The Dark Horse wl-5

by Craig Johnson

  Bill followed us over to the thick rails that made up the pivoting double gate. The hardware was handmade, and I could see all sorts of finishing touches in the forged steel, a talent which was far beyond the abilities of most ranchers. Even the chains that held the sign above us looked handmade.

  Bill leaned on the top rail with the Winchester lying parallel, his forearms covering the rifle. “The fella that built this place was a blacksmith by trade, but he dabbled in masonry.”

  “Uh huh.” I propped up an elbow of my own on the worn spot just where you would have gripped to pull the custom latch. I could see that the four-inch rails were smoothed, where horsemen had sidled against the gate for more than a half-century, so that they could open it without dismounting, saving themselves the ignominy of becoming a cowboy afoot.

  “Knew what he was doing: back to the cliffs, easy access to water, and those beautiful mountains off in the distance.” Bill stood there for a moment, breathing in the flavor of the changing wind as it followed the bottomland and climbed the cliffs that surrounded a perfect basin where the homestead was located and where the air was sweet and heavy with the life-affirming humidity of the river. “He had a wife who was probably the prettiest thing in the Powder River country-musical, too. Played the piano, as I recall.”

  There were a few juniper and some cottonwood trees growing up from the fissures in the rock along the cliff, the volunteers mimicking the shimmer of the big guys by the ranch house. There was an old road that led down to the huddle of buildings, but until you were almost upon it, the place was completely concealed from the outside. You had to know it was here to get here.

  I turned as Dog circled the perimeter, taking in the smells, and I could feel a little of the moisture collecting in my eyes. “Whatever happened to them?”

  Bill stood with his back against the gate, the rifle now propped against the fence, and gestured with his chin for me to join him. He scratched his neck where his protruding Adam’s apple strained as he continued to look up at the ranch sign. “They had a boy who played ball, offensive tackle for USC, but I don’t think he ever amounted to much.”

  The chains that held the sign racked against the eyelet bolts with the wind and then relaxed, the sound like spurs jingling on a hardwood floor. Memories were crowding in on me now, and all I could do was stand there and take the hits like a tackling dummy.

  He finally lowered his head and took a sip of the rye as I stared at the sky and read the name I knew as well as my own. Because it was my own.

  The gusts pushed against the wooden plank, but the letters that my father had carved deep into the whorls of the iron-wood were still highly legible and read, LONGMIRE.

  8

  October 28, 5:40 P.M.

  I handed the bottle back to him and stood there, still feeling the burn in my throat as I thought about what Henry had said alongside the red road, about knowing where we were going. “You remembered my family after all these years, Bill?”

  He blew out a deep breath that pursed his lips. “Yeah. I heard about Martha getting the cancer and I know I should’ve gotten in touch, but I didn’t, and after that it just kept getting harder and harder to work up the nerve.” He readjusted, still in search of a comfortable spot for his butt on the top rail, and tossed a small pebble into the roadway that stretched down to my father’s house. “I figured I’d see you again.” He laughed. “I don’t mind telling ya, I was getting worried thinking I was going to have to write you a letter from Denver. Hell, I’d rather take a bullet than write a letter.”

  I walked away from the gate toward the edge of the cliff and stared at the reflections on the water as Buffalo Creek twisted its way to the reservoir that I had helped my father build. I stood there on the bluff overlooking the place where I’d grown up, trying to deflect the flood of history and emotion. “After they died, I just stopped coming out this way.”

  “I know.” He took another swig of the liquor and gestured toward the tidy ranch house with the stone archways shading the front porch and to me with both hands, his voice echoing off the rock face. “Funny how you can have your life some place and then just pick up one day and walk away.”

  “How long did you know it was me?”

  He smiled. “I met Eric Boss before, and he wasn’t what everybody was describing. I read the newspapers, and you’ve been in there a lot lately.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then I got a look at you at the bar last night.”

  “You were there?”

