Annie Top Skye

By Robert Kammen

Annie Top Skye: Big City Attorney Returning To Her Roots

Jerome Two-Bulls, a young Lakota Indian from Wyoming, was found guilty of the murder of his girlfriend, Cassandra Madison. Convicted in a white man's court and sentenced to execution for a crime he did not commit. The odds and evidence were both stacked against him. His only hope of being exonerated lies in a cousin who walked away from her Indian heritage to become an attorney with a prestigious firm in Manhattan, New York.

Annie Top Sky had worked hard to put herself through law school, and even harder to prove herself in the courts of Queens, New York. When she received a call from a member of her Lakota tribe, insisting that she return to help overturn the execution sentence of her cousin, she is torn between giving up her dream and returning home. Home and family win the battle, with Annie returning to her roots in Wyoming to help save her cousin's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Longhorn Publishing
• Release date: May 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227920478

Book preview

ONE

CASPER, WYOMING

On the northern slopes of Casper Mountain patches of snow pinballed into deep ravines resembling the bony ribcages of ancient Dinosaurs. The flat-crowned mountain elongated to the southeast where it hooked into the Deer Creek Range. Tonight, a moon ghosted through wispy grey clouds being dispersed away by the mountain, with some of the clouds down near the middle elevations and barely clearing sleeping pine trees. These clouds were the trailing edge of a late spring snowstorm that had punched brazenly at the mountain and the city of Casper spread out below along the North Platte River and again the mountain had dominated, ripping the storm apart, the wind of day still tossing up blinding curtains of snow.

Headlights speared through aspens lining the upper reaches of County Highway 251. The paved, switchback road cleaved the center of Casper Mountain, and was barred to truck traffic. Casper’s raucous drinking crowd liked to top off the evening by heading up to the Target Saloon or the posh Chisholm Ski Resort. Coming down afterwards, packing a full load of booze, proved fatal to some. The latest fatalities of a month ago came about when a drunken wildcatter decided he wanted some sexual favors from his woman passenger about the same time his Ford pickup was tearing around a hairpin curve; only to have his pickup veer over and encounter some loose roadside gravel and slam through the guardrail and become airborne. There were no survivors.

The man shifting into third gear as he tooled his Jeep Grand Wagoneer through another tight curve let thoughts of the accident push away, at least momentarily, from what he was going to do tonight. A flick of a switch had thrown his vehicle into four-wheel drive. But, he held the speed down, coming onto a down-grading straightaway. He wanted no accidents to happen or to be pulled over for speeding.

The reflecting glow from dashboard lights touched upon his dark brown Stetson and patent brown leather gloves wrapped around the steering wheel. And the expensive sheepskin coat lighter brown in color than his hat. The last switchback falling behind, he took in the city of Casper spread for twenty miles in the valley centered by the meandering North Platte River. Way to the north lights were strung along Interstate 25, punching up past the Big Horn Mountains into Montana. Closing in on Wyoming Boulevard and a subdivision planted on the lower reaches of the mountain, lights from the city began diffusing away starlight filling a clearing sky.

This latest oil boom had brought him here; almost two years ago, he reflected. Unlike other oil booms, this one had turned out in the words of an OPEC official to be the granddaddy of them all. From around the world, wildcatters had and still were flooding in to this oil patch city. With fortunes being made nearly every day, prices had skyrocketed, the bank’s lending out money as fast as it could be shipped in. The big boys, Amoco, Exxon, Shell, were all here along with their millions of dollars worth of equipment and high-priced drilling crews, and others wearing all kinds of headgear; turbans, Stetsons, homburgs, or safety helmets.

Along with the Mafia, he murmured, as he found a country-western station on the radio. And last but not least, Cassandra.

Anger spewed out with those last words. How could she do this to him, even consider seeing that darned Indian? But she had, shunning him aside the last few weeks. The hard part of it was that he had fallen in love with Cassandra Madison, knew every inch of her luscious body. Or perhaps it was the money, all those Madison millions. She was his future, which no darned renegade Indian was going to take away from him.

He cruised past the college on Casper Mountain Road, which was an extension of 251, and at a series of traffic lights changed irritably into Wolcott Street. The street was still descending into the heart of the city, but down there the snow had melted, and he switched back into two-wheel drive. The Grande Wagoneer was a loaner bearing dealer plates. He felt easier about this, though tension edged into him when he gazed at a rise of land north of the city and at the Casper Events Center, nicknamed the Pizza Hut because of its bright red roof and shape. For directly west of this was his destination, a series of high-rise buildings checker-boarded with lights beaming out of apartment windows. He let a beam of angry laser light slip out of his mind to one of the buildings and into Cassandra’s large suite, and onto her coupling in her bedroom with the Indian. Bitterly, a boot jammed the gas pedal down a little before he realized he’d slammed on through a red light.

