Craig Johnson: As the crow flies

Cars, plural. I guess Rezdawg had gotten more than one. Good for her.

“I was and still am under arrest, and therefore not responsible for the vehicle in question.” She straightened, a little surprised. “I’m pretty knowledgeable about vehicular codes, along with concealed-carry laws within federal jurisdiction.”

“Lo?”

It took a second for her to disengage from her primary target, but when she realized that it was her mother speaking to her, she locked on her. “Excuse me?”

The large woman started to stand. “Lo, there’s been an…”

She snapped back in the way that only family can. “Is this official business? Because I am engaged in arresting this man and unless you have something pertinent to say concerning…”

“Lolo Louise Long, stop acting like an ass. There’s been an accident. A child is hurt, and a dead woman, who is going to be a major part of your official business, is lying at the base of Painted Warrior cliff.” She took a deep breath and shot air from her nostrils like a bull. “And, by the way, may I introduce you to Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming.”

“You’re still under arrest.”

“Okay.” I braced a hand against the dash as we swerved down BIA 4 at about a hundred miles an hour. “Can I have my gun back?”

“No.”

I glanced past the elongated hood of the Yukon as we passed another unsuspecting motorist. “You might want to turn on your siren.”

She said nothing and continued slicing the wheel.

“Seriously, if you…”

She fairly screamed it. “I don’t know where the switch is!”

I gave her my best double take, but fortunately her attention stayed on the road.

Reaching across to the upper center console, I flipped down a small door and pulled a switch, flooding the surrounding area with the blooping noise of the hi-tech siren.

She flashed the amber eyes at me. “Thanks.”

I nodded and thought about how I was getting myself involved with a federal investigation on reservation land. I’d thought about asking Henry to go with her but came to the conclusion that I was probably a little less of an adversary. The Bear looked just as happy to stay at the hospital with the child, Dog, and no Lolo Long. “Are you new to this?”

“What?”

“Law enforcement; I assume that this isn’t what you did over in Iraq, huh?”

The response was more than a little defensive. “No, it wasn’t.”

“What did you do over there?”

“None of your business.” She glanced at me, a sliver of jasper at the corner of one eye. “You serve?”

“I did.”

“Union or Confederate?”

More and more like Vic. I went ahead and smiled; it was funny. “See, up until now you’ve kept that rapier wit sheathed.”

The radio interrupted with a call from the Montana Highway Patrol, informing us that the FBI investigator would meet us on scene and would be bringing a team along with him; standard procedure on the Rez. Officer Long plucked the mic from the dash and rogered the call.

She hung it back up. “I know you. I mean, I know of you.” She glanced at me again. “You were involved with the Melissa Little Bird rape case a few years ago.”

I pulled the shoulder belt away from me with my thumb, my chest suddenly feeling a little tight. “Yep, I was.”

“That was a cluster.”

My chest got even tighter. “Yep.”

She started to drive more steadily, braking before and accelerating into the curves, although our speed was still way over the limit. “There were a lot of rumors swirling around when those boys started showing up dead.”

“Uh huh.”

“One theory was that it was that buddy of yours, Standing Bear.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Another was that you were the one doing it.”

I still didn’t say anything.

“You caught somebody, didn’t you?”

It took a moment, but I found words in my mouth. “We stopped the shootings, if that’s what you mean.” She rocketed past a windmill on the side of the road. “You’re going to want to take a left at the next dirt cutoff.”

She dutifully slowed the SUV and made the turn at a reasonable speed but accelerated again, still bouncing us against the seat belts. I indicated the spotter road, and she took it as I reached across and turned the dial, putting the GMC in four-wheel-drive, her glance letting me know I’d overstepped my boundaries. “I’ll operate the vehicle from here on out, if you don’t mind.”

We got to the ridge and parked and, pulling a crime scene pack from behind her seat, she followed me as I retraced the path to the base of the cliffs. Our approach spooked a coyote, and we could hear the buzzing of the flies before we got there.

Chief Long was to my right as we got closer to the small stand of juniper trees, and I could see that the young woman’s naked leg was still sticking up at an odd angle beside her face.

I turned to look at Officer Long, but she had stopped and, staring at the dead woman, was simply standing in the grass.

I waited a moment and then took a step back, blocking her view. “You know her?”

She looked surprised and then nodded in a distracted way, a traumatized look I’d seen before. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“Gimme the case.”

She blinked once and then looked up at me. “No, I… no.”

“Gimme the case and go sit by the creek; if I need you, I’ll call.”

She didn’t move, even after I took the pack from her loose hand.

“Go.”

She stood there for a bit longer and then turned and walked down the hill.

I moved back to the dead woman and set the case down without actually looking at her. There was a charade I played with myself in these situations, a falsehood that allowed me to do the job-telling myself that it was only an exercise. This woman was not dead to me, not yet. That part would start soon enough: the ferocious desire to find out who she was, why this happened and, if it was a factor, who did it.

Was it an accident, a suicide, or a homicide?

I put away my sunglasses and raised my face, getting a clear look at the cliff and watching the clouds race over in bleached streaks, leftovers from the storm that had hovered near Lame Deer. There was another crime scene up there where the majority of the questions would probably be answered, but that could wait.

I judged the distance and did a quick calculation of the physics, which were not unlike the deceleration and impact forces found in automobile accidents in which the occupants neglect to wear seat belts. In the tenth to twelfth second of free fall, terminal velocity is obtained-terminal velocity being one hundred and ten miles an hour. She wouldn’t have made that, but she’d gone fast enough. There would be fractured bones and lacerated damage to internal organs as well as to the head and spine. She had told me that in those last few seconds-I only wish she could’ve told me more.

I felt the falsehood of ritual flow over me, insulating me from the lingering results of death, humanity’s ultimate adversary. I unzipped the crime scene case and was immediately faced with another adversary, a camera. All these years and I still hadn’t mastered the art of anything except the IPH model.

This reminded me that we had left Henry’s camera on the ridge near where we had parked the Yukon, and I made the mental note to pick it up on the way back to the vehicle. The camera from the kit was large-bodied like Henry’s but of a simpler design, which I appreciated. I switched it on and began the photographic procedure of shooting the entire scene-the relationship area, distance of fall, and the point where she had struck the cornice.

When I began photographing her, I noticed that there were bruises on her face and arms, some of them older than those caused by her fall. There were also scratches on the backs of her arms that looked like they might’ve been inflicted by someone grabbing her with great force, maybe a week ago.