The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(8)

I traded Morgans with the Cheyenne Nation and studied the second for any signs of wear, but there were none, and the silver dollar looked as if it had just been double-minted down in New Orleans. “Then what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I check back there less than an hour later—nothing. I sit there for another hour, and it starts raining, so I call myself every stupid name in the book and head north. I catch this idiot on a Harley about twenty miles over, up near the fly shop, and pull a quick U-ey, run him down, both of us standing there in the pouring rain; some lawyer from Colorado and he’s all Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am, so I give him the citation. I turn around and head north, you know, finishing my loop, but I get this funny feeling.”

“Yep.”

“So, I flip around and head back down, but there’s nothing there, so I pull up and park. It was a slow night and nobody was out, so I just sat there for a few hours waiting to see if anything was going to happen.” She glanced out the side window. “Nothing.”

“Well, that proves that it was just—”

“The next day at around noon there’s a message on my cell phone from Captain Thomas saying some kayakers found this guy and his Harley over the cliff, smashed up by the water.” She continued gazing out the window into the darkness. “The medical examiner said he probably survived the fall but was broken all to pieces, laying down there on the rocks all night while I was sitting right above him, you know, watching the road and looking for ghosts.” She finally turned her head, and I could see the small reflection in her eyes. “Mile marker 115, right where I found the second coin.”

There was a blip on the radio as another patrolman reported in from Shoshoni.

Static. “Unit three, 10-7.”

“That’s Parker, out of Riverton. He’s got a bladder the size of a grape.”

I considered the coin. “You know the story about Womack and the Central Bank & Trust theft?”

She studied me. “You think I haven’t looked up everything there is to know about him?”

“Then you tell me.”

She unzipped her jacket and took off her hat and tossed it on the seat beside her. “I haven’t read the official transcript, but I checked out all the newspaper articles in Thermop and Riverton. It was a righteous shooting. He pulled these renegade WYDOT guys over just north of the tunnels and one of them had a shotgun, blew out the windshield of Womack’s cruiser. He planted in a one-two position and shot the guy in the chest before he could reload the 12-gauge. The passenger was out by then and fired over the top of the car with a snub-nose; now, you know as well as I do that unless you’re locked in a phone booth with a perp those things are pretty useless, but the guy hits Bobby in the side, busting a rib. Womack returns fire—one shot, right in the head. Two assailants, two men dead on scene.”

“And no bag of Hot Lips Morgan silver dollars?”

“Nowhere to be found.”

“They go through the car?”

“Took it completely apart in a garage in Worland. Nothing.”

“Did they search the canyon?”

She laughed. “It’s twenty miles long, Walt. You could hide an entire town up in here and nobody would ever find it.”

“Yep, but you said the shooting took place just north of the tunnels, as did the two coin incidents.”

“So?”

“So, that means that if they were heading north, they would’ve only been in the canyon a couple of miles before they met Womack.”

“Yeah, but everybody’s been scouring that end of the canyon with metal detectors since 1979. Again, nothing.”

The Cheyenne Nation asked in a low voice, “Do you think Womack took it?”

“No idea.” She studied him. “I mean, it’s convenient, you know?”

“But none of the silver dollars have ever been recovered?”

“Not till about two and a half months ago.”

We both looked at her.

“One at a time.”

Henry handed his Morgans back to her. “Womack was killed about six months later?”

“Yeah, how did you know that?”

“Kimama, the Shoshone/Arapaho medicine woman, told me.”

“He tried to stop an eighteen-wheeler that had lost its brakes. The driver was having a heart attack, and Bobby pulled out in front of the guy, I guess trying to slow him down as he went into the tunnels. Nobody knows why he decided to do something crazy like that, but the truck hit him sideways and drove him into the opening, punched him all the way through to the other side.”

There was another radio call from Shoshoni.

Static. “Unit three, 10-8.”

The trooper looked through the windshield, her eyes steady. “12:34 a.m. I hope he died quick and didn’t burn to death. . . . You know, they say you could feel the concussion all the way across Boysen Reservoir.”





3




“So, you didn’t hear anything?”

I adjusted the Bear’s cell phone on my ear and spoke to Jim Thomas again. “You’ve got a trooper with an irregular bladder.”

“Yeah, Parker. We try and keep the duty meetings short when he’s in attendance.” There was a pause. “You sticking around or heading home?”