Land of Wolves (21 page)

“Aren’t you going to hit me?”

I stood there, looking down at the small man. “Why in the world would I hit you?”

“They always do that in the movies, you know, because I held a gun on you.”

“Jacques, if I belted every person that pulled a gun on me, I’d be the heavyweight champion of the world.” Lifting the Winchester to my shoulder, I pushed my hat back. “If you don’t mind my asking, and even if you do—what the hell is going on?”

“Please don’t ask me.”

“Then who can I ask?”

He gestured behind him. “Ask them. I’m not down there because I don’t want to be party to it.”

“To what?”

His head dropped. “Ask them.”

“All right.” I sighed, my breath creating its own cloud. “Get the hell out of here.”

He looked at me. “No joke?”

I nodded. “I’ve got a suspicion that the fewer people involved in this the better.” I stepped out of his way. “Head on down to Paradise—I’m betting they will spot you a glass of wine.”

“I could use it—or something stronger.” He started off but then stopped. “Hey, can I have that gun of mine back?”

I stared at him for a good long while. “You’re kind of pushing your luck, aren’t you?”

He glanced around. “There are wolves.”

“Wolf . . . Punch the safety off.” I tossed him the Winchester. “And don’t shoot anybody.”

He smiled the shy grin and trooped off down the hill in my prints, not quite making the distance of my stride, and slipping a few times. It was quiet for a minute or two until he began whistling to himself and whatever else might’ve been out there in the darkness.

There was a fire, and the sheep were bedded down around the area with only one mule tied to the wagon.

The vehicles were parked near it—a haphazard collection, my truck the closest. I could see my keys hanging from the ignition along with the mic and cord of my two-way dangling from the rearview mirror.

I could hear voices and see shadows reflecting off the wagon front where Saizarbitoria and I had sat eating the stew and drinking wine with Arriett.

Dog stood a little ways off in a slight drift where the snow had once again taken advantage of the shade from the tree line to hang on for a few more days. He dipped his big head, sniffing the air again, detecting a million scents I would never even know existed.

Taking a few more steps at an angle, I could see into the space between the International Travelall and the black Wrangler to where two people were talking and laughing in a relaxed manner.

Patting my leg to get Dog’s attention, I moved up between the vehicles and looked down at a dark spot in the snow, smaller spots trailing toward the fire. I slipped off a glove and felt the substance, lifting it to my nose. Blood.

I wiped my fingers off on my jeans, slipped my glove back on, took out my .45 and punched off the safety, holding it once again at my side. Moving up to the front of the Jeep, I paused at the fender, listening as Keasik, who sat on one of the tree stumps with Liam in her lap, the two of them wrapped up in a blanket, told him a story.

“There was a man, a brave warrior, who was known throughout the land as a great hunter, but one season a dark winter appeared and took hold of the land, a winter unlike any before. The man and his wife and son were separated from the rest of the tribe and in the depths of this winter they grew hungrier and hungrier. Finally, the warrior told them that he must go out into the snow and get them food, but the warrior’s wife and son cried for him to not go.”

She propped Liam up farther on her knee and dropped her face so that the child could see her. “The warrior, realizing that they would die if he did not find them food went out into the storm, warning them to not open the flap of the teepee unless they heard his voice, which they promised to do. He searched the frozen land for any signs of game, but could not find any to kill. Finally becoming exhausted, he returned to the lodge where he heard his son crying in hunger and his wife assuring him that his father was a great hunter and would not return without food for his family.”

I leaned against the fender of the International, and my movement must’ve caught her attention. She stared at me for a moment with those light-colored eyes and then continued.
“The warrior turned back into the storm, but after a while he became weak and fell in the snow. Then he heard a voice calling out from the trees:

“‘—Brother, why do you despair?’

“‘My family is starving, and I can find no food for them.’

“‘—Brother, do you feel the warmth of my breath on your throat?’” She breathed on the neck of the boy and he squirmed and they both laughed.

“‘Yes,’ he said as the darkness closed in, and he felt himself become unconscious.

“‘—Know that with the power of my jaws I could kill you, but instead I will help you because you have a great responsibility to your family, but you must thank me.’

“When the man awoke again there was a great hunk of flesh on his chest, the hock of a buffalo, more than enough to feed his family. Wresting himself from the snow, he stood and called out to the trees, ‘How can I thank you when I do not even know who or what you are?’ The voice carried back from the trees on the wind:

“‘—You will know me.’

