Johnny Crow saw it from a ridgetop some distance away. He didn’t have binoculars with him, so it was impossible to judge it precisely. He would have guessed five hundred yards. Maybe even six hundred. It was on the other side of a long stretch of pastureland partially concealed in a wooded area that was on national parkland. It was the afternoon sun, the reflection, glinting off it that caught his attention.
He was still a little tense from the standoff between tribal police and this armed group who’d barricaded themselves in the Tribal Center. The FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs even showed up, turning a difference of opinion into a circus.
The protesters claimed the tribal chairman was trying to control the reservation by limiting the number of eligible votes. Johnny said, let them have their say and move on. His idea: bring both sides together, sit across a table and try to reconcile the issues.
He’d come out here to get away from the insanity and clear his head, unwind a little. He could feel the stress and pressure of the day begin to disappear as he walked down the ridge and crossed the pasture, amazed as always by the restorative power of nature. Two cows looked up at him as he passed by and said, “Evening, ladies.”
When he got closer he could see the reflection was a light-colored automobile-white or silver-the sun hitting it like a mirror.
From seventy yards he recognized it as a county sheriff ’s cruiser, could distinguish the light bar on the roof. What was it doing out here? There was a flattened cattle gate where it had driven in along dirt tracks that served as a road.
From ten yards, he could see blood on the window and door and door handle. He walked up right next to it and looked through the glass on the driver’s side and saw a body sprawled across the backseat on his stomach, head down, facing the opposite side. It was a sheriff ’s deputy.
He walked around the car and opened the rear door and went down on one knee and looked at the deputy’s face-what was left of it-and thought it was Bill Wink. That opinion based more on the man’s muscular build than his facial features, which were nearly obliterated. There were blood and bone fragments and brain tissue on the floor. Johnny’d never seen a man shot this way and it made him queasy. He stood up and stepped away and took a couple deep breaths, getting himself under control. He came back, hunkered down and touched the deputy’s skin. It was still warm. He was thinking it hadn’t been long-maybe an hour or so.
First thing Johnny thought: It had something to do with the woman. Bill had called and told him some story about her finding the kid. Far as Johnny was concerned, it didn’t wash. He knew what he saw that day in the woods. Knew what Del saw-their interpretations being similar, if not exact. Then the woman was at the bank withdrawing a lot of money, which was also strange, particularly since Bill said she’d left town, gone back downstate. Now he took out his cell phone and called the sheriff ’s department, told a Sergeant Romeo who he was and what he found and gave him the coordinates.
He thought about Bill on the way to his truck. Remembered the day they met. Johnny was chasing a drunk who’d cut across reservation land and he radioed the sheriff and told them to be on the lookout for a red Porsche-license number delta-alpha-tango-one-five-nine.
The Porsche, driven by a college student, finally pulled over, and a sheriff ’s deputy pulled up with its lights flashing and that deputy was Bill Wink. Johnny wanted to beat the hell out of the kid, teach him some manners.
Bill said, “You know who this kid is?”
Johnny shook his head.
“His father owns about twenty-five car dealerships. You lay a hand on him, they’ll put you away.”
Sure, Johnny understood-that’s the way life worked. You had money, you could do pretty much what you wanted.
Bill and Johnny bumped into one another occasionally after that, Bill joking about the beads and feathers Johnny had hanging from the rearview mirror of his truck.
Johnny said, “What do you expect? I’m an Indian, ain’t I?”
“I thought you were called Native Americans now. Isn’t that the politically correct term?”
“I prefer Indian, if you don’t mind.”
“No kidding,” Bill said.
“No kidding.”
“Tell me, what’s the hardest thing about being a tribal cop?”
Johnny didn’t have to think long. He said, “Dealing with non-Indians. They don’t have a lot of respect for us. Don’t believe we’re the law on the reservation, or that local cops have no jurisdiction. Just like we got no authority off it.”
Bill said, “People’re fucking stupid, aren’t they?”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
Johnny grinned and Bill grinned back at him.