  “Nope. I started to come in but saw you and turned around and went home.”

  “What time?”

  He smiled. “You sound like a sheriff now.”

  I didn’t smile. “What time?”

  He cleared his throat and spit to the side, wobbled a little, and paused. He looked like he might puke, but he only belched and turned back to me. “ ’Bout eleven-thirty. It looked like you were havin’ a little scrape with that Cly fella.”

  “Who else knows who I am?”

  He made a face. “Nobody.”

  “Nobody?”

  His eyes stayed steady underneath the brows. “Nobody that I know of.”

  I took a deep breath and looked at the homestead and then at the sign again.

  His eyes narrowed as he watched me but then widened as he followed my gaze. “I’ll be damned. There aren’t that many Longmires around these parts, and I’ve heard the stories about your grandfather and that fugitive buffalo soldier.”

  “Did you recognize Henry back there on the road?”

  He waited a minute, aware that I’d changed the subject. “Yeah. I think more people know who he is than know who you are. He’s kind of a celebrity around these parts… He played ball, too. Didn’t he?”

  “Running back for the Cal Bears, appropriately enough.”

  His head nodded, maybe a little more than it should have. “Both of you were good-what happened?”

  “Vietnam.” I looked back toward the house, my eyes unable to leave it alone. “Do you think anybody’s made any connections?”

  “Well, nobody’s said anything, but you’ve got ’em nervous.” He shook his head. “What the hell are you doin’ out here, Walt?”

  I plucked the. 30–30 from its resting place and examined the breech-it was loaded after all. I held it and looked at him. “You know, I thought you might have some other reasons for bringing me out here.”

  It took a long time for him to respond but, when he did, he looked confused and then just a little shocked. “Me?” We both looked at the Winchester. “I bring that thing with me everywhere I go anymore. With all the things goin’ on out here, I figure a man ought’a have some protection.”

  I walked back through the gate and leaned on the grill guard of his truck. “Who else has a red Dodge like yours?” He sat there, looking at me blankly. “Your new truck-anybody else have one like it?”

  “No, don’t think so.”

  “When did you put the plates on?”

  He thought about it. “This morning. I got ’em in the mail yesterday.”

  “Anybody else use your truck?”

  “No.” Then he reconsidered. “I let Hershel use it to haul some of the equipment over for the auction, but that’s it.”

  I thought about last night, when I’d carried the cowboy home. “Were you driving out on the Barton Road by the corrals last night?”

  He laughed. “That was you that brought Hershel back?” He laughed again. “I always make a loop to make sure he gets to his trailer all right.” He shook his head. “I was on my way home.”

  “When I saw your truck at the corrals, it passed me, then headed south and east.”

  It was silent for a bit-we both knew his place was north and west. He sniffed and covered his face with a hand. “I sometimes take Barton down to Middle Prong and then circle back on Wild Horse-just cruisin’.” He slid the palm of his hand down and rested his chin. “You’d be amazed at the things you’ll do if you think you’re n
ever gonna see a place again.”

  I looked over my shoulder and could see someone on horseback on the road leading up to and alongside the cliffs. “How about at the bar?”

  “When?”

  “Afterward.”

  He sounded honestly confused. “Like I told you, I went home and hung my keys by the door like I always do.”

  “So, you weren’t at the bar in Absalom at about one-thirty this morning?”

  “Hell, no. Like I said, I was at home asleep. I was in bed by midnight-I can guarantee it.” He fished in his shirt pocket, pulled out a plastic medicine vial, and rattled the contents. “Took two of these-boom, boom, out go the lights.”

  I held out a hand, and he threw me the bottle. I read the paper label and looked up at him. “Where did you get Mary Barsad’s medications?”

  He studied me. “It’s not what you think.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “It’s not.” He started to reach for the container, but I tightened my hand around it. His hand dropped. “She gave ’em to me. I was having trouble sleeping, and she thought they might help.”

  “Did they?”

