Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery by Margaret Coel

testify against you.”
    â€œHow do I know where he went? I seen him one time at the O.K. Bar. Drinking a beer, minding my own business, and that sonofabitch started calling me names, pushing me around. ‘Go back to the rez, redskin,’” Arnie was tossing his head about like a pony fighting a halter. “I don’t have to take that crap.”
    â€œLook at me.” Vicky moved in closer. The tobacco and coffee-infused stench of the man’s breath floated around her. “If you are lying to me, I will withdraw from your case. Do you understand?”
    Arnie stared at her for a long moment, eyes narrowed, mouth hanging open, as if he were trying to grasp the implications. A front tooth was broken, sliced off at an angle, which made him look younger, a kid settling into his grown-up face. “I’m telling the truth.”
    Betty dodged past the deputy, walked over, and grabbed her son’s arm. “The judge cut you some slack,” she said. “Only thing that prosecutor wanted was to put you in prison.”
    â€œWe had our own witnesses. No way was I going to be found guilty.”
    â€œWe have two witnesses.” Vicky glanced at Lucy Murphy, inching her way like a shadow next to Arnie. “The prosecutor wouldn’t have had any trouble proving one of them, your buddy Ernest Whitebull, was too drunk to be credible. You have to go to rehab immediately.” This for Betty, whose face was now frozen in comprehension.
    Arnie shuffled from one foot to the other. “I need time to get my things together. Why do I have to go right away? Tell the deputy he can pick me up later.”
    â€œNow, Arnie. The deputy doesn’t take orders from me. I’d like to report to your probation officer how seriously you are taking this, how eager you are to recover, how sorry you are for the fight at the O.K. Bar.”
    Arnie seemed to be turning this over in his head. Vicky could almost see the gears slip into action. But it was his mother, Betty, who said, “Vicky’s right. We got to listen to your lawyer.”
    Still hovering close to Arnie, the young blond woman had a sad, defeated look about her, as if she hadn’t yet been abandoned but understood it was about to happen. “I can bring your things to you,” she offered in a small, tentative voice.
    â€œJesus.” Arnie exhaled a breath. “I don’t see the rush.”
    â€œCome on.” His mother took his arm and tried to steer him toward the deputy, who had walked over. “The sooner you get rehab over with, the better.”
    â€œJesus,” Arnie said again.
    *   *   *
    A FEW CARS, pickups, and campers lumbered along the streets of Lander. Clumps of sagebrush, dried and brown in the August sun, sprouted from the dried yards. Vicky kept the windows rolled down partway. The wind whistled around and fanned at her hair. She drove with one elbow propped on the top of the door, her hand holding her hair out of her eyes.
    You’re my lawyer. You have to trust me.
Vicky laughed at the thought of trusting Arnie Walksfast. Maybe when he was sober, but you could never trust him to stay sober. It was Betty who had called after Arnie was arrested. “They’re out to get him, Vicky.” Vicky hadn’t asked who
they
were. They could be anybody. Police, feds in the big and sometimes frightening—yes, frightening—white world with its laws and regulations.
    She had agreed to take Arnie’s case. To quiet the panic in Betty’s voice at the thought of losing her son to the prison system. Her own son, Lucas, a few years older than Arnie, was moving up the corporate ladder in a high-tech firm in Denver, living like a white man in a condo by the South Platte River within walking distance of Confluence Park where an Arapaho village had once stood. The thought of someone taunting Lucas, insulting him, assaulting him, left a hard knot in her stomach. She had