Cold Dish

by Craig Johnson

  His shell had a rounded line at the butt end that ended with two small stars and writing on the other side of the primer that read .45-70 GOVT.; on the mystery shells, there was nothing. The edges at the butt plate weren’t as sharp either, as if the machining had been done in a hurry with devices under pressure to produce in difficult times. I scooped up one of the spent shells at the open end with the tip of the pen and held it up to my nose and sniffed. There was no quartzite, but traces of black powder were evident.

  “They are originals.” I wasn’t surprised when the baritone rumble of his voice interrupted our conversation. I had seen Henry walk up and lean against the doorway, but Vic hadn’t, and it was just a tiny bit amusing when her back stiffened.

  “What’re you doing out of the hospital?”

  He crossed over and eased himself into the chair opposite my desk. “I see you still have your ear.”

  I laid the cartridge down on the blotter and tossed the pen back in the mug. “Yep, I’ve removed all the scissors from the office, and I’m just not going to take any naps when Lucian’s around.” I nodded toward the scattered shells on my desk. “What do you know about these?”

  Vic refolded her arms and looked at him, and her glance seemed to carry a little more professional interest than I would have found comforting. Henry simply smiled at her. “Hi.”

  She smiled back. “Hi.”

  I looked at the two of them for a moment. “Okay, before the two of you get into a pissing contest, how about you tell me what you know about these?”

  His eyes continued smiling at Vic for longer than they should have, then he turned to me. “Where did you get them?”

  “They were on the seat of my locked truck this morning, alongside the rifle.”

  “Interesting.” He waited a moment. “They are originals.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I am the one who polished and reloaded them, but I did not reload them for myself.” He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly as he turned his head toward the window. “Lonnie.” After looking up at Vic, I turned back to him and waited. “Lonnie said that he wanted to shoot the rifle, and I was concerned that he might run some of those hot, modern cowboy loads through it. I took forty of the original cartridges he had and hand loaded them so they wouldn’t damage the rifle.”

  I sighed and raised my eyes up to Vic. “Get a preliminary on these shells, then ship samples down to DCI.” She nodded, and I stood. “How far do you think you can get, within our obvious technical limitations?”

  “Pretty damn far.” She looked at me as I scooped up the rifle. “Where are you going?”

  I glanced over at Henry who was studying me. “I’m going out to talk with Lonnie Little Bird and get some fingerprints.”

  “You sure you don’t want somebody to go with you?”

  I looked back at him. “I got somebody.”

  The heat of the day had begun to melt away what remained of the snow, and the clouds were just beginning to break up in the face of a mild, Wyoming autumn afternoon. As we drove out of town, I looked in the rearview mirror at the Bighorns. The fresh coat of snow had done them some good, even if it hadn’t done either of us any. We rode along in silence. My sheepskin jacket was draped over Henry’s shoulders; Dena Many Camps had forgotten to bring him a coat along with his fresh clothes. He didn’t particularly look irritated, just preoccupied, so I left him alone with his thoughts. I had picked up a fingerprint kit from our minilab and informed Ruby where we were going, asking her to relay any information gotten from Dave at the Sportshop, from the Espers, or Jim Keller. Lucian was still in the back asleep, and I told her to wake him up if anything happened. She had looked at me and withheld comment.

  There was one question on my mind, and it concerned a box of aged .45-70 shells that had been left on my truck seat. I broke the silence by asking, “Why did he leave them?”

  “I do not know.” He didn’t turn but slouched a little against the door, the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead leaning gently against the inside of one of his knees. “Unless it was good fortune.”

  “For whom?”

  “You.” He still looked out the windshield at the sunny afternoon. “Lonnie has grown very fond of you over the last few years. The last time we were there? He asked me if it would be all right if he gave this rifle to you.”

  “The Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead? Thanks a lot, but no thanks.” He rode along quietly, and I was pretty sure I had hurt his feelings. “If it’s all the same with you and Lonnie, I think I’ll just hang around here in the camp of the living for a while.”

