“Thirteen.”
I watched as she eased back and pulled a piece of paper from a sheaf on the rolltop desk. She placed the paper on the floor. “Stand on that.”
I did as she instructed, placing my stocking foot on the sheet as she pulled a carpenter’s pencil from the tomato can on the desk and traced around my foot, first at an angle underneath and then vertically. “I understand you have a cabin down by the river where he used to stay?”
“Yah, when he worked for us he used to bunk down there.” She tapped my leg, and I stepped off the paper. “I need your other foot.”
I pulled off the left boot and stood on another sheet. “Do you mind if we take a look in the cabin?”
She continued to regard me. “Yes, I do.” She studied my foot again. “If you want to wait you can ask for my husband’s opinion, but you might be here for a while.”
I examined the tools and the dust on them. “Where is he?”
“Buying leather in Rapid.”
I glanced up at the calendar and noticed it hadn’t been changed over from June. “How well did you know Clarence?”
“Well enough.”
“Did you know he was involved with Audrey Plain Feather?”
She paused and then continued around my heel. “I’d heard that.”
“Did you hear that there had been an accident?”
She traced around my foot twice, just as she’d done before, and finally looked up at me. “What kind of accident?”
“His wife was pushed off a cliff; Painted Warrior, a couple of miles up the road.”
She tapped my leg again, and I stepped off the paper and sat, bringing our faces a lot closer. She placed the two sheets together and tossed the pencil onto the overcrowded desk. “Pushed doesn’t sound like much of an accident.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I pulled my boots back on. “The added tragedy is that their little boy, Adrian, was in her arms when she fell.”
Erma couldn’t hide the fact that she was stricken with this bit of news. She wouldn’t look at me anymore, instead choosing to look out one of the tiny panes in the casement window above the rolltop. The glow of the afternoon light was prismed by the windowpane and played off her features. I could see a young girl who had jumped the Rez and headed out for the big town to a place she wouldn’t know anyone, least of all herself.
If it was a performance, it was a damn fine one.
She looked up the hill at her children and then finally turned to look at me. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes, it is.” I waited a few moments and then tipped my hat back. “You’re sure you haven’t seen him in a year?”
“Just ropers, like the ones you’ve got on?”
“Yep.”
She nodded and copied down my contact information, including the office address. “You’re kind of out of your territory, aren’t you?”
I didn’t say anything, which is the most unsettling thing you can say.
She stood and placed a hand back on the worn edge of the old desk. “And you don’t think the world is going to hell?”
I smiled. “Like I said-I’m just trying to slow it down a little bit.”
She remained silent until I saw no more reason to stay and took a step toward the open door.
“We have an eight-page list. It’ll be a year and a half.”
I glanced down the rows of boots. “I’m pretty good at waiting.”
The Bear took a few snap peas from a paper bag that he had liberated from the young farmers he had assisted on the hill while I had been ordering boots from their mother, and handed me one as he drove on through Birney Day proper. “So how did it go with Erma?”
I munched on the pea pod, crisp and delicious. “I ordered a pair of boots.”
He nodded as he navigated the vintage truck down the road. “It is good that you are supporting the local economy.”
“She knows something, but she didn’t know about Audrey.” I glanced out the window and watched the scenery flow by. “I think she’s seen Clarence a lot more recently than a year ago.”
“She saw him yesterday.”
I turned to look at the Cheyenne Nation. “The kids?”
“Yes, they were very chatty.” He took out another handful and handed me a few. “I thought it was very nice that they offered us this lunch.”
I chewed on another. “And?”
He glanced at me. “Only the peas.”
“About Clarence.”
His eyes went back to the road as we recrossed the rumble strip. “He was here yesterday afternoon, and she gave him supplies.”
“I assume we’re now on our way to Diamond Butte Lookout?”
“We are.”
I nodded and reached for more peas, but he slapped my hand and then took one for himself. “We have to ration our supplies.”
I listened to him eat as we continued down the road. We came up on a skinny kid walking on the gravel beside the asphalt who was wearing only one shoe. Henry slowed, finally matching the speed of the child’s pace, and being that I was on the passenger side, I went ahead and spoke to the young man. “Lose your shoe?”
He turned his head at my voice and looked at me. “No.” His smile was wide and beatific. “Found one.” His face brightened even more when he noticed the truck and, more important, the driver. Henry leaned on the brakes in an attempt to stop Rezdawg before it could run over the kid, who had bolted around the front and had pulled himself up on the grille guard. He stared at us from over the hood. “What’choo doin’, Bear?”
The Cheyenne Nation laced his fingers over the wheel and placed his chin there. “Looking for somebody.”
The kid smiled. “You’re always lookin’ for somebody-I’m just glad it ain’t me!”
Henry smiled back at him and then gestured toward me, his partner in justice. “This is my friend, Walt Longmire.” He reversed the gesture. “Walt, this is Wiggins Red Thunder, head of the Birney Road Irregulars.”
The boy interrupted. “The Bear says you saved his life up on the mountain.”
I laughed, glanced at Henry, and then tipped my hat. “Pleasure to meet you, Master Red Thunder.”
He cocked his head and closed one eye to look at me. “What did you jus’ call me?”
“Master. It’s a formal address used for young men of undetermined age below thirteen.”
He continued to study me. “I’m twelve.”
“That would be under thirteen.”
The grin broadened. “ Heeeeeeeeeeehe’e!”
The Bear laughed. “Evoohta?”
Wiggins shot his eyes at me. “Emasets’estahe.”
Henry nodded, but the young man continued to look at me, uncertain as to my motives.
“You want a ride, Master Red Thunder?”
The smile returned. “Yah, up here.”
He turned and lodged his rear end between the top bar of the guard and the dented hood, facing forward and banging an open palm on the rusted green surface.
The Cheyenne Nation shouted, “Tosa’e?”
Our impromptu hood ornament pointed to the right down a dirt road leading to a cluster of small, shabby houses and a few trailers. Henry wrapped the wheel a few times, and we eased off the paved road and down the wallow of burnt-umber dirt.
“The Red Road?”
He gave me the horse-eye. “I have to check in with my homies.”
With a little direction, we pulled between a couple of the houses and found two younger children, a boy and girl, who had propped up a john-boat with rocks and filled it with a nearby garden hose, making a homemade pool. I watched as they splashed each other and then waved ferociously at us as Rezdawg parked.
“I sometimes miss being that age.”
“It was a good time, but now is a good time as well.”
I smiled as I started to open the door. “That was a point I was trying to make to Erma, but I don’t think she was buying.”
He looked thoughtful for just a moment. “Perhaps her now is different from ours.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
We met Wiggins at the front of the truck, and I noticed the rolling piece of work hadn’t pissed on the Indians. Rezdawg was obviously a racist.