Read Online Killing Custer by Margaret Coel - Free Book Online

as . . .
    Angela closed her eyes against the rest of it: as unlikely as someone shooting Custer in the middle of Main Street.
    â€œWhat is it?” the dark-haired officer said.
    â€œI heard him arguing with a friend last week.” She had no idea what had pushed her to say it. She loved the man; such a thin line between trust and distrust. “The man stomped out. ‘Win some, lose some,’ Skip said.”
    â€œYou have a name?”
    Yes. She had a name. Colonel Edward Garrett. She had called him “General,” because Skip said the man liked that.

6
    THE LONG VIEW of Main Street, wide-laned and lined with hanging baskets of flowers, took Vicky Holden by surprise, it looked so peaceful. Except for the yellow police tape that fluttered in the street a half block away. Vicky had stopped in the doorway of the coffee shop, barely aware of the pressure of Adam Lone Eagle’s hand on the small of her back, ushering her outside. Shadows and sunlight mingled in wide rectangles on the sidewalks, a robin’s egg blue sky all around, not a cloud in sight. And yet, a man had been shot to death not twenty-four hours ago. A thin line of pickups and cars moved slowly toward the tape before turning onto a side street.
    Adam guided her onto the sidewalk and pulled the glass door closed behind them. In the distance, sirens rose and fell like a memory. Adam’s hand felt firmer, more protective, against her back. “Probably an accident,” he said.
    They had grabbed coffee and scones and carried them to a small metal table against the brick wall. The shop was always crowded in the morning. People coming and going, the little bell on the door jingling nonstop, conversations buzzing. Snippets of conversation cut through the noise:
We were right there. Saw the whole thing. You saw him go down? Saw him laying there soon’s the Indians rode ahead. One of them shot him, poor man. Just because he pretended to be Custer.
    Vicky had squeezed her eyes shut for a moment against the earnest faces bending toward one another, theorizing, guessing. An image swept over her. She was a child begging Mama to take her to the movie theater in Lander. One of the fairy tales, maybe
Snow White
, and Mama saying,
Not in town. We’re not welcome in town
.
    She lived here now. In an apartment building filled with whites. She chatted with them on the elevator, waved in the parking lot. Once, when she had the flu, the widow next door had brought chicken soup. Her office was here. A small bungalow on a corner in a residential neighborhood. She and Annie, her secretary, the only Arapahos within blocks. But Arapahos drove to her office every day from the rez. No one bothered them or called them names. She remembered that, too: The rodeo grounds outside town, and white kids saying,
What’re you doing here, Injun. Go back where you belong
.
    â€œDon’t let them bother you.” Adam had leaned across the table toward her. “Nobody knows what really happened yesterday. There will be a major investigation, you can bet on it.”
    â€œAn investigation into every Arapaho in the parade? Turning their lives upside down? Assuming one is guilty? The only question is, which one to pin it on?” She had felt a sharp prick of annoyance. Adam seemed distant, removed from what had happened, and yet it was his people who had defeated Custer and the 7th Cavalry, his people who were the heroes—Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Some Arapahos had ridden north to join Sitting Bull, the chief who refused to be ordered around by white people. Arapahos had wanted to be like him, free on the plains with the buffalo and the sky and the endless expanse of prairie like a grassy sea around them.
    â€œIs that what you believe?” She had challenged him. “An Indian killed Custer again?”
    Adam had sipped at his mug of coffee, eyeing her over the brim. Finally he’d said, “You’re not making sense.