  “That is not why he wanted to give it to you.” He turned and looked at me for the first time. “He wanted to give it to you to shield you.”

  “From what?”

  He shrugged and looked back out the windshield. “He said that you need protection from something very powerful and very bad.” The rest he spoke in a monotone. “He said that you are a good man and that there are those who would assist you if they could. That they had spoken with him, and that if you would allow them, they would help you.”

  “Help me what?”

  He sat there for a while, and I was getting worried that he might have left the hospital a little prematurely when he spoke. “Live.”

  As we passed the cutoff to the Powder River Road, I thought about what Vonnie had said, that she had assembled herself so that she didn’t have to deal with all the things I had suddenly reintroduced into her life. I thought about caring about somebody more than life itself. As I looked back, I was pretty sure that Martha hadn’t loved me that much. She had been fond of me but had settled for me and had made the best of her situation. She had stayed because of Cady, and I had stayed because I loved Cady that much. I simply couldn’t conceive of doing anything else. I figured what I’d do was go over to Vonnie’s tonight and have a long talk with her. Maybe we could put things off until this case was over. The time when I had held her long toes, fitting the high arches of her feet in the palms of my hands, and had driven her home in the dark of the night seemed very far away and receding.

  Henry dozed as I drove away from the sun, and the ruffling of his breath became steadier as we took the cutoff to the reservation. I saw Brandon White Buffalo looking after us as we went through the intersection. He stood behind his counter. It was hard to miss him as he looked through the clinging soda, chips, and candy advertisements. I extended a hand across the cab toward him, and he watched as we passed without slowing. He raised his hand also and pressed it against the heavy double glass of the convenience store window. Brandon White Buffalo stood there in the maelstrom of modern consumerism like a sentinel, like a warning in a mystical undertow. I looked back through the rear window of the truck to catch a last glance; he still stood there palm out and fingers spread like an orchard basket against the glass. He looked after us until we were gone, and I thought of Melissa at the Little Big Horn.

  I reset my shoulders, concentrated on the road, and considered my dwindling staff. Turk would be out by January, Vic could possibly be gone before that, and the chances of me getting Ferg to return to full duty were slim. He would probably just retire. I was thinking about it myself. I picked the mic off the dash. “Base, this is Unit One, come in?”

  After a moment there was static, then Ruby’s voice. “Leave me alone, I’m busy.”

  “Any word from Dave at the Sportshop?”

  Static. “His wife called. She’s about halfway through and will fax the stuff over when she gets done. Stop bothering me.”

  I hung the mic back up and watched the trees pass by along the irrigation ditch. I expected to see the Old Cheyenne again, standing among the cottonwoods. But there was nothing there and that worried me a little more; maybe even they had abandoned me. I thought about where we were going, about Lonnie. Yes, it is so . . . I didn’t think that Lonnie had killed Cody and Jacob, but I wanted to talk to him directly and find out if there was anything more to his story than Henry had been able to tell me.
I looked over at my friend. It seemed that his breathing had gotten a little rougher, but he still slept, his body attempting to repair itself while he wasn’t looking.

  There was a maroon minivan with a bumper sticker that read FRY BREAD POWER in Lonnie’s driveway, and there was someone sitting on the passenger side. Even from the distance and angle, I knew it was Melissa. I brought the Bullet to a stop alongside the van. Henry woke and placed a hand on the dash to steady himself. “You all right?”

  “Yes.” He blinked. “Just sleepy.” He looked out the passenger side of the Bullet, and I saw the muscles at the side of his face bunch as he smiled at her. His hand came up to the glass, and I knew hers was extended toward him. He handed me the rifle. I took a moment to collect myself, giving them enough time to be together before I opened my own door and came around the back of the truck. It was a moment I had avoided, this personal contact, but here she was, and here I was with her.

