“Why does he look familiar?”
Joe snorted. “I thought the same thing at first. I told you that. But there is no way in hell we’ve ever met him or run into him before.”
“Still there’s something about him,” Marybeth said, and he knew she was right. He waited for her to recall where she’d seen him. She was good at those kinds of things.
As the pickup drove away, Joe searched the crowd for Sheriff McLanahan, who stood on the side of the podium talking to some ranchers on Hank’s side about the state of alfalfa in the fields.
Joe left his seat and strode over. “Hey, Sheriff.”
McLanahan looked up with his eyes, but didn’t raise his chin.
Joe said, “Did you see who was driving that truck? That was Bill Monroe. Aren’t you supposed to be looking for him? Isn’t there a warrant out for his arrest? That was him right there.”
Pink rose from under McLanahan’s collar and flushed his face. He looked away from Joe for a moment.
“Didn’t you see him?” Joe demanded. “He was right here in this parking lot. He dropped Hank off. Aren’t you supposed to be on the lookout for him?”
Joe stepped closer to the sheriff, talking to the side of McLanahan’s turned face, to his temple. “I know what you’re doing. You’re playing both sides, keeping your head down until it’s resolved between the brothers. But don’t you think it’s time you started
McLanahan stared ahead, angry, his mouth set tight.
“How long can you sit back and watch geese fly? Or waste your time calling my boss and telling him I’m not doing my job?”
That made McLanahan’s face twitch. Yup, Joe thought, it was McLanahan after all.
“I’ve got an idea what might be going on with Hank, Arlen, and Opal,” Joe said. “You want to hear it?”
McLanahan hesitated, said, “Not particularly.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
With that, the sheriff turned on his heel and walked away, past the podium, around the corner of the museum.
Joe returned to the chairs and sat down next to Marybeth, who had seen the exchange.
“What are you doing, Joe?”
He shrugged. “I’m only half sure. But damn, it feels good.” JOE WAS INTERESTED to note the differences between the pro-Arlen and pro-Hank contingents. Arlen’s backers tended to be city fathers, professionals, merchants. Hank’s crowd looked much rougher than Arlen’s, consisting of some other ranchers, bar owners, mechanics, outfitters, store clerks. If it were a football game, Joe thought, Arlen’s folks would be cheering for the Denver Broncos and their upstanding players in their clean blue-and-orange uniforms. In contrast, Hank’s crowd would have spiked their hair and painted their faces black and silver and would be waving bones and swinging lengths of chain rooting for their Oak-land Raiders.
Joe and his family sat on Arlen’s side, but Joe didn’t feel completely comfortable about it. Especially after Marybeth told him about Arlen’s meeting with Meade Davis. And even more so after the cell-phone message he had received that morning from forensics at headquarters. He wished there were seats in the aisle between the two factions.
THE NEW WING, called the Scarlett Wing, was actually larger than the rest of the building it was attached to, which was how Opal had wanted it. The museum itself was like every little town museum Joe had visited throughout Wyoming and the mountain west: a decent little collection of wagon wheels, frontier clothing, arrowheads, rifles, tools, old books. The new addition had state-of-the-art interactive exhibits on the founding families of Twelve Sleep County, the historic ranches, the bloodlines that flowed through the community from the first settlers. In other words the Scarlett Wing was about the Scarlett family, and was simply a much larger version of the Legacy Wall in their own home that Sheridan had told him about.
The addition had been completed that week. An earthmover and a tractor still sat behind it. Grass turf had been so hastily rolled out to cover the dirt that the seams could be clearly seen. The manufacturer stickers on the windows had yet to be removed.
ARLEN TALKED FOR twenty-five minutes without notes, his melodious voice rising and falling, his speech filled with thunderous points and pregnant pauses. It was the speech of a politician, Joe thought, one of those stem-winders that, at the time you were hearing it, seemed to be all profundity and grace, but as soon as it was over, there was nothing to remember about it, as if the breeze had carried the memory of it away.
Despite that, Joe focused on what Arlen said about his mother:
“Opal Scarlett was more than a mother, more than the matriarch of Thunderhead Ranch. She was our link to the past, our living, breathing bridge from the twenty-first century to the pioneers who founded this land, fought for it, made it what it is today. And we celebrate her now with the opening of this museum . . .”
As Arlen spoke, Joe looked for Wyatt. Finally, he spotted the youngest brother, sitting off by himself, behind the podium. Arlen’s words had obviously touched him, because Wyatt’s face was wet with tears.
THE MAYOR INTRODUCED Hank Scarlett next.
Hank sat hunched over on the other side of the podium, leaning forward in his chair so his head was down and all that could be seen of it was the top of his cowboy hat. He was studying his notes with fervor. The paper shook in his hands. Nervous, Joe thought.
“Now would be a good time to go out to his place and see all of his poached game on display,” Joe whispered to Marybeth, “while he’s here and not there.”
“But you need a warrant,” she said.
HANK SHUFFLED TO the podium. There was something dark, mumbly, James-Dean-in-
While he spoke he read from his notes, which were wrinkled and dirty in his hands. Joe guessed he had been reading them over and over for days.
