The young corporal nodded and looked at his highly polished shoes as the doors opened and shut two more times, the people departing looking over their shoulders.
I glanced back at him and was beginning to think I’d overstepped my ground when he spoke again. “Hey, I just sometimes wish that something had happened to me over there other than getting backed over by a truck. You know, something that I could be proud of when I talk to the old man.”
I glanced over his head and could clearly see that something was happening inside the store as employees seemed to be converging and customers appeared to be moving away, some of them exiting very quickly and rushing by us into the parking lot without a thought of a toy for a tot. “Well, careful what you wish for. I’m betting you’ll be going back.”
“No, I’m getting stationed stateside: Naval Base Point Loma, California. He shrugged again. “I guess they decided I wasn’t battlefield material.” He looked sad at the idea. “At least it’ll be warmer.”
The doors opened again, and this time I could hear people screaming and yelling. The young officer turned his head as the glass slid shut and then glanced at me.
“Something going on in there?”
I leaned sideways and could see a tall man pushing aside someone in a blue and yellow Best Buy vest and starting toward us with something under his jacket. “I’m not sure.”
The employee who had been shoved grabbed the man by the shoulder, but the large guy turned and made a quick, jerking move with his free hand and the employee fell to the floor, hugging his arm.
The big fellow took off at a dead run toward us, but as I started to move around Burch, he sidestepped directly in front of me. “What’s going . . .”
The large man, still holding something under his parka, charged through the sliding glass door into us.
The corporal was stormed over and fell backward into one of the concrete parking impediments, almost taking me with him, but I was lucky enough to latch onto the guy’s arm. I spun him around into the steel-reinforced glass beside the door, and his nose made the sound of a saltine cracker being neatly snapped in two. The laptop computer he’d been holding fell from his coat, along with the nylon-handled knife he’d had in the other hand.
He stood there for the briefest of moments and then took two and a half staggering steps before falling backward onto the hood of the Jeep, his iris rolling back in his head. I kicked the knife toward the corporal, who was working himself up onto his hand and knees.
Turning and grabbing the thief by the coat front, I lifted him a little further onto the hood of the Wrangler, pulled the handcuffs from my belt, and secured one of his wrists to the Jeep’s side-view mirror.
I reached down and helped Burch to his feet, scooped up the wicked-looking blade, and placed it in the sling hand. “Hey, that was something.”
He crooked his neck and looked up at me, stretching his eyelids as he massaged his recovering shoulder and stared at the knife in his hand. “What?”
People spilled from the store now, employees and customers alike, attempting to get a look at what had happened. I raised my voice to be heard over the general noise: “The way you took that guy out—that was something.”
Pulling my cuff keys from my belt, I slipped them into the breast pocket of his jacket. “The Billings PD should be here in about five minutes give or take.”
I stooped again, this time picking up the damaged computer and handing it to the store manager with the nametag that read DALE. “Did you see that? Boy howdy, that was something else.”
Dale looked at the chaplain, who was still shaking his head and looking a little confused. “He did that?”
“Single-handedly.” I glanced at the young man’s sling and resisted making further comment.
It was about then that I felt someone grab my arm, crowding in close. “Daddy, you are not going to believe what just happened. This guy was stealing a laptop and then security confronted him and the guy started yelling and pulled out this knife. . . .” Cady looked past me to the man lying on the hood of the Jeep, still unconscious. “Jesus.”
I reached down and took her shopping bag, pulled Cady’s receipt out, and tore the end off. I plucked the pen from my shirt, scribbled a number down on the paper, and handed it to the manager. “Call Chris Rubich from the Gazette right now and you can get this in tomorrow’s paper; its good advertising and you’ve got a heck of a human interest story here.”
He nodded his way back into the store with the number in his hand and the laptop under his arm. I propelled my daughter past the gathering crowd but paused long enough to catch the eye of the chaplain, still trying to gather his wits. “Heck of a job, Corporal—heck of a job.”
I steered Cady past the Wrangler into the parking lot through the swirling snow and toward my three-quarter-ton as she whispered. “Did you have anything to do with that?”
“No.”
“Daddy?”
“No, I didn’t.” I loaded her in, started the engine, and began backing out as a Billings City Police car with siren trumpeting and light bar twinkling sledded across four lanes of opposing traffic and beelined for the Best Buy entrance.
As I waited, Cady leaned down and pulled out an interactive child’s reader from one of her shopping bags. “Damn it, I meant to put this in that corporal’s toy bin but you rushed us out of there so fast.” She unhooked her seat belt. “I’ll be right back.”
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
She climbed out the passenger-side door. “I won’t be long, Dad. Honest Injun.” She grinned at me and tossed her head, strawberry blonde in full sway.
I sighed and watched in the rearview mirror as she ran, careful to avoid the Billings patrolmen as they loaded the would-be thief into the back of their cruiser. She paused and spoke to Burch, put the reader in the Toys for Tots box, and laughed.
Dog whined, and I reached back and petted him. “It’s all right. She’ll be here in a minute.”
Three delayed slaps of the windshield wipers and she’d returned.
She climbed in, shut the door behind her, and rehooked the belt as I slipped the truck into gear and pulled into the light traffic of King Avenue. There were about two inches on the road and it felt like we were driving on a thick bed of quilt batting. Cady seemed preoccupied with the falling snow darting through the headlights like neon guppies, but I had to admit that my mood had improved.
Three more slaps and we were through the underpass and rolling quietly onto the blanketed surface of I-90 when, with a knowing smile, Cady reached up and clicked my handcuffs onto the rearview mirror. “Merry Christmas, Pops.”
UNBALANCED
She was waiting on the bench outside the Conoco service station/museum/post office in Garryowen, Montana, and the only part of her clothing that was showing was the black combat boots cuffed with a pair of mismatched green socks. When I first saw her; it was close to eleven at night, and if you’d tapped the frozen Mail Pouch thermometer above her head, it would’ve told you that it was twelve degrees below zero.
The Little Bighorn country is a beautiful swale echoing the Bighorn Mountains and the rolling hills of the Mission Buttes—a place of change that defies definition. Just when you think you know it, it teaches you a lesson—just ask the Seventh Cavalry.
I was making the airport run to pick up Cady, who had missed her connection from Philadelphia in Denver and was now scheduled to come into Billings just before midnight. The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time was extraordinarily upset but had calmed down when I’d told her we’d stay in town that night and do some Christmas shopping the next day before heading back home. I hadn’t told her we were staying at the Dude Rancher Lodge, a pet-friendly motor hotel that was assembled back in ’49 out of salvaged bricks from the old St. Vincent’s Hospital and was a family tradition. I loved the cozy feeling of the weeping mortar courtyard, the kitschy ranch-brand carpets, and the delicious home-cooked meals of the Stirrup Coffee Shop.