A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery (25 page)

I dropped my head and spoke into my folded arms. “So, we’re talking about serious money, then.”

“Very serious.”

I raised my head slowly and stared at him. “Mr. Lockhart, are you trying to bribe me?”

He smiled. “Hasn’t it ever been tried before?”

“Nope, generally people are smarter than that.” I tilted my head and looked at him. “They don’t know, do they?”

“Who know what?”

I gestured toward the departed car and the general direction of East Spring Ranch. “Your religious friends, they don’t know about whatever it is that you’re doing that’s going to result in serious money.”

“That’s really not the point here, is it?” He shivered some more, looking in the bar and longing for the warmth inside. “So, am I to take that response as a no to my offer?”

“That was an offer, was it?”

“Yes, it was and still is. Just for looking the other way. Nobody gets hurt.”

“Nobody gets hurt.” I probed the grain of the boardwalk with the toe of my boot. “And that’s why you killed Double Tough, because he had a working knowledge of whatever it is you’re doing?”

A look of exasperation flitted across his face. “Why would we kill your deputy?”

“For a Hughes polycrystalline three-yoke bit.”

His response was swift and a little angry. “Sheriff, if I wanted, I could have a truckload of them within twenty-four hours.” He pushed off the pole and stood in front of me. “I didn’t kill your deputy—it makes no sense. I have to admit that I didn’t know about you before, but now that I do I can see that you would be a formidable adversary.” He took a breath. “I’m a businessman, beyond all the things you think I am or the things you think I do—I am in business. Now, you tell me, is it good business for me to take you on?”

I said nothing.

“Why would we want a war with you?”

I still said nothing.

“Well, there’s your answer.” He gestured toward the bar. “Do you mind if I collect Tomás? It’s been a long evening.”

I gestured with a nod and watched as he went to the door, opened it, and called inside. Lockhart started for the truck and a moment later was followed by Bidarte and the Cheyenne Nation.

As Bidarte passed, I stuck out an arm and stopped him, leaned in, and sniffed him. He stared at me for a moment, then stepped onto the gravel, and, standing by the door of the truck, he studied me as Henry and I leaned on either side of the wooden pole.

Lockhart pulled his keys from his pressed khakis and hit the button to unlock the doors on a black half-ton, then stepped off the boardwalk and opened the driver’s side. A thought occurred to him, and he spoke again. “By the way, I have to ask—did you smell kerosene on Gloss?”

I studied the horizon, where that first glimmer was simmering under the streaked sky. “No.”

I saw a flash of movement to my left but before either the Bear or I could react, there was a loud thunk in the post between us. I turned my head slowly and could see Bidarte’s blade buried in the coarse grain of the wood just at head height, still vibrating from the impact.

Henry and I stared past the foot-long stiletto at each other’s faces. The Cheyenne Nation reached up and plucked the knife from the post, expertly nudging the tang and folding it back before tossing it to the tall Basque. “If you were aiming for the post, that was a good throw.”

Bidarte tucked the knife into his back pocket. “Oh yes, señor. I was.”

I ignored him and studied the horizon.

Looking at the sun for a moment, Lockhart followed my eye, and patted the top of the cab as an afterthought. “Concerning Mr. Gloss and the kerosene, it would’ve been easier to lie.”

I kept my eyes on the rising sun as the two of them climbed in the truck and backed into a sweeping arch that gave them a clear trajectory up the embankment and south onto 192.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“I think Dog sleeps with you more than I do.” She had elected to pass up her usual seat on the guest chair in my office and sat on the floor near me.

I had slept on it again, as there wasn’t any room anywhere else. The hard wood, barely covered with a thin pad and threadbare carpeting, was killing my back, but at least I had had company. I reached over and scratched the belly of the beast that happened to be sleeping with his paws in the air, which displayed his more personal attributes. “He’s very faithful.”

Looking nowhere near as tired as I felt, she sat with her back against the bookcase. “So am I, and look what it gets me.”

