Cold Dish

by Craig Johnson

  There was a guy who might have been part Crow mopping the hallway when I came back to my room to change into my clothes. He had the sickly look that everybody adopts after working nights for a while; I had had that look before. “How you doin’?” He stared at my gown and the clothes I clutched to my chest but didn’t say anything. He leaned on his mop and stared at me some more. “You know where they stuck Henry Standing Bear?” He motioned the mop handle toward the room across from mine: 62. We stood there for a moment longer. “Thanks.”

  He continued mopping, and I ducked into my room to get dressed. My hands were swollen and starting to blister, and it was only with a great deal of difficulty that I snapped my shirt. The rubber boots were the hardest part so I finally left them unlaced. My hat hadn’t been with the rest, and I paused for a moment to think about when I had seen it last. I thought it was on the mountain, but I couldn’t be sure. I fingered the glob of tape attached to the side of my head and felt the tenderness that must have been my ear. It hurt worse than anything else, but at least they hadn’t cut it off.

  By the time I opened the door and looked around, the guy with the mop had moved on to another hallway or had gone to fetch the elusive nurse. I quickly moved across the hall and into the room opposite, hoping it was the right one. I stood there in the dark, letting my eyes adjust. It was a mirror image of mine, with the exception that it did not look out on the parking lot. The breathing was heavy, regular, and familiar. I moved carefully to the bed and looked down. He seemed to be all there and, short of pulling down the sheet and examining the wound myself, I would have to go on the assumption that he was doing all right. He had a couple of IVs stuck in him too, but there weren’t any monitors attached and that gave me hope. I looked around for a clipboard at the foot of his bed that would tell me how he was, but there wasn’t one. Durant Memorial Hospital was doing little to live up to the expectations I had developed as a teenager watching Ben Casey.

  I wasn’t sure what else to do, and I wasn’t certain why I was here, other than to just make sure he was alive and well. They lie a lot in hospitals; it’s their job, to supercede the power of the Almighty with half-truths. Better to check things out for yourself. I was about halfway to the door when he spoke. “Thank you for the visit.”

  I stopped and crept back. “I left the Whitman Sampler on the nightstand.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  I took a breath. “How do you feel?”

  “Doped.”

  “Must be nice; all I got was some Tylenol.”

  He rolled his head toward me a little, looking at my clothes. “Where are you going?”

  “To look for George Esper.”

  “You want to kill him before somebody else does?”

  I continued to look at him. “You aren’t that doped up.”

  “I was just thinking of calling and asking for some more.”

  “Good luck.” I patted his arm and started to back toward the door. “Get some rest.”

  “Walt?” I stopped. “Thanks.”

  When I got into the hallway there was still nobody there, so I quickly made my way around the corner. To my utter surprise, a nurse sat at the nurse’s station. She was looking at me so I marched straight over to her, crossed my arms, leaned on the chest-high partition, and draped my hands by my side where she couldn’t see them. There was nothing I could do about the ear. “Hi. I was just checking on a patient here, Henry Standing Bear. You’ve got him in room 62.” She had sandy hair, china-blue eyes, and looked like she was about fourteen.

  “Yes?”

  “He was complaining about some pain, and I was wondering if somebody could get him more medication?”

  She seemed a little distracted as she picked up a phone. “Certainly.” She looked at me a little more closely. “Aren’t you in room 61, Uncle Walter?”

  I glanced around as if it were obvious. “No, I’m not.” I looked at her more carefully. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Janine Reynolds. I’m Ruby’s granddaughter.”

  The eyes started to look more familiar, so I smiled. “How you doin’, Janine?”

  She didn’t smile back. “What are you doing out of room 61?”

  I thought for a moment. “Official business.”

  The brat, she had called her grandmother and told her everything, especially the part where I didn’t know her from Adam. Maybe they had given me more than Tylenol; at least that’s what I told Ruby. I sat at my desk and watched as Lucian ambled in on his man-made leg and occupied the chair opposite mine. He was studying me with more scrutiny than I was comfortable with. “What?”

