“Just because he was not there does not mean he was not there.”
I opened my eyes and wobbled them over to where he sat in the adjacent steamer chair; we might as well have been on a cruise. This was the first thing he’d said today, other than “How is the patient,” but I think that was meant for Cady more than me. He didn’t say anything else but sipped his own beer—and then mine.
“Hey.”
“WYDOT discovered the Jeep you mentioned on the slope leading down to Tensleep Canyon; they must’ve rolled it. The man and the woman were both dead.” He studied my wrapped hand that I tucked into my coverings like a mummy returning to the tomb and then handed me back the half-bottle of Rainier. It shadowed the blown-out, spine-ripped paperback of Dante’s Inferno that I’d decided to read again; something light for summer.
His dark eyes came up, and I suppose the period for silence had ended, but with Indians you never knew. I balanced my electrolytes again, without wiping off the bottle, just to show him that I valued our friendship over personal hygiene, and continued the running argument that we’d been having for weeks. “He was there.”
The Bear nodded and watched the birds as they skimmed back and forth between the crab apple and a struggling cottonwood at the corner of my cabin and said nothing. Like I said, with Indians it’s hard to tell.
“What about the location of Moser’s body and the four-wheeler?”
He blinked, pleased at having waited me out. “They were recovered along with the Thiokol and the other prisoner—and the one you left at Deer Haven.”
“Hector.”
“Hector.” He took a deep breath and exhaled from his nose like a shotgun blast, something more playing on his face. “You know, I do not think he liked the idea of being alone on the mountain surrounded by Indians.”
Vic joined the conversation from the open doorway behind me with the phone in her hand. “Speak of the devil.” She walked over to my chair and absconded with my beer, just as the Cheyenne Nation had, and handed me the phone. “Pancho Visa.”
She took a sip.
“Hey.”
“Tough.”
The gangbanger had been calling me sometimes twice a day to check on my progress. I brought the phone up to my undamaged ear. “Hector, you’ve got to stop calling.”
“No, wait. I’m jus’ sayin’. This is important. How you doin’, Sheriff?”
I watched as Vic lowered the bottle, and I was amazed and aroused by the way she could drink from the thing without allowing the slightest bit of lipstick to remain. “Hanging in there. Hector, is this a legal call?”
“Umm . . . Yeah. Was that that hot deputy of yours on the phone?”
“What do you want, Hector.”
“Oh yeah. The public defender here in Houston, David Thompson, wants to know if you’ll write a letter to the judge requesting a leave of absence . . .”
“Requesting leniency.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Leniency. Do you think you could do that?”
“Yep.”
“I mean, it’s pretty important. It would get me off the chair.”
“I’ll have Ruby write it up and I’ll sign it.” I reached for my beer but was denied.
“Cool. I don’t have the address, but I’ll get it and call you back.”
“You don’t have to, I can get . . .” The phone went dead in my hand. “Expect another call from the Bank Americard Bandit.” I gave the receiver back to Vic and looked at Henry. “What about the Ameri-Trans guard?”
He took my beer from Vic and drank. “The dead one?”
I nodded and tried not to think too much about the confrontation in the overhang. “The dead one.”
Vic walked past me, then turned and sat on the leg rest by my feet. “He had a criminal record that had gone undiscovered by Ameri-Trans. A chronic gambler, he was more than a quarter of a million dollars in debt. He had made a deal with Shade, but as everybody suspected, the money turned out to be bullshit.”
“You left quite a trail of prisoners and weapons the whole way.”
It had been like this, everyone asking me questions and then not being satisfied with my answers. Most had given up, but giving up was not in the Cheyenne or the Philly/Italian lexicon—there were only tactical retreats and then reattacks. If we were going to get past this, then I was going to have to ask some questions, which was something I didn’t want to do. I looked back at the mountain. “They didn’t look for the cave hard enough.”
The Cheyenne Nation was dressed for spring in worn jeans, moccasins, and a tan work shirt rolled at the cuff. He wore his hair loose because that was the way my daughter liked it. “It was a solid rock face, Walter. There were no ledges, caves, or crevices large enough to hold a marmot, never mind men the size of Virgil and you.”
“What about the hand?”
He took a deep breath and pointed. “There was no hand in that coat when the medical personnel removed it from you. I was there.”
I couldn’t help but put my own hand into the pocket of the tactical jacket. “I told you I lost it.”
