“I agree. You look,” she paused, searching for the right words, “grown up. Nice beard.”
Sam reached up and rubbed his stubble. “I haven’t had a chance to shave in a few days.”
“You’re a man,” she observed, eyeing him. “You look fit.”
“Unintended weight loss. It’s deceiving.”
She looked thoughtful about the comment. Then she glanced down at his hand, noticing the absence of a ring. “Your mom said you’d married.”
“My marriage ended six months ago.” For the first time he thought it seemed a lot longer than six months. He thought that was a good thing. “It just took me a while to figure it out.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“She’s already moved on,” he shrugged. He thought it would take a little more time for his heart to catch up to his head, but he felt clear about it.
“Marriage can be tough. I don’t know a lot of happy ones.”
“Glad it didn’t happen when mom was alive. She liked Maggie.”
If his mother had been alive Sam knew she’d stand with her son. A mother’s duty. But Miriam was the kind who always forgave, particularly if it was about a woman’s relationship with a man.
“They got along,” Sam added, “the few times mom came out to visit. Things just... didn’t work out the way Maggie wanted, I guess.”
“No accounting for a woman’s perspective.”
Sam didn’t smile, but he appreciated the gesture. All he would get. All he deserved, he guessed. Though he still considered Carmine Salazar an interloper and his wife (ex-wife, he corrected)... he wasn’t sure what he thought about Maggie anymore. “I guess,” Sam said. “The same could be said for a man’s.”
“No disagreement there. A man like Hank Gunderson gets liquored up, with some spare change in one pocket and his dick in the other, and he thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”
Sam smiled. Her comment and the akvavit lightened the atmosphere in the room. “If you ever need any assistance with that Range justice, count me in.”
“Like I said, I’ll have to think on it. But I appreciate your offer. It’s not only about getting even.” Diane set her glass down in front of her. “That’d do for starters. But I’d really like to arrange it so he won’t, or can’t, think with his dick ever again.”
Sam thought that sounded dangerous. “You might have to settle for getting even.”
She turned back to the fire. “You’re probably right,” she reluctantly agreed. “I had to call the guy on some background for an obit I’m writing about your father. He said he’d get back to me, he was in the middle of something. Before I knew it he was knocking on my door. Said he was on his way to Vermilion Falls and he decided to swing by and give me everything I needed.”
She stared at the logs, which were picking up a good flame. “Not that I was surprised. The man hasn’t had eye contact with a woman since puberty. He’s too busy staring at their chests.”
True enough, Sam smiled. And not just for Hank Gunderson.
Diane looked at him and said, “You’re here to recover your things,” as though she’d just remembered.
Normally, Sam would have been more reticent about his life, particularly since it had recently involved breaking and entering and theft. But spending a few moments in Diane’s presence, and sitting down on her couch, seeing her cabin and remembering how she felt about Bill Grebs and Hank Gunderson and his father, Sam was reminded of everything his mother liked about her. It wasn’t only her perspective, but the sense you had she was in control. Diane Talbott conveyed fearlessness. He hadn’t known a lot of women like her. Certainly not his mother. Maggie was partly like her, but not entirely. The idea Hank Gunderson believed, even for a millisecond, he could sleep with Diane Talbott was a testament to the car salesman’s ignorance or drunkenness or dick logic or all three.
“Already did,” Sam finally said.
Diane smiled, a little surprised. “Your mother would be pleased. In the weeks leading up to her passing she worried about you. She was happy you’d done well, creating a new life, putting yourself through school, becoming a big deal in the USFW.”
The idea that his mother shared her sense of pride pleased him, but also made him wonder if she had shared too much information with too many. Someone besides Diane Talbott had his contact information. He could almost hear his mother recounting every one of his small successes: to the postman, the grocer, Diane, to the entire crowd at Opel’s Café. “I’m not a big deal,” he corrected. “A field agent.”
“You’re a wildlife biologist and a wolf expert,” Diane said. “Your mother had a big heart and the ability to see the best in everything, even your father. And she had blinders for the uglier parts in all of us. And she knew it. So the fact is when she’d give me updates about your career I took it as a mother’s zeal. But then I saw a write-up about your wolf repopulation efforts in Colorado, in that magazine from the International Wolf Center in Ely.”
Sam remembered it.
“You’ve done well, considering what you had to endure as a kid. A USFW field agent and wildlife biologist. Specializing in wolves, but if I remember right you’ve done work on all the American predators. It was the wolves part that made your mom the happiest, considering the Winthrop family heritage.”
Sam smiled. “Someone from the clan had to atone for three generations of annihilation.”
“Your mother was happy it was you. She didn’t have what was required to spit in her husband’s eye, but she was glad you chose a different path than Williston’s. And hers.”
“Did she ever let him know where I was, what I was doing, my new name?”
“Never. At least that I know of. But she would have known your efforts would have pissed him off. She might have said something, just to get in a dig. A woman’s right and an estranged wife’s duty.”
