Lizardskin (33 page)

“What is that?” asked Ballard. The doctor answered before Beau.

“It’s a song, I think a healing song. I’ve heard it on the Rosebud.”

“Then it’s Lakota,” said Beau, moved by the hypnotic chant. Hogeland looked at him with a certain amount of surprise.

“The Rosebud’s Lakota territory,” Beau said.

“That it is, Beau.”

“Doc, do you know a Lakota named—Vanessa?”

“George Cut Arms?”

“Cut Arms? That’s a Sioux name for a Cheyenne brave. But there are some Cut Arms on the Rosebud. Why? Is there a connection?”

“I don’t know, Doc.”

Hogeland looked at him closely, as if trying to read his mind.

“Well, our Jane Doe’s not going to be seeing visitors for a long while. Her prognosis is poor.”

Ballard spoke up. “She can’t talk or communicate at all?”

“Not at all, child. She’s very badly hurt. Still in a coma.”

“This sing here—you called it a healing sing, Doc?”

“I believe so, Beau. They sometimes sing a song very like it in the clinic. Usually it’s only the elders, because only the elders still believe. The youngsters are wasting away, really. It’s a tragedy. The reason I’m as informally dressed as I am is because I was leaving today for the Rosebud. I do
pro bono
work there myself. I like to keep my … touch. They need so much help, and it keeps me grounded. I weep for that fine race.”

“Yeah. Doc, are they losing babies up there?”

Hogeland’s craggy face darkened. He nodded.

“Yes. So many. They won’t come in for prenatal care. They’re so young, many of the mothers. Many of them are prostitutes, and they are careless about birth control. Poor nutrition adds to it. And glue sniffing. Fetal alcohol syndrome. Anencephaly. Botched abortions at home or in the back of a pickup. What we have allowed to happen to the Sioux, to the Crow and the Cheyenne—we have much to answer for. I do what I can to—I do penance.”

“Doc, you remember that highway crash last week?”

“Yes. Mary Littlebasket was a patient in my Hardin clinic.”

“She had a baby. It was …”

“Anencephalic? Yes. A sad thing. She was inconsolable. She became convinced that there was some sort of conspiracy. It’s not an unusual reaction. Actually, Maureen was the senior RN on the case. She was treating the girl for postpartum depression, but apparently she was hiding the sedatives.”

Beau nodded. “Look, Doc, I know this is going to sound stupid, but what the hell
is
anencephaly?”

“It’s a fatal birth defect. It occurs at the beginning of organo-genesis—”

“Doc.”

“Okay, that is when the cells that make up the fertilized egg first begin to separate into the shapes and qualities that will ultimately become functioning internal organs. What you get is an improper formation of the neural tube—that’s what will eventually form the brain and spinal column. The neural tube doesn’t close properly, and as a consequence the brain doesn’t develop.”

“You mean, the kid is born without a brain? How the hell can it
live
without a brain?”

“Well, circulation and respiration are usually maintained by lower brain-stem operations. Even in massive head injuries, you quite frequently see autonomic systems continue, although there’s no higher cerebral activity.”

“Is the baby alive?”

“It breathes. It seems to sleep. Digestion and waste elimination go on. The body can survive for a while. Death comes,
at most, in a few days. But there’s no brain-wave activity, because there’s no actual brain. The skull is usually grossly deformed as well—truncated, flattened. It’s a terrible thing to see.”

“Doc, do you keep—does
anybody
keep records of the incidence of anencephaly on the reserves?”

Hogeland’s eyes widened. “I imagine—well, we of course are compiling a record of various birth problems. I suppose I could get Records to cross-index for anencephaly.”

“Can you get figures for Wyoming and South Dakota as well?”

“I can. May I know
why
?”

Beau looked at his hands. “I’m not sure why. If I could see the figures, it would at least eliminate a couple of possibilities.”

“Are you talking about—is it something environmental? Is someone suggesting that there’s a toxic source for these defects? Are
you
thinking that?”

Beau hadn’t been, up until that point.

“Is it possible, Doc?”

Hogeland was silent for a while.

