Junkyard Dogs Read online

  Santiago Saizarbitoria—Sancho, as Vic had christened our Basque deputy—was seated on the wheel well and was watching as Cathi Kindt swabbed road debris from a few scratches and burns on Geo Stewart’s ear where he’d collided with one of the chrome-tipped tailpipes of the Olds.

  I looked at the assembled deputies and EMTs—it was either a slow day for civil service on the high plains or everybody was looking for a place to get inside. I put my gloved hands on my knees and leaned in for a look at the junkman. “You know, in this country we usually reserve this kind of treatment for horse thieves.”

  Geo smiled, red-faced and glassy-eyed. He was a ball of tendons and stringy muscle, tanned by the scorching Wyoming summers and freeze-dried by the winters into a living jerky. He had pale blue eyes, and the edge of his pupils looked like rime ice.

  The aged Carhartt coveralls hung from him like shed skin with torn openings that exposed a red lining looking like a subcutaneous wound. His logging boots were double-tied, and he sported a welder’s undercap in a faded floral print. A huge key ring, attached to a loop at his hip, jingled as he spoke. “Hey, Sheriff.”

  George “Geo” Stewart’s great-grandfather was one of the original founders of Durant and said to be the first Caucasian baby born in the territory, but it was Geo’s father who started the junkyard after the Second World War. When a mild amount of suburban sprawl overtook his collection of discarded automobiles and trucks in the early sixties, the county commissioners persuaded Geo the elder to take his rusting inventory and swap his in-town spread for a larger one farther east that they had acquired from Dirty Shirley, the last madam to do business in the county.

  The commissioners had retained some of the land next to the junkyard and had made it the town landfill, so when Geo the elder died, Geo the younger inherited the junkyard and the part-time position of maintaining the weigh-station scales and the municipal property.

  He had a knack for such things, and I only heard from him when people tried to dump without a city water bill, when they tried to skim on the amount of refuse they unloaded, or when kids got into his junkyard and tried to make off with vintage goods. “Hey, Geo, how are things up at the dump?”

  His expression took on a serious quality, but he was nothing if not unfailingly polite. “With all due respect, Walt, Municipal Solid Waste Facility.”

  I shook my head at the old man. “Right.”

  “He won’t go to the hospital.” Cathi looked back at me. The Absaroka County sheriff’s department might not have too much to do besides stay in out of the winter wind, but Cathi Kindt was another story.

  I avoided the paramedic’s gaze and sat next to Sancho. “Does he need to?”

  She sat on the gurney next to George and folded her arms. “He’s seventy-two years old and just got dragged behind a car for two and a quarter miles.”

  I took off my hat and studied the inside band to gain a little time and let Cathi cool off. Mike Hodges up at H-Bar Hats in Billings had been kind enough to build me a fawn-colored one, since I’d pitched the last one into the Powder River after I decided that I was not a black hat kinda guy.

  I leaned forward and looked past the irate EMT. Geo was still smiling at me, and I figured his teeth were the best part on him. “He looks pretty good, considering.” The grin broadened. “How do you feel, Geo?”

  He looked around the interior of the van and took in the expensive equipment. “I ain’t got any of that gaddam insurance.”

  I figured as much. “Geo, what part of you hit the mailbox?” Everybody in the van looked at me, Cathi started to speak, and Vic covered a grin and snorted a quick laugh.

  “M’shoulder.” He moved it, and I could see its alien position and hear the joint grind. “Little stiff.”

  “Why don’t we get it X-rayed?”

  He shrugged with the other shoulder. “I told ya. I don’t have none of that insurance.”

  I smiled back at him and shook my head. “It’s okay, Geo, the county’s got plenty of money.”

  “I want a raise.” Vic walked along beside me as the glass doors of Durant Memorial’s emergency entrance closed behind us.

  “No.”

  We were bringing up the rear of the Municipal Solid Waste Facility entourage. I nodded for Saizarbitoria to follow the gurney into the operating room and gestured to Duane and Gina that they should sit on the sofas by the entryway where Geo’s brother, Morris, joined them. He’d evidently heard that his brother had been injured, and the gravity of the situation was partially reflected in the fact that as far as I knew, the man only came into town about three times a year.

  “Hi, Morris.” I waved at him, but he didn’t wave back.

  “You just said the county has plenty of money.”

  I lowered my voice in an attempt to get her to lower hers. “They do for medical services involving recalcitrant, uninsured junkmen but not for the sheriff department’s payroll.”

  Her voice became more conversational. “I want to buy a house.”

  I nodded and then smiled just to let her know that she shouldn’t take her current annual wage personally. “Then you should work hard and save your money.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “It’s amazing the respect I seem to command from my staff, isn’t it?”

  Janine, who sat behind the desk, was my dispatcher Ruby’s granddaughter. She looked up at us from her paperback, nodded, and scratched under her chin with the large, pink eraser of her pencil. “Amazing.”

  Vic leaned her back against the counter and crossed her legs at the ankles. “I’m not kidding, at least about the house. I’m tired of living in a place with wheels on it.”

