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I could feel him studying the side of my face and turned back to the piano. He continued to watch me. “You get some?” I shrugged and shook my head no. “Why not?” He took a sip of his beer, I took a sip of mine, and we sat there in silence longer than sober people would. “You still dating that blonde back in Durant?”

As near as I could remember, Henry had only met Martha once at the county rodeo dance, but the Cheyenne Nation didn’t miss much. “I don’t know if I’d call it dating. I haven’t heard anything from her in about a month and a half.”

He snorted. "Walter...” He always called me Walter when he was going to drop a load of philosophical crap on me, as though the shorter version of my name couldn’t withstand the strain. “It is a war.”

“Even here, I noticed.”

“There is a certain suspension of the normal rules of engagement.”

“We’re not engaged.”

“You might as well be. Shit, Walt, you shake hands with a woman and you feel like you have to be true to her for the rest of your life.” I didn’t say anything but kept plinking, and the silence returned to our voices.

The USO had a piano tuner, of all things, who was touring Southeast Asia, but since the Boy-Howdy Beau-Coups Good Times Lounge was off base, they hadn’t come here. I moved up an octave, but it was only marginally better.

“I am sorry.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him and turned. “What?”

He continued gazing at the dancers. “For yelling at you, I am sorry.”

“It’s not important.”

“Yes, it is.”

He was silent again.

The Bear didn’t make statements like this lightly, and I’d learned to pay attention to him when he spoke in this tone of voice. “I am not so sure that I am going to make it through this war, and I would not have you think poorly of me.”

I sat there staring at him and tried to think which part I wanted to argue with first, finally settling on the most important. “Of course you’re going to make it through this war.” He still didn’t say anything. “One day we’re going to be old, fat guys, and we’re going to sit around and drink beer and talk about getting me laid.” It sounded flat, even to me, so I stopped. “I know it’s hard out there....”

“It is not hard out there.” His head turned, but he didn’t look at me. “I like the night; I see my ancestors in the dark, a thousand foot-steps, deadly quiet. The ghosts are with me, and I see them, but it was different the last time I was out on recon-ops.” His eyes came around like searchlights. “I saw myself.”

I waited.

“But it was okay, because I was behind me. As long as my ghost is behind me, like a shadow, then I am safe.”

I continued to wait.

“If he ever moves up in front of me, it will be bad.”

“It is really too bad.”

I took my eyes off the road and glanced at him. “What?” Due to DCI’s slow response, the VA administrative staff not being available till tomorrow morning, Brandon White Buffalo not returning our calls, and my inability to sit still, we had decided to take a drive down to Powder Junction and talk to the bartender at the Wild Bunch Bar.

“For the young woman to have come so far seeking a relative. . . .”

“We’re not related.”

He smiled. “I believe you.” He gestured toward Cady. “If it were not for what sits between us, I would be willing to swear that you have never had sex in your life.”

She ignored Henry. “Evidently, she thought you were related, or why would she come all the way to Wyoming?”

“And how else would she know who you are or, more importantly, where you are?” He looked out the window at the passing landscape and the trailing edge of the Bighorn Mountains. “Who knew you from back then and could provide that kind of information now?”

I thought about it, and the thought was depressing. “You really think that she thought she was related to me and came all the way from Vietnam?”

“It is the worst-case scenario.”

I shook my head. “Why wouldn’t she have written or made a phone call?”

“Perhaps her circumstance did not allow for it.”

The radio interrupted the philosophical debate. Static. “Unit one, we got the report from DCI, and Saizarbitoria says to tell you he forgot and took the personal property packet for them and says that he’ll give it to you when you get there. He wants your 10-40. Over.”

I tried to pluck the mic from the dash, but Cady was faster. She had always liked pushing buttons. “Roger that, base. Our 10-40 is...” She looked at me.

“You started it, now finish.”

Henry’s voice rumbled in his chest. “Mile marker 255.”

She stuck her tongue out at me and rekeyed the mic. “Mile marker 255, about a mile north of Powder Junction.”

I leaned over and added my part. “We’re a minute away. Tell him to keep his badge on.”

We pulled off the highway, drove through the underpass, and saw two young boys, who looked like brothers, standing at the corner of a day care and jumping up and down in unison with their hands above their heads. They waved.

I waved back, figuring there probably wasn’t a lot to do in the southern part of the county.

I turned right onto Main Street into the slanted parking spot alongside Sancho’s unit. There was a motorcycle with a cover partially over it and with Illinois temporary plates that was parked on the sidewalk; there was a battered maroon Buick, which had California plates, that was clumsily parked at the curb at the far end of the boardwalk; and there was a forest-green Land Rover with the words DEFENDER 90 across the side parked next to it—didn’t see many of those, even during tourist season. We got out and walked down the wood planking, and I noticed that the Land Rover was from California, too.

The Wild Bunch Bar wasn’t too different from any other bar along the high plains; it was a rambling affair with three pool tables and a connected café, although there were a few things that made it stand out a bit in comparison with some of the others in the county. Reflecting the influence of the Australian and New Zealand sheepshearers, there was an All-Blacks soccer poster by the door and a tattered Aussie flag over the jukebox.

There was a flat-screen television at the far end of the bar, certainly a new addition, and a dark-haired man in a leather jacket and sunglasses was seated under it; he was actively watching the Rockies being pummeled by the Dodgers. He smiled, cried out, and raised a fist as L.A. loaded the bases. There were no other customers in the café.

The bar was along the left-hand side of the room, and Saizarbitoria was seated on the stool closest to the door; he was having a cup of coffee with the bartender, a stringy-looking young man with flame tattoos and a shaved head. Thirty, maybe. “’Sup, Sheriff ? Can I get you folks something?”

I looked at my daughter, who in turn looked at him. “Diet Coke.”

I motioned to Henry and me. “Iced teas.”

I sat on the stool next to Sancho and pulled his written report from under the personal property bag at his fingers. The bartender’s name was Phillip Maynard, and he had a local address but had only moved here a week earlier from Chicago. He came back with our drinks, and his eyes lingered on Cady. “You new around here?”

She slid the can closer to her. “No.”

I folded my arms on the bar and got his attention. “Are you?”

He looked at me and quickly made the familial connection. “Uh huh.”

I sipped my tea. “So, there was an Asian woman in here night before last?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded toward Saizarbitoria. “He show you the photograph? ”

“Yeah.”

“Same woman?”

He put his hands behind his back and tried to look at the report. “It was kind of hard to tell, but the clothes were the same.”

I nodded. “You get a lot of Asian women in here?”

He paused for a second. “I don’t know, I started less than a week ago—they could come in here in droves. I don’t know.”