The Dark Horse

by Craig Johnson

  I didn’t answer the question. “Did he ever say where the money came from?”

  He reached for the packing tape. “There was a lot of talk about that. Some folks puzzled over the fact of how such a lousy rancher could keep coming up with money.”

  “What’d they say?”

  “Oh, the usual stuff. Some said drugs, some said the mob, and others figured he was in the witness relocation program.”

  “Really?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first one who showed up out here.” He finished taping the last box and put it with the others on the linoleum floor. “He got sued about a half-dozen times, once by the hospital in Gillette, once by the propane delivery people, once by Mike Niall, once by Pat down at the bar, and twice by me.”

  “What was the hospital one about?”

  He picked up the bottle of rye and refilled the tumbler, which was four times, by my count. “That was tied in with Niall, who ’bout kicked his ass over some cattle Wade sold him. There was a fight, and Wade went and got a rifle out of his truck and Mike broke his hand takin’ it away from him.”

  “That would be the rifle that his wife Mary used to allegedly kill him?”

  His eyes avoided mine as he picked up the glass. “I’d rather not comment about that.”

  “What about Pat at the bar?”

  He leaned against the counter and propped an elbow on a folded arm, glass by his head. He was still staring at the floor. “Pat owed Wade a small fortune and rather than pay him money, he just gave him half the bar.”

  “You?”

  He opened the closest drawer and gazed at the mismatched utensils. “You need any silverware?” I didn’t say anything, and he closed it with the extra care that an almost drunk man would. “We had a little right-of-way problem, but I want to go back to something you mentioned about Mary.”

  I waited, but he didn’t say anything. “I’m listening.” He didn’t move for a long time, and I was almost sad the greasy, old clock was unplugged; at least it would have given us something to listen to.

  He finally spoke again. “You wanna take a little ride with me?”

  “Excuse me?” I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “I don’t think I’m following you.”

  He put the tumbler down but picked up the almost half-full bottle. “I need to run up the road a minute, and I was hoping that you’d come along.”

  “Now?”

  “Yep, if you don’t mind drivin’, ’cause I’m about three sheets to the wind.” He pushed off the counter, the rye in his left hand, and stood there staring at the concrete pad of the porch with the propped-open screen door in his hand. “One thing I’m gonna miss.”

  “What’s that?”

  He gestured with the bottle. “Somebody’s been leavin’ me a fifth of whiskey every couple of days.” He smiled. “I guess I’ve got a secret admirer.” He called back to me as he continued out the door, and I got up from the stool. “Hey, don’t forget your clock.”

  October 22: six days earlier, afternoon.

  I had looked at her eyes, washed out like an old pair of Wranglers, and it seemed to me that the color there had gone through the wringer.

  “I have these dreams.”

  I already knew what the dreams were about, but there were other things I wanted to tackle, and I thought a little backstory might help with the context, so I asked her. “About?”

  “Horses.”

  I nibbled on a triangular portion of the grilled cheese sandwich that we were sharing. I’d already eaten lunch, but a deal was a deal. This was the first real response I’d gotten from her, and I knew I had to go slowly. “What horses?”

  She brought her part of the sandwich up to her mouth but just held it there without eating. “Everything is orange, and there are these flares of circular light that keep expanding toward me—it’s hot, but I can see them in the distance, looking back at me.” She took a deep breath, and it was like she was still in a trance. “They’re all dead.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “That night . . . I’d been at a friend’s house; he’d been sick. When I got home, he wasn’t there.”

  “Your friend?”

  “No, Wade.”

  I paused. “This was the night of the fire?”

  “No, before.” I waited. I was confused but didn’t want to disturb the flow. “When I got home, he wasn’t there. Neither was my horse.”

  “Wahoo Sue?”

  She stared at the floor and still held the sandwich at her lips. “He said he killed her, but he didn’t. I know him better than that; know how he liked to torture things.” Her eyes came up again, and she smiled. There was no happiness in it. “Look at me.”

