The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (8 page)

“What’s the range on those types of scanners?”

“Well, you see, the transmission would depend on elevation, obstructions, transmitter power. . . .”

I glanced up at the two-thousand-foot walls. “We’re in the canyon.”

“Ten to twenty miles at best.” There was a longer pause. “Where are you right now?”

“Preparing to throw myself in the Wind River.”

She laughed. “Are you near the tunnels?”

I stood, stepped back over the guardrail, and looked across the hood of my truck, where I could see the Bear standing by the entrance of the northernmost borehole. “North entrance.”

“Look up.” I did as she told me and spotted a thin structure passing between the clouds, periodically giving off a glowing red light, like a pulse. “That tower is only about a decade old. When the old-timers used to head into the canyon they’d call it in and that was the last you heard of them until they came out on the other end—they used to call it No-Man’s-Land.”

“No-Man’s-Land, huh?”

I nodded, but it was difficult with the 240-pound man sitting on my shoulders. “The first time the term was used was back in 1320,
nonesmanneslond,
which was used to describe disputed territory between two kingdoms; then it was the name for a place outside the walls of London that was used for executions and even a spot on the forecastle of ships.”

“Um-hmm.”

I shifted the Cheyenne Nation’s weight a little. “Of course, the term that’s used today is a result of the trench warfare in World War I.”

“Of course.”

“Or the cold war, concerning the iron curtain.” I shifted his and my weight again, trying to ease the pressure on my stoved-up leg.

“Would you stop fidgeting?”

I steadied myself on the makeshift sidewalk, which was barely wide enough for me, let alone the both of us. “I’m just trying to get comfortable, which isn’t easy. It’s not like you’re a lightweight.”

“Look who is talking.”

A few pieces of rock and debris fell past my face. “What, exactly, are you doing up there?”

“There are patched spots of concrete here and along the ceilings of all the tunnels.”

“So?”

“Some look newer than others.”

“So?” There was a jolt and more dust and tiny pieces of concrete fell, one bouncing off my head. “Ouch.”

“Ah, there are bolts driven into the ceiling, I am assuming to stabilize the roof.”

“Can I put you down now?” Without waiting for a response, I checked both ways and then stepped off the curb backward, leaning forward and allowing Henry to step off onto the sidewalk. “So?”

He turned and looked down the tunnels, the
sunlight intermittently shining in the openings between. “The two robbers worked for WYDOT. If you were going to hide something in these tunnels, where would you hide it?”

“I see your point.” I studied the ceiling and walls. “There’s only one problem—there must be a couple hundred patch spots just in this tunnel alone.” I looked at him. “There’s another problem with your theory. If I was on the lam, and the cops were closing in, I’m not sure how much time I’d have for masonry work.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would’ve chucked the bag over the guardrail or into the water and hoped I could come back for it later.”

He thought about it. “Where, exactly, did the shoot-out take place?”

“About a quarter mile up the road around the next bend.”

“So, Womack was waiting for them as part of a roadblock.”

“I guess. It’s in the folder in my truck.”

“Why not stop them in the tunnel, where they are contained?”

I smiled. “You’re thinking like a soldier instead of a cop. In these situations, you always have to allow for the
citizenry. What happens if you stop them in the tunnel and a vacationing family pulls up behind them?”

He nodded. “End of vacation.”

As we walked back to the Bullet, I voiced something that had been on my mind since the conversation with the woman from the Highway Patrol’s central office. “The dispatcher in Cheyenne said that they used to call the canyon No-Man’s-Land, because they couldn’t get radio reception in here until they put in that new tower on the top of the wall.” I pointed to the structure. “That thing went in ten-odd years ago, and that’s long after Bobby Womack’s demise.”

“Yes.”

“It’s highly unlikely that you could get any reception on the spot where he chose to intercept them.”

“That is true.”

I glanced back at the dark opening. “And there would’ve been no reception in those tunnels, but there damn well would’ve been on the other side at the Boysen Reservoir.”

“So, you are coming around to my questioning the location of contact?”

“Maybe, but I’m more concerned with where he was when he heard about the APB on the bank robbers,
because he couldn’t have been in the canyon. Then there’s the motorist-assistance call just before the tanker incident in which he lost his life and the incident itself.”

“He could not have been in the canyon when he received these calls.”

