Imagining my ninetysomething neighbor with a hard-on was almost enough to make me shut my mouth.
Almost.
“What other kind of pills?”
“Vicodin.”
B &E with a narcotics charge? Levi was screwed. The cynical side of me thought maybe he’d finally done something serious enough to get him to straighten up. “Why did you bring him here?”
Jake sighed.
Guess I’d blown my chance for Aunt of the Year.
“Normally we’d send him off to the Juvenile Corrections Center in Rapid City, but Mr. Pawlowski isn’t pressing charges.”
My mouth dropped open. “Then why did he even call you?”
Sheriff Dawson crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet wide. “Said he wanted us to ‘be aware of the problem’ but claims no harm was done since he got back his meds and his Lord Calvert.”
“That’s it?”
“No. He rambled about how he’d known the boy’s grandfather for more’n fifty years and remembered how tough it was when he’d lost his own pappy back in ’31.”
It amazed me how the old-timers talked like 1931 was last week, not last century.
Dawson added, “Mr. P. also swore your dad would’ve wanted this sort of thing handled by family.”
Levi glared at me from behind his fall of greasy brown hair. “Yeah? Well, she ain’t my mom.”
“Son, I got no problem taking you back to jail if you’d rather. Count yourself lucky I brought you here since nobody answered the door at your mom’s place.”
Super. In addition to dealing with my delinquent nephew, I had to worry about my delinquent sister.
“Can you keep an eye on him?” the sheriff asked.
Jake stepped up. “No problem, Sheriff. I’ve got lots of bales to unload.”
“Appreciate that.” Sheriff Dawson spun Levi around and unlocked the cuffs.
Levi rubbed his wrists, aiming his sullen face at the ground and trudging behind Jake toward the barn.
“You okay?” Dawson murmured.
My cap didn’t quite shield the sun from my eyes but I glanced up at Dawson anyway. Like my dad, Dawson was a big guy-six feet three inches, built like a Vikings linebacker. He even looked Nordic, with short-cropped blond hair and a broad forehead, razor-sharp cheekbones and a square chin. If the deep laugh and frown lines on his tanned face were any indication, he had a couple of years on me, which put him in his early forties.
I didn’t know much about him since he wasn’t a local, a transplant from “back east.” Most people think that phrase means the East Coast, but in South Dakota, “back east” means any mid-western location east of the Missouri River-in Dawson’s case, Minnesota.
“Just so we’re clear, Sheriff, Mr. Pawlowski had it wrong. My dad would’ve tossed Levi’s dumb butt in jail, family or not.”
“I figured as much. Didn’t seem productive to argue. Besides, I’m still feeling my way around being sheriff. Wyatt Gunderson left some mighty big shoes to fill.”
Sadness descended on me again. “Yeah, I’m sure he did.” I sucked at offering platitudes, so I didn’t bother.
I awaited a response that was a long time coming. Dawson tried to stare me down behind those dark glasses. An exercise in futility for him, because I always won. Always.
Finally he said, “Can I ask you something personal, Miz Gunderson?”
“Sure, if you call me Mercy. ‘Miz Gunderson’ makes me feel like an old maid.”
“Only a fool could set eyes on you and see an old maid.”
Whoo-boy. I’d be lying if I said his flattery rolled off me like water off a duck’s back. I wasn’t an ugly duckling, but I’d never been rodeo-queen material either. Mostly I’d gone out of my way to blend in. Still, it’d been years since I’d fallen for that “aw-shucks, I’m-just-a-good-old-boy” routine.
“Ask away, Sheriff.”
“Seems odd, with a spread this size, that Wyatt didn’t stick to ranching.”
If Dad had handpicked Dawson as his successor, why didn’t Dawson know the story? I hated rehashing personal family history. I leaned my backside against the dirty patrol car.
He followed suit.
“After my mom died, his heart wasn’t in ranching. Wasn’t in anything, really. He didn’t take care of himself. His diabetes got worse. Then he couldn’t do half the chores after they took his leg.”
“With Wyatt being handicapped, it surprised me he wasn’t behind a desk all the time at the sheriff’s office.”
“It was hard enough for him to be in a wheelchair. Strictly desk duty would’ve killed him.”
The diabetes eventually did. The image of my strong father lying weak in a hospital bed made me shudder, not that I’d seen his indignity firsthand.
“So, strapping on a gun and helping the community gave him a purpose?” Dawson asked.
“Yeah. But he couldn’t bear to sell his birthright outright, so he turned over day-to-day ranch operations to Jake. Jake’s cousins, Luke and TJ, work as hired hands.”
“Sounds like Red Leaf has been in charge a long time.”
I nodded.
“He must’ve been pretty young to take on such a big responsibility.”
“He was. But he knows what he’s doing. Makes sense when you consider members of the Red Leaf family have worked for us, in some capacity, for over a hundred years. It’s what Jake and Dad both wanted.”
“What about what you and your sister wanted?”
I shrugged. “She was young and I was uninterested.”
The thud of the wooden barn door echoed like a sonic boom. Jake, TJ, and Luke shouted to one another.
“You still ambivalent about running this ranch?”
I shrugged again.
“Are you gonna sell it?”
“Why?” My gaze snapped to his. “You interested in buying?”
“On my salary? You kidding?”
I wasn’t gullible enough to believe his rapid-fire denial.
He said, “I’m just as curious as the rest of the folks around here to know if you’ve lined up potential buyers.”
I scowled. “Don’t these people have anything better to do than gossip about me?”
“Nope. Long as we’re talking about it, lots of folks are plenty interested on what you’d been up to in the army.”
“It’s not that interesting, actually.”
“I hear ya. I was in the marines during Desert Storm.” He paused. “You’ve been in Iraq?”
I nodded.
“Wyatt didn’t talk much about your military duties.”
Because he couldn’t. How I’d earned my keep in service to Uncle Sam was on a need-to-know basis, so Dawson’s interest won him an abrupt subject change. “Why aren’t the locals talking about the Yellow Boy case?”
“They are.”
“Discovered any new info?”
“No.” His demeanor changed from amiable to brusque. “I don’t expect anyone will come forward with any either.”
“Why not?”
Dawson faced me. “Truth is, no one’s surprised that Indian kid ended up dead. He’d run away a half-dozen times before he was reported missing. Spent more time in trouble than he had at home recently.”
I remembered Albert’s parents, Estelle Apple and Paul Yellow Boy, from high school. Evidently neither of them had fallen into that brutal cycle of alcoholism and abuse that affects so many Indians living on the rez, and Albert’s disappearance and death sent shockwaves through the family. Since Levi and Albert were pals, and Levi was a pallbearer, Sophie had dragged me to the funeral. I’d gotten the impression Albert hadn’t been a troubled teen for very long. Then again, eulogies extolled virtues, not faults.
“So his death wasn’t from foul play?” I asked.
“‘Foul play.’ You sound like Wyatt. You really are a chip off the old block aren’t you?”
“That surprises you?”
“No.” He sighed. “I don’t know if it was an accident or something else.”
“That mean you’re done investigating?”
“Not a lot I can do at this point when no one will talk to me.”
He sounded a little whiny. Didn’t he know it’d take years for him to build up the trust my father had been granted?