I watched as she took his cards and disappeared back toward the Yukon, her wrist-thick braid held fast by a beaded barrette bobbing in counterpoint to her strut and the slap of the revolver.
The Bear looked bored and supported his chin with a fist and placed an elbow out the window. “So, when did you start wearing a pinkie ring?”
I stopped twirling it. “It belonged to my great-grandmother.”
“The witch?”
I sighed at the Bear’s knowledge of my family history. “She wasn’t a witch; she was just one of those herb doctors.” He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t agree. “Martha wore it but gave it back to me to give it to Cady when she got married. The problem is that Michael already got her an engagement ring so I don’t know what to do with it.”
He mumbled into his fist. “Give it to her.”
“People are weird about that kind of thing sometimes.”
“Just give it to her.” He reached out and smoothed a piece of duct tape that held the instrument panel to the dash. “Is that why you are wearing it, to remind you?”
“Kind of. I lost it a while back and then discovered it in a little cedar box I’ve got on my dresser. I thought maybe if I kept it on my finger I wouldn’t lose it again.”
The Bear didn’t say anything but looked back at the Yukon. I could still see the adhesive where the sticker price had been on the inside of the window-and ventured a question. “Who’s Ms. Lolo Long?”
“The new tribal police chief, an appointment from the last tribal chief.”
I nodded. “The indicted one.”
“Yes-the one whom Lonnie replaced.” He pursed his lips and pointed them toward the Yukon, where it looked as if Officer Long was in the act of writing a lengthy ticket. “Iraqi war vet; I do not know what she did over there, but she came back wired tight like a Montana-made mandolin. I guess the old chief was trying to make up for his tenure and thought he was doing everybody a favor by installing a by-the-book police chief, but so far as I can tell, all she has done is made the lives of everyone miserable.”
I watched as she opened the door and approached, the hi-tech sunglasses now secured in her breast pocket. “Including yours?”
He smiled the close-lipped smile. “Lately.”
Officer Long stopped at the door and handed Henry his papers along with an aluminum clipboard and pen. “I’ve cited you for failure to stop at the intersection, failure to respond to an official vehicle, and the fact that you have no brake lights.” She glanced down the dented, mottled-green length of Rezdawg and then back to the Bear. “I’m sure I could find plenty of other violations attached to this particular vehicle, but seeing as how this is our first official meeting, I thought I’d take it easy on you.”
The Cheyenne Nation looked at me, but I didn’t say anything and continued to pet Dog. The beast looked at Lolo Long with expectation, all smiles and wagging tail.
Traitor.
“You have thirty days to respond in the mail or in person at the law enforcement and detention center-you know where that is?”
“You mean the jail?” Henry smiled. “I do.”
“I bet you do.”
Henry signed the ticket and handed it back to her.
“Do you understand the violations as they have been explained to you?”
“Yes.”
She pulled the space-age sunglasses from her pocket and dramatically placed them over the opaque chalcedony eyes, ripped his copy of the ticket from the clipboard, and handed it to him. “Have a nice day.”
He continued to smile, pushed his old-school Ray-Bans over his eyes again in response, and handed me the $262 ticket as she started to turn and go. “Here, file this in the glove box-under chicken shit.”
She paused for only an instant and slightly turned her head.
I watched as she took a breath and tasted in her mouth the words she wanted to say. I half expected her to draw the big. 44, but instead she hitched her thumbs in her gun belt, held that last look, and then walked off, punishing the roadway with the heels of her boots.
It was the most professional thing she’d done during the entire interaction.
She started the SUV, did a tire-smoking reentrance to BIA 4, and continued south with a full head of steam.
Henry yawned, placed his license back in his wallet, and flipped it onto the dash. “I do not think that I ever have had brake lights.”
The lower ridge that leads to Painted Warrior cliff runs for about a mile north and west from Red Birney, and the only way to the site is from along the ridge or back up through the dirt roads below. I doubted that Cady and Michael would want to be married on a cliff, but Henry assured me that the area at the base was as picturesque as it was dramatic.
He was right.
We’d followed Lonnie’s instructions and eased Rezdaw g off the road between the grass-covered hills that ringed the base of the cliffs and a large sedimentary rock cairn. We climbed steadily until we reached a saddle and a scattering of large boulders and parked at the top of a small ridge, just as wisps of steam were floating out from under Rezdawg’s hood.
There was a thick-bodied mule deer a little off to our right, heading down toward Tie Creek, and I allowed her a substantial lead before opening the door and letting Dog out to patrol the area. He immediately went to where the doe had been standing and watched impatiently as she bounded through the scrub pine and clamored over the rocks toward the base of the cliffs.
“You never would’ve caught her anyhow.”
He turned to look at me as I closed the door and joined Henry, who was leaning on the homemade, Day-Glo orange grille guard and partial steam bath at the front of the truck. “What do you think?”
It was just the way Lonnie had described it. I had heard of the site and might’ve even been here when I was a kid, but I guess I’d never really seen it. Framed by a box canyon below, the Painted Warrior raised his face from the ridge and looked toward the sky. As with cloud images, you had to look at the thing for a while before you saw it, but he was there. The features reminded me of another friend, Virgil White Buffalo, all the way down to the deep furrows that indented the rock visage’s face. The majority was a khaki-colored stone, but there were a few massive streaks of war paint, the rocks stained by the deposits of scoria that ran vertically down the giant’s face-hence the name, Painted Warrior.
It was a straight-up climb of about two hundred feet to the base of the ridge where the sheer cliff began.
The Bear tripped the latch, lifted Rezdawg’s hood, and watched as a ghostly cloud of steam trailed away in the breeze. I wondered if it too would turn into something recognizable. Henry was gently working the radiator cap off with a red shop rag he’d retrieved from the cab. “When I was young, we used to hunt deer here; just run them up through the canyon and have somebody waiting at the ridge.”
I looked around at the surrounding saddle studded with Krummholz pines, stunted by the altitude and atmospheric conditions. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t think that the diminutive trees were actually hundreds of years old. Reflecting the sun that peeked through the assembled thunderheads were small outcroppings of rocks that surrounded the ridge like a wreath. “Is this the spot Lonnie was thinking of?”
“Here, or possibly just past the creek.” He finally loosened the cap enough for a gurgling release and antifreeze dribbled down the radiator.
I glanced back at the panoramic display. “Where the opening in the rock walls leads toward the cliff?”
He rested the cap on the inner fender and turned to look along with me. “Yes.” He glanced back at the steam continuing to roil from Rezdawg. “Would you like to hike over there and see it?”
“I guess I’d better. I just wish I’d brought a camera so that I could send Cady pictures.”
“I have one in the truck.” He wiped his hands on the rag, which he returned to the cab, and came back with a medium-sized bag with a strap that he threw over his shoulder. “I also have two bottles of water. I am prepared.”