Craig Johnson - As the crow flies

He put his can down and picked it up. He studied it for a moment and then blew into it, moving his fingers over the holes to make a trilling sound just at the height of human audibility. He lowered it and looked at me. “It’s an elk whistle made out of buffalo horn-the old type.” He looked at it again in admiration. “This is a good one. Um hmm.”

The root beer tasted good, and I could feel some of the knots in my shoulders and neck starting to release. “You know who made that one?”

He turned the flutelike whistle over in his hands. “No, but I can find out.”

“Add it to the list.”

We smiled at each other, but then his faded like an eclipse. “What was the woman’s name?”

“Audrey Plain Feather.”

“I know this woman, her family.” He looked up. “She is dead?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “And the child?”

“Alive, and being checked at the hospital.”

He reached out a hand and patted my arm. “Thank you for looking into this thing, Walter.”

“Oh, I’m not-”

“It is good that you are a friend to the people.”

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the front door. Lonnie’s expression was one of mild surprise. He held up a single bony finger to keep me from responding. “I am popular tonight. Yes, it is so.”

He wheeled the chair around the table, and when I started to stand, he sat me back down with a quick movement of the palm of his hand. He disappeared down the hall, and I listened as he opened the door. There was a brief, but fierce, conversation in Cheyenne. I figured it was Henry, who had come to pick me up, but as I listened to the tone of the conversation, it became obvious that somebody was receiving a royal dressing-down.

After a few moments, Lolo Long entered and stood by the wall in the hallway. Lonnie rolled by her and went straight to the refrigerator again; without saying a word, he placed another can of root beer on the table. As he passed by me on his way back to the hall, he stopped to address the room as a whole. “I am going to bed, but I’m sure that you two professionals have a great deal to discuss. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

The kitchen was quiet; the tribal chief of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, having spoken, had rolled to his bed in his portable throne.

Her arms were crossed, and her hair hung down over her face like a shroud. She lifted her head slowly, her voice a murmur. “I’m sorry.”

I folded, like I always do in the face of female conciliation, and gestured toward her root beer and the only available chair. “Have a seat.”

She did and then looked at everything in the place but me. “They’re going to try and take my case.”

I took a sip of my own soda and waited.

“The guy you know, the agent, he called and said that the Medical Examiner’s report showed enough reasonable findings to consider this a homicide, so they are going to proceed with their own investigation.”

Nodding, I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “That’s pretty much standard procedure with the bureau.” I leaned forward in my chair and rested my elbows on the table. “Maybe you should let them have it.”

I got the eyes. “No.”

“Why?”

She took a slug of her root beer and absentmindedly played with the whistle. “She was a friend.” Lolo held the whistle up to her face and studied it. “We had a house in Billings together once when we were both going to school. We had hopes, and I was kind of a mentor. She got pregnant…” She sighed in exasperation. “And came back here-I went in the military.”

I did some quick math. “Adrian’s only…”

“It was before him, another pregnancy that ended up being a miscarriage, but she came back here anyway.” Long glanced around the room in an attempt to find the words that must’ve been lying around somewhere. “Look, Sheriff, I want justice.”

“Whose justice?”

The eyes again, but I was getting eyeproof.

“Help me.”

I leaned back in my chair, took a breath, and thought about the soon-to-be-married greatest legal mind of our time. “I can’t.”

“You can. I’ve seen them with you; they’re afraid of you.”

That made me laugh. “They’re not afraid of me.”

“Well, they respect you, and the new AIC owes you his life.”

I narrowed my own eyes at her. “And what does that have to do with you?”

She set the buffalo horn back in its place, folded her hands on the table, then reached over and lifted the corner of the place mat. She looked at the floor and then lowered the mat back to the surface and smoothed it with her fingers. “I know you think I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I smiled. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

She nodded very slightly in agreement, and her voice was losing its energy. “And you may not even like me.” I didn’t say anything. “But you could teach me.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Please.”

I was drinking my coffee and watching the swirl of light foam that formed a riptide against the far side of the cup, crashed against the edge, and then split to circle around and rejoin with one another where they started. I would look at anything to avoid watching Clarence Last Bull cry.

Long had offered him coffee, offered him donuts, and even offered to let him go to the bathroom, but all Last Bull said was that he wanted to die.

I wanted to die just watching him.

The chief went so far as to get a box of tissues from God knows where, then placed it on his lap over the inert hands that draped between his legs.

I pushed the folding chair that I had been sitting on against the wall and went to the hallway with the man’s file under my arm, Long following me. We stood there, the chief with her arms folded and me sipping my coffee.

Her voice was gruff, but I could see that she was a little shaken. “How long is this going to take?”

I dropped my head and took a deep breath. “As long as it takes.”

We waited there like that for a good ten minutes, neither of us saying anything, just listening. It got suddenly quiet, and I could hear him stirring in the cell.

I raised my head, leaned a little to the side, and peered back through the opening at the end of the hall-he was slumped on the bunk and had his arms wrapped around his lanky legs, as if trying to keep them from running away.

My legs carried me back into the room, and I could feel Lolo behind me as I tossed my empty cup in the trash can by the door.

He looked up. “You’re sure it’s her?”

I nodded and kept my eyes on him. “I’m the one who got to her first; me and a good friend.” I glanced at Lolo. “Chief Long here ID’d her right away.”

He snorted, “Chief Long.”

I made the next statement definitive. “Yes, Chief Long.”

His eyes locked with mine, and we played stare-down for a good four seconds before he looked at the floor again.

“But you’re sure it’s her? I mean there could’ve…”

“No.” I had to shut this avenue down quickly, or we’d lose him to misplaced hope. “The identification she had with her is unquestionable.”

“I wanna see her.” He used the palms of his hands to rub his eyes.

“I’m sure that can be arranged with the ME’s office, but first I’d like to ask you some questions?”

“I wanna see my son. Where is he?”

I pulled the chair that I had pushed against the wall across the floor, placed it beside the bars, and sat. “He’s at health services, and we’ll take you there as soon as we go over some things.”

He stood and looked down at me. “What the hell is there to go over?”

“Clarence, do you always answer the door with your shotgun?” I took his file from under my arm and began studying it without looking at him. “I think you should sit down so that we can get this done as quickly as possible-then you can see Adrian.”