Eileen had been known to play her violin from the porch of the ranch house, a lone and plying sound that had echoed from the canyon. She’d never grown used to the isolation of the place, had grown senile on the ranch, and had died in the late seventies, rapidly followed by Sean, who had evidently grown used to the music of the only woman he’d known.
The brothers were good hands and tough old boys, tough enough to outlast all their neighbors, and they had slowly bought up the surrounding land and the water and mineral rights until the Dunnigans pretty much owned the Beaver Creek Draw.
James was the eldest and had inherited the ranch, even though he’d been kicked in the head by a cantankerous mare when he was a teenager and wasn’t “quite right,” as the locals had put it.
Den had known that James would inherit, had been pissed off at this rule of succession, but had accepted his lot and consequently taken a job in corrections up in Deer Lodge, Montana. He had even been engaged to a woman, but when the engagement entered its second decade she took exception. Den had returned at his father’s request when it became clear that James could not run the ranch by himself and that Sean had gotten too old to be much of a help.
My professional interaction with the Dunnigans was mostly with Den. There had been an incident where he had almost killed another rancher with a shovel in an altercation over water rights and another where he’d broken a bottle off on the bar in town and threatened to perform an amateur tracheotomy on a rodeo cowboy, but other than that, we’d been limited to the instances when Den would call in a lost James. He did this on a periodic basis. A couple of years earlier, during hunting season and an early snow, we’d responded, along with the highway patrol and the county search and rescue, only to find James seated at the Hole in the Wall Bar, adamant that he had phoned his mother and explained that he was safe and spending the night in town.
The problem was that his mother had been dead for a quarter of a century.
* * *
I rolled across the cattle guard and parked beside a turquoise and white ’76 Ford Highboy; the motor was running, but nobody was in it. The ranch house was simple, sided horizontally with a low-slung roof, and there was a metal shop nearby that was four times the size of the house.
By the time I got to the sidewalk, Den was coming out the front door. His eyes widened beyond his usual squint and then settled into a general dissatisfaction at seeing me. He had on a clean, white straw hat, hard like plastic, with a black, braided horsehair band, and was dressed in a freshly pressed shirt and creased jeans that cut the air as he walked. There was a red and white cotton bandana at his neck, and he’d even polished his boots. “I guess I need to turn off my goddamned truck.”
I stopped at the single step leading into the house. “Sorry, Den, but I need to speak with you and James.”
He stood there for another moment looking at me and then hobbled past on bowlegs, which approached a full circle, to the parking area where he reached into the side window of the old Ford and shut off the motor. A rifle rack cradling a beaten .30-30 Winchester showed through the rear window.
Den came back down the poured concrete walk, and I could smell the beer on his breath as he scuffled past. I followed him into the house without a word or invitation.
The tawny light of early evening was spreading across the Powder River landscape, and it settled a comfortable glow inside the kitchen. James was seated at a Formica table with a shot glass and a bottle of Bryer’s Blackberry Brandy, which I assumed was dinner. There was an empty bottle of Busch with more than a few bottle caps pinched together and scattered across the table where I assumed Den must have been sitting before my arrival. The walls were paneled in knotty pine, and all the appliances were what they had called golden harvest in the fifties. I was sure that nothing in the kitchen had been changed since their mother had died.
The heat was oppressive, even with the industrial-type box fan that was propped in one of the windows. The older of the two brothers stood when I entered, wiping his palms on his jeans and sticking out his hand. He seemed embarrassed that I’d found him drinking in his own home. “Hello, Walt. Would you like some coffee? Mother makes it in the morning for us.”
I withheld comment. "No, thanks. Mind if I sit down, James?” He pulled out a chair for me and glanced at his brother, who stood by the door with his arms folded and his hat still on. “I suppose you know why I’m here?”
James sat back down and laid an arm along the table. “It’s about that girl we found?”
“Yep.”
He nodded and then trapped his lips between his teeth. “About the bar?”
“Yep.”
“We did see her there.”
I took my hat off and set it on the orange vinyl seat of the chair beside me. “That’s what I understand.”
