Winter Counts

David Heska Wanbli Weiden

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781398509337
• eBook ISBN: 9781398509313
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

PRE-ORDER WISDOM CORNER, THE THRILLING NEW DAVID HESKA WANBLI WEIDEN NOVEL NOW.

WINNER OF THE ANTHONY, BARRY, THRILLER, LEFTY AND MACAVITY AWARDS FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

‘Harrowing and heartfelt, assured and highly accomplished. One of the standout thrillers of the year' CHRIS WHITAKER

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, there’s one person you can turn to.  
 
Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Native American Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment, the kind that’s hard to forget. But when heroin makes its way onto the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism becomes personal. Enlisting the help of his ex-girlfriend, he sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop.
 
Following a lead to Denver, they find that drug cartels are rapidly expanding and forming new and terrifying alliances. And back on the reservation, a new tribal council initiative raises uncomfortable questions about money and power. As Virgil starts to link the pieces together, he must face his own demons and reclaim his Native identity - but being a Native American in the twenty-first century comes at an incredible cost.
 
Winter Counts is a tour-de-force of crime fiction, a bracingly honest look at a long-ignored part of American life, and a twisting, turning story that’s as deeply rendered as it is thrilling.

'An incredible novel . . . where hope and heartbreak are found in equal measure' S. A. COSBY

'A terrific debut – tight and tense, hard-eyed and big-hearted' LOU BERNEY

'Eye-opening, enlightening and entertaining, it's one hell of a good read!' AMER ANWAR 

'Enthralling from the first page to the last, this is a heartfelt and harrowing tour de force' JON COATES, S MAGAZINE

'Virtuoso fare' FINANCIAL TIMES, BEST CRIME BOOKS OF THE YEAR

'A fascinating insight into an often overlooked world, and draws the reader into a satisfying mystery' GUARDIAN, CRIME AND THRILLER PICKS OF THE YEAR

1

I leaned back in the seat of my old Ford Pinto, listening to the sounds coming from the Depot, the reservation’s only tavern. There was a stream of Indians and white ranchers going inside. I knew Guv Yellowhawk was there with his buddies, pounding beers and drinking shots. Guv taught gym at the local school—football, basketball, soccer. But, word was, he sometimes got a little too involved with his students, both boys and girls. I was going to let him get good and drunk, then the real party would start. I had brass knuckles and a baseball bat stowed in my trunk, but those wouldn’t be necessary. Guv was a fat-ass piece of shit, with a frybread gut as big as a buffalo’s ass.

I’d been hired to beat the hell out of Guv by the father of a little girl at the school. Guv had sneaked up on the girl in the bathroom, held her down, and raped her. The girl’s parents had confronted the school’s principal, but Guv came from one of the most powerful families on the rez, and the school refused to take any action. The principal had even threatened a lawsuit against the parents for making a false accusation. The tribal police couldn’t do anything. The feds prosecuted all felony crimes on the rez, and they didn’t mess with any crime short of murder. Now the little girl was too scared to go back to her class, and he was free to molest other kids.

I’d waived my fee for this job. Usually I charged a hundred bucks for each tooth I knocked out and each bone I broke, but I decided to kick Guv’s ass for free. I’d hated him for years—even as a teenager, he was a mean asshole who’d terrorized other kids, especially iyeskas like me. Of course, Guv had always been accompanied by his gang; I couldn’t remember him ever fighting solo. But tonight was his time.

The Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” drifted through the door of the bar to the parking lot, leaving little melodic ripples like ghosts in my head. I lit a cigarette and waited for Guv. He’d come out, sooner or later.

An hour later, I spotted him walking out of the bar. He was singing an off-key tune and stumbling. I slipped out of the Pinto and crouched behind his shiny new pickup. He’d parked at the far end of the lot so that no one would ding his expensive ride. That suited me just fine—I could enact some Indian justice away from any of Guv’s drinking buddies.

I moved out from the shadows. He wore faded jeans and a T- shirt with a Fighting Sioux mascot. His eyes were foggy and he stank of beer. I could see the birthmark on his forehead that looked like a little tomahawk.

“Hey, Guv.”

“The fuck?” He squinted into the darkness, unable to pinpoint who was speaking to him.

“It’s Virgil.”

“Who?”

“Virgil Wounded Horse.”

“Oh. Are you drinking, or what? The bar just closed.”

“Yeah, I know. I was waiting for you.”

“What for?”

“Grace Little Thunder.”