“It would have to be a very controlled study. And there’d have to be some test for iatrogenesis. And a control group.… But what the hell would it be? There’s nothing out there in the reserves but grass and rattlesnakes. The water’s checked by the EPA. They grow a lot of their own food, and the agricultural systems are the same statewide. They live in the same air, eat the same food. Even if there
was
some kind of short-term blip in the defect rate, that’s no reason to imagine an environmental cause. Hell, the principle of regression alone would account for any short-term increase.”

“Statistical regression, you mean?”

The old man raised his head and cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve been
studying
this, Beau! You surprise me. The thing is, Beau, we have to go very carefully here. You can’t just race around the countryside shouting about toxic dumps and infant mortality. You could start a statewide panic.”

“I don’t want that either, Doc. How do we do this?”

“Well, I can pull the figures for you. To be honest, I haven’t seen
anything
to support this theory, but then, I haven’t really
looked
, either. Will you leave it with me? Do nothing rash, say nothing about this, until I can get something solid in our hands.”

“Please. Take it and run with it.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“If I can, I’d like to go down and see if I can get some time with Charlie Tallbull.”

“Certainly. I’ll call the ICU. But—again—why?”

“This is going to sound pretty wild, Doc.”

“Wilder than what you’ve just said?”

Beau considered the old man and thought about waiting until Vanessa was gone.

No, he might as well get the reality-check now.

He told them about Vlasic’s observations of the Sun Dance wounds, and his inferences about a developing Indian movement in the state, about the SPEAR connection.

They listened to his story in silence. When he was finished, Hogeland leaned back in his chair. “Hell of a tale there, Beau.”

Ballard was writing in a notebook. She finished and looked up at Beau. “I want to bring in the attorney general. This might be a federal concern.”

“
What
might be, Vanessa?” said Beau, getting to his feet. “All we have right now is some arrows and a Polaroid. Let me talk to Meagher, let’s
both
talk to him. But for God’s sake, let’s not get the feds in here.”

“I think Beau’s right, Vanessa. At least wait until I can get some figures and see if there’s anything to any of this. Frankly, I doubt there’s any increase in infant mortality other than a minor one that would be in line with statistical probability. Let Beau dig around, and we’ll see what surfaces. Will you keep me informed, Beau?”

“If Vanessa will let me.” He looked at her. She nodded.

“Of course, Doc. If it’s a matter of public health, you’re the state surgeon general, anyway.”

Hogeland got to his feet slowly and walked them to the door, an arm on each of their shoulders.

Beau stopped at the doorway and looked at the old man. “Doc, I’m sorry I hit Dwight.”

“No, you’re not. You’re just sorry I
saw
you hit him.”

“Somebody had to,” said Ballard.

They both stared at her. She kissed Hogeland on the cheek, smiled at Beau.

“Board’s at eight. Let’s talk first.”

When she was gone, Hogeland inhaled deeply. “Interesting woman, that. I knew her daddy. Did you ever meet him?”

“No, but I’ve heard.”

“Yep. One miserable old bastard. One good thing to say about him, though.”

“What’s that, Doc?”

“He’s dead. You keep me informed, Beau.”

Gabriel shook himself and stretched his legs out in front of him, rustling the grasses, yawning.

The time had come to go down there and talk things over with this man. Bell had been in one of the outbuildings for a while, working on some piece of machinery. Now and then, Gabriel had heard the irregular staccato burble of a gasoline engine, and the ranch house lights would flicker and brighten. Bell was trying to fix a generator. Good. He’d be distracted, and the noise would let Gabriel surprise him. He stood up and pulled in a long breath as he looked up at the infinite blue sky.

There was an early moon, transparent, hallucinatory. It floated in the curve of twilight like a shining disk of pink pearl. There was a symmetry in the hills around him and in the division of earth and sky. Beyond the darkening blue, the stars moved in their timeless arcs, droplets of water caught in a spider’s web, trapped like everything in the world was trapped, bound in the web of the rule.

In the red earth under him, broken constellations of bone and skull waited for the turning of the ground. In the east, beyond the blue hills, there was a long night coming, the dark
side of the planet turning as a monster in the deep turns in a dream, sensing the moon above it.

