She dropped her hand to pet the raccoon and glanced past me to look through the Venetian shades that were partially open. “In this weather, and with a gun?”
“Evidently, I am.”
“Then I can see why they are attempting to evade you.”
I swallowed, fighting the swells of confusion that kept lapping against my consciousness. “I’m a sheriff.”
She proceeded the rest of the way down the steps onto the Persian carpet. She was tall and wearing a cloche hat, with lips compressed in consternation. “You don’t look very well—are you ill?”
“No, I—”
“Perhaps you should come in and have a seat by the fire?”
“There isn’t any . . . ” I looked around and noticed something orange flickering off the heavy beveled glass of the French doors to my right, and I turned to see a robust stack of logs burning merrily away in the hearth.
“. . . Fire.”
She walked past me. “It gets cold in the winters after all the help has gone, so I’ve become quite proficient at making and tending the hearth.” She jostled the raccoon that had nuzzled her armpit and grasped her wrist with its tiny paws. “Rebecca here gets cold, but I can’t imagine why, with the wonderful collegiate coat she’s got.”
I smiled, trying to be gregarious. “Spoiled.”
She laughed a wonderful laugh, like music from a bygone era. “Not spoiled—pampered.”
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead with the back of my working hand. “You . . . you’re in charge of the place?”
“For quite some time now.” She gestured to me. “Come, sit.”
I shook my head and immediately felt even worse. “I really should be finding these people.” I took a deep breath. “Would you mind if I use your phone?”
“You’re welcome to it, if you can figure it out. I’ve never had any luck with the contraption.”
I nodded, smiled at her again, and turned toward the registration desk. “I’m not too good with . . .” The phone that had been there when I’d entered wasn’t there any longer; instead there was a patch panel attached to the wall and an old Roman-pillar-style phone with an earpiece hanging from it.
“. . . Phones.”
She extended a fingernail and aimed it toward the wall. “It has to do with the apparatus of plugs, but I didn’t ever have to do that type of thing myself, so I haven’t learned.” She grinned a vivacious smile. “Spoiled, I suppose you would say.”
“I need to find these people.”
“So you said.” She picked up the candelabra. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat first, especially since there’s someone in the dining room who is waiting to see you.”
“No, I . . . What?” Summoning my energies, I looked around and noticed that the sheets were no longer covering the furniture.
She breezed by me to the left, where wet boot prints led around the stairwell through a doorway. She turned, the light from the candles illuminating only one side of her lean and handsome face. “Shall we follow?”
I straightened, ignoring my arm, and raised the .45 up past my face. “Maybe you should let me go first?”
“As you wish.” I stumbled forward, catching myself on the doorjamb as she watched me, and I was entranced by the reflection of her eyes. “Young man?”
“Yep?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No, ma’am, but I sure wish I had.”
She put the candelabra on the newel post again and crossed back to the desk, where she reached up and opened a recessed cabinet above her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Rebecca is very handy.” She looked at the critter, who had climbed into the cabinet near the ceiling. “The bottle, Rebecca, if you will.” A moment later the masked bandit reappeared with a small pint. “Thank you, dear.” She extended a hand and the raccoon climbed out and jumped into the safety of her arms.
She turned and walked back over, holding the bottle out to me.
“What’s this?”
“Medicine.” She gestured for me to take it. “At least that’s what the night watchman calls it.”
I stuffed my Colt under my arm and took it, the label aged yellow with a discolored ribbon and stamped seal wrapped near the cork. I read the label aloud. “OLD TAYLOR, OVER 16 SUMMERS OLD.” I tried to hand it back to her. “I don’t think I should have this.”
She fluttered a hand at me. “Nonsense, just a taste. I’ve been doing it for years.”
Sighing, I opened the bottle and took a swig—it was like a little spark at the back of my throat, flavorful and delicate with no aftertaste of the alcohol. “It’s good.” I took another.
She reached up and spirited it away; corking it as she crossed, she handed it back to the raccoon. “All the way in the back, Rebecca. We mustn’t let the night watchman know what we’ve been up to.”
I had to admit that the whiskey had helped. I nodded my thanks and started through the doorway, but the raccoon reached up and touched the saturated sleeve of my coat, first looking at it and then up at me with her little bandit face, the only sound the drip of something on the gleaming floor.
—
The Pheasant Room, at least that’s what the plaque above the door proudly proclaimed, was darkly paneled and appropriately full of pheasants, with a taxidermied bird forever captured in midflight adorning each panel above the mission-style windows that seemed to allow light in from the outside.
Maybe it was clearing up.
I stepped onto the wide-planked pine floor and glanced around the room at the dozen or so perfectly set tables—pristine, white tablecloths, sparkling silver, china adorned with those same pheasants, shining goblets, and fresh flowers in cut crystal vases finishing the arrangements.
Seemed a little over the top for a lodge that was closed up for the winter, but it surely was not my place to complain.