  “Who was the friend you went to visit?”

  She stopped smiling. “I don’t think I want to tell you that.”

  I waited as she took a bite of her sandwich—the first—and chewed without enthusiasm. “Why?”

  She handed the rest of her portion of the grilled cheese to Dog through the bars. “Don’t you think enough people are in trouble with all this?” I watched as Dog carefully extended his muzzle and took the bite from her tapered fingers.

  “No, I don’t.” I looked out Virgil White Buffalo’s window. He had been our lodger for a week or so in the summer and while here was intent on watching the children at day care play in the school yard. “See, here’s the thing.” I looked back at Mary. “I don’t think you did it, and that means somebody else did. And in a roundabout way, it’s become my responsibility to find out who that is.” I took a deep breath and figured if I laid all my cards on the table, maybe she would see them, too. “I’ve got a killer out there, somewhere, and I have no intention of letting them get away with it. Now, who’s your friend?”

  October 28, 3:30 P.M.

  Small-man-big-truck syndrome was what Lucian called it.

  There, sitting in the now-empty arena, sat a sparkling red Dodge duellie. I stopped as Dog moved ahead of us and sniffed the tires and then turned around and looked at Bill and me. I glanced at the ex-rancher, and he smiled as he took another slug from the whiskey bottle. “Ain’t she a beauty?”

  I only nodded and said nothing, wondering what he hoped to gain from introducing me to a vehicle I’d already met twice, once at the Barton Road Corrals and again early this morning, when I’d attempted to shoot out the radiator with an empty shotgun. It had plates now, but it assuredly looked like the same truck.

  “A lifetime of ranching and this is the first brand-new pickup I ever bought.”

  I gauged the size of the thing. “It’s going to be kind of hard to parallel park this at Larimer Square.”

  He shrugged, and it honestly appeared that he didn’t have an underlying motive in showing me the truck. “You can take the boy out of the big-sky country, but you can’t take the big-sky country out of the boy.”

  I noticed he walked to the driver’s side, before remembering that he had asked me to drive. “Sorry, the last thing I want to do is pilot this thing after too much ‘who-hit-john.’ ”

  I circled around and peered in the tinted windows—the same Winchester was still leaning against the passenger seat.

  Same vehicle. Had to be.

  Bill was watching me when I looked up. “New truck—are you sure you want my dog in there?”

  He studied me for a second more and then shrugged as he pulled the passenger-side door open. “It’s a truck.”

  I opened the door on my side and listened to the buzz indicating that the keys were in the ignition, then opened the back door and watched as Dog leapt onto the pristine, slate-gray seat and set up sentinel at the middle. The thing was a showcase for modern electronics, with a GPS navigation system, a DVD player, and a satellite radio. The furry beast gave me a quick look that said, How come we don’t have a truck like this? It was not the first of Dog’s disenchantments with a life of public service.

  I glanced around the interior again and didn’t see the 9 mm pistol, but just because I c
ouldn’t see the semiautomatic, that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, either in the door compartment, the center console, or the escarpment of the dash glove box.

  Bill climbed in and centered the .30-30 between his legs along with the booze. He looked puzzled and made a face as I hesitated. “C’mon, let’s go.” He reached back and ruffled Dog’s ears as the barrel of the Winchester leaned over and casually pointed at my head. “What’s your dog’s name?”

  “Dog.”

  He looked at me, caught my eye on the rifle, and pulled it back upright. “That’s convenient.”

  I turned the key, watched the coil indicator light up and turn off, and started the big diesel. For the first time in a very long time, I regretted having to fasten my seat belt.

  He motioned me through the double doors, down the ranch road, and onto the Powder River Road. We were headed north and drove silently through town past the old mill. They were nailing masonite over the front window of the bar as we passed. Bill didn’t wave, upholding the it’s-not-a-friendly-town motto, and we continued up the grade to where some WYDOT trucks were parked at the condemned bridge.

