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Authors: Craig Johnson

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“The old-fashioned way, I guess.”

“Door to door?”

“For lack of anything else.” I gestured toward the radio in her hand. “Tell Sancho to stay there for ten minutes, I’m sending over a visitor.”

She nodded, and I went back to my truck. “Hey, it’s looking more and more like I’m not going to make it home tonight, so your options are this truck or our offices. I sleep there all the time, and the shower downstairs has hot water that’ll take the first three layers of your skin off, honest.”

She stared at me, the chin held up a little in defiance before she lowered it and shrugged. “How will I get over there?”

“You remember the way?”

“I can use my phone. It’s a small town.”

“Take the truck, I’ll hitch a ride with Vic, if I need one.” Pulling the keys from my pocket, I handed them to her, flipped the driver’s seat forward to allow Dog to escape into the yard, where he immediately began sniffing.

Scooting her own dog to the floor, she climbed over the center console, and settled herself in the driver’s seat, adjusting it forward. “Jeez, daddy longlegs.”

She fired it up, and I shut the door, stepping back and watching her go.

“You do realize you just gave a complete stranger your truck and access to the entire sheriff’s department.”

Dog sat on my foot and looked up at me as I reached down and ruffled an ear. “She seems trustworthy.”

Vic rolled her eyes. “I’ll take the other side of the road.”

Watching her head across the street, I called out, “I’m going to have a quick chat with Jeannie Lott first.”

“Fine.”

My voice followed after her. “Why is it I get this side?”

“Because that way you get the trailer park.”


“So, you’ve had absolutely no contact with your husband since he came up here?”

The woman composed herself, dabbing her eyes with one of the tissues that Sally Anders had provided. “Well, not really. I mean there were texts that he’d gotten here saying he’d gotten a motel room because it was late . . .”

“But nothing after that?”

“No.” She stood and walked away from me and toward the front window, looking out at the flashing lights that intermittently lit up the neighborhood. “Look, I just want my son back.”

“We’re doing our best.” I followed her. “How about your father, anything from him?”

She continued looking out the window with her back to me. “No, we don’t talk much.”

“I’m assuming you didn’t stop and see him in Casper on your way up?”

“No.” She turned and looked at me. “Sheriff, I’m not sure you understand how alienated my family is from one another.”

“I guess not, but I’m starting to get an idea. Do you mind if I ask what the source of all this animosity might be?”

She turned and walked to the sofa and leaned back, glancing around at the empty room. “I’d rather not.”

“I’d rather you did.”

“I don’t think you realize just how difficult this is for me . . .” She studied my face for a moment. “Are you charging me with something, because otherwise I don’t see it as being any of your business.”

“Ms. Lott, I’ve got all my deputies and most of the northern Wyoming law enforcement community out there looking for your husband and child, so I think I’m due something of an explanation as to why they might be missing.”

Suddenly gripping her hands into fists, she screamed in my face. “You need to do your job and find my family!”

I waited a moment before answering. “I’m trying, Ms. Lott, but you’re not making it any easier for me.”

She screamed again. “It’s not my responsibility to make it easier for you—just find my husband and child!”

I stood there for a moment longer and then went into the kitchen, where I found the Anderses and Dog, who was bumming a piece of bread from Dave. “Walt, I don’t know what to say . . .”

“Don’t say anything—it’s not your fault. If anybody it’s me that should be blamed. I put you in a position that was untenable. I should’ve known that somebody was looking to abduct Liam and it’s certainly not your fault.”

Sally looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Squeezing her shoulder, I smiled. “We’ll find him.”

I glanced at Jeannie Lott as I passed through the living room, but she pointedly avoided making eye contact with me, so I continued out the front door with Dog.

Who, what, where, and why?

I didn’t have an answer to any of the W’s.

“Walt!” I looked up to see Vic crossing the street. “Third door, and we might’ve caught a break.” She gestured for me to meet and follow as she slowed. “The old guy across the street says he saw a vehicle cruising the neighborhood a couple of times and thought it was weird, so he was going to grab out his license catalog and look it up.” She gestured for me to hurry. “License catalog, what the hell is that all about?”

