The Western Star

by Craig Johnson

  I stood and steadied myself. “Well, then, how come you didn’t take a nap?”

  “I napped in a booth in the dining car.” He gestured toward the rear and started off with me in tow. “They say they’re gonna need some help loading the casket in, and you’d be amazed how many bad backs suddenly pop up at a time like this.”

  “I bet.” I locked the door to the cabin. “And nothing else has happened?”

  “There aren’t any more dead sheriffs, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That’s a relief.” I stooped and glanced out the windows at the blowing snow.

  “If you’re looking at the weather, it’s shitty, with a chance of shittier.”

  “Are we going to make Elk Mountain?”

  Just then the train slowed substantially, and I threw out a hand to steady myself.

  “We might make it there, but I’m not so sure we’ll make it over.”

  As we moved through the dining car, I could see Gibbs along with some of the other kitchen personnel putting things away in the galley, and he joined us on the far end, wiping his hands on an apron. “I put some food in the refrigerator for you, Mr. Longmire. The sheriff here said you were asleep, but I thought you might get hungry before the night is over.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Gibbs.” He followed us. “You should hang on to every scrap of food you’ve got, just in case we get snowed in up on the pass.”

  “Oh, we got plenty of food, there’s no worry in that.”

  We walked through the last connection between the dining car and the caboose, the real bite of the storm blowing between the cracks and through the gaps in the moving metal floor. Inside the caboose, my greatest hits were assembled—the security guy, Joe Holland, and Sheriffs Inda, Brown, Tillman, and Phelps.

  Tillman smoked a cigarette between clenched teeth. “Have a nice nap, this time in your own cabin?”

  I nodded. “Goes with a clear conscience.”

  We all bundled ourselves up as the train continued to slow. Brown, who was closest to the door, pulled at his hat as the train ground to an agonizingly slow stop. “Let’s go, the engineer says we’ve got only fifteen minutes. If we don’t get him on here in that amount of time we’re going to be chasing a train in a snowstorm while carrying a pine box.”

  Four of us followed him, waiting as Gibbs, the only brains in the outfit, reached out and unhooked the chain that ran across the back railing.

  Lucian stayed behind on the platform.

  A late-fifties Cadillac hearse from a Carbon County mortuary was backed up to the crossing, where the arms were down blocking the road; the Caddy blinked red along with the lights and the accompanying Klaxons screamed a warning.

  Stomping across the snow, embedding the cinders and ash into our footsteps, we stood at the back of the hearse while an attendant and the Carbon County sheriff opened the door. The wind was blowing hard, the snow sticking to the side of my face. The other men hesitated, so I stepped up and took hold of one of the cheap, metal handles on the side and started pulling. “C’mon, let’s go. It’s cold out here, and the train is going to leave without us if we don’t hustle.”

  They all looked a bit shocked, but it jarred them into motion. Without looking back, I started walking toward the train. I was certainly an expert at carrying bodies, and in that moment I began to wonder if the stench of death was really what was chasing everything I cared about away from me.

  When we reached the platform Lucian and Gibbs did the best they could dragging the oblong box into the caboose, but weren’t making much headway. I quickly climbed the side steps, grabbed the two front handles, and pulled Marv Leeland into the train for his last ride.

  By the time I got the coffin situated, the others had gotten back on, and no sooner had they done so than the steel wheels began to roll toward Elk Mountain.

  I’d started to stand when somebody pushed me hard against the wall of the caboose. Catching myself, I whirled around to find John Schafer spitting with rage.

  “You tried to search my room?”

  Rearing up to my full height, I looked down at him, and his hand automatically slipped to his side. “Yep, I searched your room and found all those nifty little trophies from the newspapers you’ve got tucked away in your suitcase—and if you go to pull that revolver at your side, I’m going to push the thing down your ever-loving throat and pull the trigger till I hear it click.”

  He had the good sense to believe me, because his arm went slack. “I keep those clippings to remind me of what my brother did, and why I did what I had to do.” He puffed himself up for more and pointed a finger at the coffin. “I still think you had something to do with this man’s death, if not the disappearance of George McKay.” He didn’t sound all that convinced, but threw in a bit more to make it stick. “I need a drink, but if you touch that coffin while I’m gone, I’ll see you hang, tough guy.”

  They filed out after giving me hard looks, but I’d had hard looks thrown at me before and had found they bounced off pretty easily.

  I stretched my neck muscles and tried to unclench my jaw, but the pain in the back of my head wasn’t giving up, and I was beginning to think that my unconscious was hammering out a message in Morse code to the frontal lobe.

  Gibbs and Sheriff Connelly were still standing there, sadly studying the cheap pine box. Lucian shook his head, unzipped his fleece-lined flight jacket, and pulled out his flask. “Well, boy, I am here to tell you that you sure haven’t been making friends and influencing people on this trip—”

  “Sheriff Connelly.”

  “I mean, if you’ve got anybody on your side on this train other than me and Gibbs here—”

  “Sheriff Connelly.”

  He gestured toward the coffin. “Excluding obvious company—”

  “Lucian.”