  “I bet’cha they take that ear.”

  I sighed. “Just because they’re always taking parts off of you . . .”

  “ ’At’s what they do best, take parts off.”

  “I’m pretty fond of this ear.”

  He scratched his stump. “Yeah, well I was pretty damn fond of my leg.”

  I waited. “Anybody got any idea where George might’ve gone?”

  He leaned back in the chair, hands spread onto his thighs with the fingers stretched. “Got an APB out, but them HPs are about as useless as tits on a boar hog.”

  “How did he get out before Vic and Ferg got in?”

  He shrugged. “Must ’a left right after you left him, in that little Jap piece of crap.” His head leaned to one side, and he was the perfect picture of disgruntled as he gazed at the floor. “Little shit bird.” He looked back up. “Stop playing with your ear.” I had been. “Yer gonna do more damage playin’ with it than you did freezin’ it.”

  I decided to change the subject. “Where is everybody?”

  “Turk’s still out at the Esper place. Guess he’s tryin’ to work his way back into your good graces. Ferg was running some food out to ’im, but that was an hour ago.” He grunted. “Ferg’s got your hat.”

  “I was wondering where it had gone off to.”

  “You’re gonna need it to hide that half ear you’re gonna have.”

  I sighed some more. “Vic?”

  “Up at the DCI compound.” He said it with the same derisive conviction he had for the highway patrol. He looked out the window at the frozen sky. “What’d the little pissant get shot with?” I felt around in the jacket I still had on and tossed the gun onto the desk with a satisfying clatter. I was showing Lucian that I could be tough, too. Next thing you knew, we’d be breaking out the bourbon and calling Ruby a twist; then the real fun would start. He looked at the little revolver. “That ought’a do it.” His eyes came up to mine. “How bad?”

  “Not bad enough to keep him from jumping in the driver’s seat and leaving us in the lurch.”

  I leaned forward on the desk and told Lucian about the Vasques, size nines, and about the conversation I had had with George before I had gone back for Henry. He neither responded nor remarked until I was through; just sat there looking at me. I was remembering what a good lawman he was when he finally spoke. “Well, he’s gotta get doctored somewhere.” He cleared his throat. “Seems to me you just left the place where you should ’a started looking for him.”

  “You don’t think he’s stupid enough to go to the hospital?”

  “He was stupid enough to be up there fishing in a blizzard, stupid enough to try and shoot you and Ladies Wear, stupid enough to try and make a run for it.” He stopped, shook his head, and folded his arms over his chest to signify the particular gaps in my line of thinking. “I’d say the depths of his stupidity have yet to be plumbed, and yours is comin’ up fast on the inside turn.”

  I had gotten a lot of tirades like this when I was a deputy under Lucian, but I didn’t take them personally, much. “So, we’ve got the hospitals and doctors’ offices, but they have to report any kind of gunshot wounds.”

  “You couldn’t get ’em to answer a bell, how long you think it’ll take ’em to file a report?”

  He had a point. “You want to take a ride?”

  “I’m saddled and, if you’re wai
tin’ for me, yer backin’ up.”

  It was like working with Louis L’Amour.

  Ruby stopped me as we tried to make our way out of the office. “Do you think you should make an attempt at cleaning up?”

  I looked down at the stains and rumples that made up today’s and yesterday’s ensemble. “Lets the citizens know they’re getting their money’s worth.”

  “You have dried blood all down your back.”

