The Western Star

by Craig Johnson

  “Nope. Things quieted down after you got brought in here and then busted out.” He glanced at my gun belt. “I guess things have changed?”

  I shrugged. “For now.”

  He climbed off his perch, took another sip from the pint, and gestured around the room. “But a number of different men were back here in the caboose earlier in the evening, sir.” He glanced at Lucian. “Includin’ him.”

  The sheriff snorted. “I was looking for you.”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Leeland, Mr. Gibbs?”

  “He was back here talking with Mr. McKay.”

  Sheriff Connelly reached out for Gibbs’s bottle. “You mind?”

  “Help yourself.”

  He took a swig and pulled a face. “Jesus, what is that stuff?”

  Gibbs smiled. “Homemade.”

  “Broken home, I’m guessing.”

  I turned back to the chef. “Tell me about Mr. Leeland and the last time you saw him.”

  “Well, like I said, he was back here with that big man, and they was arguin’, so I left to go perform my duties and when I got back here they was gone.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  He shook his head. “I try not to get involved in white folks’ arguments.”

  I glanced around. “Is there anywhere to hide in here?”

  “Not really—well, there’s a few cupboards, a few fifty-gallon drums, and four high bunks, but I’m the only one that uses them.”

  My eyes settled on a large oak box. “What about that trunk there?”

  He stepped over and pulled up the lid, revealing tools, a pair of boots, and coveralls. “I keep these here for when I have to do something on the train and don’t want to get my whites dirty.”

  “And where does that ladder up there go?”

  “It’s just so you can see out or get on the roof.”

  I moved toward the back door. “And what’s out here?”

  “Nothin’, Mr. Longmire, jus’ a little platform on the end of the train.”

  “Well, if I were going to throw somebody off a train, I’d throw them off the back.” I pulled open the door and stepped out onto a small platform with wrought-iron railings, a gap at the center opening somewhat secured with only a spindly looking chain that swung back and forth in the red light emanating from the back of the caboose.

  As I stood there watching the Wyoming countryside recede, I thought about how my laissez-faire attitude about this trip had been altered since I was hit on the head. It was a lot colder out here in the wind, and I pulled my jacket around me, zipped it up, and pulled on my gloves. I was just getting ready to head back in when I looked down and saw a lot of dark stains on the platform. I yanked off a glove and stuck a finger in one, holding it up to my face as Lucian crowded the door behind me.

  “What the hell are you doing out there?”

  I sniffed at the congealed substance. “Blood, Sheriff Connelly, and a lot of it.” I looked at the saturated steps on either side of the platform. “Didn’t you say Leeland was shot?”

  “That’s what the Carbon County deputy said.”

  I thought about it. “And we stop in Rock Springs and then Evanston, where we turn around and head back?”

  “Yep. I imagine we’ll pick up Leeland’s body in Carbon County and haul it to Cheyenne for a proper autopsy.”

  Crouching there with Lucian standing beside me, I was face-to-face with the sheriff’s holster. At that moment I smelled the same scent that I’d caught when I’d handed him his sidearm back in our cabin.

  “Something wrong, Troop?”

  “No.” I thought about what I was going to do next. I’d played along as a soldier on a train full of generals and all it had gotten me so far was my head beat in—twice. This was going to be a gamble, but I didn’t see as I had anything to lose—well, besides my job.

  I stood and backed him up into the caboose, closed the door behind us, and pulled my Colt, transferring it to my left hand and letting it hang at my side. “Give me your weapon.”

  “What?”

  “Hand me your weapon, Sheriff.”

  “Like hell I will.” His hand dropped to it. “What is wrong with you, anyway?”

  He didn’t see it coming, not that anybody would have. I brought a roundhouse punch to the side of his head, which bounced him off the wooden wall. Catching my boss on the rebound, I carefully lowered him to the smooth, gray-painted floor.

  —

  Sitting in the far southeastern corner of the state, Pine Bluffs is barely Wyoming; you’d swear you were in Nebraska, which actually happens to border the east side of town. Originally named Rock Ranch, it was renamed by railroad officials for a nearby landmark: a collection of pines on a local hillside, the only trees for a hundred miles.

  In the early days, Pine Bluffs wasn’t much of a town—more like a tent with a chimney—but that changed when it became the final destination of many of the cattle drives from points south and therefore the largest cattle-shipping juncture on the Union Pacific Railroad. For some reason, it was also known as the best-lighted city of its size in the entire country. That, however, was then—now was a different story.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be hard to find her.” Lucian turned and looked at me pumping gas at the Sinclair service station. “Hell, I thought our town was small.”

  “Would you get Dog out and take him for a short walk while I pay?” I finished up and went inside—I don’t generally trust machines of any sort, but especially the ones that take your money. And besides, machines don’t answer questions.

  A middle-aged woman at the counter took my cash. “I’ll need a receipt, if you would, please?” She handed it to me, along with the change. “I’m looking for a woman by the name of Abigail Delahunt, possibly Leeland?”

  She peered at me above her glasses. “And who’s asking?”

