“McComb questioned Johnny without Mirandizing him. He also ignored Johnny’s request for a lawyer.”
“Your client is not under arrest. So get lost on the Miranda. Also quit pretending Johnny’s an innocent man.”
“These guys tried to kill him, in his own house. What’s the matter with you?”
“He lay in wait for them with a tomahawk and a knife. Why didn’t he dial 911, like other people?”
“The Second Amendment says something about telephones?”
“Don’t drag that right-wing crap into my office.”
“I don’t want Darrel McComb anywhere near my client.”
“What’s wrong with McComb?”
“For some reason the words ‘racist’ and ‘thug’ come to mind.”
“Get out of here, Billy Bob.”
Twenty minutes later, after Amber Finley had driven Johnny back to the res, I glanced out the window and saw her father cross the intersection and enter my building, his face effusive, his hand raised in greeting to street people who probably had no idea who he was. Romulus Finley’s political detractors characterized him as an ignorant peckerwood, a Missouri livestock auctioneer who fell off a hog truck and stumbled into the role of United States senator. But I believed Romulus was far more intelligent than they gave him credit for.
He sat down in front of my desk, pulling a wastebasket between his feet, and began coring out the bowl of his briar pipe with a gold penknife. The indirect lighting reflected off the pinkness of his scalp.
“My daughter has already retained you?” he said, his eyes lifting into mine.
“Yes, sir, she has.”
“I wish she’d called me. It’s hard to keep them down on the reservation sometimes.”
“Sir?” I said.
“Can’t keep them down on the farm is what I mean. Or at least I can’t keep my daughter there. Damn if that gal isn’t a pistol.”
His language and use of allusion, as always, were almost impossible to follow. “What can I do for you?” I said.
“I jus
t want to pay her fees and take her off your hands.”
“If she wants to discharge me as her attorney, that’s up to her,” I replied.
He cleaned the blade of his penknife on a crumpled piece of paper and put the knife away. He smiled. He was a stout, sandy-haired, sanguine-faced man, with manners that struck me as genuine. He clucked his tongue. “My daughter is a source of endless worry to me, Mr. Holland. Will you let me know if there’s anything I can do?” he said.
“I will.”
“Thank you,” he said, rising to shake hands. His grip was meaty and powerful, his eyes direct. “Did she leave with that Indian boy?”
“Excuse me?”
“Take exception to my vocabulary if you want. But that fellow American Horse is trouble. Not because he’s an Indian. His kind tear things down, not build them up. You know I’m right, too.”
“I don’t know that,” I said, nonsensically.
“Each to his own. Thanks for your time,” he said. “Tell that daughter of mine she’s fixing to drive her old man to the cemetery or the crazy house.”
BY THAT AFTERNOON no charges had been filed in the invasion of Johnny American Horse’s home, not against him, nor against the surviving member of the assassination team that had obviously been sent there to kill him.
Long ago, even before I fell in love with her, I had come to think of Temple Carrol as one of the best people I had ever met, certainly the most fun, perhaps the most beautiful, too. Her social attitudes were blue-collar, in the best sense, her personal loyalty unrelenting. She loved animals and hated those who would abuse them, thought all politicians worthless, and carried a nine millimeter in her purse. Bad guys messed with her once.