Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories (10 page)

Static. “He’s not answering, but that could just be because of the crowd noise.”

“I’m on my way.”

Static. “Roger that.”

I keyed the mic one last time. “Ruby, go home.”

Cady worked a little faster on her cottage cheese. “My Tommy Jefferson?”

Cady and he had dated and even went to a junior prom together, but this was nothing unique—my daughter had cut a wide swath in the male populace of Durant High School. “Yep.”

Henry chewed quickly as well. “Wow, a case.”

I nodded and, thinking about all those phone calls, faxes, and accusations, I absently reached up to rub the top of my ear, which was the locale of persistent frostbite.

Cady swiped at my hand. “Stop that.” She studied me. “You don’t seem overly enthusiastic.”

The assorted injuries I’d sustained on the mountain continued to release a collective groan. “I’m not.”

Dorothy arrived with Cady’s cup of coffee, and I noticed it had been repoured into a to-go cup. “You know she’s back in town, right?”

I glanced up at the chief cook, bottle washer, waitress, and fount of all things social. “Who?”

“Lisa. She was in here yesterday and said she’d rented one of those apartments over by Clear Creek.”

I thought about it. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s over between her and Tommy.”

Dorothy shrugged and headed back to the counter as Cady wiggled in her chair like she had when she was a kid. “How ’bout I be the lead investigator on this one?”

I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope.” She took the last bite of cottage cheese and swallowed, her eyes glittering with anticipation. “How hard can it be?”

*   *   *

The weekend had been blessed with three memorable spring evenings where you could smell the grass in the pastureland, and the sagebrush and cottonwoods that had been holding their breath since October gasped back to life. The cool of the evening was just starting to creep down from the mountains, but it was still T-shirt weather, if long-sleeve T-shirt weather.

We argued as we climbed into the Bullet. “
How’s your dog
does not constitute a relationship question.”

She ruffled the beast’s ears as he laid his head on the center console and sniffed the Styrofoam containers Cady had set at her
feet. “It’s a relationship; it may not be your only relationship, but it’s a relationship.”

I lodged the to-go iced tea and Cady’s coffee into the holder on the dash, fired up the motor, and pulled the three-quarter-ton down onto the vacant street to follow the Cheyenne Nation’s ’59 Baltic blue Thunderbird convertible, Lola. “You’re cheating already.”

“Look, the other two cowboys didn’t ask, so it’s two to one. I wouldn’t complain if I were you.” She pulled her coffee from the holder. “Hey, I didn’t throw you for a loop with all that wedding talk back there, did I?”

“Do I get a point from this conversation?”

“No.”

Heading toward the fairgrounds at the north edge of town, we had driven only a short distance before my truck radio crackled.

Static. “Boss, it’s unit two.”

Cady, always quicker to the draw, grabbed the mic from my dash. “Unit two, this is unit one. How’s the Powwow?”

Static. “Hi, Cady. The natives are restless; at least one of them is.”

She keyed the mic. “Did somebody really steal the divorce horse, or was Tommy just high and forgot where he put it?”

Static. “No, he seems pretty straight to me, and the horse is missing.”

“We’re on our way.”

Static. “Roger that.”

I glanced at her. “Three to one.”

*   *   *

Cars and trucks were parked on the side of the road for a quarter of a mile to avoid the one dollar fee the Rotary collected like they were the Cosa Nostra. A thickset cowboy ambled up to my window.

“Chip.”

“Walt.” He looked past me and smiled at my daughter, who was making a display with her engagement ring. “Hey, Cady.” He returned his attention to me and the smile faded as he stuck a palm out. “Gimme two dollars.”

“I’m on a call.”

He repeated. “Gimme two dollars.”

“It’s official.”

“Gimme two dollars.”

“The sign says a dollar.”

Chip looked at the Bear, arrowing for the VIP parking area by the grandstands, and then back at me. “Henry said you’d pay.” He took the money and smiled at Cady. “Nice rock. I heard you were getting married?”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him, and it seemed to me she’d dated him at one point, too. “I am.”

“Congratulations.”

As we pulled in beside Henry, I cried foul. “That was a blatant use of a prop.”

She twirled the large diamond on her finger. “What, this little ol’ thing?” She opened the door and slid out. “Three–two.”

