A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery

12

I sat on the tailgate of my truck, sipped at a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and pulled the dry blanket a little closer around me, attempting to quell the constant shivering.

I watched as the Powder River Fire District volunteers recoiled their hoses and gathered their gear to beat a tired retreat back to the firehouse and their beds. The EMTs had loaded Double Tough into their van and had left.

Henry’s voice sounded distant. “One of the neighbors from across the street says he saw the light from inside but just thought it was the reflection from a wood-burning stove; the next time he looked, he said, the entire building was going up.”

I lowered the cup and looked at the pool of illumination from the dusk-to-dawn light on the other side of the parking lot, the halogen spilling onto the faded red Suburban, pink and unearthly. The truck sat there like some bashful ingénue at center stage, backed against a copse of fledgling aspens leaning in like a parted curtain.

I remembered how much better the thing had run after Double Tough had taken it under his mechanical wing; how numerous times when I had made the drive down to deliver paychecks, I would find his hillbilly ass under the hood of the thirty-year-old unit, reveling in the big-block, carbureted, dual-exhausted monstrosity.

“There were some other individuals at the periphery behind the sawhorses. I interviewed them, but none of them appeared to have seen anything.”

I remember Double Tough telling me he was from someplace back East, some hollow in the middle of the Appalachian mountains; about how he’d gotten a degree in geology or mineralogy or something. I thought about how I’d wished I’d listened more closely to his story.

“Walter.”

I stared at the truck and thought about what a dinosaur it was, and how it was a lot like him—unsophisticated, honest, and durable.

“There is nothing more you could have done.”

I stood, dumping the rest of the coffee from the cup and tossing the container into a bucket that served as a trash receptacle, and, pulling the blanket up higher, squished my way toward the large SUV with the Cheyenne Nation in tow.

“I heard you yelling, punched through the wall, grabbed you by your shoulders, and pulled you out. He probably did not know what happened, Walt.”

The sun would be up in a few hours—the dawn of a new day. From the flats of the Powder River country, a gaseous ball of hydrogen billions of degrees in heat would brighten the mountains behind me. I would meet that day with a serious degree of heat myself, a smoldering little ember that would become the size of a man, I’d say—most certainly more than one—which I would tinder until I could find just the right fuel.

“Walter?”

I fumed like the fuse on a bundle of dynamite and looked at my best friend in the world, the man who had just saved my life again.

The Bear stared into my face and didn’t like what he found there, but knowing me as he did, he didn’t say anything, just kept pace.

I took the last few steps and stopped at the corner of the official vehicle of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, my department, and stared through the back window of the Suburban. Double Tough’s clothes were piled in the back, and it looked as if nothing had been disturbed.

I hitched the old army blanket higher to cover my neck, turned, the tail end of the thing flaring with my effort, and walked toward the crumpled husk of the substation with the Bear trailing after me. He moved a little to the right in an attempt to see the side of my face with those dark eyes of his, seemingly darker than before, his eyes always growing deeper and more liquid as these crucial, emotional moments became a part of his soul.

At what used to be the front door, I looked straight at him to assure him that I wasn’t just wandering, sidestepped in, and went over to the scorched empty key rack. I stepped on something and stooped to pick up a set of keys that were under a couple of inches of dirty water. They were on a funny ring I’d never noticed before from some second- or maybe third-tier amusement park with an image of a giant character who looked a little like Bozo, leaning on a structure that read CAMDEN PARK—AT THE SIGN OF THE HAPPY CLOWN.

There was something else, too, that I noticed as I bent over—the vague scent of kerosene.

I turned around and started back toward the Suburban. I flipped to the second key and attempted to get it somewhere in the vicinity of the keyhole that unlocked the tailgate. My hands continued to shake, and the damn thing fell. I started to lean down, but the Cheyenne Nation was quicker, as usual, even catching them before they struck the pavement.

