“There are a few private airstrips.”
“Where would they be?”
“Let me get some maps.”
“First say good night to your daughter,” Diane told him. “I’m putting Anna to bed.”
The girl came in and kissed her father. She said a cordial good night to Cork and Parmer, and then followed her mother to the back of the house.
For the next half hour, Rude guided the two men along the topography east of the Wyoming Rockies, where the land was a pastiche of rugged buttes, alkali flats, dry gulches, grassy hills, and broad river valleys full of agriculture. He marked the airstrips he knew of but acknowledged they were dealing with a huge area and he probably didn’t know them all.
“How about this?” Cork suggested. “What if we drew a line created from two points? The first would be where the plane dropped off radar and the second where those snowmobilers reported hearing it fly overhead. We extend the line east and take a look at what the nearest strips along it would be.”
“As good as anything,” Rude agreed.
When they’d done this, they found the estimated line of flight would have taken the plane southeast of the Washakie Wilderness, well north of the Owl Creek Reservation and the town of Hot Springs, across the badlands south of the Bighorns, and, if it could have flown that far, well into the empty grasslands of Thunder Basin. There were three private airstrips that Rude had marked near enough to this line to make them of interest.
“Okay. Those are the airstrips we consider checking. Where else could that plane have landed?”
“For a safe landing with a turboprop like a King Air, you’d need a hard, flat surface at least twelve hundred feet long.”
“Any salt flats around here that might work?”
“No, but we’ve got some alkali flats east of Shoshoni that might fill the bill.” He put his finger on a spot well to the south of the line they’d drawn on the map.
Cork shook his head. “Doesn’t feel right. Too far to fly. What’s the land up here like?” He tapped the map east of the Washakie Wilderness.
“Some ranchland. Some gas and oil development. But if there’s a flat enough stretch with few enough rocks to land a King Air safely, I don’t know it.”
“What if they turned north?”
“Meeteetse and Cody up that way. Comparatively speaking, lots of folks.”
“South?”
“The Owl Creek Reservation. And almost no people to speak of.”
“Any private landing strips?”
“Only one that I know of. Belongs to Lame Nightwind.”
Cork saw the connection immediately and sat back. “Jesus.”
In that same moment, Rude had the same realization. His eyes narrowed in dark understanding, and he said, “Your Indian pilot.”
THIRTY-ONE
Let’s not rush to judgment,” Cork cautioned. In his years as a cop, he’d seen often enough the mess that could result from leaping to conclusions.
“But it fits,” Rude said.
“Okay, what’s his motive?”
“Whoa, hold on a moment,” Parmer said. “Who’s this Nightwind?”
“The pilot who guided us into the mountains when we were looking for Jo’s plane,” Cork said. “He’s Arapaho.”
“What’s he like? Is he a man who could do this kind of thing?”
“He seemed decent enough when he helped us search Baby’s Cradle,” Cork said and looked to Rude.
Rude sat back and considered. “Lame’s got secrets, no doubt about it, but then who doesn’t? He was gone for a lot of years. People say that he’s been all over the world. Rumors have him as CIA or Special Forces. Some folks believe he was involved with the drug cartels. Others say the mob. Or smuggling or a mercenary. Lame never talks about his past, so who knows? Depending on what you believe, he’s either Robin Hood or the bogeyman.”
“What’s the bogeyman side?” Parmer asked.
“We had a pretty bad drug problem a few years ago,” Rude said. “When Ellyn Grant came back, the problem was huge. Mexican dealers had established themselves on the rez by marrying Arapaho women, and they used the rez as a depot to distribute every illegal substance under the sun. We didn’t have the resources to fight back. Hell, nobody had jobs, and a lot of Arapaho got sucked into dealing because the money was good. Those who weren’t dealing were getting high on the merchandise. Not much Andy No Voice or the DEA could do about it because it was a family thing and nobody would talk. Ellyn took on the drug dealers and she won, but probably she couldn’t have done it without Lame Nightwind. See, what happened was the Mexican dealers simply started disappearing. Here one day, gone the next, one by one, and those that left never came back. It’s possible they returned to where they came from, but that’s not what most people on the rez think. Popular speculation is that Nightwind was turning them into coyote food somewhere out in the vast emptiness of the rez where no one would ever find their bones. The authorities didn’t go looking for them and the dealers who didn’t just disappear got so spooked they cut and ran.”
“So you think he’s quite capable of killing?”
“He can be dangerous, I’m sure of that, but I don’t think of him as a bad man. As far as killing goes, I’d guess he’s plenty capable provided the reason is compelling enough.”
“So what would his motive have been?” Cork asked.
Parmer said, “We’ve already figured this is about the Yellowstone casino, haven’t we?”
“I can suggest a motive.”
Cork turned and found Diane standing at his back. She’d come in silently from putting Anna to bed. How long she’d been standing there he couldn’t say.
“What motive?” he said.
“Love.” She walked to the table and stood beside her husband with her hand affectionately on his shoulder. “Lame Nightwind is in love with Ellyn Grant.”
Cork’s eyes jumped from Diane to her husband. “True?”
Rude shrugged. “Gossip.”
“I volunteer two days a week at the Singing Water Shelter in Red Hawk,” Diane said. “According to the women there, Lame has always been in love with Ellyn, all the way back to when they were kids.”
“Is she in love with him?” Cork asked.
“I don’t know. But her husband was a man nearly old enough to be her grandfather, so if not love, maybe something more physical.”
Rude said, “I suppose there could be something between her and Nightwind, though I’ve never seen it.”
“This is a big, empty territory, Jon,” Diane pointed out. “If you were careful, it wouldn’t be hard to carry on an affair without being observed.”
Rude glanced up at his wife. “You seem to have given this a lot of thought. Should I be worried?”
She laughed. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
Rude shook his head. “Grant and Nightwind? I don’t know.”
“Men can be dense.” Diane patted his head affectionately.
“Even if there’s something between them,” Rude went on, “I’d say he’s second in her affection, well behind the Arapaho people. She really does see herself as a kind of savior here.”
“How do you mean?” Cork asked.
“After she took care of the drug situation, she wanted to tackle the poverty of the rez. Edgar Little Bear argued for opening the land to the oil and gas companies. Hell, they’ve been eyeing the Arapaho holdings for years. Ellyn was opposed. Not just opposed, she was furious. She was sure the mineral exploration would destroy the land. When she couldn’t get Little Bear to budge, she married him and moved him in ways that words couldn’t. That’s how she got him behind the Blue Sky Casino.”
“Sacrificed herself for the sake of the Arapaho, is that what you’re saying?”
“Little Bear wasn’t exactly a prize catch. We all respected him enormously, but like Diane said, he was one pretty tough old piece of jerky.”
“And his breath could have knocked over a buffalo,” Diane added.
“Everyone on the rez understood what she was doing, probably even Edgar,” Rude said. “He knew he was getting himself a hell of a bargain.”
“So Nightwind loves Ellyn Grant, and maybe he’d do anything for her. And Ellyn Grant loves the Arapaho and would do anything for them. How does the disappearance of the charter help either of them?” Cork asked.