True enough, Sam thought. He could only imagine what his old man, if he’d learned about Sam’s efforts, felt about it. Now that he was back on the Range and seeing it through the eyes of a different time, a different life, he felt again the regret over not returning earlier and facing the old man. When he’d seen Gunderson, seen how he’d put on weight, grayed, had a throat wattle, Sam realized that Gunderson, the old man, all of them, were 20 years older. They’d aged and he suspected some of the bite had gone out of their teeth.
He should have come back.
Now that Gunderson knew about him, the others would soon find out. It would only be a matter of time before he’d have a chance to face them. He guessed Grebs, to start. He was looking forward to it. But even Sam knew he would have to pick his battles.
“About my things,” he started. “Now that I’ve got them, I need to store them someplace safe. My jeep and my room at the Defiance Hotel don’t give me a lot of options. Even Grebs might be able to find them.”
“How much is there?”
He paused. “A duffel bag about the size of a dismantled 10 gauge shotgun, a shoebox full of money, and four jars of my mother’s preserves.”
Diane was surprised, then smiled. “Some of us guessed about some money. Your mom never said anything, but after she died, Marlene, over at the Vermilion Falls State Bank, overheard Williston in a heated exchange with the bank’s president. Something about lost money and getting sued, though we never heard any more about it. Glad to know Miriam put it someplace safe. You can keep that duffel here,” she offered. “I can put it where no one will ever find it.”
“I appreciate that.” He set down his glass and stood up from the couch. “It’s so damn cold out there I’d better go fetch it before those preserves freeze and the jars burst.”
“Where’d you park?” she asked, for the first time realizing she hadn’t heard his car come up her drive.
“Down off that side road.”
“If you’ve got a four-wheel drive and can get up my h
ill there’s plenty of room next to my Datsun.”
“Sounds good.” He put on his coat, hat, gloves, and wrapped the scarf around his neck. He paused for a moment, thinking. “There was also a note with my things. And a copy of mom’s will,” he said.
Diane looked at him. “And the will left everything to you?” she guessed.
“Everything.”
“I knew it! Your mom told me that’s what she was going to do. But there was another will in which she left everything to Williston.”
“I know. Someone—no idea who—sent me a copy of that will. In a PDF file. But it pre-dates this version.”
“I asked the Sheriff to look into it, but at the time everything appeared to be in order.”
“I know. She left a letter with the will; worried the old man would change it. I guess she knew him pretty well.”
“I guess,” Diane agreed.
“Was the Sheriff a friend of Williston’s?”
“Hardly. At least not that I know of. Dean Goddard, our Sheriff, is around your age. And from everything I can tell he’s a straight shooter. If Dean Goddard had found anything he’d have brought it out. Williston had been practicing law on the Range for the last 40 years. He’d seen his share of last wills and testaments. If anyone would have known how to change a will, make it look legitimate, it would have been Williston. He had the ability and he had the motive and Miriam knew he’d do it.”
“Know any lawyers? I don’t know if, after a will’s been probated, it can be reconsidered.” He also wanted to know about Williston Winthrop’s will. Who would have an electronic copy of the will within a day of the old man’s death? If he could identify them, he might discover the identity of canislupustruth.
Diane thought about it. “Didn’t you go to school with Jeff Dunlap?”
Sam remembered the name. Then he vaguely recollected the kid, a year or two behind him in school. Defiance was small enough so everyone knew everyone. “Little Jeff Dunlap?” he asked.
“Assistant County Attorney Jeff Dunlap,” Diane smiled. “Like you, Little Jeff has grown up.”
Sam nodded. “I remember him,” he said. Then he turned. “I’ll get my jeep.”
Diane let him out. The idea Sam might be able to wrest Miriam’s estate from the Club members’ hands, particularly Hank Gunderson’s, pleased her. It wasn’t the kind of Range justice she had in mind, but it was a start. And the idea of getting even with Hank a whole lot sooner than she’d expected made Diane smile.
Sam walked back to his jeep, warmed by Diane’s fire and the akvavit. Breathing in the 10-below air felt like the Swedish drink over ice. He started the jeep, turned around and headed back to Diane’s cabin. He was taking a risk, trusting a woman he hadn’t seen in 20 years. Yesterday he didn’t have a whole lot to lose. Now he had a shoebox full of money and his mother’s rightful will.
He pulled up her drive and parked.
He decided to take a chance. But he resolved to keep at least one eye open. Considering his subject, it wasn’t an unpleasant proposition.
Part III
The caribou feeds the wolf, but it is the wolf who keeps the caribou strong.
Keewatin (Inuit) Proverb
Chapter Seventeen
January 31st, after midnight—the Winthrop Building
Dean and Belinda Goddard’s phone rang. Startled awake, Dean wasn’t sure where he was, what it was. He rolled over, rising out of deep sleep and the phone made another jangle. He reached over and picked it up.
“Yeah?”
“Dean?” Smith Garnes.
“Yeah,” he managed. Belinda’s bed creaked in the next room.
“Sorry to wake you. Thought you might like to know. There’s a fire in Defiance.”
“Yeah?”
“The Winthrop building is going up like a Roman Candle.”
Goddard’s eyes opened. “No shit?”
“Came into 911 about ten minutes ago. I was just making sure the volunteers were called up, but I doubt it’ll do any good. Happened after midnight and it’s an old wooden building.”
