Another Man's Moccasins

Chuck was sounding a little rattled. “Sheriff, I’ve been here for a half an hour, and he hasn’t shown up. I asked the on-duty nurse, but she said she hadn’t seen him since she’d made her rounds at eleven forty-five.” I looked up at the clock—forty-five minutes. “You want me to call him at home? ”

I thought about Marie and their expected child, and her reaction to a one o’clock in the morning call from the Sheriff’s Department concerning the whereabouts of her husband. “No, I’ll take the beeper and come over.”

I glanced back at Virgil White Buffalo as I hung up the phone and thought about what he would do to the jail when I left him alone. I was going to let him go tomorrow anyway— today, technically, so what could it hurt? I handed him his personal effects from the drawer, including the photo wallet, jacket, and knife. “Virgil, how would you like to go on a little field trip?”

By the time we’d driven through the sulky, high-plains night and gotten to the hospital emergency entrance, the duty nurse, Janine Reynolds, was waiting for us.

She looked up worriedly at Virgil, no doubt remembering his last visit. I glanced up at him. “You’re not going to trash the place again, are you?”

His face remained impassive. “No.”

Frymire was standing in the hallway next to his chair at Tuyen’s door when we approached. He stood, a little unsteadily, and readjusted his shoulder with Tuyen’s computer still under his arm. “I haven’t seen him, and I’ve been here for almost an hour.”

I turned to Ruby’s granddaughter. "Janine?”

She pointed. “When I made my rounds before midnight, he was sitting in that chair.”

Frymire tried to interrupt, but I was still looking at Janine. "Tuyen?”

She nodded toward the closed door. “I took his dinner tray away. He was looking out the window when I told him it would be a good idea to turn off the light and rest.”

I shrugged as I turned the handle and opened the door. “Well, at least he hasn’t been asleep long.” Frymire held it open as I entered and flipped on the light. “Mr. Tuyen? ” He was rolled up in the sheets and a single polyester blanket and was turned away from us toward the windows. “Mr. Tuyen, I’m sorry to bother you, but...”

He didn’t answer and, as I got closer, I could see that there was a dark stain on the covers. I leaned over and carefully pulled the sheet back from his face.

“Oh, Sancho.”

16

He wasn’t dead, but damn near.

Tuyen had used the serrated dinner knife from his hospital tray and had utilized the flimsy blade to its worst advantage, planting it deep while twisting it upward and into Saizarbitoria’s kidney, then breaking it off, resulting in massive internal hemorrhage and partial paralysis. Fortunately, he had been attacked in the hospital, and we had him in surgery in less than ten minutes. “I’ll call Marie, you call everybody else and get an APB out on my truck. He’s got Sancho’s gun, so make sure they know he’s armed, then get over to the office and coordinate. ”

“Who’s everybody else?”

We stood by the swinging doors. “Vic, the Ferg, Ruby, Double Tough, the highway patrol, Natrona County, Campbell County, Sheridan County.... And if there’s a Canadian Mountie on duty, I want him on it, too.”

“What about Henry?" ”

I looked up at Frymire, at his battered face and broken arm, still cradling Tuyen’s computer. “Especially Henry.”

I started toward the emergency room exit and noticed that something continued to block the fluorescent light in the hallway over my shoulder. I turned and looked at Virgil; how had I forgotten about a seven-foot Indian? I pointed at Frymire, who was making his calls from the nursing station. “Virgil, could you go with him? ”

He didn’t move but studied me and then strained to get the words out. “You need help...”

I stared at him. “I’m about to get a lot of it.”

I looked into the haloed reflections in his pupils and could tell that it cost a lot for him to speak. “You need help now.”

Other than shoot him, there wasn’t a lot I could do to stop him, and maybe I was ashamed that I had him locked up for almost a week with barely any cause, but I didn’t have time for this. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but...”

“I know that country.”

I looked up and felt like a child arguing with an adult, the medicine bag on his chest at my eye level. “What?”

“You are going to Bailey, the ghost town. I know it better than anyone.”

“What makes you think that I’m going...”

“The silver-haired woman, she said the electric messages were coming from the school.”

It took me a second to make the connection. “The e-mails?”

“Yes.”

I thought about it. “They were coming from the wireless-whatever-it-is of the county school system.”

He nodded. “The electric messages from the BPS.” His eyes darkened; reflecting everything, showing nothing. “It is the same abbreviation that is on a plaque they have on the outside of the building. I have seen it while watching the children . . . BPS. Bailey Public School.”