He pulled his Liberty revolver and thumbed open the cylinder, checking the load again. “I sure do hope you’re right about all this.”
“Me, too.” I stopped at the door. “Somebody’s desperate, first attempting to put it off on Leeland, then McKay, me, and now you. I think we’d better be careful who it is we trust.” I pushed open the door and, brushing off the snow, battled my way into the dining car. I glanced at the outline of the missing meat cleaver in the adjoining kitchen and thought of the gruesome job that had been done to McKay.
It took a special kind of man to do a thing like that.
I’d just reached up to touch the spot when I saw LeClerc coming from the other end and gestured for her to cut through the galley.
I met her in the kitchen, where no one was likely to interrupt us. “Sheriff McKay is dead.”
Her eyes widened.
“They found him on the tracks near Fort Fred Steele.”
“I thought that . . . that was Sheriff Leeland.”
“No, turns out it was McKay. I saw him myself—he’s in a coffin in the back.”
She swooned, catching herself with a hand on the counter. “Oh, my God.”
I put a hand at her back, not wanting to suggest intimacy but at the same time unwilling to let her fall onto the greasy floor. “I need your help.”
Her eyes came up to mine. “How could I help?”
“I need to get Holland back in the caboose alone, where I can talk to him, and you’re the only one I think can get that job done.”
“Holland?” She nodded, catching her breath. “You think he did it?”
“I’m not sure, but I want to talk to him.” I glanced around. “Do you know where he is?”
“He’s in the parlor car with a few of the other sheriffs—they’re all drinking.”
“Tell him you want to meet him in the caboose—I don’t care why or how, just get him back there.”
She swept her fingers under her eyes and straightened her jacket. “That, I can do.” She started to go but then stopped at the other end of the kitchen to look at me. “It’s funny that on a train full of sheriffs, a deputy is the one who’s going to catch the killer.”
“We’ll see.” As she left, I returned to the caboose to find Lucian alone. “Gibbs isn’t playing?”
“I don’t hardly think so, and I don’t blame him.”
I glanced out the window and could see that we’d definitely slowed to a crawl. “You want to get out of here, too?”
He leaned against the stairs leading to the cupola, tucked his weapon under his arm, and looked out the window with me. “Nope, but I’d be interested to know your plan—just get him back here and beat the truth out of him?”
“Marine Corps procedure; sometimes there’s nothing but straight ahead.”
“Just like this train?”
I took a position behind the caboose door and waited, listening to the frozen wind. “Just like.”
—
“There’s nothing on this Coulter character, and to be honest, I’d be more at ease if there was.”
I nodded at the phone. “Me, too.”
There was a hopeful pause from the attorney general. “Look, it could be nothing. . . .”
“The nanny is missing, and her nephew is rolled up in a tarp underneath a billboard on the side of I-80.”
He waited another moment before continuing. “I know, I know. Walt, we’re doing everything we can. Every police officer in Wyoming is out looking for this bastard and your daughter. We’re doing everything we can and more. We’ll find them. There’s no way he’ll do anything to her, because if he does he knows we’ll put him through a meat grinder and feed him to the black-footed ferrets.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed all the words that had no business being said. “You’ll keep me in the loop?”
“Absolutely. Call this number?”
“Yep, it’s Henry’s cell.” The phone went dead in my hand, and I passed it back to the Cheyenne Nation. “Nothing.”
He rocked my granddaughter back and forth in his arms as Vic looked on. “What do you want to do?”
“Find Cady.”
“And in lieu of that?”
Vic cupped her chin in her palm. “How ’bout we go out and drive at a high rate of speed and get our hands on somebody?”
“It has to be the right somebody.”
She nodded, saying nothing more.
Cady’s home phone rang, and I picked it up, stretching the cord to its max. “Yep?”
“Is this the Longmire residence?”
The voice was unfamiliar, and I was quick to respond. “Walt Longmire speaking.”
“Sheriff Longmire, this is Dave Walker from the Denver Post, and I was wondering if you’d care to comment on the release of the prisoner. . . .”
I hung up the phone.
The Bear studied me. “More about the impending release?”
“Yep.”
“Should be sometime tonight.”
“I don’t care.”
He nodded but didn’t say any more. I leaned against the counter and looked around. “If I hadn’t been so absorbed with all that, I might’ve seen this coming.”
Vic spoke quietly. “You think it’s Bidarte?”
“Who else could it be?”
Henry turned to look at me. “Alexia Mendez?”
I shook my head. “I find it extremely difficult to believe that she is involved with people who would kill her own nephew, or kidnap my daughter, for that matter.”
Vic’s voice was sharp. “If it actually was her nephew, or her name is Alexia Mendez.” I turned to look at her, and her eyes had narrowed. “We actually know very little about her, her nephew, and obviously the Coulter guy, if that’s really his name.”
“You think this has been a setup all along?”
“It’s possible.” She reached over and stroked Lola’s head. “After Michael, I don’t discount any possibilities.”