He stood and slipped in front of me, and I listened to the unctuous whir of the window descending. He reached inside, pulled the latch, flipping down the tailgate, and glanced back at me, standing there quaking. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

I pointed a quivering hand at the dirty laundry and willed my finger to stop shaking—if it didn’t, I silently swore, I was going to bite it off. It must’ve heard me and grew steady.

Henry sighed and pushed the clothing that smelled like my deputy aside till there was nothing but the ribbed surface of the Chevrolet’s floor. He turned to look at me and then walked around the vehicle, systematically unlocking and opening each door, looking inside and then closing it.

He finished his investigation, had circled the vehicle, and, leaning against the quarter-panel, stopped beside me. “Nothing.”

I nodded, still staring at the back of the beat-up truck. “Inside the substation, did you smell kerosene?”

“Yes.”

When I extended my hand, he’d already pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and handed it to me with Verne Selby’s number punched in and ringing. I held the device to my ear and waited through five rings before Verne’s wife, Rebecca, answered their phone.

She whispered. “He—hello?”

“Rebecca, it’s Walt. I need to speak with Verne.”

There was a rustling of sheets, and her voice rose. “Walter, do you know what time it is?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t and I don’t mean to be rude, but gimme Verne.”

I heard her talk to the judge, and after a moment I heard his voice. “Hello?”

“I need a warrant.”

He cleared his throat. “Now?”

“Now.”

“I can get the paperwork going in the morning. . . .”

“Right now. I’m going into East Spring Ranch down near Short Drop with or without a warrant—you can back me up with some paperwork or I can just go in there on my own. I’m in Powder Junction right now, and either way I’m headed south in a few minutes.”

I could almost see him nodding into the receiver. “I’ll fax it to the sheriff’s substation.”

I took a breath, staring at the powdery paint of Double Tough’s unit but refusing to look at the burned-out corpse of a structure across the parking lot. “Send it to the town hall instead.”

• • •

“We are waiting?”

“We are not.” We were standing at the counter of the Powder Junction Town Hall with Brian Kinnison, in anticipation of the warrant, when the Bear sabotaged me by handing me his cell phone again.

I looked at him, but he gestured for me to talk and walked away.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I sighed. “I’m going in there and none too friendly.”

“Then what?”

“I’m going to find out what’s going on, and I’m going to get who did this.”

I could hear her struggling to get her boots on. “You need help.”

“I’ve got help.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be gone in five.” I walked over to Henry and handed the phone to him. “Here.” Vic was still yelling on the other end. I returned to the counter just as Brian was pulling the papers out of the fax machine. He put them on the flat surface and looked at me.

“You’re sure these people did this?”

“Yep, I am.”

“You want me to alert the militia?”

I half-smiled, in spite of myself. “I didn’t know you had a militia.”

He glanced at the clock on the wall and smiled back. “Seems like a good time to start one up.”

I stuffed the warrant in the inside pocket of my jacket, which wafted the smell of a dead campfire, sat my water-mauled hat on my head a little straighter, and started out the door. Henry was waiting for me as I hit Powder Junction’s one-block boardwalk, and I could see he was thinking. I stepped up even with him and asked. “Why the substation? Why not just take the bit? They had to know this was going to start a war.”

“Yes.”

“But why him? I was the one pushing; I’m the one most likely to go after them.” I patted the papers in my pocket. “This guarantees it.”

“Yes.”

“They thought they could steamroll us out here in the middle of nowhere and get away with it?” I stuck an index finger toward him. “Don’t say yes.”

He grunted. “I am hoping that is not the case.”

I gestured to the tiny street. “Because he was closer?”

The Bear shrugged. “We are only forty minutes away.”

“Twenty, according to Vic.”

He nodded. “We should be going; I think I can keep you from shooting people, but I am not sure I can dissuade her.”

I climbed in on the driver’s side and pulled the door closed behind me as the Bear slung himself in. I watched as he reached over, pulled the Remington Wingmaster from the brace that held it against the dash and transmission hump, and jacked the breech of the twelve-gauge like a sidekick in some bullshit TV show where they did such things a dozen times. The unspent shell went flying into the back, unlike on TV, and I looked at him. “We might need that round.”

