The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 (135 page)

I’d been watching Lucian’s face but hadn’t seen his lips move. I looked down at the board, and it was true that I’d accidentally positioned my queen for an impending and final victory over Lucian’s king. I looked up at the same time he did, a questioning expression on his face as he asked, “Did you just say
check
?”

I shook my head. “No, I thought you did.”

We both turned and looked at the big Indian, seated on the bunk and pointing a finger as big as a bratwurst toward the chessboard. The resonance of Virgil’s voice rattled through the damage in his throat like a very large and singular exhaust.

“
Check.
”

10

“What the fuck.” She sipped her coffee and then added another sugar to the four she’d already dumped in her mug. “He didn’t say anything else?”

I kept my volume low, even though she was still talking in full voice. There were a gaggle of tourists at the other end of the Busy Bee counter, and I saw no reason why they should be privy to the finer points of Virgil White Buffalo’s life. “No, but he and Lucian played until about three this morning. Prison chess, fast-moving; twenty-seven games, and Lucian only won five.”

“That’s why the old pervert’s asleep on the floor; he’s gathering his strength for another assault.” I nodded and took a sip of my own coffee; Dorothy refilled my mug as it touched the counter.

The proprietor of the café put the pot back on the warmer and parked herself within easy ear reach. “Michael make it in okay?”

I nodded. “Yep. Cady picked him up last night, and I haven’t heard from them since.”

She studied me, then Vic, and then changed the subject. “Any word from up on the Rez?”

Dorothy generally knew more of what was going on in the county than I did, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have her in on this part of the conversation. “Henry left a message that he and Brandon White Buffalo would be back from South Dakota this morning with a special guest.”

They both looked at me, but Vic was the first to respond. “A what?”

“A special guest.” I shrugged. “It’s Henry.”

Vic slipped her hair behind an ear and palmed her chin; evidently, it was a good hair day. "And...?”

“And what?”

My deputy spoke through her muffling hand, the only filter she had. “You said you read the report at the VA over in Sheridan. So, what’s the story on the jolly red giant?”

I glanced up at the chief cook and bottle washer. “How’s the usual coming?”

She glanced at the manila envelope resting on the counter between Vic and me and then studied my face. “Does this mean you’re dismissing me?”

I sighed. “I’m just not so sure that you’re going to want to hear all of this.”

She nodded and smiled. “Well, it’s good enough for me that you’d rather I didn’t.” She picked up both coffee pots, decaf and regular, from the warmers and retreated toward the tourists. “How are you folks doing?”

I took a deep breath and turned to my undersheriff. “You want the whole dog-and-pony show?” I pushed my elbows on the counter and looked out the doorway toward Clear Creek. Dorothy had the glass door propped open, and I was enjoying the cool from the screen door at my back before the heat of the day. “Virgil was misdiagnosed as mentally deficient by Big Horn County Health because of a speech impediment, but he graduated from Lodge Grass High School in ’68 anyway and got culled into Project 100,000.”

“What was that?”

“It was supposedly a program for social uplift. Every year, a percentage that scored at the bottom of the military aptitude test were inducted and then shipped off to Vietnam. Some uplift.”

I held my mug there, a little away from my mouth. I thought about the file and tried to remember the details. “He showed an aptitude for the art of war and got transferred to the 101st Airborne Division’s reconnaissance patrol. They were up in the central highlands north of Dak To looking for VC alongside this river, and they found them. . . .” I sipped my coffee. “About two regiments of ’em.”

I placed my mug down and looked at her. “Small-arms fire pinned them down for about eight hours, thirteen dead and twenty-three wounded. Air support finally arrived, and they started driving the North Vietnamese back enough for them to medevac the wounded out with a T-bar.” She started to raise her hand like she was in school. “It’s a harness and winch system dropped about a hundred feet from a helicopter.”

I leaned in, studying the collection of porcelain, plastic, glass, and wooden bees along the shelf above the range hood. “The VC saw that everybody’s concentrating on getting the wounded out, so they mounted a counteroffensive. The rest of the platoon hugged dirt and prayed for more support and suddenly this giant came up out of the ditch beside the road and started moving up and down the line firing his 16 in single shots, moving from the high spots to the low, each shot taking out a hostile as he went, firing with absolute purpose and never saying a word.”