  I dodged out the door before she could say anything else, with Lucian cadging along after me. I gave the old sheriff a hand as he pulled himself up into the truck. He took out his pipe and a small, beaded leather pouch of tobacco and began filling the cherry-wood bowl. I noticed the pattern on the small bag and recognized it as the same as the Dead Man’s Body on the Cheyenne Rifle. I informed Lucian of this. He looked at the pouch anew as the smoke drifted around his head and his dark eyes and out the window he had just cracked. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Going back to the hospital was risky business, but it was a chance I was going to have to take. Lucian waited patiently as Isaac Bloomfield looked over my hands and examined my ear while I questioned him about any other gunshot wounds that might have popped up last evening. He said there had been nothing suspicious to report, but that if anything came up he’d be sure to get a hold of me as quickly as possible. I asked about Henry, but all he did was kind of chuckle and said the nurses were taking very good care of him. I feared for Janine Reynolds’s virginity. Much to Lucian’s dismay, he, my entire ear, and myself left shortly thereafter. We continued our search to the drugstore downtown where they reported that they had not sold a single Band-Aid since yesterday afternoon. It was a tough economy on the high plains. I turned and looked at him as I started the truck. “Veterinarians?”

  “Taxidermists.”

  I’m not sure why, but it made sense. “Which one?”

  He pulled on his pipe and studied the problem; one thing we had no shortage of in Wyoming is taxidermists. “How ’bout that outfit of Pat Hampton’s down on Swayback Road?”

  I wheeled the Bullet into a U-turn and headed south; a few vehicles slowed and the drivers gave me irritated looks. Lucian shot them the bird, and I slapped his hand down as he snickered and told me to turn on the lights and siren to show them we meant business. I figured he just wanted to run them again, so I did. I navigated the entrance ramp of the highway at the south side and, since there wasn’t any snow on the road, took the truck up to about eighty-five. He didn’t say anything, just looked ahead, and I figured I was going to hear about it. I was right, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. “What you did up there?”

  “Yep?”

  “That was a hell of a thing.” I nodded and looked ahead too. I didn’t tell him about the Old Cheyenne.

  Pat Hampton’s was an odd mixture of taxidermy and game processing. It was said that no matter what you wanted to do with an animal, Pat could assist you. When we pulled up to the ramshackle complex of dilapidated buildings, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Pulled around to the far side of one of the buildings, covered with mud and with the side caved in, was a black Mazda Navajo with the plates, Tuff-1.

  “Bonzai.” The old sheriff smiled and pulled the pipe from his mouth as I eased the Bullet up to the other side of the building. “You got a gun I can borrow?”

  I unlocked the 870 Wingmaster from the dash. “This kid is a victim.”

  He looked at the shotgun. “Fugitive from justice.”

  “Lucian, do me a favor and don’t shoot anybody.”

  He jacked the pump action and fed a shell of double-ought buck into the breech. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with shootin’ folks, long as the right ones get shot.” The next five minutes promised an inordinate variety of excitements. I pulled out my .45 and checked it, like I always did, then reholstered it, snapping the leather strap over the hammer. The old outlaw smiled. “Front or back?”

  I looked at the accumulation of buildings, trying to figure out which was which. “I’ll take the front.” The Remington waved in my direction as he navigated the door, and I was acutely aware that he had not put on the safety. I walked across the muddy slush of the lot to what looked like it might be the front as Lucian swung-stepped his way around the corner of the ratty, brown-painted building. There were boot prints leading up to the aluminum screen door that had only some battered strips of screening still attached. There was a plastic sign in the window, flyspecked and bleached by the sun. In swirling letters it read, SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED.

  There were ancient blinds in the windows, but there was a small, diamond-shaped pane in the door that was unshaded. I poked my head through the empty frame of the screen and looked through the dirty glass. I could see an odd combination of living room and reception area with sofas, a console television, and some sort of strange reception desk. I noted the hallway leading to the right, after you got past the desk, and figured that was where I should go once I’d gotten through the door.

  “Sheriff ’s Department!” I pounded on the door with the flat of my hand. “George, if you’re in there? Let’s not make things worse!” I listened as a shuffling noise came from the center of the building. I took a deep breath and checked the knob. It was locked. I banged on the door again. “Sheriff’s Department, I’m coming in!” I took another couple of breaths and unsnapped the strap from the top of my holster. I only had a certain amount of time before Lucian came in the rear, but I figured having only one leg would slow him up in kicking his own door down. I carefully swung back the screen-door frame so as to not get caught in it and pulled the Colt from my holster, clicking the safety off and holding it in the air. I leaned back and put everything into a fourteen E width.

