Read Online Killing Custer by Margaret Coel - Free Book Online Page A

Somebody shot a man named Edward Garrett. An actor. He could have been playing Shakespeare.”
    â€œBut he wasn’t. He came here as Custer. Custer, in Indian country!” Vicky had taken a bite of scone and washed it down with a drink of coffee. “You know what this means to White-Indian relations here.”
    â€œIt doesn’t have to mean anything.” God, he was so sure of himself, so handsome and confident, with strands of gray shining through the thick black hair that he wore short, neatly trimmed around his ears. And his hands: the long brown fingers and manicured nails. A Lakota who walked into the high-rise offices of oil and gas and coal companies around the country and faced down lawyers from the biggest and richest firms. Never doubting that they would both continue to come and go in town without worry. To live as they had lived. That no one would toss a brick through the window of the house he’d bought last winter. That he would practice natural resources law from the study that overlooked the quiet, tree-lined street where kids played kickball and neighbors pushed strollers along the sidewalk. Her stomach churned. The killing could change everything.
    In the distance, the sound of sirens. She tried to concentrate on what Adam was saying. Something about letting things go, the investigation taking its course. She finished her coffee, wrapped the scone in a napkin, and got to her feet. She dropped both the empty cup and the scone into the trash receptacle and headed for the door, aware of the scrape of Adam’s chair behind her, the tap tap of his boots on the hard floor. Now she found it hard to take her eyes away from the street flowing into the horizon. The sirens were coming closer.
    â€œAccident on the highway,” Adam said, his hand still on her back. “I’ll drive you to the office.”
    She turned toward him, thoughts jamming together like snarled traffic. “I’ll walk.” She tried to ignore the puzzled look in his black eyes.
    â€œYou’re worried about a change in White-Indian relationships, yet you insist upon walking?”
    She watched him swallow back the rest of the thought that worked through his expression: I’ll never understand you.
    She lifted herself on her toes, brushed his lips, and started down the sidewalk toward the yellow tape. Two police cars whipped past, racing toward some point farther down Main Street, sirens blasting.
    In a couple of minutes, she was in front of the gift shop where she and Adam had been watching the parade when the commotion began. Up ahead, shouts, screaming, running. The parade had marched past: the blare of brass from the high school bands, the tissue-and-flower-covered floats, the beautiful teenage girls tossing flowers and kisses. But something had changed. It was hard to see the end of the parade past the crowds swirling along the curb. She had glanced at the program she’d cut out of the
Gazette
. The 7th Cavalry followed by Arapaho warriors. She had waited for the 7th Cavalry to march into view, listened for the buglers blowing “Garry Owen.” The troopers hadn’t appeared.
    She had started weaving through the crowds, making her way up the block. Adam beside her, shouldering past a couple of cowboys with hats pushed back, squinting toward the congealing bodies in the middle of the street. A voice, one of the cowboys, had slurred the words around the chunk of tobacco that protruded like a tumor in his cheek:
By God, Custer’s down.
    They had pushed past, she and Adam, but she had heard the reluctance in his footsteps, as if whatever had happened to an actor playing Custer was no concern of theirs. It was finished, settled in the Old Time. She had wedged herself beside a family and peered up the street. A riot had erupted, with police officers waving at the crowd, shouting, “Stay back. Stay back.” A blur of blue uniforms and horses bucking and plunging, the sounds of