“Fuck me.”

“The report says he went through three clips.” I took a breath and continued. “There were less than twenty men left in the platoon, but the battalion commander, safe in one of the helicopters, radioed back for them to attack again and believe it or not, they did. This Lieutenant Shields raised his rifle arm up like he’s in some bad Audie Murphy movie and screamed, ‘Follow me.’ The whole platoon, including Virgil, broke rank and followed this lieutenant straight into an ambush, where six seconds later, twelve more were dead, three were critically wounded, and they’re left with only three effectives. . . .”

“One of them being Virgil White Buffalo.”

I nodded at the marbled surface of the Formica counter. “The wounded were stuck in this gully, where Virgil made all three trips and dragged each one of them back to the original landing zone, including the lieutenant, who got on the horn and called for extraction but was told by this colonel in the helicopter that they needed to charge this machine gun nest to their right instead.”

She ran her fingers through her hair and looked at me in disbelief. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“This lieutenant started to get up.”

“No way.”

“And Virgil smacked him alongside the head with the butt of his M16, knocking him out cold.” I watched as she bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Then, just for good measure, Virgil rolled over and threw a few rounds at the battalion commander’s helicopter.”

She laughed, and the tourists looked at us.

“The colonel said, ‘I’ve got incoming, I’ve got incoming...’ and flew off.”

I nudged the handle on my mug and noticed the little half-ring on the counter that it left behind. “So there they were without any air support or EVAC, and this lieutenant, Tim Shields, the one that wrote up the report, came to and leaned over to Virgil to say, ‘We are going to die.’ Virgil told him that they could slip down in the river; that it’s only about knee-deep with a four-foot berm on either side so that they could retreat. This lieutenant told Virgil that’s a good idea and gave him the M60 and ordered him to provide rear guard as the rest of them retreated a little farther down the river, where they’ll wait.”

She groaned.

“They left him. So there he sat, alone, with a half-empty M60 machine gun and the better part of a North Vietnamese regiment on the way. The shooting began, and he returned fire and started working his way back down the river for the next three hours, alternately dealing with the mosquitoes, leeches, and the North Vietnamese. He got to an embankment that led to a roadway, where he tossed the empty M60 into the river, pulled out his sidearm, and started jogging into the night. Three clicks down the road, he ran into a patrol.”

“Ours?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Thank God.”

“They called in an EVAC, and an hour later Virgil was standing tall in front of the same lieutenant and battalion commander, who were screaming at him for getting lost and losing the M60. Virgil, after enduring sixteen hours of close combat, most of it single-handed, told them to stop yelling at him and that he’s going to go take a nap. The lieutenant grabbed Virgil’s arm, and Virgil swung around and punched him in the face, breaking his nose and driving the bone shards into his brain, which killed him instantly.”

She didn’t move. “Manslaughter, at worst.”

I looked out the windows at the flickering leaves alternating their light and dark sides. “Not in this man’s army. The colonel pushed and got a premeditated murder charge stemming from Virgil having struck his commanding officer while under fire in the field. Nobody stepped forward to say anything, and Virgil gets convicted of second-degree murder with a twenty-two-year hard-labor sentence in Leavenworth.”

Vic leaned in. “Twenty-two years?”

“With good behavior, he got out in seventeen.” I tapped the manila envelope that I had put on the counter. “I had Ruby check the database and she came up with the rest.” I opened the folder and read the small print on the faxed sheets. “On the walk home . . .”

“From Leavenworth, Kansas?”

I nodded. “He was picked up by the Troop E highway patrol and told that he can’t hitchhike on the interstate. They dropped him off just outside of Abilene where he got a ride from a fellow by the name of Peter Moore and a young girl, Betty Coleman, who said that they’re on their way from East St. Louis and could give him a lift as far as Rapid City. They got up near North Platte, Nebraska, that night, where this Moore says he’s tired. Virgil offered to drive, but this guy said that they’ll just sleep in the car, the two of them in the front and Virgil in the back. The next morning, Peter Moore was found with his head caved in, and Betty Coleman was picked up by the North Platte Police Department and swore that Virgil did it.”

