26

“WATCH OUT FOR THAT DAMNED buffalo!” Danny shouted.

Arn laid on the brakes and the Olds slid to a stop mere feet from where the big bull was ambling across the road, not even looking their direction. If a two-thousand-pound beast can amble. “Crap,” Arn said, breathing deeply to calm himself. “Guess I was a little distracted.”

“With thought of that babe from the VA you’ve been seeing, no doubt.”

When the buffalo had crossed the road, Arn motored slowly past him. “Hard not to be distracted by her.”

“And you are disappointed that she is not going to be in the Black Hills area on her VA rounds?”

“Wish the hell you didn’t know me so well.”

Danny smiled. “Just trying to steer the hero in the right direction.

Danny had a good point, Arn thought as they meandered through twisting hills northbound, through Black Hills forests dotted with ponderosa and lodgepole pine, buffalo berry and chokecherry bushes. Arn’s thoughts went seamlessly from Sam to Ana Maria. He worried about her being alone at the house with Doc Henry in town. Even though Doc hadn’t contacted her, and Oblanski said his daily patrols never spotted Doc anywhere near the house, he worried. Oblanski even stopped at Mimi’s only to learn that Doc worked late into the night and it appeared as if he had no time to stalk Ana Maria.

“You’re concerned about her, aren’t you?” Danny asked.

“Samantha?”

“Ana Maria.”

“Can’t help it. Even though the prisons tout the great rehabilitation programs, inmate recidivism is still terribly high. There’re just some people that are unredeemable. Like Doc Henry.”

Arn was worried about Ana Maria, especially since he climbed into his car this morning. He had said nothing to Danny, but Arn just knew someone had been in the Olds since last night. The seat had been pulled ahead; the rear-view mirror cranked down. But nothing else has been tinkered with, and he blew it off as some kid walking the neighborhood looking for something to jack from parked cars. Yet, that old gut feeling was that someone besides a kid had been in his car.

Doc Henry? The psychopath was the first who popped into Arn’s head, yet he had nothing but that gut feeing that had served him so well for so any years to go on.

“I’m like you.” Danny took off his ball cap and his stringy, gray ponytail fell onto his frail chest. “The more I think about this Pudgy character, the stranger it seems that he wouldn’t even come back for his own father’s funeral. It’d take a special kind of man of walk away from the death of a parent like that.”

“It would take some cold bastard, that’s for certain.” Even though Arn’s father had been an abusive drunk despite being a city cop, Arn had attended the funeral. He had even shed a tear, though it was more window dressing for the sake of his mother than genuine sorrow. Perhaps he would ask Ethan Ames the next time he saw him how certain people—like Pudgy—could turn away from a dead parent like that.

“I’m worried about her too,” Danny blurted out. “Dammit, I still don’t see how Doc Henry can be walking the streets.”

“It’s our system,” Arn said, slowing and weaving the car through a herd of six deer walking across the road from one grove of trees to an inviting meadow on the other side. Arn explained again how Doc had earned several sentence reductions until he was paroled.

“Well, it’s just not right, him killing all those women—.”

“Which we could only tie Doc to the one.”

“Just say the word,” Danny said, “and some of my old AIM buddies will drive down to Pine Ridge and… show Doc the door, so to speak.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Arn said.

They completed the four-hour drive to Custer talking about things that got their mind off Ana Maria and Doc Henry: how hot the weather was, and how the traffic seemed more congested with tourists the closer to the southern hills they drove. But despite Danny’s ramblings about how he used to practically live in the Black Hills in his youth, Arn’s mind kept returning to Ana Maria and her safety. She had been more on edge since that first night seeing Doc Henry, but she had recovered quickly, always keeping the small revolver handy. No matter how Arn scolded her about going out alone at night during her broadcasts, she marched to her own drummer. It was almost as if she went out of her way to defy Arn. Just like a rebel child would do to her parent.

“Where’s this retired sheriff supposed to meet you?”

“The old courthouse,” Arn answered. “The one your American Indian Movement buds trashed in that ’73 riot.”

“Was no riot to it,” Danny said. “It was a demonstration against white abuses.”

“You were there, I suppose,” Arn said as he pulled in front of the Victorian-looking brick courthouse.

Danny unlatched his seat belt. “I was. I marched with the two-hundred other poor bastards freezing our cojones off. Marching on the courthouse in peaceable protest.”

“We studied that in high school when that went on,” Arn said. “As I recall, AIM torched the courthouse and burned some police cars. Beat up some locals.”

“So we got a little… rambunctious. At least we drew attention to ourselves.”

