End Time by Keith Korman Page A

absence.
    Local tourist brochures, the kind you see stacked in clean plastic holders in trendy gift shops, called Sioux Falls “The best little city in America,” along with the motto, “The heart of America.” Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t—but with a population of 151K, you could hardly call it a city, more like a big town. And if you could stand a winter that felt like North Dakota, so much the better.
    The company Bhakti worked for—Lattimore Aerospace—was housed in a modest glass-and-steel building. In Sioux Falls, most of the buildings were modest, under eight stories, and Clem Lattimore’s world headquarters was no exception, a giant rectangular children’s block. The only striking difference was the bronze-colored windows that wrapped around the structure in a seamless band, offset by bluish steel. It even looked like an aerospace building: stoic, advanced, and shiny like a strong face hiding a thousand secrets.
    This Saturday afternoon the Lattimore offices were empty, the cubicles and conference rooms, the long laboratories dark and lonely. And as usual William Ohanzee Howahkan had stopped by to see if the boss needed anything.
    And there were matters to discuss.
    The elevator gently stopped at the private suite at the top of the building. The triple security display lit up. First retinal, then palm print, then voice. He looked at the electric eye so it could look back at him. Put his hand on the glass plate so the database could confirm his handprint and said, “It’s Billy.” He looked up at the tiny video camera in the corner of the elevator for good measure, showing his smooth, handsome, Lakota face. The triple security computer took its good time today, so after a moment he repeated himself dryly, “It’s Billy, Mr. Hughes . Tonto come see if Big Papoose need nappy change.”
    A disembodied voice chuckled back at him in the stainless steel elevator, “Hah! Not today, Billy—but come on in anyway.” And the doors whooshed open.
    William Ohanzee Howahkan, quite a mouthful.
    In Lakota, Ohanzee meant “Shadow,” and Howahkan, “Of the Mysterious Voice.” Billy Shadow of the Mysterious Voice. And not so far off the mark if working for Cowboy Clem was any measure. But it went farther back than that. After his parents passed on was it the mysterious voice that made him walk off the reservation, leaving only his shadow behind? But what was the alternative?
    Stay on the rez, drinking welfare for a living? Turn into a social worker; get into the “antiques” business? No … better to leave it all like the broken washing machines on the burnt lawns.
    So he enlisted in the army at seventeen, later getting picked for Officer Candidate School, then a sponsorship, a commission at West Point. And to the great dismay of some back home—joined the modern incarnation of the 7th Cavalry, now called the 1st Cavalry. How messed-up was that? The very same outfit his great-great-grandpappy left to rot deep in the Black Hills with arrows planted in their blues. The same blue bellies that had great-great-granny on all fours after the surrender of the Nez Perce. Traitor to his people, they called him.
    Sure, some of the hotheads were ready to put his head on a lodgepole. But a word from one of the elders took the heat off at home, and it came to him in Iraq in the desert e-mail tent—that it would be all right for him to return, if that’s what he wanted. The simple statement from Granny Sparrow: “You’re a warrior now.”
    Fair enough. He’d reached his “twenty” in the army, more like twenty-five, seen all the war a man could see and still survive to tell about it—Major Howahkan resigned his commission and took his leave of boots and BDUs. Old Granny Sparrow always thought he looked strong in his battle dress uniform; a modern brave wearing digital camo instead of war paint. But at age