Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories (13 page)

After a few moments, I slid back in the window of Rezdawg, climbed out, and held the door open for Vic. We walked around the front of the truck so as not to interrupt Henry’s progress with the bears and approached the structure, marveling at the
effort it must’ve taken to get atop the thing. “Jeez, Chuck, how did you get up there?”

He gestured toward the woman, who was clutching the vent stack that protruded from the roof. “She was first, and then she helped me up.” He stuck out a pant leg with a shredded cuff and a little blood on the sock and hiking boot. “I barely made it—no pun intended.”

I reached up and gestured for Ms. Napier to ease herself off the roof and then lowered her to the ground. She was a handsome thing, outdoorsy and athletic looking with red hair and a slight sunburn, just the kind of woman you might want to be stuck on a roof with, actually.

She adjusted her cat’s-eye glasses and glanced past me toward the creek bed’s high willows. “Aren’t you worried about your friend?”

“Not really, unless he decides to go off and hibernate with them.”

“What’ll he do when he’s out of fish?”

I smiled. “That’ll take a while.”

“I can’t believe we were attacked by bears.”

Vic laughed, and I explained, “I don’t think you were really attacked—anyway, you’re in bear country, so you need to wear bear bells and carry pepper spray.”

“Were those grizzlies?”

I shook my head. “No, those were black bears, but some of the old-timers say there are a few grizzlies still up here in the Bighorns.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

“The scat, usually; black bears are omnivores and their scat generally has berries, nuts, foliage . . .”

“And grizzlies?”

Vic chimed in. “Their scat usually has bells in it and smells like pepper.”

“Hey, can I get a hand here?”

I looked at Chuck. “I nearly forgot about you.” I reached up, and, taking my hand, he jumped down to the ground and then straightened his duty belt and flat-brimmed Smokey Bear hat with a sense of self-assurance. Chuck, like me, wasn’t built for running and climbing.

“Good thing you came along.”

I nodded. “They probably saw your hat and thought you were one of them.”

“Very funny.”

I watched as the young woman walked around a bit, keeping her eyes in the direction in which the Cheyenne Nation had disappeared. I turned back to the game ranger. “What’s going on, Chuck?”

He gestured toward his truck, probably anxious to get near his vehicle. “Maybe I should let her explain.”

The four of us made the short walk to the half-ton and stopped by the cab to listen to Ms. Napier as she folded her arms and shuddered. “I’ve never seen anything like it; it just came up from underneath me in an explosion, and I ran out of there.”

Vic looked between the two of them. “Wait, there was a bear in the restroom?”

The woman looked embarrassed. “I’m not sure what it was.”

I gestured toward the structure. “But something attacked you in there?”

“Yes.”

“Before or after the bears?”

She sighed. “I was inside, hiding from the bears, when I thought, well, you know, I’d take advantage. I’ve learned in Wyoming you do that ’cause you never know when you’ll have the chance next.”

I turned to Chuck. “And where did you come into all this?”

He reached in, turned off his light bar, and shut the door of his truck. Leaning against it, he offered the forest service water bottle to Andrea; it appeared that the two of them had gotten along in their time on the roof.

“I pulled in when I saw the bears around the toilet and got out of my vehicle just as she came blowing out the door of the convenience—scared the bears off long enough for her to get to me, but then they saw her and I guess they figured she had more caramel corn and took off after both of us.” He nodded toward his vehicle. “We tried to get in here but they had gotten between us and the truck, so we had to make for the nearest building. Andrea said she wouldn’t go back inside, bears or no bears, so we climbed on top.”

Vic chimed in after glancing around, but we couldn’t see the Bear or the bears. “I bet that was a short conversation.”

The ranger looked at his wristwatch. “I figured we were going to have to wait till the septic service got here to pump this one out for the winter—it’s due in about twenty minutes or so.”

The woman looked a little disgruntled. “Look, are you people going to do something about this?”

Chuck glanced at me, having the same response I normally had to people who referred to me or mine as
you people
, but then his voice became playful. “Well, the first thing I’m going to do
is write you a citation for fifty dollars if this is your first offense in feeding bears, two hundred if it’s your second, but if it’s your third, the fine goes up to a thousand and six months of jail time.” He acted as if he was going to pull out a pencil and his citation booklet. “So, which is it, first, second, or third?”