  He did wave at the few workers who paused to look at the general prosperity that the new truck signaled as we drove across the tire-worn smooth planks. He motioned for me to stop at the dirt lot at the other side, and I reached for the key. “No, leave it running. I just want to ask a quick question.” He rolled down the window and yelled to a redheaded and mustached man who stood at the back of the Range Co-op trailer. “Hey.”

  The man turned and walked over. He was another rail-thin individual and looked a little incongruous wearing the massive electrical tool belt at his waist and the broad-brimmed black cowboy hat on his head. I recognized him as Steve Miller, the man who had hooked up the phone at my cabin and whose daughter, Jessie, had deep-sixed a Datsun pickup in an irrigation ditch about a year ago.

  I was wondering how to keep my cover as the telephone man spotted me and started to speak, but Bill cut him off. “Hey, Steve, how long are you guys gonna leave that emergency phone over on the pole?”

  Steve nodded at me for just a second and then glanced over his shoulder at the blue plastic receiver still connected to the junction box. “Not long; I was just using it until they remove the bridge.”

  Nolan reached out and grasped the lean man’s elbow. “Do me a favor and leave it up there till after the weekend? I’m cut off back at the house, and that thing’s pretty handy.”

  Steve glanced at me again, and I diverted my gaze in hopes that he wouldn’t say my name. “Well, you’re not supposed to be using it, Bill.” He looked my way again. “It’s against the law.”

  I assumed that was for my sake.

  “I ain’t usin’ it for long distance. I just need you to leave it over the weekend, all right? In case of emergency.” Without waiting for a response, he hit the button and the tinted window rolled up.

  Steve stepped back. I gave him a brief nod as I slipped the Dodge in gear and pulled out.

  Bill threw an arm over the seat and looked past Dog to see if the telephone man was making any move to go toward the utility phone on the pole. From the rearview, I could see him watching us, but then he turned and went back to the trailer.

  Nolan looked straight ahead. “They’re gonna tear it down.”

  I glanced at him. “The bridge?”

  “They shouldn’t rebuild it; they should just leave that town over there, stranded.”

  It was almost the exact same thing that Mike Niall had said. “Why is that?”

  He took a stiff draught of rye and licked his lips. “S’cursed.” He settled his back against the seat and gestured with the bottle toward the bow in the river behind us. “You know, the town used to be on that side of the river.”

  I faked ignorance. “Really?”

  “Yep.” He fiddled with the foresight on the .30-30 and collected his history. “Camp Bettens was out here somewhere, about five miles east of Absalom—used to be called Suggs, about a century ago.” He paused again. “You look like you were in the military. Were you?”

  I continued to study the road. “Was.”

  He sniffed and nodded. “You got the look.”

  “What look is that?”

  He smiled to himself. “A precision of movement, and you don’t seem to miss much.” He cleared his throat. “There was a night back in 1892, when these two buffalo soldiers wandered into the saloon at Suggs and were met with more than a few racial slurs.” He shook his head and laughed, contemplating the liquor bottle. “Can you imagine that bunch of bar-flies, whores, and outlaws suddenly considering their watering hole as exclusive?” He laughed again. “Well, these ol’ boys were 10th Cavalry, companies G and H, and had just come back from Cuba and the Philippines—and let me tell you, they were not unserious individuals.”

  “Hershel Vanskike has an old Henry rifle from—”

  “Do you believe that ol’ coot has that thing hanging in a saddle scabbard out there in a sheep wagon on Barton Road?”

  “He says it’s his fortune, and that he’s going to retire on it.”

  The rancher nodded. “If somebody doesn’t run off with it first.”

