Next to Last Stand

by Craig Johnson

  Having gotten the inside story from the Wavers, I climbed back into my truck.

  Delmar, my fellow marine, shouted, “When are you gonna bring us beer, like you used to?”

  I hit the ignition, laying an elbow on the sill. “Sorry boys, but I’m not allowed. Carol says it might interfere with your medication.”

  “Interferes with our having a good time.”

  Turning in a circle and driving by the front opening of Fort McKinney, I glanced at the boys out enjoying the summer sun in front of the redbrick sign, but was distinctly aware of a gap in the middle, where a fifth electric wheelchair used to always sit, for all the world reminding me of the missing-man aerial formation used by squadrons to salute a fallen comrade.

  I continued on toward one of the two remaining original buildings, the old fort hospital, now serving as the visitors’ house, the other being an honest-to-goodness chicken shed that was on the National Register of Historic Places.

  I opened the other windows a bit and climbed out of the three-quarter ton truck, reached back, and stroked my sidekick and perennial ham-finder on the head. “I’ll take you for a walk when I get back, okay?”

  His big Saint Bernard/German shepherd/dire wolf eyes stared back at me.

  “I will, honest—this shouldn’t take that long.”

  Closing the door, I walked toward the front entrance of the Dutch hip, gable-style building, and paused to take off my hat as I knocked on the door. At the flagpole to my left a staff member was lowering the flag to half-mast.

  Inside, I walked by wicker furniture and an abandoned mid-game checkerboard on a small table. I watched as the maintenance man tied off the flag near the AGM-28 Hound Dog air-launched cruise missile that was the centerpiece of the Fort’s static museum.

  I stood there for a moment, saluting, when I heard footsteps approaching from behind and turned to find Carol Williams, who functioned as both a caretaker and an administrator.

  The small woman with the silver hair leaned against one of the posts. “You been out there talking to the Wavers?”

  “They gave me the lowdown on Charley Lee.”

  “Do they still ask you to bring them beer?”

  “Every time.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Walt, but if the Feds ever found out . . .”

  “That’s all right, I’m not so sure I want them drinking and driving those aftermarket contraptions of theirs.”

  “Amazing, isn’t it? It’s a competition among all of them hopping up the motors and using different tires; Delmar stole the motor off of one of our washing machines to try to put in his wheelchair.” She sighed. “Boys.” After a moment she stood up on tiptoe, studying my face. “I heard about it, but I hadn’t seen it—that’s some scar.”

  “Thanks.”

  She crossed her arms. “I think Charley Lee was one of the last Korean War veterans we had—moving on into Vietnam now.”

  “You trying to tell me something?”

  She smiled. “I just think about all the history being lost.”

  “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.”

  “Voltaire?”

  I shook my head. “An old African proverb.”

  I held the door as she motioned for me to follow, and we ducked into the main building. “We’ll head over to Charley Lee’s room in a moment, but I’d like to show you something first.”

  We walked down a short hallway hung with black and white photographs from a time when this was an actual fort. “Charley leave a bazooka or flamethrower in his footlocker?”

  “Something like that.” She stopped at her office where Gene Weller, the security guard, stood at the door. “Hi, Gene.”

  “Hey, Walt.”

  Carol paused to pull out some keys and unlock her door.

  “Having a security problem here at the Fort?”

  She gave me a knowing look, but I had no idea what it was I was supposed to know. “C’mon in.”

  Her office was a small room with more photographs and a certificate of commendation for Chief Petty Officer Williams on the walls. There was a bookshelf of mostly military history crowned with a large, handmade model of the USS Missouri and a very clean and orderly desk where, sitting on a leather blotter looking somewhat out of place, there was a large, battered Florsheim boot box with a rubber band holding the lid closed.

  I stood in front of the desk, looking down, my hands on my gun belt, the web of my thumb resting on the hammer of my Colt. “So, it’s not bigger than a bread box.”

  She sat in her chair, rested her elbows on the blotter, and laced her fingers to provide a cradle for her pointed chin.

  “I take it you’ve already opened it?”

  “I have. It was on the top when we pulled out his footlocker. I secured his room, brought the box back here, and called you.”

  I nodded, reaching down, gave her one last look, and then slid off the rubber band and flipped the top.

  Inside was a white plastic grocery bag carefully wrapped around a symmetrical bundle that took up the whole box. I glanced at Carol again and then peeled the plastic away to reveal scores of bills taped together in small bands.

  I withdrew one of the packets after noting not only the number but also the denomination. “Hundreds?”

  “All of them.”

  “In bands of one hundred?”

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at the box again to see if it was really completely full. “How many packets?”

  “I haven’t emptied it, but estimating from the size, I’d say one hundred.”

  Peeling a bill from the packet in my hand, I held it up to the overhead light. “I’m no expert, but it doesn’t look counterfeit to me.”