Hustling as best I could, I caught up with her as Dog shot ahead. “Back in the day, the fraternal organizations—the Elks, Moose, and Lions clubs—used to sell these little yellow booklets that had the county plates referenced with everybody’s name, address, and phone numbers—they used to sell them off the counters at the gas stations.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“A booklet for sale that had everybody in the county’s plate numbers and personal information?”

“Crazy, huh?”

“Fucking-A.”

We strode up the driveway to the porch door just as an elderly gentleman appeared thumbing through one such booklet. “Hello, youngsters.”

I didn’t know him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know me,
and I was momentarily charmed by the fact that there were entire cavalcades of people in my community with whom I never had any interaction in an official sense. “Mister?”

“Kling, Jack Kling.” He reached down and petted the beast. “I think I’ve got him, pretty low number, so I had to keep going back to the front to cross-reference.”

Vic folded her arms. “If you give us the number, Mr. Kling, we can have dispatch get us all that information in a few moments.”

Adjusting his glasses, he peered into the now illegal booklet. “Oh, but what’s the fun in that?”

“Mr. Kling, a boy’s whereabouts . . .”

“Here it is. Low number all right, 24-387.”

The number sounded familiar. “Who?”

He thumbed through a few more pages as Vic yanked the handheld from her belt. “Fuck me running through the forest.” She clicked the toggle. “Base, I’ve got a plate number that I need run. It’s Absaroka 387?”

Static. “Roger that. Hey, I’m assuming it’s okay to let the Cheechoo woman camp out here and have a shower since she’s driving the Boss’s truck?”

“Whatever, we’re here to serve and protect and promote personal hygiene.”

Kling pinpointed a page with a fingertip. “Here it is. Now I’ve got the address I can find the name.”

“Mr. Kling, if you give us the address, we can have—”

“Just one more second, young man.” He lifted the finger and immediately lost his place. “Damn.” Thumbing through a few pages again, he found it and then moved to cross-reference.

Vic raised the walkie-talkie to her mouth. “Base?”

Static. “Hold on, I’ve got a call coming through. How the heck does Ruby deal with all this crap at once?”

Kling smiled and nodded. “There he is. I thought that was it, but better to be safe than sorry, huh?”

Static. “Hey, you guys aren’t going to believe this.”

Vic keyed the mic. “What?”

Static. “Guess who’s MIA at the Wyoming Medical Center down in Casper?”

The older gentleman looked up at us, pushing his glasses onto his forehead and smiling even more broadly. “Abarrane Extepare.”


“Your reputation is spreading, even down in the Casper hospitals they’re referring to an unofficial self-release as a
Longmire
.” Saizarbitoria met us at the top of the stairs. “How do you go from medically induced coma to stealing your ’65 Travelall back from the impound lot in one of the largest cities in Wyoming and then driving a hundred and twelve miles to pull your grandson through a window?”

Vic reached down and scratched Dog’s ear. “In a hospital gown, no less . . . Man, that’s one hellaciously tough old bird.”

I shook my head. “He must have been pretty desperate. And how did he find out where Liam was?” My staff looked back at me blankly, including Dog. “We’ve notified the HPs?”

Vic nodded.

“All right, where would he take him?”

She leaned on Ruby’s desk. “The ranch.”

Sancho shook his head. “The Outlaw Cave, the place has history for his whole family, and it’s where he feels safe.”

“Even after we carried him out of there?”

He tipped his ball cap back, a dollop of dark hair falling over his forehead. “That’s my bet.”

“Fortunately for us, we’ve got three officers and three units.” I pointed at Sancho. “Call Double Tough and head down to the Middle Fork, but don’t go into the canyon unless you see that Travelall. I turned to Vic. “You go to the ranch, and if he’s not there you wait and see if he shows up.”

“How come I get the ranch?”

