The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(14)

“Hmm . . .”

“There’s such a stigma attached to this type of thing, and it’s rampant in the line of work, and whether you call it crazy or not it’s hard for a cop to make that call on themselves.”

“So you do not believe?”

“No.”

“What about the instances that Harlow mentioned?”

“All explainable. The flat-tire incident could’ve been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning from the occupants sitting in a running car in a snowbank. Heck, they’re lucky they didn’t die of asphyxiation. The hippie hitchhiker? Who knows what he was on. The WYDOT guy working in the sun too long with some random driver following the paint truck and playing the same song over and over again—it’s all explainable.”

He gave me the smile some more. “Yes, it is, and one of the simplest explanations is one you seem to be incapable of entertaining.” Then he reached out and took the rest of my apple.

? ? ?

We sat on the tailgate of my truck in front of the grave and studied the ribbons tied to the sagebrush near the headstone, the medicine bundles and assorted objets d’art that had been left by the two tribes of the Wind River Reservation.

“It’s a shrine.”

“Yes, it is.”

I started picking out different things on the grave at Monument Hills Cemetery. “What’s the meaning of the broken arrow to the Arapaho?”

“Peace.”

I pointed to a small stone carving.

“In most Native cultures, the wolf is considered representative of courage, strength, loyalty, and success at hunting and is big medicine. The origin stories of some Northwest Coast tribes, the Quileute and the Kwakiutl, tell of early peoples changing from their wolf forms to that of men.”

“Why are wolf fetishes white?”

“Among the Pueblo tribes, wolves are considered one of the six directional guardians associated with the east and the color white. The Zunis carve stone wolf fetishes for protection, ascribing to them both healing and hunting powers.”

I turned to look at him. “What about the Shoshone and the Arapaho?”

“In their mythology, the wolf plays the role of the noble creator god, or the brother and true best friend of the culture hero. There is an Arapaho legend concerning a white wolf and a woman.”

“Okay.”

“There was a beautiful woman, proud and independent, who wanted no man and painted her tepee herself. One night she woke up to find a man wearing all-white robes in her bed. It was dark, and she could not tell who he was, so she dipped her hand in the red paint by her bed and, as they made love, she held the small of his back, marking him where he could not see. Later, she looked for the paint on all the men of the tribe, but none of them were marked. She became pregnant and went into the forest to gather wood, thinking surely the father of her child would reveal himself. Suddenly a large white wolf ran from the trees and stood in front of her. The woman was very afraid and raised up a piece of wood, ready to strike the wolf, when she noticed the red handprint on the wolf’s back. Angry at what people might think if they found she had slept with a wolf, she brought the limb down and killed it. Later, when she arrived home, she saw that the tepee flap was undone and there was blood in the entrance. Still holding the stick, she pushed the flap open and entered, finding the most handsome man she had ever seen sitting in the back with a bandage wrapped around his head.”

Silent for a while, we sat there at the end of Canyon Hills Road and listened to the wind. “So, he was the wolf.”

“No, he was the sun.”

“I don’t get it.”

He nodded, thoughtful, his eyes focusing on the distance. “If you were Arapaho or Shoshone, you would.”





5




“This is shaping up to be a really bad day.”

“Why?” Henry and I were sitting on the tailgate of my truck again, but we’d changed locations and I’d treated the three of us to a pizza and a six-pack of soda.

We were backed in tail to tail, Rosey sitting on her trunk lid with her windows down and her radio turned up. She took a bite, washing it down with a root beer. “My car wouldn’t start.”

The Cheyenne Nation groaned. “Oh, no.”

“Yeah. I got dressed, came out, and hit the starter—nothing. So, I call the service station guy we use, you know, and it takes him an hour to get there, and he jumps it and it fires right up.”

“Battery?”

“That’s what I thought, but he turns the thing off and hits it again and it starts on the first crank.”

The Bear lip-pointed toward the Dodge. “Sounds like some kind of short.”

She nodded as she chewed. “I guess, but you guys aren’t leaving before it starts. The last thing I want to do is spend the night down here, you know?”

I patted the file tucked under my leg. “Thanks for the folder on Bobby.”

She cocked her head. “My pleasure. As you might well imagine, he’s kind of become a preoccupation. Besides, you should have plenty of time to read tonight.”

We hadn’t seen another car in about an hour. “Traffic gets a little sparse after nine o’clock, huh?”

On cue, the monstrous, rusted, dangerous-looking oil truck that had passed us before rattled down the road headed south with no tail or running lights.