Guv’s face darkened. “Ain’t seen her.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“I take care of the wakanheja. Show ’em how to be Lakota. Sometimes the parents don’t appreciate it.”

“The way of the world, huh?” I moved between Guv and the truck.

“I teach the kids, help their families. Sometimes they want more than I can give.”

“Saint Guv.”

“Just a guy.”

“A guy who likes to cornhole the boys and finger the girls.”

“You know how kids are, they want attention. They make shit up, people make a fuss over them.”

“The other kids making shit up too? I heard about you and little Joey Dupree.”

Guv tried to move past me. “I don’t need this bullshit. I ain’t seen you out there, helping the oyate. From what I hear, you don’t do nothing. You got shit to say, take it up with Principal Smith. I’m getting outta here.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Look, asshole, Grace Little Thunder’s family is nothing but trash. Her mom’s a drunk, and her dad ain’t worked in ten years.”

“That girl is only nine years old.”

“Eat shit. What business is it of yours—”

I landed a hard body shot to Guv’s midsection. The punch would have knocked most men over, but his massive stomach absorbed most of the blow.

“Iyeska motherfucker!” Guv snarled, and lunged at me.

I saw the move coming, sidestepped it, and smashed him in the jaw.

Guv shook his head like a wet dog. How the fuck was he still standing up? I thought about grabbing the baseball bat, then felt a blinding pain in my side. A blow to the kidney, then another, this one worse than the first. Waves of electricity. Neural impulses. Gotta stay up, don’t go down, or it’s finished. Reeling, dizzy, I tried to puzzle out a strategy, but my mind was like an iceberg, slowly bobbing in the waters.

“You half-breed bastard!” he roared.

I felt Guv’s spittle on my face, and then I was on the ground. Shit. He kicked me in the back, over and over, each blow a jackhammer. I tried to maneuver through the cloud in my brain. Guv panted, out of breath, running out of gas. Grab his feet, I thought.

I snaked out my arm and yanked his legs. He went down with a thud, and I saw my opening. I stood up, grabbed his right arm, and twisted it behind his back until I met some resistance. Then I twisted some more.

“How you like that, you son of a bitch?” I said.

Guv looked up at me and hissed, “Fuck you, halfie.”

I had to hand it to him, he had some balls. I flashed back to high school when I’d been much smaller, not the big guy I was now. I remembered all the times I’d been held down and beaten by Guv and the other full-bloods, my angry tears, the humiliation still with me.

I wondered if I should let Guv go, show him the mercy I’d never been given. That was the Lakota way, wasn’t it? Wacantognaka, one of the seven Lakota values—it meant compassion, generosity, kindness, forgiveness. I remembered the lessons from my teachers back at school. They’d taught that the greatest honor, the greatest bravery, came when a warrior chose to let his enemy go free and touched him with the coup stick. Legend was that even Crazy Horse had shown his courage by counting coup on a Pawnee warrior once, chasing him across the river, but deciding not to kill him, to honor his bravery and grant him his freedom. I knew that the honorable thing to do—the Lakota way—was to set Guv free without any more punishment.

Fuck that.

I twisted his arm until it came loose from the socket with a sickening crunch. Then I stepped back and kicked him in the cheek with all my force, snapping his head back violently. I took my boot heel and smashed it down on his face, teeth snapping like stale potato chips. I kneeled down and grabbed Guv’s hair.

“Listen to me, you goddamn scumbag. You ever touch another kid at that school, I’ll cut your dick off and shove it down your throat. Hear me, skin?”

He didn’t say anything. His left eye was swollen and bloody, and his nose seemingly gone, pounded back into his face. Blood streamed from the black hole of his former nose and mouth.

“How’s that for counting coup, asshole?”

I leaned over to see if he was still breathing. A few faint breaths. I saw some teeth lying on the concrete. They looked like little yellow tombstones. I scooped them up and stuck them in my pocket.

2

I opened the door to the shack that the government calls a house. Rap music was pounding, and the smell of frying meat had stunk up the place. My nephew, Nathan, had cooked up some cheap hamburger and was dipping a piece of old bread in the grease. His short black hair stuck straight up, a dark contrast to his light brown skin and hazel eyes. He was wearing his favorite hoodie, a grimy blue sweatshirt with the high school’s mascot—the Falcons—on the front. The music was so loud, he didn’t even hear me come in until I poked him in the ribs.

