Another Man's Moccasins

Figuring it would unsettle him, I leaned on the front blades of Den’s machine. “Hello, James. I’ve got a few more questions for you and your brother, if that’s okay.” I watched as he took off his sweat-soaked straw hat, the red clay trapped in the perspiration on his forehead looking dark as bloodstain. James gestured to Den, who reluctantly shut the swather off, threw open the glass door, and walked toward us on the front frame of the machine. I allowed the Dunnigans to assemble before asking my questions.

Den looked down at us; he had pulled out a small cooler from the cab, sat, and started to eat his lunch. “We haven’t found any more bodies, if that’s why you’re here.”

I ignored him. “James, when you met Ho Thi Paquet, the young woman in the . . .”

“Was that her name?”

I studied him for a moment. “I’m sorry, James. Yes, it was.” He nodded and looked at his scuffed-up ropers, which were wrapped twice with duct tape. “When you met Ho Thi at the bar, was she alone?” They both looked at me, but the only emotion I could read was confusion.

Den unwrapped a sandwich and opened a bottle of Busch, squeezing the cap between his fingers and pitching it into the high grass, before he finally spoke. “In the bar?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, yep. I mean the bartender was there.”

“Anybody else?”

They looked at each other, and then James answered in a soft voice. “No.”

“When you came outside, was there anyone else in her car?”

Den squinted into the sun and chewed a bite from his sandwich. “No.”

I nodded. “Guys, the next question is going to be a little personal. Where did you have sex with her?”

James looked worried and glanced at Henry, who had gotten out of the Bullet and had become more interested in farming equipment than I’d ever seen him. “In the truck.”

“Your truck.”

“Yep.”

I nodded. “Parked where?”

“Out near Bailey.”

“She rode with you?”

“Yep.”

“Then what?”

James’s neck was turning red as he glanced back at the Bear. “Well, I went first . . .”

“No, I mean after.” He looked up at me. “After you and Den had sex with her, did you drive her back to her car?”

They replied in unison. “Yes.”

“And you didn’t see anyone in the car with her?”

They replied in unison again. “No.”

“What time was it when you let her off?”

The two brothers looked at each other, and James started to speak before being cut off by Den, who threw the remainder of his sandwich into the open cooler and snapped it shut. “How in the hell should we know what time...”

James silenced him with a hand, the other clutching the brim of his hat as he thought. “We stopped cutting at about three, spent a couple of hours with her in the bar; then a little over an hour with her out at Bailey, and then brought her back to town.”

“So, six, six-thirty?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded. “All right, if you fellas see or hear anything . . .”

James shifted his weight toward me, and I stopped speaking. His eyes welled up. “Walt, there’s somethin’ else.”

Den’s voice exploded as he crouched down between us, still on the front rail of the swather, with the beer bottle dangling from his fingers. “James, God damn it, he don’t want to hear that shit!”

I looked back at James as he cleared his throat. “I been havin’ some strange things happen, seein’ things, I mean.”

Den climbed down. “James.”

The older rancher worried the corner of his mouth with an index finger. “After we found her on the side of the highway . . .”

Den yanked off his ball cap. “God damn it! ”

James leaned in a little, and I got the first whiff of blackberry brandy. “After you talked to us the first time? ”

I nodded. “Yes?”

“And we all knew she was dead?” I waited but said nothing. A few cars passed by on the highway, but James’s eyes stayed steady with mine. “Walt . . . do you believe in ghosts?”

Of all the things I was thinking James Dunnigan might reveal, a steadfast belief in the paranormal might’ve been close to last. I ignored Henry, who redirected his gaze from James to me. “I’m not sure I understand.”

James interrupted, and his voice carried an edge. “It’s a pretty simple question—do you think dead people come back?”

I thought about recent circumstances and felt an unease growing in the tightness of my chest. I thought about seeing Indians on the Bighorn Mountains during a blizzard, whose advice was that it was sometimes better to sleep than to wake. I thought about a battered cabin on the breaks of the Powder River, with floating scarves and brittle paint that flaked away from the whorls of cupped wood like sheet music. I thought about Eagle helmets and ceremonies and cloud ponies. “James . . .” My voice caught in my throat like a vapor lock and sounded strange, even to me. “To be honest, no, I don’t think the dead come back.” My voice caught and his head dropped, just a little. “Because I’m not so sure they ever leave.”

He looked back up. “I seen her.”

“Who?”

“I swear I seen her.”

Den erupted again. “God damn it, James! They’re gonna put you in a home! ”

“Ho Thi, I seen her.”

I placed my hand on the old rancher’s bony shoulder. “Where, James?”