I smiled. “Because you play cribbage.”

“And where the hell are you going to go?”

“Up the mountain.”

“The mountains, why?”

“He’s got reinforcements up there.”

“And you’re going to go alone?”

“I’ve got Dog.”

“. . . And me.” We all turned to see Keasik coming up the stairs from the basement, roughing her dark hair with one of our towels. She draped the towel over the shoulder of a fresh, flannel shirt as Gansu joined her. “I’ve got nothing to do, so I might as well be good for something.”

“Ms. Cheechoo, I’m afraid . . .”

“You sure needed some help the last time I saw you up there.”

I shook my head. “I can’t place a private citizen in danger.”

She barked a laugh of dismissal. “He’s a hundred years old, and he almost died of hypothermia.”

“He’s desperate.”

“Look, I’ll stay in the truck with the dogs, okay? I just think you need to have somebody up there with you just in case.”

Realizing I wasn’t making any headway and aware that the
more time it took us to get moving the more chance it was that Abe and the boy would be even harder to find, I gave in. “All right, let’s get moving.”

Sancho headed down the front steps. “I’ll call Double Tough from the radio in my unit and get Ruby to come in and pull an all-nighter.”

Vic punched my shoulder as she passed. “If I end up spending all night getting cheated at cribbage with that crazy old bat with nothing to show for it, I’m going to be very pissed.”

I yelled after them both. “Call in on the hour to see if anything has developed.”

Turning, I watched as Keasik retrieved her North Face jacket and pulled it on. “So, I guess Miguel Hernandez is now officially on the back burner?”

“With all due respect, he’s dead, and the boy, we all hope, is still alive.”

The bright blue eyes looked a little ashamed. “Sorry, I guess this was the wrong time to bring that up, huh?”

“Actually, maybe not.” I stood there, studying her.

After a moment, her chin stuck out the way it did whenever she was challenged. “What?”

“I’m trying to see what your place really is in all this, Ms. Cheechoo.”

“What do you mean?”

I took a step closer, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “You seem to be taking all of this so personally, more so than what I would deem as normal.”

“Normal.” Her head dropped, and her voice became quiet. “What’s normal anyway?”

I smiled in spite of myself and started toward the stairs,
patting my leg so Dog would know I was serious about leaving. “If you’re coming, let’s go.”

She scooped up her own dog and trotted down the steps after me. “My childhood, it wasn’t a great one, so I hate to see children suffer.”

“You think Liam is suffering?”

“I don’t know, but I’d say it was a possibility—it’s something I recognize.”

I nodded and shut the heavy door, locking it and walking toward my truck. “You had a rough childhood?”

“Oh, just another abusive father who took his life’s losses out on his children.”

She stopped at the passenger door, and I opened it, allowing her to climb in. “We’ve got a long ride ahead of us, so maybe we can tell each other the story of our lives.”

“I’m sure yours is much more interesting than mine.” I shut the door and started around, letting Dog in and then climbing in myself and buckling up before hitting the starter. I sat there for what only felt like a moment staring through the windshield at the office, feeling something was wrong, something palpable.

After a while, I heard her voice from far away. “Are you all right?”

I turned and looked at her. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Um, yep. I’ve been having these spells since getting back from Mexico. Was I gone long?”

“A minute or two.” I said nothing, so she added, “Have you been looked at? I mean it sounds like you went through a lot down there.”

“I’ve got a friend over at the hospital who I check in with regularly.”

She looked doubtful. “Is he any kind of specialist or anything?”

“On pretty much everything.” Unlocking the emergency brake, I spun the wheel and hit the gas before stopping again to stare at the empty parking lot.

“What is it?”

“Do you see a black Jeep Wrangler out here anywhere?”

She glanced about. “No.”

Stomping on the accelerator, we peeled out. “Neither do I.”

15

Leaving the lights of town behind, we drove up the mountain, the conifers leaning over the road as we traced our way up the switchbacks toward Powder River Pass. We drove through the cloud cover to the top and you could see where the snow had receded, leaving a patchwork in the shaded areas, all of it illuminated by the full moon.