  I pulled my badge wallet from my jacket pocket. “Walt Longmire, Absaroka County sheriff.”

  “She in some kind of trouble?”

  I noticed a copy of the Cheyenne Tribune-Eagle lying there and saw a picture of the prisoner in the hospital bed in Cheyenne, an oxygen mask covering most of his face.

  “No, I’d just like to speak with her.” I grabbed a paper and tossed some change on the counter.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh.”

  “The whole town took piano lessons from her, but I think she passed about ten years ago.” She picked up the money, then placed the heel of a hand on the counter and studied me. “You might want to check her house, but I don’t know the exact address. From what I understand, her daughter still gives lessons out of it, but that was a while ago, too, so might be she doesn’t either.”

  I pulled the sheet of paper the Cheyenne Nation had provided from my jacket pocket. “Elm Street?”

  “Maybe—right across from the park, I think.”

  I thanked her and met Lucian and the beast back at the truck. “This damn dog of yours spooked a cottontail and almost dragged this one-legged man to Nebraska.”

  I rustled the monster’s head, pulling an ear. “Sorry, he gets excited.”

  “You find where this woman lives?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Well, damn it to hell.” He glanced around. “Flatland for nothin’.”

  “His granddaughter might still be there.” I shrugged, opening the door so Dog could climb back in.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the house. An old handwritten sign hung in the window, advertising PIANO LESSONS, PIANIST AVAILABLE FOR WEDDINGS, RECEPTIONS, AND SOCIAL GATHERINGS.

  As I pulled to a stop behind a silver Dodge half-ton with Florida plates, the old sheriff adjusted his seat back and pulled his hat over his face. “Having no need for a pianist for a wedding, a reception, and/or a social gathering, I now intend to use
this critical juncture in the investigation to take a much-needed nap.”

  “You slept all the way here.”

  His voice was muffled under the Stetson. “That was my warm-up nap, not to be confused with my postnap nap, which I will be enjoying when we drive back to Cheyenne.”

  I said nothing and got out.

  It was a small house with an enclosed front porch, a common practice in our part of the world. The yard was overgrown, and the curtains were closed in the front windows.

  “Can I help you?” I glanced up at a blondish young woman with a thin nose who was standing in the doorway. “I’m not giving lessons anymore.” She was wearing an old-fashioned dress and sandals.

  “No? ’Cause I could use a few.” I stopped at the base of the stairs and looked up at the woman, who seemed young enough to be Abigail Leeland’s daughter. “My name is Walt Longmire. I’m the sheriff of Absaroka County, up in the north-central part of the state, and I was hoping you could help me, Miss . . . ?”

  “Delahunt, Pamela Delahunt. Just Pam is fine.”

  “Pam, I was looking for the previous owner of this house—an Abigail Leeland or maybe Delahunt? I was hoping you might be able to tell me about her.”

  “My mother, she’s dead.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked a little confused. “What did you want to know?”

  “I’m not sure, actually. Marv Leeland was her father?”

  There was a pause, and she pulled back a strand of hair and secured it behind one ear. “My grandfather.”

  I nodded. “He was the sheriff over in Uinta County a long time ago.”

  “He died before I was born, so I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  I stood there looking at her. “All right, then, I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “He had one arm.”

  I stopped and looked back at her. “Marv Leeland did, yes.”

  “There was a piano piece she used to play with one hand, I mean written for a one-handed pianist.”

  “Piano Concerto for the Right Hand in D Major?”

  “Left . . . Left Hand in D Major.”

  I studied her. “Right you are; Ravel, I believe.”

  She smiled and hugged herself. “I guess Mom used to play it with him when she was little. She sometimes played it when she was teaching me.”

  “You’re from here?”

  She took a moment to respond. “Was, but not anymore.”

  I gestured toward the sign in her window. “Not too much call for piano teachers here in Pine Bluffs?”

  “No. I have a job offer in Jacksonville, Florida. I’ve already been there once, and now I’m just here picking up the last of my stuff.”

  “I saw your plates—tired of shoveling snow?”

  “Something like that.” She hugged herself and fiddled with the latch on the storm door. “Look, I’ve got things I need to do, so if there isn’t anything else . . . ?”

  “Okay, well, I’m sorry to have bothered you. Good luck in the Sunshine State.”

  “Thank you.” She closed the door and disappeared as I stood there thinking about normalcy, and how it wasn’t as prevalent as you might think. With one last glance, I walked back to my truck and climbed in.

  As I sat there going over the conversation in my head, Lucian’s muffled voice sounded from under his hat again. “Anything?”

  “Maybe.”

  That got him to push the Open Road back to look at me. “Well?”

  “She’s not being very forthcoming.”

  He shook his head. “Does that mean she’s not going to be much use, because if it does, why the hell don’t you just say she’s not going to be of much use?”

  “Because it wouldn’t be accurate.” I pulled on my seat belt and started the truck but just sat there. “I purposely misstated the Ravel piece that Marv Leeland loved so much, Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, and she corrected me—said she knew the piece from hearing her mother play it; but it’s strange for a young woman to be so familiar with an obscure piece when she claimed not to have known the man himself.”

