I followed him around the cabin and noted the architecture. It was pretty indicative of the period when the Bighorn National Forest had had to concede a few spots of land to long-term, hundred-year leases. Some of them were coming up for renewal and were a cause of anxiety to the locals, and the ones that were built in the late forties and early fifties were recently changing hands for a reasonable amount of money because of the concerns over the state’s proclivity to cancel the leases.
This one was a handsome structure, the logs weathered to a solid gray with the old Oregon cement in between recently patched. Green asphalt shingles and wooden cased windows framed the small porch at the front, which led down a shallow slope to a pump house next to Caribou Creek.
There were stacks of firewood under every eave of the cabin, and a lean-to behind it held another eight cords at least. Evidently Felix Polk was expecting the winter to last as long as I was.
As nice as the cabin was, it was the environs that were the strong point. The house was nestled into a small box canyon with massive rock walls thrusting above the lodgepole pines. The majority of the privately owned structures in the mountains were situated in clusters along service roads or by the reservoirs such as Dull Knife, but this one was isolated with the only way in or out a dirt road that ran a winding three-quarters of a mile back to Route 16. It was just the kind of place to which you hoped to someday retire, and Felix Polk had.
“Twenty-two years at Dynamic Tool and Die; company went belly-up, but I had enough scraped together to buy this place. A truck driver who delivered a bunch of salvage equipment to us down in Austin told me about it.”
He set a cup of coffee in front of me, and I wondered if I dozed off and my nose landed in the mug, if I’d drown. There was a fire burning in the old brick fireplace, and the cabin was cozy and warm. The furnishings looked to be from the sixties, and there were built-in bookcases chocked with a lot of military history and mass-market paperbacks with titles like Death Hunt, Dead Zero, Dead On, and Death Blow; all in all, there was a lot of death on those shelves. The most disconcerting thing was the Nazi flag that hung over the fireplace. Felix Polk caught me looking at it. “My father’s; Belgium, 1944.”
“The Bulge?”
“Yeah. I think he hated the British almost as bad as the Germans. He used to love pointing out that nineteen thousand Americans died in that battle and the Brits only lost two hundred.”
“More to the point, how many did the Germans lose?”
“ ’Bout a hundred thousand casualties.”
I was tired but felt as if I should make a few stabs at small talk; besides, the other stab, the bite wound, was keeping me awake. “How long have you had the cabin?”
“About seven months now.” He poured himself a cup and sat across the kitchen table from me with a Dynamic Tool & Die mug. “It was in pretty bad shape, but I was able to work on it all through the summer. I already burned a lot of firewood living up here, so I got that industrial splitter.”
I gestured toward his bandage. “That how you lost the end of your thumb?”
He laughed and nodded. “Hell, yes—pinched it right off. I got my glove caught in the damn thing and didn’t even know I’d done it; felt a little funny so I pulled my glove off and damned if the end of my thumb didn’t stay in it.”
“Ow.”
“Yeah, it got pretty bad. When I went into the hospital over in Sheridan, they stitched it up and give me some pills. I made the mistake of takin’ a few of them with a couple of beers and couldn’t get off the sofa in there.”
“Why the hospital in Sheridan? The one in Durant is closer.”
“Needed gas for the splitter, and it’s cheaper over in Sheridan.”
“Did they notice that part of it was missing?”
“Yeah, they asked me about that, and it was then that I remembered that I’d made a run to the dump. I was drinkin’ beer while I was splitting and had that cooler out there, so when I fished the end of my thumb out of my glove I just put it in and forgot about it.”
I glanced around at the general unkempt quality of the cabin and asked, “You have a family, Mr. Polk?”
He nodded. “Used to. Had a wife that died, and I got a daughter, but then she died and I don’t hardly hear from the granddaughter anymore.” He studied me and looked at the ring finger on my left hand. “You a widower, Sheriff?”
“Yep.”
He sipped his coffee. “Kids?”
“Yep, a daughter.”
He nodded. “Seems like we’ve got a lot in common.”
I needed to get to the point of my visit. “Mr. Polk, are you aware that there’s a bench warrant for your arrest in Austin?”
He stiffened. “What?”
I leaned back in my chair. “This is not an official call, Mr. Polk, it’s just that one of my deputies ran your name through the database and came up with an outstanding charge of breaking and entering.”
He was surprised, to say the least, and then outraged. “From back in the sixties?”
“1963, actually.”
“Do you know what that’s about?”
In all honesty, I was tired and just didn’t care. “Mr. Polk . . .”
He stood with his back to me and then turned to lean against the refrigerator. “I stole my own truck.” He picked up his coffee cup and poured himself some more as a little of the outrage left him. He motioned toward me with the pot, but I declined. “I had this International Scout that dropped an automatic transmission and this fella fixed it, but charged me double. I promised him I’d pay him, but he kept my truck and wouldn’t give it back. Well, I had a job to go to so I broke into the mechanic shop and stole my truck; got picked up by a deputy three days later, spent a week and a half in stir.”
“Did you ever pay the bill?”
He puffed up a bit and wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “No, I figured that with the ten days I spent in jail we were even.” He shook his head in disbelief and stared at the green swirl linoleum on the kitchen floor. “Over forty years ago, and you show up on my doorstep.”
“I’m not here to arrest you, Mr. Polk.”
His eyebrows crouched over his eyes. “What?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m here to ask a favor concerning your thumb.”
With the holding cells filled to capacity, I was forced to take a nap in my office, which never works because everybody can find me.
“Ruby says to remind you that you have an eye doctor appointment tomorrow morning.”
I tipped my hat up and looked at Vic holding a fistful of the Post-its that my dispatcher usually left on my doorjamb. “I’m sleeping.” I lowered my hat.
“She also says Isaac Bloomfield says Bill McDermott discovered something and wants to talk to you about it.”
I raised my hat again. “Discovered something where?”
She sipped her energy drink, and I thought about asking her for some—I could use a little energy. “Something about Geo Stewart. I called Bloomfield but he wouldn’t tell me.” She sorted through the square yellow pieces of paper that represented my personal agenda. “I get the feeling he doesn’t like me.”
“He likes you fine, he just doesn’t like your language.”
“Fuck him.”
“Uh-huh.” Figuring my nap was over, I put my hat on my desk and pulled my sheepskin jacket down from where I was using it as a blanket. “Anything else?”
“You were snoring.”
“Sorry, it must be my wounds.” I glanced up at the old Seth Thomas clock on my wall—it was still losing about five minutes a year; I should be so lucky. It was past lunch, I still hadn’t had anything to eat—Dog had consumed both burritos—and I was famished. “I’m really hungry.”
She stood and flipped the Post-its onto my desk. “Well, let’s go and eat—as far as I know, Geo Stewart isn’t going anywhere.”