He smiled, and a line settled alongside the upturned corner of his mouth as he popped the lid on the center console—he knew all my caches and clichés—and pulled out an extra box of shells. “What other weapons do we have?”

I started the Bullet and pulled the gear selector down into drive. “Steadfast resolution.” I turned and looked at him, not as if he would take the option, but it had to be said. “If you want out, now would be the time.”

He actually laughed as he reloaded the round. “I try never to miss an episode of Steadfast Resolution—it is my favorite program.”

• • •

The Cheyenne Nation was the first to notice that the lights were on at the Short Drop Merc.

I slowed my truck from its sonic speed and pulled to the side of the road just past the turnoff into the pint-sized town. I leaned forward; it seemed as though almost every light in the place was on, especially in the bar, and a few vehicles were parked out front, including a decked-out Ford King Ranch pickup.

The Bear shook his head. “You do not think . . . ?”

“Yes, I do.” I threw the Bullet into reverse, scorching the scoria surface of Route 192 with two black strips of Michelin rubber about ninety feet long. I locked it up and spun the wheel, bouncing the three-quarter-ton over the edge of the pavement and down the slight grade leading into town past the signature hemp noose that swung from the cottonwood.

I kept my brights on as I slid up to the boardwalk hitching post alongside the other vehicles, my headlights directed into the front windows, a copious cloud of dry, ochre-colored dust drifting past us and blowing against the structure like an angry orange smell.

“I take it we are not counting on the element of surprise?”

I threw my door open. “Nope.”

His hand caught mine as I started to exit. “Does not make sense; remember that.”

I looked at him, said nothing, and then nodded.

We mounted the steps, and I didn’t bother with the knob, instead choosing to enter the room boot first. The door bounced off the wall and started back, but I caught it with one hand and stood there holding it.

I noticed my hands had stopped shaking for good.

The only person in the room that I did not want to shoot was standing behind the bar with her hands on her hips, keeping enough collateral damage distance between her and what appeared to be her unwanted patrons—smart woman, that Eleanor Tisdale.

There were three men at the bar and two more playing pool at the table to my left.

I noticed the Cheyenne Nation drifting in the door behind me like casual death, the shotgun trailing behind his leg completely unnoticeable.

“Well, howdy, Sheriff. You look like you could use a drink.”

I looked at the three, especially at the one with the mouth whom I recognized as Ronald, Roy Lynear’s oldest son, the one from over in South Dakota. Behind him were Lockhart and the younger strong arm whose acquaintance I’d made from a distance in Butte County.

Gloss and Bidarte were at the pool table, and the Bear had already taken a few steps in that direction. Having cased and set the room, I started toward Ronald and Lockhart and watched as the muscle slid in front of them. I guess they thought they had numbers on their side, but maybe they had never seen an episode of Steadfast Resolution, let alone the season finale.

Lockhart was the unstated leader, I was sure of that, but he lingered and made no move to engage me. I hit the younger one a good, solid roundhouse to the side of his head, which sent him into the bar where he made the mistake of trying to catch himself; I took that opportunity to uppercut him and send him back, dragging along a few glasses and more than a few beer bottles with him as he fell.

The favored son and Lockhart didn’t move and stayed there, not lifting a hand from the edge. Ronald Lynear’s eyes widened as I pulled up over him, my nose about an inch or two higher than the top of his head.

His face turned upward as I made a show of breathing in his scent. He appeared to be paralyzed but finally eased out the words in a smoother voice than I would’ve thought him capable of in such a situation. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing, Sheriff?”

I breathed in deeply. “They say that guilt has a specific odor, one you can smell from a mile away.”

He waited a moment and then asked, “And what is it that one of us might be guilty of?”

Still sniffing like a bloodhound, I leaned a little to the side. “The willful destruction of county property.”

