Buffalo Jump Blues (18 page)

“Are you all right, girl?”

Goldie slinked over from where she'd been lying on straw, her hindquarters nearly dragging. Martha held out a hand and the old dog nosed it. Not her normal greeting at all. Martha passed her hands up and down each of Goldie's legs and over her chest and abdomen. “You okay, girl, you okay?”

Martha walked to the house, ushered Goldie inside, and uncased
her .30-06, which she kept under her bed. She loaded the magazine and went back outside and got the six-cell Maglite from the Jeep. It had rained while she'd been at the bar, so that the tracks of a truck—it was Drake's truck, one glance at the dragon-tooth tread confirmed it—were clearly visible in the bright circle of the flashlight. She breathed a little easier. There were no narrow treads from a trailer, and the track indicated that the truck had been turned around in a tight radius that would have jackknifed a trailer, had it hauled one.

Martha's fenced land was seventeen acres, about a mile-and-a-half perimeter of three-strand, 16-gauge barbed wire that she began to walk, the rifle over one shoulder, a coiled rope over the other. She could feel her heart thumping, feel the breath fill her lungs and leave her body, feel herself falling victim to an emotion she hated in herself and hadn't felt for a long time.

That son of a bitch
.

She spotted the outline of Petal, who trotted right over making little nickers of pleasure, and, followed by the horse, she finally found the cow standing in the northeast corner of the property, showing milkily in the darkness, her outline partly obliterated by the black coal of the little bison. Martha turned the light off and walked up, speaking in her talk-to-the-animals voice, slipped the rope over the neck of the cow and gently coaxed it along, the bison trailing like a shadow. She shut them up in the stall and looked down at the cigarette butt. Lots of Montanans rolled their smokes. For a couple years she had, too, back when her second marriage went to hell and in the process of dumping one bad habit she'd picked up another.

Had he meant to leave it there? She knew damned well he had. It was as conspicuous an act as a wolf leaving scat on the top of a rock.
I'm the alpha here, this is how big I crap, cross me at your peril.

It was Drake telling her it wasn't over. And if he did get the warrant and Martha tore it up and ordered him off the property at gunpoint, which she could see herself doing? She'd be arrested by the coroner, who, as an elected official, was the only person who had the authority
to do so. It would be the end of her career. She walked back to the house and put on her flannel pajamas. Her eyes lingered on the dog-eared copy of
Gone with the Wind
on her nightstand. Scarlett, she thought. What would Scarlett O'Hara do? Scarlett would think about it tomorrow.

“Fuck you, Drake,” she said.

She got into bed, placing the loaded rifle within reach.

“S
o how did the fishing go last week?” Sean asked. “Get up at dawn and catch that big brown like you threatened to?”

Patrick Willoughby raised his eyes as he served eggs sunny side up with toast and cups of strong coffee. “Shall you tell them, Ken, or shall I?”

“I got up about nine,” Winston said. He buttered his toast, his long fingers working as dexterously as if he was figure-eighting the wings of a mayfly pattern. “Patrick beat me to the coffee maker by ten minutes, as I recall.”

Willoughby nodded sagely. “As the presiding members of the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Cub, we decided that we would rest the old trout for another day.”

His eyes twinkled.

“My dear,” he said, speaking to Georgeanne Wilkerson, “would you prefer cream or sugar, or both? Not often do we get to enjoy such illustrious and comely company in the same person. Someday you must tell me how you came to be called Ouija Board Gigi.”

Wilkerson had spent the night at Willoughby's insistence. Stranahan had invited her in when they saw lights in the cabin, and they had joined Patrick and Ken for a brandy in front of the fireplace as the late hour became one hour later, and she had slept over, as Sean had known all along that she would.

Now she sat at the fly-tying table in crisp khakis—crime scene investigators, she pointed out to him, always carry a change of clothes—and Sean could see she was thoroughly enjoying the
attention. Watching her smile for Willoughby, he recalled Winston Churchill's assessment of Franklin Roosevelt. “Meeting him was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.” Willoughby was also the most astute judge of the criminal mind that Sean had ever met, and he found himself confiding in him while drinking his second cup of coffee.

Willoughby nodded encouragingly, not interrupting, and only after Sean had finished asked him to revisit the day he'd guided Brady and Levi Karlson in more detail, along with a few other points of the narrative. As Sean elaborated, Willoughby's eyes became ever more inscrutable under the round lenses of his glasses. He seemed to have pulled back into a place deep within himself. Then he nodded and rose, asking Sean and Gigi to take a walk with him and arming himself with a fly rod. “One must always be prepared,” he said with a wink.

The morning was chill enough to don jackets, warm enough to take them off a quarter mile up the river.

“I call this my thinking log,” Willoughby said, sitting with his back to the bole of a tree uprooted in a spring flood.

