Dry Bones: A Walt Longmire Mystery (7 page)

“I’ve never had anything happen to me like I have in the last few years—seeing things, hearing things, people that aren’t there . . . I’m not exactly given to this stuff, you know?”

“Shit, you are serious.”

“I am.” I reopened the box, tore up the slice, and fed the pizza to Dog, my appetite having totally retreated. “Normally, I’d just forget it, mark it off as some kind of hallucination or something, but every time Virgil or whoever or whatever it is has prophesized something, it’s come true.”

She stretched a hand across the crate and rested it on my arm as we both stood there. “Look, maybe you need to talk to somebody.”

“I thought that was what I was doing.”

She paused for a long time before continuing. “I mean somebody who knows something about this stuff. I’m no expert on the subject, but it’s always when you’re by yourself; have you ever thought that it might just be you? Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something, huh?”

“No, it’s dissociative—things I choose not to think about.”

“Well, there’s your answer right there.” She shook my arm, anxious that I not get too serious, and then let go and sipped her beer. “Walt, as near as I can tell, you think too damn much.”

“Uh huh.”

She set the empty can on the crate. “What did Virgil say?”

“It wasn’t just Virgil; this time it was also a man in the snow.”

“Okay.”

“I was following someone in this dream, and when I got closer I could see it was a buffalo, but when it turned it changed shape into a man, a man with no eyes, just spaces where you could see the stars shining in the darkness—like his head contained the universe.”

“And you get all this stuff without the benefit of controlled substances or alcohol?”

“Pretty much.”

“And the guy without eyes, you’re not going to tell me . . .”

“Danny Lone Elk.”

Her mouth made a perfect
O
before she spoke. “That’s some trippy shit.” She came around and sidled her hip and shoulder against me, forcing Dog out of the way. “So, what’d Blind Danny Lone Elk have to say?”

I took a deep breath—she smelled really good—and then recited: “
You will stand and see the good, but you will also stand and see the bad—the dead shall rise and the blind will see.
”

She gave a shudder and then slipped her arm around my waist. “So, why do they always say creepy stuff like that, huh? Why can’t they just say you’re going to win the lottery or that you’re going to get laid?”

“I don’t think they occupy themselves with those kinds of thoughts.”

“Well, fuck them, I do.” She pulled me in closer. “Maybe if the Old Cheyenne got laid every once in a while they wouldn’t have to haunt the only single, smart, sexy guy I know.” She studied me. “What did he say again?”

“
You will stand and see the good, but you will also stand and see the bad—the dead shall rise and the blind will see.
”
I looked down at her. “Does the fact that I’m haunted like an old house turn you off?”

“Just the opposite.” She tugged on my gun belt, pulling me in even closer. “I told you, you think too much.” She pushed me away, sat on the crate, and began unbuttoning her uniform shirt, only to pause halfway through the operation to bend one knee over the other in a provocative manner. Then she arched her back, spread her arms, causing her shirt to gape even more, as she assumed a pinup pose. “This is a big crate.”

I was suddenly having a hard time thinking.

I was at the top of a ridge alongside a man who was standing with his back to me, a tall man, broad, with silver hair to his waist. In his shirtsleeves, despite the weather, he stood there singing a Cheyenne song.

It was a clear night, the kind that freezes the air in your lungs with nothing standing between your upturned face and the glittering cold of those pinpricks in the endless darkness, the wash of stars constructing the Hanging Road as it arced toward the Camp of the Dead.

The man next to me had stopped singing and spoke from the side of his mouth. It was a voice I’d heard before, even though I couldn’t exactly place it. I heard me call out to him. “Virgil?”

He half-turned toward me, his profile sharp, and I could see that it was not Virgil White Buffalo as he studied me from the corner of one eye. “You’re bleeding?”

I watched myself looking down at the blood soaking through my sheepskin coat and the ground around me. “Um, yep . . . I think I am.”

