The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(33)

“She became what he was, a trooper. Someone made the connection between the two. Bobby never had children, suppose he made some kind of spiritual link with Rosey. Her return could have triggered all of this.”

“Just so you know, you are way out on a limb with this hypothesis.”

He braced a hand on the dash as we made the last turn. “Do you have another?”

I put my foot on the brakes and slowed, feeling the rear of the three-quarter-ton break traction before pulling into the service area in front of the north tunnel. “Not yet, but I will.”

I’d barely gotten stopped before Rosey was at my window, the heat of her breath fogging the glass the way Henry’s had. “Did you find her?”

“We did—they’re coming along behind us.” She looked back up the road, but they had yet to appear. “Look, Rosey, I wouldn’t get my hopes pinned on all this. It’s just a coincidence.”

She kept looking north. “It’s not.” Her eyes turned to me, and the blue there was otherworldly. “I’m remembering things.”

? ? ?

Sam Little Soldier joined us at the truck with the spring snow collecting on him as it would on a mountain, and we watched the two women from a distance as they stood by his vintage import and talked. “This gladdens my heart.”

“You knew.”

He turned to look at Henry and nodded. “About the relationship, yes.”

“But not about Rosey’s connection with it?”

“No. That was not something Kimama mentioned. I had had my suspicions about her and Bobby, but she had never said anything, and neither did he.”

“Then who did?”

He glanced down at the snow, the slush soaking his moccasins. “I would rather not say.”

I went ahead and threw in my two cents’ worth. “I’d rather you did. All things considered, I don’t give a hoot in hell for who’s involved with whom, but when it starts having an effect on the performance of a Wyoming trooper and a friend of mine, I want answers.”

Sam stepped away from us and turned, his hands still in his pants pockets. “This is not a criminal case.”

“No, it’s personal.” I waited a moment before continuing. “I can find out from Kimama, but I’d rather spare her that.”

He stared at me a good long while in the glow of the revolving emergency lights on Rosey’s cruiser, glistening yellow from the reflection of the granite canyon walls. “Mike Harlow.”

“The trooper?”

“Bobby Womack was his training officer and in that time, he became . . . umm, aware of the situation.”

Henry and I looked at each other as I turned back to Sam. “And he kept his mouth shut?”

“The thin blue line.” Sam smiled. “And they were friends.”

“Did Harlow make the connection between Rosey and the little girl that used to accompany Kimama?”

“I doubt it—none of the rest of us did.” He shrugged. “Besides, all you blond-haired blue eyes look alike to us.” His eyes came back up to mine. “And it was thirty-five years ago, man—she was a toddler.”

“But . . .” I glanced at the Bear. “Just for argument’s sake, why would Womack’s soul bond with that little girl anyway?”

Henry took a few steps toward the two women and then turned, his voice carrying back to us. “Kindred spirits.”

“There has to be more.” They both looked at me. “That night, the night that Bobby died, something happened. Something with the money . . . I don’t know.” I pointed a finger toward the women. “But at least one of them does.”

We watched as the two women finished their conversation and then hugged, long and hard. They stood there holding each other and maybe it was me, but the tall trooper in her long slicker and the tiny medicine woman seemed to change places, and I could almost see them as they had been all those years ago, the sha-woman and the little blond girl who must’ve loved her more than life itself and gone everywhere with her. It was strange the paths the human heart chose to take and the attachments it made along the way. The surest sign of the altruistic nature of the organ is its ability to ignore race, color, creed, and gender and just blindly love with all its might—one of the most irrefutable forces on earth.

They broke apart, arms still entwined, as they held each other at arm’s length, a miracle of synchronicity.

Rosey placed an arm over Kimama’s shoulder, and they walked toward us but stopped where Sam’s Toyopet Crown sat waiting. They looked at each other again, hugged once more, and then Rosey helped Kimama into her seat, giving Sam a quick look as she closed the door.

“Gotta go.” He swung away from us, and he and Rosey exchanged a few words over the metallic blue top of the vehicle before he wedged inside and began cranking on the starter.

Rosey walked toward us as the ancient Toyota finally caught and belched a cloud of bluish black smoke before dying. Sam cranked the starter again, and the Toyota started on the fourth try, rattling to life, stuttering and pulling out, only to die one more time.

Rosey looked back, shaking her head. “I think we may have to push that thing to get it going.”

“Maybe.”

She slapped the snow from her hat as she cracked open the door of her unit while Henry and I stood by, me pulling my pocket watch from my jeans and reading the time to her. “It’s 12:32, in case you were wondering.”