“Were you up all night?”

She shuffled the papers in her lap. “Yes.”

I peeled the blanket back and started to stretch; my back ached but not nearly as much as my left knee, which had been worrying me since my adventures on the mountain last May. I rolled over and looked at her, still equipped with the bad-hair-day cap from last night. “You wear it better than I do.”

She glanced at me and then reached down and, giving me a nonverbal critique on the current state of my hair, handed me my hat. “I was just booking and researching scumbags, you were having the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, I am to understand.” She kept looking at me and grinned. “As your undersheriff, it is my duty to inform you that you are looking more and more like an unmade bed.”

I propped myself up on one elbow and placed my smoky, water-stained hat on my head. “Better?”

“An unmade bed at, say, Bob’s Flophouse by the river.”

I yawned. “Right.”

“The kind you rent an hour at a time?”

“Got it.”

She nodded as if she’d finished a report. “I have news.”

I pointed at the stack of papers. “It looks like.”

“More important than this crap.”

I struggled my way into a sitting position, which disturbed Dog, who also rose, licked my face, then gingerly stepped over Vic, and, likely in search of a second or third breakfast, disappeared out the door. “What could be more important than this?”

“Like Lazarus risen from the grave . . . Double Tough is alive.”

I turned and stared at her. I’d been thinking about nothing else as I’d drifted in and out of sleep all morning, half-convincing myself that what had happened last night hadn’t, but it just wouldn’t wash. “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

She shook her head. “They hit him with the defibrillator in the EMT van and the fucker popped back to life—I swear to God.” She turned and sat Indian-style. “They say that Henry breathing for him all that time must’ve kept him going long enough for them to bring him back with a couple thousand volts. I told him he probably had a disease from all the places that the Bear’s mouth had been.”

I could feel the swelling of heat behind my eyes and a ballooning in my chest as I sat there—almost as if coming back from the dead myself. “He can talk?”

“No, at least not yet.” The emotion was about to overwhelm her, too, but she laughed and wiped a bit of moisture from the corner of one eye—I had the feeling she wasn’t telling me everything. “I mean, he’s half covered with second- and third-degree burns, and he’s going to lose the eye—but he’s alive.”

I felt a tear streak down the side of my face and watched as she half-sobbed another laugh.

“Uh oh, the waterbed has sprung a leak.” She put her hand on my face and continued smiling, even as the tears were now streaking her own. “He squeezed my hand, you know, when I told him about getting cooties from Henry. I mean he’s screwed up; nobody goes through something like that without sustaining some kind of brain damage and with him how can you tell, but he squeezed my hand when I was joking with him.”

“Billings?”

She looked at her wristwatch. “No, Denver. They’re taking off with him in about an hour if you want to go up to the airport and see him off.”

“I do.” I pushed the blanket away and slowly stood. “That’s two out of his nine lives that we know about.”

She glanced back toward the reception/dispatcher area. “Everybody wanted to wake you up and tell you, but Ruby wouldn’t let us. So I waited till you turned over.”

“I don’t think I turned over.”

“I don’t care.” She smiled fully, crinkling her eyes and showing that canine tooth to full advantage, wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, and took her customary seat. “You got the good news; you want the bad news now or when we head to the airport?”

“Now.” I again pointed at the stack of papers. “This stuff?”

She shook her head. “The elusive Orrin the Mormon is once again at large.”

“Junior or Senior; please don’t say both.”

“Cousin Itt.”

I slumped into my chair. “This is getting embarrassing.”

There was more than a little accusation in the next statement. “It’s because we’re running the place like a revolving door; the kid is in and out going to work, and the two of them are endlessly watching
My Friend Fucking Flicka
, so you turn your back for an instant and he takes French leave.”

“I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “I mean he’s relatively harmless, or as harmless as you can be when armed like a commando, but it’s starting to insult the credibility and professionalism of the department; I think it reflects badly when schizophrenic derelicts and arrested peoples are using the jail like the Kum & Go.”