He walked effortlessly toward me, his face only a few inches from my own, the empty sockets shooting through his head like twin telescopes magnifying the black, infinite space with only a few aberrant sparks of warmth from dying stars. Slowly he reached up and wiped the tear from my face. “Good—we can use the humidity.”

 • • • 

I awoke with a start.

“What?”

I turned my head and looked at Vic, covered in the blanket I’d brought in from my truck. “What?”

She yawned and stretched an arm out, then hid her mouth with her hand. “You were talking in your sleep.”

I rolled over on one shoulder, closer to her. “I know.”

“It was about the blind guy.” She studied me, the sparks in her eyes still visible even in the dim confines of the High Plains Dinosaur Museum. “Danny Lone Elk.”

I rested my head on my forearm. “Yep.”

She waited before finally speaking again. “I mean, you weren’t sure, the last time.”

“It was him.”

She put a hand out and rested her cool fingers on my arm, near a small scar that was a leftover from an altercation with two kids out of Casper who had robbed a liquor store and had been on their way to Canada when I had the fortune or misfortune of pulling them over for a burnt-out taillight.

“Same dream?”

Drawn back from wounds past, I looked at her. “What?”

“The same dream?”

“Yep, pretty much.” I lay there looking at her, and our lives seemed to be swirling just then, circling with orbits that were becoming smaller and smaller. “I know.”

She looked puzzled. “Know what?”

She’d been shot defending me a few months back, and while she’d been in the ICU, Doc Bloomfield had made the mistake of telling me she’d been pregnant. She’d lost the child, and up to this moment we’d kept our separate peace about that—something I could no longer withstand. “You were pregnant.”

She stared at me.

“Isaac told me. He didn’t mean to, but it slipped out when I first got to the hospital.” Her expression didn’t change, and I continued. “I didn’t know if you knew that I knew, but I didn’t want this to become something between us, something bad.”

There was a sudden banging somewhere in the building, and as Dog vaulted from the floor beside the crate and began barking, we both looked around; I found my voice first. “Did something fall over in here?”

The banging started again, and this time I could tell that someone was hammering on the front door of the museum. It was just after midnight, and I’d locked the door, which was a good thing in that it gave me time to climb off the crate and get my clothes on.

“Walt!” It was a man’s voice, muffled by the heavy glass.

“Who the hell is it?” Vic pulled the blanket over her shoulders as I hurriedly tried to straighten my hat and my back and started after Dog for the door.

“It sounds like Saizarbitoria.”

Dodging through the gift shop, I made my way past the front desk and wrapped my fingers around the keys dangling from the lock on the inside. I yanked the door open and caught Dog by his collar so that he wouldn’t mistake the Basquo for an intruder. “What’s the matter, Sancho?”

He looked as panicked as I’d ever seen him. “It’s Lucian—I think he’s having a stroke or something.”

“What?” I stood there looking at him and realized I was asking the wrong question. “Where?”

“The home for assisted living; he won’t go to the hospital.”

I yelled over my shoulder. “Vic, stay with the dinosaur!” I looked down and shoved Dog back inside. “And Dog!”

I ran with Sancho and dove into the passenger side of his sedan. “Give me the lowdown.”

“Classic, non-movie-style stroke.” Sancho backed the cruiser out, spun the wheel, and flew through the abandoned town with its blinking yellow lights. “The housekeeper found him sitting in his chair complaining of pain and discomfort.” He turned to look at me as we flat tracked it onto Fort Street and hit the afterburners again. “He had his leg shot off, for Christ’s sake—you would think they would’ve taken that kind of thing seriously coming from him.”

I immediately remembered Danny Lone Elk’s flask. “Yep, you would.”