It looked cold outside, like being on that moon, but it was warm and close in the cab of my truck with the heat on full and the four of us breathing. “In what way?”

“Well, he and my mother had had other mistakes, but my next nearest brother is almost twenty years older than me.”

“More like an uncle.”

“If he hadn’t been a useless alcoholic, maybe.” She followed the ice that had etched aspen branches on the inside of the windows with her fingertips. “He died about three years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? He drank himself to death his whole life and finally got what he wanted.” She reached down and petted Gansu. “Anyway, I had a dog—at least we thought it was a dog.” She turned toward me. “A friend of ours had a pup, and I cried until they let me have it. I fed it scraps from the table—anything I could get my hands on and he got bigger. After about a year, it
became obvious that he had wolf in him. He was the greatest dog I ever had.”

“What happened to him?”

“My father shot him.” She leaned back in the seat. “He was beating my mother, and I tried to step in and he hit me, and the dog went for his throat. They never liked each other.” She looked out the window at the passing scenery. “Later that night, when the dog was asleep, he shot him.”

“I’m sorry . . . again.”

“Yeah, well this time you can be.” She chuckled a bitter laugh. “Like I said, he drank himself to death, which had to be better than my grandfather who got run over by a train.”

Static. “Walt, Scott Kirkman says they’ve got troopers on all the main roads, and no one has seen either of the vehicles.”

I stared down at the Motorola and then, plucking the mic from my dash, I keyed it, reassured that the real dispatcher was back in the saddle. “Thanks, Ruby.”

Static. “Of course, that’s only as of ten minutes ago.”

I pressed the toggle. “Right, well thanks for coming in.”

Static. “Find that boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I hung the mic back on the dash and took the turn toward Paradise Guest Ranch, moving along Hunter Creek and slowly climbing from the canyon, with the clouds stretching out over the plains, looking as if you could walk on them. “And that, is that.”

“Meaning?”

“Scattered radio or cell phone contact until we make the ridge at the corrals, and once we’re over, it’s gone completely.”

I watched as she pulled her phone from inside her jacket and checked. “Only one tick.”

“‘One tick,’ what does that mean?”

“Limited reception with only one bar of power.” She pointed. “See, up here?”

She handed the device to me, and I hit a few buttons with my oversize paw, then handed it back to her. “I can’t tell, but I don’t know anything about those silly things.”

She held it up but then stuffed it back into her pocket. “So, who is it we’re supposed to be seeing up here in the middle of the night anyway?”

Switching into four-wheel drive because of the partially frozen mud, I turned a corner. “Well, Abe has run off with Liam; Donnie has run off with his Jeep . . .” I shrugged. “At least I think it’s Donnie or the guys from search and rescue.”

Slowing to study the tracks on the road, I looked to the right where Hunter Mesa began; a long ridge running like a wall from east to west. “And then there are the shepherds who are left—Jimenez, the camp tender, and Arriett. They both work for Abarrane.”

“And are they somehow involved with the boy’s abduction?”

“I don’t think so, at least not in a direct way.”

“But you do think the cases are related?”

“Possibly.” We made the ridge and dropped off into the basin, where I could see that there were tracks that led north. “It would make my life a lot easier if they were.”

She leaned against the door and studied me. “Does it usually work out that way?”

“Hardly ever.”

She laughed and then cocked a head as we drove by Paradise Guest Ranch, the golden ruddiness of the lights looking inviting. “What say we say the hell with it and get a cabin?”

“I think that’s what they call a dereliction of duty.”

She laughed. “You were in the military?”

“I was.”

“You know, you don’t give out with much.” She kept watching me as I drove. “You don’t really believe that old man is abusing his grandson, do you?”