Darn, he cursed, and went for the brake, slowing down while checking out the rearview mirror, managed to bring both the vehicle and his thoughts under control, but not the tension thread-walking along his temples.

His worst moments came a couple of blocks later when he cruised past a complex of buildings housing the county courthouse and federal and state offices. Further along the street, he passed under Interstate 25 through a narrow underpass, where a red light held him up. Then, a green directional light brought him wheeling to the right onto a road paralleling the interstate and past the curious eyes of a pair of cops watching traffic flow by them from their police cruiser parked out front of an Amoco service station. Once he was on Poplar Street, he followed the curving boulevard up around to home in on the apartment complex.

He parked the Grand Wagoneer at the darker end of some connecting garages, screened the opposite way by several large black disposal containers. Gripped by anxiety, he used a key to enter through the service entrance. He held by the service elevator, letting the tension drain away, still trying to figure out how to handle this, and wondering too just how much racket the revolver would make. No, couldn’t use the elevator, it made too much noise. Steeling himself, he headed over to the staircase and soon found himself on the fifth floor, moving quickly over the carpeting until he reached the door to her suite, where he used another key to gain entry. He slipped inside, closed the door, his senses drawn to the murmur of voices coming from Cassandra Madison’s bedroom. He crept down the short hallway and managed to ease into a large walk-in closet. As he eased the door shut, he caught a glimpse through the open bedroom door the darker shape of the Indian entwined with Cassandra.

Did you hear something?

Jerome Two-Bulls’ response was a shrug of his wide shoulders. His chest was hairless, though his long mane of black hair lay splashed over his shoulders and back. A scar pitted his long, narrow face, somehow added to the allure she felt for him. Jackknifing away from her, he reached for the worn pair of Levi’s. He slipped into the Levi’s, rose and said, What about this other guy?

That’s ancient history, she told him. I love you, Jerome, and only you.

He cast pondering eyes upon Cassandra Madison, taking in the mass of chestnut hair and gold-flecked green eyes. She had full breasts and stood five seven, meaning that she wore clothes well. Reaching for a filmy black bit of gown, she slipped into it as Jerome Two-Bulls moved over to stand by the windows. The drapes were open, and he took in the city and the darker hulk of the mountain beyond. Coming up to him, she snuggled in close, kissed him on a nipple, as he said, What do we have in common other than we breathe the same air? To me, your world is unattainable; your wealth, your rich friends. I have many, many bills, some horses, a second-hand Harley.

Come on, honey, don’t be so Indiany. I need you, don’t you see that? What the heck? We can head out, Hawaii, wherever—-so long as we’re together.

Okay, I believe you. But I’ve got to bug out. I’ve got to cram for an Econ test.

Stay. I’ll buy the darned college.

He laughed, and with his arm pressed around her shoulders, moved into the large living room of Cassandra’s luxurious suite, where he sat down on a sofa and began putting on a pair of black boots. Dating her, he was beginning to find, was prowling about in uncharted territory. Two-Bulls had found out that some of her forebears had struggled their way westward along the Oregon Trail. You could not find a parcel of land in this section of the state that a Madison isn’t listed somewhere on the deed. He could tell her, though he wouldn’t, that long before any white men had even been west of the Missouri River, the Holy Road of the Teton Lakota passed through the heart of Casper. Now, he knew sadly, the holy road for his people, the one leading out of Black Mountain Reservation, was Route 20-26 and justice for them was like bucking a stacked deck.

Coming to his feet, he put on his western-style shirt, and then the black leather vest while smiling at her pouting lips. How does Friday night at LBM sound?

What’s wrong with Wednesday and Thursday nights? she asked, as he went ahead of her toward the hallway door.

At the door he turned to her and Cassandra moved in close. Deliberately, she let her gown flutter open, and Jerome Two-Bulls whispered that he was going even though desire flared in his eyes. I think I can make it tomorrow night. Then he bent his head down to receive her kiss, and then he left quickly, or he knew he would stay.

Down in front of the apartment building, Two-Bulls started his Harley, sitting there and letting it idle as he gazed up at a fifth-floor window opening into Cassandra’s apartment. A floor below that, a woman out on her balcony brought her coffee cup over to stare down at the disturbing, throaty chug-chugging of the Harley, and recognizing who it was, she snorted disdainfully.