There was music playing from an old baby grand piano tucked in the corner—I was a fan of boogie-woogie and knew it was Sophie Tucker, the last of the red-hot mamas—but there was no one seated on the bench. The keys depressed and the song was unmistakable; I just wondered who was really playing and singing. I wandered over to the instrument and touched the keys with the barrel of my Colt, but the second the metal touched the ivory, the music stopped.
I stood there for a few seconds but then felt as though someone was seated at one of the dining room tables, so I turned very slowly and raised my .45, but lowered it to my side as I became aware that there was nothing there.
Taking a deep breath, I noticed that the tracks I had been following led past the sideboard behind me.
I stepped to my left but stumbled into one of the chairs and was suddenly overcome with a sense of fatigue and cold again. Standing there for a few minutes more, I decided I’d better get a move on and started to the left out of the dining room where I found myself once again in the front lobby which was now empty. I started up the steps—the creaking of the treads was obnoxiously loud, even with the carpet covering them, but I finally reached a small landing one flight up that overlooked the dining room where I’d just been.
There were two stairwells that led to the second floor, but with my head really swimming now, I took the nearest one. The hallway was tastefully appointed with period wallpaper and antique fixtures that glowed and flickered. Gaslights. Odd.
I slowly checked each door, starting with the nearest one, but they were all locked except the one on the far end. There were two letters on that door that read KC, and I carefully pushed it open to reveal a very nice room with a highboy, a four-poster bed, and a small writing desk. I glanced down at the desk and could see a brass plaque that read CALVIN COOLIDGE’S WRITING DESK, 1927, WHEN THE GAME LODGE WAS USED AS THE SUMMER WHITE HOUSE.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and backed out of the room, checkin
g the knobs on all the doors in the hallway again, but none of them moved. I decided, as tired as I was, to go downstairs and wait until I heard something.
They went up, they would eventually have to come down.
Using the banister the entire way, I stopped at the mezzanine to look into the dining room and this time I could see that there was a hulking figure seated at one of the tables; he turned his huge double head and looked up at me.
I was glad to see him.
—
I seated myself opposite him—well, more like I had my legs collapse beneath me, making me park my butt on the chair and rest the Colt in my lap, which I covered with a napkin to honor the formality evident in the dining room. Leaning back in the chair, I rested my numb arm on my lap—the thing felt like it weighed a ton—and could hear the dripping noise that sounded like Chinese water torture but more delicate.
“Virgil White Buffalo.”
He continued to smile, cocking his and the great bear’s head sideways to look at me, the familiar smell of campfire, sage, and cedar wafting off him as it usually did. “How are you, lawman?”
“Tired.”
His head and the one on the headdress straightened, and he leaned in, his face above mine with an expression of concern. “And hurt again, I see.”
I looked at him. “Seems like I always am when I see you.”
He placed an elbow on the table and tucked a fist under his chin, the all-black eyes searing into me with a ferociously flashing intelligence. “Maybe that is when you need me.”
I searched the opening leading toward the reception area but couldn’t see the woman with the raccoon. “You bring friends with you from the Camp of the Dead?”
He grinned. “She is married to one of the great white fathers and talks a great deal, but her power is strong here.” He folded his arms on the table, and I was entranced by the intricate beadwork on his shirtsleeves. “There are many who wish to see you, but I bring only those who are necessary.”
“People say you don’t exist.”
He brushed my words away with a wave of one of his huge, scarred hands, the silver ring with the circling turquoise and coral wolves pacing around the wedding finger. “We are finite beings; how can we understand the infinite? It is enough for me that I have these opportunities to visit with you and perhaps assist you in the trials of this life.”
I tried to bring my hand up to check to see if that same ring that I’d taken from his hand in the Bighorns was still on the chain around my neck, but it wouldn’t work. “How did you get your ring back?”
He turned it on his finger in an absentminded manner, once again brushing away my words with a batting of his hand. “What are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“The ones you are hunting.”
I took a deep breath and tried to keep my head level. “Wait. Sometimes it’s the best thing you can do.”
“Who taught you that?”
I laughed. “My father; he was a very good hunter.”
His chin came forward in an attempt to catch my wandering attention. “He taught you lots of things?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Remember those things.” His eyes narrowed, and the blackness in them was boundless. “Above all else, you must remember the things your father taught you in the next few moments.” He reached across and straightened me on my chair. “But right now, tell me, in this life, lawman—at what places have you stood and seen the good?”
I smiled a sickly grin. “Too many to count.” I slouched toward the table again. “But you were right about the bad things, too . . .”
He studied me. “I am here to tell you they are not over.”
I suddenly felt the scouring wing tips all along the insides of my lungs. “What do you mean?”
“Prepare yourself.” He sighed deeply. “You will stand and see the bad. The dead will rise and the blind will see.”
There was a noise from the landing.
I looked up slowly and saw that Roberta Payne and the man, Deke, who was holding a hunting rifle loosely aimed at me and a handgun on her, were standing at the top of the stairs.