Arn laughed, recalling Danny’s rambunctious side. A year after the Custer riot, Danny and two other AIM activists had planted bombs in a building in Minneapolis meant to shine attention to the plight of Indians. Fortunately for Danny and his cohorts, the building had been condemned, empty and awaiting to be torn down, and the explosion had actually done the city a favor. After many years—like so many arrest warrants—Danny’s had sat idle long enough to be expunged.

They walked up and through the steps past the colonnades on either side of the entrance where an elderly man sat behind a reception desk reading a copy of the Custer County Chronicle. He looked over the top of his half-glasses before returning to his newspaper. “Self-guided tour,” he said without looking up as he pointed to an empty gallon pickle jar on the counter. “Tips appreciated.”

“We’re not here to tour the courthouse—.”

“You got something against our local history?” the old man asked as he turned a page of the newspaper.

“No,” Arn said. “We’re just here to speak with Sheriff Mick Ridley.”

The man put his newspaper down and stood to his full height of five feet and some change. “Ain’t been called sheriff in a long time. You must be Arn Anderson.”

“I am. And this is Danny Spotted Elk.”

The old sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Spotted Elk… I ever arrest you?”

“Some policeman did during the ’73 protest,” Danny said. “But the charges were dropped.”

Sheriff Ridley dug into the pocket of his bib overalls and retrieved a pipe. He filled it from a pouch on the counter and lit it. Waving smoke out of his eyes, he stood face-to-face with Danny and said, “guess we both learnt something during those awful times.” He held out his hand and Danny shook it before facing Arn. “Now what was this about Bo Randall that caused you to drive up thisaway?”

Arn explained the suspicious deaths at the VA centers in the region, and the possibility that Bo Randall was somehow connected. Even though he was long dead.

“If Bo was alive, I could see him doing that. He was a little feller—not much taller than me—but wiry. With an evil glint in his eyes. Took out his frustrations on his wife, and that’s when we got involved with him—breaking up their damned family fights.” The sheriff spit in disgust. “Son-of-a-bitch had an attitude since he was released from Leavenworth.”

“Attitude about what?” Danny asked.

“About getting drummed out of the Army like he was I guess. Or born with a nasty-ass attitude. Hell, I don’t know. Some men are just plumb nuts. Every now and again Bo’d come into town and raise hell. Start cleaning out bars, especially if he thought there was some retired officers in there drinking. And that’s when he’d go home and tune up his wife.”

Sheriff Ridley knocked burnt ashes into the trash can beside the counter and pocketed the pipe. “Like I said, Bo would be good for it. But I personally cut him down from the rafters in that old horse barn of his after he hung there for a week, so I know he’s dead. “He spit. “And I’m here to tell you I’m not sorry.”

Arn took off his hat and laid it crown-down on the counter beside the tip jar. “Tell me about the missus and the kids.”

“Not much to tell about Beth—that was Mrs. Randall. She lit out with the girl to parts unknown. Never heard from either since. A shame too, as that girl was a cute little pot licker.”

“But the boy wasn’t so cute, if the description you gave to Ana Maria is right.”

The ashes in the trash can started smoldering and Sheriff Ridley looked at it for a moment before calmly tossing his coffee onto the ashes. “That boy Pudgy—that’s what everyone called the fat, crazy little bastard—was a lot like his old man. Always a chip on his shoulder. Once when I responded to their place for a family fight, I came out of the house to find one of my tires slashed and Pudgy sitting on the stoop whittling with an old Barlow knife of his. ‘You outta’ take better care of your car, sheriff,’ he says and grinned. I’m telling you, just the way he looked at me with that knife in his hand sent shivers down my spine. If I could have proved he done it, I would have hauled him in that night.” He spit in the trash can. “And a week later when all my tires were slashed sitting smack in front of the courthouse I figured it was Pudgy, but no one would come forward and say they saw him.”

“Sounds like he was trouble?”

“That’s an understatement. If I got a nickel for every time he ran from us law dogs I could have retired early.”

“Driver was he?” Danny asked.

Ridley nodded. “Ever since he could see over the wheel, Pudgy would take Bo’s car and hop it up. Come to town with that cute little sister of his beside him. He’d boil tires right in front of the courthouse and police station until one of us took the bait and chased him.”

“Might there be a booking photo somewhere of Pudgy?”

Ridley shook his head. “He was sneaky enough—and damned cunning enough—that he never got himself arrested.”

“Whatever happened to him?” Danny asked.

“Army if rumors are right.” Sheriff Ridley said, “Thank God. Pudgy got into the Rangers from what I heard, but I can’t verify it. Some folks said he came back now and again to visit Bo before he hung hisself but I can’t prove it.” He chuckled. “As much as Bo and Pudgy fought, he might have come back and done the old man in himself during one of his visits, he was just that cold hearted.”