“You don’t say?”

I brought my face around to his. “I do.” Leaving him, I stepped over the fallen man and gave Lockhart the once-over. “You see, the sheriff’s substation . . .” I glanced back at Lynear and then settled my eyes on Lockhart again. “The county property in question was burned with a chemical accelerant, probably kerosene.” I bent down to the glass-jawed guy, slid a Wilson Combat/Tactical .40 from his inside-the-pants holster, and propelled it across the gray hardwood floor where it lodged under Henry’s uplifted boot with a solid thunk.

Nobody moved.

I sniffed the younger man’s head and then lifted an arm, attaching one end of my handcuffs to his wrist. “Guilt is a lot like kerosene; the scent stays longer than you might suspect.” I dragged the cuffed individual along by the arm like an afterthought, turned toward Gloss and Bidarte, and took a few steps into the center of the room.

Gloss put the butt of his pool cue on the floor, his hand tightening around the shaft of it, and glanced at Henry and then at me. “You stay the hell away.”

The Bear and I looked at each other, and he was the first to speak. “That sounded remarkably like an admission of guilt.”

“Yep, it did.” I cocked my head. “You wouldn’t be armed again, would you, Mr. Gloss?” I gestured with the unconscious man’s arm. “I mean, not like your friend here, who I’m betting is going to be spending a few weeks in my jail in violation of the carry laws of the state of Wyoming.” I stepped to one side of the table, and they countered by moving to the other. “Do you have another weapon on you, by any chance? I took the last one you had, which means if you didn’t acquire a different one, you would have to find some other way of doing your dirty work, something like an accelerant—say, kerosene?”

He glanced at Henry and then at me and the holstered .45 on my hip.

His eyes came back up to mine, and I could see the panic-driven thought that was there. I reached down and drew back my jacket and unsnapped the safety strap from my Colt. “It doesn’t take much to carry one of these things—forty ounces of milled steel and eight rounds.” I pointed toward his shirttail, hanging past his waist. “Whatever you’ve maybe got there probably carries more, but caliber, rate of fire, that doesn’t really matter—doesn’t mean anything really. All that matters is being willing—willing to pull it, willing to fire it, willing to kill.” I took another step, still dragging the now half-conscious man along with me. “It’s one thing to set a place on fire with a man sleeping inside, but it’s another when a man is standing right in front of you, ready and willing.”

Bidarte sidestepped slightly to the left but carefully raised his hands, keeping them where Henry and I could see them. “I don’t know what this is all about, Sheriff, but we’ve been here, playing pool all night.” He gestured toward Eleanor and kept moving sideways. “The lady, she can tell you. . . .”

“That’s far enough; I’m not that bad a shot.”

He smiled but stopped.

I glanced at the proprietor, and she shrugged with a sad humping of her shoulders. “They came in here around six, all of them.” She looked away. “I wish I could tell you something different, but I can’t.”

I looked over to Henry and remembered what he said before we’d entered—it does not make sense, remember that. When I turned back, I could see Gloss had dropped his hand and was starting to raise it toward the underside of his shirttail. There were about six feet between me and him, which was the range in which most sidearm fatalities took place. “You shouldn’t miss from that distance, but then again, neither should I.”

Gloss started to shift his weight. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. . . .” He glanced to my right, where Lockhart was watching him.

I heard a noise behind me—the Cheyenne Nation must’ve stooped to pick up the pistol—but I was pretty sure it was the shotgun that he was aiming in Gloss’s direction.

I cleared my throat. “Now, in these types of situations, if you’re properly trained, the next step would be to distract the assailant just long enough for the primary target to pull his weapon, but I’ve nullified that possibility by having backup, right Henry?”

“You bet your lily-white ass.”

I gestured toward Gloss’s waist. “I’ll tell you what, if you want to get it out of your pants and ready to go, that’s fine by me.”

His lips moved, but it took a few seconds for him to come up with something to add. “Look, um, is this some kind of joke?”

