“Who?”
“The boy.”
“He said it was Owen White Buffalo.”
There are moments in your life when you hear that first click of the dominoes, and you know that whatever happens from that point, it’s all going to be bad. I sat there in that moment listening to the noises inside me-my heart, the blood surging through my veins, the unwanted adrenaline that was now causing my hands to grow still and my face to become cool.
“Jesus, Sheriff. I haven’t seen a response like that in quite a while. You knew this kid?”
My mouth was dry, and I suddenly wanted more coffee. “No, but I know the family, and up until now I thought I was conversant with all their miseries.” I fought the weight in my chest by asking more questions, unsure if I was going to like the answers. “From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t fit Moser and Borland’s MO. Can you even take organs from a child that young for transplant purposes?”
“The boy was before they partnered. That’s why the other two are so quick to give Shade up-they had nothing to do with this one. Personally, I don’t think there is any money, but it got the other two to surface and that’s good enough for me. We were just going to use Shade to find the body, but I needed confirmation and that’s where the other two come in.”
The conversation we were having was only made worse by the immediate surroundings. The lodge at Meadowlark Lake had been closed for a couple of years and Holli and Wayne had not planned on renovating it until they finished with South Fork and Deer Haven, which was a couple of miles west. We sat in the empty cafe and listened to the coolers cooling nothing and the sleet hissing on the tin roof, an accompanying wind skiff kicking up snow devils across the icy surface of the lake. By all rights it was spring, but every year somebody forgot to tell the mountains.
Most of the FBI agents except McGroder were still at Baby Wagon Creek; the agent and I had elected to retreat to Meadowlark in the wake of the prisoners.
“Raynaud’s something of an opportunist. You noticed his eye?”
I tried to focus on something other than the name White Buffalo and watched the lightning strike in chains across the big lake. “I did.”
“Plucked it out himself.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that and was saved by a melodramatic clap of thunder.
“During the stint in Draper. There was an altercation between Shade and another prisoner over a female correspondent.”
I still wished we had more of the good coffee, but supplies were slow coming from South Fork Lodge, where we’d had lunch. My stomach gnawed on itself, reminding me that it was coming up on six o’clock at night. It was a Friday, which also reminded me that I hadn’t called to cancel dinner with Vic and Henry. “Shade killed him?”
“Yeah, Raynaud had a postal affair going on with the woman, and this other guy made some remarks which cost him his life. Carved him up with a homemade knife, but at the time it appeared as if he’d lost an eye in the fight, which got him sent to the medical unit, where he escaped. They consequently discovered that he’d plucked the eye out himself and cut it loose with the same shank. Shows a specific type of determination, doesn’t it?”
I looked out the window to see Saizarbitoria rushing by the parked but still running vehicles with a couple of sacks containing what I assumed was the first round of supplies from South Fork Lodge.
I wasn’t sure if I was still hungry.
My eyes stalled on the fogged windshield of our borrowed WYDOC van, where Raynaud Shade sat chained in the center with Marshal Benton sitting behind him and another marshal seated in the driver’s seat. The other prisoners, all four of them, were awaiting departure in the Ameri-Trans van under the careful eye of yet another marshal and the three Ameri-Trans employees.
The Basquo booted open the front door of the lodge with his foot. He glanced back to where Beatrice was pulling more bags from the passenger seat of her Blazer, which she had parked under the overhang of the building. “We’ve got more, but I’m not sure how you want to feed the prisoners.”
McGroder, a little daunted by the deluge outside, stood and picked up his satellite phone from the table. “In the vans and locked down. I’ll go get things coordinated with my guys.” He paused as Sancho pulled out a waxed- paper-wrapped club sandwich. “Save one of those for me, will you?”
The Basquo smiled and pulled out two more. “You bet.”
Beatrice entered with more sacks and rested them on the table. “Boy, the roads are bad from the lodge to here. This is the last of it.” She glanced at me. “Are you paying again, Sheriff?”
I gestured toward McGroder. “The federal government will be picking up the tab this time.”
The Fed took the receipt from the woman. “Don’t we always.”
He proceeded out the door with her to implement “Operation Dinner” as Saizarbitoria, still dripping from the thawed sleet, handed me a sandwich and a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “I called in and Marie said she could put Antonio down on her own. She also said that NOAA reports we’ve got a heller of an ice storm coming in-going to last the entire weekend. Any time now, it’s supposed to turn from sleet to frozen rain and then snow by morning.” He folded the wrapper down and placed his paperback on the table. There was a red, cellophane-flagged toothpick in his sandwich that he extracted and pointed toward me. “By the way, you’re in trouble.”
I broke my reverie of White Buffalos and thought about my more personal problems. “Henry or Vic?”
“Both.”
“I am in trouble.” I considered. “Can I borrow your cell phone?”
He handed the device over, and I watched as he began devouring his food-he spoke through the bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes: “Just hit SEND; they’re at her house.”
I punched the green button, held the phone to my ear, and waited.
There was an immediate answer. “Fucker.”
I sighed. “It’s not my fault.” She remained silent. “Did Saizarbitoria explain?” I glanced up, and the Basquo nodded.
“I made my Uncle Al’s lasagna rustica; do you know how long that takes?”
“I’m sorry.”
“The Cheyenne Nation, your dog, and I are all drinking wine and talking about what a shit you are.”
“Dog is drinking wine?”
She exhaled audibly. “Well, I poured him some; so far he’s just looking at it.” There was a long pause on the line. “Sancho said it was something to do with the Feds-a body?”
“Yep, and we caught the jurisdiction.” I sighed again. “Seven-year-old boy, almost a decade deceased, but there’s a very big twist. The victim’s name is Owen White Buffalo.”
I glanced up and could see the Basquo’s dark eyes grow enormous, and he stopped chewing. I nodded to him briefly and then listened to the phone. It was, by far, the longest pause yet, and her voice sounded strained. “You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I was.”
Her pitch softened a little with the wonder of our predicament. “What does this have to do with the prisoner transport?”
“One of them may have been involved with the murder in a primary way.”
I listened as she readjusted the phone. “The Shade guy?”
“Yep.”
“Figures. The voices in that fucker’s head are singing barbershop.” It was quiet, and I listened to her breathe. “Here’s Henry-you better talk to him.”
I could hear her hand him the phone, and my lifelong buddy came on the line, a man with whom I’d endured the Wyoming public school system and Vietnam. “You are in trouble.”
“More than you’ll ever know.” I explained the situation. “Do you have any idea if any of the White Buffalos had any children who might’ve disappeared about nine years ago?” I waited as he absorbed it all. I tried not to mention the four-hundred-pound Indian in the room. “Can you make some phone calls?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still have Eli’s number over in Hot Springs?”
“I do.”
“Could you check with him and then call me back here on Sancho’s cell?”