I smiled. “Agreed.”

“We looked for him in the beds of all the trucks.”

“Good thinking.”

Her face came up, and the smile had returned. “Double Tough’s alive.”

I laughed. “Yep.”

She came around the desk and roosted in front of me, but this time I kept a hand on the edge, determined not to have a repeat of the Flying Wallendas. She leaned forward and put her arms around my shoulders, pulling me in. Despite all common sense, I found my own arms rising up and folding around her in a return embrace and thought about what this might lead to if we had been at my cabin. Her lips tickled my ear as she whispered, “I’m not sure if I’m happier that he’s alive or that I don’t have to watch what you were going to do to yourself.”

I pulled back and placed my forehead against hers. “Thank you.”

She softly head-butted me and then leaned back a respectable distance, placing her hands on the stack of papers that she had placed on the desk. “Speaking of people trying to get out of jail . . .”

“They didn’t escape, too, did they?”

“No, they’re doing it the old-fashioned way, with lawyers—makes Orrin the Mormon’s technique seem honest and forthright.” She stood and looked down at me. “You want some coffee? I want some coffee.”

I nodded my head as she went out, calling after her, “Big lawyers?”

The answer ricocheted off the hallway walls. “Shephard, Baldwin, Coveny, and Spencer over in Jackson.”

“Gary Spencer?”

After a moment she came back in with two mugs. “The big dog hisself.”

“Well, hell.”

She sat the coffees on my desk and thumbed through the papers. “They’re suing the county, the department, and mostly you for unlawful arrest, excessive force, harassment . . . all of which is supported by your actions in South Dakota and in the bar last night.” She picked up her new Philadelphia Flyers cup—the hockey season had just started—and sipped her coffee. “You’ve got to stop hitting people.”

I sipped my own and thought about my actions as of late. “There was only one or two . . .”

“Three, including the chopping and channeling you did to Gloss’s nose—twice.”

I tried not to look her in the eye. “That second time was an accident.”

“Tell it to the judge.” She set her mug down and continued perusing the papers. “They’ve pretty much called you everything but a Baptist and say you sleep with your dog—which I wouldn’t have believed until I came in here this morning.”

“How long?”

“We might hold them till the end of the day, but then they’re going to post and walk.”

I sipped some more coffee. “Can Verne stall on setting bail?”

She shook her head. “Nope, he heard the name Gary Spencer and folded like a card table at a bake sale in a high wind.”

“They’ve got a lot of money.”

“I know; I’ve seen their armaments.”

“No, I mean a lot of money.”

“More than you can make at a bake sale?”

“Enough to try and buy me off last night.”

“I’ve bought you off before.” She shrugged and picked up her mug again, winking over the lip. “Cheap.” She continued studying me. “A lot a lot?”

“Yep.”

“What, are they printing hundreds down there at East Spring Ranch?”

“Maybe.” I sighed and sipped some more; apparently it was helping. “They also seemed to know an awful lot about me.”

“Who?”

“Lockhart.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The quiet man?”

“Up until last night; he got real talkative on the porch of The Noose.”

“He probably thought you were going to hang him.”

I pulled the ATM slip from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “He made a convincing argument that he and his group had nothing to do with setting fire to the sheriff’s substation.”

“Just this? ’Cause this can mean that just one of them was there.”

“No, Eleanor says they were there the whole evening.”

“Then it was somebody else from the group; I mean, how many of them are there down there in that nest?”

“That’s a good question.” I reached over to my coatrack, pulled my jacket on, and slipped the warrant from the inside pocket. “I think I’ll find out.”

She continued sipping her coffee, and I watched the wheels turn as she watched my wheels turn. “What are you thinking about?”

“What you said, about the number of people down there.” I unfurled the fax like a Biblical scroll. “Have you ever seen any women or children in the compound down at East Spring?”

