The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 (136 page)

He muttered and pulled his unlit pipe from his mouth. “No, and I’m about to get my ass kicked again.” He looked at his king on the border, which was completely surrounded by other pieces and a smothered mate. He kept his finger on the black sovereign, finally tipping him over.

The old sheriff turned and looked at the collected force, including the gigantic Indians. “Jesus, just what he needs— reinforcements.”

I scooped up the board and transferred it to the counter of the kitchenette. I noticed that Eli remained near the doorway and around the corner with Vic. Lucian stood to the side, but his chair remained in front of the cell. Brandon ignored it and stood in front of the bars. He looked down at Virgil, who was still seated on the bunk. “
Na-ho e-ho ohtse
.”

The giant in the cell remained silent, lowering the hand that had held his hair back, the hair once again covering his face and both enormous hands hanging limp over his knees.

Brandon stooped down and looked through the bars. He was speaking Cheyenne. "
Ne-tsehese-nestse-he?
”

Virgil breathed in deeply and let out with a sigh, still saying nothing.

Brandon leaned in and placed a hand on the bars, smoothly shifting from Cheyenne to Lakota. “
Nituwe hwo?
”

The giant’s head rose to look at Brandon, but he still said nothing.

“
Tokiya yaunhan hwo?
” Still nothing. “
Taku eniciyapi hwo?
”

The voice erupted, hoarse from no practice, and he spoke in a deep bass. “
Tatankaska . . .”

Brandon touched his chest and smiled. “
Lila Tatankaska
.”

Virgil’s head inclined, and he leaned forward, just a little. “
Niyate kin tanyan icage
. . . .
Canhanp hanska etan maku wo-ptecela onzoge?
”

Brandon choked out a laugh, finally turning to look at us. “This is my uncle, who used to call me Begs-for-Candy-in-Short-Pants. ” His eyes strayed from Henry and me, and he looked toward Eli, motioning him to step forward so that he could introduce him as he stood and spoke to Virgil again, but this time in Crow. “
Hená de dalockbajak
, Eli?”

As Eli stepped around the corner, Virgil slowly rose, standing almost a full head above the other two. Eli stepped to the bars and looked up into the face of the giant and, to our utter amazement, he spit.

I’ve been spit on—it’s a part of law enforcement that you never get used to, but it hardly ever comes completely unexpectedly. This did, and it was a mouthful.

I stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, there’s no need . . .”

He shrugged me off and lunged at the bars where he got a hold of Virgil’s hair and pulled his face into the metal. Virgil offered no resistance, but Brandon grabbed Eli’s other arm and pulled it, as the younger man yanked Virgil’s head into the bars again. He screamed at him. “
Vasica! Tuktetanhan yau hwo?! Tokel oniglakin kta hwo?! Taku ehe kin, ecel ecanu sni
! ”

With Henry and Lucian’s help, we got Eli away, but the effort threw all of us off balance and onto the floor in an agitated version of Twister. Eli was the first to stand, and he spit on Virgil again, whose face was bleeding from a busted lip.

Eli stopped as we all scrambled to get up and made a dismissive gesture. “
Le tuwa ta sunka hwo?
!” He slammed his fists against the bars, then turned and strode out of the room and down the hallway. He pushed Vic back as he went. I was the first of the pile to the door and loped after Vic down the hall after Eli.

We found him on the hardwood floor at the bottom of the stairs in a reverse wristlock with Tran Van Tuyen’s knee lodged at the small of the Indian’s back. Dog was barking from behind Ruby’s desk, and she stood with her open mouth covered with her hand.

I looked at the man in the black leather jacket and black slacks, who looked particularly small in comparison with Eli White Buffalo. He smiled a flat smile up at me. “Is this the man who killed my granddaughter?”

I shook my head. “No, it isn’t.”

The sickly smile faded, and his eyes turned back to the large man he’d incapacitated. “Then, perhaps, I should let him go?”

Tan Son Nhut, Vietnam: 1968

Baranski and Mendoza stood away from the bars and watched me impassively. “Why don’t you tell us what you were doing out there near the old fort with a dead girl?”

