CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Starr had dropped off the boy at the marshal’s office so Winnie could take him home; he’d seemed no worse for wear despite his discovery. Then she’d sat at her desk to jot down everything she knew about the case so far. She’d studied the sketch Chak had drawn, an outline of a pickup truck. Above it, he’d written black and penned an arrow pointing to the truck. Alongside the truck, he’d drawn a tall, thin stickman holding what she guessed were binoculars. Not much to go on.

“Heading to lunch,” Starr said when Winnie returned. Time had slipped away from her. She planned to swing by Odeina’s before she took a break, get in front of the news of a suspicious death, which was sure to spread like wildfire, and assure her that the body that had been discovered wasn’t Chenoa’s. But now it was noon and her belly was caving in on itself. The Cheetos she’d eaten in bed the night before were long gone. No, she thought, they’re in the bottom of a packing box, with everything else I threw up this morning.

She braked hard as she reached Odeina’s battered trailer, the buzzing there again in her head. Deer. Grazing near Odeina’s front door. Lying down in the shade of the trailer. Standing alert, watching Starr. They were everywhere.

“Tell me someone else sees them too,” Starr said, loudly enough that anyone with an open window might have heard her. She blinked. Again and again. She could blink them away, right? They couldn’t be real.

Several of the deer closest to her lifted their heads in unison, watching her through the windshield. A few had budding antlers. The image in Junior’s window last night flashed in Starr’s mind.

In the light of day the events at Junior’s shack seemed like a fever dream. Now her nightmares were multiplying.

“You ain’t never seen that, huh?”

At the shock of a voice in her ear, Starr’s body lifted off the Bronco’s seat. The top of her head tapped the ceiling of the cab and she involuntarily hit the horn, sending dogs barking. The deer scattered, bounding in all directions.

It was Chak. Starr could see him outside her window as she clutched at her heart. He was doubled over with laughter.

She rolled her window down.

“Go to school.”

“Eh.” He shrugged, trying to control his laughter. “Trauma and all. I got the day off, for real now. But seriously, you scared of deers or what?”

“Not scared.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Chak said, walking off.

“Wait.” She called him back to her. “You mean to tell me you have this…this herd of deer just, you know, in your front yards like this?”

“Yeah, like no big. Pretty normal.”

Starr got out and slammed the door, hoping it would keep them spooked. But she could already see them starting to return. Some of the deer had settled down to graze a few houses away, and a large doe peered from around the corner of Odeina’s trailer.

“Should it be looking at me like that?”

But Chak had already walked away. She could tell by the shake of his shoulders that he was laughing again.

So, there was a herd of deer that grazed in the overgrown, open yards of the reservation’s houses? It went against nature. When had these wild animals, in their collective wisdom, thrown over their fear? Starr looked around. Even the half-feral rez dogs didn’t bat an eye at the deer.

Starr shook her head to break the spell and walked up the steps to knock on Odeina’s front door. Maybe she could get ahead of Odeina by making an in-person visit. Maybe it would give her some breathing room, save her from the phone calls Odeina had continued to make since their visit yesterday.

Starr didn’t need that kind of oversight, especially when she didn’t have anything to tell Odeina. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Chenoa seemed to have a lot going for her, things that were bigger than anything she could cook up on the rez. She’d probably left for a while, maybe left for good. Still, Starr pictured Odeina sarcastically counting out the days on her fingers; this was the sixth day without word from Chenoa.

If Chenoa was actually in danger, as Odeina believed, any missing person investigation Starr started would be well into its not likely to be found alive stretch. Starr couldn’t shake the very real possibility that the girl was a runner, even though Odeina insisted Chenoa would never take that route, was too invested in her family and in her research on the rez to disappear. But there were always secrets and lies. She knew that all too well.

Starr gave the door three more hard raps with her fist. Nothing. Then a curtain moved, and she could see the old woman motioning for her to enter. Still a little jumpy, Starr went in slowly, listening to the soft tick of her soles on the linoleum of the kitchen. To the left, in the living room, there was Lucy Cloud, covered up to her neck in a bearskin, fur side down.

“Grandmother.” Starr nodded.

“Come. Sit.”

Starr took the couch opposite the old woman, making sure to position herself directly under the masks so she couldn’t see them change. She didn’t need any of that weird shit today.

“Odeina’s not here?”

The old woman shook her head.

“Know when she’ll be back?”

A shrug.

“Okay, well,” said Starr, “I can’t stay, but I wanted to stop by and let her know what we’ve been working on in terms of finding Chenoa.”

She always broke into formal speech when she delivered news like this. Non-news. Or bad news. It was best to do it quickly and get out. Best when she stayed standing.

Best when she kept her eyes from the masks.

