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

I kept my eyes on her. “Food?”

“Yes.” She thought some more. “And they sometimes take a shower.”

“A shower.”

She was nodding again. “But they always clean up after themselves; I just notice because the towels are damp or there are a few pieces of fried chicken missing.”

I shot Mike a look, but he was studying the banks of Clear Creek on the other side of the gravel walk a little ways away, probably checking for trout and wishing he was somewhere else. My eyes tracked back to the elderly woman. “Fried chicken.”

“Yes, it would appear that angels really like Chester’s fried chicken.”

I leaned back on the railing and watched the dancing pattern of light on the water for a while myself, the scattered golden leaves of the aspens spinning like a lost flotilla. “I see.”

“And Oreos; the angels like Double Stuf Oreos, too.”

“Anything else?”

“Vernors Diet Ginger Ale.”

“You must be running up quite a grocery bill feeding the legions.” I smiled and chose my next words carefully. “Barbara, when these things happen . . . I mean, do you make your list and then go to bed and get up and everything is repaired?”

“Oh no, I do my agenda in the morning, then I go out to run my errands or go to my bridge club, and when I get back everything’s done.”

“In the morning?”

“By the middle of the afternoon, yes.”

I pulled out my pocket watch and looked at it, noticing it was ten after one. “So if I were to head over to your place right now, it’s likely that I might catch the angels at their labors?”

She looked a little worried. “I suppose.”

“What is it you’ve got them doing today?”

She thought. “There’s a leak in the trap under the kitchen sink.”

Vic couldn’t hold her peace. “Wait, angels work on Sundays?”

I looked at the nice but crazy old lady. “Where do they get parts on a Sunday; Buell Hardware is closed.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I get them the supplies, Walter. The Lord provides, but I don’t think that extends to plumbing parts.”

“Hmm . . .” I stood up, and she looked concerned.

“Where are you going?”

“I think I’ll drive by your place while you and Mike have lunch.” I shrugged. “Maybe see if we can get Vic here a little divine guidance.”

Barbara Thomas folded her hands like broken-winged birds and spoke in a quiet voice. “I’d rather you didn’t, Walter.”

I waited a moment and then asked, “And why is that?”

She paused, just a little petulant, and then looked up at me with damp eyes. “They do good works, and you shouldn’t interrupt good works.”

• • •

“Do you think there are more crazy people in our county than anywhere else?”

We drove west of town in the direction of Barbara Thomas’s house, and I turned down the air in the Bullet so that the fan would not blow Vic’s dress any higher on her smooth thighs as she propped her cowboy boots on the escarpment of the dash. “Per capita?”

“In general.”

I redirected a vent in the direction of Dog, panting in the backseat. “Well, nature hates a vacuum and strange things are drawn into empty places; sometimes oddities survive where nothing else can.” I glanced over at her. “Why?”

“That would include us?”

“Technically.”

She glanced out the windshield, her face a little troubled. “I don’t want to end up alone in a house making lists for my imaginary friends.”

I took a left onto Klondike Drive and thought about how Vic had seemed to be given to philosophical musings as of late. “Somehow, I don’t see that happening.”

She glanced at me. “I noticed you didn’t offer to share your experiences with the spirit world with her.”

Vic was referring to the events in the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area that I’d had in the spring, an experience I wasn’t sure I’d even fully processed yet. “It didn’t seem pertinent.”

“Uh-huh.”

I gave her a look back and noticed she was massaging one temple with her fingers. “How’s your head?”

“Like hell, thanks for asking.”

“You mind if I inquire as to what happened at the Basque Festival?”

She adjusted her boots on the dash and confessed. “I was traumatized.”

“By what?”

“The running of the sheep.”

I thought I must’ve misheard. “The what?”

“The running of the fucking sheep, which you conveniently missed by taking the day off yesterday.”

“The running of the sheep?”

She massaged the bridge of her nose. “You heard me.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it; you don’t want to talk about your imaginary friends, and I don’t want to talk about the running of the sheep.” She played with the pull strap on her boot. “Suffice to say that I am not working the Basque Festival ever again.”

I shrugged as we passed the YMCA and continued down the hill and past Duffy, the vintage locomotive in the park at the children’s center. I took a right on Upper Clear Creek Road, then pulled up and parked under the shade of a yellowing cottonwood next to Barbara Thomas’s mailbox.

“We’re walking?”

“There’s shade here, and Dog is hot.” I lowered the windows to give him a little extra air. “Besides, I like to sneak up on my angels. How about you?”

She cracked open the passenger-side door and slipped out, pulling her skirt down. Boots and short skirts—a look for which I held a great weakness. “I’m not exactly dressed for a footrace.”

I closed the door quietly and moved around to the front of the truck to meet her. “I thought angels flew.”

“Yeah, and shit floats.”

• • •

We walked down the steep gravel driveway that ended in one of those old-time Model T garages and the tiny clapboard house that had been the headquarters for the T Bar T Ranch in years past, before housing developments had chiseled the land away. There was an abundance of raised flower beds and hanging baskets, and I had to admit that whoever the angels were; they were doing a heck of a job, especially this late in the season.

Her tarnished gold eyes flashed. “By the book?”

I looked at her lupine smile and thought about how you could take the patrolman out of South Philadelphia, but you couldn’t take the South Philly out of the patrolman. “Look, it’s probably some kindhearted neighbor doing the old girl a favor, so let’s not scare them to death, okay?”

“Whatever.” She started for the porch, and I watched the faded purple dress flounce from her hips as she stalked off, unarmed. “Calling front.”

I sighed and started around the back, slipping between the tiny garage and the house. I looked in the kitchen window and paused when I saw a set of legs sticking out from under the open cabinet doors of the sink. Covering the legs were a pair of olive green work pants, the kind custodians wear, and the feet were encased in a pair of heavy brogans without socks.

I shook my head and continued on, wondering which Good Samaritan from the neighborhood this might be. I climbed the concrete stoop that led into the kitchen, pushed the button on the newly rehung screen door, and announced myself. “All right, mysterious home repair, who’s . . .”

My voice plugged in my throat when an extremely thin young man catapulted from underneath the sink and braced himself against the side-by-side refrigerator. I had a few seconds to study him—he was an odd bird, looked like a scarecrow with the oversized pants tied at the waist with a piece of hemp rope and a tan work shirt that also looked to be about two sizes too large. His eyes were the bluest blue I’d ever seen—almost cobalt, wide and deep set. He had a noble prince look about him, but maybe it was the blond, Prince Valiant haircut.