*   *   *

The roar of the crowd intimated that the Indian Relay Races had already begun. The old Native practice involved a single-rider in traditional dress of loincloth and moccasins and three horses,
one for each leg of the relay. As the rider leapt from one mount to the other, an unfortunate individual known as a “mugger” had to hold on to the half-wild horse who’d just completed his leg. It made the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association look like a Harrods afternoon tea.

I followed Henry as he led us through the tunnels that met with the main lateral walkway where we took a left through the throngs toward the paddocks and down a set of steps to the ground level of the grandstand.

Ken Thorpe, another of the Rotary mafia, was leaning against the gate and turned to look at us as we arrived. “Hey, Walt.”

“I’m not giving you a dollar.”

He looked a little confused. “Okay.”

“Tommy Jefferson, New Grass team, had a horse stolen?”

“Yep, but he’s on a spare.”

We all crowded at the gate in time to see the riders rounding the near turn, bareback and crouched into the manes of their horses. The men were painted and so were their mounts. One of the beauties of the sport was the pageantry—some of the riders were in full warbonnets, some in shaman headdresses, the riders and their ponies resplendent in team colors, the designs reflecting the lines, spots, handprints, and lightning bolts recorded in the old Indian ledger drawings.

Henry pointed. “That’s Tommy in the green.”

Sporting the three vertical stripes of the New Grass team, Tommy was charging hard coming up on the last leg of the second part of the relay. It was possible that the young man was simply pacing himself in second place, but it didn’t look like it—it looked like the ride of his life.

We watched as they cannoned by, the fine dust of the fairgrounds settling on our hats and shoulders as we all jockeyed to see the riders transfer onto the last horse in the race. It was at this exchange where the majority of wrecks occurred.

The lead rider, a lanky fellow from eastern Washington’s Colville Reservation, always a powerhouse, vaulted from his mount as one of his muggers grabbed that horse’s reins while another held the last horse steady. The Spokane Indian misjudged the distance, or maybe the horse made a tiny surge when it felt something leaping onto its back, but the rider managed to grab hold of the mane as the Appaloosa launched skyward before settling into a rocket trajectory past the grandstand, the poor man nearly bouncing off the horse’s rump but still hanging on.

The crowd of close to four thousand went crazy, but by that time Tommy Jefferson, New Grass team of the Crow Nation, had leapt from his own mount. His mugger attempted to hold his next horse, but the chestnut was now circling the mugger with Tommy holding on to the mane, one ankle draped over the horse’s spine.

The mugger, not knowing what to do, did the only sensible thing and let go. Apparently the only one who knew what he was supposed to be doing was the horse, who reared and blasted down the straightaway with Tommy hanging off the side, as the rest of the field fumbled with their own transfers and fell further behind.

“Oh, no.” The Bear, of course, was the first to see the danger.

Tommy was headed straight toward the chutes for the roping and bull-dogging events—massive, metal gates, reinforced
with what looked like highway guardrails at the far end of the grandstand. The chestnut, in its attempt to catch up with the Appaloosa, had set a course that would give it the best advantage but would also carry it and its rider next to the metal barrier. We could see that the horse would likely make it, but Tommy, still hanging off him on the side nearest the gate, would not.

Pogo hopping on one foot, the young man was scrambling to get both legs up, but with only about a hundred feet to go, it looked like he had maybe only two hops left.

He wasn’t going to make it.

I reached for Cady’s hand in an attempt to distract her from what appeared to be Jefferson’s imminent death. Her hand was already reaching behind her for mine, and I felt her grip as Tommy postholed one miraculous stamp on the ground and barely slithered past the abutment, his calf grazing the steel fence.

The crowd, which I thought might’ve already exhausted itself, went ballistic. All four thousand were standing as Tommy rounded the far corner and started gaining on the Colville rider, the rest of the field a far third.

Through the backstretch I could see the Spokane Indian’s warbonnet traveling across the infield as if by magic, levitated above the ground and moving across the far rail at close to forty miles an hour. But there was a vengeance that followed him, a Crow centaur who rounded the far corner and blew into the straight like a war lance. You could see Tommy’s head tucked into the horse’s mane, and maybe it was the whispering of the Indian’s voice that carried them along like Crow chain lightning.

