The new deck is my favorite part. It’s about as big as the house and goes out the back door toward the hills. There’s an opening in the middle where they said I could plant a tree in the spring, but for now it’s where I toss the empty beer cans. It’s an easy shot from the lawn chair, which I placed against the log wall of the house, and my sheepskin coat keeps me warm enough. The cooler is right beside the chair, so I don’t have to get up much. Sometimes, at night, the beer freezes, but I just wait for it to thaw the next morning.

Periodically, vehicles come up the driveway; some of them are official and some of them aren’t. The DCI Suburban was one of the official ones, and they brought the Bullet back sans bullet holes. They left the keys on the counter, and she sits out there pawing the ground, waiting. I guess Ferg got a new truck. Vic came by once, but now she just calls and talks to the phone machine. I’ve developed a tactic for dealing with these drive-by visits. No matter what time of day it is or what I might be doing, whenever I hear somebody coming up the driveway, I just step off the deck and start walking toward the hills. In a couple of minutes, I can be in those hills. Sometimes I walk; sometimes I just pick out a rock and sit. Nobody stays very long, but I lose track of time out there, and sometimes I remember coming out when it’s still light, only to look around and find that it’s dark. Sometimes, it’s the other way around, and I get to watch the sun come up.

People leave food, but nobody ever leaves beer so, every once in a while, I have to make the run into the outskirts of Durant to buy it at the Texaco station near the highway. I haven’t shaved in a while, so the kid that works there doesn’t know me, or pretends that he doesn’t.

I have a friend that showed up after a few days. One morning when I woke up in the lawn chair, he was lying out at the end of the back pasture, just at the sage. He didn’t make any move to come in closer but just sat out there all day watching me. He would circle around the house, only to return to the sage after a while. I didn’t think he meant any harm; like me he just didn’t choose to go anywhere else. The next trip into the Texaco station, I bought dog food and left it in a bowl at the edge of the deck, along with water. Every morning it was gone and, after a few days, he slept there, as long as I didn’t move much, which was okay, because I wasn’t moving much these days. He had lost a little weight since escaping from Vonnie’s mudroom, and Vic mentioned in one of her telephone reports that the Game and Fish guys had had quite a rodeo when he ran off.

One day, Henry’s truck came up the drive and, as I started my usual retreat to the back forty, the dog ambled along after me. When I sat on one of my favorite rocks, he came over and sat down not too far away, and we waited for Henry to leave the house together. I reached over and rubbed my hand across the dog’s big head, and he looked up at me. He had sad eyes, and it was as if he had had enough, too. As I petted him, he leaned on my leg. He really was a big brute, with a shoulder spread as wide as the trunk of my body. The hair was curly on his back with all kinds of reddish swirls and swoops. It looked like a bad toupee.

Cady called, but I knew her schedule and would call back and leave vague messages with her secretary while she was either in the law library, taking depositions, or doing whatever lawyers do when their secretaries answer the phone. It was odd to think of my daughter with a secretary, so I just kind of thought of Patti with an i as a babysitter who talked with a funny, South Philadelphia accent.

Vic called at about five-thirty at the end of each day with a report of ongoing concerns. “Hello, shithead. This is the person who’s doing your job for you as you lay out there and grow increasingly fat and stupid in your nest of depression and self-pity . . .” The messages always started that way.

“We had a drive-by egging on the middle school, which leads me to believe there may have been an accomplice . . .” I nodded. Sound detective work.

“Vandalism was reported at the old stockyard. Reporting person said someone had moved his irrigation system twice in the last month, and this time the irrigation wheel-line assembly was broken. The attending officer questioned reporting person as to what the fuck he was doing irrigating in November? Answer, came there none . . .” I nodded some more.

“There was an official protest made as to the language used by said attending officer that was deemed profane and inconsiderate of the station and age of the reporting person, shortly after the irrigation incident . . .” I shrugged. It was to be expected.

“The officer is currently available for any and all comment . . .” I bet.

“Caller requested an officer to go tell her neighbor to turn his radio down. Caller would not give her name, and said she did not know her neighbor’s name. The attending officer did find a handsome, young dentist working on a car stereo in his Land Rover. It was NPR out of Montana, and the attending officer informed the dentist that he could go ahead and listen to whatever he damn well pleased as loud as he damn well pleased and to not pay any attention to the witch next door . . .” I knew Bessie Peterson, and this was far from over.

“Further complaints of noise were duly noted . . .” Um-hmm . . .

“Jim Keller returned from his hunting trip, and rumor has it he and the Mrs. are going to be going their separate ways. Personally, I think it’s the best thing that could happen to Bryan.”

I nodded.

“Department received a memo faxed over from the hospital asking for the formal release of Mr. George Malcolm Esper. Jesus . . . Malcolm . . . I’d try and run away, too. I signed it and got Ruby to fax it back over before the little fucker escaped again . . .”

There was a long pause before the next one and with a soft and melancholy quality that I had never heard from her before. “Attending officer thought about filing a missing persons bulletin for a sad, overweight, self-deprecating, yet strangely charming sheriff today. The officer thought it might be of interest to the missing person that said officer had turned down not one, but two high-paying, high-profile jobs because she guessed she’d just lost interest in being anywhere else . . .” My eyes welled up a bit, and I waited.

“Walt, you need to come back to work, you’re not fit for anything else . . .” Another pause. “Ruby misses you, Ferg’s bored, Lucian is about to irritate the shit out of all of us because I don’t think he sees his position as being temporary, and Dorothy says she’s ready to come out there and kick your ass but doesn’t know if she should bring coleslaw?” There was another long pause.