Beau found Charlie Tallbull at the far end of the ICU ward, trussed and suspended in a stainless-steel matrix of bars and pulleys, an oxygen tube cutting into his face, his left arm held out rigidly in a brace set into a rib-cast. Tallbull’s body—what was not covered by bandages and plaster—was mottled and purple and dark red. His heavy face was dulled by pain and painkillers, but one eye was open and uncovered and alert as he watched McAllister make his way down the row of chambers.

Beau stopped in front of the bed where Jane Doe lay, her blue-black hair brushed and shining, a blue ribbon around her skull-wrapping, her face as still as stone.

He stood there for a while, looking down at her, noticing the fine-boned hands on the pink coverlet, listening to the machines humming and churning around him, watching the rise and fall of her chest. So damned young.

When he felt he had suffered enough for the moment, Beau came the rest of the way down. Charlie Tallbull tried to raise a hand, failed, grimaced, and said, “McAllister—who is she?”

Beau looked back up at the other bed. “She’s one of the people who were involved in a robbery at Joe Bell’s place.”

Charlie Tallbull croaked and moved his right hand weakly on his chest. “I … know … that. Do you … know who she is? Her clan?”

“No. We haven’t got an ID yet. She had no ID with her. We weren’t able to find any at the creek. We’re still looking.”

“She has a Lakota look. A man came to see her.”

Beau stiffened. “A man, Charlie? What did he look like?”

Tallbull wheezed and raised his head. A sharp short cough racked his big frame, and Beau could see the pain go through him like sheet lightning.

“They … drug you here. Hard to think. I saw a tall black man.”

“Black, like an African black?”

“No, a tall man wearing black.”

Beau thought about the dream he had had, the night his picture was taken, the dream about a dark angel.

“When did he come?”

“It was … the day before yesterday. It’s hard to tell the time here. They won’t tell you, and my watch is gone.”

“Saturday night?”

“Yes.”

“What did he do?”

“He … stood at the end of that girl’s bed. He just … stood there. He didn’t move for so long, I thought maybe he wasn’t there. But I—he put something on her head. And then I heard a noise. Like a fly buzzing, and I listened to it for a long time, because it sounded like something I heard … but the machines make so much noise.”

“Can you tell me anything about how he looked?”

“He was not big, but tall. Your height, maybe a little shorter, and not so big. No moustache. They … make it so dark here at night and there’s no window.… What time is it?”

“It’s seven o’clock. It’s Monday.”

“Morning or night?”

“Evening.”

“What’s the day like?”

“Sunny. We had some clouds, but they blew over. It’s getting warmer. Are you going to be okay? Is there anything I can do for you, for Ella or the boys?”

“Ella has … the boys.” A second flicker of pain passed over the man’s leathery face. “Mary died, they tell me.”

“Yes.”

“And her baby?”

“Yes.”

There was a silence.

“I’m sorry, Charlie.”

“No matter … it was not your fault. I should not have tried to drive away. When that man fired at us, I guess I got scared. Mary was—very afraid, and she wanted me to get us away.”

“Why, Charlie? What was she afraid of?”

Tallbull was silent for several moments. “She was afraid of the nurse.”

“The nurse? Which one?”

Tallbull said nothing.

“Maureen?”

“She used to be your wife, they said.”

“Yes. Why was Mary afraid of her?”

Tallbull was quiet for so long, his eyes shut and his breathing uneven and raspy, that Beau had a sudden flash of fear. Then Charlie spoke again.

“Do you know anything about the Shirt Wearers?”

“Yes. It was a kind of a brotherhood clan. Lakota, a lot of the other tribes—they had warrior societies. Cheyenne Dog Soldier. Shirt Wearers were Teton, I think.”

“Teton, Yankton—Santee, too. They are back.”

“Back? You mean, some of the men?”

“I mean, many of the young men think … no, it is more like a wish or a dream. Like some of you people think the stars tell you about the future … or numbers … or that you can talk to dead people with a piece of wood.”

“What do the young men think?”

“They hear things. Everybody is talking.”

Charlie Tallbull had three grown sons. Willy, Philip Joe, and Little Charlie.

“Charlie, does this have anything to do with your boys?”

Tallbull shook his head, but he looked somewhere else.

“Do they think that Crazy Horse is coming back?”

Beau could see the effect on Tallbull. He stared at Beau for a long time.

“Yes. Satanka-Witko. They think he’s here now.”