James looked at the surface of the table. “Well, we...”
“We don’t have to tell you a God-damned thing. We didn’t do nothin’ to that girl.”
I turned toward Den, but his eyes were fixed on the linoleum. “I’m not aware of anyone having said you did.”
He folded his arms a little tighter and continued to look at the floor. “But that’s why you’re here, ain’t it?”
“There are some questions I wanted to ask you and your brother.” I waited a moment. “Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll talk.” He sat on a fold-out stool by the refrigerator. I turned back to James. “You want to tell me about the bar?”
It took him a while to speak, and he didn’t answer my question but instead gestured toward the bottle on the table. “Would you like a little, Walt? I’ll git you a clean glass.”
“No, thank you.” I waited and started getting the feeling that there might be something more to this than I had at first anticipated.
James licked his lips and poured himself another shot of the sugary liquor. “It was hot on Friday, so we took a little break about one or two in the afternoon. You know, duck in for a cool one.” I noticed his hands were shaking as he put the bottle back down. “She was in there, sittin’ at the end of the bar. So, Den and I sat a couple’a stools away.” He looked up and smiled sadly. “She was a good-lookin’ young woman, and she kept glancin’ over at us.” His eyes turned to the full shot glass. “We’re just a couple of old hands, Walt. We’re not used to a good-lookin’ young woman payin’ us much attention.”
“You talk to her?”
Den interrupted. “Hell, we thought she was a Jap. She didn’t speak no English.”
I waited, and James started again. “We tried to buy her a couple of drinks, but she wouldn’t take ’em. After a while she got up and waved a little wave at us and left.”
“Bartender can tell you that.”
I looked at Den. “Then what?” He clammed up, sullen again, but James cleared his throat, and I turned back to watch him down his shot. It seemed to me his face was redder than it ought to have been.
“We went out and started to get in the truck, and she was standin’ by her car like she was waitin’ for us.”
Den interrupted again. “She was damn well waitin’ for us.”
I tried to keep the conversation moving. “Then what?”
James cleared his throat again and looked as if all the blood in his body was rising in his face. “She needed gas money....” His face continued to grow redder, and if I hadn’t known any better, I’d have said that both of the Dunnigan brothers were about to implode of embarrassment. “And she . . . she wanted to couple with us.”
I sat there for a moment to make sure I’d heard what I heard. “I thought you said she didn’t speak any English?”
James seemed to be on the edge of a cardiac arrest. “She didn’t. She didn’t, but...”
“Then how could you tell that?”
Den yanked off his straw hat and threw it against the kitchen cabinets. “She grabbed James’s crank and pointed toward the gas cap. That good enough for you, God-damnit!?”
* * *
I stopped at the top of the office stairs and stood there glancing around the reception area and listened to the continuing ring of the phone. It was late, but the lights were all on and Ruby’s purse sat in her chair along with her sweater.
I stumbled forward and ran to get the phone, but as I reached for it, it stopped. I stared at the red light that had stopped blinking but stayed steady; someone had gotten it, someone in the building.
Dog was gone, too. I walked down the hallway and past my darkened office where I looked for any Post-its on the door jamb—Post-its were our prose form of communication—but there was only one and it was from Cady. I held the yellow square up to the light and read, “Daddy, we’re at the Winchester—come join us.” Ruby had marked the time at 6:17 P.M. Four hours ago.
There was a noise from the back of the building, so I continued to the end of the hall where I could see the lights on in the holding cells and the kitchenette.
I stopped in the doorway and watched as Ruby stepped away from the phone on the adjacent wall and sat down on one of our metal folding chairs to pet Dog and resume what looked like knitting.
I leaned against the wall and spoke. “Ruby?” She didn’t hear me, even though Dog looked up and wagged. “Ruby! ”
She glanced up and looked stern. “I missed my Methodist women’s meeting.” Her eyes shifted to the holding cell, and I leaned around the corner for a peek at our only inmate.