The Spokane rider, feeling their breath on the back of his
neck, turned to get a glimpse of his pursuer, and when he did, the warbonnet he wore inverted, the eagle feathers tunneling around his face like shaft-shaped blinders. His arm came up to catch it at the crucial moment when they turned the near curve, which caused the Appaloosa to go wide and miss the apex.

Tommy, taking full advantage, veered his pony to the inside, and the two were neck and neck.

From our ground-level viewpoint, it looked as if they were headed straight toward us. As they drew to the corner it appeared as if the Colville rider had the advantage again, but when they rounded the curve nearest us, Tommy had made up the distance on the inside, and they were running as if the two horses were in traces.

They crossed the finish line, no one able to tell which horse had come in first. We’d have to take the judges’ word on it.

And the judges’ word was that Tommy had lost by a nose.

Henry turned to look at our little group. “It wasn’t for lack of trying.”

“No.” I turned to Ken. “How long till the next race?”

“Oh, it’s a good hour. They’re doing the fancy dance competition down here in front of the grandstand as soon as they pick up the poop and smooth the track over with the grader.”

“Can we cut across to the infield and talk with Tommy?”

“If you give me a dollar.” He smiled, then opened the gate and ushered us through.

*   *   *

Saizarbitoria was waiting on the other side. “Did you guys see that?”

I nodded. “I guess he had at least one life left, huh?”

He fell in step as we approached the heated conversation going on over by the announcer’s tower, where Tommy was threatening to burn the booth down with flaming arrows if the judges didn’t change their call.

Tommy’s leg was bleeding, streaking the chartreuse war paint he still wore. “You fuckin’ Indians are trying to rob me!”

So much for Native American solidarity.

“Now, Tommy, calm down . . .”

The Colville Agency Indians, far from home and deep in enemy territory, had wisely chosen not to attend the unofficial inquest, so the two camps in contention were Tommy and his muggers—two men almost as big as Henry and me—and the three judges, one of whom, the head judge, happened to be Tommy’s uncle.

Richard New Grass glanced over his nephew’s shoulder at me and, perhaps more important, at Henry. He nodded at the Bear and turned his attention back to the agitated rider. “It was an electronic finish, Tommy—there’s nothing we can do about it. The Colville rider won fair and square, and that’s all there is to it.” Tipping his trademark black cowboy hat back on his head, Richard turned his patrician face toward me, effectively ignoring his nephew’s further protests. “Can I help you, Sheriff?”

“I understand there’s been a possible theft? Something about a horse?”

Tommy danced himself between us and jerked his head in emphasis with every word. “You’re damn right there’s been a theft—these sons-a-bitches are tryin’ to take this race away from me.”

Tommy made a dramatic display and turned on the heels
of his moccasins, walking between Henry and me toward Cady, who had been standing behind us. “And not only do these damn Indians steal the race, but one of my best rides is gone.”

The muggers walked off to wipe down the sweat-marked horses, and I shrugged at Richard and the rest of the judges, who were also leaving the argument, most likely relieved to be rid of the New Grass entourage.

Tommy was walking ahead of us with Cady, and they were both laughing—and I had the feeling I was about to lose a point.

At the outside edge of the infield, they walked towards a trailer attached to a white Dodge half-ton painted with the New Grass green stripes, which stood next to an event tent festooned with the banners of the team’s sponsors, most prominently
BUCKING BUFFALO SUPPL
Y COMPANY
,
HARDIN BAI
L BONDS
, and
H-BAR HATS
. There were a number of energy drinks and pop in a fifty-gallon cooler, and, after a few plunges into the ice, Tommy finally pulled out three power drinks, one for Cady and one each for Henry and me. “Here, supplied by one of my sponsors.”

Cady handed hers back. “Do you have diet?”

“That shit’s bad for you.” Tommy sighed and, with a shrug, retrieved a bottle of water. “All I got.” Then he scooped off his coyote headdress, threw himself into a lawn chair, and looked down at his bloody calf. “Oh, man . . .” He stuck out his tongue in play exhaustion and nodded toward Henry. “Hey, throw me one of those horse bandages, would you?”