Craig Johnson: As the crow flies

He shook his head as if to clear it, glanced at me, and then back to her. “Early arrest, huh?”

She took a breath and finally lowered the hand. “Sheriff Longmire and I-”

He interrupted her carefully planned speech and glanced at me again with a more than knowing look. “Uh huh?”

She stumbled but then regained her footing; she was getting angrier. “We… I have reason to believe that this may be more than a simple case of misadventure.”

“You do?”

Full on angry now. “Yes.”

He took the sunglasses off his forehead, tossed them after the phone, and massaged the sockets of his eyes on either side of his elongated nose with thumb and forefinger. “Sounds like I don’t have a thing to worry about.” He raised his face-and this time it was a grin, the kind hyenas have-then reached out a fist and actually punched her shoulder; then he spoke in the singsong pattern of bad TV. “Well, how ’bout I introduce myself-Cliff Cly of the FBI.”

“You could’ve told me that you knew him.”

She banked the turns at ninety, and I was beginning to think that this was just the way Lolo Long drove, kind of like A. J. Foyt.

“And when was I supposed to have done that?”

“You could’ve jumped in at any time.”

I braced a hand against the dash and checked my seat belt. “You said you wanted to handle it, in a tone of voice, I might add, which told me that I must’ve done a bad job previously.” She didn’t say anything. “You got what you wanted; you’re the primary investigator on the case.”

“No, you got what I wanted.” She shot a look at me. “What makes you so cozy with the FBI that they just roll over and ask you to scratch their bellies?”

I took my hat off and rested it on my lap. “Not the entire FBI, just that one agent. And, as point of fact, I’m the one who patched up his belly.”

Her voice took on the melodic quality that his had, but with more of an edge. “So how do you know ‘Cliff Cly of the FBI’?”

I grimaced at the thought. “Well, first I broke his jaw.”

“You what?”

“It’s a long story.”

She nodded her head. “We’ve got plenty of time-you’re still under arrest.”

I sighed and thought about a horse that had been trapped on the Battlement… and the woman who loved her. “He was working on a case we were both involved with, ended up gutshot down on the Powder River, and I was lucky enough to get him help.”

“By breaking his jaw.”

“That came earlier.”

She took another curve as the V-8 in the GMC strained under her foot. “Lucky enough to help him, huh?”

“Yep.”

“So, you’re a lucky guy?”

We shot through another straightaway and barely missed a logging truck going in the other direction.

“Sometimes. Hey, speaking of-do you mind if we proceed somewhat under the speed of sound? My daughter’s getting married next week, and I’d like to be there to see the wedding.”

She let off the accelerator just a little, and I eased back in my seat. “Do you mind telling me why it is that you are so angry when you’re dealing with people?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way you spoke to Agent Cly and-”

“Did you hear the way he was with me?” Her knuckles bunched on the steering wheel.

“I did.”

“Well, then, you know why.” Her head bobbed in time with the words that she bit off. “He. Pissed. Me. Off.”

“You’ll excuse me for saying so since I’ve only known you for about six hours, but that doesn’t seem particularly difficult to do.” She shut down again and just stared through the windshield. “All I’m saying is that being angry with him didn’t help your situation.”

“So your suggestion is that I should’ve broken his jaw?”

I smiled and thought, that’s what you usually get for moralizing. “Not exactly.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a police chief, not a sheriff, so I don’t have to be a politician-I don’t need the votes.”

I returned my own gaze to the windshield. It was now righteously pouring down rain. “Votes notwithstanding, you keep going at it the way you are now and you won’t be a chief for very long.” We drove in silence, the emergency sirens echoing off the surrounding hills the only sound. “His jurisdiction supersedes yours, and generally when you argue with the federal government, you lose.”

She turned her lovely Cheyenne face to regard me. “Tell me all about that.”

I shook my head and tried to enjoy the ride. “Do you mind telling me where it is we’re going?”

“To see a man about a Jeep.”

After a hard left on 212, we rocketed a couple of miles west to a cutoff that had a few signs, one of which read WELCOME TO MUDDY CUSTER, HE’OVONEHE-O ’HE ’E. “What does that mean?”

“Muddy Custer?”

“No, the Cheyenne part.”

She shrugged. “Where they gather.”

We circled a development where all the houses were exactly the same design but painted in assorted vibrant colors.

She saw me looking. “Remixes. Every summer Ace Hardware comes down here and has a tailgate sale.”

She pulled into a driveway where an old Volkswagen minibus, bright yellow with the words OLD SKOOL written down the side, was sitting on blocks, and in front of that a midseventies Jeep CJ-5 with a partial convertible top.

I watched the rain pelting the canvas. “Somebody we know?”

“I do.”

I looked up through the rain that was battering the windshield and thought about how wet we were about to become.

We both got out and, as I tugged my summer palm-leaf hat down tight, I looked past the rivulets of rain dripping from the brim to examine the Jeep’s twin exhaust tips. I stooped to look at the matching differential drips rainbowing on the concrete surface of the driveway. When I stood, she was already around the other vehicle and headed for the porch to our right with her sidearm drawn.

I spoke loudly, so as to be heard above the sheets of rain. “I don’t suppose I could have my gun back?”

She ignored me, and I watched as a curtain in the window to the left of the front door slipped back in place.

Chief Long stepped up and pounded on the frame of the screen, then turned to look at me as I joined her on the step below. “Hopefully, he’s really drunk and passed out-what we don’t want is him just a little drunk.”

I crossed my arms and tried to make a smaller target for the downpour. “Because?”

She pounded on the aluminum door again, the saturated portions of her uniform making provocative patterns. “Then he’s dangerous.”

I thought I could hear somebody moving around in the small house. “What if he’s sober?”

“Then I’ve got the wrong house.” She reached out, pulled the screen door aside, and banged on the door itself a half-dozen times with the butt of the revolver. “C’mon, you Indian taco, I know you’re home!”

I joined her on the porch under the remains of a metal awning that sifted the downpour into interesting streams that were hard to avoid, but it was better cover than nothing. “I’m assuming, and only assuming, mind you, that his real name isn’t Indian Taco.”

“Last Bull, but he’s part Mexican.” She drummed on the door again, leaving horseshoe-shaped indentations on the cheap, interior-grade surface. “Clarence, I know you’re in there-your shitty Jeep is sitting out here leaking onto the driveway!”

It sounded like someone knocked a bottle off a table inside, and I waited as Long pounded some more. After a moment the door opened about four inches and a red, bleary eye looked past the security chain while the smell of alcohol and vomit breathed out.

“What?” His voice was deep and slurred, and it looked as if the chief had gotten the condition she’d hoped for.