Well, if it isn’t that Indian again! There ought to be a law... She reached for her Motorola camera phone and managed to take a picture of Two-Bulls seated on his Harley parked near a street light moments before he sped away. Still upset, she phoned in to the Casper Police Department only to receive a busy signal. Just my luck...well, I’ll just add this picture to my collection of others I’ve taken of him and that woman...no shame in either of them.

The staccato thrust of sound from the motorcycle told the man hiding in the closet that the Indian was gone. Still, he held in the walk-in closet while gazing through the slight door opening at the spacious living room with its western-style décor and the unlighted fireplace dominating the west wall. She was still holding by the window gazing after that darned Indian, Two-Bulls. He had come here really to reason this out with Cassandra, make her come to her senses, that she had no future with the Indian. The gun he’d brought along was just in case the Indian tried something, for he knew how explosive of mind one could be.

The light from the only lamp on in the living room threw pale yellow light Cassandra’s way, revealing to him that she was naked but for the flimsy gown, and a growing lust brought desire jerking up his thighs. Darn, he wanted her, even after she’d been with the Indian. She turned, suddenly, took a step that brought her closer to the bedroom, and just as quickly held up, puzzlement wrinkling her brow, as when someone’s antennae warns of danger. And he had no choice but to reveal himself.

The scream that started to burst out of her mouth was cut away when she recognized him, and through her fear she blurted out, How the heck did you get in here?

I’ve got a key, remember, sweetheart? He kept on coming, angling over to the sofa where she stood, with the fireplace just beyond them.

Okay, you’re here, she said angrily. I want my key back. Or better yet, I’d better change the locks. It’s over between us.

I heard everything, he said accusingly. It isn’t over until I say it’s over, darn it Cassandra that buzzard of an Indian, he’s destroying this thing we have.

She exploded, We have nothing! Get out before I call the cops!

His gloved hand doubled into a fist, and before she could react he’d punched her solidly along the right cheekbone, and she stumbled away in disbelief and pain. Then, gathering herself, Cassandra Madison struck back at him with flailing arms, shouting incoherent obscenities, for always before she’d been in charge of every situation. He backed away, trying to grab her arms, slapping away and drawing blood from her mouth. Her eyes went wildly to the brass-plated poker resting by the fireplace grating, and desperately she made a grab for the poker. His gloved hand grasped it first, his left wrapped in her hair.

All reason was gone. All that remained was blind anger and rage, and the knowledge he had lost her to that buzzard, Two-Bulls. He struck down with the poker, a crunching blow that broke her nose and sprayed out blood, the shock of it striking into her eyes. She started buckling, going down, but he held her up and struck again and again, with blood spurting away from her head wounds, splattering over both of them. In his killing frenzy he was vaguely aware of letting go of the poker and ripping her gown away before he let her drop limply to the thick-piled carpeting.

Now his desire to possess her took over total control. He pulled off his gloves and began fumbling with the zipper on his trousers even as he began descending on her writhing form. The next thing he realized, he had penetrated her, and Cassandra Madison knew it too, as feebly she cried out, No!

His teeth found her breast and in his sexually agony he bit her with a savage intensity even as the light went out of her eyes as death claimed Cassandra Madison. But, he was aware only of this moment of possessing her, saying hoarsely, You’re mine...not that darned Indian’s. Spent, he slumped away, reached a steadying hand to the coffee table and struggled to his feet, still unaware of the blood and sweat staining his face.

It took a few moments for sanity to claim him, to be dimly aware of what he had done, as he kept staring down at her naked body. Slowly, he became aware that blood had touched upon the coffee table and sofa, and like a summer rain stained bloody streaks and spots upon the carpeting. 

Suddenly the horror of it kicked in, and he now realized that his clothing and gloves were blood-stained. He picked up his gloves, gasped out, Must remember what I touched...the coffee table...and, and...that’s all... He bent and picked up her gown, used it to wipe along the coffee table, threw it fluttering down at her as he broke away for the apartment door. He hurried along the hallway and fled down the back staircase.

His arrival, and his departure, had gone unnoticed, only he wasn’t aware of this in his dread of having to retrace his route to his home high on the prow of Casper Mountain. That Indian, Two-Bulls, he tried to justify himself and his actions, Will be accused of this. Yes, witnesses must have seen him leave. Shoot, I’ve ruined a five-hundred-dollar coat. That red light, pull up, pull up... relax, darn it.

TWO

Leo Pipp worked the midnight shift at the county morgue. Actually, he came on at nine o’clock and worked until eight in the morning. A medical technologist, he liked working alone and drank anything that had alcohol in it and knew without too much concern that he was a meth-head.