I thought about how myopic I’d been in the last week. It wasn’t like I could be on the lookout at all times, but Lucian had been right: as long as Bidarte was out there and there was a contract on my head, we were all just tin bears, ripe for the plinking. I thought about Michael—my son-in-law and Vic’s brother—who had been the first victim of the hit man’s revenge.
And now he had my daughter.
I should never have allowed this situation to go this far. I had no reason to think that the man was through—and I had no one to blame but myself.
Standing there looking through the window at the almost nonexistent skyline of the state capital, I made a promise to myself that I would get my daughter back whatever it took. At that moment, my eyes fell upon the metal shed in the hinterland between the buildings and the city property—and something just clicked.
I pushed myself away from the counter, stormed past Lucian, who was sleeping on the sofa, and slammed the door open, crossing the deck in about two steps and launching myself down the stairway toward the alley.
I could hear Vic and Henry yelling something at Lucian to wake up, take Lola, and stand guard as they thundered down the steps in an attempt to catch up.
I’d already made the street and had run across. Leaping over the chain-link fence and landing amid the frozen weeds and grass tufts, I banged into the tin shed and, barely fitting, slid between the brick wall and the outbuilding. The set of sliding doors were closed on the other side, but I ripped them open, revealing an inordinately clean, level space with plywood counters on three sides, along with a padded stool that was pushed to the center of the room.
Covering the walls was writing in a neat and precise hand, carefully notating in black marker all of our arrivals and departures in the last week, down to the second.
I stood there in the center, turning in a cir
cle, as Vic and Henry stumbled in behind me.
“Motherfucker.”
Toward the back of the hut was a perfect hole cut in the tin with a circular cover that looked to be about the size of a 35mm camera lens. I turned to look at the Bear, who rumbled, “You should have let me kill him.”
—
“Is it me, or is the train slowing down again?”
Sheriff Connelly glanced out the window. “Yep, we are. It’s possible they’ve given up on trying to outrun the storm or that they got word from up the line that the pass at Elk Mountain is already closed. Either way, it ain’t good.”
I glanced through the window toward the next car. “Here he comes.”
As soon as Holland came through the door, I pinned him against the wall with my forearm under his chin and my free hand wedging his sidearm into its holster. “Don’t move, don’t even breathe, or I’ll pitch you through that back door. If you survive the fall, you’ll freeze to death before you get to the next town.”
His eyes were bulging, but he nodded.
“You see that box there on the floor?” He did his best to look tough, but when I leaned in a little and began lifting him off the floor, he quickly nodded. “Who’s in it?”
He gripped my arm with his free hand in an attempt to get me to loosen my hold, which I did. He choked and coughed and then spoke in a rasping voice. “Marv Leeland; didn’t you get the memo?”
“I’ve got another question, wise guy: do you know how Leeland was killed?”
“I suspect it had something to do with being thrown off a train.”
“Did you get a formal report from the Carbon County deputies?”
“No, they said they’d file it with their paperwork and send it to Cheyenne.”
“I suspect that the body in that box was shot with Lucian’s revolver, and since I don’t think he did it, I’m figuring somebody was in our cabin and borrowed his sidearm to do the deed. Why didn’t you and Schafer want us opening that box?”
He swallowed hard and coughed. “It’s evidence, damn it.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not Marv Leeland.”
“Who the hell else could a one-armed man be?”
“George McKay.” His eyes widened. “Somebody shot him and then cut off his arm to make us think it was Leeland; now, who could’ve possibly wanted to do that?”
He struggled to get the words out. “I’m telling you, I don’t know.”
“Who else could’ve had a key to open our cabin, Holland?”
He gargled the words out in a rush. “Hell, practically all of us have passkeys to open up every door in this train as a safety precaution. Including your buddy the cook!”
I stood there holding him a moment more but then slowly lowered his heels to the floor as I considered what he said. After all, Gibbs had been opening doors for me. “Why would he do it?”
He rubbed his neck. “I found out from the personnel director that Gibbs had an uncle who was hanged by vigilantes here in Wyoming earlier this year and made the transfer to this line only a month ago. Now, I grant you that it’s a slender thread, but it’s better than any motivation you can hang on me.”
Lucian blew out the words in a single breath. “He would’ve had access to any part of the train, and it would’ve been easy for him to get that meat cleaver.”
“Why don’t we have a word with him?” Holland looked around. “Where the hell is he, anyway?”
“He didn’t want to be back here for this.”
“Well, I can understand that.” He glanced around. “He couldn’t have gone far. Let’s go find him.”
I reached over and slipped the .357 from his holster, tucking it in my belt. “Sounds good, but I’ll keep this in the meantime.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter—with the amount of charges I’m going to level on you, the only train you’ll ever ride will be the one to Leavenworth.”
There was a sudden lurch, and it appeared that we were slowly gaining velocity again. Whatever it was that had slowed us down must’ve been straightened out, and I just hoped I’d have enough time to get the job done.
I pushed Holland forward and followed him into the small bit of space between the cars as Sheriff Connelly brought up the rear. “Just so I’m straight with the plan, we’re gonna work our way forward, beating the shit out of everyone until we get to the engineer?”