  We crossed Highway 14/16, which was the main paved road, and since Bill made no move to indicate another direction, I continued north on the Powder River Road. I navigated a long straightaway where the gravel changed from gray to shale-red and glanced up to see a sign that read YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE NORTHERN CHEYENNE RESERVATION. There were stunted juniper bushes and mountain mahogany, some stretching into miniature trees but most just shrubs, and strong embankments of rock jutting from the valley that the Powder River had carved. “I take it those buffalo soldiers quietly departed, choosing to take their custom to another and more liberal establishment?”

  “Well, sorta.” He took another but smaller sip—I guess he was trying to slow his intake. “They escaped a shoot-out but got sniped at all the way back to Camp Bettens. The next night, twenty of the troops got together and rode back into Suggs and set up a standing and kneeling position on the main street and threw one massive volley into the saloon.”

  I glanced over and watched as the Winchester continued to bounce between his knees. “I bet that livened things up.”

  He nodded and closed his legs together to support the rifle as I wound my way along the cliffs at the riverbank. We were climbing. “As you might imagine, there was a considerable amount of return fire, but the only person in the bar who was hurt was the bartender, who was hit in the arm, and he got a shot off that killed one of the troopers. The squad from the 10th departed, leaving one of their dead in the street, and the locals sniped at ’em again all the way back to their post. There was a court-martial, and the whole batch of ’em got reassigned in short order to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.”

  I glanced back at Dog in the rearview mirror, and even he was watching the man with the rifle. “End of story?”

  “Not exactly.” He glanced out the side window at the river, still flowing a tired, watery chocolate milk. “Two months later, one ’a them buffalo soldiers came back, walked in that saloon, and raised up the barrel of a big Colt Walker .44 and shot that same bartender in the left eye.”

  “I take it he didn’t survive that one?”

  “Nope.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly with a belch. “They put together a posse and went after the trooper, but they never found him. Some people say he mingled on the reservation here, but others say he got help from a local rancher and got away.”

  “Interesting.”

  He turned in the big, leather seat and looked at me with more consideration than he had so far. “It is, isn’t it?” He continued staring at the side of my face, and I registered where his hands were, one idly on the barrel of the rifle, the other holding the bottle. “There’s history all over these hills—some of it people know, some of it they don’t.” He didn’t move. “I wonder about that.”

  “About what?”

  “About
history, when it dies.” He leaned back into the seat but still regarded me. “Kind of like the tree that falls in the forest when nobody’s around? I mean, if nobody remembers the history, did it still happen?”

  I studied the road ahead, looking like a red ribbon stretched through an extended bolt of khaki cloth, and thought about the Indian notion of the black road and the red road. According to Native spirituality, the black road was one of selfishness and trouble, while the red road was one of balance and peace.

  I smiled and shook my head as I noticed a vehicle parked at the end of the long stretch, and a tall, dark man leaning against the truck bed with his face turned upward like a sunflower.

  I let off the accelerator and gave Bill an answer. “History’s history—it doesn’t change.”

  He shook his head as I slowed. “Not really. Think about all the history in this area that never got witnessed, never got written down—isn’t it dead?”

  I stopped the Dodge a little past the battered green three-quarter ton and slipped the new truck into park. “Nope.”

  Bill leaned to look past Dog and through the back glass at the tall man who hadn’t moved, still sunning himself and ignoring our arrival. “Hey, isn’t that that big buck you were bidding against on that horse trailer of mine?”

  I ignored the slur and nodded. “Yep, I think it is.”

  My hand was on the handle of the door before he spoke again. “You sure you wanna do this? Those ol’ boys can be pretty concerted, especially when they don’t get what they want.”

  “I’ll risk it; he might be broken down.”

  He glanced back again. “Drivin’ that shit-box, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  I left Dog in the truck so he wouldn’t greet the Cheyenne Nation with too much enthusiasm and noticed that Bill didn’t offer me the rifle or accompany me as I walked the ten yards back in the shale dust; the red road stretched to the blue horizon. I stopped about six feet away, as if I didn’t know the Bear. His head stayed back, and his eyes remained closed as he spoke softly. “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”