“The warrior went back to the lodge and called out, and his wife opened the flap. They cooked the meat, and it was very good, but more than they could eat. Sitting there around the fire, they began drifting off to sleep when a voice in the warrior’s own called from outside, asking to be let in.

“The warrior’s wife said no, that there could be nothing surviving out in the storm that would bring them any good, but the warrior untied the straps and suddenly the largest wolf any of them had ever seen forced its head inside the teepee, first looking at the child, then the woman, and finally at the warrior. Realizing that he could not reach his weapons, the warrior
decided to distract the wolf by throwing it some of the leftover meat, which the wolf devoured in a second, not giving the warrior time to get his bow and arrow. They sat there looking at each other, and then the wolf spoke in the voice he had learned from the man:

“‘—I told you, you would know me.’”

Dog, sensing the story was about him or his kin, stepped in a little closer to the fire as Liam’s eyes grew wide.

“The wolf lived with them and lingered fearlessly in their camp, and that is how we came to have dogs.”

Dog wagged and circled the fire, standing a little away from them.

“Howdy.”

They both looked up at me, Keasik enclosing Liam in her arms with the blanket. “That was fast.”

“It didn’t seem like it.” I glanced around. “Where are the others?”

She cocked her head at me. “Where’s Jacques?”

“On his way down to Paradise and a glass of wine.”

“He’s better suited to that.” She glanced at Liam. “Are you tired, honey?”

He nodded, and she hugged him, and walked him toward the sheep wagon, carefully lifting him through the open door at the rear where her dog stood waiting. “You cover up with Gansu, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

He looked past her at me and then lifted something to his mouth and blew, the comical noise coming from the toy badge Saizarbitoria had given him.

I saluted, and he saluted me back, smiling as she closed the door and returned to the fire, pulling the blanket around herself and crossing her arms. “You don’t seem surprised by all this?”

Holstering the .45, I shrugged a shoulder. “Oh, I’m sure there will be parts when I will be, but not by you.”

“Starting with?”

“Your name. Henry said it’s Cree for ‘
sky blue
,’ eyes just like Jakes Extepare, and then when you slipped up and mentioned that your grandfather had been run over by a train . . .”

“You know that story?”

“Abarrane mentioned that he married a native woman that night at the ranch, and that he’d been run over by a train.”

“But that couldn’t have been all?”

“Abe was the last person you called on your cell phone.”

She stared at me. “I thought you didn’t know how to operate those things?”

“I’m learning.” I came around the Jeep and leaned against the grille guard. “You were the woman Miguel met at the house near the airport.”

“So?”

“Whatever it was, was it worth killing him for?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Then who did?”

“Not me.” Unconsciously, she glanced past me to the southwest and the trees where the shepherd had been hung. “How did you know?”

“You were the only person who knew that Liam had been placed with the Anders. You called Abarrane, and that’s how he knew where to find him.

“You also slipped up and said Henry had broken your father’s arm instead of the uncle that you mentioned earlier.” I pointedly looked over my shoulder, slowly turning my head back to her. “Other than the family connection, what is it that has you and Abarrane working together?”

“A mutual enemy.” She hugged herself tighter. “What was your childhood like?”

“I don’t have time for this.”

She raised her voice. “What was your childhood like?”

I stood there looking at her. “Uneventful.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I didn’t have an alcoholic father or a negligent mother, it was just—normal.”

“Lucky you.” She looked back at the fire. “By the way, I didn’t say my mother was negligent.”

“You hardly mentioned her at all.”

“Victims are rarely leading roles in their or anybody else’s lives.” She reached in her jacket under the blanket and pulled out some sheets of paper, unfolding them. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the files on Miguel from the Immigration and Customs that were lying on the dispatcher’s desk. Have you looked at them?”

I pushed off the Jeep, and Dog turned to glance at me. “No, I haven’t had time.”

“Good.” She tossed them in the fire and watched them burn.

We both stood there like that for a moment, which I suppose was what she was trying to accomplish, but my conversational skills were running a little dry anyway. “By my count there would be three of them out there?”

She ignored me, her eyes staying with the fire.

“Are they armed?”

She continued to ignore me.

“I asked you, are they armed?”

The chin came up, and the eyes flared in the firelight. “Yes.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good.” I started to turn with Dog in tow but then diverted to my truck, where I pulled open the door and grabbed my keys from the ignition and my old blanket-sided canteen. Dog looked at me. “I know, but there are people out here with guns and they may not be able to tell the difference between you and a wolf.”

He didn’t move.

I unscrewed the top and took a swig of the cold water. “C’mon, kennel up.”

He still didn’t move.

