Craig Johnson - As the crow flies

“The man, Clarence; he was paying attention to my daughter Inez, a year ago.”

“Really?” I wasn’t sure of what else to say.

“Yes.” Loraine Two Two turned to go, but her voice carried over her shoulder. “She was thirteen.”

It was about two miles up the road to Lonnie Little Bird’s house, and I was once again regretting the loss of my truck as I trudged up Route 212, the thunder still resonating off the flat surfaces of the distant plateaus.

With my current luck, it was likely to rain again before I got there.

It was also likely that Clarence Last Bull had killed Audrey, but the final word on that would have to wait until Chief Long got the preliminary report from the Montana Crime Lab and the FBI tomorrow morning. It wouldn’t have all the details, but it would be enough to get the slow-moving wheels of justice started on their uphill journey.

Rudimentary math and tonight’s revelation told me that Clarence was having a little on the side, and the fact that it was with a thirteen-year-old girl didn’t exactly endear him to me. I still had doubts, but then I wasn’t sure what a man did after pushing his wife and child from a cliff. Would you just get in your car and drive home drunk? If you were trying to make it look as if it were an accident, you would contact 911 and stay there. It just didn’t make sense, and in my line of work the things that didn’t make sense often led you to the things that did.

I reminded myself once more that this wasn’t my case. Twirling the ring on my little finger, I again remembered that I had a daughter who was getting married in a matter of weeks.

I could hear a vehicle approaching from the rear, and just for fun I threw a thumb out to see if I could get a lift. The thought struck me that it might’ve been Lolo Long in a fit of conscience, deciding to give me a ride after all. Yep, right, and it could also have been Chief High Bear wanting to show me the ledger drawings that he had painted in the roster book he’d taken from the first sergeant of the Seventh Cavalry.

I turned to look back-by the sound, the vehicle was awfully close-and when I did, it seemed to be bearing down on me. It was an older truck with some kind of hopped-up engine and Cherry Bomb mufflers. I stood there for a moment, thinking that the driver hadn’t seen me and would momentarily turn the wheel and go by, but instead the truck continued on a course straight toward where I stood.

I ran across the shoulder and down the hill by the side of the road, passed by a signpost for Route 212, clawed my way up the slight embankment to a barbed-wire fence, and threw myself over into the wet grass. The jacked-up pickup followed me into the ditch and swerved just past, slapping a few posts and shooting sparks from the barbs on the wire that attempted to bury themselves into the sheet metal. The truck slid sideways as it struggled to get back up the hill and onto the highway, then drifted to a slower speed as the driver tried to get purchase.

It was about then that I noticed the elk tied to the hood.

I really started missing my gun.

Soaking wet from the rough landing, I stretched the old three-strand wire, scrambled back over, and started after the half-ton as it slid sideways some more, the bald tires unable to get a grip. There were brake lights and headlights but no license plate on what looked like an old, red Chevrolet.

The driver was sawing at the wheel in an attempt to escape a return trip into the ditch, but all I could see was a mantle of long, dark hair.

I was having trouble getting up the grade in my slick-soled boots but got to the edge of the road and ran along the white line. The Chevy wasn’t making particularly good time going down the road sideways, but it didn’t seem as if I was catching up.

The wide tires on the rear finally got to the gravel, and I watched as the vehicle squirreled to the right, the elk swaying on the hood.

My second and third winds were giving out as I watched, but the driver corrected again and shot ahead east toward Ashland with a roar like a top-fuel dragster. Forcing the air in and out of my lungs, I stopped and placed my hands on my knees, the V-8 echoing off the hillsides and disappearing around the far turn a mile away. “Good God…”

I swallowed and stayed bent over until my blood pressure and adrenaline level approximated normal but kept my eyes on the road just in case the crazed driver decided to turn around and take another pass at me. After a while, the only sound other than me breathing was the cry of a few night birds and the croaking of some of the frogs in the ditch. I finally stood, pulled in two lungfuls of air, and coughed.

It was the time of the evening that was playing with night, and I walked up the road a few steps until I noticed something odd on the gravel. It was a carved piece of buffalo horn about the size of three of my fingers, with a smoothed tip, a piece of rawhide tied in a loop toward the end. There were a few holes drilled into the thing and a larger opening about a quarter down the length.

I popped it in my shirt pocket and glanced up the road-it was still a couple of hundred yards to the cutoff to Lonnie’s place.

I knocked and shuffled my feet on the welcome mat of the tidy house-I wasn’t sure if the chief was awake or not. I glanced down the concrete ramp that led to the front door and was glad it was a warm night; if worse came to worse, I could always sleep on the hanging swing on Lonnie’s porch.

I knocked again and could hear someone rustling around inside; after a moment, the door opened, revealing the chief in his wheelchair. He looked up at me through blurry eyes but with a grin. “ Ha’ahe, lawman. They said you were sleeping over, but I’d given up on you. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

I opened the screen door and followed Lonnie along the hallway, where there were numerous photographs of him in his major-league ball-playing days and ones of his daughter in jingledress dance outfits and playing basketball.

I sat at the table in the kitchen as Lonnie examined my soaked, mud-covered clothes and the torn jeans where the voracious barbed wire had gotten me in my leap over the fence. “Rough night?”

I took a deep breath and wished Lonnie still drank, but he had given that up in a successful attempt at getting his daughter from the clutches of his sisters. “Somebody tried to run me over.”

“Where?

I jerked a thumb past my shoulder. “Walking, right out here on 212.”

“What were you doing walking?”

“Oh, I had a difference of opinion with your police chief.” I tried to deflect the conversation. “Hey, Lonnie, do you have any of that really good root beer?” I knew the chief kept a single can of Rainier in his refrigerator as a token to alcoholic temptation, but I wasn’t going to ask for that.

“Um hmm, yes.” He wheeled over to the fridge and opened the door.

“You don’t know anybody with an early-seventies pickup, Chevy, red or maroon, with a loud exhaust, do you?”

He returned to the table with two cans and parked his knees next to mine. “That sounds like a couple of trucks I know.”

The can made a soft hissing sound as I opened it. “Can you make me a list?” I knew from experience that Lonnie liked making lists.

He had put on his glasses, and the reflection in them made it hard to see his eyes. It took a while for him to answer. “Yes. Is there something going on?”

“A woman and her child fell off Painted Warrior this afternoon.” I tried to think if it was this afternoon, my body telling me it had been three days ago. I stretched my eyes to try and keep them open and took a sip of the pop. “Anyway, I helped that police chief of yours today, and I can’t think of another reason in the world why somebody would want to make roadkill out of me.” I felt in my shirt and pulled out the carved object I’d found, tossing it on the table between us. “Any idea what that is?”