I stared at him for only a moment more and then opened the door enough for him to squeeze through. He stood there dripping onto the dirty plywood and then sidestepped, trying to escape Dog’s nose in his crotch. Our faces were about eight inches apart—his was thin like the rest of him and, even though he’d been on the stoop for only a short time, his hair was molded to his skull. Underneath the khaki trench coat were an expensive dark suit, a rain-transparent white dress shirt, and a maroon tie the width of a tire tread. One of his hands was clutched around the package, which was in a Tyvek bag.
He pushed Dog’s nose away. “Not a fit night for man or beast.” He grinned for a moment, and then his features shifted to a look of earnest appeal. “I’m really sorry to be bothering you on a night like this, but is Mrs. Longmire in?”
I stuffed a hand in my jeans and downed the remainder of my beer. He was handsome in a talking-head, newscaster-gone-to-seed sort of way. “What’s this about?”
He stood almost at attention, gesturing with the plastic-wrapped package. “Mr. Longmire, my name is Gene Sherman, and I’m from the American Bible Company, and I’m sorry for the delay but the regional office wanted me to make a special trip out here to get this to your wife.”
I looked at the dripping bundle. “A Bible?”
He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
I crossed the room, crushed the beer can, and dropped it into the drywall bucket that served as my only trash can. “C’mon in and sit yourself down—dry off.” I reached into the fridge that had been sitting on the delivery skids for years and pulled out two cans. “You want a beer?”
He stood by the door, uncertain. “Thank you, but I don’t drink, Mr. Longmire, and I’ve got two more Bibles to deliver before I get to Douglas tonight.”
I nodded and gazed at the frozen rain that swooped out of the darkness and crashed against the glass, sliding down and freezing in patterns that looked like bars. “How about a cup of tea?”
He paused but then spoke. “Tea.”
I returned one of the cans to the refrigerator, opened mine, took a sip, and stared at him.
“Actually, tea would be nice.”
I turned the kettle on with a soft pop of propane, snagged a dishcloth from the handle of the range, and crossed back toward him, handing him the towel. “Here, something to wipe your face off with.” I gestured toward the sofa. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you.” He sat on the edge, his knees together, and reached a hand out to pet Dog, who had returned to his spot beside the couch. “Big dog.”
I stood by the back of my recliner, my arms resting on the Cheyenne blanket. “Yes, he is.”
“What kind?”
“Heinz, fifty-seven varieties.”
He laughed politely, and then there was a long silence, long enough to make him uncomfortable. He glanced down the only hallway in the cabin and up into the loft. “Is Mrs. Longmire in?”
“No, she’s not.”
He nodded and looked down at the package in his hands. “Are you expecting her?”
“Not particularly.”
His eyes came back up. “The reason I ask is that there’s a financial remuneration concerning the model she ordered from the American Bible Company. Mrs. Longmire showed exquisite taste in picking the special heritage edition.” He carefully shed the Tyvek from the tome and held it out for me to see. There were two other books that still lay swaddled in the bag. It was a very large, leatherlike volume with my wife’s name impressed in gilt across the lower right-hand side of the cover.
I took a swig as I marveled at the Bible. “Is that leather?”
He smiled. “Leatherette—superior. It wears better, and that’s something to take into consideration with a fine edition such as this that will be gracing your home and your children’s homes for years to come.”
I stepped back to the particleboard counter, turned over a mug, and retrieved one of the six-year-old tea bags from the cabinet. “I’m afraid all I’ve got is Earl Grey.”
“Oh, that’d be fine.” He took a deep breath and looked around, at the unfinished carpentry, the worn furniture, and the general untidiness of the place. “Is she away, visiting family perhaps?”
I crossed from the kitchen to my chair, rearranged the blanket again, and leaned on the back. “When was it my wife ordered this Bible?”
He did his best to look ashamed. “I’m sorry to say that it was over six weeks ago, which is why the company sent me out personally to deliver the edition.” He shrugged. “I’m something of a problem solver—you see, with the special heritage version there are certain artisan aspects that simply can’t be rushed. It was a phone order, and I do apologize for any inconvenience that the delay might’ve caused, but if you’ll just have a look at the craftsmanship.” He gestured the Bible toward me. “I’m sure that you’ll be amazed at the quality of detail.”
“How much is it?”
We both listened to the wind pressing the sleet against the log walls of the cabin. “The basic price of this special book is one hundred and forty-two dollars, but with the personalization option—you can see Mrs. Longmire’s name in twenty-four-karat gold leaf here on the cover—the total comes to one hundred and eighty-eight dollars, not including tax, which you are exempt from, considering this is an out-of-state purchase.”
“And where exactly is the American Bible Company located?”
He showed me his teeth. “Henderson, Nevada—right near Las Vegas. If you’re going to produce the Good Book, what better place than Sin City?”
I showed him my teeth in return. “Amen.”
He brightened and smiled more broadly. “Are you a religious man, Mr. Longmire?”
I sipped my beer. “Not so much. My wife used to tend to the religion for both of us—my interests were more of this world.”
“Used to?”
“My wife is dead, Mr. Sherman.”