“It’s been almost two weeks, and that’s long enough. I just thought that I should tell you that this is my last call because I’m starting to feel like an enabler . . . If you want to know what’s going on in the kingdom, you’re going to have to come out and fight a few dragons.” Another pause. “Anyway . . . the attending officer misses you.” She hung up, and my last contact with the outside world went dead.

Along with one of his food drops, Henry had left a message on the back of the manila envelope that contained the last photographs of Cody Pritchard. “There is lasagna in the refrigerator along with supplies to make sandwiches and a six-pack of canned iced tea.” Fingered in the dust on the smooth surface of the piano lid were the words, PLAY ME. I ate the lasagna.

This morning a maroon van bounced up the driveway, and it was only when I got back and discovered there was a frozen box of turkey Hot Pockets, one ceremonial beer, and the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead, that I remembered it was Thanksgiving. The rifle was lying across my recliner, looking much as it had when I had left it in the tack shed. I spent the rest of the morning trying not to look at it; but, by lunchtime, when I had come in from the deck to eat a Hot Pocket with the beer of temptation, I leaned against the counter and looked at the .45-70. A thought occurred to me, and I fished around in the pocket of my coat and pulled out one of Omar’s cartridges. I walked over and picked up the rifle and lowered the falling block with the lever. Empty. I guess Lonnie didn’t trust me, either. I placed the round in the breech and then pulled the lever back up. I know it was my imagination, but the rifle felt much heavier.

I took a moment to think about the Old Cheyenne and how revenge doesn’t ever fit when there aren’t any bad guys. It wasn’t that revenge was a dish best served cold, it was that it was a dish best not served at all. I thought about what it was the Old Cheyenne really wanted; it wasn’t hard to figure out. The dead just want the same thing as the living: understanding.

I thought about how the two women’s situations were alike, and how different the two cultures’ reactions were. When Melissa had met this crisis in her life, her family and friends had restored her, but when Vonnie had faced abuse, she had met silence and recrimination, and the violation done to her child’s soul had been swept under the Turkish rugs. Granted, it could be said that it was the times and not the culture that had dictated these reactions, and I hoped that was true. I really did.

I walked through the open door and onto the deck with the rifle in my hands. The sun was headed off to the west, and I could barely make out its faint glow through the heavy, ironclad bottoms of the clouds. I watched as the first flakes began drifting down; they would pile up against the hills, and the familiar landmarks of the ranch would gently disappear.

The dog turned to look at me from the far side of the deck but, when he saw the rifle, he began to rise and growl. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I just stood there. He moved off and settled over the edge, periodically raising his head to look at me again, register a disapproving growl, and disappear.

I crossed to the lawn chair and sat down with the buffalo rifle across my lap. I reached over and flipped open the top of the cooler to find nothing. I was out and, if I wanted another beer, I was going to have to make the run. I sat there and looked at the hills and the increasingly gloomy world. I looked down at the Sharps.

I thought about what Dena Many Camps had said when she had run her fingers over the owl feathers and had quickly unbraided her hair; that there are spirits that linger near this ghost weapon and that they can easily take away the souls of those still living for the enjoyment of their society. I hoped the Old Cheyenne had come and gotten Vonnie, taking her to the Camp of the Dead. She was damn fine company, and she deserved better than she had gotten in this world. I strained my eyes into the distance and saw her there with them, and she was laughing and pulling a wayward slip of butterscotch back with two fingers. I saw her there along with Lonnie’s legs. Maybe half truths were all you got in this life.

When I looked back down, I saw that the dog was looking into the snow where I had been staring, and the wind narrowed his eyes until he looked back at me. Just as I had thought all along, he could see them too.

I listened to the Canada geese as they honked their way south. They only flew about thirty feet off the ground, and I could hear the whir of their wings as they passed overhead. Then the ceremonial Rainier I had drunk earlier overtook me, and I fell asleep.

There was a minuscule break in the clouds, and the thin sliver became a deep red as the sun started to drop over the mountains. I pulled my hat even farther down as the dog looked over the scattering angels of snow that had collected on the deck and on me. He rested his head on the edge and looked at me with the expectation of retreat glowing in his dark eyes, but I wasn’t moving. I was too tired. Chances were Henry would leave the food and go, but I have to say that I was growing irritated as he lingered in my kitchen and arranged things in preparation for the movable feast. I waited, but he didn’t go away.

After a while, he stepped onto the deck from the back of the cabin, and the beast growled a low and resonant warning. “Wahampi . . .” Things got quiet again; evidently, the dog had a strong Sioux streak. I didn’t move, in hopes that he would leave, but that hope faded and the lid on the cooler squealed as over 220 pounds sat on it. Damn Indians, you never could get rid of them on Thanksgiving.

I could hear more geese flying over as he popped the tops on two of the canned iced teas and handed me one. I didn’t take it at first, but he just held it there against my hand until I did. The honking continued and, with the beat of their downdraft, it sounded like every goose in the high plains was leaving. “You know, Lonnie told me something about those geese . . .”

I waited awhile, but finally responded. “Yep?”

“You know how they always fly in that V?”

“Yeah?”

“And one side of the V is always longer?”

He waited forever, and there was nothing else I could do. “Why is that?”

“Because . . . there are more geese on one side than the other. Um-hmm, yes it is so . . .”