The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(3)

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Henry and I waited patiently as Kimama Bellefeuille gave a blessing to the steaks sitting on the table in front of us. Kimama was an Arapaho medicine woman with a Shoshone name who gave the impression of being a thousand years old, and people generally did what she told them to do because she wore them down, like a glacier.

“Cese’éihii heetih-ceh’etii-n hióówo’owú-u.”

The two of us were sitting together, our combined weight of over five hundred pounds on a single bench seat by the window in the restaurant while the ninety-pound, seventysomething-going-on-a-century-old woman on the other side of the booth had a bench seat to herself; it was a question of respect. Henry leaned toward me. “She is asking the animals of the earth to hear her words.”

“He-ciiyowoon-inoo, heet-wonibiini-heetih-’iéhi-t.”

“Your surplus is going to be eaten so that the people will prosper. . . .”

She interrupted him and said something I couldn’t make out.

“What’d she say?”

“She wants to know if I am going to translate each line of the prayer.” The Bear looked unsure, maybe for the third time in his life, and we both looked at Kimama like truants. “I thought that—”

Kimama interrupted him, and Henry translated. “She says she can continue in English for the Bird Turd, if you would like.” He bit down on a grin and made the decision for me. “That would be appreciated.”

“Umm, did she just call me a bird turd?”

He nodded and spoke through the side of his mouth. “Bird shit is generally white.”

I turned back to Kimama, but she had already recommenced the prayer, this time in English. “So that the breath of life will endure for a long time, so that the tribe will be numerous, the child whatever his age, the little girl and the little boy, and man, whatever his age, and the woman, even the Bird Turd, whatever his age . . . We pray that these foods will keep us healthy as long as the sun follows its path in the sky.”

Watching the old woman open her eyes and pick up her utensils, I figured the religious portion of the meal was through. “I don’t like being called Bird Turd.”

She mumbled something more in Arapaho, and I turned to Henry. “What?”

“Kimama says she will call you Frosty, if you prefer.”

I looked back at the medicine woman. “I don’t like that one either.”

She mumbled something more before cutting a piece of her steak and forking it into her mouth.

“She says she will call you Niice’nooo.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Bucket.”

“Why is that?”

Henry laughed. “Because you are beyond the pale.” I stared at him. “Get it? Bucket.” I continued to stare at him. “Pail?”

“No.” I watched as they shared a glance and then began using my knife on my steak and not her. “Well, I’m going to call her Pain In The Ass.”

She mumbled something more in Arapaho.

The Cheyenne Nation rolled up a forkful of pasta. “She says she has had that name since before you could drive.”

“I bet she has.” I ate a bit and looked at Henry. “What’s she got against me?”

“I don’t like big men.”

I turned to look at her, envious of her easy switch from Arapaho to English. “Why?”

“Maybe I will tell you someday, Bucket.” She studied me through her sharp, dark gimlet eyes. “So, what did the flat-hat say?”

“She said she wasn’t crazy.”

Kimama grunted, now working on her string beans. “You know, only crazy white people say that.”

I sipped my beer, a Speed Goat from the microbrewery this side of the Bighorn Mountains in Ten Sleep. “So they tell me.”

Her dark eyes came up. “Do you think she is crazy?”

“Nope.”

She picked up a French fry and dipped it in ketchup. “There are spirits in the canyon, great spirits that one time formed the earth.”

“I’m mostly interested in one in particular.”

She cocked her head at me and chewed, and I could see every muscle in her face. “Maybe you will meet him.”

“Have you?”

“’Ine.”

I sat my glass down. “I assume that means yes?”

She grinned, and you couldn’t help but like the old broad. “You’re learning.”

“Was it a pleasant experience?”

“Helpful.”

I stared at her, trying to convey the importance of the favor we were asking. “Will you come with us tonight?”

“I have a prior engagement. And besides, what you are asking is after my bedtime.” Her eyes dropped, and she carefully cut another bite of steak. “But be careful what you wish for, Bucket.”

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We finished our meal, dropped Kimama Bellefeuille off at the Methodist bingo hall, and headed up the road to the Troop G Wyoming Highway Patrol headquarters in Worland, the small brick building looking like a mini fort stranded out in the frontier wilderness with only a lone pine tree outside. “Think she’ll warm up to me?”

“I doubt it.”

“Think we can get her to change her mind?”