  I guess I was expecting a little more resistance from the rotting, hollow-core door, because I followed it rather rapidly as it folded up into two main pieces and blew us into the room and onto the sofa at the opposite wall. I heard a loud thumping at my right and pushed off the couch, cleared the doorway at the hall, and ran toward the noise. When I got to the entryway at the opposite end, somebody was coming the other way but didn’t see me until it was too late. I just kept running and carried him back into the room as I led with the point of my unarmed shoulder. I heard the air leave his body as we went back through the doorway, and he felt familiar. Hello, George.

  We bounced off a large table at the center and slid to the cool, tile surface of the floor. I steadied myself against the countertop with one hand and stood. It was George all right, and he was out again. He was only partially dressed and still held his pants in his hands. There was a large wrapping of bandages at the middle of his right thigh and another set around his head that was holding his jaw secure.

  I stood the rest of the way up, pulled out my handcuffs, and secured George to the table. As I finished this, there was noise down the hallway, and an explosion that was unmistakable as the sound of a 12 gauge shotgun being discharged filled the air. I started to head down the corridor when another young man with a pale face came bursting through the doorway with what looked like a rifle in his hands. When he saw the barrel of the .45 about a foot from his nose, he pulled up short and froze. “Sheriff’s Department, you don’t move.”

  His hands went straight up, along with the rifle. “I won’t.”

  “You just did.” He looked confused for a moment. “Drop the rifle.” He hesitated for a second. “You got a problem?”

  He was still frozen. “It might go off.”

  “All right, you keep it pointed away from me and set it down on the table.” He did as requested, and I told him to stretch forward and place his hands on the counter, palms down. He did this, and it seemed like he was going to cry. I had a moment to look at him; he was just about George’s age. It all figured.

  “Lucian! You all right?” There was a little more clatter, and he answered from the distance, “Yes, goddamn it!”

  I went around the corner of the table and looked at the kid’s rifle and propped the butt a
gainst my hip. “A pellet gun?”

  His face turned toward mine. “It’s all I had, and I didn’t want to hurt anybody . . .”

  Lucian appeared in the doorway, shotgun at the ready. “Damn door was locked.”

  I sat on the edge of the table and stuck the pellet rifle under an arm as I put my sidearm back in the holster and looked at the kid, trying to place him. “Well, where’s Pat? He away?”

  Lucian planted one of his formidable claws at he back of the kid’s neck. “Yeah.” I watched as Lucian’s grip tightened. “Hey!” His voice strained.

  “You say ‘sir’ . . .” Lucian leaned in over the boy’s head. “Yes, sir.”

  The voice was even more strained. “Yes, sir.”

  “Lucian?”

  He let up a little bit and looked at me questioningly. “What? I ain’t hurtin’ the little pissant.” He rolled his eyes, stepped back to the doorway, and poked the kid with the barrel of the Remington before resting a shoulder against the facing. “Don’t you forget that I’m here, son.” Even from my perspective, I could see that the safety was still not on.

  “He’s down in Casper, buying a truck.”

  “Are you Petie Hampton, Bruce’s boy?”

  He smiled at being recognized. “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought you were in school down in Colorado?”

  The smile hung there. “I’m home to hunt for the weekend.”

  “How did George know you were coming up?”

  “I called him last week; he was going to go with me.”

  I pulled the pellet gun from my underarm and broke the barrel down, used a fingernail to pull the pellet in the tiny gun out, and let the small, mushroom-shaped projectile fall to the floor. I tossed the rifle onto a desk filled with taxidermy supplies, which made a tremendous noise. “Okay, Petie. We’ve got two options here. Number one is me reading you your rights and taking you up to town and booking you on at least resisting arrest and with a criminal conspiracy charge that’s gonna look really good on your transcript, or you and I just have a little chat and we don’t tell your school or your daddy and uncle what you’ve been up to.”