“Anyway, somebody else came in a few hours later—he was still in that chair, but he’d thrown up on himself and was saying he was fine, but this time he was having a migraine-like headache, tremors, and slurred speech. Well, they dialed 911, and we got there at the same time. The EMTs got him cleaned up, and he told Cathi and Chris that he was feeling better and they should beat it. Well, he
was
the sheriff, so they did.” Santiago made the next turn, and we were almost there. “I didn’t think that was the right decision, so I bullshitted with him, but then he started messing up his words and said he was feeling sick again.” He slid to a stop at the entrance of the center behind the EMT van, and we leapt out, running for the door, me trying to keep up. “I tried to sit him in his chair, but one of his arms wouldn’t work and I knew right then that I had to get the EMTs back there quick.”

We blew past the empty registration desk and down the hall. “And then?”

“He was still arguing with them, and you know how he is—he can argue with a stump. So that’s when I came after you.”

When we got close to room 32, I could see a small crowd of attendees, including the director, Mary Jo Johnson, standing in the hall. “Oh, thank God, Walt . . . He won’t listen to any of us, and now he’s got a gun.”

Sancho and I slid through the group, Cathi and Chris sitting impatiently on the sofa with their equipment, and looked at the man in the high-back, steer-hide-covered chair with the.38 Smith & Wesson service revolver resting on his knee.

“Lucian?”

He didn’t look at me, but when I kneeled down in front of him, he raised the pistol up and pointed it in my general direction as his breath came in pants.

“Lucian.”

His eyes wobbled toward me, along with the Smith. “I think . . . I think I . . . I done my forty and found.”

“What’s the gun for?”

“What?” He mumbled something, but I had trouble following him as he gestured with the barrel toward the terrified two on the sofa. “Keep ’em from doin’ anything stupid.”

“Like keeping you alive?”

He smiled a horrible, death’s head grin. “Must be my time; everybody has one, ya know.”

“Yep, well, this one’s not yours.” I glanced around, looking for the culprit. “Did you drink the rest of the rye in that flask you stole from me?”

He took a deeper breath and shuddered. “What?”

“The flask, Lucian. The one I took off of Danny Lone Elk, the Cheyenne fellow who died?”

He didn’t say anything, his eyes continuing to wobble along with his breath, as Saizarbitoria circled around into the kitchenette.

“Did you drink the rest of that stuff, because if you did, I think you’ve been poisoned.”

The pistol wavered a bit, and I started to reach for it when he pulled back the hammer. “Somebody.” He aimed the pistol at me, dead center. “Somebody . . . poisoned me?”

“Whoever poisoned Danny Lone Elk put something in that whiskey, so if you drank it we’ve got to get you taken care of.” I looked behind him and could see Sancho holding the flask that he must’ve gotten from the counter and shaking it near his ear. After a second, he looked at me and held it upside down with the cap disconnected—empty.

“The liquor in the flask was poisoned, Lucian.” I gestured toward the two highly interested EMTs. “And that’s why they’re here.”

His eyes widened a little, and I was thinking that the idea must’ve gotten through when the pupils rolled back in his head and his back arched, slamming him into the recesses of his ancestral chair, the pistol jerking up and away.

I grabbed his wrist as the.38 went off and shattered the sliding glass doors, the cracks spidering to the frames like a lightning strike.

The crowd suddenly disappeared, but Chris and Cathi scrambled off the couch as the Basquo caught the back of Lucian’s chair and sat it upright.

Tossing the revolver to the side, I lowered the old sheriff to the carpeted floor, the EMTs waiting anxiously.

One of Lucian’s hands came up. “Damn, now my head really hurts.”

“You just relax.”

His eyes raced around. “Where’s my pistol?”

I wanted to punch him. “You don’t need your sidearm—just lie there and be still.”

I punched Saizarbitoria in the arm. “C’mon, let’s go get the gurney from the van.” As we exited the room, I pointed back at the old sheriff. “You. Do as you’re told.”

We hurried down the hall. “There’s nothing left in the flask?”

“Not a drop.”

“Hmm . . . I guess that’s what you get when a high-functioning alcoholic steals evidence.” We yanked the EMT van doors open and unloaded the gurney, me offering the Basquo my hard-earned advice. “Drop the wheels; it’s easier to roll the thing than carry it.”