  She was holding him, and I was amazed at how she had grown. Melissa was taller, still lean but muscled now and, even though she hadn’t lost all of the stunting qualities of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, the graceful quality that was indicative of the Cheyenne and their personal beauty was there. Her face turned to me. I hadn’t seen that face, with the exception of that fleeting glance at the powwow, for more than three years. Her eyebrows still arched in a questioning fragility, and the folds at the insides of her eyes still attempted to betray her. In honor of the golden fall afternoon and despite the oncoming winter, she was dressed in a pair of gray flannel athletic shorts and a T-shirt that read SWEET MEDICINE TREATMENT CENTER, SOBRIETY RETREAT. I stood there for a moment with the rifle in my hand, unable to move, as she loosened herself from Henry only long enough to attach herself to me. I held the rifle out so that it could not touch her and looped my other arm around her shoulders. Henry quietly took the gun. After a moment, she pulled back to look up at me. “You are sad?”

  I laughed as a tear threatened to escape the corner of my eye. “I guess I’m just happy to see you.”

  She smiled back, and it was like sunshine through a church window. “I am happy to see you, too.”

  Henry retreated and headed up to the house with the Sharps as Melissa and I talked. She kept a hand on my arm as we spoke, as if the connection might be fleeting and neither of us could take the chance. She had received a partial basketball scholarship to a community college in South Dakota and was only back from her special classes for a tournament. She wanted to know if I could come home with her in a week and a half and spend Thanksgiving with her and her aunts. She assured me that Lonnie would be there, too. I asked her where Lonnie was now. “He is inside, arguing with my aunt Arbutus. She said that I should come out and sit in the car. I’m glad you are here. I was bored.”

  As she spoke, I became aware of a commotion. The screen slapped open and the most formidable of the aunts made her way from the porch and headed toward us. Henry was wheeling Lonnie out the door after her with the buffalo rifle in Lonnie’s lap along with a small, black plastic box. Melissa’s aunt pulled up short when she saw me. I hadn’t formally met Arbutus Little Bird and had previously withstood her cast-iron gaze from afar. She didn’t like me, but I think it was less because I was a white man with a badge and more because I associated with Henry. “Hi, Arbutus.”

  She redirected her gaze at Melissa. “Get in the car.”

  I took a deep breath and took Melissa’s hand in mine. She was trembling. “Arbutus, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  She didn’t respond but stood there with her hands at her sides as Henry wheeled Lonnie up behind her. She turned slightly and spat out the words, “I hope you’re happy, now that the sheriff ’s here.”

  Lonnie’s eyes did light up when he saw me. “Hello, Sheriff.”

  “Hey, Lonnie. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, my sister isn’t going to let me have my daughter for the holidays. Yes, it is so.”

  I glanced up at Henry, who shrugged. I looked back at the galvanized aunt. “What’s the story?”

  “I’m taking her home.”

  “Well, do you mind telling me why it is you’re not going to let her have Thanksgiving with her father?”

  A moment passed. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “No, you don’t, but I can get on the radio and get one of the IPs over here and you can talk to him.” I was playing an angle, but most inhabitants of the reservation hated Indian Police even more than us. We were just whites. They were apples, red on the outside, white on the inside. She didn’t say anything. “Whatever it is? I’m sure we can work it out.”

  “I found a beer in his refrigerator.”

  I turned and looked at Lonnie. “Is that true, Lonnie?” God, like I didn’t know the response.

  “Yes, it is true. Yes, it is so.” He continued to smile. “I keep it there as a reminder and to keep temptation at hand. Temptation out of reach does you no good.”

  “How long’s the beer been in there?”

  “About a year and a half.”

  She crossed her arms, but she turned to look down at him. We were making progress. “How come I haven’t seen it in there before?”

  He blinked his eyes through the thick glasses. “It was behind the pickled pigs’ feet. You don’t ever move them. Um-hmm, yes it is so.”

  The look on her face told me he was telling the truth. “Arbutus, do you think it would be all right if Lonnie came over for Thanksgiving dinner at your place?” I waited a moment myself, for the next one. “And do you think it would be all right if Melissa came over here and spent the night with Lonnie, maybe on the Friday after Thanksgiving?” She didn’t say anything but turned to look at me. “Friday night, then?”