  “Like a pole-axed steer.” I waited. “We were just friends, that’s all.” He watched me, trying to gauge my reaction. “I’d see her out ridin’ and we’d talk; pretty soon she’d stop by and have a cup of coffee. We got to talkin’, and if I was to tell you the truth, I think she felt sorry for me-and shit, Walt, I let her.”

  “Then I take it that you knew her pretty well?” He nodded. “Do you think she shot Wade?”

  He took a deep breath. “God, I don’t know-” He slipped off the fence, stretched his muscles, and walked toward the middle of the road with his palms at the small of his back. He spoke to the cliff. “I’d like to think that she didn’t do it but she says she did, so what the hell do you think?”

  I decided to keep a few hole cards where they belonged. “I’m not sure.”

  “I mean, they found her with the gun-”

  I knew the story. I’d heard it from Hershel and had read it in the Campbell County reports, but I figured I’d play along. “Who did?”

  “Well, Hershel; then he came and got me.”

  “Did he bring her?”

  “Nope, left her sitting there in the yard, but he took the gun and came and got me.”

  “He left her sitting in the yard with the house burning?”

  He turned to look at me. His voice was strained and was carried away by the wind. “Only the barn was burning when he came to get me, but by the time we got back over there the house had gone up, too. We found her sitting right where he’d left her.”

  “Hershel didn’t go in before and check on Wade, to see if he was dead?”

  “Yeah, now that I think about it, maybe he did.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t have done it.”

  I tossed the container of pills in the air, caught it, and held it up between us. “In the kitchen, you mentioned something about Mary, something you wanted to show me. Was it this?”

  He nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I figured it was the only guaranteed way to get you to come along with me.”

  I nodded. Dog had been sitting on my foot but raised his head to look at me when he noticed that the rider, who had a small child seated with him on the horse, was only a hundred yards off. I looked at the mounted young man in the cowboy hat. Tom Groneberg, to whom I leased the place, and the two-year-old boy who was sharing his saddle both recognized me and began waving. “You mind if I hang on to these?”

  “Not if you think it’ll help, but can I have two for the road?” I walked over, popped the cap, and tapped two of the white, oblong pills imprinted with “S421” into his open palm. “You never know when you might have a rough night.”

  Or a rough day. Boy howdy.

  October 22: six days earlier, night.

  Her eyes had reflected the streetlights that shone through Virgil’s window. She never seemed to really sleep, and I had begun to think she should try it standing up, like a horse.

  I stood, but she didn’t move, so I quietly patted my leg for Dog to follow. We slipped back into the main hallway and walked toward Vic’s office, where I could hear her softly tapping her keyboard.

  Her office was small, with the Wyoming law binders covering the walls, but she liked it crowded. Her legs were stretched out with her naked feet crossed at the ankles on the edge of her desk, the keyboard in her lap. Dog settled on the floor, his big head between his paws, and I occupied the gray plastic chair. “What’s the word, Thunderbird?”

  She waved for me to hold on a second, continued typing an e-mail message, and pressed send. She mumbled in response to my question. “What’s the price, forty-four twice. What’s the joy, nature boy. What’s the reason, grapes are in season.” She turned and sighed-an undersheriff’s work is never done. “The toxicologist in Cheyenne is flirting with me.”

  “On state time?”

  She shrugged an eyebrow. “Hey, I get it where I can.”

  I ignored the comment. “I thought Saizarbitoria was going to research this-”

  She interrupted. “I sent him home.”

  “-medication.”

  “No thanks, I’ve got plenty.” She stared at me as I waited, finally glancing up at the ceiling and reciting, “Eszopiclone is a nonbenzodiazepine, nonimidazopyridine, cyclopyrrolone hypnotic sedative. The stuff was developed in the eighties, refined and tested in the nineties, and is now a widely available prescription drug.”

