Death on the Greasy Grass Read Online Free PDF

his tobacco habit for the moment.
    They started around a ’60s International pickup missing the hood, the seventy-year-old-going-on-ninety driver pedaling as fast as she could. She glared at the tribal Tahoe as it went by and thrust her middle finger high out the door as they passed. Stumper chuckled.
    â€œThat funny?” Manny asked.
    Stumper shook his head. “Not that, it’s us. It’s ironic that you and this big ugly Lakota sitting beside me are working a criminal case with me, a Crow. Wasn’t but a century ago and we’d be fighting for each other’s scalps.”
    Willie reached over and flipped Stumper’s braid. “Who’s to say we won’t come away with a scalp today?”
    Stumper flipped his hair back and slapped Willie’s hand away.
    Manny was quick to intervene. “Hate to have pulled you away from anything important.”
    Stumper shook his head. “The only thing you pulled me away from is another methamphetamine case. I get tired of working those.”
    â€œSame as us.” Willie worked the snuff into his lower lip. “Not a week goes by that we don’t have some new meth case dumped in our laps.” He rolled his window down to spit. “It’s ruining our kids.”
    â€œBut it comes onto the rez at odd times. Keeps us second-guessing where it’s coming from, who’s bringing the shit onto Crow Agency.” Stumper rolled his window down and spit. Manny scrambled to the other side of the seat just as droplets of tobacco juice splattered where he’d sat. “And if that were my only problem, it would be bad enough. But we got Della Night Tail.”
    â€œMeth head?”
    â€œPain in the ass. She’s our chronic bitcher.”
    Willie laughed. “I’ll put our Crazy George He Crow or Henry Lone Wolf against any complainer you got.”
    Stumper started passing a stock truck hauling yearling heifers, and he quickly rolled up his window against the odor. “There’s no bitcher like Della. She’s a professional. She reports her old man, Little Dave Night Tail, missing about once a month. Like she did this morning.”
    â€œLittle Dave use meth?”
    Stumper shook his head. “Little Dave just doesn’t come home about every other payday. He lays carpet for an outfit out of Hardin, and claims he needs to tie one on now and again. Claims the carpet kicker trashes his knees, and he drinks to kill the pain.”
    â€œBut you don’t believe him?”
    Stumper looked at Manny in the rearview mirror. “If I were married to that witch Della, I’d manage to stay away every chance I could, too. What I think is that Little Dave got himself some stray tail in Hardin, which makes it hard for us. Every time he doesn’t come home, Della gripes to the tribal council, and we all know what direction shit rolls.”
    Willie drew his legs under him and tried to turn in the seat. He just didn’t fit. “If he’s anything like our drunks, he’s on the backside of a twelve-pack of Budweiser, and he’ll stagger home when the beer runs out. I know.”
    Willie caught Manny’s eyes in the rearview mirror and he quickly looked away. Willie struggled daily with the booze, and talk of Little Dave Night Tail only reminded him of the comfort a bottle of whiskey or a cold six-pack could bring.
    They took the off-ramp to Old Highway 87 onto Main Street. If a town of five hundred souls had a Main Street. “Where’d you get a nickname like Stumper?” Manny asked.
    â€œYeah.” Willie slapped his arm. “Where’d you get that goofy name?”
    Stumper leaned his head out the Tahoe and spit. The wind caught it and blew brown tobacco juice back onto his arm. “Some dude from Billings robbed the Little Big Horn Casino my first year on the job. I got there in time to shoot the guy as he ran out the door.”
    â€œDoesn’t explain your