Vic sipped my bottle of beer, a luxurious token to my recovery. “There wasn’t enough time to examine the area in and around Lake Marion in detail, but the rangers said they found a branch sticking out of the ice where you said you found the hand with the ring on it.”
It was quict again, and I was thinking about not talking.
Henry gazed at the mountains and one in particular. “I brought the lance to the state archeologist, Bill Matthews, and he confirmed that it is over a hundred and fifty years old and in remarkable shape.” He grew silent for a moment, and we listened to the birds making their bright, life-affirming sounds. “Matthews got curious when I told him the story Virgil supposedly told you about the drowned elk hunter who confronted the bear. He said he had heard this same story, researched it, and discovered that it did, indeed, occur.”
“There you go.”
His face slowly turned to mine. “Walter, it happened in 1898.”
I sat there, feeling as if I were sinking into the deck chair, falling away from everything and everybody I knew. I had fought so hard on the heights of the mountains to get back to them, and it seemed as if no matter how hard I scrambled to hold on, I was slipping away. “When was the last time Virgil picked up his supplies on the mountain?”
His eyes remained steady on mine. “More than five months ago.”
I fiddled with the lint in my pocket—I suppose still looking for a hand other than my own. “No one but me has seen him or heard of him or anything?”
“No.”
I returned to silence.
He stood, and I watched as he walked across the deck and looked at the mountains.
Kasey Pfaff had suffered from a few of my symptoms but to a lesser degree, and it looked as if McGroder was also going to be fine. Beatrice was awaiting sentencing by the Feds and being held in the Big Horn County jail, and Tommy Wayman gave Ruby a call periodically to let us know how she was doing.
My attention was drawn back to Vic as she turned and looked at Dog, spread out on the deck like a Kodiak, reminding me even more of Virgil. I hadn’t told anybody about Virgil’s living coat—hell, things were bad enough with everybody thinking I was a nut.
The Cheyenne Nation’s voice broke my reverie. “The memorial for Owen White Buffalo is to be held on Thursday. Will you be able to go? I think Eli delayed the services until you were better. He would like to speak with you.”
I nodded my head. “Is that what this is all about, me getting my story straight before meeting the family?”
The silence hung around the two of them like the clouds on the mountain, and just as majestic.
“Joe Iron Cloud discovered your .45 on the Knife’s Edge, and I found Omar’s rifle standing next to the boulder where you rested before the final ascent. It was propped up where we couldn’t miss it.”
I should’ve stopped playing with my ear before somebody yelled at me again, but it was itching. “Did it have an
y rounds left?”
“One.”
I glanced at Vic and reached out for my beer, which she started to hand back to me but then pulled away. “You think I’m crazy?”
She smiled a saddened smile. “Hey, you say Les Brown and his Band of Renown, Cy Young, and Harvey the six-foot rabbit were up there—I’m okay with it.”
Henry returned his gaze to the mountains. “Just because he was not there, does not mean he was not there.”
“I wish you would stop saying that.”
I felt a warm arm slip across my shoulder from behind and encircle my neck as Cady pulled my hand away from my ear. She smelled good as she propped her pointed chin on top of my head, strands of her red hair slipping down beside my face and covering my wounded feature. “I think insanity runs in the family. Hell, it practically gallops.”
To keep my hand away from my ear, I stuffed it back in my pocket. “Thanks a lot.”
Her voice vibrated through my head, and I was reminded of the echoes on the mountain. “I think . . .” She paused, and I noticed Henry had turned to look at us—for the first time he was smiling that flat, barely detectable smile of his. “That your brain produced what you needed to keep going, kind of a psychological enabler. Your mind realized your body was running out and that you needed help, so it summoned up Virgil. He’d already been on your mind because of Owen, and your greatest concern became your greatest need.”
Vic continued to sip my beer. “You were about to die, and you needed help.”
I didn’t respond.
“Is it that hard to believe?” Cady swung around looking at me with those frank, gray eyes of hers and sat on the arm of my chair. “Or would you rather believe in ghosts?”
I brushed a glance at Vic and then at the Cheyenne Nation. “I believe that he was there.”
“There was no cave, there were no prints.”
“The wind could’ve blown . . .”
