Cassie Miles - Montana Midwife

“Misty asked if you could come over to the ranch tonight, maybe in an hour or so. Is that convenient?”

His tone was cool and distant, more appropriate for a business transaction than a personal request. “Aiden, what’s going on?”

“They found another body. She’s from Henley, and her name is Ellen.”

That was the name Wally mentioned. He’d said that Ellen was with David Welling. “A blonde?”

“Yes.”

She heard other voices in the background. They were arguing. “What else?”

“The victim was wearing a gold, engraved wristwatch. It belongs to my sister.”

The link to another murder was bad for Misty. Her story about the mystery gunman who grabbed her rifle and disappeared sounded even more flimsy. Tab didn’t know how she could help other than to offer moral support. Sometimes, that was enough. “I’ll be there.”

If Tab had gotten her way, she would have tucked her grandma into bed for a solid eight hours of sleep before she left. But Grandma really wanted to come along. She argued that Sylvia Gabriel was a very good friend of the family, and friends take care of friends. What Grandma didn’t say was that these murders were more exciting than anything that had happened since the fire at the casino in Crow Agency.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Tab’s van, she fiddled with the wrist brace Tab had insisted that she wear. “The tribe should have jurisdiction. The dead girl was found on the rez.”

Tab was tired of running through the logistical reasons why Joseph Lefthand couldn’t handle a complicated investigation. She jumped to the bottom line, which was something her grandma—who took part in tribal council—would understand. “It would be expensive. The tribe would have to hire a special coroner to do the autopsies.”

“Are they going to cut that poor girl open?”

Tab shot her a skeptical glance. With her long white braids, patterned wool jacket, long skirt and moccasins, Maria Spotted Bear was just a few head feathers short of playing a tribal elder at the annual reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand. Not an entirely true image. Grandma kept up with the times.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know about autopsies,” Tab said. “You’ve got television on satellite dish. You’ve watched police shows.”

“And hospital shows to keep up with what you’re doing.” Slyly, she asked, “Are those shows truthful?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tab muttered sarcastically. “Every doctor is gorgeous, and every case is fascinating.”

“You see what I mean? I’ve heard about detectives, but I don’t know what they do.”

Tab shrugged. “Neither do I. Not exactly.”

“I can tell you one thing. To find a killer, you don’t need fancy equipment or autopsies. You need to be smart.” Grandma tapped the side of her head. “A real detective should have the instincts of a hunter.”

“Do you think Joseph Lefthand has those instincts?”

“Better him than Sheriff Steve.”

Tab had met both men at the meeting in Crow Agency. Both seemed decent and hard-working. Both were deeply concerned about the young women who had gone missing. Tab wondered if she ought to be more worried since she and Grandma lived alone without any security other than the rifles they kept in the front closet.

Her van jostled along the back roads between her grandma’s house and the Gabriel ranch. Though Tab hadn’t driven the route in years, she remembered the way. When she spent the summer at the ranch, she’d traveled back and forth many times. Later, on other visits to her grandma, she’d make a point of stopping by to see Misty … and maybe to catch a glimpse of Aiden.

“When was the last time you came to the ranch?” her grandma asked.

“It must have been two years ago. Misty was in high school.” She’d been surprised by Misty’s physical maturity. The little girl she’d once known had become a woman, but she’d still run to greet Tab and give her a massive hug. She hadn’t seen Aiden on that trip.

Her grandma nodded. “After you moved to Missoula for nursing school, you barely had time for me on your visits.”

When Tab came to her grandma’s house, there was usually a specific reason, like taking care of home repairs or making sure her grandma got a checkup with the local doctor. Though Maria Spotted Bear was self-sufficient and didn’t need constant watching over, both Tab and her dad made a point of checking in with Grandma, just to be sure she was okay.

As her van rounded the last curve leading to the Gabriel ranch, Tab saw lights shining from every window of the two-story, cedar-sided ranch house with the peaked roof. Several vehicles parked outside the three-car garage to the left of the house. To the right was a barn with a corrugated metal roof. She knew that Aiden lived in a separate cabin behind the barn. Did he keep his helicopter back there?

She parked her van at the end of a row of cars. From the back, she took a satchel containing a sweet potato pie and the cornbread her grandma had made for their dinner. Maria Spotted Bear never went visiting empty-handed, even though it seemed somewhat inappropriate to bring pie to a murder investigation.

Approaching the house, Tab glanced at the far left upstairs window under the eaves. That had been her bedroom during the summer she’d lived here. She remembered a long-ago night when she couldn’t sleep and had perched on the sill, looking out at the long, straight driveway. She’d spotted Aiden, striding toward the house with his border collie trotting along beside him. For some reason—she’d never known why—he wasn’t wearing a shirt, just his jeans, boots and hat. For a moment, he’d paused. His shoulders rose and fell as though he was sighing. He’d taken off his beat-up Stetson and tilted his head to gaze at the moon. The silvery light bathed him in an ethereal glow—an image that branded itself indelibly in her mind.

Her grandma climbed the three steps to the veranda ahead of her and rapped on the door. A stocky woman in a denim vest opened the door.

“Maria Spotted Bear,” the woman said in an authoritative alto voice. “Is this an official visit? Are you representing the tribal council?”

“I’m here as Sylvia’s friend,” her grandma said. “This is my granddaughter, Tab Willows. Tab, this is Laura Westerfall. She’s with the BIA.”

Briskly, Laura shook Tab’s hand. “You’re the midwife. I’ve been meaning to pay you a visit.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Tab was actually more suspicious than pleased. Agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs often caused trouble for the tribe.

“You’re a trained nurse, right? And you worked with a women’s clinic in Missoula.”

“Have you been checking up on me?” Tab asked.

“Yes, I have. If you’re planning to stay in this area, I might have a proposition for you. Recently, some grant money has come available for rural medical care, and I’d like to focus on women’s health.”

“On the reservation?” Tab found it hard to believe there would be any significant financial aid for the relatively small Crow population. Any money at all surprised her.

“I’m thinking of a wider area.”

“So am I.” The women in this wide-open country—on and off the rez—had a long way to go to reach a hospital. Many were too poor to afford decent medical care. Even the services of a midwife stretched their budgets. “Are you saying the BIA could help?”

Laura combed her fingers through her short brown hair and smiled as she held out her business card. “Give me a call. We need to talk about a women’s clinic.”

In spite of the current problems, Tab’s spirits lifted as she imagined being able to help those who had so few resources. A grant from the BIA might be a dream come true.