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

“Yes.”

I rose up and leaned back in my chair, hooking my foot under my desk again in an attempt to not imitate Buster Keaton. I listened to the geese honking and glanced out the window in time to see the tail end of a large V-pattern headed due south.

His smile lingered. “They are complex, those chambers of the human heart.”

“Yep, they are.” Henry stood there for a while, both of us saying nothing.

“You do realize that it is simply a myogenic muscular organ, right?”

I sighed and stood, leaving the copy of Playboy on my desk but folding and stuffing the gun magazine underneath in my back pocket. “I know it can carry a lot of weight.”

The Bear followed as I walked out of my lair and into the Turkish bazaar that had become my sheriff’s office. From somewhere, Ruby had procured paper plates and plastic utensils and even a triangular spatula that she was now using to divide up a pecan pie.

“How are the goods?”

The newly returned Saizarbitoria and Vic were sharing a bag of cookies and were seated on the bench beside the stairs; the Basquo was excited. “We should go back and buy more.”

“I bought them out.” I turned to Ruby. “Need I ask where our two lodgers are?”

She glanced at the old Seth Thomas on the wall above the stairwell. “Well, it’s 8:43, and I’d say they are downstairs watching the 8:43 showing of My Friend Flicka .”

“As opposed to the 7:13 or the 10:03 presentation?”

“Exactly.”

When Henry, Vic, Sancho, and I arrived at the base of the steps, the pair was still transfixed by the television on the rolling cart. I thanked the lucky star on my chest that Frymire had been able to find a dual-deck player that accommodated both DVDs and VHS tapes. A lot of our certification and training classes were still on videotapes, which I tried hard not to think about. “How’s the horse?”

We’d timed our entrance pretty well in that the end credit music was swelling, and the two looked over at us. Rockwell stood, the way he always did when Vic entered the room, to her unending puzzlement. “It is interesting that the story only changes in small ways each time the machine tells it.”

“I think you’ll find it’s exactly the same.”

The old man disagreed. “No; subtle but definitely different.”

“Uh-huh.” I made my way into the briefing room, pulled out one of the chairs, and sat. Vic and Santiago followed my lead, but Henry remained at the base of the steps.

Rockwell studied the Cheyenne Nation. “You have a savage with you.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Actually, he’s the most civilized of all of us.”

Henry made a show of waving at the crazy person.

“I was hoping that you might take a walk with him while I have a chat with Cord.”

Rockwell, probably weighing his odds, studied the Bear. “Where would we be going?”

The Cheyenne Nation spoke from the stairs. “Just down the block.”

The Man of God, Son of Thunder stood, gathered his coat from the chair beside him, and for the first time I noticed that he walked with a slight limp. “The cookies were delicious, but I could stand a real breakfast.”

Henry glanced at me and then back to Rockwell. “Sure.”

We all watched the unlikely pair do an exit dance at the foot of the stairs, with the Cheyenne Nation finally realizing the mountain man wasn’t going to allow the savage to get behind him.

We watched the two of them ascend, and then I turned to look at the young man. He was as earnest as usual but looked a little tired from watching the quadruple-feature of Flicka . “How you doin’, kiddo?”

“Good.” He smiled. “I’m hungry, too. Can we get something else to eat?”

“Soon, but I’d like to talk a few minutes if that’s okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

I leaned back in one of the plastic chairs, form-fitted to fit no one’s form. “I think I met some friends of yours over in South Dakota yesterday.”

“Who?”

“Eddy, Edgar, Merrill, and Joe Lynear.”

He smiled some more. “I do know them.”

“I also met some other members of the church—elders, I guess you would call them.” I waited a moment. “Any idea why it is that they would say they didn’t know you?”

His eyes dropped, and, trying to get a read on what was going on in his mind, I studied him.

He spoke slowly. “When you are banished from the First Order, you lose your seat in the celestial realm and are deemed a traitor. If they’ve decided I don’t exist, then that’s the best I can hope for.”

“What’s the worst?”

“Death.”

I glanced at Vic and Sancho. “They would try and kill you for leaving the Apostolic Church of the Lamb of God?”

“For testifying against it.”

“Have you . . .” I had to choose my words carefully. “Known of them killing anyone?”

“I’ve never seen it, if that’s what you mean, but people disappear, especially since things changed.”

“People like you?”

He thought about that one. “My situation is different.”

“How?”

“I’m the One.”

“In what way?”

“Through lineage, I am the One of Three.”

I sighed. “Three what?”

“The One, Mighty and Strong.”

I could feel a headache coming on from all the cultspeak. “Who are the other two?”

“My brothers.” He then added, “My half-brothers. George and Ronald.”

I thought about how Eddy had referred to Edgar, and tried not to think about the tangled webs of ancestry within the Apostolic Church of the Lamb of God. “And are they still in the church?”

“Yes. You see, my father’s teachings are different from those of the Church of Latter-day Saints; they believe through the proclamation of Joseph Smith Jr. in 1832 that there will be a leader of the church who will come to set the house of God in order, that he will be the One, Mighty and Strong. According to my father, the mistake they make is that it will be one man, when in reality it will be three.”

“So you’re the One, and your brothers George and Ronald go by the titles of Mighty and Strong?”

“Yes.”

I rested my face in a hand and spoke through my fingers. “So, let me get this straight: your father is Roy Lynear?”

“Yes.”

“And does he know where you are?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

I threw a thumb over my shoulder. “Then who sent your bodyguard, Mr. Rockwell, the Danite, Man of God, Son of Thunder?”

“I don’t know.”

I brought my face up to look at him. “Have you discussed this with Mr. Rockwell?”

“Yes, and he won’t say.”

“Well, I’ll take that up with him. In the meantime, do you remember the conversation you had with Nancy Griffith, the school psychologist?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, she told me that you said something about the possibility that your mother might be dead.” He didn’t say anything but looked at the blank screen on the television as if there might be some comfort there. “She mentioned that it might’ve been something that happened recently.”

He cleared his throat, then blinked and nodded with a disconcerting certitude. “She’s dead.”

I let that one settle for a while before continuing. “I’m sorry to have to ask these questions, Cord, but how do you know?”

His eyes glanced off mine for an instant. “She hasn’t come looking for me.”

“She was in the Butte County Sheriff’s Office a few weeks ago, asking for you.”

He nodded and continued to stare at the screen.

I glanced back at Vic and Saizarbitoria, sitting on the edge of their seats. “If she was killed, who do you suppose killed her?”

He stammered. “I . . . I’m not sure.”