“Truck.”

He sat.

“Ham.”

He jumped into the truck and turned around to face me as I closed the door. He sat, realizing he’d been had.

Coming around the front, I slipped the canteen onto my shoulder, pulled the big Colt from my holster, and glanced at Keasik. “Don’t go anywhere.”

She nodded toward the wagon and then reached down, throwing another log into the fire. “I wouldn’t leave Liam and Gansu or your dog, for that matter.”

Starting off, I could see where a number of prints of different species had tracked through the snow in the direction of the hanging tree. It looked to be about a quarter mile to the tree line at the other side of the park, and the air was so motionless it was as if the mountain were holding its breath.

Her voice was soft, but in the dead silence it carried. “You could let it go, you know? Just turn around, get in your truck, and get the hell out of here.”

I paused to look back at her, fully lit by the light from the campfire. “We both know I can’t do that.”

“It would be better, trust me.”

I laughed a bitter bark of air and stared at the lone jenny tied to the wagon before starting off again. “One more thing?”

“Yeah?”

I growled my response. “You’re missing a mule.”

The drifts were high in spots, and I stumbled along in the frozen air, ice clinging to the stubble on my face as the temperature plummeted. I reached up to try to rub a little feeling into my chin and watched as the frost shards fell from the stubble on my face. Oddly, the scar that streaked the skin around my left eye felt warm, as if the hide was too tough to feel cold.

It’s a common fallacy that cloudy nights are the coldest—it’s the clear, glittering nights where a bone-shattering cold comes from the unending universe and descends upon the earth, shagging the trees with ice in a landscape that goes on interminably. The lodgepole pines and Engelmann spruces jostled as if jockeying for position at the timberline and waved their branches in anticipation of a race they would never run or, maybe, beckoning, calling me forward to whatever fate they held.

There was a gust every once in a while, just enough to let you know what windchill could do if it wished—coat you, bury you, or freeze you stiff where you stood. Taking the canteen from my shoulder, I took another sip of the cold water.

I saw the shot before I heard it and turned to look at it slap into the snow a yard or two to my right. I stopped and was fully aware that the only thing I could do would be to flatten out in
the snow. “Just in case you don’t know who I am, it’s Walt Longmire, Absaroka County Sheriff.”

There was no response.

“You’ve just shot at a police officer, which is a serious offense, so I would advise you to hold your fire.”

Nothing.

“I’m coming ahead.”

Still nothing.

Starting off again, I saw the slap in the snow a couple of yards ahead of me, seeing the evidence of the shot when the sound arrived. The next time, I saw the muzzle flash and raised my Colt, placing a round in the vicinity of the shooter before running to the left to make the shorter distance to the tree line before they recovered and took aim again.

There was another shot, but this one was a good twenty yards to my right, which led me to believe that whoever was firing was either inexperienced or snap shooting with abandon. Either way, it was someone who wasn’t used to being shot at and that gave me more of an advantage.

Just to keep him off-balance, I threw another round at the area, which was enough to get me to the first tree trunk, which was about half my width. Semicover not being what I was looking for, I kept charging until I got to a larger copse that was adjacent to the forest and then moved between the trees.

I allowed my eyes to settle in the gloom and walked softly in the direction of the shooter, the deep powder quieting my steps. Figuring he’d think I was going to try to flank him, I stayed near the front of the tree line, only dodging back when I needed the cover.

I stopped and smelled the air drifting from the shooter’s direction. Cigarette smoke. Leaning a little to the side, I could’ve
sworn I’d seen a smoldering ember. Then I saw it again, but now near the ground, as if it might’ve been discarded, but then it moved and grew brighter as if someone were inhaling a puff before lowering it to arm’s length.

Careful to be soundless, I edged my way to the left and started to circle—whoever it was didn’t move, just continued smoking. I had gotten behind him and could see that the shooter was sitting at the base of one of the trees with a rifle in his lap, and a cigarette in his right hand.

Jimenez sat there, blood leaching down one side of his face. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot again,
dios mio.
”

I holstered my Colt and knelt down beside him, tugged the scoped .243 from his lap, and stood it beside me, the bolt action open. I pulled back his do-rag to reveal a three-inch tear in his scalp where the round had skimmed alongside his skull. “Lucky shot.”

He continued smoking. “No for me, damn it.”

Pulling a bandanna from my coat pocket, I discarded the rag and then folded the flap of flesh back and tied the bandanna around his scalp. “Bleeding worse than it is, but it’s a head wound, so that makes sense.”

“My most hard part.”