My turn not to say anything.

He shook his head, stared at the long green of the felt, and looked at the ceiling. “I want a lawyer.”

“Place your weapon on the table—thumb and forefinger only.”

He made a show of doing exactly that and carefully placed another high-priced, carbon-steel .45 with some kind of fancy finish on the flat surface.

I reached across and picked it up.

“You want to smell me now?”

It was the wrong thing to say at the exact wrong time, and I made that clear by bringing the butt of the semiautomatic up and popping it into his nose. Blood blew from his nostrils, and his hands went up to his face. Bidarte actually laughed until I looked at him; then he gently placed his hands on the pool table in a position that didn’t look unfamiliar to him.

I glanced at the others. “Anybody else want to join the conversation?”

There were no takers, so I unhandcuffed myself, walked around the table, and yanked Gloss’s hand away from his face so that I could handcuff him to the other probable felon.

Bleeding profusely, he attempted to staunch the flow with his other hand, but the blood was spouting onto the front of his shirt and his voice was muffled and nasal. “We haven’t done anything.”

I gestured with the confiscated pistol. “Oh, you’ve done all kinds of stuff—it’s just a question of whether you’ve done this one thing, and if you have, are you going to be sorry.”

• • •

Vic, never one to miss a party, arrived a few minutes later, and we loaded Gloss and his pal into the back of her unit. My undersheriff glanced in the cage with a smile, noticing the man’s nose, still bleeding through the bar towel that Eleanor had provided. “Jesus, what’d you hit him with, a two-by-four?”

I handed her Gloss’s other gun. “Here, for the collection.”

She studied the weapon. “Another Wilson; you sure this guy’s name is Gloss?”

“No, I’m not, but I figure you’ll be able to tell me by morning.”

She whistled as she studied the sidearm. “A .38 Super, Combat Carry Competition—three grand, at least.”

“Yep, the boys seem to have money.”

“Must be the bake sales.”

“Uh-huh.”

She glanced at them again. “Can we keep their guns?”

“Sure, we’ll have a sale of our own.”

She nodded. “So what’s Double Tough’s condition?”

I stared at her.

She stared back at me.

Of course, Henry hadn’t told her over the phone. I took a breath, just to clear the pipes before trusting the words. “He’s gone.”

Her mouth dropped open just a little bit and hung there. We didn’t get many fatalities in the department; as a matter of fact, this would be the only one—and on my watch.

She sat there with all that training and experience she’d culled from the Philadelphia Police Department stamping down on her emotions, but I’d had a lot of experience with unquenchable fire lately. The tarnished gold eyes sharpened like a straight razor as she turned to regard them. “Oh, you fuckers.”

“Book ’em, run ’em—I want to know everything.”

After a moment, she turned and nodded at the dash. She took a deep breath, reached down, and started the engine. “You will.”

I looked at the group. “Call the Ferg in to help.”

Her beautiful jaw stiffened. “There’s a problem with help.”

“What’s that?”

“Witnesses.”

I stepped back as she laid her own strip up Main, fishtailing sideways as she sped through the intersection at 192 and shot up onto the highway about as fast as her old unit could travel.

I turned and started to walk up the steps almost into the owner/operator of The Noose. “They were here all night, Walt.”

I stood there three steps down and looked her in the eye. “When did they get here?”

“Early—six, maybe six-thirty.”

I sighed.

“Not what you wanted to hear.”

“No.” I stared past her at the lights illuminating the Merc proper. “Looks like you’ve gotten rid of the majority of your books.”

She adjusted her glasses and smiled. “Most of them went to the library, but I’ve got a stack for you in the back.”

I didn’t move. “I find it strange how suddenly you’ve decided to give up the ghost and close your business.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could see the incredulity growing in her eyes. “You don’t believe me?”

I scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “I don’t know who to believe.” Forcing her to move back, I started up the remainder of the steps. She moved, but just enough to force me to brush by her, her voice sharp with righteous indignity. “So we’re no longer friends.”

