Land of Wolves, page 7
“What do you care?”
“I want to know if I know it.”
“What, you’re on a first-name basis with all the wolves in Wyoming and Montana?”
“A few.”
He waited, and I summoned up the image of the wolf, which was surprisingly easy. “Big.” I glanced down at the snoring monster wrapped around the base of my barstool. “Bigger than him.”
“Amazing, few things in this epoch are.”
“Dark, but with a mask sort of over the eyes, along the nose, and to the sides of the muzzle that had a lot of gray. Dark-colored overall with really light eyes almost a caramel color.” I shrugged. “He also had a four-thousand-dollar transmitting collar on him, and his official title is 777M.”
He looked slightly surprised. “Chuck Coon told you that?”
“No, a woman by the name of Keasik Cheechoo who works for the wolf conservancy did. She’s, let me see if I can get this right . . . Cree-Assiniboine/Young Dogs, Piapot First Nation.”
“Keasik—Cree for ‘sky blue.’ So, she’s Canadian.”
“I guess, but she says you broke her uncle’s arm one time arm wrestling over in Spokane.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Well, if I had as many cases of aggravated assault as you . . .”
He ignored me. “So, male.”
“Keasik Cheechoo is female.”
“The wolf, 777M. The M stands for male.”
“Oh.”
“How old?”
“I have no idea, but I’d say old. Probably kicked off from his pack by some young buck.” He smiled. “What?”
“You are feeling some empathy for this aged wolf?”
“I hadn’t thought about it; maybe so.”
“I would not want to meet the younger wolf that could run off something bigger than Dog.” He studied the surface of the bar between us, reached behind, and took a sip of the tonic water and lemon juice he sometimes kept on the bar back. “It might be someone I know, or perhaps someone you know.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Sometimes people’s spirits come back, and some of their favorites are bears, buffalo, and wolves.”
“Werebears and werebuffaloes?”
“Not exactly.”
Folding the tab down, I finally took a sip of my Rainier. “Uh, huh . . .”
“In my culture, animals are celebrated as beautiful, mysterious, powerful, dangerous, and benevolent. There was a period, before we lost the ability to listen, when the animals took pity on us, protected and taught us to the point where they became human in times of great need.”
“Henry . . .”
He held out a hand. “Hear me out. Back in the day, my people wore the skins and furs of these animals, choosing the animals that appealed to them. Say a person were to choose a wolf, or more important, the wolf were to choose this person and the person becomes the wolf without changing their physical form. He or she dreamed of wolves, developed wolf skills and power, acted like a wolf, immersed themselves in wolf lore, talked with wolves, hunted with wolves, was taught by wolves, protected by wolves, painted himself or herself as a wolf, and wore wolf omotome in his or her medicine bundle.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out the small, beaded pouch he always wore around his neck. “This is where the border between two species is broken, and spiritually the wolf and the human become one.”
“Well, I hope it isn’t anybody we know, because when the DNA testing gets back from the lab in Laramie, this wolf is as good as gone.”
He nodded, dropped his head, and, as the dark hair closed around his face, took another sip of his faux drink. “You said the wolf is older.”
“Well, he looked older, but I didn’t get a chance to see his ID.”
He returned the glass to the flat surface behind him and crossed his arms again. “How long ago was it you met Virgil White Buffalo on the mountain?”
I sat there just looking at him.
His face rose, and he studied me. “What?”
Pulling my horsehide jacket aside, I reached into my shirt pocket and tossed the card I’d found on the ground on the mountain onto the battered and gouged surface of the bar. I watched as it slid across and stopped just short of slipping off the other side.
The Bear leaned forward and examined the blue printing on the white card that announced CASH PRIZES, MALLO CUP PLAY MONEY 5 POINTS—aware that I had found these selfsame cards left to me by a dead or possibly not dead seven-foot Crow shaman. Henry’s eyes focused so deeply, I was afraid the thing might burst into flames. “This was with the dead man?”
“No, it was where I saw the wolf for the first time.”
He picked it up and examined it more closely. “You found these before, during your interactions with Virgil?”
“Yep.”
“He could have scattered these things all over the mountain.”
“Yep.”
“There is only one problem.” He handed it back to me.
“This one is like new.” I placed the card down by my beer.
“I do not suppose Keasik Cheechoo or Chuck Coon are fond of Mallo Cups.”
“I really wouldn’t know.” I stared at the card. “If, and this is a big if . . . If Virgil came back in this manner, what would he be trying to say to me?”
“Difficult to know—perhaps nothing.”
I raised my eyes to look at him.
“It is possible he is simply checking up on you. Just seeing how you are progressing in the most inconspicuous way he knows.”
“A hundred-and-seventy-five-pound wolf?”
“We all have our ideas of unassuming. You have to admit it is more subtle than a seven-foot Crow shaman.”
“A little.” I spun my can on the coaster. “So, why is he checking on me?”
