Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux 3)

It’s her married name, I thought.

“You know how they bought it, too?” the driver said. “Dealing with the Man under a flag of truce. They went into the fort and got their asses shot. That’s what happens when you trust those fuckers.”

My God, why didn’t I see it, I thought.

“Hey, you’re looking a little gray,” the driver said.

“What?”

“You want some food? We got extra,” he said.

“No. Thank you. Did y’all know a guy by the name of Clayton Desmarteau?”

“You better believe it. Same outfit as me. First Cav.”

“Did he have a sister?”

“What d’you mean ‘did’?”

“You haven’t seen him around in a while, have you?”

He thought for a moment.

“I guess not,” he said.

“Do you know if he had a sister?”

“I don’t know nothing about his family. He don’t live on the reservation. He used to come on it to organize for AIM against them oil and gas companies. They’re gonna mess up the East Front, try to build pipelines and refineries and all kinds of shit.”

“What color were his eyes?”

“His eyes?” He turned and grinned at me through his red beard. His teeth were missing in back. “I look like I go around looking at guys’ eyes?”

“Come on, were they turquoise?”

“What the fuck I know about a guy’s eyes? What kind of stuff are you into, man?”

“He’s a policeman,” the woman with the child said.

“Is that for real?” the driver said.

“No.”

“Then why you asking all these questions? You trying to give some shit to Clayton’s people?” The hair on his forearms grew like red metal wires on the edges of his leather wristbands.

“No.”

“’Cause the Indians don’t need no more hassle. These are native people, man, I mean it was their place, and whites been taking a dump on them for two hundred years.”

“I’ll get off here,” I said.

“You bothered by something I said?”

“Not in the least, partner. The rain’s stopping now, and I need to walk. My truck’s just over the rise.”

“’Cause we got no beef with nobody. We thought we were helping you out. You gotta watch out for a lot of people in this state. I ain’t blowing gas, Jack. It’s the times,” he said.

I stood on the side of the road in the damp, sunlit air, a green pasture behind me, and watched the bus disappear over the rise. My truck was still a mile down the road.