  “Me either.” She shook her head. “You can see why I didn’t go any further without you being present.”

  “Boy howdy.” I nudged the box with a forefinger. “Any note in here? Receipt for deposit or withdrawal—anything?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Nothing that I saw, but then I didn’t go all the way through it after I saw what it was.”

  I studied the stack, about a half-inch thick. “Usually the bands have a bank name, but these are blank.” I nudged the box as if poking it might get it to give out with some answers. “No writing on the box?”

  “Florsheim Midtown, plain-toe zip-boot, brown, size twelve.” She stood. “Do you want to head over to his room?”

  I stared at all the money. “A cool million.”

  “Now you know why I called you.”

  “So . . .” I returned the bill to the packet, reinserting it among its brethren, then replacing the lid and rubber band. “Fifty-fifty?”

  * * *

  —

  It was a small room, smaller than I would’ve thought, but there were so many books and stacks of paper and file folders in the place that it was probably twice the size it seemed once you emptied it out. “So, Charley Lee was a hoarder?”

  “Of sorts.”

  His motorized wheelchair stood by the door at attention like Tiny Tim’s abandoned crutch. There was a window overlooking the back of the building where the creek ran, and I could see what was possibly the only chicken coop on the National Register of Historic Places near one of the small ponds where the lodgers sometimes fished in summer.

  There was a built-in closet with some drawers, and I was surprised to see a Texas flag tacked up on the wall among all the other stuff. “Funny, all the Wavers say he hated Texas.”

  Carol shrugged. “He figured out that there were some of our residents who took umbrage with Texans as much as they did people of color, so I think he took pride in both just to annoy them.”

  There was a lot of art on the walls, including an arresting portrait of a southwestern Buffalo Soldier standing in front of a Navajo blanket, Henry rifle on his s
houlder. I stepped closer to examine the painting and thought the individual looked remarkably like Charley Lee himself. “This is an extraordinary painting.”

  Carol nodded. “Yes, he had remarkable taste.”

  Moving on to look at some of the others, I was surprised to discover that they were also actual paintings and not prints. “This is quite a little gallery he had here.”

  She pointed to a half-buried barrister bookcase. “There are also some artifacts in there. Charley Lee was one of our best amateur archaeologists, finding all kinds of things in the parade grounds and even stuff in the old stable, and I know people have been going through that place for a hundred years.”

  I stooped and peered at the rest of his mementos—spurs, cartridges, a belt buckle, square head nails, an old pair of wire-rimmed glasses, and a strange rattle with a hide-made head, miniature horns, and a tuft of buffalo hair. Opening the case, I picked up and studied the beaded, leather-covered stick and shook it, listening to the rattle. “Cheyenne.”

  Carol gestured under the twin bed. “The locker is under there.”

  I pulled the green-painted wooden box from under the bed, slid it between my legs, and turned it to face me. “Not very heavy.” I studied the clasp. “No lock?”

  “No.”

  “Wow.” Flipping the metal strap up, I lifted the lid, laying it back far enough for the small chain at the left to hold it open. There was a tray in the top, just as I’d remembered from my time in the Corps, with a few dividers. I picked up some photographs, which I studied. There was one of a beautiful young woman seated in a 70’s Pontiac with a hand stretched forward attempting to block the camera’s eye.

  I held it out to Carol. “Ella, his daughter?”

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  There were a few other photos, including a more formal one of another woman in a long dress whom I assumed had been Charley Lee’s late wife. “What emergency contact information do you have for him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  She shook her head. “He had a wife whom I would think is dead and Ella, his daughter.”

  “No contact information?”

  “We know Ella moved to California but after that, nothing.”

  I glanced around the room. “Oh, I don’t envy you.”

  “I’m betting there’s going to be not much hope of finding his scattered family, even if they’re still alive, but I think Ella got married out there. Not sure if she had children, though, but that might be the place to start.”

  “Check the hospital, I’m sure they’ve got records.” Replacing the photos in their cubby, I scanned the rest of the tray that held a few medals and decorations, three old bottles, and a couple of baseballs, signed by guys whom Charley must’ve played with back in the day. “Somebody should research this stuff. Heck, one of these could be signed by the black Babe Ruth for all we know.”

  Carefully lifting the tray, I sat it on the bed beside me. “So, the box was just setting here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.” I glanced back in the footlocker at the neatly folded clothes and what looked to be an old army blanket, blue with red trim. “Cavalry blanket from the Civil War or the Indian Wars.” Pulling some of the clothes out, I sat them on the bed beside me. There was an army dress uniform that would’ve gone with the Florsheims and a couple of dress shirts and ties so thin you could’ve used them as shoestrings.

  No letters, no notes, no journals, or anything else that might’ve given us a clue as to how Charley could’ve come by the pile of cash.

  The only thing left was the blanket, so I lifted it from the corner and watched as a few mothballs fell out and bounced on the tile floor, headed for the woodwork, but stymied by the stacks. Their smell filled the room, and I was about to put it back when a stiff piece of material slipped from the folds.