“Is this where matters of state are ruminated?” Wilkerson asked. Sean had sketched in Willoughby's background during their drive to the clubhouse.

“No, my dear. I don't know what nonsense Sean has been whispering in your ear, but this is the place where I divine strategy to outwit the brown trout who lives in the slot near the tail of that island.” He pointed with his rod tip. “So far he has had the better of me, though he came up once for my salmonfly. Parting, as Juliet recalled to the fated Romeo, was such sweet sorrow.”

“He broke you off?” Sean said.

“No, the fly came out, but not before I saw him. He is five pounds if he is an ounce, though as an angler I may not be entirely impervious to the temptation of exaggeration.”

“Fishermen are born honest, but they get over it,” Sean said.

“My sentiment exactly.”

They listened to the river.

“You didn't ask us here to quote Shakespeare,” Sean said. “And I didn't accompany you to quote Ed Zern.”

“No. Quite so. I wanted to bring you here because fresh air is the old man's cocaine and also because this problem does not concern Ken, and I did not want to appear rude and ask him to take his coffee elsewhere.”

Willoughby ruminated, his hand pinching flesh under his chin, elongating his moonlike face.

“I am at a disadvantage,” he said at length, “having not had the opportunity of observing any of the participants in your most fascinating narrative. Nonetheless, I feel confident saying that the officers of your county have underestimated the depth of the situation. They present a plausible motive for suicide, while paying no more than lip service to the possibility of murder, limiting the discussion only to the particulars of its execution. Now, I would not rule out the former, for Thackery does fit a profile—unappreciated in his work, losing a spouse, living alone, etcetera. And I agree with your sheriff that he is the type of victim who would likely leave a note. But whether you return to the cabin this morning and find one is not the most pressing matter before us.

“The crucial elements in this case, in any possible murder case, are opportunity, means, and motive. I speak of Gary Hixon, for his fate precipitated what happened at the cabin, regardless of whether Thackery took his life or it was taken from him. We can agree that those who had the opportunity to kill Hixon on the evening of the buffalo jump include Thackery himself, the Karlson brothers, and John Running Boy. But who among them had the means? According to John's account of the events, the only persons who knew where he had stashed the bow and arrows to finish off the bison, besides himself, were the brothers, Brady and Levi. John's recollection is that Brady implicated Thackery to his brother. But if Thackery shot the
arrow, one of the others involved in the jump had to show him where the bow was, or place it in his hands. When trying to reconstruct the events of that night, keep this point in mind.”

Willoughby removed his tweed fedora, his wispy gray hair catching the breeze. He picked at a fly stuck in a sheepskin patch on the hat and spoke without looking up.

“We arrive at the question of motive. You describe the brothers as preppy—selfish, privileged, superficially charming. Scott Fitzgerald's careless rich come to mind. But the motive you advance, that Brady, the dominant brother, killed the Indian man because had he lived he would have talked and his story would have reflected badly upon them, cost them the respect of their father, perhaps their chances for admission at a good law school, is, I believe, insufficient reason for murder. Privileged brats do not necessarily murderers make, even those who may benefit from another's death. What stops a person who has motive to kill from following through is his or her basic humanity, which stands as a buffer against the act.”

He set his hat beside him on the log and held up a finger. “Impulse control.” He raised a second finger. “Moral reasoning.” He lifted a third. “The ability to love.

“These are the three defining characteristics of a caring human being. To the degree that a person possesses these traits, he or she is immunized against the antisocial and psychopathic behaviors that precipitate murder. My reading of Theodore Thackery is that he possesses these character traits and therefore we do not need to eliminate motive in order to remove him from the suspect pool. That leaves as possible suspects John Running Boy, who owned the murder weapon and fled the scene”—Willoughby held up his hand as Sean began to protest—“and the brothers. No, let me finish.

“Unless you are withholding a crucial piece of information”—Sean felt himself cringe, remembering his promise to Ida not to mention her relationship with Gary Hixon—“I can see no reason why John would murder his childhood friend. Nor, for that matter, can I
ascribe a convincing reason that the Karlson brothers would commit such an act. However, that is not the same as saying that they are innocent. Sean, when I asked you to—” He paused, staring intently toward the island. “Are you seeing—?”

“He's been rising for about five minutes, but I didn't want to interrupt your train of thought.”

“Pale morning dun?”

“I'd try a CDC emerger. You'll have to do some fancy mending to get the drift.”

Willoughby flipped down the magnifying lenses clipped to the frame of his glasses and busied himself tying on a fly.