  He stared at me. “I want you to know, there are times when I have absolutely no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

  I slipped the truck in gear and pulled out. “I’m thinking that Pamela Leeland-Delahunt might’ve been closer to the memory of her dead grandfather than it first would appear.”

  —

  “Damn!” Gibbs stood motionless. “You ain’t gonna hit anybody else, are you?”

  After reholstering my sidearm, I propped Lucian up and checked his pulse. “He’s all right; I just needed to look at his weapon, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to give it up voluntarily.”

  The old chef slipped down beside me. “Whatever for?”

  Thumbing off the safety strap, I slipped Lucian’s antique Smith & Wesson .38 from his worn holster. I held the barrel up to my nose and sniffed, then, thumbing open the cylinder, I looked at the empty chamber. “It’s been fired.”

  I went through my boss’s pockets and pulled out a folded piece of paper that looked familiar. “Do you own a sidearm, Mr. Gibbs?”

  He backed away. “No, sir.”

  “I’m not sure what’s going on around here tonight, but if I were you, I’d just as soon be armed.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Longmire, but I ain’t carrying.”

  I stuffed Sheriff Connelly’s weapon into the back of my gun belt.

  Gibbs looked at him and then at me. “Mr. Longmire, sir, now that I think of it, he was talkin’ with Mr. Leeland earlier this evening, too, and they was by themselves.”

  “Can you be more exact about the time?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, we know it was before Fort Fred Steele, which is where they found Sheriff Leeland, and I’m assuming it was after Medicine Bow.” I glanced at Lucian. “He was asleep when I left to go outside, or pretending to be.” I looked at Gibbs again. “Where were you when all this activity was going on?”

  “I was helping make the beds for all them drunk sheriffs and made a couple of runs back here for supplies.”

  I gestured toward the bottle in his hand. “And for a drink?” He looked ashamed, and I was sorry I mentioned it. “In those visits you never saw anybody open that back door?”

  He returned the bottle to the cupboard. “No, sir.”

  “Because it looks like somebody butchered a pig out there.” I moved toward the door and looked out into the night. “Did Mr. Holland or any of the sheriffs go out on that back stoop after they heard about Sheriff Leeland?”

  “Not that I know of, but I can’t be sure, ’cause like I said, I wasn’t back here that much.”

  I nodded. Figuring I had only a certain amount of time before the other search party came looking for us, and knowing this particular scene would be hard to explain, I gently slapped Lucian’s face. His eyelids began to flutter, and he grumbled a bit, knocking my hand away. “What the . . .”

  “Wake up.”

  “Hey . . .” His eyes refocused, and he looked at me. “What the hell?”

  “You fell.”

  “The hell I did; you hit me.” His hand automatically dropped to his side where he found his holster empty. “And for the sake of self-preservation, it’s a good thing you took my gun.” He laid a hand beside his jaw where I’d roundhoused him. “’Cause I damn well sure am going to give you a bit of the same—just as soon as I get my brain unscrambled.”

  “Lucian, your gun’s been fired.”

  He blinked a couple of times but then focused on me as I crouched there in front of him. “What?”

  “Unlike mine, your weapon’s been fired.” I pulled the revolver from the back of my belt and thumbed open the cylinder to show him the empty chamber. “Care to explain?”


  He sat there for a long while, and I was thinking he might be passing out again when he spoke. “You go to hell.” He stretched his jaw and gave me another sharp look. “And by the way, in case I haven’t mentioned it, you’re fired.”

  I shook the folded piece of paper in my hand and it opened like an accordion. “Okay, but before I throw your ass off this train, maybe you could explain how you had this in your pocket?”

  He made a noise in his throat. “Took it off you.”

  “Why?” He said nothing, so I continued. “You were back here with Marv alone, before he was killed. I know that for a fact; now, why?”

  “You think you’re the only one he talked to?” He shook his head at me. “He called me up a year ago and said he was passing through and did I want to get together and talk. He said that this shit was going on and that somebody was going to have to do something about this cabal, as he called it—and you called it, too.” He gestured toward the piece of paper. “That damn thing fell out of your pocket when they were loading you onto this train like a side of beef, and I figured either way it wasn’t good for them to find it on you.”

  I smiled. “So, you really don’t think I’m involved?”

  “Oh, hell, no. You’ve only been back in the lower forty-eight for, what, a month?”

  “About that.”

  He grinned. “On the other hand, I can see how you’d think I might have something to do with all this.” He rubbed his head and started to stand but then thought better of it and resettled. “When you got up, back in Medicine Bow, I started wondering if something was going on, so I gathered myself and took off after you.”

  “You followed me?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “When I got to the outside platform, I saw you and McKay having your little tête-à-tête. When he passed me on his way back inside, he said he was likely to reconfigure your general physiology, and I told him he better bring a posse ’cause it was more likely you’d stick your boot so far up his ass that his breath would smell like Kiwi shoe polish.” He ran a tongue around his mouth, as though checking for loose teeth. “Then he climbed on board.”

  “He got back on the train?”

  “He did.”