“Can you stand?”

“
Sí, sí
 . . .” He started to get up but collapsed against the tree trunk. “Maybe not so much just yet.”

I glanced around. “Where are the others?”

“Where you think?”

I turned and looked deeper into the high forest. “I need to go, and I might not find you on the return trip, so I need you to get up and follow my tracks back to the sheep wagon where Keasik can take care of you.”

He continued to smoke. “If there is a return trip.”

I extended my hand again. “You better hope there is.”

He looked at it for a moment and then stuffed the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, both hands grabbing mine as he slowly rose, using my hand and the tree for support. “My head, it hurts.”

“Uh huh, I bet.” Walking him to the edge of the tree line, I pointed toward my prints that cut across the park at a diagonal before straightening at the point where he’d first shot at me. “You see my tracks?”

“
Sí, sí
.”

“Follow them. If you get in trouble and have to sit down and can’t get back up, sing and I’ll find you.”

He looked up at me. “Sing what?”

“‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,’ for all I care, just make some noise so I can find you.”

He nodded and then immediately regretted it as he started to slip sideways. I caught his shoulder. “Can I have my gun?” He swallowed and stretched his eyelids.

“Nope.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have more ammo for this M77?”

“
Sí, sí
.” He pulled a small box from his coat breast pocket and rattled it before handing it to me. “There’s two more rounds in there.”

Reloading the bolt action, I looped the sling over my shoulder. “Pretty sure of your shooting.”

He stood there wavering a bit. “I didn’t want to shoot you, Sheriff. The sooner I get off this mountain and get rid of this whole business the happier I will be.”

I pointed. “That way.”

Without another word, he started off and had taken only
five or six steps when he started to sing.
“Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky . . .”

Satisfied he was headed the right way, I turned, ran a thumb under the leather sling, and started off in the direction I knew by heart.

I looked through the Leupold scope and watched him standing by the fire. He cradled what looked to be the same Remington Model 11 shotgun in his arms.

Behind him, in the shadows, was a man on a mule.

I held the bolt action at hip level and circled to the left so as to not come in straight at him. My first thought was to shout out and let the .243 do my work for me, but I wasn’t sure what the animal might do.

Moving through the trees, I came at him obliquely.

“Hello, Abe.”

He didn’t even bother looking up. “Hello dere, Walter.”

“Nice night for a fire.”

He was wearing a pair of insulated coveralls, a heavy hunting jacket, and slip-on snow boots, probably the emergency clothes he kept in the Travelall. “Yeah, yeah dis is.”

“Same shotgun?”

He adjusted the thing slightly in his hands. “Yeah, yeah . . . You get used to dese ol’ tings and you just can’t let go, you know?”

Now that I was in close, I thumbed the toggle safety, looped the strap of the Ruger onto my shoulder, and slipped out my Colt in one easy movement. “I do.”

“You didn’t hurt dem none, did you?”

I gestured with the Colt to make sure he saw it. “Talked Jacques out of it, but I had to deflect a .45 round off of Jimenez’s hard head.”

“Dat him I heard singin’ so terrible?”

“Yep.”

“Liam and my other relative, dat Keasik?”

“They’re fine.” I glanced over at a bloody faced Donnie Lott sitting on the mule with his hands tied behind his back, rope around his neck, his eyes wide and his mouth duct taped shut. “What are we doing here, Abe?”

For the first time his eyes rose to mine, and I could see how weak and depleted he looked. “Justice, we be doin’ justice.”

“That isn’t what this looks like to me.”

He took a deep breath and went back to studying the fire, his complexion gray and sallow. “Well, you don’ know de whole story, now, do you?”

“I’m waiting to hear it.”

For the first time, he turned toward me, but the shotgun remained leaning on his shoulder. “You done your duty—now go on home.”

I stood there, unmoving.

“I don’ wanna shoot you, Walter.”

“And I don’t want to have to shoot you, Abe.” I took a step closer. “You’re in no condition to be up here in the thin air, and I think you better slow down and think about what you’re doing.”

There was a long moment that passed like an ice age, and then in the near distance I could hear a low, mournful call that wavered through the thin air like a spirit itself.

Abarrane’s head rose, and he smiled. “I hear you, you ol’ bastard.” We both listened, but there was nothing more. “He
lonely, that ol’ guy, but he ain’t gonna find nobody like hisself.” His eyes came back to mine. “He owe me a sheep, but I respect him.”

I glanced at the man on the mule and then back at the old Basque. “Abe, let’s try and stay with the subject.”