  Ever since arriving in county, Vic had occupied a single-wide by the highway, and I’d often wondered why she hadn’t taken up a more permanent residence. Perhaps my latest re-election and promise to abdicate to her in two years was having an effect. “Where is this house you want?”

  “Over on Kisling. It’s a little Craftsman place.”

  I looked past her. “The one with the red door?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay, who died there?”

  I shrugged. “Nobody. I just drove by yesterday and saw a for sale sign. Do you know that the Jacobites in Scotland painted their doors red in support of the Forty-Five Rebellion and Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

  “Do you know I don’t give a bonnie big shit?”

  Janine snickered.

  Vic uncrossed her ankles and shifted from one booted foot to the other. “I’ve got an appointment to go over and look at it again tonight. I guess there’s a bunch of people interested.”

  “Would you like me to go with you?”

  She raised an exquisite eyebrow. “Why in the This Old House hell would I want you to do that?”

  She had a point; my home skills were just short of negligible—I’d only gotten around to having the Mexican tile in my six-year-old log cabin installed this past fall. “It’s a guy thing; even if you don’t know anything about cars, you open the hood and look at the engine.”

  “Seven-thirty. Then I’ll let you take me out to dinner.”

  I took the weight off my sore foot and looked down at my boots, which were covered with buckled galoshes. “That’s a nice part of town. The houses around there usually go in a hurry. What do they want for it?”

  “One-seventy-one, but I think I can get it for one-sixty-two. Alphonse says he’ll front me the down, and then I can just pay him back when I can, sans interest.”

  Alphonse was Vic’s uncle who had a pizza parlor in Philadelphia and, other than Vic’s mother, Lena, the only non-cop Moretti. “How’s the rest of the family feel about this?”

  “They don’t know about it.” As a general rule, the machinations of the Moretti family made the Borgias’ seem like Blondie and Dagwood.

  Her shoulder bumped into my arm as she changed the subject. “So, your daughter and my brother are getting married this summer?”

  I took a deep breath with a
quick exhale. “All I know is what I get from the answering machine at home.”

  “At least you’ve got a home.” She shifted her weight again, this time in not-so-simple dissatisfaction. “Mom says the end of July.”

  I shrugged. “Mom would know.” I thought about Vic’s mother, and the brief time I’d spent in Philly almost a year ago. “Did she mention whether they were thinking of doing it here or in Philadelphia?”

  She looked up at me. “There was supposedly talk about some special place on the Rez—Crazy something . . .”

  I thought about it. “Crazy Head Springs?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Why uh-oh?”

  “It’s where I once helped raise the powwow totem; it’s a sacred place for the Cheyenne but controversial. Crazy Head was a Crow chief, but part of the break-off Kicks-in-the-Belly band.”

  “Like Virgil?”

  “Yep, like Virgil.” Virgil had been one of our holding cell lodgers who, after having been released, had gone MIA. “The Cheyenne don’t like the idea of a Crow chief being exalted on their reservation. Henry took Cady along with us when she was seven, and she’s always said she wanted to be married there.”

  Vic shook her head. “We’ll see if it lasts till the summer.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Her eyes met mine, but she diverted again. “So, has the Basquo talked to you?”

  I started to yawn and covered my mouth with my hand. “About what?”

  “Quitting.”

  I stopped in mid-yawn. “What?”

  I studied her a moment more, but my eyes were drawn to an approaching lab coat flapping toward us from the hallway. I swiveled my head to meet Isaac Bloomfield, surgeon and all-around Durant Memorial physician-in-charge. As a member of the lost tribe, who must’ve really been lost when he settled in Wyoming, Isaac Bloomfield had set up practice in Absaroka County more than a half century ago. He had been one of the three living inmates of Dora-Mittelbau’s Nordhausen when Allied troops had liberated the Nazi Vernichtungslager. “How’s the patient?”

  “Well, that’s the first time we’ve ever had that happen.” He looked up at me through the thick lenses of his glasses, which magnified the multiple layers of skin around his eyes. “His hair has grown through his long underwear.”

  Vic made an unflattering noise through her nose.

  “Probably more than we needed to know, Doc.”

  He adjusted his glasses and motioned with his almost bald head toward the double doors of the ER. “Walter, I need you to come with me.” He glanced back as Vic started to follow. “Alone.”

  I turned to her as I followed the thin man into the inner sanctums of Durant Memorial. “Stay here. I want to know more about the house and the wedding. And Sancho.”

  She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her duty jacket and called after me. “I’ve got that appointment at seven-thirty.”

  The Doc walked me into the first examination room and closed the door. I glanced around and noticed we were the only ones there; that’s why I’m a sheriff, because I notice things like that. “Where’s the patient?”

  He placed the edge of the clipboard on the counter next to a sink and studied me. “In the next room.”

  “Please tell me he didn’t just have a heart attack.” I thought about it. “You know the family has a history.”

  “Yes, but the patient in question suffers primarily from diabetes, not heart disease.”

  “All right, then.” I looked at him. “What’s up, Doc?”

  I stood there in his disapproving silence. He slowly brought his gaze up. “You’ve had a rough year. A very rough year.” He peered at me and tapped the examination bench. “Climb up here.”