  He finally stopped and cocked his head at me. “What, what, for God’s sake?”

  I kneeled down and ran a hand across the wet, rough grain of the wooden planks where the snow was melting and then pushed my hat back and stared at the two of them. “How much did Marv Leeland weigh?”

  —

  As we walked out of the house, I stopped and stood there on the porch, that niggling feeling running up and down my spine.

  Vic glanced back at me. “Do you smell what I smell?”

  I went back in the house, stood in the living room, and sniffed. It was faint, but there was a metallic smell that grew stronger as I approached the hallway and the back door. The button on the latch was broken, and I pushed the door wide, stepped onto the concrete stoop, and looked around.

  There was a picnic table that had seen better days and an open space next door where a gigantic billboard sat, crouched on the hill above the interstate highway, advertising Brian Scott’s morning radio show on K2.

  There was a breeze coming from the west, and I walked in that direction. It was a smell I’d encountered many times before and not a pleasant one. There was a low chain-link fence between me and the weedy field where the billboard stood, through which I could see a blue tarp rolled up in the weeds at the base of the sign.

  Vic and the Cheyenne patrolman hopped the fence and followed me as I walked toward the sign with the face of the voice of Wyoming looking down at me, a hand over his mouth, almost as if he were surprised to find me there.

  The tarp had been expertly tied with a nylon rope, the kind that was used for clotheslines, but the outline was unmistakable, even without the blood seeping from one end.

  I kneeled down by the body and measured the size against the dimensions in my head as Vic stood a step away. “It’s not her, but it’s somebody.”

  Severini’s voice sounded over my shoulder. “You’d better not touch anything.”

  I slipped my knife from my back pocket. “I’m cutting this one piece of rope just so I can see the face.”

  “I would
n’t do that—we can get DCI over here in a matter of minutes.”

  “I’m here now—and I need to know who this is.” Vic stepped between us, and he didn’t say anything more. I unlocked the blade and slipped it under the loop nearest the head. The tarp flapped in the breeze, and I reached into my coat pockets for my gloves, putting them on and carefully drawing the plastic away.

  It was Ricardo, Alexia’s nephew. Pulling the tarp back a bit more, I could see where his throat had been viciously cut almost halfway through.

  I replaced the tarp over his face. “He’s the nephew of the woman I’m looking for.” I reached a hand out to Vic. “Can I borrow your phone again?”

  She handed it over, and I dialed Cady’s house number. Henry picked up after two rings. “Longmire residence.”

  “It’s me. Have you heard or seen anything from Alexia?”

  “No, we thought you were going to her house.”

  “I did, and found her nephew. Somebody killed him.”

  There was a brief pause. “No sign of her?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Stay there with my granddaughter, and I’ll call Cady. Something is going on.”

  The line went dead, and I dialed Cady’s number at work. “Wyoming attorney general’s office.”

  “This is Sheriff Walt Longmire. I’d like to speak to my daughter, Cady Longmire.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  She put me on hold and then the phone rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  “Hello, this is Cady Longmire . . .”

  “Cady.”

  The recording continued unabated. “I’m not available to answer your call right now. . . .”

  I hung up and hit redial, and the same woman answered. “Wyoming attorney—”

  “Hey, it’s Walt Longmire again. Cady’s not in her office.”

  The woman sounded slightly annoyed. “Okay.”

  “Can you look around and see if you can find her?”

  “Mr. Longmire,” she began, in a tone of voice that made it clear that she had far better things to do than anything I requested.

  “Sheriff Longmire.”

  “I’m sure she’s just stepped away from her desk, or maybe she’s gone out to lunch. Is this an emergency?”

  “Ma’am, I am kneeling over a dead body about two miles from your office, and I need to talk to my daughter right now.”

  That got her attention. “Um, yes, yes, sir. I’ll see if I can find her. Will you hold?”

  “Yep.”

  As I waited, I watched Severini talking into his body mic. Then he called over to me, “DCI and the Mystery Mobile will be here in a few minutes.” He nodded toward the body. “Did you know him?”

  Vic and I shared a glance. “Yes, well, I met him once.” My eyes went back to the tarp. “He played guitar.”

  “Sheriff Longmire?”

  I turned the phone back to my ear. “Yep?”

  “It’s just as I thought; she’s out to lunch.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, I really couldn’t say,” she quickly added. “One of my coworkers who was at the front desk said she left with a nice young man—a David Coulter?”

  15

  Looking for a hammer and a chisel in the toolbox underneath the cot, the first thing I noticed was that Gibbs’s spare boots and coveralls weren’t in there.

  I found the tools, which looked as if they might’ve been left over from the transcontinental railway days, but I decided not to say anything about the missing clothing. I nudged the toolbox over a little and sat on it as I wedged the business end of the wood-handled chisel between the lid and the coffin itself, gently tapping the edge of the tool inward with the hammer.

  “What in the hell do you suppose you’re gonna find in there?”

  I glanced up at my boss. “Like I said before—how much do you think Marv Leeland weighed?”

