Finding somebody on the rez can be a tricky business, but nothing Henry Standing Bear couldn’t handle, at least that’s what I thought. Henry called Kimama, but she wasn’t home—I suggested she was probably out riding her broom.
We stopped at the Catholic church to ask a redheaded priest from New England where we might find Bobby Womack’s aunt, and he told us to talk to the bartender at the Rezeride down the road. The bartender knew a guy over in Fort Washakie who knew another fellow who had gone to school with a Womack; he wasn’t sure of the number but gave us an address. The woman at the address had lived in the house for only three years, but she said that the previous owners had been elderly and that the husband had died and the woman had sold her the house and moved to Fort Washakie proper. We checked the city hall, and they had a listing for a Theona Womack, but when we drove up, the house had burned down. We knocked on the doors of a few neighbors and got varying stories, some saying the old woman had moved, some of the versions saying as far as Canada.
We finally gave up and headed north, coming to rest at the Cee Nokuu Café at the Wind River Casino, where we filled our stomachs with Indian tacos and iced tea. “She’s probably dead.”
The Cheyenne Nation shrugged, taking the last sip of his tea and standing. “I have one more secret weapon that I am about to employ. Stay here.”
“Okay.” I finished my meal and waited, getting a free refill from the machine and sitting back down in time for Henry to reenter. “She is in the next room.”
“Who?”
“Theona Womack.” He gestured to the wall to our left. “They have Blue-Hair-Charity-Slots for Tots in the event room on Thursday mornings here at the casino. They are almost done, but I will warn you that she is not alone.”
? ? ?
“How are you, Bucket?”
“I’m fine, you old bat, how are you?” She snickered, and I was starting to get a feel for how you dealt with Kimama Bellefeuille. Pulling a chair out for Theona, I was careful pushing it back in, afraid I would break the seemingly mummified woman if I wasn’t careful. Theona made Kimama look like a spring chicken.
The Bear sat beside her, holding her hand and speaking low in Arapaho, which left me out of the equation. I turned and looked at Kimama as she sipped a Dr Pepper from a can with a straw. “How much did you win?”
She flapped a hand in dismissal. “I lost seventeen dollars.”
“I thought you could see the future?”
“I can, and I saw myself losing eighteen dollars, so I made out all right. Besides, it’s all for charity.” She sipped her soda some more, and her dark eyes glistened. “I heard the flat-hat went swimming.”
“She did.”
“I heard you did, too.”
“Yep.”
“Did it cool you off?”
“Yep.”
“Did he try and warm you back up?”
I stared at her. “What?”
“Heeci’ecihit, when you met him, did he try to warm you?”
I thought about the delusions I’d had last night, having convinced myself that that was what they were. “What are you talking about?”
Without a moment of hesitation, she reached an arthritic finger out and tapped the coin in my shirt pocket with a fingertip that felt like wood. “You saw him.”
I was astonished that not only did she know I had the coin, but she knew exactly where it was. I stumbled for a response. “I . . . I’m not sure what I saw.”
She nodded her head and smiled at the surface of the table. “You are not the first to see him, Bucket.”
“Have you seen him?”
She ignored me and began listening to the conversation going on at the other side of the table. After a while she readjusted herself on her chair and looked out toward the center of the casino, where all the amputee bandits clanged and beeped, clamoring for attention. “The machines, they don’t take quarters like they used to, very dissatisfying for those of us who like the noise.” She turned back to look at me. “My husband and I were coming back from a sweat one summer some years ago, headed for Thermopolis, when we overheated in the canyon. We were just sitting there waiting for the automobile to cool itself when one of the flat-hats pulled in behind us. We had been having an argument, and we’d been drinking a little. The flat-hat came up and asked my husband for his license. He kept shining his flashlight in on us, making it hard to see him, but his voice sounded strange and familiar.”
I glanced over and could see Henry and Theona watching Kimama as she told the story.
“He stood there with my husband’s license for a long time, but then he handed it back to him and told him that his license only had a year left on it. My husband was glad to get it back without having to do anything else and assured the flat-hat that he would get another one in a year.” She sipped her soda. “I’ll never forget what the flat-hat said next.”
Duly prompted, I asked, “What did he say?”
“He said he wouldn’t have to.” She sat the can back on the table. “Eleven months later my husband died.” A long moment passed as Henry and Theona regrouped their conversation, and then Kimama spoke again in a low voice. “You know how he died?”