Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery Read Free Page A

of the conversation, an arm around her shoulders now, urging her back to the car.
    Vicky pressed the off button. “We have to stay with the body.”
    â€œFor godssakes, Vicky. We don’t know what happened. There’s been a number of random shootings on highways on the rez. The shooter likes firing at pickups and trucks for kicks. Now he’s finally killed somebody. You want to wait around for an hour in the darkness until a patrol car arrives? How do we know the shooter wasn’t in the other truck? Ran this guy off the road, walked back, and shot him. What if the shooter decides to come back, make sure the guy is really dead? We’d be like sitting ducks out here in the middle of the rez. Christ. You want us to be the next victims? Let’s get out of here.”
    He was right, she was thinking. Realistic, looking ahead, the pistol tucked into his belt. And yet, it was wrong. She swung around and faced him. “I’m staying with the body.”
    â€œIt’s crazy and dangerous.” Adam tossed his head about, taking in the darkness that stretched away from the highway. They might have been in no-man’s-land, somewhere on the moon, a killer watching them, waiting. Or making a U-turn on the highway, on the way back. “You can’t help him. He’s dead. No one can help him.”
    â€œHave you no respect?” Someone always stayed with a body until the body was buried. The dead were never left alone. Wasn’t that true of the Lakota, as well? Where had Adam lost the way?
    â€œCops will prowl around the area, look for casings, bullets, footprints. They don’t need us messing up things.”
    â€œGo on, if you want.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about? Leave you here alone?” He did a half turn, and for an instant Vicky thought he might walk away. Leave her in the darkness with the body.
    He turned back. “It doesn’t make sense, Vicky. It’s foolish and risky.” He was still glancing around at the darkness. “We could be here the rest of the night answering questions, giving statements. Is that what you want?”
    â€œI told you, you can go on.”
    Adam was shaking his head, a slow, tense motion of resignation and bewilderment. “We’ll wait together.”

3
    THE SOUND OF a ringing phone came from far away. Father John fought his way to the surface of consciousness and propped himself up on one elbow. A bluish light pulsated in the cell phone on the nightstand, the ringing sharp and persistent. Yellow numbers glowed across the top: 12:46. He picked up the phone and slid the tip of his finger along the button. “Father John,” he said.
    â€œArt Banner here.” The voice had the snap of a whip. Father John felt the muscles in his stomach tighten. The chief of Wind River Law Enforcement would not call St. Francis Mission in the middle of the night unless something terrible had happened.
    â€œWhat’s going on?”
    â€œWhite man that raises buffalo off Trout Creek Road was shot on Blue Sky Highway this evening. Clean shot in the middle of the forehead. Killed instantly, the coroner says. Thought you might know him. Dennis Carey.”
    Father John drew up a picture in his mind of the tall, big-shouldered cowboy with the bolo dropping from the collar of his buttoned-up shirt, serving buffalo burgers at every powwow, every celebration on the rez. His wife, small and attractive with reddish fire in her hair and a white, grease-smeared apron draped in front of her, flipped the burgers on a charcoal grill in the back of the booth. They weren’t parishioners, but a couple of times this summer Dennis had stopped by the mission with packages of buffalo meat. Something on the man’s mind, Father John had thought, but when he’d invited Dennis to have a cup of coffee and chat awhile, the man had made excuses. Had to get back to the ranch, mend the fences, haul hay out to feed the buffalo herd. Both