I stopped and stood there. “It’s dangerous being my friend; you might not want the job.”

• • •

Henry was behind the bar with the shotgun lying on the surface; he was drinking what looked to be orange juice.

“Like a day without sunshine?”

He slipped a look at Ronald Lynear and Tom Lockhart at the other side of the bar. “Fights germs.”

Lynear was the first to speak. “We’re going to get them out as soon as you set bail.”

I nodded. “That should be in a few weeks.”

“Then I’m filing a wrongful arrest and harassment charge against your department.”

Lockhart placed a hand on his arm and then slid a piece of paper toward me. “Take a look at this.” It was an ATM slip from the small branch bank across the street, dated yesterday, with a withdrawal of two hundred dollars—the time, six thirty-two. “What’s that look like to you?”

“It’s an ATM slip for what looks like two hundred dollars, but since I have a career in law enforcement, I’m not sure how to count the number of zeros.”

He attempted to control himself. “You see the time?”

“Yep, they teach us how to do that at the academy over in Douglas; they say it’s important.”

“We grabbed some cash when we got to town and came straight over and started drinking and playing pool.” He gestured behind me where Eleanor stood by the door. “You’ve got a reliable witness who tells you the same thing.” He shook his head at me as if I were some child in need of reprimand. “You haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

Shooting a glance at Ronald, I reached over and stole the Bear’s juice. “I’m curious, Reverend, what it is you’re doing in a den of iniquity like this?”

He smiled. “I’m not drinking, but I thought I’d join in the celebration.”

“And what is it you’re celebrating?”

He made a face, as if it were obvious. “Our new water well.”

I turned and looked at them. “And how were you able to drill that well without the benefit of your Hughes polycrystalline three-cone bit?”

He looked at me with an expression as blank as the biblical nonshifting desert sands. “Our what?”

“The industrial one-hundred-seventy-thousand-dollar bit we found in the back of Big Wanda’s Plymouth that she ran off the road to try to keep us from finding.”

The sands remained still. “We used the one that was attached to the Peterbilt that you saw the other night. Tomás fixed it. I’m sure I don’t know what other drill it is you’re talking about.”

“Maybe you don’t.” I set the glass down and squared off with Lockhart. “But I bet he does.”

A long moment passed, and Lockhart placed a hand on Lynear’s shoulder and spoke to the confused man. “Ronald, why don’t you head back to the ranch; I’m sure your father is wondering what’s happened.” He slapped him gently. “Go on, we’ll be along in no time.”

The man of religion glanced at all of us and then quietly departed, excusing himself as he passed Eleanor, still standing at the entrance.

Lockhart stood there for a moment more and then started toward the door. “Could I get you to step outside with me for a moment, Sheriff?”

I stared at him, at Eleanor, and then back to Henry. I pushed off the bar and followed him out the door.

It was cool, but the rays of the sun were just starting to rise over the plains with a diffused, yellowish-gray glow. I turned to Lockhart, leaning against one of the support poles.

Lynear was just backing out in an older Buick with a crumpled fender that had been touched over with gray primer on the passenger side. We both watched as he pulled out and drove away.

“I’m a professional; I want you to know that.”

I turned and looked at him, folding my arms over my chest. “I do. It’s a professional what that I’m trying to figure out.”

“Sheriff, how much money do you make a year—forty, fifty thousand?”

“I don’t know; like I said, they stopped teaching us remedial math at the academy.”

He nodded. “But you can tell me what time it is, right?” He turned and looked at the rising sun, and I watched him shiver. “Well, how about I tell you what time it really is?” His face returned to mine. “Time to look the other way.”

I said nothing.

“How old are you, Sheriff? Closing in on retirement with a half-finished house would be my guess, with children, a daughter, maybe? Newly married and expecting your first grandchild? A professional herself, possibly a lawyer in a large eastern city, an associate with hopes of making partner. . . .”

I cut him off. “I get it, you know all about me—I sure hope there’s more to this conversation than that.”

