Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“There aren’t many good stories on the rez. Check out the jail in Browning on Saturday night.”

A bell tinkled on the door when they went inside. The proprietor was an old man with steel-gray braids and blue eyes and skin that looked as soft as tallow. He said if they wanted to hire a car and a driver to tour and photograph the area, he would call his nephew, who lived a short distance away. Gretchen studied a framed photograph on the wall beside an ancient refrigerator. “Is this your family?” she asked.

“That’s us, ten years back. Ain’t many of us still around,” the old man said. He was sitting on a stool behind the counter, surrounded by shelves of canned goods, his shoulders stooped.

In the photo, several elderly people were standing under a picnic shelter. In front were a young couple and three small children. “Is Angel Deer Heart in this picture?” Gretchen asked.

“You know Angel?” the old man said.

“Just by name. She was adopted by the Younger family, wasn’t she?”

“Her mother and father were killed on the highway north of Browning. They got drunk and went straight into a truck. The children were taken by the adoption agency. Angel is the only one left.”

“Pardon?” Gretchen said.

“I heard her brother and sister died of meningitis in a hospital in Minnesota. You heard something about Angel? Is she doing okay?”

Gretchen didn’t answer.

“We don’t want to take a lot of your time,” Percy said. “Can you call your nephew for us?”

“If you ever see her, tell her to write home and tell her great-uncle Nap how she’s doing,” the old man said.

Gretchen looked blankly at the canned goods on the shelves. She opened the refrigerator and took out two bottles of pop. “How much are these?” she said.

“A dollar each,” he said. “Are you all right, miss?”

“I get airsick sometimes,” she replied.

She and Percy went out on the porch to wait for the nephew. A grass fire was crawling up a row of brown hills in the distance. The dust and smoke had turned the sunlight into pink haze, more like evening than morning. “You really think this place is haunted?” she said.

“That’s what the Indians want to believe.”

“Why should they want to do that?”

“As bad as the past was, they were probably better off then,” he replied.

A plane came out of nowhere and flew above the store and made a turn over the airstrip, then climbed into the smoke rising off the hills. “There’s our friend in the Cessna,” she said. “I think those are Love Younger’s people up there.”

“Forget it. We’re on the right side of history,” Percy said, watching the plane grow smaller inside the smoke. He looked at her. “You don’t agree?”

“The ovens at Auschwitz were full of people who were on the right side,” she said.

IT WAS ALMOST sunset when they landed in Missoula. She was tired and dirty, her clothes smelling of smoke, her body stiff from sitting in the plane’s passenger seat without enough room for her legs. Percy was going to refuel and take off for Spokane, where he was supposed to meet his partner. “Can I buy you dinner?” he said.

“I’m going to use the restroom and head home. Thanks for a great day.”

“If I ever decide to cheat on my partner, could I give you a call?”

“That’s not funny.”

“I don’t think before I speak sometimes.”

“Percy?”

He waited. She looked at the youthfulness in his face, the moral clarity in his eyes, and wanted to tell him something but didn’t know what.

“You worried about me?” he said.