  “Isaac, I don’t have time . . .”

  He patted the clipboard. “Neither do I. I have every intention of retiring soon and handing the responsibility for this place over to the new young man we’ve hired.”

  “Who?”

  He ignored me and patted his clipboard again. “These are the mandatory examination papers for the county health plan and, if you do not sit down, I will have them cancel the coverage.”

  I took a deep breath and looked at him; he was studying the contents of the folder that contained a running documentary of my physical misadventures. The Doc usually dragged me in for the health insurance examination whenever he felt it was high time and long enough.

  Bushwhacked.

  “Ruby called you, didn’t she?” He didn’t say anything, so I sighed, stepped up, and sat.

  He placed the file on the gurney beside me, reached out and thumbed both sides of my knee, pressing up on the cap through my jeans. “How’s the knee?”

  I winced. “All right, till you started monkeying around with it.”

  He looked up at me, all the world the likeness of some venerated Caesar and just as forgiving. “The shotgun wound to your leg has healed moderately well?”

  “Yep.”

  “No lingering symptoms from pneumonia from drowning?”

  “I didn’t really drown.”

  His voice was sharp. “When you have to be resuscitated, you drowned.”

  “Okay.”

  “Take off your coat.”

  I did, and he took my left hand and examined the scar tissue. He held my upper arm and turned my forearm, rotating the elbow. “Does this hurt?”

  I lied. “No.”

  He unsnapped my cuff, raised the sleeve of my shirt, and looked more closely at the elbow itself. “You have some swelling here, under the scar tissue.”

  I lied again. I didn’t usually lie, but with the Doc it had become a habit. “I’ve always had that.”

  He shook his head and manipulated my shoulder. It sounded gravelly like Geo Stewart’s. “The shoulder?”

  “It feels great.”

  “It doesn’t feel great to me, and it doesn’t sound so good either.” He frowned as he compressed the joint and lifted my arm. “How’s that?”

  It actually hurt like hell, so I pulled my arm loose. “Not so great, which is why I’ve dropped mandatory departmental saluting.”

  “How is your foot?”

  “Fabulous.”

  He studied me with a look, and the only description that might apply would be askance. “You’re still limping.”

  “I’ve come to consider it a character trait.”

  “Take off your hat.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to help with the limp.”

  He placed his hands on my head, adjusted the angle, and pulled my left eye down for a look; this was the part I was dreading. He released my head and got a small plastic bottle of something from the cabinet behind him. “These drops are for your eyes; would you like to do it, or would you prefer I administer them?”

  “How many drops?”

  He held up two fingers, and I did my part for the advancement of medical science. My vision became blurry as he studied his wristwatch and waited. After a bit, he reexamined my eyes. “Well, your pupils don’t show any particular abrasion, but it’s the damage to the ocular cavity that has me worried.” He released me, picked up the file, and stepped back, folding his arms over the folder and his chest. “I can’t make out any detachment of the retina, but it’s possible that there’s some trauma.” He thumbed his chin and continued to look at me like a card player would an inside straight.

  “I could’a been a contender, Doc.”

  “You could also go blind as a bat in your left eye if you get hit there again.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “Just a little medical humor. If you’re not going to take your condition seriously, why should I?” He hugged my file a little tighter. “Still having the headaches?”

  “Only when I come in here.”

  I had made the mistake of mentioning to Ruby that I had had a few recurring headaches, which must have resulted in this examination. I started to edge my rear end off the table.

  �
�How often?” He continued to study me without moving out of my way.

  I took a breath and settled. “Every once in a while.”

  “What about the flashes?”

  “It was a onetime thing; I just moved my head too fast.” Once again, it was a lie, and I was pushing my luck because the Doc was pretty good at spotting them. After those smiling government Gruppenführers with black uniforms had taken him away, Isaac Bloomfield had become a walking polygraph test.

  “You’re sure?”

  The trick to a good lie, no matter how outrageous, is sticking to it. “Yep.”

  He shook his head very slightly, just to let me know he knew I was lying. “Walter, I have a deal for you.”

  “Okay.”

  He started to speak but then stopped. After a moment he licked his upper lip and tried again. “I will sign these forms indicating that you are in fine shape, which you are for a young man with this many accumulated injuries.” I liked it when the Doc called me a young man and tried not to dwell on the fact that he was in his eighties. “But, only on one condition.”

  There was always a catch with the Doc. “And that is?” “You have Andy Hall in Sheridan do a complete examination of your left eye.”

  “All right.”

  I had started to get up again, but it was too quick of an answer and he placed a hand on my knee, the bad one, to stop me. “I will set up the appointment.”

  I hedged. “I can do it, just give me his number.”

  “No, I will make the appointment for you. What time this week is good?”

  “This week?” Even with my blurred vision, I could see his large brown eyes studying me.

  “Yes.”

  Damn. I thought about it and figured the more time I had, the more time I’d have to get out of it. “Friday?”

  He produced a pen from his lab coat pocket and scribbled on the top of the forms with a flourish followed by a stabbing period. “Thursday.”