“You come to tell us of Chenoa, but you don’t have anything to say?” said the old woman.

They were both silent for a moment, Starr ready to make her exit.

“I remember a time when you had other things to say, when you were small and fresh as a fawn.”

Great, Starr thought, she’s picked today to pull me into her dementia.

“I just stopped here to offer an update,” Starr said. And now I need to get out, she thought. Find Odeina before the old woman went nuts and made everything worse.

“Your father was here.”

“That’s true,” Starr said. “Maybe you remember him, but look—that was a long time ago, and I’ve got to—”

“So were you.”

“What did you say?” Starr felt a tingle run down her spine, and she looked—really looked—at the old woman. It wasn’t a secret that her father had grown up on the reservation. His tie to this place was one of the things she’d exploited to get the rez job.

That was as far as his help went, though. Her father had left the reserve and never returned, least of all with her. His life on the rez was something he carried like a burden. Being here and not.

“Here?” Her voice sounded tinny. Why was there a ringing in her ears? She’d had enough bullshit for one day. For a lifetime. Reflexively, Starr shifted so she could keep an eye on the Deer Woman mask hanging above and behind her.

“He came back with you—don’t you know? Just the two of you. Your mother, she wouldn’t come along, but he brought you to us, proud as a mother hen. You were learning to walk, clumsy and curious. Junior and I helped care for you.”

“Junior?”

“My son.”

“Wait, wait, hold on. Junior’s your son? He was married to”—Starr looked around wildly—“Odeina?”

A cackle rose high in the old woman’s throat.

“No, no, not Odeina. She married my other son, Lon, Junior’s brother. He’s here and gone. Come, let me tell you a story.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Starr said, holding out both hands. “First of all, what do you mean, ‘here and gone’? And why didn’t you tell me you’d been my…my…babysitter, that I lived with you…and Junior?”

“Settle, settle.” The old woman considered the wall of masks for several seconds. “This we’ve never discussed.”

The buzzing resumed deep in Starr’s brain, and she looked around as if the walls might have answers. What was this strange history? She stayed as if planted, a peculiar carpet-grown flower.

“Deer grazed on long grass,” said the old woman, “but it listened always for danger. It could hear with all the parts of its body.”

Starr pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers. She could feel the painful prickle of frustration.

“Not only its ears, but the delicate whiskers by its narrow mouth, the hairs on its hide, the hard cleft of its hooves. When it sensed danger, it was off like an arrow, running, leaping. One morning it came to the river for a drink, quickstepping to the water, then halting for a tale on the wind that might say: Danger. Danger is here. But there was only a beaver, stout and lined thick with greasy fur, sunning on top of a mound of branches in the water, the rest of its home underneath. Deer eyed it warily. Beaver flipped onto his back. Deer took a drink. Beaver shivered water off his tail. ‘You should worry more,’ said Deer. ‘Listen for wolves.’ Beaver dove under the water instead, rolling and arching until he popped up in front of Deer. ‘Wolves won’t reach me in the water.’ Beaver laughed. And at that moment, Alligator snapped Beaver into his throat. Only Beaver’s tail stuck out of Alligator’s grinning mouth. But Deer wasn’t there to see it; already Deer was running through the tall grass. Away. Away. Deer knew danger didn’t always look like a wolf.”

Starr pinched the bridge of her nose harder. She could feel the ache of tears constricting her throat.

This was the same kind of story that had driven her away from her father. Strange, without explanation. She wanted a straight answer for once in her life. Black or white. That was why she’d gone into law enforcement. She didn’t want to deal in gray. Either it was wrong or it was right, and there was a law or a statute or a code to enforce it. It had been that simple. This clear line between good and bad was what made her a great cop and an even better detective. But that was before.

“And Lon? How is he here and gone?”

“You have forgotten it all,” the old woman said, sighing. “The spirit world is the real world. Off the reserve, they might say he’s dead ten years, but here we know there is no divide; we can walk in the spirit world and it’s as real as the sun on our skin.”

“Grandmother, what are you telling her?”

Starr hadn’t heard Odeina come in through the door behind her.

Starr wanted to know the why. And she was damn sure going to find out. Maybe Junior was the answer. But first she had a dead girl on her hands.

Starr was out of the trailer before the old woman could say another word, with Odeina hot on her heels.

“She doesn’t always know what she’s saying,” Odeina called after her. “She honors the old ways—and so do I, as much as I can—but if she told you not to look for Chenoa…if she told you…”

“I came to tell you not to panic,” Starr said over her shoulder. “The body of a young woman was found on the reservation this morning, but it was not Chenoa.”

Odeina clamped her hands over her mouth. Hope and shock, rage and disappointment, at once. Around her, spooked deer bounded away and into the wilderness.