He’d been living with me for the last three years, ever since his mom—my sister, Sybil—died in a car accident. His dad was long gone, and there was no way I’d let him go to one of those foster homes or boarding schools. Sybil had been driving to work when someone hit her head-on. I was the one who had to tell Nathan that his mom had gone to the spirit world. The look on his face that day had stayed with me.

Nathan was fourteen now and had finally settled down some. Right after his mom died, he’d started skipping school and breaking car windows with his friends. He’d said he didn’t need school because he was going to be a famous Indian rapper—the red Tupac. I told him that was fine, but if I got stuck paying for another smashed window, I’d sell his video game console. Lately he’d changed his tune and was talking about college. Somebody from the local university had talked at his school and lit a fire under his ass. I didn’t know if that fire was going to stay lit, but I’d been hiding half of the money I’d earned from my last few jobs in a Red Wing shoebox at the back of the closet. I’d drunk up most of my cash back in the day, but that wouldn’t happen again. I’d quit drinking for good. The money I saved would pay for Nathan’s college. He’d be the first in our family to go.

“Hey old man,” he said. As he lifted his bread out of the grease, some of the hot oil landed on my arm. It felt like the tip of a switchblade.

“Can you turn that shit down?” I pointed to the boom box on the counter.

“That ain’t shit, skin!” He smirked. “That’s some old-school Biggie.”

“Yeah, whatever, just turn it off.” I grabbed some of the old bread and looked around for more food. “We got any of that cheese left?”

“Nah, but you can have some of this.” The pound of fatty hamburger I’d bought last week had cooked down to almost nothing. I scooped some up with the bread, the grease leaving trails on the plate like an oil spill.

“What happened to you?” he asked. From the look on his face, I knew it was bad. I didn’t want to look at myself in the mirror.

“I wiped out on the bike.”

“Uh, okay.” He returned to his bread.

“We got any aspirin?” I could feel the pain in my back and sides starting to come in. Tomorrow would be rough.

“Don’t think so,” he said. We barely had money for toilet paper sometimes, much less luxuries like painkillers.

“So, what happened at school today?”

“Nothing.”

I hadn’t expected to get any news. He’d always been quiet, but he’d cut off most real communication in the last year or so. To learn anything, I had to ask his best friend, Jimmy, when he came around. For some reason, Jimmy loved to talk to me, but I couldn’t get shit out of Nathan. Maybe he opened up to Jimmy’s ina when he went over there. Still, I tried to pry information out of him whenever I could.

“You still reading that Zuma book in class?”

“Zuya,” he said. “No, we’re done.”

“Oh right, Zuya.” The school had assigned a book about Lakota traditions—one of the few books on the topic written by an actual Lakota, not a white man. Nathan had hated it, said it was corny and stupid. But I’d seen him reading it on his bed at night, when he’d usually be playing video games or watching some horror movie for the twentieth time.

“What’re you reading now?”

“Some Shakespeare stuff. I can’t understand it.”

I hadn’t been able to understand it either, back in the day, but I knew he needed to keep trying.

“Maybe you can get the movie or something? Help you follow the story?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I gave up and went looking for some Tylenols.

“Hey, I want to ask you,” Nathan said. “Can I use the car tomorrow night? Please?”

I could tell he really wanted my old Pinto; usually he’d call it the “rez bomb.” Not to mention asking nicely, which was rare. I’d taught him to drive a few years back, but still wouldn’t let him ride my battered Kawasaki motorcycle. South Dakota allowed kids to drive at age fourteen, but the tribal cops didn’t care much about enforcing the law. Plenty of younger kids drove around the rez.

“You snagging with Jimmy now? Chasin’ high school girls?”

He looked down, embarrassed. “Naw, there’s supposed to be a party at the center tomorrow. Some dudes I met are gonna be there.”

“All right, but you might need to put some gas in the tank. Barely enough to get to town and back.”

His face lit up like a slot machine paying out a jackpot.

“And no drinking beers, or I’ll kick your ass,” I said.

He started to go back to his little bedroom, but stopped and turned to me. “Hey, I forgot. Your friend Tommy came by, said he needs to talk to you. Said you’re not answering your phone. Told me to tell you he’ll be at the center till late, said you should go there if you can.”

Shit, what now?

I looked at my phone and saw that Tommy had called three times. I called back, but there was no answer. Not surprising. Cell phone service on the rez was hit-and-miss. I was tempted to let this wait, but I needed a smoke pretty bad, so I decided to run to town. Maybe someone would have an Excedrin they could spot me...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Epilogue
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Reading Group Guide
• Copyright