  “Get in the car, Melissa.”

  She started to open the door, but Melissa’s voice stopped her. “Would it be okay if the sheriff came over for Thanksgiving dinner, too?”

  Arbutus stopped and turned to look at her, then at me. She was a hard old gunboat, but I saw the steely eyes soften a little. “Walter is always welcome at our table.” She started to open the door, but her eyes steered clear of mine. “You know where I live. Melissa, will you get in the car?”

  The hand loosened in mine, and she leaned in to give a slight peck on my lowered cheek. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She stopped. “I’ll be there.” The smile returned, and I watched as she turned the corner and got into the van, or almost did, before she jumped out, ran around the front, and gave her father and uncle a good-bye hug.

  I leaned against the bed of my truck, crossed my arms, and looked down. “How you doin’, Lonnie?”

  “I’m good, and how are you?”

  “I’m all right. Did you leave me a little present?”

  He looked up at Henry through the split lenses, and the mid-afternoon sun glinted off his metal-framed glasses. Then he turned back to me and smiled. “Um-hmm, yes, I did.”

  I nodded. “How did you get in my truck?”

  “Oh, those new ones are easy to break into, that and the keys by the door of your office. Yes, it is so.”

  I had to relocate the key rack. “Why did you leave the ammo for me?”

  “You’re gonna think I’m crazy if I tell you.” The smile was a little weak when he looked up.

  “Lonnie, I’ve seen an awful lot of crazy stuff lately, so why don’t you try me?”

  “The Old Ones told me you would need them.” He nodded. “Yes. When I lost my legs, they began talking to me. I think it is because my legs are with them, now. They tell me half things.”

  “Half things?”

  “Yes, because I am only half with them. Someday, all of me will be with them, and they will tell me everything.”

  I smiled. “I hope you don’t get the whole story too soon, Lonnie.” I looked down at the rifle in his lap. “Lonnie, did you take the gun out and shoot it a bunch of times?”

  He looked genuinely ashamed. “I was angry,
so I shot one of the fence posts out back.”

  I thought of the things I might shoot if somebody had done to my daughter what had been done to his. The image of Lonnie out on his back porch late one night shooting at a singular fence post hung there just out of range. I’m pretty sure I jumped a little when the radio crackled in the truck. I could hear Ruby’s voice through the glass and the transceived miles. “Come in, Unit One.”

  It was probably word from the Sportshop or on the Espers but, when I looked up at the clock on the dash, it was only two-thirty; maybe it was Jim Keller. I opened the door and keyed the mic. “Base, this is Unit One. Go ahead?”

  Static. “Walt, George Esper is gone again.”

  I slumped against the doorjamb of the truck and rested my head on the mic in my hand. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Static. “He stole Ferg’s truck. Vic’s in pursuit.”

  “Where?”

  Static. “Out 16, probably on the highway. He already ran into somebody near the co-op. Turk’s out there now.”

  “Did anybody notify the HPs?”

  Static. “Yes.”

  I waited a moment; chances are Vic was still in range. Static, then a fainter signal broke through. “I’m at Mile Marker 113, and if the little fucker was up here, I would have caught him by now.”

  “Vic, leave the highway to the HPs, I got a sneaking suspicion that he’s headed out this way.”

  Static, and I listened as she slowed the five-year-old unit down to under a hundred, negotiating the divider with one hand. “I’m on my way back, but if that’s the case he’s got a hell of a lead on me.”

  “We’ll get him from the other direction. Unit One, out.” I hung the mic back up and leaned out to look at Henry. “You coming?”

  He nodded and started pulling Lonnie back up to the house. Lonnie grabbed the wheel rails of his chair and slid himself to a stop. “You go ahead, I can get back in the house myself. Yes, it is so.” Then he reached down and handed the rifle up to me. “Take this.” I took the rifle as he handed the black plastic box to Henry.