Another Man's Moccasins

I turned my glass of Rainier in the water ring. “I am loath to say it, but Den Dunnigan did a stint as a corrections officer up in Deer Lodge, Montana, back in the old days when they used to hang people. That and we just saw the Dunnigans’ truck pull into the turnoff to Bailey but then continue on.”

Michael dipped the high-plains delicacy in cocktail sauce. “He got any kind of record? ”

“He has a temper, and once came close to beating a guy to death with a shovel.”

Despite her reservations, Cady joined the conversation. “Is that the crazy rancher? ”

“He’s not crazy.”

Henry chimed in. “I am not sure that confusing your mother with the timer on the electric coffeemaker denotes a great deal of mental stability.”

I turned back to Cady. “Not James, his brother Den.”

My daughter leaned in even more. “He thinks his mother is a coffeepot?”

I looked at all of them. “It’s complicated....”

The waitress interrupted. “Are you folks all right?”

Michael looked up at her, still munching on the Rocky Mountain oysters. “These are great; can we get another round? ”

I thought about the girl, the missing one. Who was she? More important, where was she? The only thing I could think we might do is knock on doors from ranch to ranch and see if anybody had seen her. It was a long shot but all I could come up with in the rough and expansive country of the Hole in the Wall.

“What about the second girl?” The Bear was mind reading again, and I wasn’t sure if I was happy that he had just made my internal monologue the topic of conversation for the group.

“What second girl?” I hadn’t had a chance to fill Vic in.

“The manager of the Flying J down in Casper said there were two girls in the car and that both had long dark hair, but I asked Maynard and the Dunnigans, and they all said Ho Thi was traveling alone.” I nodded at Henry. “James said that he was having . . . I don’t know. What would you call them? ”

He smiled. “Visions.”

“Anyway, we went out to the ghost town and took a look around but couldn’t find anything.”

Michael took the last Rocky Mountain oyster. He hadn’t noticed that he was the only one eating them. “Ghost town?”

“There’s an old settlement to the west of Powder Junction, a mining town that dried up.”

Michael stopped chewing and looked at Vic. “You have to take me there.”

I looked at them. “There are snakes.”

Vic blew a breath between her lipsticked lips. “Fuck that.”

Cady smiled and reached a hand out for Michael, who took it. They both turned back to look at me. Cady seemed concerned. “What kind of visions?”

The elderly couple at the next table were leaning in, too, so I lowered my voice. “He said he saw the girl who had been murdered out there in Bailey.”

“You mean when they found the body?” Cady’s voice was a little too loud, so I gave her a look back.

“After that. James said he was driving home one night— this was after finding Ho Thi’s body—and there she was standing on the side of the road.”

Cady’s voice was just as loud as before. “What’d he do?”

I shrugged. “He said he stopped his truck, but by the time he got out, she was gone.”

Henry leaned back and sipped his wine and stared at the elderly couple who suddenly took less interest in our conversation. The Cheyenne Nation returned the glass of red to the surface of the table and, after a moment, spoke. “Den was a prison guard?”

“Yep.”

“He seemed defensive.”

Cady looked uncertain. “This is the crazy one?”

“His brother, but obviously a certain amount of eccentricity runs in the family.” I looked at my neglected beer on the table and continued to lose my taste for it. “However, Den is very protective of James.”

Henry nodded. “Yes, but why would Den, or for that matter James, kill Ho Thi, kill Maynard, and attempt to kill Tuyen? ”

They were all silent, and this was when my job sucked.

Cady sipped her wine and smiled; always the optimist, she was trying to find the upside to my predicament. “So that means that Virgil White Buffalo is innocent.”

“Yep.” I watched the tiny bubbles rising in my glass, avoided all their eyes, but especially Henry’s.

“So, you’re sleeping at the jail again? ”

I pulled the Suburban up to Vic’s single-wide and slipped the decrepit thing into park. “It’s my turn.”

“You relieving Frymire? ”

“Yep. Then Frymire is supposed to relieve Saizarbitoria at the hospital, because Double Tough didn’t look good.” Henry had disappeared in the Thunderbird, giving Cady and Michael a lift out to my place, so I had given Vic a ride home. I watched as she pulled a leg onto the bench seat, exposing a little thigh well above her boots.

“What are you going to do about Virgil, Walt?”

“I don’t know, maybe call Human Services or try and get hold of somebody in charge of the social programs up on the Rez.” She unsnapped her seat belt, turned, and carefully placed the black leather boots that were embroidered with blue roses in my lap. I thumbed the stitching. "Pleurosis....”

"What?”

“Blue roses; it’s what Tennessee Williams used to call his sister’s pleurosis.”