“Personally, I’ve only gotten as close as the Mexican Grand Prix at the front gate.” She thought about it. “We saw some over in Butte County—the rat patrol and the girl at the table—but not here.” She thought some more and ventured. “So far, Big Wanda is it.”

I nodded and came around the desk with her following. “There were clothes out on the line at the house and toys in the yard, but I didn’t see any women or children.”

“It was in the middle of the night when you went back there.”

“Maybe that’s it.” Waiting at her office door while she grabbed her own coat, I rolled the warrant up and stuffed it back into my jacket. “But maybe not.”

“Something else.”

I stopped and looked at her. “What?”

“They’re expanding their operation. I put out a query and got contacted by the sheriff departments of both Garden County, Nebraska, and Hodgeman County, Kansas.”

I thought about it. “Why in the world would they need all these compounds stretched across the Rocky Mountain West down to Oklahoma?”

She shrugged and passed me in the doorway. “I guess that bake sale business is good.”

•   •   •

Saizarbitoria and Henry were sipping coffee in the dispatcher/reception area as Ruby talked on the phone. The Bear looked a little tired, and I told him so.

“Not as bad as you do.”

I nodded. “I guess you kept my deputy alive long enough for them to jump-start him.”

The Cheyenne Nation smiled. “Yes.”

“We’re going up to the airport to see him off—you want to come?”

“I need to call The Red Pony to make sure somebody can cover for me.”

I sometimes forgot about the Bear’s going concern, his bar out by the Rez. “We’ll tell him you send your love.”

He continued to smile and shook his head in mock sorrow. “Please tell Double Tough that I do not think it is going to work out between us, but that we will always have Powder Junction.”

“Lunch at the Bee for a planning meeting?”

“Yes.”

I started down the steps. “See both of you in a half hour.”

“Walt?”

Ruby’s voice froze me two steps down. “Yep?”

“Dottie over at the courthouse says a platoon of lawyers just hit the beachhead at Verne’s office, led by Gary Spencer himself.”

Vic looked up at me. “Change of plan?”

I glanced at the Basquo and the Bear. “Change of plan. Meet us in Powder Junction in an hour.”

The phone rang and Ruby stared at it, then at me. “And if I should be confronted with the posse of lawyers and the second greatest legal mind of our time?”

I shrugged. “Get an autograph; just make sure it’s not on a subpoena.”

•   •   •

He looked like hell. They had him so bandaged up it was almost impossible to tell who he was, but the one eye looked directly at me as they rolled him on a gurney under the slowly rotating blades of the helicopter. “How you doin’, troop?”

The bandages pulled at one side.

“So you want me to find you a co-deputy down in Powder Junction, blonde, about five-seven?”

He actually nodded.

“I’ll handle the interviews myself.”

Vic punched my arm as the engine kicked in, and they loaded him into the elaborate confines of the medical chopper, locking the gurney to the floor. We both joined him until they were ready to take off and were grinning like possums. I leaned my face down next to his, just so I could speak and have him hear me. “I know you’re hurting, but I’ve got to find out—did you see or hear anything last night?”

His voice was ragged and breathy. “Quiet.” Maybe I was doing nothing but assuring myself that he could still speak, but his words became stronger. “Stopped a few milk trucks trying to avoid the scales and bunch of kids earlier, gave a warning, speeding, gave drunk ride home, read a little, went to bed, nine. . . .” He tried to move an arm, but they had him pretty well trussed up. “Next thing, woke up in van.”

I smiled and placed my mouth next to his ear again and spoke over the roaring of the helicopter. “Good thing; if you’d awakened with Henry’s mouth on you, you might’ve suffered irreparable psychological damage.”

The EMTs pushed us away, and I took Vic’s arm and ushered the both of us back to my truck, parked at a safe distance. I hung on to my hat as the blast of the engine lifted the thing skyward and it hovered there for a moment before pivoting and climbing in a direct line along the mountains, headed south.