“No, there were spots where they would have still been there, but the only tracks everybody found were yours.” She turned to look at Vic and then Henry, who could’ve nodded but spared me that. Cady turned back and kissed my ear. “I don’t know why it is you’re dwelling on this—you’re home, and you’re safe.” Her eyes started to well. “I’m just so glad. It was horrible to get that phone message. I couldn’t hear a lot of the words, but I knew it was you.”
My own eyes filled a little, too. “I just wanted to talk to you, hear your voice.”
She sobbed a little and then stifled it with her serious look. “I think you should stop doing things like this. You’re no spring chicken, you know.”
I pushed my fingers through the torn bottom of my pocket and into the lining of the Gore-Tex jacket. I thought about the things Virgil had said but tried not to dwell on the prophecy of upcoming sadness. “I know.”
She smiled bravely, and I watched as all at once the tears sprang in her eyes and wet her face, her whole body swelling. “No more mountains.”
I punched my fingers down to the bottom seam of the jacket. “No.”
Vic joined in. “No more falling off cars.”
My fingers closed on something. “No.”
Henry’s turn. “No more getting shot.”
A circle trapped in the corner. “No.”
“Good.” She swallowed and sniffed. “Because I’ve got something important to tell you.”
My fingers closed on the metallic object in the lining of my jacket, and I thought about what Virgil had said about the horrors of the Inferno, that they were the horrors of the mind and the only ones we need truly fear. “You’re pregnant.”
Cady inhaled and looked at both Henry and Vic, and then they all stared at me with more than startled expressions.
“And it’s a girl.”
Cady swiped at the tears streaking her face, and I wanted to say something more to her, something fine. It seemed that on the tip of my tongue was something it had taken me more than a half-century to learn, something wise, beautiful, and brave. They were words that my daughter and granddaughter would especially need to know now, about everything that would hold Virgil’s other prophecies at bay.
I pulled Cady off the armrest and into my lap, holding her close. I gasped a little in my happiness of having both of them in my arms, and lost the words, unable to hear them in the rushing sound of our blood—all three of us.
I kept her on my lap with one hand and continued to twist the fingers of the other into my pocket. I fished the piece of jewelry out of the lining. Wolves circled the silver background in turquoise and coral, chasing each other around the enormous band. Angled sideways, I could read the inscription: ICHISSHE, SANDRA—BACHEEISAA VIRGIL.
“With love for my husband Virgil, Sandra.” I held the ring up where they could all see it and then turned it sideways so that I could look through it and focus on the platinum strip of dying light at the very top of Cloud Peak.
APPENDIX
The folks who have read advance reader’s copies of the novel now in your hands were disappointed that I didn’t include the book lists that the extended members of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department made up for Saizarbitoria. I was concerned that it might slow the narrative, so I have included them, with their comments, here.
From Walt: The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote (where your nickname came from), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and anything by Anton Chekhov.
From Henry: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cheyenne Autumn, War and Peace, The Things They Carried, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, The Blessing Way, Beyond Good and Evil, The Teachings of Don Juan, Heart of Darkness, The Human Comedy, The Art of War.
From Vic: Justine, Concrete Charlie: The Story of Philadelphia Football Legend Chuck Bednarik, Medea (you’ll love it; it’s got a great ending), The Kama Sutra, Henry and June, The Onion Field, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Zorba the Greek, Madame Bovary, Richie Ashburn’s Phillies Trivia (fuck you, it’s a great book).
From Ruby: The Holy Bible (New Testament), The Pilgrim’s Progress, Inferno, Paradise Lost, My Ántonia, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Poems of Emily Dickinson, My Friend Flicka, Our Town.
From Dorothy: The Gastronomical Me, The French Chef Cookbook (you don’t eat, you don’t read), Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Something Fresh, The Sound and the Fury, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Brides-head Revisited.
From Lucian: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Band of Brothers, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Virginian, The Basque History of the World (so you can learn about your heritage you illiterate bastard), Hondo, Sackett, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Quartered Safe Out Here.
From Ferg: Riders of the Purple Sage, Kiss Me Deadly, Lonesome Dove, White Fang, A River Runs Through It (I saw the movie, but I heard the book was good, too), Kip Carey’s Official Wyoming Fishing Guide (sorry, kid, I couldn’t come up with ten but this ought to do).
Also by Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish
Death Without Company
Kindness Goes Unpunished
Another Man’s Moccasins
The Dark Horse
Junkyard Dogs
Walt Longmire 07 - Hell Is Empty Page 26