“That’s correct.” We arrived at my truck, and I looked up the road. “But especially the one that cost him his life. If he didn’t receive any radio call about the runaway truck . . .” I pointed north to the far end of the S-curve that disappeared around the rock cliffs. “The first time he would’ve seen it would’ve been when it came around that turn, up where he shot those two men.”

“Coincidence?”

“I don’t know, but I sure would like to know what he was thinking.” I pulled the door open on my truck and climbed in as the Bear did the same on the other side. “Any ideas?”

“Your primary interest seems to be in discovering the truth about what might have happened with the robbery and the death of Bobby Womack.”

I fired up the Bullet and slipped her in gear. “I’m always more interested in the truth, no matter what the subject.”

He pointed south. “Then we should go to Fort Washakie and find the missing aunt of Bobby Womack.”

 • • • 

Finding somebody on the rez can be a tricky business, but nothing Henry Standing Bear couldn’t handle, at least that’s what I thought. Henry called Kimama, but she wasn’t home—I suggested she was probably out riding her broom.

We stopped at the Catholic church to ask a redheaded priest from New England where we might find Bobby Womack’s aunt, and he told us to talk to the bartender at the Rezeride down the road. The bartender knew a guy over in Fort Washakie who knew another fellow who had gone to school with a Womack; he wasn’t sure of the number but gave us an address. The woman at the address had lived in the house for only three years, but she said that the previous owners had been elderly and that the husband had died and the woman had sold her the house and moved to Fort Washakie proper. We checked the city hall, and they had a listing for a Theona Womack, but when we drove up, the house had burned down. We knocked on the doors of a few neighbors and got varying stories, some
saying the old woman had moved, some of the versions saying as far as Canada.

We finally gave up and headed north, coming to rest at the Cee Nokuu Café at the Wind River Casino, where we filled our stomachs with Indian tacos and iced tea. “She’s probably dead.”

The Cheyenne Nation shrugged, taking the last sip of his tea and standing. “I have one more secret weapon that I am about to employ. Stay here.”

“Okay.” I finished my meal and waited, getting a free refill from the machine and sitting back down in time for Henry to reenter. “She is in the next room.”

“Who?”

“Theona Womack.” He gestured to the wall to our left. “They have Blue-Hair-Charity-Slots for Tots in the event room on Thursday mornings here at the casino. They are almost done, but I will warn you that she is not alone.”

 • • • 

“How are you, Bucket?”

“I’m fine, you old bat, how are you?” She snickered, and I was starting to get a feel for how you dealt with
Kimama Bellefeuille. Pulling a chair out for Theona, I was careful pushing it back in, afraid I would break the seemingly mummified woman if I wasn’t careful. Theona made Kimama look like a spring chicken.

The Bear sat beside her, holding her hand and speaking low in Arapaho, which left me out of the equation. I turned and looked at Kimama as she sipped a Dr Pepper from a can with a straw. “How much did you win?”

She flapped a hand in dismissal. “I lost seventeen dollars.”

“I thought you could see the future?”

“I can, and I saw myself losing eighteen dollars, so I made out all right. Besides, it’s all for charity.” She sipped her soda some more, and her dark eyes glistened. “I heard the flat-hat went swimming.”

“She did.”

“I heard you did, too.”

“Yep.”

“Did it cool you off?”

“Yep.”

“Did he try and warm you back up?”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Heeci’ecihit, when you met him, did he try to warm you?”

I thought about the delusions I’d had last night, having convinced myself that that was what they were. “What are you talking about?”

Without a moment of hesitation, she reached an arthritic finger out and tapped the coin in my shirt pocket with a fingertip that felt like wood. “You saw him.”

I was astonished that not only did she know I had the coin, but she knew exactly where it was. I stumbled for a response. “I . . . I’m not sure what I saw.”

She nodded her head and smiled at the surface of the table. “You are not the first to see him, Bucket.”

“Have you seen him?”

She ignored me and began listening to the conversation going on at the other side of the table. After a while she readjusted herself on her chair and looked out toward the center of the casino, where all the amputee bandits clanged and beeped, clamoring for attention. “The machines, they don’t take quarters like they used to, very dissatisfying for those of us who like the noise.” She turned back to look at me. “My husband and I were coming back from a sweat one summer some years ago, headed for Thermopolis, when we overheated in the canyon. We were just sitting there waiting for the automobile to cool itself when one of the flat-hats pulled in
behind us. We had been having an argument, and we’d been drinking a little. The flat-hat came up and asked my husband for his license. He kept shining his flashlight in on us, making it hard to see him, but his voice sounded strange and familiar.”