She stared at him and then smiled. “My first.”

“So you saw it, whatever it was, in the restroom?”

She shook her head at me. “Not really.”

“And the culprit is still in there?” I shared a look with Chuck and Vic and the three of us glanced back at the Porta Potty. “You’ve got it locked in the john?”

The ranger threw a thumb toward the woman. “Whatever it was, it appears to have attacked this lady in situ.”

My undersheriff snickered. “You’re kidding.”

Andrea stepped from one foot to the next. “Look, you might think this is funny . . .” I held up a hand in my best cop manner, but she wasn’t stopping. “It scratched my ass all to pieces, and I still have to go.”

None of us were quite sure what to say to that, but Chuck jumped in with what he thought was the obvious. “Well, just walk over to those trees near the hillside.”

“No way.” She glanced at the creek and then at him as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “Bears.”

We all turned and looked at the campground bathroom.

*   *   *

It was really unfair to call it a Porta Potty. It was actually much more than that—what they call in the literature a self-contained, freestanding restroom facility. It sat on a concrete pad and was made of heavy wood with a lower foundation of masonry and
river rock. With a short overhang and shallow shingled roof, it must’ve been a chore to climb onto.

I was the most curious to see what might be in there, so I was the one elected to grip the metal handle of the forest service convenience and open the door. I’d placed an ear against it but hadn’t heard anything. “Is everybody ready?”

“Wait. Where are the bears?” Andrea was standing back near Chuck’s truck with the door open so she could get in quickly should the need arise.

I gestured toward the small valley leading up into the true high country. “I saw Henry a good quarter mile away leading them across the creek.”

She looked unsure. “What if there’s another one in there?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think they would leave one behind; besides, if it was a bear we’d have heard something by now.” I glanced at the building. “Whatever it is, it’s not making much noise.”

Chuck and I stood in front of the door as Vic stepped to the other side, reaching under her Flyers sweatshirt and drawing her sidearm from a hideout holster at her hip. When I looked at her, she shrugged. “Fuck it; we don’t know what’s in there.”

I sighed, pulled the lever, and yanked the door wide.

Empty.

There was a large scarf lying on the concrete floor of the small structure but nothing else out of the ordinary. Vic, with the 9mm extended, moved forward and looked inside like she was part of a SWAT team. “Clear.”

Chuck and I looked up and down in the confined space.

I picked up the finely made copper-colored scarf and
showed it to the woman, who was still standing by Coon’s truck. “This yours?”

“Yes. I’m a costumer in Los Angeles—you know, for TV and stuff. I knit it myself.”

“Do you want to come and get it?”

“Not really.”

I nodded and threw the thing over my shoulder as Chuck stepped closer, taking a better look around the interior of the enclosure. After a moment, I peered into the hole of the throne and gestured at his belt; when he tried to hand me his sidearm, I shook my head and pointed at the flashlight on his hip.

Coon slid the Maglite from its holder, handed it to me, and I clicked it on to shine the beam into the vault below.

An eerie sound echoed from the toilet.
“Who-who-who-whoo-whoo-whooo . . .”

The ranger looked at me. “Owl?”

Holding the sleeve of my leather jacket under my nose, I moved the beam around carefully, finally stopping when a pair of golden eyes looked back at me.

“Who-who-who-whoo-whoo-whooo . . .”

Vic came up beside me and peered into the hole. “How the hell did it get in there?”

Chuck looked around the enclosure, but the windows and the door looked sound. Stepping the rest of the way out, he glanced up at the vent stack on the roof and pointed. “Through there; some owls are cavity nesters and they look for dark, confined spaces for nesting and roosting. This one must’ve gone in through the vent and got stuck.” He sighed. “Thousands of owls die in these exact conditions. The Teton Raptor Center in
Jackson has a program that puts screening over the restroom vents to keep the things from getting killed, but I guess they haven’t gotten to the Bighorns yet.”

The Napier woman called out from the truck. “What is it?”

“An owl.”

She looked at me, a little incredulous. “In the toilet?”

“It would appear.”

“Well, can you get it out?”

I shined the Maglite back into the vault. “My arms aren’t long enough.”

