“What’d you tell him?”
“Nothing. I just told him I was looking for my father and then asked if he worked there. Then he handed me over to the woman.”
“Juana.”
“Who is she?”
“You’re sure that’s all you said to him?”
Long sigh. “Yes, Man From U.N.C.L.E., that’s all I said. Now, who is she?”
I looked down the bar at the young bandita who’d allowed me to use the wall phone in the hallway of the empty establishment. “She works here.”
“She sounds foreign.”
I cupped the receiver against my face. “She’s Guatemalan. She’s an illegal-”
“She said her name is Juana.”
“It is.”
“She said she worked for you.”
“She doesn’t work for me.”
“She said she did.”
I sighed. “She has an overly active imagination and a potential two-year degree in criminology from Sheridan College. You know what they say about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing?”
“Speaking of-you’re a sheriff. What are you doing working undercover?” She continued to say it as though I were in the school play.
“Sandy Sandberg called and needed a little help.”
“Oh, God.”
“What?”
“Daddy, you know he is such a character.” She and Sandy went way back. When she was a toddler, he had taken the time to play with her at the law enforcement academy in Douglas, and they had become fast friends. Even through her protests, I could hear the admiration she had for the man. “He could get you killed.”
“It’s not that dangerous a case.” I leaned a shoulder against the wall and tucked the big Bakelite receiver against the side of my head. “What is this about you getting married?”
There was a pause, the first in the conversation. “Michael asked me to marry him.”
The second pause. “When?”
The third pause. “Yesterday.”
The fourth pause. “What’d you say?”
“I told him I needed to think about it.”
I nodded at the wall and rested my forehead there. “I think that’s smart.” I waited for the critique of my response.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
I cleared my throat. “For thinking about it?”
“For being asked.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
I listened to her breathing and could tell she was holding the phone close to her mouth. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s awfully soon.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
I paused again; if only I could find a way to parent undercover. “You’ve had a lot of things in your life lately.”
“I know.”
I thought about the Philadelphia patrolman, Vic’s younger brother. It wasn’t that I had reservations about him, but it had only been five months since they’d met and a tumultuous five months at that. And even though it wasn’t fair, I thought about her previous relationship and how that had left her unconscious on the steps of the Franklin Institute. “Why do you think he asked?”
“Well, I think it has something to do with him loving me.”
“I mean now.”
Silence. “I don’t know.”
I nodded at the wall. “Have you guys discussed this?”
“A little, just talking about what we could do… Just pie-in-the-sky stuff.”
“I guess he’s decided he wants his dessert now.”
“Daddy.”
I stared at the army-green wall. People had written and scratched things so deeply that re-paintings had only heightened the sentiment. I wondered if Custer really wore Arrow shirts, if DD still loved NT, if the eleven kids that got left at the parking lot were still beating the Broncos twenty-four to three, or if 758-4331 was still a good time. I thought about the love, heartbreaks, and desperate passions that had been played out through the phone in my hand and wondered if emotion held like the scent of honeysuckle in late August-sad and sweet, hopeful and tragic. “I think he loves you. I think he’s crazy about you.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not hard to do, you know.” I could hear the smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I ran my fingertips over the wall. “I think you need to follow your heart, kiddo.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing my emotions to join all the others that had sighed through the pattern of black holes in the mouthpiece. My heart, which was two thousand miles distant, pulled away a little bit farther. “Is he okay with you taking your time?”
There was a sniff. “He says he’ll wait forever.”
I nodded at the wall again, aware that something had changed in me a few months ago and that now I seemed to be battling a sort of grief aversion-the emotional backwash of Cady’s narrow escape. During her crisis, I had been in a kind of present-tense, protective mode that got me through the danger without wasting energy or emotional resources, but now it was past tense and I was uneasy.
We do everything we can to protect those we love, whatever it takes, and it’s not enough. Unlike bone, once that illusionary magic circle of safety is broken, it can never be completely repaired and it is not stronger at the break. When Cady had left to go back to Philadelphia, I had hours and days to think and feel. I was supposed to be happy, but I wasn’t, and I hadn’t been sleeping well-having Mary Barsad in my jail hadn’t helped. Like an addict, I was taking it one day at a time.
Dog was still seated at the end of the bar, and Juana was feeding him the remainder of my cheeseburger now. “I figured you didn’t want the rest?”
“No.”
She studied me. “Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath, cleared my throat, and swallowed. “Yep.” I extended my hand. “Walt Longmire, sheriff, Absaroka County.”
She wiped her hand on her jeans, took mine, and smiled. “I know. I looked you up on the Internet at the library in Gillette. There was a big article about you in the Billings Gazette and the Denver Post-something about you breaking up a human trafficking syndicate in California?”
“I had a very small part in an investigation.”
“There was a photograph of you on the steps of some big building, but your hat covered up a lot of your face.”
“That’s my best side.” I reached down to pet Dog. “Was Cliff Cly the first to answer when Cady called?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but I grabbed it away from him pretty quick. He was in here drinking his lunch and got to it faster than I could.” She thought about it. “It was like he was waiting for a call.”
She seemed pretty sure of the situation, so I decided to let it drop. The undercover thing was wearing me
