Another Man's Moccasins

by Craig Johnson

  I punched the requisite buttons I’d memorized from my own gracious dining and turned to stand by my dispatcher. “Why are you still here?” I folded my arms. “You knew I was coming back.”

  She picked up her knitting and ignored my question.

  I looked into the holding cell—the big Indian still hadn’t moved. “Where’s Lucian?”

  “He decided to go home.” The microwave dinged, and I pulled out the freeze-du-jour, quickly resting it on the counter and out of my burning fingers.

  “Let it cool or he eats it still cooking.”

  I nodded, pulled a plastic spork from the drawer, and rested it on the rim of the potpie. “DCI’s report?”

  “On your desk.” She continued knitting.

  I turned and started back to my office to retrieve the report.

  I held my daughter’s Post-it so that Ruby could see it. “She go home?”

  “That was her on the phone just as you came in, and in answer to your question, she’s in bed, where all sane people should be.”

  I stopped. “Well, since you’re answering questions, do you mind answering why it is you’re still here?”

  She stopped knitting and looked back at me. “Would you like to see why?” She stood and stuffed the needles and yarn into her oversized canvas bag. “Would you like me to show you why I’m still here?”

  I recognized a loaded question when I heard one but just nodded my head and gave her the strange look I gave crazy A N OT H ER

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  people that asked the sheriff those kinds of questions. She calmly walked past me and down the hall out of view. Dog had started after her but stopped when he reached the doorway. I stooped down and ruffled the fur behind his ears. “What?”

  Ruby had turned to look back at me. “Come here.”

  I shrugged and walked over to her, the three of us standing there as Ruby listened for something. After a moment, I asked again. “What?”

  She held up an index finger. “Just a minute.”

  We all listened, but the only thing I could hear was the air-conditioning of the building and the hum of Ruby’s computer on the reception desk. “What?”

  There was a sudden thunder of sound and impact, and I would’ve sworn a truck had hit the building. I actually stuck a hand out to the wall to steady myself. Not much time went by before the noise and vibration were repeated, and I would’ve sworn that the truck had backed up and taken another run at the building. “What the . . .!”

  The roar and impact seemed to come from the holding cell, and I stumbled over a barking Dog as I rushed back into the room and watched as the big Indian launched himself into the bars with all his considerable force and with a sound I’d never heard come from anything human.

  A private contractor had set the bars back in the fifties, when Lucian had inherited the old Carnegie building from the Absaroka County Library after they’d moved a block away.

  I hadn’t thought about the quality of the job in more than a quarter of a century, but it was foremost on my mind as I watched the monster back up to the opposite wall of the cell and prepare for another charge.

  “Hey!”

  I subconsciously backed against the counter, knocking the 8 4 CR A I

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  potpie into the sink, and watched as about 350 pounds of bull muscle slammed against the bars.

  I could’ve sworn they moved.

  “Hey!” I stepped forward, placed my hand on my sidearm, and thought about how bad it was going to hurt if he and the bars landed on me. “Hey!”

  The giant had just started backing up for another run when he heard me and noticed that I was standing there only six feet away. His head rose, and I have to admit that it was a strange feeling, having someone look down on me. His hair had parted a little, and I could see one eye beneath the scar tissue as his hands came forward and rested lightly on the bars.

  He wore a silver ring with what looked like alternating coral and turquoise wolves running around it, and I was pretty sure I could’ve gotten it over my big toe.

  I put my own hands up to show I didn’t mean any harm, even if I had been capable, and stood there looking into that one eye. “It’s okay. It’s okay . . . I’m not going anywhere.”

  He stood there for a moment and then slowly lowered himself back to a sitting position on the bunk. He was breathing heavily from the exertion of trying to tear the jail down, and I stood there listening to the wheezing of his breath from behind the bandages at his throat.

  After a moment, Dog stopped barking, and I noticed that he and Ruby were peering around the doorway. Some backup.

  I pulled the palm of my hand across my face and looked at her, still a little breathless myself. “You couldn’t have just told me?”

  Tan Son Nhut, Vietnam: 1968

  He shook his head. “No, it is classified.”

  Babysan Quang Sang had never seen a hamburger before and A N

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  poked with a finger to lift the bun as if it were booby- trapped; it was water boo, or water buffalo, and the local viande du jour. He turned and looked at Henry, who picked up his own hamburger and took a bite. A few seconds later the Montagnard picked up his own sandwich and took a bite, chewing quietly and watching Henry for more pointers. “Il ne gout pas comme le jambon.”

  Henry laughed. “He says that it does not taste like ham.”

  We watched Babysan try to figure out the fries, and I studied the tall Indian who would have been more at home scalping white men on a sunny afternoon along the Little Big Horn River. “I’m going to say something I never thought I would.”

  He picked a fry up from Babysan’s plate, dipped it in the ketchup, and stuck it in his mouth as an object lesson. He turned back and leaned in close. “What?”

