Shadow Prey

does,” Lucas said.
    “You want to know something about being an Indian, Officer Davenport?” Dooley asked. He’d stopped cutting Lucas’ hair.
    “Everything helps.”
    “Well, when Bluebird died—the old man—I went off to his funeral, out to the res. He was a Catholic, you know? They buried him in a Catholic cemetery. So I went up to the cemetery with the crowd from the funeral and they put him in the ground, and everybody was standing around. Now most of the graves were all together, but I noticed that there was another bunch off in a corner by themselves. I asked a fellow there, I said, ‘What’s them graves over there?’ You know what they were?”
    “No,” said Lucas.
    “They were the Catholic suicides. The Catholics don’t allow no suicides to be buried in the regular part of the cemetery, but there got to be so many suicides that they justkind of cut off a special corner for them . . . . You ever hear of anything like that?”
    “No, I never did. And I’m a Catholic,” Lucas said.
    “You think about that. Enough Catholic suicides on one dinky little res to have their own corner of the cemetery.”
    Dooley stood looking through the window for another few seconds, then caught himself and went back to work. “Not many Bluebirds left,” he said. “Mostly married off, went away east or west. New York and Los Angeles. Lost their names. Good people, though.”
    “Crazy thing he did.”
    “Why?” The question was so unexpected that Lucas half turned his head and caught the sharp point of the scissors in the scalp.
    “Whoa, did that hurt?” Dooley asked, concern in his voice.
    “Nah. What’d you . . . ?”
    “Almost stuck a hole in you,” Dooley interrupted. He rubbed at Lucas’ scalp with a thumb. “Don’t see no blood.”
    “What do you mean, ‘Why?’ ” Lucas persisted. “He cut a guy’s throat. Maybe two guys.”
    There was a long moment of silence, then, “They needed them cut,” Dooley said. “There weren’t no worse men for the Indian community. I read the Bible, just like anybody. What Bluebird did was wrong. But he’s paid, hasn’t he? An eye for an eye. They’re dead and he’s dead. And I’ll tell you this, the Indian people got two big weights off their backs.”
    “Okay,” said Lucas. “I can buy it. Ray Cuervo was an asshole. Excuse the language.”
    “I heard the word before,” Dooley said. “I wouldn’t say you was wrong. And not about this Benton fella, either. He was bad as Cuervo.”
    “So I’m told,” Lucas said.
    Dooley finished the trim above Lucas’ ear, pushed his head forward until his chin rested on his chest, and did the back of his neck.
    “There’s been another killing, in New York,” Lucas said. “Same way as Cuervo and Benton. Throat cut with a stone knife.”
    “Saw it on TV,” Dooley acknowledged. He pointed at theblack-and-white television mounted in the corner of the shop. “ Today show. Thought it sounded pretty much the same.”
    “Too much,” Lucas said. “I’ve been wondering . . .”
    “If I might of heard anything? Just talk. You know Bluebird was a sun-dancer?”
    “No, I didn’t know,” Lucas said.
    “Check his body, if you still got it. You’ll find scars all over his chest where he pulled the pegs through.” Lucas winced. As part of the Sioux ceremony, dancers pushed pegs through the skin of their chests. Cords were attached to the pegs, and the dancers dangled from poles until the pegs ripped out. “There’s another thing. Bluebird was a sun-dancer for sure, but there’s folks around saying that a couple years ago, he got involved in this ghost-dance business.”
    “Ghost dance? I didn’t think that was being done,” Lucas said.
    “Some guys came down from Canada, tried to start it up. They had a drum, went around to all the reservations, collecting money, dancing. Scared the heck out of a lot of people, but I haven’t heard anything about them lately. Most Indian people think it was a con game.”
    “But Bluebird was dancing?”
    “That’s what I heard . . . .” Dooley’s voice trailed off and Lucas turned and found the old man staring out the window again. There was a park across the street, with grass worn brown by kids’ feet and the fall frosts. An Indian kid was working on an upturned bike in the middle of the park and an old lady tottered down the sidewalk toward a concrete drinking fountain. “I don’t think it means much,” Dooley said. He turned back to