He rested the Bible on his knee, the other two still lying at his feet, and leaned back as if he’d been struck. “I’m terribly sorry.” The wind, snow, and sleet continued to buffet the cabin as we sat there. “Was it sudden?”
“Evidently.”
“I’m shocked.”
I nodded. “Imagine how I feel.”
He shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss and even sorrier to intrude on your grief.”
“Thank you for your concern.” The kettle was beginning to grouse.
He nodded enthusiastically but then slowed with dramatic sorrow and held the Bible at an angle where I could easily read my late wife’s name. “Your wife, Martha, she was very keen on the idea. I was fortunate enough to speak with her personally.”
The kettle roused itself to full voice behind me. “Really?” It was now screaming. “I’d be interested to hear what she had to say—considering she’s been dead for six years.”
He didn’t move.
I took the last sip of my beer, crushed the can, and dropped it into the drywall bucket to join the others. I studied him for a moment more and then stepped to the range, picked up the kettle, and poured hot water into the mug. I stirred the mixture with a spoon and glanced back at him. “Do you take anything in it?”
He still didn’t move.
“Do you take anything in your tea?” I tapped the spoon on the rim of the mug and then carefully placed it on the edge of the sink. “Just as well, because I don’t have anything anyway.” I purposefully walked over to him and handed him the cup. “Yep, a little mix-up at the local paper.”
He swallowed visibly.
I took the Bible from his hand, crossed the room, and plucked the blanket from my recliner, revealing the large-frame Colt .45 in the Sam Browne, and the six-pointed star of the Absaroka County Sheriff attached to my jacket. “Sheriff.” I glanced at the star and then at my sidearm. “Sheriff Longmire.”
I tossed the bla
nket onto the chair and sat with my elbows on my knees and the book in my lap. “It was a mistake. Ernie ‘Man About Town’ Brown went into Durant Memorial for surgery on his prostate and left a manila folder on his desk. His part-timer saw the file folder marked OBITUARIES and assumed they were current.”
He still didn’t move.
“I’d imagine it’s hard to throw away the photos and obituaries of people you know well. Michael Lenz, a friend of Ernie’s who had died in a car crash back in the nineties, was there, along with Ernie’s sister Yvonne, who passed almost twelve years ago—and my wife, Martha.” I stared at the book in my lap. “Those two other Bibles at your feet wouldn’t have Michael’s and Yvonne’s names on them, would they?”
He cleared his throat and spoke. “Mr. Longmire—”
“Sheriff.” Another moment passed. “You know, there was this scam that they started to pull in the dirty thirties when cheap presses made mass-market printing possible. These con men would drive around with the trunks of their cars filled with Bibles and they’d pick up the local newspaper and get the names from the obituaries, then they’d print the names on the Bibles and sell them to the aggrieved survivors.”
He started to get up slowly, so as to not spill his tea.
I looked at him, my voice a little more than conversational. “Sit down, Mr. Sherman.” He stayed there for a second and then eased himself back onto the sofa. Dog, hearing the tone of my voice, planted his big paws on the floor and raised his head to look up at him.
I opened the cover and looked at the cheap, gold-edged pages with color separation that looked like newspaper comics; the inside cover was printed with a large tree with blank lines for family members. It wasn’t a very good version of the Good Book, or of any other book for that matter.
“My mother used to drag me to church when I was a kid, and I would sit there looking at the stained glass windows and listening to the choir sing and wondering what the heck was wrong with me.” I sighed and flipped a few more of the thin pages. “Never went back.”
He cleared his throat, and I glanced at him, but he didn’t say anything.
I looked at the Bible in my hands. “What do you suppose is the most important lesson in this Book? That’s what it is, right? A book of lessons on how it is we’re supposed to treat each other.” I took a deep breath. “I mean, if I was to read this, what do you suppose is the most important thing I’d take away from it?”
He looked around, at anything except me. “I’m not sure.”
“I think this Book is about forgiveness and tolerance.” I looked up at him. “At least, you better hope so.” I watched his eyes widen as my hand reached past my duty belt, and I pulled my checkbook from the seat of my jeans and my pen from my jacket pocket, which was just below the star. “One hundred and eighty-eight dollars, right?”
We sat there, and I made him look at me.
My eyes stayed steady with his. “Should I make this out to the American Bible Company or to you, Mr. Sherman?” He didn’t say anything but just sat there, holding his mug. “. . . I’ll just make it out to you.” After signing the check and tearing it out, I tucked the Bible under my arm. “Well, it doesn’t look as if you enjoy my tea or my company, and I don’t want to hold you here any longer.”
We stood. I took the mug and handed him the slip of paper.
He held the check.
“Don’t worry, it’s good, Mr. Sherman—and I’ll be happy to deliver those other two Bibles to save you the trouble.”
* * *
I watched as he turned the expensive car around; he hit the gas, it slid a little, and my eyes followed the taillights as they disappeared down the ranch road.
I walked over to the northwest window where I’d begun the evening and sipped Mr. Sherman’s untouched tea; it was still warm. Dog watched me as I pulled the special heritage edition Bible from under my arm and peered through the ice-rimed window to see if the owl had returned.
