I watched as he held the child close to his chest and rushed into the eleven-year-old building with the alacrity of the All-American running back he’d been at Cal in the sixties-before Vietnam had changed his life and him.
There was a story about Henry’s first days at Berkeley. It seemed that four California boys from Stockton had taken it upon themselves to give Geronimo a haircut during the two-a-day practices, but after three broken fingers, a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder, and a concussion, they’d decided to go seek entertainment elsewhere.
Dog followed Henry inside at a clip, unwilling to leave the child’s side; only fair, since he’d been the one to find him.
I circled around the truck and climbed in to move it away from the emergency entrance, but my smile faded as the truck’s engine stumbled and died as soon as I closed the driver’s door behind me. “Oh, you…” I ground the starter and pulled the choke out just the tiniest bit, but the cantankerous V-8 only grumbled and ignored my efforts. Figuring I’d just shove the piece of crap out of the way, I slipped the truck into neutral and threw open the door to start pushing.
When I brought my face up, there was a black Yukon nudged right against the back bumper and, more important, a very irate tribal police chief Lolo Long staring me in the chin.
“Hands on the vehicle.”
“Look…”
I didn’t get anymore out because when I started to continue speaking, she shoved my shoulder and trapped my right hand in a reverse wristlock that threw me against the scaly side of Rezdawg’s bed. It was a good move and expertly executed, but I was a lot heavier and turned just a little to let her know I still could. “Officer, if you’ll just listen…”
She put a lot more pressure in the wristlock, and the position of my arm forced me back toward the truck. My immediate response would have been to back pivot and deliver a roundhouse elbow into the side of her head, but I was hoping we weren’t at that point just yet. “We’ve got an emergency.”
She frisked me with her free hand under my arms and down my back. “Stop talking.”
I could feel the weight of Rezdawg shift beneath me as the front tires edged toward the slight drop-off where the emergency area had been repaved. “We’ve got a child in there who might be hurt and a dead woman at the base of Painted Warrior cliff.”
“I said shut up.” Her hand froze at the middle of my back. “What’s this?”
I sighed. “It’s my duty sidearm, a Colt 1911, both cocked and locked, and I’d appreciate it if you’d handle it with a little care.”
She fumbled with my canvas jacket, unsnapped the pancake holster, and yanked the semiautomatic from the small of my back, still holding me against the ever-so-slightly moving truck. “You know that carrying a concealed weapon onto semiautonomous federal lands or reservations is illegal unless you happen to be of tribal descent-and you just don’t look like Chief Cleans His Bore Regularly.” She spun me around and stuffed my Colt in the back of her jeans, then pulled her S amp;W. “You’re under arrest.”
“Oh, come on.”
She leveled the. 44 at my chest and tossed me her cuffs. “Put those on.”
I could feel the truck behind me as it picked up just a little bit of momentum, rolling off the asphalt patchwork and starting toward the great, wide parking lot.
I snapped one of the cuffs on a wrist and turned to watch Rezdawg gain a little speed, Lolo Long’s eyes now looking past me at the unpiloted three-quarter-ton as it continued to slip away.
Her face now took on a little panic. “You… you need to stop that vehicle.”
“Sorry, I’ve been arrested.”
She kept the Magnum on me but started moving past, undecided as to whether her responsibilities lay with her prisoner or the unbridled truck. “I said stop that vehicle.”
I shrugged and held up my cuffed hand, the other end rattling against my forearm. “Nothing I can do.”
Rezdawg was now in a full advance toward the car-filled parking lot, and Officer Long suddenly made the lunge to catch it, racing across the distance at an impressive speed-a heck of a lot faster than I would’ve been able to accomplish. She holstered her weapon and grabbed the door handle, but, as I would have anticipated, the latch didn’t appear to work. She punched at the button and yanked mightily at the handle, even placed a boot against the bed and pulled as she hopped on one foot, pogo-style, all to no avail.
I leaned to the side and tried to judge the trajectory as the ugliest truck on the high plains took one of the loveliest, if irritating, law enforcement officers for a ride. It looked to me as if the point of impact was going to be a maroon ’86 Cadillac parked at the end of the row.
Never a fan of spectacle, I turned and walked through the automatic sliding glass doors with one last glance at Lolo Long as she scrambled through the open window of the rolling Rezdawg.
Henry was standing at the reception desk talking urgently to a very large woman, but he raised his face at the sound of my boots on the tile floor. “Trouble finding a place to park?”
“No, no trouble at all.” I glanced around. “Where’s Dog?”
The Cheyenne Nation smiled. “In the examination room; we tried to hold him back but he gave every indication that he was going to eat all of us alive if we separated him from that child.”
I nodded, leaned against the counter, and looked at the heavyset Native woman a little younger than Henry and I. “Hello.” I extended a hand, suddenly remembering that it had a handcuff dangling from it. I decided to play it like being cuffed was nothing new for me. “Walt Longmire.”
She looked a little uncertain. “The sheriff from Absaroka County?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Hazel Long.”
“Good to meet you, Hazel.” I paused. “Are you related to Chief Long?”
She glanced at the cuffs again. “Lo is my daughter, yes.”
“Hmm.” I glanced at Henry as he stared at my hand. “What?”
He closed his eyes and cleared the expression from his face. “We need to contact the authorities.”
“Oddly enough, they’ve been contacted.” I threaded the office key chain from my jacket pocket and used the ever-present universal cuff key that dangled from the ring to extricate myself, allowing the hardware to fall onto the counter. “Or, rather, they’ve contacted us.”
He looked past me and down the hallway, and I could just about bet what was coming. “I believe she is about to make contact again.”
Long grabbed my shoulder and yanked at me, half-pulling me around to face her. She was sweating, and I was momentarily entranced by the beads of perspiration at the base of her throat. “You are still under arrest.” Her face was now about six inches from my own. “And you’re going to pay for the damages to the cars in the parking lot.”
Cars, plural. I guess Rezdawg had gotten more than one. Good for her.
“I was and still am under arrest, and therefore not responsible for the vehicle in question.” She straightened, a little surprised. “I’m pretty knowledgeable about vehicular codes, along with concealed-carry laws within federal jurisdiction.”
“Lo?”
It took a second for her to disengage from her primary target, but when she realized that it was her mother speaking to her, she locked on her. “Excuse me?”
The large woman started to stand. “Lo, there’s been an…”
She snapped back in the way that only family can. “Is this official business? Because I am engaged in arresting this man and unless you have something pertinent to say concerning…”
“Lolo Louise Long, stop acting like an ass. There’s been an accident. A child is hurt, and a dead woman, who is going to be a major part of your official business, is lying at the base of Painted Warrior cliff.” She took a deep breath and shot air from her nostrils like a bull. “And, by the way, may I introduce you to Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming.”
“You’re still under arrest.”