Under the soiled white smock, Levi’s and an old blue polo shirt lay over his bag of bones frame. His face was thin, almost emaciated, and his red-flecked eyes registered an inner pain caused by a kidney infection. Or, it could be cancer. Leo really didn’t give a darn.

He leaned back from the microscope and wrapped his hand around the open beer can judging by its weight it was empty and chucked the can into a wastebasket and rose from the stool. He burped and grimaced at the sour bile seeping into his mouth. He’d become deafly immune to the faint sounds creeping into the examining room, the hum of an elevator, a door slamming shut, the ordinary night sounds filtering down from the upper floors of a major medical facility. 

Scratching his chin, he shuffled over and opened a refrigerator

locker door. A body of a dead vagrant was stretched out on an examining table, a twelve pack of Coors beer on the naked chest and wedged in the vee of the arms formed by the clasped hands. Gracias, he said, lifting out a can. 

Closing the locker door, he bee-lined for one of the easy chairs squatting by the TV set and paused in midstride when the phone rang. Either another body was on the way or it was one of his customers. He peddled drugs in and around Wyoming Central Hospital so that he could afford his own drug habit and a vintage Lexus. Single, in his late twenties, Leo Pipp was strictly a loner, not by choice but by dint of past cruelties imposed upon him. Pipsqueak...Leo Pipsqueak...that’s right run, you fat pig. And he had, away from his high school classmates and Butte, Montana, returning only one time for the funeral of his parents killed in an automobile accident.

Damn them all. He ripped the tab away from the can, gulped down some beer while responding to the phone call. Yeah, County Morgue.

Leo, you got a minute?

He recognized the voice as that of a male nurse. Okay, Dwight, how much do you need?

I got a hundred bucks.

Okay, okay, you really sound strung out.

I could come down there, Leo.

No. Nobody comes down here. He consulted his watch. In forty minutes, I’ll meet you by the cafeteria.

Leo Pipp hung up, smiling, thinking that except for some nagging illnesses, life was good. 

A scraping noise of metal grinding against metal came from the left front fender of his red Chevy van when Spike Weaver swung into a driveway running toward the West Acres apartment complex. The faulty muffler and radio blaring out the Patsy Cline version of Crazy added to the crescendo of sound bouncing around the interior of his cluttered van.

So what? It had almost three hundred thousand hard miles on it, and Spike expected to put on at least another hundred thousand or so until the engine blew up or it fell apart.

He was the sole owner of Triple AAA Locksmiths and had a running feud with every other Casper locksmith. After all, this was a dog eat dog business in a hardscrabble cut-throat oil town, and he loved every darned minute of his around-the-clock operation. During lean times, that being before this late oil boom swept in like a prairie fire, he’d resorted to using an Oklahoma credit card. A somewhat illegal device used even now by those operating in the oil field when things went wrong and they needed a vital piece of equipment in one heck of a hurry. In some cases, the law out here simply looked the other way.

Divorced years ago, and going on fifty, Spike Weaver was a big-boned man with dissipated handsome features and a thinning hairline. Even during winter months his work garb consisted of a leather vest of his own design laden down with tools of his trade and a short-sleeved shirt. He would make a coffee shop or café his office, hanging out there for hours on end, until told to get his sorry ass out of there because he was driving away customers, and being thick-skinned, he’d simply hunt up another greasy spoon and hold in there.

Fact was, Spike enjoyed the way of it in Casper, the bouts at times of rampant lawlessness, the fierce wind striking almost daily into the valley, this latest oil boom in which around thirty thousand had rushed in to claim jobs and latch onto any available housing. Naturally his prices had gone up as well as Spike’s interest in the new assortment of women he’d been encountering lately. Like right at this moment, when his headlights picked out a young woman waving a bright yellow scarf. He slowed and swung into the only vacant space, which turned out to be a handicap parking slot. He killed the motor but left the lights on; screw the cops. His full attention was riveted on the three young women framed in his headlights. The fact that he was days short of turning fifty and these gals appeared to be just a few short years removed from wearing training bras only increased Spike’s desire to find out what their problem was, and he switched off the headlights, scrambled out and smiled up to them.

Got your call.

Not my night, said Melonie Garland, who moments ago had tossed her empty beer can into some nearby bushes. She was gorgeous, willowy, with auburn hair, and enjoying the summer break from the grind of college down here in Casper instead of up home at Sheridan. All three very desirable women were rich and spoiled and shared a concern about the present whereabouts of Cassandra Madison, who’d promised to go bar hopping with them tonight. There’d been no response to cell phone calls, while Cassie’s Lexus was still parked nearby. And her latest lover’s motorcycle wasn’t here either, unless, and which Melanie Garland doubted, they’d gone for another of those wild moonlit rides. Irritably she added, I’m up in apartment 521 and so are my keys, I hope.