  Babysan ate part of a fry and then dropped the remainder back on his plate. It was possible that the Vietnamese had had enough of all things French. “I envy you.” The exhale of his laugh was as if I’d punched him, and he sat there only inches away with a look a shade past indescribable. “I envy the clarity of what you’re doing.”

  He laughed again and thought about it. The pause was so long you could’ve said the pledge of allegiance in it, but for the Northern Cheyenne, it was nothing. “What, exactly, are you doing here?”

  I took a long pause of my own. “Not a lot. I got sent up from BHQ to investigate a drug overdose, but nobody’s talking.” I looked into a set of eyes that saw the world the way it really was and felt the shame of my duty. I thought about what I was doing and whether it was making any difference. “This place is such a mess. . . .”

  Henry took another fry from Babysan. “That may be the under-statement of the century.”

  My next words were out before the thought was fully formed.

  “Take me with you to Khe Sanh.”

  He looked back at me and laughed, but he realized that I was 8 6 CR A I

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  serious and so became very serious in turn. “Are you insane? Everybody, including every Marine in Vietnam, the general staff, and LBJ

  are trying to get out of there, and you want to go in?”

  “Yep.”

  He looked around as if the guys in the white jackets with but-terfly nets might be hovering nearby. He was silent and then lowered his head as if I hadn’t said what I’d said, his eyes just visible below his boonie hat. “Walt, you can get killed up there.”

  “Better there than dying of boredom here.”

  “Walter . . .”

  “Look, I’ve got a three-day at China Beach, and that is not where I intend to be.”

 
; I read the report with my hand on my chin.

  She had been unconscious within seconds, although her heart had probably continued to beat for another fifteen to twenty minutes. As was assumed, the manual strangulation applied by the forearm indicated an assailant much stronger than the victim.

  There were small linear abrasions on the neck, but these had been caused by the decedent’s fingernails as she had attempted to dislodge the arm around her throat. The fl esh under her nails had been tested and, as I’d surmised, it had turned out to be her own.

  Fracture of the hyoid bone and other cartilage was evident, as was hemorrhaging of the thyroid gland in front of the larynx. I read the thing again, from the beginning, and looked up at the man lying in the cell.

  It didn’t make sense. Why would a man this size, and with this much strength, use his forearm in a chokehold strangulation when he could’ve practically snapped the tiny woman’s neck with a thumb and forefinger?

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  The giant had finished the last potpie hours earlier, had carefully replaced the unused spork, and put the empty plastic tray in the others, slipping it forward, halfway through the bars. He was dead asleep now, and his whispery snores provided a steady beat to the conversation Sancho and I were having.

  Saizarbitoria had spent a night at home with his wife while I stayed on duty for both Durant and Powder Junction. He’d called the Hole in the Wall Motel and had ascertained that Tran Van Tuyen was actually staying there through Wednes-day. He sipped his coffee and then added more sugar from the container on the counter, just like Vic. I sipped my own coffee and pulled the sleeping bag a little closer to the wall where I’d eased my aching back. I yawned and looked at my well-rested deputy. “What about the Veterans Administration?”

  He retested his coffee and found it to his liking; he came over and sat on the chair that Ruby had occupied last night.

  “The administrative staffs don’t work much on Sunday nights, so we might want to call around again.” I nodded and continued to sip my coffee. “But I can tell you one thing . . .”

  “What?”

  He gestured with his mug toward the stacked pie pans at the bars with the lone utensil handle pointed out. “He’s been inside.”

  “How so?”

  “We used to have them get rid of their dinnerware in just that fashion in the extreme-risk unit of the high security ward.”

  The Basquo had done two years in Rawlins and knew more about corrections than I ever wanted to. “He look familiar?”

  “No, and it’s not as if he’s somebody you’re likely to forget.”

  The young man tipped his hat back and stroked his musketeer goatee. “If I was guessing, I’d say federal.”

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  “The hospital was going to send his prints down to DCI.

  Check it.”

  “I will.”

  I sipped my coffee and watched the big Indian sleep. “You ever have anybody respond the way I described he did when we left him alone?”

  He nodded. “Once or twice.”

  “What’d you do with them?”

  “Straight to Evanston.”

  The state psychiatric hospital. “Check that, too.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re going to have to keep somebody in here at all times.” I turned and looked at him. “Otherwise, I don’t think our jail will be able to take it.” He got up and started out. “Vic or Ruby make it in yet?”

  He called back from the hall. “Nope.”

  I yelled after him as I glanced in the cell. “Call and tell them to pick up more potpies.”

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  “That is one Fucking Big Indian.”

  She reaffirmed what FBI really stood for.

  Vic was back from her sabbatical in Douglas, but it hadn’t broadened her vocabulary. She sipped her coffee and looked at me; I was trying to decide what all I needed to take with me to Powder Junction, since that appeared to be where I was going to be spending my day. Her feet were propped up on my desk where she had put the shooting trophy she’d won over the weekend.

  “You out-quick-drew the entire Wyoming Sheriff ’s Association?”

  “Yeah, including that ten- gallon ass-hat Sandy Sandberg and that butt-cheek Joe Ganns.”