“The old naval officer sails to battle,” he said, and carefully worked his way out from shore on short sturdy legs, stepping from one rock to another. He got the drift on the third cast, the trout barely dimpling the surface as it sipped in the fly. The trout flipped into the air, its broad pink strip matching the hue that was the horizon's only an hour before. A good fish of about two pounds. Sean saw Wilkerson bring her head back as Willoughby stepped into the shallows to net the trout and slipped the hook to release it.

“The gentleman is impressive,” she said, as he sloshed back downstream.

“Luck, my dear, brought on, no doubt, by your presence. As I was about to say”—water streamed from his trousers as he sought a comfortable position on the log—“the lack of obvious motive does not mean that someone has not committed a crime. Back at the cabin, you will recall that I asked you to speak in detail about these two young men. That is because their manner troubled me. The individuals you described appear to lack impulse control and exhibit little remorse for the consequences of their actions. They were deceitful and manipulative of the two young Indian men, and even their behavior toward you, as their guide, shows a sense of entitlement that I would characterize as narcissistic. These are psychopath indicators. The utter callousness with which the more dominant of the brothers
tossed aside the whitefish was a red flag as well. It is possible that if you dig into the past, you may find yourself following a trail of dead cats and broken-winged birds.”

He paused. “Or worse. In fact, I would predict worse. You mentioned the sexual aggression toward the young mother who works for the American Bison Crusade. Later, you talked about John Running Boy overhearing the brothers talking about a certain Mary Beth, I believe.”

Sean nodded. “Mary Ellen.”

“The point is that psychopaths can be strongly motivated by sex drive. They enjoy a feeling of power over their conquests that can easily cross the line from a consensual act to rape. The family will have done their best to cover up past indiscretions—the fact that both brothers are in good standing at an Ivy League college suggests they have largely succeeded—but I would bet a boxful of Hendrickson's tied by our late Polly Sorenson that there have been at least a few transgressions involving young women.

“Now, you might wonder what this has to do with Gary Hixon's death. The point I'm making is that these men may not require a threshold level of motive to kill, but could act impulsively. A mouse is found wounded, it is suddenly vulnerable. The cat pounces. And in the process a mouth is shut that might have opened, might have caused trouble. You said John Running Boy is at the house of the tribal elder. Would the Karlson brothers know that location?”

“I don't think so.”

Willoughby nodded. “Keep in mind that I could be wrong about this and the young man may in fact be in no danger whatever. Still, it does no harm to err on the side of caution. He is, after Thackery and Hixon, the third mouth that could cause trouble for these men, and the only one who is still able to talk. It might be a wise idea for him to move to a more remote location while the Karlsons are fully investigated. I assume they have been questioned on the matter?”

Sean shook his head. “Martha is afraid if she approaches them, they will deny any involvement and saddle up with a lawyer. She doesn't want the first time she talks to them to be the last.”

“I understand her position. But I think it could be a mistake. If she interviews them, they will know that if anything happens to John Running Boy in the future, they will be suspects in the crime. That alone may prove a deterrent to keep them from returning to the reservation.”

He got to his feet. “With this cloud cover, I think we may get a hatch that trickles off all morning. I should probably get into my waders so I can fish properly.”

They had started for the house when a fox darted from the willows. It was a silver fox, with a black tail tipped with white. It stopped to stare incuriously back, a gopher dripping from its jaws, its nose sharp enough to pen a poem. The fox reminded Sean of a question he had intended to ask Willoughby about the motivation for the buffalo jump. If a psychopath lacked compassion for his fellow human beings, was it still possible to be motivated by the plight of an animal? All Brady's talk about bringing free-ranging bison back to public lands, shining a spotlight on their persecution, was it only an excuse to herd bison over a cliff?

“Psychopaths need excitement,” Willoughby explained. “If the highwayman suggested the jump, Brady might jump at the chance to participate, pardon the pun. But genuine sympathy? I think he might be driven more by his distain of the establishment that stands in the path of the bison.”

He smiled. “An old Catskill fisherman's two cents,” he said.

They arrived at the clubhouse to find Ken Winston in the bunk room with the shades drawn and his head stuck into his wader tops, shining a light to try to locate a hole.

“There's nothing worse than leaky waders,” Sean sympathized.

“It's a seam leak at the crotch,” Winston said. “I'll not have that
river shrinking my cymbals into jelly beans.” He pulled his head out of the waders to notice Wilkerson smiling from the doorway. “Mademoiselle must pardon my French.”

“Don't you have a backup pair?”

“Last time I looked it was just the two. You need a haircut, Sean.”

“I mean the waders.”

“Oh. Of course I do. It's the principle. When you purchase waders from a company that charges six hundred dollars for American manufacture, you expect them to keep your boys dry.”

They left him tut-tutting about his boys and shook hands with Willoughby in the turnaround.

“Speak to Martha,” Willoughby said. “My suggestion of an interview may carry more weight coming from your lips.”