In the brief conversation we had had while the EMTs had loaded Isaac into the van, he told me that he had grown uncomfortable with the idea of someone else performing the autopsy on Mari Baroja and so had decided to hop in his classic two-wheel-drive Mercedes and motor a couple of hours through a high-plains snowstorm at midnight. He thought it was his brakes that had failed.
As I stood there thinking, my eyes drifted past the ghostly silver of the German car to the rolling snow-covered hills to the east. Henry Standing Bear had said it best. He had started me running about a month ago as the first part of a four-part plan of redemption. I had had one of my collapses along Clear Creek and had stalled for rest time by telling him about the improvements I was going to make to my place with the help of friends of his who owned Red Road Contracting. He didn’t look at me but rather looked across the small valley at the land where his grandfathers used to hunt and fish. I had seen the downturned corners of that mouth before and asked, “What?”
“You don’t own the land.” I had slumped against a pole and prepared myself for another tirade about the heathen-devil-white-man’s theft of the North American continent, but instead Henry’s voice was softened with dismissal. “You do not own your mother, do you? Sounds silly, owning your mother? It is like that with the land, silly to think you own it.” He was silent for a moment; when he spoke, his voice had a tiny edge to it. “But this land owns you.”
I thought about the drums; they were the same drums I had heard on the mountain, the ones that had kept me going when there wasn’t anything else to go on. I wondered if the Old Cheyenne were there, just out of sight. Had they held the big buffalo truck back? Had they ridden alongside it on their war ponies, using their spears to coax it to a sullen stop and had it cost them? Even in the spirit world, I would imagine such actions are not taken without risk. I looked north and west toward the Little Big Horn and the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. It was comforting to think that they were still here, stewards of a mother they did not own. The stinging wind began making my eyes tear, at least I think that’s what it was, so I laughed and lifted a hand, tipping my hat just to let them know I knew where they were and to say thanks.
I turned toward my truck. Fatigue was starting to drag at my shoulders, but I made it. I was almost too tired to walk but drove us safely back to Durant and deposited Maggie at the Log Cabin Motel. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come in?”
I looked past her and into the inviting little cabin, and I was tempted but very tired. “I better take a rain check.” I couldn’t see her face, backlit as she was and standing in the doorway. “I’ve got Dog.”
She studied me for a moment. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Tired, that’s all.” I smiled. “I usually pay more attention to my dates.”
I could just make out the glow of her eyes in the shadow. “When I want your attention, I’ll get it.”
I looked down at my boots that were covering with snow. “I guess it’s only fair to tell you…”
“Hey, Sheriff?”
I glanced back up, and her face was very close. “Yep?”
“Maybe you think too much.” She leaned over and kissed me very softly, and my lungs felt as if they were going to burst through my chest. She didn’t close her eyes and neither did I. It was a long kiss, and I leaned in after her as she drew away. A chill fired off from my spine like a coiled snake.
She smiled a slow, languid smile. “How was that, without thinking about it?”
It took me a second to reacquire speech. “Pretty wonderful.”
“Maybe you should try it more often.” She looked into me for a moment more, taking soundings, and the door closed.
I stood there for a while, maybe hoping that the door would open again, but finally trudged back to the Bullet and drove Dog and myself over to the hospital to check on Isaac.
I didn’t know the young man at the desk, but he told me that Isaac had suffered minor scrapes and contusions and that his head had a bump the size of a goose egg, but he was resting comfortably and was in room 111 if I wanted to take a look. I declined, and the kid surmised that as old as Isaac was, he was one tough cookie. I told him he had no idea.
When I got back to the jail, Vic’s unit was parked out front, and the office lights were on. Dog followed me as I made my way in and started down the hallway. There was a Post-it on my doorjamb, but the handwriting was strange. I leaned in and read it: SHERIFF LONGMIRE, I CALLED CHARLIE NURBURN’S NUMBER IN VISTA VERDE THREE TIMES AND LEFT MESSAGES. SO FAR, NO CALL BACK. SANCHO. It gave the date, and the times of the three separate phone calls. Jeez, the kid was even polite in his Post-its, and obviously Vic was making an impression in that he had signed with his new nickname.
I walked down the hallway to the holding cells in the back. Santiago Saizarbitoria was asleep on my usual bunk, and evidently he was not completely trusting in that his handcuffs were locked around the bars to hold the cell door open. Once a corrections officer… Dog and I stood there in the dark, listening to the soft rhythm of his breath as the beeper rose and fell on his chest.
I looked down at Dog. “No room at the inn.” He stayed close as I turned the corner to the other holding cell, and we crawled onto our individual bunks. I pulled my jacket over me, carefully placing my hat over my face. Maybe it was the emotional drain of the evening or just the length of a very physical day, but I forced my eyes closed in a furtive and uncomfortable sleep. I held my eyelids together, and what I saw was like the credits on a movie whose format had not been changed for television.
I watched the rainbow threads of grass shimmer in a gentle summer gust that traveled across the middle fork of the Powder River with the swell of something beneath. It rolled like the ocean, moving with a quality that was sensual and female. There was a moist, weighty warmth, not in the scorching of the summer sun, but in the laden air the grass trades for carbon dioxide. Heavy riches.
I was floating now, even though I was lying deep in the swaying stalks. The sky was without a cloud. It was late, though, because the light was parallel to the earth and flat.
I could feel the heat burning through my limbs, easing the ache of my throbbing joints and loosening the tightness in my muscles. As the tendons in my neck relaxed, I felt my head slip to the right, and I could see someone lying beside me. I knew who it was before I could really see her; the scarf that I had seen before trailed across the seed heads of the buffalo grass and back to her hand. I was so close I could make out the texture of the material and the quality of the work.
She knew I was watching her. Her profile was sharp against the light of the sky, and the angles of her face planed the colors of the late afternoon like a prism. I felt the breath catch in my throat at the wonder of her and knew that everything I had heard was true. After a moment, she rolled over and looked at me with those dark eyes, a plucked piece of grass between her teeth. She smiled and reached a hand across to touch my shoulder. Her fingers were light, and a shiver went through me; the coolness of her spread like a welcome cloud on an overly sunny day.
She looked toward the mountains, as if she were trying to think of how to say what she wanted to say. After a moment, she looked back, pulled the thick sweep of hair from her face, and withdrew her hand as she rolled over and supported herself. She was still wearing the blue-and-white spotted dress, the one Lucian had described. She had trouble steadying herself, and it was only then that I noticed she was very pregnant. Her hand came out again, slowly, as if she didn’t want to frighten me. The slim fingers wrapped around mine and lifted my hand toward her. A few clouds appeared like solemn voices and broken hearts.