Craig Johnson - A Serpent's Tooth - A Walt Longmire Mystery

I looked back at him, his eyes sunk into the fat of his face. “You travel well armed.”

“Oh . . .” He reached up and shifted back the brim of his enormous hat. “As you can see, we’ve spent a lot of time down on the border; Hudspeth County to be exact. Do you know the area, Sheriff?”

“Not particularly.”

“‘Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.’” He shook his head. “It’s a war zone down on the border—Godforsaken country—and we’ve just gotten in the habit of being prepared.” He pointed at my sidearm. “As are you.”

I put a hand up on one of the building’s support poles and thumbed the grain of the wood. “There’s a difference between preparing and provoking, Mr. Lynear.”

He smiled. “Are we provoking you, Sheriff?”

“It sounds like your men might’ve been provoking Mrs. Tisdale’s men, and I’d just as soon not have a range war in the southern part of my county.”

His eyes remained immobile as he continued to smile, and it wasn’t an attractive expression on his wide face. “Your county.”

“Till the next general election, the people of this county have elected me to uphold the laws they deem fit to enforce.”

“What about the law of God, Sheriff?”

“Not particularly my jurisdiction, Mr. Lynear.”

He actually chuckled. “Oh, that’s all part of our jurisdiction, and beside that fact, I happen to own a portion of your county, Sheriff. Almost twelve thousand acres, and as far as I know this is still a free country.”

I sighed, suddenly tired of the man and his jingo philosophies. “Abide by the laws of the county, state, and federal government, and we won’t have any trouble, Mr. Lynear, but if you start anything down here with your neighbors you’re going to see me again.”

He raised a hand. “I’m a God-fearing man in search of peaceful solitude in which to raise my family—I want nothing of the world, and the world wants nothing of me.” He nodded as if giving a benediction. “There is a day of reckoning coming, though, a day when all men must take a side and the freedoms of some may impinge on the heresy and Godlessness of others.”

I let George come around the truck before I spoke, specifically to him. “You need to register this vehicle in Wyoming.”

He looked at his father, back to me, and then gave the slightest of nods before yanking open the driver’s-side door; Tomás Bidarte folded his knife and climbed in the bed with his benefactor.

Just before George had time to preheat the coil and fire up the diesel, Vic waved and delivered one of my lines: “Happy motoring.”

Roy Lynear looked thoughtfully at us from the bed of the truck as they backed up and pulled away in a cloud of smoke, sans a hardy Hi-yo, Silver. We watched as the big Ford skimmed out of the town proper and then took to the county road, its taillights looking like afterburners headed south.

“That was one fucker from strange.”

Eleanor Tisdale sighed. “Which one?”

“Pick.”

• • •

It was close to midnight when we got back to Durant, and once again all the traffic lights were blinking. Across Main Street there was a newly hung large banner, orange with black trim, that advertised Friday’s big game between the Durant Dogies, whom Vic continually referred to as Doggies, and the Worland Warriors in their epic tiff—and the retiring of one Walt Longmire’s jersey and that of Henry Standing Bear, both dutifully displayed on either side of the banner.

“Sixty-nine—really?”

I shrugged and thought about how I hadn’t promised Nancy that I would be there. “I’d forgotten my number.”

“Gives me ideas.” I didn’t rise to the bait, so she continued. “I bet you were popular.”

I shrugged again. “I did all right.”

She smiled, reading the banner as we drove underneath. “I bet ol’ number thirty-two did better.”

I thought about the Bear and how I’d better make a call out to The Red Pony Bar and Grill if I didn’t want to face this ignominy alone. “Henry did better than everybody. He still does.”

“I still want a corsage in the orange and black of the Durant Doggies.”

“Dogies.”

“What the hell is a doggie, anyway?”

“A dogie is a motherless calf.”

She studied the storefronts as we drove through town, her thoughts darkening like the windows. “How appropriate. Do you find it worrisome that Cord escaped from or was expulsed by a religious cult and now we have one setting up camp in our own county?”

I glanced at her. “Our county?”

“Yeah, well . . . I wasn’t elected, but I’m de facto.”

“I thought you were a Moretti.”

“Ha ha.” She poked my shoulder with an index finger. “Answer the question.”

“Yes, I do.” I watched the buildings go by and had to admit that I liked the county seat quiet like this. “And it’s even more worrisome since Tim Berg says the head honcho up at that place in his county also goes by the name of Lynear.”

She turned to look at me. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope, but we also don’t know for sure that our Lynear’s place is a cult.”

“Uh-huh—that conversation had more Bible quotes than a revival meeting.” She thought about it. “You think Cord’s mother might be mixed up with this bunch rather than the one in South Dakota?”

“Not with Sarah coming into the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and the pants Cord had on from Belle Fourche, but there has to be a connection explaining why Cord showed up here.”

“Other than a grandmother in Short Drop who obviously didn’t know that he exists?”

“Yep.”

“Considering the newfound information, I think it was very politic of you to not bring up the familial connection between the interstate Lynears with Eleanor Tisdale.” She readjusted, tucking one boot under the other leg. “So, it sounds like you’re getting ready to have a wide-reaching conversation with young Cord.”

“I am now that the county psychologist says I can.”

“What are you going to do about Roy Lynear and his bunch?”

I sighed. “Not a lot I can do until they do something against the law.”

“Like walking around shoving their guns in people’s faces and cleaning their fingernails with illegal knives?” She mused on the supposed compound to the south. “Your worst nightmare come true.”

“And Eleanor Tisdale’s, since apparently her husband sold the place to them.”

She nodded to herself and smiled. “So, when are we going to go poke around the East Spring Ranch?”

I really didn’t have the right, but I was curious, especially with the probable connection with the compound in South Dakota. It was also possible that I just didn’t like Roy Lynear and his gun-toting son; either way, it was important to know what was going on down there in one of the neglected corners of my county. “First thing in the morning.”

“What do you make of the Spanish blade?”

I thought about the man. “Doesn’t fit, does he?”

“One severe case of badass, if you ask me.”

“Why is that?”

“He wasn’t scared, Walt. Considerate, yes, but not scared at all. Anybody else in that situation would’ve been just a little bit intimidated, but he wasn’t.” She waited to make the next statement after I passed the sheriff’s office and took a left on Fort. “You’re taking me home?”

“I figured that’s where you’d want to go.”

“Where are you sleeping?”

“The amazingly affordable and surprisingly comfortable Absaroka County Jail.” I glanced at her. “I figure I better spell Double Tough since he’s been babysitting Cord all evening.”

“Then what’s he supposed to do?”