“Concerned for your welfare.”
I curled the corners of my mouth enough to give the impression of a smile. “I could’ve used his help down in Mexico.”
“Maybe you had it.” He placed his palms on the back edge of the bar, his forearms turned forward, the blued veins visible. “It is difficult to confront madness, because insanity is a stranger to reason and any reasonable response would be insane.”
I stared at him. “I think I got that.”
“The only thing more difficult is to return from madness, because we are never again sure that we are truly sane.” He fingered the card. “Like a disease, the madness lingers in the system, dormant but never truly gone from the mind, and we must learn to suppress it so that we can once again trust ourselves to be in civilized society.”
“So, I have to learn to trust myself again, huh?”
“Possibly.” He looked straight at me. “How is this aberration manifesting itself?”
I took a deep breath. “It’s like I’m freezing up, my mind and body—like a short circuit.”
“How long?”
“Five to ten minutes, or so I’ve been told.”
“Are you aware of yourself in these periods?”
“Some, but removed—like I can’t reach myself.”
“Perhaps you are being prepared for a vision.”
“Well, then why don’t I just have the vision?”
“You are not ready for it.”
“You have to work up to a vision?”
“Sometimes.”
“As opposed to horseshit, which is readily available at all times?”
He didn’t have an answer for that, and it was another moment before he surprised me by changing the subject. “We should go fishing.”
“What?”
“Fishing—precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.”
“I know what fishing is.” I took a sip of my beer. “If you want to go fishing, we’ll go fishing.”
“No, I mean really fishing.”
“Like a trip?”
“I was thinking Alaska.”
I thought back. “A bear almost ate us the last time we were in Alaska.”
“That was a polar bear—does not count.”
“Where in Alaska?”
“Hyder.”
“Why Hyder?”
“I have never been there.”
“I’m not sure if I have.” I thought back to my period in Seward’s Folly. “Where in Alaska is Hyder?”
“Southeast, furthest point east in Alaska, south of Juneau. Ground transport through Stewart, Canada, is the only way there.”
“Is the fishing good?”
“Chum salmon.”
“Dog food.”
Dog looked up, dog and food being in his twenty-word vocabulary, following his number one word, ham. “Forty-pounders . . . But we’re not going there for the fishing, we are going there for the adventure.”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, I may need your help with a project of mine that is closer to home.” He smiled. “Have you ever heard of Jaya Long, aka LongShot?”
“Nope.”
“Highest scoring girls basketball power forward in Lame Deer history, but there is a situation developing, and I may need your help.”
“Any relationship to Lolo Long, Cheyenne Reservation chief of police?”
He nodded, an unidentifiable expression passing across his face. “Her cousin.”
I was aware of some movement to my right and noticed that JJ was standing at the bar.
“Hey, Chief, how ’bout that round?”
Henry didn’t move, but the mahogany pupils shifted in his head and you could almost hear them clicking like a set of bolt actions as they registered full right. He waited a moment before speaking to the man with the rock and roll hair. “Your companion informed me that your wife is coming by to give all of you a ride home, and I told him that when she did, I would be pleased to provide you with another round.”
He snorted. “Well, she’s not coming, so you can just hit us with another.”
The Bear looked at him.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, I did.”
The drunk straightened a bit. “Do you know who the fuck I am?”
I started to turn and pull back my jacket to reveal my star, but Henry extended two fingers like an absolution, so I sat there and watched the show.
He stepped toward the man, an easy step like the ones the mountain lions make before sinking their teeth into the back of a neck. “Excuse me?”
The idiot actually leaned in. “I said, do you know who the fuck I am?”
Henry peered at him and actually looked concerned. “Do you not know who you are?”
There is a specific form of confusion that plays across a drunk’s face—I’d seen it many times, and I was seeing it again now. “What?” For some reason, the drunk looked at me, then at his friends, finally turning back to glare at Henry. “Look, asshole . . .”
You had to really be paying attention to see what happened next, but I had witnessed Henry in these situations before, so I knew what was going to happen, maybe not exactly, but certainly a form thereof. Like a timber rattler, the Bear’s hand leapt out, snatching the drunk’s tie and yanking downward, which caused the man’s chin to collide with the edge of the bar with a clack like a Willie Mosconi clean break.
The Cheyenne Nation had let go of the tie and placed his hand to his face feigning concern. He glanced at the man’s fellow drunks, who sat there transfixed. “Your friend appears to have passed out, perhaps you should come and assist him?’
Slowly they stood and approached, possibly even more put off by Dog, who had risen from his nap to go over and sniff the man on the floor. When they got close enough, they stooped down and picked JJ up, holding him vertical with his arms draped over their shoulders.
They stood there for a moment before the young one, obviously the mouthpiece of the group, decided to speak. “Um, we’ll be going now . . .”
