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

“And that’s what happened to Tisdale?”

Donna picked up the papers and handed them to me. “One of the things.”

I took them, folded them, and placed them in the inside pocket of my jacket, which was hanging on the back of my stool. “He thinks he’s Orrin Porter Rockwell; what were you guys trying to do, infiltrate the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?”

She laughed. “Dale Tisdale really was CIA, unlike all these jaybirds around here who say they were—just once, I’d like to get one of the fake ones crossways with me so I could show them what the real CIA is capable of.”

• • •

Henry read by the overhead map light as I drove. “So, he hadn’t lost his mind when he was in Mexico, which is a shame because I think I lost mine in Cabo one time.” The Cheyenne Nation studied the papers. “Sometimes it is a gradual process; I think that is what Donna was trying to intimate to us.”

I steered the Bullet south on I-25 through the chilling night and glanced past Henry toward the invisible mountains, taking comfort in knowing they were there and that I was not climbing them. “Why would the CIA send someone like that back into duty?”

“Possibly because they did not know how much of a psychological break he had sustained in Southeast Asia?”

I gave the Bear the horse eye. “Kind of hard to miss a guy with a beard and hair down to his ass who claims to be a historical Western figure.”

He sighed. “As I said, it would appear that the Orrin Porter Rockwell manifestation of his character is relatively recent—say, when he was arrested by the federal authorities in Mexico. It would appear that the CIA claimed that the entire operation was rogue and they hung Tisdale out to dry.”

“For the second time at least.” I shook my head. “Remind me to never work for the CIA.”

“It is possible that some of it was a rogue undertaking; Tisdale conceived the idea and named it Operation Milkshake. Evidently, because of his specific skill set, he was put in charge of this operation in Mexico that involved the appropriation of crude oil.” He stopped reading and gazed through the dark windshield. “I recall a while back the Justice Department found out American refineries had been buying massive quantities of stolen oil from the Mexican government.” He turned to look at me. “The bandits and drug gangs tap into pipelines out in these remote areas and some of them were even building their own pipelines to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil a year.”

“So Operation Milkshake was not a penny-ante operation.”

“No, and it would appear that a portion of the American government wanted to get in on the action.” His eyes dropped. “There were a number of subsequent investigations, indictments, and arrests—one of whom was Tisdale.” He shifted in his seat. “Operation Milkshake . . . That sounds strangely familiar; where does that come from?”

“Albert Fall, the secretary of the Interior under Harding, was convicted of taking bribes for oil rights on public lands, namely from the Teapot Dome Naval Oil Reserves just a little south of here. In a congressional hearing, the senator from New Mexico was famous for having made a statement about the process of directional oil drilling—‘If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake.’”

“What a typically white venture.”

I ignored the remark and continued. “Tisdale appears to be something of an expert in history and would know that statement.”

“Whatever happened to Fall?”

“Died penniless in El Paso.” I took the off-ramp at Powder Junction. “Do the papers indicate where all this Mormon stuff comes from?”

The Bear synopsized. “After an unfortunate incident with a Cessna Bonanza, the U.S. government denied his existence and reported him dead. The Mexican government, left with an unidentified prisoner, dumped him in Penal del Altiplano where he shared a cell with newfound Mormon Tomás Bidarte.”

I turned and looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

Henry shrugged. “Evidently, Dale Tisdale converted to the point where he actually thought of himself as Orrin Porter Rockwell; as a Caucasian finding himself in the environs of a maximum security prison in Mexico, it might have been a survival instinct and the only way he made it through.”

“So he and Bidarte were locked up together; I thought there was something that passed between them when they shook hands down at East Spring.” I stopped at the sign at the bottom of the interstate ramp alongside the rest stop. “How did he get out?”

The Cheyenne Nation nodded. “As you have surmised, with Bidarte’s help, they bribed their way to freedom by selling Tisdale’s land holdings in East Spring Ranch to Roy Lynear.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” I made the left through the underpass and stopped at the next sign where the Short Drop road crossed Old Highway 87. A Powder River Fire District truck approached from the south with its siren and lights going but made a left before getting to us.

“He was picked up in Utah by the Highway Patrol while kneeling by a roadside cross; he was then incarcerated in a psychiatric ward for observation, but once he admitted to having lived in Wyoming, they shipped him off to Evanston.”

“Why didn’t they contact his family?”

“At that point he claimed to have no living relatives and asserted to be the Orrin Porter Rockwell, and before anyone could ascertain just who he was, he escaped.”

“So he lived the Legend.”

“It would appear so.”

We sat there in the darkness at the four-way stop in Powder Junction, Wyoming, the caution light intermittently flashing and giving me the feeling it was a metaphor. I listened as the siren from the volunteer fire truck stopped—it didn’t sound all that far away. “Then why is he here now, protecting his grandson? Who contacted him? Who knew he was still alive? Bidarte?”

“The answer to that question does not appear to be in the file.” The big Cheyenne Indian looked at me with a sad smile. “What about the daughter?”

I sat there, idling. “Unavailable for comment, and not very popular with her parents.”

He nodded, the yellow light flickering its warmth on the reflective surface of his dark eyes. “Now everything leads to Mexico, Operation Milkshake, and the Apostolic Church of the Lamb of God.”

“Agreed.”

Another truck pulled up across the road and sat there, obviously waiting for me to go first, so I reached down and flicked the lever, throwing my brights at him so that he’d know it was okay to proceed. “Double Tough says the Teapot Dome Reserves are tapped out and that the federal government tried to sell the place off to private developers but nobody bit.”

“Then why are they here?”

I blinked my lights at the truck again; obviously he’d noticed the stars and bars on my vehicle and figured it was a trick. “According to Vic this is the end of the world, and maybe they’re what they say they are, religious zealots looking for a place to be left alone; wouldn’t be the first time that type has turned up on the high plains.”

The Bear completed my thought. “The drill bit, the weapons, and . . .”

“And what?”

“One of these things is not like the others. Tom Lockhart, Tomás Bidarte, the man Gloss—some of these individuals do not seem to fit the religious modus operandi.”

I flipped on my light bar for an instant, just to give the guy in the truck an official assurance he could go ahead. “Anyway, I just want to know what’s happened to Sarah Tisdale.”

“So, when we get through at the substation, we are continuing on to Short Drop?”