Show me the way, ladies.

Normally it would only take a few minutes for Spike Weaver to unlock a door. And normally he would have asked this auburn-haired bombshell for some form of ID. But, down on the sidewalk, he’d picked up on the scent of beer mingled with marijuana and perfume, and more importantly to Spike, the delirious smell of money. A name had come to him along with a picture of this dame headlining an article in the Star Tribune. Garland—-her first name still eluded him. The Garlands were one of Wyoming’s billionaire families. Instead of thirty bucks, he’d ask for fifty, maybe more.

Thinking of all of this, while darting glances at these sensuous women hovering close by was reason enough for him to fiddle a little longer with his lock-pick tools. These new locks, he said, grinning ruefully, Are getting harder to pick. Ain’t modern technology wonderful?

Maybe you’re losing your touch.

Little did Spike Weaver know that sometime down the line he would find out the brunette’s name was Connie Wray. Her voice had been whiskey slurred but in a sensuous way, and now he caught the teasing smile, and promptly dropped one of his tools. 

Maybe, almost had it opened. He leaned and picked up the tool, and within moments the door unlocked. Yeah, that’ll be sixty bucks.

Holding in the hallway while her companions shoved into the apartment, Melonie Garland dug a hand into a pocket of her form-fitting Jeans and brought out some folding money, carelessly peeled off a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to the locksmith.

At that instant a piercing scream of disbelief shot out into the hallway. My God! It’s Cassie! Cassie’s dead!

Melonie Garland swept past the locksmith and into the apartment, and as she did, doors popping open along the long hallway brought Spike Weaver out of his frozen state of disbelief. He broke running toward a nearby staircase, his long legs hurrying him down toward the first floor. He was not about to be involved in a murder, and with the police on the way, he wasn’t about to fork over a seventy-five dollar fine for parking in a handicap slot. 

He remembered now he was clutching a hundred-dollar bill, muttered as he pushed outside and loped toward his van, What I should’a charged that rich broad in the first place. Too bad I couldn’t have asked that brunette for her phone number, or where she hangs out. But murder? Adios, lovely ladies.

Leo Pipp’s sleep-drugged mind was still trying to figure out why the County Coroner had called him at 1:21 A.M. After assuring Doctor Kaneta Ito that he was working alone and that when Ito arrived the morgue would go into lockdown, Pipp managed to heave himself up from the leather sofa and stumble through empty beer cans to a wash basin.

He switched on the wall light, peered into the mirror through the haze caused by the beer and crystal meth at a vaguely familiar face; yes, that of his death father. Lurking in the red-streaked eyes he picked out the shrunken black ember that was his soul. He shuddered. Deep in his throat he moaned, hawked spleen into the basin, turned on the cold-water faucet, and then lowered his head under the gushing water.

Gasping, his mind clearing, he straightened up, snarling out, You dumb cracker... you did it again. Ah, shoot, gotta get rid of those darned beer cans or my tail is grass.

Leo grabbed a towel and wiped his way over to the sofa and bent to the task of picking up the empty beer cans and tossing them into a wastebasket. And as he did, a sudden pain spasm knifed into his stomach and lower back region. Need some pain pills; if they don’t kill me the other mess will?

He carried the wastebasket over toward the refrigerated lockers and opened one of the doors. To his surprise, he saw that only three cans remained in the 12-pack container perched on the dead man’s chest.

There’s just you an’ me here, bum, and I sure as shoot didn’t drink all that beer. He set the wastebasket just inside the locker, slammed the door shut and headed back to toward the wash basin. They lied to you, Pipp. It ain’t the penis that shrivels up and dies first...it’s your crack-kickin’ brain. Darn Doctor Ito and his midnight rides.

A second cup of scalding hot chicory coffee chased away Leo’s headache and helped settle his stomach. He was taking his ease in a padded swivel chair while flicking through the TV channels, a lot calmer, when without warning the double doors leading out into the main corridor exploded open.

Coming erect, he snarled, Why the heck don’t you guys knock?

One of the ambulance attendants said, This place needed a shot of excitement, Leo. Which examining room do we use?

Doctor Kaneta ‘Kane’ Ito entered next and said, Number four will do. His impassive face hid the regretful fact that he knew the young woman encased in the black body bag. He