tobacco and began filling the cherry-wood bowl. I noticed the pattern on the small bag and recognized it as the same as the Dead Man’s Body on the Cheyenne Rifle. I informed Lucian of this. He looked at the pouch anew as the smoke drifted around his head and his dark eyes and out the window he had just cracked. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Going back to the hospital was risky business, but it was a chance I was going to have to take. Lucian waited patiently as Isaac Bloomfield looked over my hands and examined my ear while I questioned him about any other gunshot wounds that might have popped up last evening. He said there had been nothing suspicious to report, but that if anything came up he’d be sure to get a hold of me as quickly as possible. I asked about Henry, but all he did was kind of chuckle and said the nurses were taking very good care of him. I feared for Janine Reynolds’s virginity. Much to Lucian’s dismay, he, my entire ear, and myself left shortly thereafter. We continued our search to the drugstore downtown where they reported that they had not sold a single Band-Aid since yesterday afternoon. It was a tough economy on the high plains. I turned and looked at him as I started the truck. “Veterinarians?”
“Taxidermists.”
I’m not sure why, but it made sense. “Which one?”
He pulled on his pipe and studied the problem; one thing we had no shortage of in Wyoming is taxidermists. “How ’bout that outfit of Pat Hampton’s down on Swayback Road?”
I wheeled the Bullet into a U-turn and headed south; a few vehicles slowed and the drivers gave me irritated looks. Lucian shot them the bird, and I slapped his hand down as he snickered and told me to turn on the lights and siren to show them we meant business. I figured he just wanted to run them again, so I did. I navigated the entrance ramp of the highway at the south side and, since there wasn’t any snow on the road, took the truck up to about eighty-five. He didn’t say anything, just looked ahead, and I figured I was going to hear about it. I was right, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. “What you did up there?”
“Yep?”
“That was a hell of a thing.” I nodded and looked ahead too. I didn’t tell him about the Old Cheyenne.
Pat Hampton’s was an odd mixture of taxidermy and game processing. It was said that no matter what you wanted to do with an animal, Pat could assist you. When we pulled up to the ramshackle complex of dilapidated buildings, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Pulled around to the far side of one of the buildings, covered with mud and with the side caved in, was a black Mazda Navajo with the plates, Tuff-1.
“Bonzai.” The old sheriff smiled and pulled the pipe from his mouth as I eased the Bullet up to the other side of the building. “You got a gun I can borrow?”
I unlocked the 870 Wingmaster from the dash. “This kid is a victim.”
He looked at the shotgun. “Fugitive from justice.”
“Lucian, do me a favor and don’t shoot anybody.”
He jacked the pump action and fed a shell of double-ought buck into the breech. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with shootin’ folks, long as the right ones get shot.” The next five minutes promised an inordinate variety of excitements. I pulled out my. 45 and checked it, like I always did, then reholstered it, snapping the leather strap over the hammer. The old outlaw smiled. “Front or back?”
I looked at the accumulation of buildings, trying to figure out which was which. “I’ll take the front.” The Remington waved in my direction as he navigated the door, and I was acutely aware that he had not put on the safety. I walked across the muddy slush of the lot to what looked like it might be the front as Lucian swung-stepped his way around the corner of the ratty, brown-painted building. There were boot prints leading up to the aluminum screen door that had only some battered strips of screening still attached. There was a plastic sign in the window, flyspecked and bleached by the sun. In swirling letters it read, SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED.
There were ancient blinds in the windows, but there was a small, diamond-shaped pane in the door that was unshaded. I poked my head through the empty frame of the screen and looked through the dirty glass. I could see an odd combination of living room and reception area with sofas, a console television, and some sort of strange reception desk. I noted the hallway leading to the right, after you got past the desk, and figured that was where I should go once I’d gotten through the door.
“Sheriff ’s Department!” I pounded on the door with the flat of my hand. “George, if you’re in there? Let’s not make things worse!” I listened as a shuffling noise came from the center of the building. I took a deep breath and checked the knob. It was locked. I banged on the door again. “Sheriff’s Department, I’m coming in!” I took another couple of breaths and unsnapped the strap from the top of my holster. I only had a certain amount of time before Lucian came in the rear, but I figured having only one leg would slow him up in kicking his own door down. I carefully swung back the screen-door frame so as to not get caught in it and pulled the Colt from my holster, clicking the safety off and holding it in the air. I leaned back and put everything into a fourteen E width.
I guess I was expecting a little more resistance from the rotting, hollow-core door, because I followed it rather rapidly as it folded up into two main pieces and blew us into the room and onto the sofa at the opposite wall. I heard a loud thumping at my right and pushed off the couch, cleared the doorway at the hall, and ran toward the noise. When I got to the entryway at the opposite end, somebody was coming the other way but didn’t see me until it was too late. I just kept running and carried him back into the room as I led with the point of my unarmed shoulder. I heard the air leave his body as we went back through the doorway, and he felt familiar. Hello, George.
We bounced off a large table at the center and slid to the cool, tile surface of the floor. I steadied myself against the countertop with one hand and stood. It was George all right, and he was out again. He was only partially dressed and still held his pants in his hands. There was a large wrapping of bandages at the middle of his right thigh and another set around his head that was holding his jaw secure.
I stood the rest of the way up, pulled out my handcuffs, and secured George to the table. As I finished this, there was noise down the hallway, and an explosion that was unmistakable as the sound of a 12 gauge shotgun being discharged filled the air. I started to head down the corridor when another young man with a pale face came bursting through the doorway with what looked like a rifle in his hands. When he saw the barrel of the. 45 about a foot from his nose, he pulled up short and froze. “Sheriff’s Department, you don’t move.”
His hands went straight up, along with the rifle. “I won’t.”
“You just did.” He looked confused for a moment. “Drop the rifle.” He hesitated for a second. “You got a problem?”
He was still frozen. “It might go off.”
“All right, you keep it pointed away from me and set it down on the table.” He did as requested, and I told him to stretch forward and place his hands on the counter, palms down. He did this, and it seemed like he was going to cry. I had a moment to look at him; he was just about George’s age. It all figured.
“Lucian! You all right?” There was a little more clatter, and he answered from the distance, “Yes, goddamn it!”
I went around the corner of the table and looked at the kid’s rifle and propped the butt against my hip. “A pellet gun?”
His face turned toward mine. “It’s all I had, and I didn’t want to hurt anybody…”
Lucian appeared in the doorway, shotgun at the ready. “Damn door was locked.”
I sat on the edge of the table and stuck the pellet rifle under an arm as I put my sidearm back in the holster and looked at the kid, trying to place him. “Well, where’s Pat? He away?”
Lucian planted one of his formidable claws at he back of the kid’s neck. “Yeah.” I watched as Lucian’s grip tightened. “Hey!” His voice strained.
“You say ‘sir’…” Lucian leaned in over the boy’s head. “Yes, sir.”
The voice was even more strained. “Yes, sir.”
“Lucian?”
He let up a little bit and looked at me questioningly. “What? I ain’t hurtin’ the little pissant.” He rolled his eyes, stepped back to the doorway, and poked the kid with the barrel of the Remington before resting a shoulder against the facing. “Don’t you forget that I’m here, son.” Even from my perspective, I could see that the safety was still not on.
“He’s down in Casper, buying a truck.”
“Are you Petie Hampton, Bruce’s boy?”
He smiled at being recognized. “Yes, sir.”
“I thought you were in school down in Colorado?”
