I looked at Lucian and thought about the woman in my jail as it grew silent in the cruiser. “Have you been to the jail?”
“Mine?”
“Mine.” Our eyes met, and I was always struck by the darkness in his pupils; maybe I needed to get him and Saizarbitoria together. “You meet her?”
His voice changed, growing softer. “Yes, I have.”
“Do you think she’s guilty?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out of his nostrils like a shotgun blast. “She’s burnin’ bridges in her head; I’m just not sure if he was one of ’em.” He studied me. “What’s that got to do with horseshit and hat sizes?”
“Everything.” He made a noise in his throat. “Somebody taught me that, a long time ago.”
It was quiet, and neither of them looked at me.
“Well.” The ex-sheriff of Absaroka County sniffed and thumbed his nose. “Never did any of this undercover crap-you’ve got a lot of people worried that you’re gonna fool around and get yourself killed out here.”
I thought that the old sheriff had been sent out to check on me, but I didn’t figure on him admitting it. I changed the subject to save him any further embarrassment. “What’s everybody else in the motel say?”
There was a pause as Sandy prepared to speak; Lucian and I both looked at him. “Not a whole heck of a lot.” He scratched his neck and placed one of his sun-leathered hands on the dash, the heavy, curved, Cuban bracelet on his wrist blinking in the morning sun. “There’s a little tattooed girl that says you beat up her boyfriend, but other than that it’s business as usual out here on the Powder River-ain’t nobody sayin’ nothin’.”
“Who called 911?”
“Anonymous, female, from the pay phone outside the post office/library up the hill.”
I thought about it and could only come up with one name. “You’ll run a check on the Dodge?”
“Yep.” The hand on the dash reached for the mic.
“One more thing?”
He and Lucian turned back to look at me. “Yeah?”
“Get these damned handcuffs off.”
October 21: seven days earlier, evening.
I’d followed Dog, who had made a habit of trotting to the holding cells.
Mary Barsad was running her hand across his back. She was sitting on the floor beside the bars and looked up when I came in. “Nice dog; where’d you get him?”
“From a friend.”
“Didn’t they want him anymore?”
I thought about what to say. “Um, no.” It was still early, and Vic was going to be back soon, so I pulled one of the folding chairs over and sat.
She looked back to study him. “What kind of dog is he?”
I shrugged. “When there’s bacon around, I’d swear he was part wolf.”
“St. Bernard and some German shepherd, I’d say.” She scratched under his neck. “Something else, but I’m not sure what.”
“You know a lot about animals.”
She breathed a soft laugh. “Yes, but evidently I’m a poor judge of human beings.”
I leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Which brings to mind a question.”
The more-than-blue eyes came up. “Please don’t ask me why I got mixed up with Wade.”
We sat there looking at each other. “You know, my daughter was in a bad relationship back in Philadelphia, and I’ve developed a theory on that.” She continued to gaze at me. “I think our hearts are the most fearless organ we’ve got, considering how often they’ll make the same mistake, over and over again.”
She continued to study me. “You do know the heart is just a muscle, right?”
I smiled. “Then maybe we’re getting stronger from the exercise.”
Her eyes had broken contact with mine. “Or you just lose another piece.”
October 28, 10:10 A.M.
The first cup of coffee I could get was at the auction at Bill Nolan’s place. It was from a catering service out of Wright called the Chuck Wagon, and thankfully they didn’t know me. I took my two ham and egg sandwiches and my coffee back over to the rental car and fed Dog his breakfast through the window.
The majority of the items to be auctioned were in a large, tin-sided indoor arena with the heavy equipment parked in a row along a fence line. I wandered up and took a look. I wasn’t alone; there was a pretty good crowd of ranchers who had arrived early. It was late in the season for an auction, and the majority of the chores that these newer-looking implements would be used for were already done for the year. Prices would be low, and if you needed a swather, baler, or tractor for next year, now was your chance.
I exchanged a few nods but thankfully didn’t recognize anybody. I kept an eye partially peeled for a red Dodge duellie-so far, nothing.
I was always generally ill at ease at these types of things, feeling as though auctions were like picking over bones. I couldn’t help but remember the one at my parents’ place after they had passed. I’d gone through their things and hadn’t kept much, but when it came time for the auction I’d had a strong impulse to bid on everything like some museum curator attempting to keep the collection whole.
I still owned the place but hadn’t been back there much since.
“See something you like?”
I turned and found Juana and Benjamin watching me as I mindlessly fingered a Massey Ferguson model 775 swather-at least, that was what was decaled on its peeling side. “No, this looks too much like work.”
“Didn’t you say you were born on a ranch?”
I looked at her. “Not to you.”
She smiled and watched me as Benjamin studied the equipment. “Did you sleep okay?”
“No, but the toilet worked magnificently and so did the shower.” I inclined my head toward the little outlaw. “How are you this morning, young man?”
She nudged him with her hip, but he ignored both of us and pushed his hands deeper into his jean pockets. “He’s mad, because I won’t buy him and Hershel a horse trailer.”
“Hershel’s here?”
She nodded toward the tin building. “Inside, inspecting the trailer.”
I nudged Benjamin’s ever-present hat. “You two outlaws run together?”
He nodded and began speaking quickly. “He says we’re going up to the Battlement someday; it’s a butte where the dinosaurs are buried and the teepee circles are and where the secret graves are for the buffalo soldiers and the Indians that-” He quieted suddenly, remembering that he was in midpout.
I watched him as he looked at his mother. “Hey, I was just getting interested.”
He ducked his head and stared at the ground. “We can’t get there without a trailer; it’s too far for the horses, and there’s no water.”
“I’ve heard of the place; its south and east of here, isn’t it? Out on Twentymile Butte?”
He was chewing on the stampede strings again but spit them out to answer. “Yeah.”
I nodded, and we all walked along the equipment and toward the indoor arena, Benjamin hanging back. After a few moments, Juana spoke again. “I understand there was some excitement down at the bar last night?”
“I don’t know; I slept through most of it.”
She continued to watch me. “And that would be why they arrested you?”
I didn’t say anything; she continued to stare at me. “They released me on my own recognizance.”
She raised an eyebrow, but let it go at that. “You look tired.” I nodded again as we walked toward the more recreational items that were to be auctioned later in the morning. “Are you coming to the fights tonight?”
I laughed, because I’d forgotten all about it. “I thought I saw someone on the list I know.”
“The Indian?” I turned and looked at her as more than a little mischief played in her baking-chocolate eyes. “He asked about you, or somebody who looked like you.” She pulled herself up to a towering five-foot-four and quoted with a flat Cheyenne accent, mimicking Henry’s down to the excluded contractions: “A large man with a large dog who probably looks like he would rather be somewhere else.”
“That’d be me. What else did he say?”
She smiled the perfectly formed grin; her lips were pink today. “He said that you used to be his sidekick but