Dean remembered. “Who called it in?”
“Old lady Cummins. She lives down off Main Street, above the closed Ben Franklin store. She’d just finished the Tonight Show and was in bed having trouble sleeping when she saw a yellow flicker through her window. When she got up and looked, the place was already covered in flames.”
“I bet,” was all Goddard could think to say. “I better drive over and have a look. Grebs been called?”
“Yeah. He’s on the scene, or should be in a few minutes.”
He thanked Smith and hung up.
On the corner of Main and Second the volunteer fire truck was plugged into a nearby hydrant. Grebs’s patrol car stood parked across the street, at an angle that prevented traffic from getting through. But there wasn’t much traffic, given the early morning hour and the deep cold. The fire was burning like a blast furnace. There were almost a dozen volunteer firefighters, all dressed in heavy gear. The water that wasn’t affected by the heat had frozen solid. The adjacent buildings were covered with sparkling icicles, and clouds of smoke and steam rose into the frosty night air.
Grebs got out of his patrol car as Goddard parked and approached.
“We caught it in time,” he said. “They’ve got it under control. At least it’s contained. The building’s gutted, though. Not much left.” Grebs was excited, like an athlete after a big game.
“Anybody know what happened?”
“Martha Cummins saw it first. It was late. Fire Marshall’s been called. He’s on his way. But I don’t think there’s much to see. By the time Martha saw it, it was pretty much ablaze.”
“Anybody else see it?”
“Nobody.”
“Wasn’t Will Winthrop’s office in that building?”
Grebs nodded.
“Anybody get anything out?”
“I got here right after they did. There was no way you could go near it. They started spraying down the fire and the adjacent buildings, trying to keep them wet.”
“Or frozen.”
“Either way. They didn’t want ’em to burn. I think they contained it. But Williston’s office is ashes.”
As Goddard walked a little closer he could feel the heat on his face. The firefighters milled around the edges, spraying down the buildings, staying in that narrow zone between the blistering heat and the deep freeze. It was well below zero, terrible for fighting a fire, but it had to be contained. As they watched, the Fire Marshall’s car came up Main and parked behind the Sheriff’s cruiser. Walt Gibbons stepped out of his car, walked over to where Grebs and Goddard stood. Walt was a roly-poly man just past sixty, with a cherub face and a bushy gray mustache. Nothing put Walt Gibbons in a more jovial mood than a big fire.
“Gentleman,” he said.
“How ya‘ doin‘, Walt?” Sheriff Goddard said, extending his hand.
“Couldn’t be better,” he said, staring at the fiery ruin.
Grebs greeted him with a nod. “Walt.”
“Looks like a goddamn wood flambé with silver icing,” Walt observed.
The three men stared at the fire. The Fire Marshall paced to the left, considered the smoldering blaze from a different angle. He walked to the other side and then came back to center. Around and in front of him the volunteers were doing what they could to both contain the blaze and stay warm and dry.
“Looks like they have it under control. It’ll just be keeping it corralled from here on out. Anybody see anything?”
“Not until it was stoked up like a goddamn bonfire,” Grebs said.
The Sheriff was peering into what remained of the caved-in structure. The timbers were still firing, blackened and charred beneath the yellow flames. There was no way anything, particularly anything combustible, could have survived that b
laze. He didn’t know if it was a good thing. Could be, if the only place Williston kept that video was on his office computer, where Dean had viewed it. If, on the other hand, he’d kept copies elsewhere, they’d still need to be found and destroyed. He glanced sideways at the two men, watching Grebs observe the smoldering hulk. If Grebs knew about the video he was damn quiet about it. And if Goddard knew Grebs, if he knew about it he would have already leveraged it. Either that, or he would have been a whole lot more circumspect about watching it go up in flames.
“I’ll have to wait until well past morning to get in there,” Walt said.
“What do you think?” the Sheriff asked.
“No way to tell. That building was inspected last summer. As I recall, it needed some serious wiring repair. A sprinkler install. Don’t know if Winthrop made those improvements, but probably not,” he said, looking at the Sheriff.
“Probably not,” the Sheriff agreed.
Grebs was silent, watching the last of the building burn.
“The wife believes bad luck comes in threes,” Walt observed, staring into the blaze. He turned and with a wry smile added, “I guess that means we haven’t seen the last of Williston Winthrop’s misfortune.”
Grebs considered it. “Good thing dead men don’t worry about luck.”
Chapter Eighteen
January 31st, early morning—Williston Winthrop’s farm
Hank Gunderson could see Moon’s truck and Grebs’s police car in front of the farmhouse garage. He turned into the drive and sidled down two deep tire tracks that cut through the heavy snow. A bulging blue tarp covered the back of Moon’s truck. The wind lifted the corner of the tarp, revealing a row of empty cages.
“Shit,” he said, as if Clayton’s return and the Winthrop Building blaze weren’t complication enough.
Gunderson got out of his cab and examined the empty cages. Grebs and Moon came out of the barn. Hank zipped his coat, pulled on his hunting cap and thick, fur-lined mittens and started across the yard. It was bright and cold.
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