  Carol and I looked at each other.

  It was canvas, a little over a foot square, not in the best shape, but there was an image on one of the sides. It was pretty rough, but the paint was vibrant and the image very clear—some kind of Indian warrior in full headdress looking down at a mustachioed cavalryman; both men are locked in a death struggle. There was a cloud of what might’ve been smoke covering the Indian’s groin, and he had his hand around the soldier’s throat. The blue-clad horseman was grabbing the chief’s arm with a look of grim determination even as the Indian was bringing a war club down on his head. The decimated headdress on the Indian was strange looking, almost like one that a Seminole might have worn, but as far as I knew they never wore headdresses.

  “It’s a painting, or part of one.”

  Carol came over. “It looks old.”

  “Yep.”

  “Any signature or date on it?”

  “Not that I can see.” I glanced around the room at the assembled art. “Now, with all this, why didn’t he have this one on his wall too?”

  “Maybe it had sentimental value.”

  I studied the oddity. “It’s old . . . and strange.” Turning it, I looked at the edges. “The canvas is unpainted on the ends, so it wasn’t cut from a larger piece.”

  “Do you think it has something to do with the money?”

  I shrugged. “Possibly, possibly not, but I can take it someplace and have it analyzed—maybe run it over to the Brinton in Big Horn. Maybe the museum can tell us what it is, or what it’s worth.” Glancing around at the paintings, I had a thought. “Did he have any kind of safe-deposit box?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Did he have a will, or anything?”

  “I’ve been going through his files, and he has it marked that he does.” She glanced around the room at the stacks. “But we haven’t found it yet.”

  I joined her in the looking, wondering where you’d start, and glad it wasn’t my job.

  * * *

  —

  “There’s no way to trace it.”

  I gestured toward the box of money, now on the banker’s desk. “It’s money, I thought that’s what you guys did.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help.” The young banker, Wes Haskins, shook his head and adjusted his glasses. “The bills are not serialized, they’re just random, and the binding tabs have no identification on them at all.”

  I leaned against the closed door. “Can you give me something to go on?”

  “Florsheim makes a nice shoe . . .”

  “Wes.”

  He picked up the loose stack and studied the binder. “The tabs are self-adhesive, so I’d say no older than the nineties, but we can run it through the counter and get a date on the bills themselves to give you a general idea of the age.”

  “Okay.”

  “One thing.”

  “All right.”

  “We’re going to have to alert the state and the IRS.” He looked down at the box. “Over ten thousand dollars, and it has to be reported, and this is a lot more than ten thousand.”

  “Great. And where are they?”

  “Over in Sheridan.”

  “Alert away, but I’ve got a question—does Charley Lee have a safe-deposit box here at the bank?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “You’ll have to go through probate or get a warrant for that kind of information, Walt.”

  I sighed. “The old president would’ve just told me.”

  “I could go to jail.”

  I glanced across the street at my offices. “Not mine.”

  There was a pause, and then he spoke. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Just, yes.”

  “Charley Lee Stillwater does have a safe-deposit box here at the bank?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “So, he doesn’t?”

  “I didn’t say that either.”

  “You said
yes.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Concerning?”

  “Just yes.”

  “Right, got it.” I reached out and dumped the entire lot on his desk, carefully unpeeling the grocery bag and placing it back into the box before putting the top back on and rubber banding it. “I think . . .”

  “One more thing?”

  I tucked the box under my arm and opened the door. “Yep?”

  He pointed at my package. “That is the current bag used by the IGA, here in town.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  He pulled an identical bag from under his desk and placed it on top of the mound of cash. “Jen packed my lunch in one today.”

  * * *

  —

  “This is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”

  Henry Standing Bear, owner, proprietor, and best friend, glanced over his shoulder at the whooping and hollering emitting from the vintage Sony Trinitron above his head. “Yes, in the canon of truly horrible Custer films this is perhaps one of the worst.”

  “How do you suppose they got Robert Shaw to be in it?”

  Producing another can of Rainier on my Red Pony Bar & Grill coaster, he crushed and pitched the empty into the recycling bin. “I would imagine, and this is only a guess, that there was drinking involved.”

  My undersheriff, Victoria Moretti, studied the side of my face. “We could’ve all had bonuses.”

  Ignoring her, I continued looking up at the screen where Custer and his men fired a ridiculous canon at some really embarrassingly dressed Indian extras. “I think they filmed this one in Spain.”

  “We could’ve all had new vehicles.”

  Continuing to watch the movie, I pontificated. “I guess they couldn’t afford horses.”

  She lifted her wine and saluted the TV. “We could’ve all taken a cruise to Italy.”

  Taking a sip of my beer, I gestured toward the actors. “From the outfits, what tribe would you say those Natives are, Henry?”