He hadn’t.
Martha and I had argued earlier that afternoon. I don’t even remember what it was we’d argued about, but I remember the tone of her voice, the timbre and cadence. It’s important to me sometimes to try and remember what it was that had been said, but I can’t. I’m afraid that my mind works like that more and more these days, allowing the words spoken to disappear into cracks and crevices.
I thumbed the Good Book open, flipped through a few pages, and then closed it. The sleet had turned to snow, and the flakes caught the light from inside the cabin and burst into small sparks before pressing themselves against the glass.
I continued to look out into the raw night, but from habit my eyes drifted upward and I thought about how maybe I had softened a little, and the words escaped with the memories. “You should’ve hung around.”
FIRE BIRD
Motivated by a sense of generational snobbery or the assumption that the drink, cuisine, and ambient atmosphere might be better in such places, the ignorant or unwary visitor to Absaroka County, faced with where to revel away the debut of the New Year, might choose the Euskadi Bar, the Centennial, or even Henry’s establishment, the Red Pony, over the Durant Home for Assisted Living.
They would, of course, be dead wrong.
The aged of Absaroka County look after their creature comforts with an expertise born of making it through one depression and the war to end all wars. No matter where you are in the county and no matter who goes short, it won’t be them—they’ve been in the game far too long for that.
Ex-mayor Bud “Buddy” Elkins stood next to the Dutch doors of the home’s entryway broom closet. Handing me a Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon, he looked past my shoulder to where the one-legged ex-sheriff was contemplating the latest of my opening chess gambits, Dog at his foot. “Looks like you’ve got Lucian flummoxed.”
There had been times in the last quarter of a century when my old boss and mentor, Lucian Connally, had let me off the hook on chess night, especially on holidays, but tonight was not one of those nights. Evidently, the old sheriff had left a space heater too close to the curtains in room 32 and was being forced to spend New Year’s Eve in the communal area, a place he normally avoided like a hot and cold running venereal disease. They had cleaned out his room, but they wouldn’t let him return to his haunt until near midnight when they figured the fumes would have dissipated.
I was here as a buffer.
I sipped my drink and glanced back. “He’s distracted; he doesn’t care for the music and hubbub.” I was referring to the pickup Dixieland jazz trio that was playing next to the Christmas tree, which seemed perilously near the roiling flames in the blond-brick fireplace. “That and I picked up a few moves from one of my deputies.”
“The Pyrenees Indian?”
I smiled at the old politician’s political incorrectness. “Saizarbitoria—he’s the one who’s caught the duty tonight.”
He sipped his Coke. “What about that hellcat, that other deputy of yours?”
“Vic? She’s back in Philadelphia till the day after tomorrow.”
“I always like it when you bring her along.”
I nodded. “So does Lucian. He likes her breasts.”
His ninety-two-year-old face took on a dreamy look, and he held a hand out to palm a not so imaginary body part. “They’re nice boobies, just the size of a red wine glass—not too big, not too small.”
Pretty much everything Buddy had to say had to do with alcohol or women. He’d owned a number of drinking establishments as far back as I could remember—dance clubs, bars, and package stores. In fact, he’d sold me my first beer. Whether I was of legal age was something neither of us ever brought up.
I leaned against the counter that separated the entryway from the main room and glanced around, meeting the eyes of a woman who, apparently, was the reason Buddy was forced to serve the liquor from outside the official party room. Genevieve M
cNeil was an incredibly old, bright-eyed Presbyterian with a penchant for elaborate hats. Hard, of few words, she kept a sharp eye on the Old Testament God to make sure He didn’t get up to any shenanigans she might disapprove of, like granting salvation to Catholics or allowing sheriffs to drink in public.
I nodded to her, but she didn’t return my greeting and instead turned away and whispered in the ear of one of her compatriots.
In protest, I took another sip of my bourbon. As I looked around, I remembered that this was the room with the black-and-white photos of the area on the walls. The nearest was of the Fort McKinney parade grounds, where in 1878 an opportunistic commander had filed a claim on the ground underneath the fledgling town to the east under the Desert Land Act.
Major Verling Durant had died unrepentantly a few years later, and his wife was given the deed to the unnamed town. Two hundred and fifty land sales were made that next year, including the one for the courthouse and the future Carnegie Library that had become my office and jail. Juliet Durant was suddenly a very rich woman, and the town at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains had a name.
Buddy noticed me studying the photograph. “Whole town started with larceny and hasn’t gotten any better since.”
“You’d be in a position to know.” Bud had served an unprecedented half-dozen terms as mayor of Durant. I motioned toward the framed photos. “Are some of these new?”
He glanced around the room where it seemed to me a lot of additions had been made. “They’re from that trove of photos your buddy Henry found up on the Rez. I guess that old Mennonite preacher took photos of white people, too.”
I cleared my throat and gestured my tumbler toward the bottle. “You wanna pour one of those for Lucian, I’ll take it over to him.”
“Might as well—he paid for the stuff.”
I took the two glasses to the communal long table and sat a tumbler at the old sheriff’s elbow, on the left where he liked it.
Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories Page 4