I coughed. “Roberta? Nice to meet you, ma’am. And Deke—Deke, that’s your name, right? Howdy.”
“You know, I’ve made a study of you.”
I did my best to adjust my eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty careful about who I go up against—I like having an edge.” He gestured toward my arm. “For example, I know that you’re right-handed and that hand looks pretty useless.”
“Something tells me you don’t really make a living as a gambler.”
“Oh, I do back in Vegas . . . But I also do a little work on the side.”
“Why are you here?”
“To do what I do best.” He smiled and leaned on the railing. “Killing two birds with one stone. I figured it’d be tougher than this—killing you.” He let that one settle in before speaking again, and the only other sound was the delicate Chinese water torture. “I didn’t suspect I could just waltz down those steps and find you in here all alone, talking to yourself like a loony.”
I shifted my eyes across the table, but the legendary Crow Indian, as I’d suspected, was missing. I turned my head a little, just to make sure, but there was no one there—no woman, no raccoon, no pheasants, no table settings, and even the piano was gone.
“Did you know there was a contract out on you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, somebody pretty important wants you dead.” He smiled and gestured toward Roberta. “She was Willie’s, but I took her when I found out about the trust and because I could. Besides, I figured if I kept pumping the money, it would be you that came after her.” He paused and added, “Well, the guy that hired me did.”
“Who was that?”
“Yeah, I heard you talking to someone and figured there must be more than one of you down here; I figured maybe the Indian.”
I continued to stare around at the now unfamiliar room. “I . . . I guess I got distracted.”
“I guess you did, and it’s going to cost you, but first I’ve got some business to attend to.” And with that, he raised the small-caliber pistol and fired it into the back of Roberta Payne’s head. The woman bounced off the paneled divider between the stairs and then her head and a shoulder went through the railing, and she hung there with an arm hanging straight out.
I lurched from behind the table, and it tipped and fell over as I brought my .45 from under the missing napkin and leveled it at him just as he fired the rifle at me.
The shot tore through the hem of my coat and grazed my leg as seven of my 230-grain rounds blew eleven inches into his chest at 835 feet per second, bouncing him off the back wall hard enough to push him through the railing to land on top of me.
We fell backward onto another table, collapsing it with a tremendous crash of splintering wood and dead weight.
He lay there on my chest, his face turned to mine. “You didn’t study me well enough.” His eyes flickered, and I knew he could still hear me. “My father was left-handed; all his guns were left-handed stocks and grips, so he taught me how to shoot with both hands.” His eyes dimmed and clouded and I looked past him to where Roberta stared at me, a rivulet of blood trailing down her alabaster arm through her upturned hand where it pooled and dripped through her fingers onto the polished hardwood floor like Chinese water torture.
“It’s my one saving . . .” My head lolled to the side, and I stared at a framed black-and-white photograph on the wall, a large portrait of the woman from the lobby, in the same clothes, hat, and pensive, handsome expression. She was holding a raccoon. Just below it, on the frame, was a small brass plaque that read FIRST LADY, MRS. COOLIDGE—1927.
“. . . Grace.”
11
They were sust
ained visions and with having dreamed them so recently, it was easy to summon them and try to make sense of the message they carried. I’d lain there on the dining room floor of the State Game Lodge, the images growing more and more real as the cold crept into me in tiny waves.
In the dream it was night and I was standing just below a frozen ridge surrounded by herds of white buffalo that had circled and watched me, their breath filling the air and warming it. The snow was deep, and from the tracks I’d left, I could see that I had come a long way; my legs were tired, and the cuffs of snow piled up against my thighs had stopped me in my tracks.
At the top of the ridge, at a place I couldn’t seem to reach, a man was standing with his back to me, a tall man, broad, with silver hair to his waist. Independent of the conditions, he was in his shirtsleeves and stood there singing—a Cheyenne song.
I pushed off, but my boots slipped in the deep snow and I fell, finally satisfied, along with the buffalo, to just hear his song.
It was a clear night, the kind that freezes the air in your lungs with the advantage of nothing standing between your upturned face and the glittering cold of those pinpricks in the endless darkness, the wash of stars constructing the hanging road as it arced toward the Camp of the Dead.
The man had stopped singing and now half turned toward me, speaking from the side of his mouth. “You will stand and see the bad; the dead shall rise, and the blind will see.”
It was a voice I’d heard before, even though I couldn’t exactly place it. “Virgil?”
He half-turned toward me, his profile sharp, and I could see that it was not Virgil White Buffalo as he studied me from the corner of one eye. “You are bleeding?”
I looked down at the blood saturating the snow around me and the neck and chest of my sheepskin coat. “Um, yep . . . I think I am.”
He turned toward me fully and walked easily over the deep snow, kneeling and taking my face in his hands, and I could see that he had no eyes. The empty sockets looked almost as if they shot through his head like twin telescopes magnifying the black, infinite space with only a few aberrant sparks of warmth from dying stars. “Good, we can use the humidity.”
Any Other Name: A Longmire Mystery Page 18