“I hope so, too, Sheriff, I hope so, too.” He shivered a little more, and I had to admit that I was enjoying his discomfort. “What if I told you that I’d like to make a donation to the Walt Longmire reelection campaign?”

“I’ve already been reelected.”

“Oh, this money would be disassociated from any political responsibilities; you could use it for whatever you wanted, finishing your house, a gift for your daughter, college for the grandchild. Anything you’d like, it doesn’t matter. A lot of money, Sheriff. Like Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen used to say: a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money.”

I dropped my head and spoke into my folded arms. “So, we’re talking about serious money, then.”

“Very serious.”

I raised my head slowly and stared at him. “Mr. Lockhart, are you trying to bribe me?”

He smiled. “Hasn’t it ever been tried before?”

“Nope, generally people are smarter than that.” I tilted my head and looked at him. “They don’t know, do they?”

“Who know what?”

I gestured toward the departed car and the general direction of East Spring Ranch. “Your religious friends, they don’t know about whatever it is that you’re doing that’s going to result in serious money.”

“That’s really not the point here, is it?” He shivered some more, looking in the bar and longing for the warmth inside. “So, am I to take that response as a no to my offer?”

“That was an offer, was it?”

“Yes, it was and still is. Just for looking the other way. Nobody gets hurt.”

“Nobody gets hurt.” I probed the grain of the boardwalk with the toe of my boot. “And that’s why you killed Double Tough, because he had a working knowledge of whatever it is you’re doing?”

A look of exasperation flitted across his face. “Why would we kill your deputy?”

“For a Hughes polycrystalline three-yoke bit.”

His response was swift and a little angry. “Sheriff, if I wanted, I could have a truckload of them within twenty-four hours.” He pushed off the pole and stood in front of me. “I didn’t kill your deputy—it makes no sense. I have to admit that I didn’t know about you before, but now that I do I can see that you would be a formidable adversary.” He took a breath. “I’m a businessman, beyond all the things you think I am or the things you think I do—I am in business. Now, you tell me, is it good business for me to take you on?”

I said nothing.

“Why would we want a war with you?”

I still said nothing.

“Well, there’s your answer.” He gestured toward the bar. “Do you mind if I collect Tomás? It’s been a long evening.”

I gestured with a nod and watched as he went to the door, opened it, and called inside. Lockhart started for the truck and a moment later was followed by Bidarte and the Cheyenne Nation.

As Bidarte passed, I stuck out an arm and stopped him, leaned in, and sniffed him. He stared at me for a moment, then stepped onto the gravel, and, standing by the door of the truck, he studied me as Henry and I leaned on either side of the wooden pole.

Lockhart pulled his keys from his pressed khakis and hit the button to unlock the doors on a black half-ton, then stepped off the boardwalk and opened the driver’s side. A thought occurred to him, and he spoke again. “By the way, I have to ask—did you smell kerosene on Gloss?”

I studied the horizon, where that first glimmer was simmering under the streaked sky. “No.”

I saw a flash of movement to my left but before either the Bear or I could react, there was a loud thunk in the post between us. I turned my head slowly and could see Bidarte’s blade buried in the coarse grain of the wood just at head height, still vibrating from the impact.

Henry and I stared past the foot-long stiletto at each other’s faces. The Cheyenne Nation reached up and plucked the knife from the post, expertly nudging the tang and folding it back before tossing it to the tall Basque. “If you were aiming for the post, that was a good throw.”

Bidarte tucked the knife into his back pocket. “Oh yes, señor. I was.”

I ignored him and studied the horizon.

Looking at the sun for a moment, Lockhart followed my eye, and patted the top of the cab as an afterthought. “Concerning Mr. Gloss and the kerosene, it would’ve been easier to lie.”

I kept my eyes on the rising sun as the two of them climbed in the truck and backed into a sweeping arch that gave them a clear trajectory up the embankment and south onto 192.

“No, it wouldn’t.”