He was eating with his fingers, and there was a carefully stacked pile of potpie containers near the door of the cell. He didn’t look up when I stepped around the wall to get a better look at him. His hair hung down around his face and to his knees, but he had on the sweatpants I’d provided, and the moccasins. “I guess he woke up.”
“And he was hungry.”
I glanced at the assembled cartons at the big Indian’s feet. “How many has he eaten?”
“Eight, at last count. That, and three Diet Cokes.”
“I guess his throat wasn’t hurt that bad.” He continued chewing as I crossed to stand by Ruby’s chair. “He say anything?”
“No.”
“How did you know he was hungry?”
She looked up at me. “I made the assumption that since he had been living in a culvert under Lone Bear Road...”
The giant deftly placed the empty tubs on the top of the others but didn’t move from the bunk. “Does that mean he wants another?”
“It has eight times now.”
I dug into the minifreezer and pulled out the last of our pot-pies, removing it from the box and tossing it into the microwave. I punched the requisite buttons I’d memorized from my own gracious dining and turned to stand by my dispatcher. “Why are you still here?” I folded my arms. “You knew I was coming back.”
She picked up her knitting and ignored my question.
I looked into the holding cell—the big Indian still hadn’t moved. “Where’s Lucian?”
“He decided to go home.” The microwave dinged, and I pulled out the freeze-du-jour, quickly resting it on the counter and out of my burning fingers.
“Let it cool or he eats it still cooking.”
I nodded, pulled a plastic spork from the drawer, and rested it on the rim of the potpie. “DCI’s report?”
“On your desk.” She continued knitting.
I turned and started back to my office to retrieve the report. I held my daughter’s Post-it so that Ruby could see it. “She go home?”
“That was her on the phone just as you came in, and in answer to your question, she’s in bed, where all sane people should be.”
I stopped. “Well, since you’re answering questions, do you mind answering why it is you’re still here?”
She stopped knitting and looked back at me. “Would you like to see why?” She stood and stuffed the needles and yarn into her oversized canvas bag. “Would you like me to show you why I’m still here?”
I recognized a loaded question when I heard one but just nodded my head and gave her the strange look I gave crazy people that asked the sheriff those kinds of questions. She calmly walked past me and down the hall out of view. Dog had started after her but stopped when he reached the doorway. I stooped down and ruffled the fur behind his ears. “What?”
Ruby had turned to look back at me. “Come here.”
I shrugged and walked over to her, the three of us standing there as Ruby listened for something. After a moment, I asked again. “What?”
She held up an index finger. “Just a minute.”
We all listened, but the only thing I could hear was the air-conditioning of the building and the hum of Ruby’s computer on the reception desk. “What?”
There was a sudden thunder of sound and impact, and I would’ve sworn a truck had hit the building. I actually stuck a hand out to the wall to steady myself. Not much time went by before the noise and vibration were repeated, and I would’ve sworn that the truck had backed up and taken another run at the building. “What the...!”
The roar and impact seemed to come from the holding cell, and I stumbled over a barking Dog as I rushed back into the room and watched as the big Indian launched himself into the bars with all his considerable force and with a sound I’d never heard come from anything human.
A private contractor had set the bars back in the fifties, when Lucian had inherited the old Carnegie building from the Absaroka County Library after they’d moved a block away. I hadn’t thought about the quality of the job in more than a quarter of a century, but it was foremost on my mind as I watched the monster back up to the opposite wall of the cell and prepare for another charge.
"Hey!”
I subconsciously backed against the counter, knocking the potpie into the sink, and watched as about 350 pounds of bull muscle slammed against the bars.
I could’ve sworn they moved.
"Hey!” I stepped forward, placed my hand on my sidearm, and thought about how bad it was going to hurt if he and the bars landed on me. “Hey!”
The giant had just started backing up for another run when he heard me and noticed that I was standing there only six feet away. His head rose, and I have to admit that it was a strange feeling, having someone look down on me. His hair had parted a little, and I could see one eye beneath the scar tissue as his hands came forward and rested lightly on the bars. He wore a silver ring with what looked like alternating coral and turquoise wolves running around it, and I was pretty sure I could’ve gotten it over my big toe.