The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(26)

“Look who is talking.”

A few pieces of rock and debris fell past my face. “What, exactly, are you doing up there?”

“There are patched spots of concrete here and along the ceilings of all the tunnels.”

“So?”

“Some look newer than others.”

“So?” There was a jolt and more dust and tiny pieces of concrete fell, one bouncing off my head. “Ouch.”

“Ah, there are bolts driven into the ceiling, I am assuming to stabilize the roof.”

“Can I put you down now?” Without waiting for a response, I checked both ways and then stepped off the curb backward, leaning forward and allowing Henry to step off onto the sidewalk. “So?”

He turned and looked down the tunnels, the sunlight intermittently shining in the openings between. “The two robbers worked for WYDOT. If you were going to hide something in these tunnels, where would you hide it?”

“I see your point.” I studied the ceiling and walls. “There’s only one problem—there must be a couple hundred patch spots just in this tunnel alone.” I looked at him. “There’s another problem with your theory. If I was on the lam, and the cops were closing in, I’m not sure how much time I’d have for masonry work.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would’ve chucked the bag over the guardrail or into the water and hoped I could come back for it later.”

He thought about it. “Where, exactly, did the shoot-out take place?”

“About a quarter mile up the road around the next bend.”

“So, Womack was waiting for them as part of a roadblock.”

“I guess. It’s in the folder in my truck.”

“Why not stop them in the tunnel, where they are contained?”

I smiled. “You’re thinking like a soldier instead of a cop. In these situations, you always have to allow for the citizenry. What happens if you stop them in the tunnel and a vacationing family pulls up behind them?”

He nodded. “End of vacation.”

As we walked back to the Bullet, I voiced something that had been on my mind since the conversation with the woman from the Highway Patrol’s central office. “The dispatcher in Cheyenne said that they used to call the canyon No-Man’s-Land, because they couldn’t get radio reception in here until they put in that new tower on the top of the wall.” I pointed to the structure. “That thing went in ten-odd years ago, and that’s long after Bobby Womack’s demise.”

“Yes.”

“It’s highly unlikely that you could get any reception on the spot where he chose to intercept them.”

“That is true.”

I glanced back at the dark opening. “And there would’ve been no reception in those tunnels, but there damn well would’ve been on the other side at the Boysen Reservoir.”

“So, you are coming around to my questioning the location of contact?”

“Maybe, but I’m more concerned with where he was when he heard about the APB on the bank robbers, because he couldn’t have been in the canyon. Then there’s the motorist-assistance call just before the tanker incident in which he lost his life and the incident itself.”

“He could not have been in the canyon when he received these calls.”

“That’s correct.” We arrived at my truck, and I looked up the road. “But especially the one that cost him his life. If he didn’t receive any radio call about the runaway truck . . .” I pointed north to the far end of the S-curve that disappeared around the rock cliffs. “The first time he would’ve seen it would’ve been when it came around that turn, up where he shot those two men.”

“Coincidence?”

“I don’t know, but I sure would like to know what he was thinking.” I pulled the door open on my truck and climbed in as the Bear did the same on the other side. “Any ideas?”

“Your primary interest seems to be in discovering the truth about what might have happened with the robbery and the death of Bobby Womack.”

I fired up the Bullet and slipped her in gear. “I’m always more interested in the truth, no matter what the subject.”

He pointed south. “Then we should go to Fort Washakie and find the missing aunt of Bobby Womack.”

? ? ?

Finding somebody on the rez can be a tricky business, but nothing Henry Standing Bear couldn’t handle, at least that’s what I thought. Henry called Kimama, but she wasn’t home—I suggested she was probably out riding her broom.

We stopped at the Catholic church to ask a redheaded priest from New England where we might find Bobby Womack’s aunt, and he told us to talk to the bartender at the Rezeride down the road. The bartender knew a guy over in Fort Washakie who knew another fellow who had gone to school with a Womack; he wasn’t sure of the number but gave us an address. The woman at the address had lived in the house for only three years, but she said that the previous owners had been elderly and that the husband had died and the woman had sold her the house and moved to Fort Washakie proper. We checked the city hall, and they had a listing for a Theona Womack, but when we drove up, the house had burned down. We knocked on the doors of a few neighbors and got varying stories, some saying the old woman had moved, some of the versions saying as far as Canada.