If it was a performance, it was a damn fine one.
She looked up the hill at her children and then finally turned to look at me. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes, it is.” I waited a few moments and then tipped my hat back. “You’re sure you haven’t seen him in a year?”
“Just ropers, like the ones you’ve got on?”
“Yep.”
She nodded and copied down my contact information, including the office address. “You’re kind of out of your territory, aren’t you?”
I didn’t say anything, which is the most unsettling thing you can say.
She stood and placed a hand back on the worn edge of the old desk. “And you don’t think the world is going to hell?”
I smiled. “Like I said-I’m just trying to slow it down a little bit.”
She remained silent until I saw no more reason to stay and took a step toward the open door.
“We have an eight-page list. It’ll be a year and a half.”
I glanced down the rows of boots. “I’m pretty good at waiting.”
The Bear took a few snap peas from a paper bag that he had liberated from the young farmers he had assisted on the hill while I had been ordering boots from their mother, and handed me one as he drove on through Birney Day proper. “So how did it go with Erma?”
I munched on the pea pod, crisp and delicious. “I ordered a pair of boots.”
He nodded as he navigated the vintage truck down the road. “It is good that you are supporting the local economy.”
“She knows something, but she didn’t know about Audrey.” I glanced out the window and watched the scenery flow by. “I think she’s seen Clarence a lot more recently than a year ago.”
“She saw him yesterday.”
I turned to look at the Cheyenne Nation. “The kids?”
“Yes, they were very chatty.” He took out another handful and handed me a few. “I thought it was very nice that they offered us this lunch.”
I chewed on another. “And?”
He glanced at me. “Only the peas.”
“About Clarence.”
His eyes went back to the road as we recrossed the rumble strip. “He was here yesterday afternoon, and she gave him supplies.”
“I assume we’re now on our way to Diamond Butte Lookout?”
“We are.”
I nodded and reached for more peas, but he slapped my hand and then took one for himself. “We have to ration our supplies.”
I listened to him eat as we continued down the road. We came up on a skinny kid walking on the gravel beside the asphalt who was wearing only one shoe. Henry slowed, finally matching the speed of the child’s pace, and being that I was on the passenger side, I went ahead and spoke to the young man. “Lose your shoe?”
He turned his head at my voice and looked at me. “No.” His smile was wide and beatific. “Found one.” His face brightened even more when he noticed the truck and, more important, the driver. Henry leaned on the brakes in an attempt to stop Rezdawg before it could run over the kid, who had bolted around the front and had pulled himself up on the grille guard. He stared at us from over the hood. “What’choo doin’, Bear?”
The Cheyenne Nation laced his fingers over the wheel and placed his chin there. “Looking for somebody.”
The kid smiled. “You’re always lookin’ for somebody-I’m just glad it ain’t me!”
Henry smiled back at him and then gestured toward me, his partner in justice. “This is my friend, Walt Longmire.” He reversed the gesture. “Walt, this is Wiggins Red Thunder, head of the Birney Road Irregulars.”
The boy interrupted. “The Bear says you saved his life up on the mountain.”
I laughed, glanced at Henry, and then tipped my hat. “Pleasure to meet you, Master Red Thunder.”
He cocked his head and closed one eye to look at me. “What did you jus’ call me?”
“Master. It’s a formal address used for young men of undetermined age below thirteen.”
He continued to study me. “I’m twelve.”
“That would be under thirteen.”
The grin broadened. “ Heeeeeeeeeeehe’e!”
The Bear laughed. “Evoohta?”
Wiggins shot his eyes at me. “Emasets’estahe.”
Henry nodded, but the young man continued to look at me, uncertain as to my motives.
“You want a ride, Master Red Thunder?”
The smile returned. “Yah, up here.”
He turned and lodged his rear end between the top bar of the guard and the dented hood, facing forward and banging an open palm on the rusted green surface.
The Cheyenne Nation shouted, “Tosa’e?”
Our impromptu hood ornament pointed to the right down a dirt road leading to a cluster of small, shabby houses and a few trailers. Henry wrapped the wheel a few times, and we eased off the paved road and down the wallow of burnt-umber dirt.
“The Red Road?”
He gave me the horse-eye. “I have to check in with my homies.”
With a little direction, we pulled between a couple of the houses and found two younger children, a boy and girl, who had propped up a john-boat with rocks and filled it with a nearby garden hose, making a homemade pool. I watched as they splashed each other and then waved ferociously at us as Rezdawg parked.
“I sometimes miss being that age.”
“It was a good time, but now is a good time as well.”
I smiled as I started to open the door. “That was a point I was trying to make to Erma, but I don’t think she was buying.”
He looked thoughtful for just a moment. “Perhaps her now is different from ours.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
We met Wiggins at the front of the truck, and I noticed the rolling piece of work hadn’t pissed on the Indians. Rezdawg was obviously a racist.
Henry gestured toward the pair in the flooded boat. “Indian hot tub.”
The girl cried out. “We’re going to Alaska!”
We joined Wiggins and walked over. Henry dipped a hand in. “Warm; did you pee in this?”
They yowled with laughter until a man’s voice sounded from one of the trailers. “You damn kids better fuckin’ shut up out there!”
Henry looked left, and my eyes followed his to where a weathered blue ’69 Dodge Power Wagon with a white replacement door that read COLSTRIP CONCRETE sat parked next to a crummy, olive-green single-wide. “Who is that?”
Wiggins frowned. “Kelly Joe Burns.”
I remembered the conversation at Human Services. “Herbert His Good Horse mentioned this individual as one of the people who might have something against Audrey Plain Feather.”
The Cheyenne Nation’s eyes were slow to return but finally came back to us as he introduced me to the two other children. “Walt, this is Leslie S. Little Hawk and her sidekick, Charlie Shoulderblade.”
I tipped my hat again. “Troops.”
The Cheyenne Nation placed a closed hand over his chest. “What is our motto?”
Wiggins and the other two did the same with their smaller fists and shouted back, “To go everywhere, see everything, and overhear everyone!”
“Epeva’e.” He took a breath, but just as he was about to speak, a pale, bald, shirtless man threw open the door of the trailer and started off the porch toward us, pulling his belt from his pants with his head down.
“All right, God-damnit, I told you little fuckers that if you keep makin’ a racket, I’ll whip your asses.”