"Drugs?”

I nodded. “Cocaine found on Betty’s person and in Peter Moore’s bloodstream. Virgil got picked up by the Nebraska Highway Patrol and had one wicked-looking blunt trauma and skull fracture.”

“That would explain the scar.”

“Virgil stated that Moore attacked him in the night with a claw hammer and that he fought the guy off, but that Moore was alive when he left with Betty Coleman.”

"They test Virgil?”

"No, but with an eyewitness and Virgil’s record . . .”

“They print the hammer?”

I sipped my coffee. “Missing.”

“She did it, finished this Moore guy off after Virgil split, and then took the drugs.”

“Yep, but she was a petite little blonde, and Virgil was a seven-foot Indian, dishonorably discharged and a convicted murderer.” I set my empty mug back on the counter. “Ten to twelve.”

Dorothy sidled over and motioned with the regular coffee; she knew that the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department ran on heavy fuel. “Can I interrupt long enough for a refifill?”

We both slid our mugs forward, and I smiled up at her. “How’s the usual coming?”

She studied me some more and then turned toward the grill.

I looked down at the file and, once again, lowered my voice. “The prison psychologist, this Jim McKee at the Nebraska State Pen, got the Native American Defense League to check Virgil’s records and neither of them thought he did it, so they started an investigation. Turned out Peter Moore had a record as long as my arm, and they found that there was a warrant on a homicide that occurred back in East St. Louis six weeks before.”

She leaned in closer, and I could see the faded freckles at the base of her throat. “Don’t spoil it for me. Some other ass-clown was beat to death with a hammer?”

I swallowed, this time without the assistance of coffee. “You got it. The NADL fought the good fight, but Betty Coleman stuck to her story even after being sentenced to fourteen months for possession, after which she commited suicide.” I flipped the folder shut. “Virgil did ten, with good behavior, and went to the VA when he got out.” I sighed. “Where he just disappeared. No tax records, DMV, nothing. I asked Quincy, but he says it happens a lot with the Indians—they just disappear into the Rez and are never heard from again.”

“Seventeen and ten . . .” She crossed her arms and turned her stool toward me. “You think he’s been living under the highway for nine years?”

“I don’t know.”

Dorothy turned back and put two Denver omelets in front of us. I considered my plate. “This the usual?”

She wrote up a check for the tourists and walked away without looking at me. “Usually.”

* * *

I am a big man, but with current company I was feeling a little measly. I’m maybe an inch taller than Henry, but the other two men standing in my reception area barely missed hitting their heads on the trim above the entryway as they came up the steps.

The first giant leaned over to pull me in for a one-arm hug, for which I was grateful, since I’d seen Brandon White Buffalo lift Henry Standing Bear with both arms and hold him off the ground till the Bear’s face had gone redder. “Lawman, how are you?”

“Still stuck with myself.”

The other giant, and Henry’s special guest, was maybe in his forties and looked strangely familiar. I smiled and extended my hand. “Walt Longmire; have we met?”

"Eli ... Eli White Buffalo.” He shook my hand and then stepped back. His hands were large and soft, but capable. “No, we haven’t.”

He was perhaps a shade shorter than Brandon, but not by much, and wore a freshly starched white dress shirt, jeans with a cowboy crease, a hand-tooled belt with a large turquoise belt buckle, and black alligator boots. His glossy black hair was pulled back in a single ponytail that was held with an elaborate silver and turquoise clasp.

Artist; had to be.

Eli seemed a little nervous, placed his hands in his back pockets, and then glanced toward Ruby, who sat quietly watching the two giants from behind the reception desk. Dog was with her; he stared at us, seemingly noncommittal. Vic studied both men from her perch on Ruby’s desk.

Brandon placed a hand on my shoulder, covering it. “You think you have some of my family, lawman?”

“It’s possible.”

He smiled the great smile and inclined his head. “Let’s go see?”

* * *

They were on game nine for the morning and, from the look on Lucian’s face, I assumed he had yet to beat the colossus. I walked over to the board. “You win one yet?”