I yelled over the sound of the windblown snow and the clanking rails as our speed increased. “We might beat the shit out of him, too, if I’m not satisfied.”
Moving through the dining car, Lucian waved at Phelps, Finlay, and Hanna as we made our way forward to the bar car, where a few more sheriffs, including Tillman and Brown, were seated.
The two looked up as we passed but didn’t move. As we walked through the sleeper cars, Holland looked out the window. “Man-O-Manischewitz, John sure has this sucker wound out.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Should we be going this fast?”
Holland shrugged. “He knows what he’s doing.”
When we’d entered the farthest sleeper car, we finally found Gibbs, who was returning from the other direction, but stopped a good way down the hall when he saw us.
Holland spoke loudly enough to be heard above the sound of the engine. “Mr. Gibbs, I need to speak with you.”
He paused for a moment and then came toward us at a slow pace. “Yes, sir, Mr. Holland?”
The security man leaned against the wall in an attempt to steady himself, the train seeming to rock on the rails with a bit more vigor. “Gibbs, do you happen to have an uncle by the name of Merion Gibbs?”
He looked at the floor. “I did, sir.”
“You did?”
“Yes, sir. He’s dead.”
Holland took a somewhat superior tone. “And how did he die, Mr. Gibbs?”
“He was hung, sir. Here in Albany County.” He looked sad. “From what I understand it, he killed a woman and there was something like a lynching.”
“And even with that, you transferred to this line so you could come here?”
At this, he smiled. “Seems strange, don’t it?” He turned and looked out the window, the only illumination coming from the train itself as the series of rectangular lights brightened the fleeing snowflakes. “He used to send me postcards about what a nice place it was, and I put in my papers so that I could see it.” His eyes met mine. “But with all due respect, there really ain’t nothin’ here.”
I smiled, and when no one else said anything, I dismissed the poor man. “Thank you, Mr. Gibbs. Are we keeping you from something?”
“Yes, sir, I thought I might go make some sandwiches and coffee—it looks like we might be in for a long night.”
Letting him pass, I watched as he rounded the corner and then I turned back to Holland. “Satisfied?”
“I take it you believe him?”
“I do.” I turned to Lucian as we jostled against the walls. “Is it me, or does every dirty deal in this thing seem to be pointing back to Schafer and Albany County?”
Lucian pulled the beaded tobacco pouch from his back pocket and the pipe from his shirt and began filling the bowl. “Seems like it could bear some scrutiny, but I think there might be something more important on the agenda right now.”
“Such as?”
“Well, in my years in the Army Air Corps, I got pretty good at estimating ground speed, and I’ve gotta tell you that unless I miss my guess . . .” He stooped and studied the landscape a little more intently than we had. “I believe this train is running at close to a hundred miles an hour.”
—
“You’re sure it was Peter Lowery?”
“That’s the name he gave me.”
“Well, that’s probably not his real name, but I’ll give it a shot.” Agent Mike McGroder tapped a few keys on the computer he h
ad borrowed from the Wyoming attorney general’s office. “I’ve got a Peter David Lowery in Cleveland for armed robbery and a couple of domestics, but he’s doing a three spot.”
“What does he look like?”
“Black.”
“Nope.”
He scrolled down. “Peter Lowery here in Cheyenne, but he’s sixty-three years old. . . . Walt, I’ve got over ten in Wyoming alone. No way to narrow the search?”
“Nothing I can think of. What about David Coulter?”
The AIC typed in the name and hit a few keys and made a helpless gesture with both hands. “Over a thousand in the U.S.—you’ve got to give me something more to go on.”
“He had a Southern accent, west-southern, maybe Texas?” I thought about it. “He was military; he said army, and I said Hooah, and there was a flicker in his eyes, which leads me to believe that he could’ve been more than just a regular GI.” I thought about it. “We’re looking for a soldier, army elite, Rangers, Special Forces, Green Beret, Airborne . . . possibly Afghanistan over Iraq because of drug connections, maybe look for a dishonorable discharge and any kind of association with Mexico, or Bidarte.” McGroder began typing. “His first name will be David simply because it’s easy to remember, but the last isn’t likely to be Coulter.”
“Something close?”
“Probably not.”
“This might take a while.”
“What about Bidarte?”
The Fed gestured toward the screen again. “Yeah, well . . . his name lights up all over the place.”
“Do you have a current location for him?”
“Not really, but I can check with the guys over in State and see if they’ve got something. He really doesn’t fit into any of the profiles, or maybe it’s that he fits into too many.” I watched as he typed on the keyboard. “Hello . . .”
“Find something?”
“Well, it looks like there was an altercation with a local drug lord named Miguel Morales in an area of Chihuahua called Las Bandejas near Área Natural Protegida Médanos de Samalayuca, a nature preserve south of Juárez. Looks as if it might’ve been your buddy Bidarte—at least it was someone who was allegedly responsible for cutting the throats of six fellows down there on Highway 45.”
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