I turned and opened my jacket revealing my star. “No.” They seemed indecisive, or maybe they were in a state of mild shock, so I tipped my hat back and draped my jacket to reveal the Colt M1911A1 .45 semiautomatic at my side. “You’re going to go back over to your table and sit on your hands until JJ’s wife gets here.” Dog curled around my stool again, and I picked up my Rainier, taking a sip as they struggled to get the man back to their table. “I don’t know, maybe it’s a coincidence. I mean, it’s just a candy wrapper.” When I raised my face to look at him, the Cheyenne Nation was covering his mouth with a broad hand and looked as if he were trying to hold back a laugh. Finally removing the hand, he lip-pointed over my shoulder at the two men and the unconscious body.
I turned around to look at them.
“I was just kidding about the sitting-on-the-hands thing.”
* * *
—
“So, you were in a bar fight.”
“No.” I sipped my coffee and glanced around at the thin crowd at the Busy Bee Café. “Who told you that?”
“Marco.” She dumped five sugars in hers, stirring it in with a spoon. “Polo.”
“The pool . . . Henry’s in on it?”
“Everybody on the North American continent is in on it.” Looking out at the fast-moving water of Clear Creek that was wearing away the ice, she sipped her coffee and leaned back in her chair, “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“You sleep?”
“Not so much. I stared at the ceiling and pretended.”
“It’ll fade.”
“I hope.”
Dorothy, the owner and proprietor, sidled over to our table and studied me. “Nice scar.”
Self-consciously, I raised a hand, feeling the different texture of the healed wound that began above and then ended below my left eye. “I don’t look like a cocaine dealer in the eighties?”
“No.” She reached out and turned my face for a better view. “More of a Basil Rathbone—dueling scar kind of look.” She released my chin. “Personally, I didn’t think it was possible for you to be even more roguishly handsome than you were.”
Feeling the heat of embarrassment rising from my collar, I made eye contact with her. “Thank you.”
“But you’re too skinny—what do you want to eat?”
Handing her the menu, I smiled. “The usual.”
She smiled back at me. “Nice to hear you say that.” She turned to Vic. “I’ve got a Philly omelet with shredded beef and provolone.”
“Is that the special?”
“Yes.”
“Is it also the usual?”
“Yes.”
My undersheriff handed in her menu. “Sold.”
As Dorothy disappeared into the kitchen, I noticed that Vic was studying the side of my face now. “What?”
“She’s right. Like I always say, scars make better stories than tattoos.”
“I don’t think I’ll be telling this story to anybody soon.”
“She’s also right about you putting on some weight.”
I studied the ice tracing the edges of Clear Creek, mentally willing them to melt in an attempt to hurry the spring along. “For years, you’ve all been on to me about taking weight off, and now you’re all trying to fatten me like a hog.”
She leaned in, sipping the sugar drink she called coffee. “Just more of you to love.” Sitting back, she pulled an unfamiliar phone from her pocket. “I charged the departed’s cell and came up with a log of callers both sent and received, all of them either the Extepare ranch, a number in Greeley, and a few long distance calls to Chile—nothing out of the ordinary.”
I continued to cast my eyes into the frigid water.
“Walt, did you hear me?”
“Does it seem like this winter has been long?”
She snorted. “It’s the high plains, Walt, every winter is an ice age.”
“Maybe my blood thinned down there in Mexico.”
“Well, you lost enough of it.” She sat the mug down and looked at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Stifling a sigh, I looked down Main Street at the town where I was born, where I’d married and raised a child, where I’d lost my wife, and where now everything felt strange. “I’m . . . I’m having trouble getting back.”
She reached a finger out and brushed it against the back of my hand. “What did Henry have to say?”
“He says that I may be preparing for a vision.”
“You know, that’s just the kind of shit he says that I have no idea what he’s talking about.” She shook her head. “What else?”
“He wants to go to Alaska.”
“Interesting. I wouldn’t have come up with that either.” She nodded. “Well, it takes time. I mean that wasn’t a police action down there, it was a war.”
I turned the mug on the table by the handle. “Yep.”
“So, you have to treat it like a war and stop judging yourself as if it was part of your job because it wasn’t—it isn’t like you had any choice.”
“Right.”
There was a noise from her phone, the Philadelphia Eagles fight song to be exact, and she paused as she read a text. “You’re not hearing a word I’m saying, are you?”
“No.”
“DNA is in.”
“On the sheep?”
“None other.” She pocketed the phone, the incredulity writ large on her face. “We have a murder in this state, and it takes us six months to get results, but if it’s a sheep we get it overnight?”
“Wildlife lab in Laramie, not the overworked Division of Criminal Investigation.”
“Oh.”
“Well, don’t hold me in suspense . . .”
“Inconclusive. They said the carcass was too old and that they couldn’t get a proper DNA analysis”
“Well, at least you didn’t hold me in suspense.” I took a sip of my coffee. “If there’s enough of a stir, they’re going to want to kill the wolf, never mind the inconclusive.”