I could feel a cooling in my face, and my hands steadied. The security police had put a pretty good set of lumps on my head and evidently somebody had stood on my hand while they’d cuffed me, because most of the skin on the back of my fingers was gone. There was a metal desk by the doorway leading to the brig, where I was being held. “Let me out of here.”

Mendoza sat on the edge of the desk and thumbed the crease in his uniform pants. “Near as we can tell, you left the lounge a little after Mai Kim, and the APs at Gate 055 said you came by there.”

“Open. This. Damn. Door.” My eyes stayed on them as they looked at each other.

“They said you weren’t alone, man.”

“Now.”

Mendoza sighed and reached behind him and picked up my sidearm, wrapped in the Sam Browne holster, and handed a large ring of keys to Baranski. “The major is getting your papers together; looks like you’re headed back, pronto.”

I didn’t say anything but just stood there looking at them with my hands chiseled into fists; Baranski shook his head and stepped forward, unlocking the bars and stepping back and out of the way as I pushed the cell door open. They followed me out, down the hallway, and through the front door of the security headquarters onto the sunny streets of Tan Son Nhut’s miniature city. Mendoza hung back but handed my holstered Colt to Baranski, who quickened his pace to pull up beside me.

“The CO says they would have shipped your ass out today, but with the heightened security and the holiday, they couldn’t make arrangements to transport you back to BHQ.”

The CID man reached up and grabbed my shoulder, but I slapped his arm away and pulled up short. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and leveraged him across the dirt street and into a corrugated sheet-metal wall. Mendoza grabbed my arm, but I elbowed him and pushed him out of the way.

I turned back to Baranski and, without my even having time to notice, he had pushed the blunt barrel of my sidearm under my chin. He held it there. He smiled, and I heard the unmistakable sound of the .45 being cocked.

Neither of us blinked. “You better pull that trigger, ’cause that’s the only way you’re gonna stop me.”

I saw his eyes shift, and we both heard the safeties go off of more than one M16, behind me and to the right. A voice I didn’t know spoke in a steady and loud tone. “We got a problem here, Lieutenant?”

Baranski’s eyes returned to mine and widened just a little. I slowly released him. I could see four security airmen from the 377th, all of them with their automatic weapons trained on my right eye.

Baranski spoke quickly. “Look, there’s no need.”

One of the security detachment, a captain, swiveled the barrel of his rifle toward the CID man. “You wanna secure that weapon, sir?”

Baranski lowered the .45 just a bit and then carefully used both hands to aim the barrel at the dirt and lowered the hammer, and slowly glided the Colt back into my loose holster, which was wound around his fist. “We’re clear.”

The airmen lowered their M16s to their hips, still keeping them generally pointed in our direction. The captain was a goofy-looking guy with eyebrows and a smile that sloped down at the sides of his face. “Not too smart having a riot just outside of security headquarters, sir.”

Mendoza was still sitting on the ground, but Baranski straightened his collar, smoothed the front of his uniform, and tucked my .45 under his arm. “No riot, Captain—just a little interservice miscommunication. ”

The captain continued to study me from under his helmet, and it was like a voice coming from a cave. I got the feeling most of his brains were down in his neck, and he probably had the same thoughts about me. “You the Marine who broke the nose on one of my men last night?”

My breath gummed up my throat, but I still got it out. “Coincidentally. ” I sounded sarcastic, maybe even more than I wanted to.

He watched me and then nodded. “Well, why don’t we just take this little party back inside.”

“There’s no need for that, Captain.” Baranski took a step forward and flipped out his ID. “We’re with security, too.” The captain studied the Central Intelligence Detachment card and badge, looked at Baranski, then at me. He took a step back and fully lowered his weapon. They all did.

“All right, sir.”

Baranski smiled, showing the gaps in his front teeth, and stuffed his wallet back in his pants. “Thanks, Cap. I owe you one.”

The security detachment backed away from us and continued down the street. Baranski spoke in a soft, friendly voice and continued to smile as the captain glanced back at us one last time. “That’s right, keep going, you stupid motherfuckers.” One final wave, and he turned to look at me.

I met his eye and thought about how calm he’d been with my pistol under my chin. “I’m not leaving until I find out who killed her.” He shook his head and bumped up a smoke from the Camels in his breast pocket. He bit the cigarette and extended the pack to me. “I don’t smoke.”