As we rounded the corner and started down the hall, a thought occurred to me. “Was there a glass?”

Backing into the room, Sancho glanced into the kitchenette past the people who had reassembled around the doorway. “No, not that I noticed.”

“He always drinks out of one of those Waterford tumblers.”

We placed the gurney next to Lucian and collapsed the legs, bringing the mountain to Mohammed. I stepped back out of the way and started for the kitchen just as Mary Jo lifted one of the glasses I’d asked Saizarbitoria about and began to pour the contents down the sink.

“Stop!”

The sound of my voice shocked her so much that she dropped the glass, but by then I was close enough to get my hand underneath to catch it.

I held the glistening Lismore crystal up to the light fixture in the ceiling; sure enough, a bit of the amber liquid was captured in the corner. “Good thing he was drinking it neat.”

 • • • 

We sipped our coffee and watched as Jay, the UPS and all-purpose driver, drove the forklift and carefully negotiated it into the back door of the holding cell.

Vic glanced at the Colonel E. H. Taylor Straight Rye Whiskey under my arm. “Starting a little early, aren’t you?”

“Scientific specimen I liberated from Lucian’s bar.” I patted the bottle I’d taken from the corner cabinet in the old sheriff’s rooms. “The control alcohol I’m taking over to Isaac.”

She raised an eyebrow, and we watched as Jay reloaded the forklift onto his truck and came over, taking off his gloves and handing me a clipboard and pen. “Compliments of the Jayco Corporation.”

I looked at the bill. “Two hundred and forty-six dollars?”

He shrugged, his mustache kicking to the side. “Equipment and labor.”

I waved him off. “Go find a G-man to give that bill to.”

“I did it as a favor to you.” I stood there and then signed the manifest as he admired Dave Baumann’s workmanship. “It’s a nice crate.”

Vic ran a hand over the wood. “Yeah, it looks like it can take a lot of punishment.”

I handed him back the pen. “Get Ruby to write you a check, and you can save yourself a stamp.”

Knowing where the true seat of power resided and not wanting to press his luck confronting her, he ripped the yellow receipt sheet off the pad and handed it to me. “At her convenience.”

He raised a fist. “Save Jen.”

Then he turned and walked away briskly; I wouldn’t want to face Ruby this early in the morning either. I closed the door and looked at the assorted boxes, file folders, and the enormous crate that all but filled the room. “The good news is that it’s not our responsibility to go through all this stuff.”

“Amen to that.” She took another sip of her coffee, slid around the far corner of the enormous box, and leaned against the wall as I set the bottle of rye on the crate’s flat wooden surface. “So, how’s the old fart doing?”

“Fine.” I thought about it. “Well, as fine as somebody who almost met his maker can be.” I took a sip of the coffee Vic had gotten for me. “Isaac saw him this morning and said there seemed to be no lingering symptoms other than a pretty good headache, which seems to indicate that he was poisoned by whatever was in the flask, and which leads us to the question of who filled the flask and from what.”

“You’re going out to Danny’s?”

I nodded. “The ranch is huge, and I’m not sure which house Danny was living in, but I suppose I’ll find it eventually.”

“Is there a Mrs. Lone Elk?”

“Not for some time now.”

She held her coffee in both hands. “So, you wanna talk?”

I waited a long time before answering. “I wanted to last night before Sancho started beating on the doors.”

She eyed me over the rim of her cup. “You had something you wanted to say?”

I waited a moment, crafting my words carefully. “Nothing specific—it’s just that it didn’t seem fair to know and not tell you.”

She nodded. “You’re a big one for the truth, huh?”

“I try to be.”

Of all the things she could’ve said, nothing would’ve surprised me as much as her next words. “Well, what if I told you it wasn’t yours?”

It’s a fact that the planet rotates at approximately 1,040 miles per hour, but there are those moments when the world just stops, magnetic poles be damned; you just stop the world with the weight of your own solitary gravitas. “What?”