?”

“Because I said…” Her response was cut short when she noticed he had slipped the barrel of what appeared to be a shotgun into the opening.

His movements were slow, and he fumbled with the chain as he repeatedly attempted to undo it with the weapon stuffed under his arm; from my perspective, I could see that the breech was jacked and the thing was unloaded. I started to mention this to Long, but she had already reared a foot back.

“Chief, wait…”

Her foot hit the door-from personal experience I knew what the cheap, single-ply doors did in these kinds of situations-and she booted a round hole in it about ten inches in diameter, admitting her foot into the house but little else.

Clarence Last Bull dropped the shotgun and, predictably, ran-as best he could.

I reached over and grabbed Long by the collar of her wet uniform shirt and yanked her back to the side in an attempt to get her free from the door. As we fell backward alongside the concrete steps into some grandfather sage, she elbowed me, scrambled off, and charged toward the doorway.

“Wait a minute!”

She continued to ignore me and splashed up the steps with the long barrel of her. 44 leveled, careful this time to kick the more structurally rigid side.

I decided it was time to cut Clarence off at the pass.

There was a sidewalk that led to the back of the house and, after rounding the corner, I slapped open a cyclone fence to find a concrete stoop not unlike the one in the front. There was a wooden-handled garden rake leaning against the painted siding, and I grabbed it. Last Bull was pretty intent on getting to the dirt that constituted the yard, which kept him from noticing the rake handle I slipped between his legs.

Fortunately for him, he cleared the concrete steps; unfortunately, he then hit the largest puddle in the yard face first.

I had dropped the landscaping tool and started toward him when Lolo Long blew through the rear screen door and pitched herself on top of Last Bull just as he had started to get up.

He was tall but skinny and incredibly inebriated, which gave the chief the upper hand. The air had gone out of him and now they were both covered in mud. He flipped her to the side, but she wrapped her legs around the trunk of his body and pulled him over after her. He tried to reach a feeble hand back, but she struck him a nasty blow to the head with the revolver, and he slumped still.

She pushed him over and lay there breathing, looking up at me from the detonation of drops that struck the puddle surrounding her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks for the help.”

“It was nothing.”

She kicked at the dead weight of his body, and when his face slumped into the murky water, she holstered the Smith and cuffed his hands behind his back.

I looped a hand under one of Clarence Last Bull’s arms and dragged him away from the puddle before he drowned.

It was dry in the Cheyenne Tribal Police Law Enforcement and Detention Center, and the environs were as comfy as could be expected; of course, I couldn’t speak for the man snoring fitfully in the holding cell with a blanket over his head. A stolid-looking patrolman with a pockmarked face, who was gently humming a tune to himself and eating portions of an apple that he carved with a yellow-handled pocketknife, was watching me.

I twirled the tiny ring on my little finger, glad that it hadn’t fallen off in the backyard melee. “Can I have a piece?”

He cut off another eighth, shoved it in his mouth, and looked at me, his expression as blank as the walls that surrounded us.

I leaned back in the chair that Long had told me to sit in and glanced around the empty office at the couple of other tables pushed against the bare walls. After placing the suspect in the holding cell, the chief had deposited me with the quiet man and had repaired to the locker room in the back. From the sound of it, she was taking a shower as the sphinx guarded me. I guess I was still under arrest.

“So, you barked too much and they cut your vocal cords?”

I looked out the vertical window next to Long’s desk and watched the wind rock the trees and plaster rain against the double-paned glass. You can learn a lot about a person by examining her desk, even if there’s not anything on it. Chief Long’s was completely vacant, except for an old, push-button line phone and one manila folder.

“Hey, do you mind if I make a phone call?”

He sighed deeply and continued to hum.

I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. After a while, I started dropping my attempts at social graces and surrendered to the exhaustion I felt. I leaned back in my chair and pulled my hat down partially over my face.

It was that way sometimes with the Cheyenne-conversation simply wasn’t required and silence was very often a sign of respect; however, even though I knew he wasn’t attempting to make me feel unwelcome, he wasn’t exactly knocking himself out to become my newfound pal, either.

Nothing happened for a while; then, from under the brim of my hat, I saw Lolo Long walk in our general direction. She sat in a chair beside the deputy, but they didn’t look at each other, preferring to sit at an angle with their eyes centered on an area roughly midwall.

As far as I could tell, the two danced around subjects-one providing a counterpoint to the other’s silences with singular responses and small sounds that I’m sure carried their own meanings of verbal sustenance. They were not whispering but were still respectful of my supposed sleep, and the consonants sounded like small, bright birds in faraway trees, the vowels like a lullaby.

His chair squeaked and he closed a door, and then she moved to my left.

I tipped my hat back up and opened my eyes. Her hair was still wet from her shower, and she had changed uniforms.

“I don’t think your staff likes me.”

She studied the folder that had been on her desk, shrugged, and kept reading. “He’s probably just pissed off because we’ve got his half-brother in the holding cell, but Charles says only about three words a week anyway, so who knows.”

“Every family has a black sheep; some have two.” I looked around at the half-dozen empty desks that were shoved against the wall. “Where are the rest of your personnel?”

She gestured with a distracted hand and continued to study the file. “I fired them.”

I turned and looked at her, expecting more but not getting it. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “I fired Charles, too, but he keeps showing up; he hasn’t been paid in two weeks. I don’t know if he understands that he’s been fired. He lacks imagination, and I have to admit that it’s a trait that’s growing on me.” Her eyes came up. “I don’t like people with imagination.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I nodded toward the sleeping man through the doorway. “That the file on the lodger?”

She looked back at the folder, and about a minute passed. “No, it’s the file on you.”

“I’ve got a file?”

She closed it. “As of today.”

“So, am I still under arrest?”

“Yes. No…” She tossed the file on her desk. “Maybe.”

“Do you mind if I ask for what?”

She puffed a breath out with her lips. “Reasonable suspicion, which covers being friends with Henry Standing Bear.”

There was a lot going on there, kind of like a nascent volcano. “What, exactly, is it you’ve got against Henry?”

Her eyes flared, which reaffirmed my concern. “He thinks he’s above the law, and I don’t like that.”

I smiled. “Maybe not above, but certainly beyond.” I stood, looking down at the phone on her desk. “I’d like to make a phone call.”