He flipped open his Zippo and lit up with a deep inhale, the streams of smoke continuing into his nostrils as he pulled the cigarette away from his mouth. “Maybe you should—it might help calm you down.”

* * *

“I was hoping that you could assist me in making the arrangements for my granddaughter’s body to be transported once it’s released?” Tuyen sat in the chair opposite my desk and held the cup of coffee Ruby had given him.

“Certainly.”

Tran Van Tuyen was speaking into the mug and had yet to look up. “You may find this strange, but I was actually thinking of a cremation and scattering her ashes near the place she died.”

I was a little surprised. “You don’t want to take her back to California?”

His head shook slightly. “I don’t think her spirit was ever happy there, and I was thinking that she could, perhaps, find peace here.”

I nodded and tipped the brim of my hat, which was resting crown down on my desk. I watched as it turned slightly to the left. “Well, with a situation like this, it may be a while before they release Ho Thi, so you’ll have a bit of time to think about that.” There was no immediate response, and I hoped that he was coming to terms with the loss. “It’s a standard procedure with an open homicide investigation. We don’t want to miss anything that might lead us to apprehending the individual responsible.”

“Yes. I understand.”

He didn’t say anything else, so I waited. I’d sacrificed lunch with Vic, who had joined Cady and Michael. The Cheyenne Nation and the Crow contingency were having a cooling-off period out on the bench beside the walkway leading to the courthouse. I had told them to wait, that I’d be out as soon as I was through with Tuyen.

I had gotten a washcloth for Virgil, run it under some hot water, and handed it to him. We still had a doctor’s examination to contend with, and I wanted to get a closer look at the big man’s face, but it was all going to have to wait until I was finished with the dead woman’s grandfather.

Tuyen had followed me back to my office, and here we sat. “That was pretty slick out there.” His head rose, and he looked at me blankly. “With Eli?”

There was a sudden look of realization, and he sighed a quick laugh. “It is difficult to forget, once you have been properly trained.”

“Yep.”

After a moment, he spoke again. “Do you think about the war a great deal, Sheriff?”

I touched the brim of my hat with a forefinger in an attempt to straighten it and was relieved that someone else was asking the question. “A lot more, lately, it seems.”

“Because of my granddaughter?”

I looked up at him. “Yep, I believe so.”

He stood and put the untouched cup of coffee on the corner of my desk, and I thought about offering him tea next time. “Would it be possible for me to see my granddaughter’s things?”

It was the third time he’d asked and DCI had returned some of the items, so I nodded and motioned for him to follow me to the basement to our personal belongings cabinets.

Once there, I opened the large drawer and placed the small collection of items on the counter—the purse, the change, the French novel, the scarf, and the keys. The photograph of Mai Kim and me was being held, along with her clothes and herself. “What would you like to do about the car?”

He looked at the small group of objects. “Excuse me?”

“The car she was driving; I was wondering what you’d like to have done with it?”

“I may want to look at it.”

I wondered why. “I can make arrangements for it to be shipped back up here from Cheyenne, if you want.”

“Yes, thank you.” I waited as he looked at the items on the counter. “And the computer?”

“Excuse me?”

He cleared his throat. “Ho Thi had a computer of mine. It was not with her?”

“No.” I studied him, as he continued to look at her things. “Is there something wrong?”

He took a deep breath. “It doesn’t seem like a great deal . . . for a lifetime, does it?”

* * *

I pushed open the door and walked out to the war council. “How’s it going?”

Eli sat on the far side of the bench, his elbows on his knees, and looked as though he was memorizing the cracks in the sidewalk. Brandon stood with his thumbs hitched in the back pockets of his jeans, and Henry watched the side of Eli’s face. The Cheyenne Nation turned and looked up at me. “This may take a while.”

I beat a slow retreat back to my office. Ruby was holding her phone up to me. “Saizarbitoria.”

I came inside and sat on her desk, took the receiver, and reached down to pet Dog. “What’s up, Sancho?”

“Jim Craft wants to know if you have any idea how many credit cards the Flying J truck stop processes in a twenty-four-hour period.”