“Yup.”
“And a bunch of parts we don’t even know yet.”
“That’s the feeling I get.”
“Are the feds with us or against us on this one?”
Joe shrugged. “That’s something I can’t quite figure out yet. The FBI seems very interested in it, but from the outside. Usually, they move in and try to take over. This time, it’s like they’re trying to stay out of it but control things at the same time.”
“Have you talked to that agent you know, Coon?”
“Yup, I called him but he didn’t tell me much. He said he couldn’t comment on ongoing investigations, as if I were a reporter or something.”
“Ongoing investigations? And he hasn’t tried to get in touch with you since?”
“Nope,” Joe said.
“That tells me something right there,” Nate said.
“Me, too.”
“He should have contacted you again by now, if for no reason other than to see how you’re doing. There’s a reason he’s stayed away, and that’s probably because he doesn’t want to communicate with you and maybe let something slip out.”
Joe nodded. “The governor said there were some indirect federal contacts. Plus, Coon was adamant that the Grims, or Grimmengrubers, didn’t exist. At the time, I thought he was telling me I was nuts. In retrospect, I think he was telling me the names didn’t jibe with his investigation. In other words, he knows these brothers exist, but not under those names.”
“I wonder what he’s hiding,” Nate said. “And I wonder how far it goes up the chain.”
Joe’s phone rang again. He said, “Another 777 number.”
Nate said,
Joe breathed deeply and dropped the phone back into his pocket without answering.
ALISHA’S UNCLE, Willie Shoyo, had herded a dozen of his horses into a temporary corral made of twelve-foot rail panels in the sagebrush well out of sight of his home and barn. Beyond the corral were undulating grasslands that rose in elevation and melded with the dark brush marching downward from the mountains. The horses in the corral obviously didn’t like being penned up together, and they were restless and jockeying for preeminence in the nascent herd. In the distance, horses that hadn’t been selected by Shoyo grazed on yellowing grass and pretended they weren’t paying attention to the arrival of the pickup and horse trailer.
As Joe parked and swung out of his truck, he heard the solid thump of a kick and the squeal of the kicked in the pen. It didn’t take long for horses to start establishing the pecking order.
Willie Shoyo wore a King Ropes cap, a green snap-button cowboy shirt, a big buckle with an engraving of a Shoshone rose, and crisp Wranglers tucked into the tops of scuffed Ariat boots. He stood near the corral with his boot on the bottom rail and crossed arms on the top. His hands seemed darker and older than the rest of him, the skin on the back of his hands like coffee-stained leather. Joe thought he had a pleasant face—smooth and round, with sharp dark eyes. Willie’s horses were prized as great cow ponies, and a few had won money in team penning competitions.
Willie said to Nate, “Alisha told me you’d like to rent a few horses.”
Nate said, “Three or four, we haven’t decided.”
“Three,” Joe said. “Geldings. Two for riding and one for packing. I haven’t had much luck with mares in the mountains.”
Willie sized up Joe for the first time and nodded. “I’ve got plenty of geldings to choose from.”
Alisha Whiteplume drove up as Joe looked over the horses in the pen. She got out of her car and stood still appraising Nate with her hands on her hips. Nate ambled over to her, and she didn’t change her expression or posture.
Shoyo had watched the interaction as well. He said, “I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Pickett. Mares can be too emotional at times, even though most of them want to please you. But you can never make them completely happy, in my experience.”
Nate looked over from where he stood with Alisha to Joe and Shoyo and said, “Are we talking about horses here?”
THEY WERE ALL STOUT quarter horses, sorrels and paints with white socks and all of stolid disposition. Joe wished he’d brought Marybeth because she knew horses better than he. All of the geldings looked good to him.
“How about those three?” he said to Willie, gesturing toward a Tobiano paint, a sorrel, and a red roan.
Willie nodded his head. “Those are good ones,” he said. “Calm and a little dumb. Bombproof.”
“Good.”
Nate hadn’t paid any attention to the transaction, but stood outside the pen nuzzling Alicia. Joe helped Willie cut the three from the herd and shoo the unpicked horses out of the pen through the gate. The released horses ran hard to join the others out in the grass, raising plumes of dust behind them like the tails of comets. The three remaining snorted and paced and looked offended not to be allowed to go with the rest of the herd.
Willie told Joe, “The three horses you picked are named Washakie One, Washakie Two, and Washakie Three.”
“You’re kidding,” Joe said.