“I don’t, but I discount nothing at this point—strange things happen on the mountain.” I glanced at her still hunkered next to the window. “I had a previous case that turned out to involve an abused boy and another who was murdered that didn’t end well. But there was an element that became evident, one that I haven’t completely come to terms with just yet.” I continued driving. “I had a native friend, a man named Virgil White Buffalo, who helped me and Henry . . .”

“The one that broke my father’s arm?”

“I thought it was your uncle.”

“Um, no, my father.”

I glanced at her. “Anyway, Henry seems to think that Virgil may be manifesting himself as this wolf.”

Her expression didn’t change. “And you believe that?”

“I’m not sure what I believe—that’s the problem.”

There was a long pause before she spoke again. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you.” She turned and watched me as I drove. “I looked you up. There’s a lot about you, but not very many interviews.”

“I try and avoid them, if possible.”

“There was even something about those Mallo Cup cards. What’s that about?”

Pulling the one from my shirt pocket, I handed it to her. “The fellow I mentioned, Virgil White Buffalo, he used to leave the Play Money cards from Mallo Cups for me as some kind of shaman totem. Bread crumbs, I guess.”

She studied the card in her hands. “Used to?”

Pulling up to a cattle guard and barbed-wire stringer, I stopped and turned to look at her. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

“I just thought it was curious, the Mallo Cup thing, I mean.”

I nodded and got out, threw the hitch, and walked the loose strands of wire back across the cattle guard and left the stringer leaning against the nearest pole. Looking at the stars, I breathed the scent of the big fir trees, wondering what it would be like to live up here year-round—cold, I’d imagine, but peaceful.

I could see her watching me as I climbed back in, started the truck, and pulled it forward through the double gate. Stopping once again but leaving it running this time, I shifted the three-quarter ton into Park and climbed out. Her voice trailed after me. “I think your dog needs to pee.”

I glanced back at him through the open door. “How can you tell?”

“He was whining when you got out.”

“Really?” I looked at Dog, who looked back at me with the inscrutability of the ages. “He almost never whines.” She shrugged, and I opened the back door.

Never one to turn down an opportunity, though, Dog bounded a few steps over the deeper snow drifts. Then he turned to look at me as I walked behind my truck and restrung the wire back across and latched it. “Yep, I know.”

I got the fence in place just in time to see Keasik Cheechoo climbing over the center console, jumping into the driver’s seat, pulling the gear selector into place, and spinning the wheels, throwing snow on both me and Dog.

Putting a gloved hand up to protect my face, I watched as
the taillights of my truck bounced along the trail and across the open area before going over a slight rise and disappearing.

Turning to look down at Dog, who sat in the snow and looked at me as if I were an idiot, I reached down and stroked his head. “Just as I’d planned.”


Dog and I walked along the two tracks left by my truck. I shined the flashlight up the road and could see the spots where other vehicles had gone off cross-country. One set was very wide but not with the most aggressive tread, while the other was narrow, vintage, and with a more pronounced pattern.

“Seems like a party, huh?”

He regarded me, still unsure as to whether I’d lost my mind.

“I know, but there wasn’t any other way.”

Continuing the long trek, we broke into the first park where we’d found the dead sheep, and I figured it to be a little over a mile to Miguel Hernandez’s wagon—about thirty minutes in these conditions.

Starting off again, I tightened my jacket and wished I still had my old sheepskin one that had been cut off of me over in South Dakota. Lined jeans would’ve been nice too.

It was cool and clear, and I walked into my breath.

There was a noise off to my right but no tracks heading in that direction. I stopped for a moment and studied the timberline but couldn’t see anything. Dog took a few steps but then stopped and turned to look at me.

“No.”

He begrudgingly came back and fell in line behind me.

“I know, and I think it is too, but we’ve got a job ahead of us.”

I watched as he periodically trailed to the right, but then
seeing me looking at him would return to the tracks and follow.

The snow receded, tracing the diagonal tree line in a jagged representation of the mountains and giving the broad park a lopsided appearance. The drifts were gone where I climbed the rise, but the ground was still soft enough to leave tracks.