  Sandy was the sheriff over in neighboring Campbell County, and Joe Ganns was the controversial brand inspector who was reputed to be the fastest gun in the West. “Oh, I bet that made you popular.”

  My diminutive deputy from Philadelphia shrugged, and I tried not to notice the muscles of her bare arms in her sleeve-less uniform. “Kinda frosted his flakes, but shit, Walt, what is he, a hundred and three?”

  It was quiet in the room as I tossed the shooting bag on my 9 0 CR A I G J O H N S O N

  seat and piled a couple of hand radios in along with two large bottles of water, the reports from Illinois, and my thermos, a mottled green monstrosity made by Aladdin with a cop-per pipe handle and worn sticker that read DRINKING FUEL. She finally spoke again. “So, you get to go play in Powder Junction, and I get to talk to all the VAs on the high plains?”

  “You wanna trade jobs?”

  She thought about it. “No.”

  “Call Sheridan first; they’ve got a psychiatric unit in ward five. See if they ever had this guy.”

  She made a face, and then the eyes balanced on me like a knife. “How do you know where the psychiatric unit is in Sheridan?”

  I looked at the collection in the duffel. “I visited with a fellow over there back in ’72; Quincy Morton, the PTSD coordinator.”

  “ Post- traumatic stress disorder?”

  “Yep.”

  She studied me. “What were you doing, having fl ashbacks?”

  I sighed and zipped up the shooting bag. “It was different back then; nobody wanted to discuss that stuff, so I’d go over to the VA once a month and drink a beer and talk with Quincy at closing time on Friday afternoons. It helped.”

  “Nineteen seventy- two?”

  “Yep.”

  She continued to study me. “That’s when you came back, got married, and started with the Sheriff ’s Department?”

  “Yep.”

  “I got a question.” It was pretty obvious where she was headed. “You got out in ’70, but you didn’t show back up here until ’72.” I waited. “What’d you do for the two years in between?”

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  I threw the strap of the duffel over my shoulder, walked to the doorway, and looked down at her. “Who can speak broader than that has no house to put his head in?”

  The eyebrow arched in its trademark position. “What the hell is that from?”

  “Timon of Athens, Varro’s Second Servant.”

  She nodded. “Oh, how could I forget.” She reached over and slipped a forefinger in the pocket of my jeans. “You really are a dark horse.” She pulled, and I shifted my weight toward her. She looked up at me, the tarnished gold pupils softly feathered by the long dark lashes. “So, you gonna have any free time when my brother gets here and reinstitutes the courting ritual with your daughter?”

  “I’m hoping.”

  The carnivore smile returned. “Maybe we could double date.”

  I took a moment to take in all that she was giving me, thinking about that night in Philadelphia, thinking about the parts of her I hadn’t seen since then. There were about a half-million things I wanted to say, starting with the part about when I looked at her or thought about her, about that night; that I felt like something inside of me took flight and I wasn’t sure if I’d come back to earth yet. Then I thought about the years between us, how they would never go away. How the distance would only grow greater, and how even if everything went right, there were so many ways it could still go wrong.

  Her gaze flicked across my face, and it was like my thoughts were
leaking out of me and into those iridescent Mediterra-nean eyes. “What?”

  I tried to breathe and then looked at the worn marble fl oor; it was easier. “Look . . .”

  “No.” She sat there for a moment and then stood, both of 9 2 CR A I G J O H N S O N

  us aware that her finger was still in my pocket. She was close now and was standing next to my arm and slightly behind me where I could feel her breath on my shoulder. “I’m not looking for hearth and home.”

  “Yep.”

  It was silent in the room, but I could still hear Ruby typing at the receptionist’s desk in the front. “You are so fucked up, and you’re carrying so much shit around . . . ” I felt her chin on my tricep. “But I just like being around you, okay?”

  “Yep.”

  Her breathing continued on my arm, and even that felt good. “That’s all I need.” I nodded and didn’t say yep again, because I knew she’d hit me. After another moment, she pulled away, and I felt the finger leave my pocket with one last tug.

  “What about Henry? Does he have any leads in the big case?”

  I nodded and tried to get my mouth to work in complete sentences. “There might be a family connection with Brandon White Buffalo.”

  Her voice continued to come from behind me. “Another FBI.”

  “Henry’s working out with Cady this morning, and then he said he’d run up to the Rez and try to track Brandon down.”

  I adjusted the bag, leaned against the doorway, and played with the hole in my door where I’d yet to replace the knob—still not meeting her eyes. “You’ve got Frymire back there Indian-sitting, but I don’t think you’re going to get anything else out of him or Double Tough, so call the Ferg again and tell him to get his butt in here.”

  “Aye- aye, Captain.” She saluted. “What about the guy in the Land Rover, Tran Van Tuyen?”

  I looked at her and tried to think about it; about anything else. “I might go by the Hole in the Wall and check him out.”

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  “You want me to come down to PJ later?”

  I thought about that, too. “Somebody’s got to work the rest of the county.”