"I wish we'd hear…"

"The media's talking about war, so we got that across."

"Gotta keep pumping…"

"Yeah. Tell me what the judge said just before you took him," Aaron said. He listened intently and finally said, "Okay. I'm going to put some of that in the press release, so they'll know it's for real… and I'll put in a quote from you, like we agreed."

They talked for another minute and then Aaron hung up. "He's on his way in," he said. "He cut his hair. No more braids."

"Too bad," said Sam. "That boy had a good hair on him."

"No more. He's got sidewalls and a flattop," Aaron Crow said, chuckling. "He says he looks like a fuckin' Marine."

The sweat lodge was on the island below Fort Snelling, at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi, on the ground that held Sioux bones from the death camp. Aaron Crow could feel them there, still crying, tearing his flesh like fishhooks. Sam Crow held him, fearing that his other half would die of a burst heart. Billy Hood prayed and sweated, prayed and sweated, until the fear and anguish of the An-dretti kill ran out of him into the ground. Shadow Love glowered in the heat, watching the others. He felt the bones in the ground, but he never prayed a word.

Long after midnight, they sat on the edge of the river, watching the water roll by. Billy lit a cigarette with a Zippo lighter, took a drag.

"Killing a man is a lot harder than I thought. It's not doing it that's so hard. It's afterwards. Doing it, it's like cutting the head off a chicken with a hatchet. You just do it. Later, thinking about it, I got the sweats."

"You think too much," said Shadow Love. "I've killed three. The feeling isn't bad; it's pretty good, really. You win. You send another one of them assholes straight to hell."

"You killed three?" Aaron said sharply. "I know two. One in South Dakota, one in Los Angeles: the drug man and the Nazi."

"There's another one now," Shadow Love said. "I put his body into the river below the Lake Street bridge." He gestured at the river. "He may be floating past right now, while we smoke."

The Crows looked at each other, and a tear ran down Aaron's face. Sam reached out and thumbed it away.

"Why?" Aaron asked his son.

"Because he was a traitor."

"You mean he was one of the people?" Aaron's voice rose in fear and anguish.

"A traitor," Shadow Love said. "He put the police on Bluebird."

Aaron was on his feet, his hands at the sides of his head, pressing together. "No, no no no no…"

"Yellow Hand he was, from Fort Thompson," Shadow Love said.

"I can hear the bones," Aaron groaned. "Yellow Hand's people were free warriors. They died for us and now we have killed one of theirs. They are screaming at us…"

Shadow Love stood and spit into the river. "A man is a fuckin' man and that's all," he said. "Just a fuckin' piece of meat. I'm trying to keep you free and you won't even give me that."

Billy Hood never could get his head quite right in the borrowed sleeping bag. After a difficult night, he woke well before dawn with a crick in his neck. While the Crows and Shadow Love slept, he crawled out of the tent and lit the Coleman lantern, moved quietly into the woods, dug a cathole and used it. When he finished, he kicked dirt in the hole and started collecting wood.

A jungle of dead trees stood along the waterline. Hood gathered a dozen limbs as long and thick as his forearm and hauled them back to the campsite. Using twigs and finger-thick sticks, he built a foot-high tepee-shaped starter fire, fanned it, waited until it was going good, then stacked on the heavier wood and topped the structure with a steel grate. The Crows kept a blue enameled-steel coffeepot in their truck, with a jar of instant coffee inside. He got it, filled the pot with water from a jug, dumped in what looked like enough coffee and put it on the grate.

"God damn." Aaron Crow, moving. "Nothing smells as good as cookout coffee."

"Got a couple of quarts of it out here," Billy said.

Aaron crawled out of the tent, wearing a V-necked T-shirt and green boxer shorts. "Cups in the cooler, in the back of the truck," he said.

Billy nodded and went to get them. Aaron looked toward the east, but there was no sign of the sun. He sniffed and the air smelled like morning, redolent of dew and river mud and boiling coffee. When Billy returned, Sam and Shadow Love were stirring.

"John ought to be in Brookings by now," Billy said.

"Yeah." Aaron handled the coffeepot off the fire with a hot pad and poured two cups. "So what are you going to do?"

"Go home, get cleaned up, maybe catch a few more hours of sleep, then go on up to Bemidji and see Ginnie and the kid. I'll give you a call," Billy said.

"Did you think about Milwaukee?" Aaron asked.

"All night." Billy took a sip of the scalding coffee, looking at Aaron over the rim of the cup. "I think I can handle it. The sweat helped."

Aaron looked back at the sweat lodge. "Sweats always help. Sweats'd cure cancer, if they'd give them a chance."

Billy nodded, but after a moment he said, "Don't seem to help Shadow. No offense, Aaron, but that boy is one crazy motherfucker."

CHAPTER 11

The phone woke Lucas a few minutes before six.

"Davenport," he groaned.

"This is Del. Billy Hood just walked into his building."

Lucas sat up: "You made him for sure?"

"No question, man. It's him. He pulled up, hopped out and went inside before we could move. You better get your ass over here."

"Did you call Lily?" Lucas put a finger behind his bedroom curtain and looked out. Still dark.

"She's next on the list."

"I'll call her. You call Daniel…"

"Already did. He said go with the plan, like we talked," Del said.

"How about the feebs?"

"The guy here called his AIC."

Lily answered on the third ring, her voice croaking like a rusty gate.

"You awake?" Lucas asked.

"What do you want, Davenport?"

"I thought I'd call and see if you were lying there naked."

"Jesus Christ, are you nuts? What time…?"

"Billy Hood just rolled into his apartment."

"What?"

"I'll pick you up outside your hotel in ten minutes. Ten to fifteen. Brush your teeth, take a shower, run downstairs…"

"Ten minutes," she said.

Lucas showered, brushed, pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and a cotton jacket, and was outside five minutes after he talked to Lily. Rush hour was beginning: he punched the Porsche down Cretin Avenue, driving mostly on the wrong side of the street, jumping one red light and stretching a couple of greens. He put the car on 1-94 and made it to Lily's hotel twelve minutes after he had hung up the phone. She was walking out of the lobby doors when he pulled in.

"No question about the ID?" she snapped.

"No." He looked at her. "You're a little pale."

"Too early. And I'm a little queasy. I thought about stopping in the coffee shop for a roll, but I thought I better not," she said. Her voice was all business. She wouldn't meet his eye.

"You had a few last night."

"A few too many. I appreciate… you know."

"You were hot," Lucas said bluntly, but with a smile.

She blushed, furious. "Christ, Davenport, give me a break?"

"No."

"I shouldn't be riding with you," she said, looking out the window.

"You wanted to roll, last night. You backed out. I can live with it. The big question is…"

"What?"

"Can you?"

She looked at him and her voice carried an edge of disdain. "Ah, the Great Lover speaks…"

"Great Lover, bullshit," Lucas said. "You were hungry. That didn't develop since you met me."

"I happen to be…" she started.

"… very happily married," they said in unison.

"I want you pretty bad," Lucas said after a moment. "I feel like I'm smothering."