  She placed the keyboard back on her desk but kept her shapely ankles on display. Her boots and socks were on the floor by the wastebasket. It was a warm night, so she had taken them off, which revealed her perfectly pedicured feet. She had rolled up her jeans to make Wyoming culottes, something she did a lot in the summertime-I guessed this wardrobe decision was her swan song-and her muscled calves showed to perfect advantage.

  “It works by binding to the GABA receptors in the brain, but beyond that connection they’re really not sure how the stuff works.” She glanced at the computer screen, hit another button, and the drug company’s logo and active screen commercial came up. Vic knocked the syrupy music down and looked at me. “Most of these hypnotic and sedative drugs are still a mystery to the companies that produce them-all for people with chronic insomnia like your friend back there.”

  “So, the pills are legit?”

  She nodded. “DCI ran every test they had and guess what?” He waited. “They’re sleeping pills.” She glanced back at the computer screen as a couple frolicked on a beach at sunset. “The only effect that most people notice is a bitter, metallic taste in the mouth called dysgeusia.” She considered me, with her head slightly cocked. “Do you believe they have a fucking scientific term for bitter metallic taste?”

  I nodded. “We used to just call it fear.”

  “Five to ten minutes after dosing, you get the taste.” She threw a chin toward the computer screen. “Ten to fifteen minutes and you’re out, REM sleep within the hour.”

  “Can you OD on it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Anything more than about thirty-six milligrams and you’re looking at an activated charcoal cocktail or the pump, and you’re also likely looking at renal or liver damage; then, depending on that damage, you go to operation bank account.”

  “Which is?”

  “Going through pockets for loose change.”

  I sighed.

  “There is one important note concerning our case though, and that is that the medication is for temporary usage.” She stared at me. “Sleeping Beauty’s been using this stuff for almost two years. Who knows how much of this crap is backed up in her system or what effect it has.”

  “Illegal use?”

  “There’s a small niche in the drug culture of addicts that use the stuff since it’s DEA Schedule IV and easy to get. They use it for the come-down phase after cocaine, meth, LSD, MDMA, and all the ‘upper’ drugs. ADD and ADHD patients use the stuff to come down after spending the day on amph
etamine variants.” She pointed at the screen as the happy actors collapsed in giant feather beds, surrounded by huge, sleepily floating butterflies hovering over them. All in all, it was kind of creepy. “Do you believe this crap? I mean, if you’re to the point of drugging yourself into a stupor to go to sleep at night, you’re probably not leading an idyllic life.”

  “An extra Rainier usually works for me.”

  I started to get up, but she swung her chair around, hooked the aforementioned naked calves behind my legs, and pulled herself in close, grasping my thighs with her capable hands. “I usually rely on hot, sweaty, jungle monkey sex.” She leaned in, and our noses were about eight inches apart. “Works every time.”

  I didn’t move. “I hear that can be very addictive, too.”

  Her face grew closer, and her voice lowered to a rough whisper. “Oh, yeah.”

  “I’m still thinking about going out to Absalom.”

  She leaned in, even closer than before. “You know, I think we’re developing an unhealthy pattern here. Every time I talk about the job, you talk about sex, and every time I talk about sex, you talk about the job.” I watched as the smile hollowed under her cheekbones and traced her grin.

  “Kind of a passive-aggressive thing?”

  I could feel her hands running up and down my thighs, building heat. “I’m okay with either, and I have my own handcuffs.” I leaned back in my chair and broke the spell as she looked at me. “What?”

  I took a breath. “I’ve got a question for you, a serious one.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want to be sheriff in two years?”

  She leaned back in her own chair and thought about it. “This is a serious offer?”

  “Yep.”

  She took a breath and studied me with a hard look. “Why are you asking me this now?”

  It was a fair question, but I’d been giving the election considerable thought. “Well, the vote is next month and up to now I’ve only put in a halfhearted attempt.”

  She smiled at me with that oversized canine tooth. “Seems to me you’re giving everything a halfhearted attempt.” She dropped her legs. “What, you worried you’re not going to get reelected?”