  “Hell if I know, one sixty or so, give or take?”

  I looked at the cook. “Mr. Gibbs, you tried to move this box; did it feel like it weighed a hundred and sixty pounds?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Maybe it’s the box, sir.”

  I shook my head and hammered the chisel, using it to gradually pry the top open. “The track repair crew said they found a man missing an arm on the side of the tracks near Fort Fred Steele, right?”

  Lucian nodded. “Yeah.”

  I popped the lid up enough to where I could get my fingers underneath and then yanked.

  We weren’t rewarded with a body per se, but rather something I’d seen entirely too much of in the last few years, and we all looked down at the heavy-duty, rubberized black fabric with the carry loops and single zipper: an HRP, a human remains pouch, a body bag. I guess the U.S. government had a surplus.

  For a moment I felt like I was falling backward, when really I was frozen in place, and even though I was aware of everything in the caboose, I couldn’t move.

  “Mr. Longmire, sir?”

  Lucian’s voice called from far away. “Walt?”

  “They used to use cotton mattress covers. . . .”

  Sheriff Connelly looked at me strangely. “Come again?”

  “In the old days, they used to use mattress covers, but they decided that they needed something that was leakproof. We used ’em for carrying and storing everything when I was . . . when I was over there—ammo, rations, medical supplies.”

  Lucian looked me in the eye. “You all right?”

  I took a deep breath. “Yep. I’m okay. Sorry.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right.”

  I nodded. “The crew said they found a man missing an arm, not a one-armed man.” I leaned over and unzipped the bag, plainly revealing the bloodied face of Sheriff George McKay. “Even with an entire limb missing, he’d easily outweigh Leeland.”

  Lucian kneeled down across from me. “What in the holy hell?”

  I glanced up at Gibbs. “The amount of blood on the platform of the caboose and the missing cleaver from your kitchen—somebody hacked McKay’s arm off so we’d think it was Leeland.”

  Gibbs kneeled with us. “But why kill Sheriff McKay?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” I unzipped the bag a bit more. “I don’t think cutting off his arm killed him, so I want to know what did.”

  Lucian pulled his side of the rubberized canvas back, revealing McKay’s chest, where there was more blood. “Well, I want to know that, too, but I also want to know what the hell happened to Marv Leeland.”

  The dead man’s clothes were blood soaked and frozen, but I was able to pull them apart enough to confirm that McKay had been shot. I leaned back, sat on the toolbox behind me, and looked at my boss. “I’m willing to bet that that’s a .38 slug in him, and that it matches your weapon. Somebody used your gun, Sheriff Connelly.”

  He made a face. “How? We locked our damn door every time we left the cabin.”

  We both turned and looked at Gibbs.

  He shook his head. “I’m gettin’ forgetful, but any of the porters could’ve opened that door; we all have passkeys.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “No.” He thought about it. “Well, Mr. Holland, he’s got one.”

  Lucian snorted. “He’s the one that hit you over the head.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s our killer—anybody could’ve stolen a key. We’ve got a means and opportunity, but what’s the motive? I can’t figure any reason Holland would kill either Leeland or McKay.”

  “What say we go talk to him?” Sheriff Connelly thought about it, pulling at his lip before he spoke again. “We’ll want him alone, which means it would be easier if we got him back here, but if he knows we’ve yanked the lid off this box he might n
ot be so open to the idea.” Lucian turned and looked at Gibbs.

  He stood and backed away, holding his hands out in supplication. “Sheriff, I told Mr. Longmire I’d just as soon not be involved. Mr. Holland, he’s the head security man on this line, and he can have me fired with a word.”

  I glanced at the door and the train beyond. “That’s all right; I’ve got an alternative plan. Mr. Gibbs, would you be so kind as to call on Miss LeClerc in her cabin and tell her I’d like to speak with her?”

  He glanced at the open coffin. “Here?”

  “I’ll catch her before she gets to the caboose.”

  He thought about it. “Yes, sir, I can do that.”

  As he started to go, I called after him. “And if you would, please don’t mention anything about what we’ve done and seen here.”

  He nodded. “I have no intention, sir.”

  He ducked through the doorway, and the cold blast of air swept past us as I turned to Lucian. “What’s your bet?”

  “Holland, he seems to have one sideways and he had access to and knowledge of everything on this train.”

  “John Schafer?”

  “What would he have to gain?”

  “Marv Leeland?”

  “What about him? He’s out there alongside the tracks getting covered up with snow.”

  “Habeas corpus.”

  “Habeas kiss my ass.” He gestured toward the open box. “It’s a miracle that they found McKay, and the only reason they did was because he got dumped near a crossing and there was a maintenance crew working that portion of the line.” He studied me.

  I stooped and zipped up the body bag and placed the lid back on the pine box. “Help me put this thing back together—I don’t think there’s any reason to expose everybody else to this.”

  He lifted the other end and aligned it as I began tapping the nails back in place. When I finished, I tossed the tools in the box and started toward the front of the train. “You wait here, and I’ll intercept Kim before she gets this far and get her to lure Holland this way.”