“I am.” He shuffled a bit, but then stood still. “You don’ see dose animals takin’ advantage of dere young, do you?”

“That’s what this is all about?”

His dark eyes glinted in the campfire. “He kill dat man.”

“Miguel Hernandez?”

“Yap.”

“Why?”

“Because Miguel know what he done.” Another deep breath and a tremor passed through him. “He confront dat bastard dere an dat son-of-bitch kill him.”

“So, Donnie was the one who attacked Miguel at the Euskadi Bar?”

“Yap, and now I’ma kill him.”

“It’s your son-in-law, Abe.”

“Dat man no blood of mine.” He stared into the fire. “Dat boy, he try and tell his momma, he try and tell me, but nobody believe him, so he just stop talkin’.” He shook his head and began sobbing. “Somebody do dat to a child, dere own child . . .” He glanced at Donnie, then looked back at me, tears lining his face. “I got to spell dat out for you? He abuse my daughter and his own son.” He glared back at Donnie. “Hangin’ too good for a man dat do dat.”

“Abe, if he’s done what you say then we’ll take him in, and he’ll be charged, tried in a court, and sentenced according to the law.”

He shook his head, coughing. “Nope, nope, nope.”

“Abe, do you want Liam to live his life knowing that his grandfather killed his father?” I took another step. “You’re all he’s got, Abe. Don’t rob that boy of the only chance he has.”

His jaw drew tight, and the word was barely audible as his hand slipped down to the trigger on the shotgun. “No.”

“Don’t do it.”

The shine of the tears on his drawn face reflected as he stared at the popping and hissing fire, his breath fogging the distance of about twelve feet between us before being burned away into nothingness. “I think about my father, now dat was a man. He was rough, but he love us more dan anything in the world. I remember bein’ ashamed of him when I find out he go to prison dat time for not even shooting Lucian . . .” His face turned to me. “Imagine dat, bein’ ashamed of your own father?”

I became aware of some movement to Abarrane’s right and could’ve sworn there was something out there in the darkness just as I had on the climb up. The mule was getting fidgety, his nostrils distended as he smelled whatever was out there and sashayed back a bit, forcing Donnie’s head forward by the rope, the blood dripping from his face.

“Ashamed of family, imagine dat.”

Straining my eyes past the heat wavering from the fire, I could see whatever it was had moved, and from the glint of the golden eyes out past the campfire, I knew exactly who and what it was.

The eyes didn’t move but just hung there.

They blinked.

777M.

He lifted his head and sniffed, probably picking up the
blood on Donnie’s face. He’d found something to eat in this exact spot before and probably thought he’d try the buffet again. “Abarrane . . .”

Paying me no attention, Abe stepped from the fire toward the man on the mule and raised the foreshortened barrel of the shotgun. “Sometimes I feel like dat some people’s, some families is just cursed.”

The wolf shifted to the left, and I could still see the glittering eyes and now the intimidating bulk of the thing. “Abe . . .”

He raised the shotgun straight up in the one hand. “You do what you got to do dere, Walt, but dat man, he gotta die.”

“Abe . . .”

The wolf shot from behind him, perhaps confusing the blood dripping from Donnie’s face with the mule.

Abe, surprised out of his wits, half-turned, stepped back, and fell over a loose log, the shotgun going off as he hit the ground beside the fire. The mule, already crow-hopping to one side to avoid the wolf, bucked with an incredible screech before it bolted out from under Donnie. Galloping between Abe and me, he barely missed the fire but carried embers as he disappeared into the darkness with the wolf on his iron-shod heels.

Abe sat there watching the helpless man kicking the air and swinging back and forth.

Running toward Donnie, I holstered my .45, the .243 and my canteen falling to the ground. I grabbed his feet and placed them on my shoulders and yelled up at him. “Don’t panic—stand on my shoulders!” He tried to continue kicking, but I held fast. “Put your weight on my shoulders, and it’ll keep you from strangling!” I felt him steady a bit, but then he leaned forward. “And try and stay balanced!”

Looking in that direction, I could see Abarrane had stood and was backing up and stumbling away.

“Abe, help!”

He stopped and looked at me for an instant and then turned and ran, swallowed by the black of the forest.

“Abe!” There was no response.

Trying to help Donnie get his balance, I called out to him calmly. “Donnie, if you can hear me, just make a noise.”

He whimpered.

“Good. Now look, we’re going to have to get your hands free, and the only thing that’ll do that is this knife I’ve got in my pocket, and I’m going to have to let go of one of your feet to get it out and hand it up to you, all right?”