Another Man's Moccasins

He sniffed and cleared his throat before taking another long drag on the cigarette. “Yeah, and he’s going to be hard to replace. The satchels were a hell of an operation; I could get anything—hashish, opium.... Whatever anyone wanted, I could get it, and even better, I could get it out and back to the land of the great PX. I’ll have to get another pilot for this route, but that really shouldn’t be that much of a problem.” He studied me and laughed. “All the trouble started when that stupid bitch decided to tell you about the deal. Do you believe that? All this because of some fucking putain.” He took another drag and considered me. “We can talk as long as you want, ’cause there’s nobody coming. Charlie Troop is over at the Ville shooting prisoners right now.” His eyes were uncaring, and he palmed the 9 mm as he spoke. “You see, Mr. Marine Investigator, nobody gives a shit.”

I tried to readjust my position, but wedged in the walkway there wasn’t anywhere to go. “What about Mendoza?”

“The beaner? What about him?”

It hurt just to breathe, but I had to keep talking. “Was he in on it?”

“Nah, I had him pretty much trained to look the other way. The only thing was I figured he’d get suspicious if I fragged you.” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and spit out a piece of tobacco from his tongue. “He was pretty torn up from the wreck, so I just walked over and put one in the back of his head. Put him out of my misery. Kind of like I’m going to do to you. I’m glad that I didn’t kill you the first time. It’s nice that I get to see you, see your expression when I shoot you in the face.” The Walther came back up and leveled at my eyes. “Look at me, not a scratch. You know, they say that George Washington was like that; Patton, too; there’d be a battle with bullets zipping around all over the place and they’d never get touched.” He smiled again, and I watched as his finger tightened on the trigger. “Like them, I guess I’m just fucking lucky that way.”

The blast of the gun sounded like two, and the blood sprayed everywhere.

I lay there for a moment thinking that I shouldn’t be thinking.

I blinked and looked up through the blood on Baranski’s face, at his lips where the cigarette continued to hang, just before he toppled over and landed on top of me. He shuddered once and then lay still. I looked up at the one-eyed sergeant who was seated against the bulkhead and still holding the AK-47 with the thin trailing of smoke drifting from the barrel.

His voice had a singsong quality to it, just before his single eye closed again. “I guess your fucking luck just ran out, asshole.”

There was no one at the school.

I pulled into the driveway and got out, pulling the Mag-Lite from the pocket in the door along with the handheld two-way radio. The batteries were weak in the flashlight, but it provided more illumination than the listless moon that was just rising. I listened to the soft tinging of the hardware against the flagpole and remembered the school on the Powder River that I’d attended. I walked up to the front door of the single-story, concrete-block building and saw that it was padlocked. I peered through the window and could see a couple of desks and a computer on a side table. Abandoned for summer, it looked like no one had been in the place in a couple of months.

I sighed and glanced around, hoping to see a Vietnamese girl somewhere in the high-plains night. I was disappointed.

I punched the button on the radio and looked up at the red cliffs that seemed to soak up the light of the moon. “Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, this is unit one. Is anybody out there?”

Static.

Damn cliffs.

I drove over the hill back to Bailey and parked the Suburban in front of the Dunnigans’ old Ford. I climbed out with the flashlight in my hand again—this time, someone was sitting in the driver’s seat. I pulled my .45 and shined the dimming flashlight into the cab; I recognized the profile and spoke through the open passenger-side window. "James?"”

He turned to look at me as I trailed my sidearm below the window where he couldn’t see it. “Hey, Walt.”

I waited a second and then lowered the beam of the Mag-Lite, but he didn’t continue. “What’re you doing here, James?”

He took a deep breath, pushed his straw hat back, and sipped from a tarnished flask. I could see the .30-30 lever-action propped up next to the door. “Oh, I was headin’ back from the bar and come lookin’ for that girl...the dead one.”

I studied him and then rested an elbow on the door to strike a more conversational posture. “What’s the Winchester for? ”

He smiled and looked embarrassed. “This place, it kind of worries me.... I guess I’m gettin’ scary.”

“You mind if I take it?”

He studied the rifle, then me. “Sure, sure . . . nothin’ to be afraid of if you’re here.”