I glanced at Vic, but she shook her head. “If you can’t reach him, there’s no way I can.”

Coon glanced at his wristwatch again. “The honey wagon is going to be here anytime now.” He stepped outside and fetched a large rock to prop open the restroom door. “Sorry, I can’t take the smell.”

“What will they do?”

“They’ll pump the thing out.”

“With the owl in there.”

“Yeah.” He glanced through the open doorway. “The only thing they could do is pump it there on the ground.” He made a face. “But I’m not telling them to do that in a national forest; besides, the bird wouldn’t make it anyway.”

Andrea had crept closer—I guess she decided that danger from the owl wasn’t imminent. “Look, I’m going to get out of here and go find another toilet, but I have no idea where there is one. Can somebody show me?”

Chuck paused for a moment and then shrugged. “Duty calls.”

“You’re leaving?”

He started toward his truck. “I’ll run her down to Lost Cabin Campground and then I’ll try and come back, okay?”

*   *   *

“Motherfucker.” Vic looked at me as the ranger turned his truck around, and Ms. Napier followed him up the road in her vehicle. “How about a stick?”

I sighed and walked toward the barrow ditch, found a likely limb about as big around as one of my fingers, and returned to the restroom. I leaned over the toilet and gingerly poked the stick down into the vault, careful to avoid the livid, round, iridescent eyes that continued to watch my every move.

Heck, I’d be angry stuck in there, too.

I adjusted the stick and slowly brought it over to where I thought the owl was, felt a brief tug, and then heard a sharp snap. Feeling nothing more, I pulled it out and looked at the broken end. “Yikes.”

Vic peered into the darkness of the vault. “I’m not sticking my hand or anything else in there where that damn thing can get at it.”

I turned to see the Cheyenne Nation approaching from the willows near the creek with the now-empty plastic tray in his hand. “What is going on?”

“There’s an owl in there.”

He tossed the tray onto the hood of his truck and continued toward us. “What kind?”

“An angry one.” Vic looked past him. “Where are the bears?”

“Up the creek; I took them past where the water is more swift and then climbed across on a fallen tree. I do not think
they will go to the trouble of doubling back—they are pretty full of fish.”

I glanced in the hole. “We’re trying to figure out how to get him out of here.”

He looked at my shoulder. “Nice scarf.” I’d forgotten to give the costumer back her accessory.

“Who-who-who-whoo-whoo-whooo . . .”

Henry leaned over the throne, and I clicked on the Maglite to give him a clearer view. He breathed out a breath through puckered lips. “Whew . . . great horned owl, princess of the Camp of the Dead.”

“Princess?”

He nodded. “It is a juvenile female.”

Vic leaned in. “Now how the hell do you know that?”

The Cheyenne Nation smiled. “The call, it is distinctively feminine.”

My undersheriff shook her head. “Distinctively screwed is what she is.”

Henry looked at me, and I filled him in. “The sewage people are going to be here any minute, and they’re going to pump the vault out, owl and all.”

The Bear straightened in a manner not unlike the other bear on-the-fight that we’d just confronted. “You cannot do that.”

“Henry . . .”

“This may not simply be an owl.”

I shook my head at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Henry, nobody wants to see this owl killed, but . . .”

“She may be a Messenger from the Camp of the Dead, but she may be something else as well.” He took a deep breath and
tried to explain. “Within my nation, certain people, both male and female, who practice Medicine are believed to have the ability to shape-shift. The form they choose most is that of an owl, so that they can move silently through the night and cast spells on people while they are asleep, and at their most vulnerable to spiritual forces.”

Vic looked at the Bear, then at me, and then back to the big Cheyenne. “If that’s the way you’re trying to convince us to save her, it isn’t working.”

“Among my people there is only one owl even considered to be a bird and that is the short-eared one or snake-eating owl, an important source of medicinal power for shamans.” He pointed toward the toilet. “But this is not that type of owl, so it is a
Mista
, or a spirit-of-the-night. Even the
Hohnuhke
, the Cheyenne Contraries of the buffalo days, wore the feathers of the owl but never that of the great horned or the screech—their power is too strong. So it was lesser feathers that were attached to the warrior’s shield, lance, or headdress to protect him, help him to see in the dark, and make him deadly silent.”