Death Along the Spirit Road by C. M. Wendelboe Page A

narrow strips of hide and allowed them to drop to the ground while he spoke.
    “Making some repairs,” he said. He pointed to a pair of wellworn moccasins warming by the fire. “You guys want some tea? Lemonade? I’d offer you something more substantial, but we all know hooch is illegal here on the rez. Besides, I quit it for good while I was in Sioux Falls. Never got the urge to start again.”
    Willie shook his head, and Manny ignored the offer. As he studied Reuben, he wondered if all this posturing, all this mockfriendlessness had a purpose. “We really don’t have time for that,” Manny said. “I just want to know—”
    “You forget your manners since you escaped to the big city? First we country Indians jaw a little before we get around to talking about your investigation. It’s been so long since I saw you, little brother.”
    “Unc’s funeral.” Manny cursed under his breath. Reuben had sucked him right into a conversation he’d dreaded.
    “That was long ago.” Reuben picked up one of his moccasins and threaded the new string through the top. “In all that time, you never wrote your big brother in prison, never indicated that you cared if I was still breathing or not.”
    Willie stood and started for the car, and Reuben rested his hand on Willie’s arm. “Stay awhile, Officer With Horn. This bit of reservation history might interest you.”
    “I’ll wait in the car. I’ve got some school notes to go over anyway.”
    Manny waited until Willie disappeared around the trailer before facing Reuben. “You know damn well how I felt. It’s not every day a boy’s brother murders another Lakota.”
    “But you strutted around your little friends because of my involvement with AIM. That was cool back then, wasn’t it?”
    “Being involved with AIM wasn’t synonymous with murder.”
    “What the hell do you think we did back then?” Reuben put on his moccasins and stomped his feet to feel the new string. “We weren’t exactly Boy Scouts.”
    “But you didn’t murder.” Manny was a teenager again, pleading with Unc that Reuben didn’t commit the terrible crime he was charged with; pleading that Reuben didn’t kill Billy Two Moons, or Alex Jumping Bull as people rumored.
    “You may have been suspected of killing, but I just knew you never murdered anyone. Some other AIM, but not you. You stood up for Native rights and I always knew you couldn’t murder anyone, especially another Oglala.”
    Reuben looked down at him. “Didn’t we kill each other? How about the sixty-odd dead found scattered around the rez in the years after Wounded Knee? Some died of exposure, compliments of the booze. Some staggered onto the highway and got themselves waffled. Wilson’s goons killed some. But AIM was at least as responsible as they ever were.”
    Tribal president Dick Wilson’s bodyguards shadowed him wherever he went, and he needed them. AIM swore they would see Wilson buried, and Wilson swore he would do whatever it took to rid Pine Ridge of AIM thugs. “There goes Wilson’s GOONS,” people would comment behind their backs. “The mighty Guardians of the Oglala Nation.”
    Manny stood and put his hands up to shove his brother back. “But not you. I knew you enforced AIM’s policies, and I lived with that all right. Right up until you killed Billy Two Moons. That changed everything, Reuben. A justifiable killing was one thing. People died because they defended themselves. But a murder—cold and confessed. You became like the rest of them. You shamed me and Unc.”
    “Manny,” Reuben said, his voice softened now. He took a step toward him, but Manny backed away. “I remember when I came home for the folks’ funeral and I held a little five-year-old boy just long enough to bury our parents, then return to ’Nam.”
    “What the hell’s that got to do with murder?”
    “You’re the only family I got left. Sure, I confessed to the murder, and yes, I served my time.”
    “You paid the price? Is