Craig Johnson - As the crow flies

She roared the GMC onto the asphalt and laid a strip of rubber that must’ve been a good ten feet long. The people on the sidewalks of Lame Deer ignored the racing Yukon as if it going down Main Street at sixty miles an hour was a daily occurrence; come to think of it, it probably was.

“You think we should take this to the head office in Salt Lake?”

I shook my head. “Mike McGroder? No, we’ll give Cliff a chance to hear it and see what he has to say. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

She pulled the mic from her dash and hit the button. “Base, this is unit 1-anybody there?”

Static. “Unit 1, this is base. Over.”

“Charles, do you have any idea where the AIC might be?”

Static. “Yeah, he was just here-picked up both Kelly Joe and Artie Small Song. He said he was taking them to Hardin for protective custody.”

She glanced at me. “How long ago?”

Static. “Maybe five minutes.”

I reached up and clicked on the light and sirens as the warrior chief four-wheel-drifted through the main intersection of Lame Deer, barely missing a delivery van and a Ford Explorer. By the time we got to the big ridge overlooking the separate lands of the Cheyenne and Crow we were doing a hundred and twenty.

The muscles at the side of her jaw bunched. “That settles it.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Bullshit! He forged the tape, and now he’s trying to seal it up tight by taking Artie.” She flung the Yukon around a sweeping corner, and I was pretty sure the inside wheels were off the ground. I glanced up at the integral roll bar and was slightly reassured. “It has to be.”

When we hit the straightaway above Busby, not to be confused with Birney, white or red, you could see the caravan of federal vehicles approaching the gigantic Moncure teepee that had once been a gift shop and tourist trap located beside the town’s general store.

Lolo’s foot sank deeper into the SUV’s throat, and I watched as the orange needle wound higher. By the time we approached the string of one Yukon, one Suburban, and the Expedition, I’m pretty sure we were only hitting the high spots on 212.

The chief launched past the rear vehicle, and I could see the surprised looks on the faces of the Feds as she blew by the second one and slid past the leading vehicle with her antilock brakes most assuredly locked.

We were still hanging out into the forward lane, clouded in blue smoke when the thing finally stopped, and I was just glad the airbags hadn’t deployed. I unsnapped my belt, pushed the door open, and stepped onto scoria-colored asphalt.

Cly was the first out of a vehicle, and he stepped toward us with a hand on the Sig-Sauer at his hip, motioning to the agent who had been driving to lower his weapon as he came out the driver’s side. He smiled at my appearance. “Hey, nice shirt. You decide to go Native?” He opened his arms to encompass the Little Big Horn country. “Good place for it, Kemosabe.”

Lolo Long came around the back side of her unit and pointed a finger at Cly. “Where are my prisoners?”

The agent looked as if he’d been smacked. “What?”

I kept an eye on the driver as he lowered his weapon but did not reholster, as three more field agents showed up from the other two vehicles. They looked like a preppy barbershop quartet.

Long had made it to the front of the Suburban and actually kicked the front bumper. “I said where are my prisoners? You can hand over Kelly Joe and Nattie to the DEA or whoever, but you have no right to take Artie Small Song.” She glanced at the other agents, who were wisely keeping their distance, self-preservation being a core class at the academy.

Cliff glanced at me with an odd look on his face and then pushed his sunglasses up on his wavy locks. “You’re running a skeleton staff in a concrete block; I thought I’d do you a favor.”

“I don’t need your favors.”

He looked at me again, spoke slowly, and with the Midwestern accent that Wade Barsad had had, said. “O-key.”

She circled around to stand in front of him, and I think he was glad the open door was between them. “I’m running a homicide investigation, and you’re trying to run off with my chief witness.”

The agent looked at me again. “I thought he was the chief suspect.”

“He was until we listened more carefully to your bullshit tape.”

I watched him closely, and you could be mistaken about which side of the coin it was that Cliff Cly of the FBI had been playing, but he seemed genuinely very confused. “What are you talking about?”

“The phone recording is crap, and you know it.”

An eighteen-wheeler slowed at the phalanx of official vehicles, the air brakes blowing out like an angry mechanical bull. The operator hung out the window to look at the drama unfolding. Lolo Long was momentarily distracted and shouted at the truck driver. “What are you looking at; you want me to check your logs or something?!”

The truck sped up, and I stepped a little closer to the epicenter of the conflict, hoping the chief would remember I was on her side. “Why don’t we pull these vehicles over to the other side of the road and get this all straightened out?”

Long looked at me for a moment and then marched past to navigate the GMC into the gravel lot surrounding the derelict tourist attraction.

The Feds followed suit, and Cly told a couple of his boys to go get the rest of the agents a few soft drinks from the general store three hundred feet back. They disappeared, but the eyes of the remaining agents in the assorted vehicles watched us like we were trying to steal their collective bones.

Which at least one of us was.

“Play it again.”

Lolo hit the button, and we listened to the remastered CD for the second time.

The expression on his face didn’t change, but he disengaged himself from the vehicle and stood there, dusting the toe of his dress shoe on the back of a pant leg. After a moment he walked across the crumbling concrete pad and peered into the Moncure teepee, raised a hand, and pushed open the flapping screen door, which was held to the structure by half a hinge. “So, you think the recording has been doctored?”

The chief and I stood by the grille guard of her unit and watched him. “You heard it-what do you think?”

He didn’t say anything but stepped forward and disappeared into the shingled structure, his voice echoing in the emptiness. “I heard this thing was built by the WPA, but I think that might be bullshit.”

We listened as the resonance of his footfalls circled the inside, the FBI men watching. I pushed off the SUV, followed Cliff’s path, and found him standing in the center, looking up at the blue sky, which was approaching the zenith of afternoon heat.

Lolo followed, and we watched Cly slip off his navy blazer-he continued to look through the openings where the shingles and roof underlayment had let go. “Why would the WPA build something like this? I mean a dam, a trail, a retaining wall I can understand-but a giant wood teepee? That doesn’t make much sense.”

I tipped my hat back and wiped the sweat from my forehead. “What’s going on, Cliff?”

He walked to the side of the building and put a hand on a support as thick as a telephone pole; the one he had chosen was cracked and would someday give way, taking the southern portion of the structure with it. “To be honest…”

Long interrupted. “That’d be nice.”

He smiled the matinee-idol smile he’d probably been using since junior varsity. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.” Lolo took a step toward him, her face suddenly lit by the cascading beams of sunshine blasting through the openings like head lights. “Bullshit.”

He sighed. “Honest Injun.” He looked at me and then licked his lips like he was looking for the words. “Look, the tape was forwarded from a source in the BIA.” He gestured toward the CD still in the player in Lolo’s vehicle. “They seemed really fired up about it. Now, I don’t know how they got it, or who they might’ve gotten it from…”