Craig Johnson - Another Mans Moccasins

C ra i g J o h n s o n

a nother

mans

m occasins

V I K I N G

another mans

moccasins

Also by Craig Johnson

The Cold Dish

Death Without Company

Kindness Goes Unpunished

C ra i g J o h n s o n

a nother

mans

m occasins

V I K I N G

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2008 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright Craig Johnson, 2008

All rights reserved

PUBLISHERS NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LIBR ARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Johnson, Craig,

Another mans moccasins : a Walt Longmire mystery / Craig Johnson.

p. cm.

ISBN: 1-4362-3563-4

1. Longmire, Walt (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. Sheriffs--Fiction. 3. Vietnamese--United States--Fiction. 4.

Wyoming--Fiction. I.

Title.

PS3610.O325A56

2008

813'.6--dc22 2007029979

Set in Dante

Designed by Alissa Amell

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

For Bill Bower and all those crazy bastards who fl ew off the USS Hornet and into those cold, gray skies on the morning of April 18, 1942and everybody who ever threw a salute before and after.

Acknowledgments

A writer, like a sheriff, is the embodiment of a group of people and without their support both are in a tight spot. I have been blessed with a close order of family, friends, and associates who have made this book possible. This book is a work of fi ction, and as such its important to point out that the guys at the 377th Security Police Squadron were top- notch law enforcement personnel.

I would like to thank Kara Newcomer, historian for the United States Marine Corps History Division, and the folks down at Willow Creek Ranch. Janet Hubbard- Brown and Astrid Latapie for helping out with handling the French at the Indo-Chinese fire drill, and the staff and doctors at the VA Medical Center over at Fort Mackenzie in Sheridan, including Hollis W. Hackman and Chuck Guilford.

Thanks to my chiefs of staff, Gail Hochman, Kathryn Court, Alexis Washam, and Ali Bothwell Mancini; to my officer in charge of logistics, Sonya Cheuse; and to Susan Fain, my military council. Thanks to Marcus Red Thunder for taking the muffler off the jeep to convince the enemy that we had tanks. Kudos to Eric Boss for requisitioning everything I needed, including the beer. A big thanks to James Crumley for the canteen and to Curt Wendelboe and Rob Kresge for leaning over and pointing out that it was quiettoo quiet.

And to the person I enjoy sharing my foxhole with most, my wife, Judy.

Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor untilI have walked a mile in his moccasins.

Old Indian Prayer

another mans

moccasins

Two more.

Cady looked at me but didnt say anything.

It had been like this for the last week. Wed reached a plateau, and she was satisfied with the progress shed made.

I wasnt. The physical therapist at University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia had warned me that this might happen. It wasnt that my daughter was weak or lazy; it was far worse than thatshe was bored.

Two more?

I heard you.... She plucked at her shorts and avoided my eyes. Your voice; it carries.

I placed an elbow on my knee, chin on fist, sat farther back on the sit-up bench, and glanced around. We werent alone.

There was a kid in a Durant Quarterback Club T-shirt who was trying to bulk up his 145- pound frame at one of the Universal machines. Im not sure why he was up herethere were no televisions, and it wasnt as fancy as the main gym downstairs. I understood all the machines up hereyou didnt have to plug any of them inbut I wondered about him; it could be that he was here because of Cady.

Two more.

Piss off.

2 CR A I

G J

O H N S

O N

The kid snickered, and I looked at him. I glanced back at my daughter. This was good; anger sometimes got her to finish up, even if it cost me the luxury of conversation for the rest of the evening. It didnt matter tonight; she had a dinner date and then had to be home for an important phone call. I had zip.

I had all the time in the world.

She had cut her auburn hair short to match the spot where they had made the U-shaped incision that had allowed her swelling brain to survive. Only a small scar was visible at the hairline.

She was beautiful, and the pain in the ass was that she knew it.

It got her pretty much whatever she wanted. Beauty was lifes E-ZPass. I was lucky I got to ride on the shoulder.

Two more?

She picked up her water bottle and squeezed out a gulp, leveling the cool eyes back on me. We sat there looking at each other, both of us dressed in gray. She stretched a finger out and pulled the band of my T-shirt down, grazing a fingernail on my exposed collarbone. That one?

Just because she was beautiful didnt mean she wasnt smart. Diversion was another of her tactics. I had enough scars to divert the entire First Division. She had known this scar and had seen it on numerous occasions. Her question was a symp-tom of the memory loss that Dr. Rissman had mentioned.

She continued to poke my shoulder with the finger. That one.

Two more.

That one?

Cady never gave up.

It was a family trait, and in our tiny family, stories were the coinage of choice, a bartering in the aesthetic of information and the athletics of emotion, so I answered her. Tet.

A N

OT

H ER

M

A

N S

M O

CC

A

S

I N

S

She set her water bottle down on the rubber- padded fl oor.

When?

Before you were born.

She lowered her head and looked at me through her lashes, one cheek pulled up in a half smile. Things happened before I was born?

Well, nothing really important.

She took a deep breath, gripped the sides of the bench, and put all her effort into straightening the lever action of thirty pounds at her legs. Slowly, the weights lifted to the limit of the movement and then, just as slowly, dropped back. After a moment, she caught her breath. Marine inspector, right?