I glanced over and could see Henry and Theona watching Kimama as she told the story.

“He stood there with my husband’s license for a long time, but then he handed it back to him and told him that his license only had a year left on it. My husband was glad to get it back without having to do anything else and assured the flat-hat that he would get another one in a year.” She sipped her soda. “I’ll never forget what the flat-hat said next.”

Duly prompted, I asked, “What did he say?”

“He said he wouldn’t have to.” She sat the can back on the table. “Eleven months later my husband died.” A long moment passed as Henry and Theona regrouped their conversation, and then Kimama spoke again in a low voice. “You know how he died?”

“Your husband?”

She made a long, exasperated noise through her clenched teeth. “No, Heeci’ecihit, the Highwayman.”

“Well . . .”

Her head slipped to the side, and she eyed me at an angle. “He died in fire. It is a bad way to go.”

“I don’t know if there are any good ones.”

She flapped the hand at me again. “There are many, but fire is bad. The terrible thing about fire is that you become one with the wind, your ashes carried around the world over and over again seeking peace but finding none. Every time Heeci’ecihit attempts to come to rest, the winds pick him up, blowing on the embers of his soul and carrying him further.”

I cleared my throat and leaned in. “So, if we were so inclined, how could we find peace for him?”

I sat there looking at her, and the noises from the casino seemed to fade away and we might’ve been sitting in the canyon with only the sound of the water and the wind around us. “The dead only want the same as the living.”

“Which is?”

“To be understood, but to help him be understood you must first understand him.” She studied me for a long time. “I have decided to help you.”

“In what way?”

“I think it is time we did a purification ceremony in the canyon and do what we can to help Heeci’ecihit find the peace he deserves.”

“You don’t think he stole the money?”

“No. I do not, but there are those who do. I would say that is part of what keeps him restless and riding the wind.”

“What else?”

“Things I cannot say—things you will have to discover on your own.”

She glanced at Theona and lowered her voice. “The family has had a hard life, harder since Bobby died, but she did not know him that well.”

“And you did?”

Her eyes came up sharp. “Yes, I did.”

It was a hunch, but that’s how I make my living, so I did something I tried never to do. “Kimama, how old are you?”

The darts in her eyes faded, and she smiled. “I do not know.”

Her tone was coy, but I was pretty sure. “Don’t know, or won’t tell me?”

“How old do you think I am, Bucket?”

“I’m guessing, mind you, but there’s one known fact
that gives me an idea.” I leaned forward, placing an elbow on the table and crowding her personal space, but she didn’t even bat an eye. “Bobby Womack was thirty-two years old when he died and if you’re about the same age as he was and Sam Little Soldier, which I think you are, then that would put you somewhere around seventy.” I waited a few seconds and then added, “I bet I’m close.”

She rested her hands on her lap and stared at the floor. “Thirty-two does not sound so old now, does it?”

“Sometimes it’s as old as you get.”

She pulled at her lip as if stretching it might loosen the words. “My marriage was a bad marriage to begin with and when I discovered I could not have children, it got worse. My husband held it against me—he was a big man and struck me often. He would not grant me a divorce. It is strange, but in those days such a thing was unheard of. Bobby and me started seeing each other on the sly. Nobody knew about it, but I would often drive up into the canyon to be with him.”

“Did he ever say anything about the men he’d shot?”

“Yes, he talked of it many times. It was a great sorrow to him that he had to do such a thing and especially to two of his own people. He said he had no choice, that
they had pointed their guns at him and he had responded the way he had been trained, and now they were dead.”

I pulled the coin from my pocket and handed it to her. “The flat-hat, Rosey, has been finding one of these just before something terrible happens in the canyon.”

She felt the silver dollar in her hand, running her thumb over the surface but not looking at it. “You received this one?”

“Yep.”

“When?”

“Last night, in the tunnels.”

“Did something terrible happen?”

I thought about it as I watched her fingers run over the coin and then decided an attempted suicide pretty much fit the bill. “Yep, I guess you could say that.”