“Don't worry. Pawnees were the bad guys. Sioux were the good guys in the movie.” He left unspoken the suspicion he couldn't completely trust Phil Lawrence, nor did he feel comfortable bedding down in a place that was procured by Lawrence for Stonecoat's comfort. He wasn't altogether sure why he distrusted Lawrence, but sometimes an itch had best be scratched, he told himself now.
TWENTY-THREE
A case file was waiting for them on the plane when they boarded, couriered to them by none other than the real Jim Pardee, who shook Lucas's hand and wished them success, explaining that his captain had spoken to Lucas's captain, and that while he and Amelford felt they should be going to South Dakota, politics within the department were politics. “All the same,” he finished, “safe trip, and we'll be interested to hear about your findings when you get back, Stonecoat, Dr. Sanger.” He tipped his fifties-style hat and waved as he left the boarding area on the tarmac.
The flight gave them ample time to review what they were in for. The information was sketchy, but detailed enough to tell them that it appeared the murders were the work of the same assassins.
“Strange send-off,” she'd suggested as they lifted off.
“Why, I thought Pardee was playing nice this time.”
“At least he didn't kick you.”
“Or put a knife to my throat.”
The moonless, uncaring South Dakota night cloaked the land around Rapid City, but Lucas told Meredyth of its beauty, that it was wild and uninhabitable, nowadays serving as a playground for summer tourists in buses and by the carload. Every twist and turn in the highway here presented people with an awe-inspiring panoramic view of waterfalls and mountain peaks.
It was just past three A.M. when they touched down at Rapid City, where they looked for a cab to take them out to Black Hawk.
“Why don't we just stay at that Wagon Wheel place where Lawrence got us reservations?” she asked. “You know, no surprises…”
'Too many people know about us coming up here.”
“Such as?”
“Pilot, clerks, Pardee, Lawrence, who knows who else? I'd just as soon they not know where I am when my eyes are closed.”
“I thought you were easing off that paranoia kick.”
“Who? Me? Paranoia's good defense against dead, Mere.”
She secretly liked the way he shortened her name. No one else called her Mere. “Do you really think Pardee and Amelford might… ambush us?”
“At this point? I think anything's possible. Come on. There's a cab.”
They went the extra several miles the other side of Rapid City, and on arriving at the Prairie Wind Lodge, Meredyth found herself pleasantly surprised. It was a beautifully tasteful, extremely well constructed, authentic looking cabin village and main lodge made from what appeared to be native trees. Everything was clean and pleasant, even to a city girl like her.
“We'll get some rest here tonight. I'll ring your room around nine, nine-thirty, we'll have breakfast, and then we'll arrange for a rental car.”
She agreed. “Not much we can do in a half-sleep state. I'm exhausted.”
He signed for the rooms, chatting with a kindly old Indian behind the counter who recognized Lucas. The man had come around the counter to give Lucas a bear hug. He was Lucas's size, perhaps sixty or sixty-five years old. Hard to tell with Native Americans, she thought.
The man called to his wife and she appeared from a room in back, followed by two younger men, all of them greeting Lucas as if he were a long-lost brother. Even now in the middle of the night. They had been expecting Stonecoat, and had obviously either stayed up late or gotten up early to welcome him. Lucas introduced Meredyth to the Sioux men and mother, all of them smiling at her as if there were no intrusion and no bother. They wanted Lucas to enjoy some fresh-baked bread and a drink, and perhaps some wild Rapid City nightlife if it could be located, but he begged off, indicating Meredyth and saying they were both tired and needed two rooms.
This request seemed to please them all, as if there might yet be hope of converting Lucas to their tribe. Their oldest daughter had joined them in the lobby, and was now staring out from behind jet-black hair that veiled her eyes. Perhaps they had hopes of Lucas joining their family, since they knew he had been divorced from a witchy white woman in Dallas.
Meredyth was sure they liked the idea that she and Lucas were not sharing the same lodging. They went straight to work, assigning them rooms, taking Meredyth's bag and leading the way. Soon, with a few handshakes and pleasantries, Lucas and Meredyth found themselves in their rooms-special accommodations here in the main lodge that had been readied for their arrival.
The interior was modern rustic, the walls filled with Indian primitive art, men hunting buffalo, wolves racing through the night in packs, antelope and elk and warfare scenes. There was no air-conditioning, so Meredyth decided this must have been what Lucas meant by rustic. Still, the air was cool and a lazy, serpentine breeze filtered through the open windows.
She took a pleasant shower, and when she returned to the room, she realized just how richly warm were the colors of the wood. But most of all, the bed was soft and inviting and Meredyth quickly, easily found sleep.
She didn't know why, but she felt safe here with Lucas Stonecoat in the room just across the hall from her, in the midst of the Badlands of South Dakota.
Meredyth had eaten lightly, despite the sumptuous outlay of food on the buffet the lodge offered its guests by way of breakfast. She opted for cold cereal because she knew what lay ahead for her viewing pleasure. Stonecoat, on the other hand, sampled everything on the buffet, including buffalo sausage, grits, biscuits, biscuit gravy, scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes, and something called French and Indian toast.
Now they were at a place called Buck Mountain, elevation five thousand something feet, population fifty-three, now fifty-one, with the deaths of two of its summer residents. The victims were a surgeon named Maurice T. Shirley, near the pinnacle of his career and life at thirty-five, and his wife, Emily, who had recently married Shirley in a civil ceremony that had been kept hush-hush. Buck Mountain and Rapid City were summer home to Shirley, who was described in his usual home of Fort Worth, Texas, as a pillar of the community and an up-and-coming political force, as he was heavily into politics and very much the liberal Democrat. But on entering the Buck Mountain estate, a palatial playground overlooking vast reaches of the Badlands' surreal beauty, Lucas and Meredyth found little remaining of the former power in Fort Worth or his recent bride.
Their lifeless, bloodied torsos seemed posed like grisly, gruesome artworks on a single wall before a three-sided window that gave a panoramic view of the surrounding foothills and rainbow-colored mountains and buttes shimmering in the morning sun beyond, undisturbed by the human tragedy. Meredyth looked from the awful bodies to the distant mountain walls and found herself questioning her own eyes. She knew the mountains were real, she was looking at them, but at the same time, her mind kept saying nothing could be so beautiful in the sight of such horror as that a few feet behind her.
Miraculously, the press had not been alerted, so there were no cameras flashing other than police photographers and a man with the FBI. They found the place abuzz with police officials from Rapid City as well as the county sheriff's office, and uniformed men who were introduced as FBI agents who'd come in from Pierre, the state capital, at the request of Rapid City officials.
“Agent Bullock, Agent Price,” said Sheriff Walter Hind-man, a garrulous, large man with thick, animated hands and a perpetual smile. 'This here is Dr. Meredyth Sanger and Detective Lucas Stonecoat, Houston, Texas. They're here 'cause they've been shadowing a similar killing, as I understand it, that happened in their neck of the woods.”