Making the ridge, I squinted at the narrow opening that led to the other park and thought I may have underestimated the distance by half.

Dog looked up at me. “I know, but there weren’t any other gates closer.” I started off again. “C’mon, we need the exercise—or at least I do.”

There was more snow on the downslope, and I had to catch myself from slipping as we descended, finally sliding so much that I found myself sitting in the snow with Dog sticking his face in mine. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” I lumbered up, heard the noise to my right again, and instinctively reached down to grab hold of Dog’s collar as he made a slight lunge toward the darkness. “I told you, no.”

Something was moving about a hundred yards away, slipping between the pines and then melting into the dark as if it had never been there. I waited but nothing showed, and I started off again.

There was a gradual rise leading to the narrow spot in the trees that opened into the next park where the wagon had been. Realizing I was about halfway there, I concentrated on making time rather than on being spooked by what might be in the woods.

I’d made it about halfway up the grade when I thought I could see something in the narrow aperture, right at the peak. Dog growled.

I was thinking wolf, but it wasn’t.

“Hello, Jacques.”

The man, backlit by the moonlight, said nothing but readjusted the carbine in his hands.

Getting a little closer, I stopped about fifty yards from him.

“You need to go away.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You need to go away now.”

I started up again, but this time surreptitiously slipped my .45 from the holster and held it behind me.

“Stop.”

I kept coming, Dog trailing out to my right again, just a bit.

He readjusted the rifle, aiming it toward Dog. “Stop or I shoot.”

“You shoot my dog, and I will most assuredly shoot you.”

He wavered a bit, settling the muzzle of the .30-30 back on me. “Stop, or I shoot you now.”

I had effectively shortened the distance between us and had him at about forty yards, a point where I felt comfortable putting my Colt against the Winchester rifle. I stopped and turned just a bit so that I could bring my gun hand straight up for an offhand shot. “What do you think you’re doing, Jacques?”

“You turn around and go back.”

“Back where—Durant? You’ve got my truck.”

“I don’t have nuthin’. You turn around and go back down to that dude ranch—you’ll be there in an hour or so.”

“I don’t think I will.”

He was silent for a moment. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

I took a deep breath. “How many people have you shot, Jacques? Any? I’ve shot and killed so many people lately I can’t even keep count anymore.

He shifted his weight and the palpable nervousness carried across the space between us. “I’ll shoot you—”

“You’re not going to shoot anybody, because you’re not a killer.” I sighed and turned to look into the trees at my right where I was sure something was there watching our little drama play out. “If you were, you would’ve noticed that I’ve already unholstered my sidearm with a round in the chamber and the hammer back and thumbed off the safety—ready for fire.” I turned the Colt out a bit, allowing it to glint in the moonlight. “Have you even jacked the lever on that carbine? Are you sure there’s a round in the chamber? Is the safety on? Have you checked any of that?”

“I’ll shoot—”

“Of course you haven’t, because it’s not your job, you’re a shepherd for goodness sake. I’m a sheriff, and I’ve had one of these things on my hip for coming up on a half century. You’re not going to shoot me, Jacques.”

I looked at the sky and couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of the pattern of the stars, so clear, so remote. “The nearest star is the sun, of course, ninety-three million miles away. Did you know that it takes about eight and a half minutes for its rays to get to earth?”

He looked up.

“And out of the two thousand stars that we can see without help, about a dozen are already dead; we just don’t know it yet.”

I stopped talking, and his attention returned to me and the extended muzzle of my Colt .45, aimed directly at the spot between his eyes.

“Just like you won’t know you’re dead until it’s too late, and the only thing that will happen will be a flicker of surprise as you hit the ground staring up at those cold, dead stars.” I took a breath. “Drop it, now.”

He did as I said, and the muffled thump of the thing falling to the snow was the only sound.

Lowering my own weapon, I walked the rest of the way to him and stooped to pick up the carbine before thumbing the safety back on my Colt and holstering it. Lifting the rifle, I could see that the safety was indeed on.

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