Another Man's Moccasins

“Just the matches, knife, photo wallet, and medicine bag, but Saizarbitoria is down there now going through the stuff in the tunnel.” I could see Henry was having the same doubts I was. “Why would he leave her lying out there where anybody could see her?”

He stopped petting Dog and playfully pulled at one of his long ears. Dog opened his eyes but nothing else. “I understand he is not a reasonable individual?”

“He’s tried to kill everybody he’s come in contact with so far, if that’s what you mean.” He nodded and, as I thought about the story, I connected it to the owner/operator of White Buffalo’s Sinclair Station up on the Rez. “Is the young White Buffalo in that story an ancestor of Brandon White Buffalo?”

“Probably.”

I glanced toward the cell. “Is Brandon related to this one?”

The Cheyenne Nation turned his head and looked at the Crow in the holding cell. “I know most of Brandon’s family. Brandon’s father is Cheyenne, but the White Buffalo are Crow, and it is possible that some of them adopted the relatives of the mother.” He shook his head and turned back to me. “I do not know this man, but I am unfamiliar with some of the Crow bands, especially Kicked-in-the-Belly.” He raised a thumb to the cell behind him. “He resembles Brandon.”

“You mean in raw tonnage?”

Henry snorted a soft response. “I can make some phone calls and check the tribal rolls.” He stayed motionless for a moment, and I knew there was more.

"What?”

“The medicine bag is warrior society—Crazy Dogs and Crooked Staff.” Dog looked up at his name, but Henry scratched behind his ears, and he settled his broad head back onto the Indian’s lap.

“Big deal?”

He nodded in a barely perceptible manner. “Great warriors. ”

I lifted the back of my hat and felt the bandaged lump. "Myself, a deputy, two HPs, and a couple of hospital orderlies can attest to that.”

“Crazy Dogs are the fifth and least structured of the warrior societies—they committed themselves to death in battle.”

I had heard of such things. “Kamikazes?”

“In a sense. The death is not to be foolish or useless; it is to be beneficial in the battle as it is fought.” He paused for a moment. “It is said that these individuals are known to become very reckless in their lifestyle.”

I nodded along with the solemnity. “And Crooked Staff?”

He took a breath and looked back at me. “Every spring the leaders of the war societies would give out four staffs to the newest members. These young men were to plant their staffs upon meeting the enemy and tie themselves to them, essentially fighting to the death. This provided a rear guard to any action and supplied further impetus to the war party to rally and come to the young warrior’s assistance.”

I unfolded my arms and tossed him the field jacket. “What do you make of that?”

He turned to one side, so as not to disturb Dog, and opened the jacket as I had. He flipped the snap-buttons back and examined them, something I hadn’t thought to do. “Scovill Manufacturing, tropical issue; no liner buttons on the inside.” He looked up. “He looks to be our age.”

“Yep.”

"Army surplus, or...” He let the sentence hang there between us.

“Or what?”

The dark hands smoothed the broad back of the thread-bare field jacket. He looked at the horned medicine shield and the words RED POWER. "Or...he is one of us.”

Henry Standing Bear didn’t mean Indian.

Santiago Saizarbitoria had had a rough morning; he hadn’t gotten beat up by the Indian like the rest of us, but he had to go through the things in the tunnel. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Saizarbitoria was the Basque contingency of our little department and my second bid to keep our median age under fifty. He’d transferred up from Rawlins where he had worked in the high-risk division of the state’s maximum-security correction facility, or what we used to call prison in the old days, and Vic had nicknamed him Sancho before they had even met. He was lowest on the proverbial totem pole here in town, so he usually worked Sundays because he had to and because he had a wife with a child upcoming and needed the overtime. He was sitting on the bench in the outer office drinking a cup of coffee and flirting with Ruby. Henry continued making his phone calls.

Dog kept nosing one of the garbage sacks at Sancho’s boots, but he kept pushing the beast’s muzzle away. Dog didn’t take it personally and plopped down beside the bench to wait for the deputy to open the bags. Santiago motioned to one of them. “There was a lot of dead stuff in his belongings.”

I glanced at the bag that was tied-off. “Dead stuff?”

“Skulls, hooves, and things like that. I don’t think we should open this one indoors, especially since it’s kind of hot.”

“Granted. And the other?”

He looked a little dejected. “You’re not going to like this.” He reached in and took out a small, cheap black purse that he had put in a ziplock.

“Where did you find it?”

“About a third of the way back in the tunnel.”