I was glad to see him.
—
I seated myself opposite him—well, more like I had my legs collapse beneath me, making me park my butt on the chair and rest the Colt in my lap, which I covered with a napkin to honor the formality evident in the dining room. Leaning back in the chair, I rested my numb arm on my lap—the thing felt like it weighed a ton—and could hear the dripping noise that sounded like Chinese water torture but more delicate.
“Virgil White Buffalo.”
He continued to smile, cocking his and the great bear’s head sideways to look at me, the familiar smell of campfire, sage, and cedar wafting off him as it usually did. “How are you, lawman?”
“Tired.”
His head and the one on the headdress straightened, and he leaned in, his face above mine with an expression of concern. “And hurt again, I see.”
I looked at him. “Seems like I always am when I see you.”
He placed an elbow on the table and tucked a fist under his chin, the all-black eyes searing into me with a ferociously flashing intelligence. “Maybe that is when you need me.”
I searched the opening leading toward the reception area but couldn’t see the woman with the raccoon. “You bring friends with you from the Camp of the Dead?”
He grinned. “She is married to one of the great white fathers and talks a great deal, but her power is strong here.” He folded his arms on the table, and I was entranced by the intricate beadwork on his shirtsleeves. “There are many who wish to see you, but I bring only those who are necessary.”
“People say you don’t exist.”
He brushed my words away with a wave of one of his huge, scarred hands, the silver ring with the circling turquoise and coral wolves pacing around the wedding finger. “We are finite beings; how can we understand the infinite? It is enough for me that I have these opportunities to visit with you and perhaps assist you in the trials of this life.”
I tried to bring my hand up to check to see if that same ring that I’d taken from his hand in the Bighorns was still on the chain around my neck, but it wouldn’t work. “How did you get your ring back?”
He turned it on his finger in an absentminded manner, once again brushing away my words with a batting of his hand. “What are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“The ones you are hunting.”
I took a deep breath and tried to keep my head level. “Wait. Sometimes it’s the best thing you can do.”
“Who taught you that?”
I laughed. “My father; he was a very good hunter.”
His chin came forward in an attempt to catch my wandering attention. “He taught you lots of things?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Remember those things.” His eyes narrowed, and the blackness in them was boundless. “Above all else, you must remember the things your father taught you in the next few moments.” He reached across and straightened me on my chair. “But right now, tell me, in this life, lawman—at what places have you stood and seen the good?”
I smiled a sickly grin. “Too many to count.” I slouched toward the table again. “But you were right about the bad things, too . . .”
He studied me. “I am here to tell you they are not over.”
I suddenly felt the scouring wing tips all along the insides of my lungs. “What do you mean?”
“Prepare yourself.” He sighed deeply. “You will stand and see the bad. The dead will rise and the blind will see.”
There was a noise from the landing.
I looked up slowly and saw that Roberta Payne and the man, Deke, who was holding a hunting rifle loosely aimed at me and a handgun on her, were standing at the top of the stairs.
I coughed. “Roberta? Nice to meet you, ma’am. And Deke—Deke, that’s your name, right? Howdy.”
“You know, I’ve made a study of you.”
I did my best to adjust my eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty careful about who I go up against—I like having an edge.” He gestured toward my arm. “For example, I know that you’re right-handed and that hand looks pretty useless.”
“Something tells me you don’t really make a living as a gambler.”
“Oh, I do back in Vegas . . . But I also do a little work on the side.”
“Why are you here?”
“To do what I do best.” He smiled and leaned on the railing. “Killing two birds with one stone. I figured it’d be tougher than this—killing you.” He let that one settle in before speaking again, and the only other sound was the delicate Chinese water torture. “I didn’t suspect I could just waltz down those steps and find you in here all alone, talking to yourself like a loony.”
I shifted my eyes across the table, but the legendary Crow Indian, as I’d suspected, was missing. I turned my head a little, just to make sure, but there was no one there—no woman, no raccoon, no pheasants, no table settings, and even the piano was gone.
“Did you know there was a contract out on you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, somebody pretty important wants you dead.” He smiled and gestured toward Roberta. “She was Willie’s, but I took her when I found out about the trust and because I could. Besides, I figured if I kept pumping the money, it would be you that came after her.” He paused and added, “Well, the guy that hired me did.”
“Who was that?”
“Yeah, I heard you talking to someone and figured there must be more than one of you down here; I figured maybe the Indian.”
I continued to stare around at the now unfamiliar room. “I . . . I guess I got distracted.”
“I guess you did, and it’s going to cost you, but first I’ve got some business to attend to.” And with that, he raised the small-caliber pistol and fired it into the back of Roberta Payne’s head. The woman bounced off the paneled divider between the stairs and then her head and a shoulder went through the railing, and she hung there with an arm hanging straight out.
I lurched from behind the table, and it tipped and fell over as I brought my .45 from under the missing napkin and leveled it at him just as he fired the rifle at me.
The shot tore through the hem of my coat and grazed my leg as seven of my 230-grain rounds blew eleven inches into his chest at 835 feet per second, bouncing him off the back wall hard enough to push him through the railing to land on top of me.
We fell backward onto another table, collapsing it with a tremendous crash of splintering wood and dead weight.
He lay there on my chest, his face turned to mine. “You didn’t study me well enough.” His eyes flickered, and I knew he could still hear me. “My father was left-handed; all his guns were left-handed stocks and grips, so he taught me how to shoot with both hands.” His eyes dimmed and clouded and I looked past him to where Roberta stared at me, a rivulet of blood trailing down her alabaster arm through her upturned hand where it pooled and dripped through her fingers onto the polished hardwood floor like Chinese water torture.
“It’s my one saving . . .” My head lolled to the side, and I stared at a framed black-and-white photograph on the wall, a large portrait of the woman from the lobby, in the same clothes, hat, and pensive, handsome expression. She was holding a raccoon. Just below it, on the frame, was a small brass plaque that read FIRST LADY, MRS. COOLIDGE—1927.
“. . . Grace.”
11
They were sustained visions and with having dreamed them so recently, it was easy to summon them and try to make sense of the message they carried. I’d lain there on the dining room floor of the State Game Lodge, the images growing more and more real as the cold crept into me in tiny waves.
In the dream it was night and I was standing just below a frozen ridge surrounded by herds of white buffalo that had circled and watched me, their breath filling the air and warming it. The snow was deep, and from the tracks I’d left, I could see that I had come a long way; my legs were tired, and the cuffs of snow piled up against my thighs had stopped me in my tracks.