Read Online A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson - Free Book Online Page B

whom Vic continually referred to as Doggies, and the Worland Warriors in their epic tiff—and the retiring of one Walt Longmire’s jersey and that of Henry Standing Bear, both dutifully displayed on either side of the banner.
    “Sixty-nine—really?”
    I shrugged and thought about how I hadn’t promised Nancy that I would be there. “I’d forgotten my number.”
    “Gives me ideas.” I didn’t rise to the bait, so she continued. “I bet you were popular.”
    I shrugged again. “I did all right.”
    She smiled, reading the banner as we drove underneath. “I bet ol’ number thirty-two did better.”
    I thought about the Bear and how I’d better make a call out to The Red Pony Bar and Grill if I didn’t want to face this ignominy alone. “Henry did better than everybody. He still does.”
    “I still want a corsage in the orange and black of the Durant Doggies.”
    “Dogies.”
    “What the hell is a doggie, anyway?”
    “A dogie is a motherless calf.”
    She studied the storefronts as we drove through town, her thoughts darkening like the windows. “How appropriate. Do you find it worrisome that Cord escaped from or was expulsed by a religious cult and now we have one setting up camp in our own county?”
    I glanced at her. “Our county?”
    “Yeah, well . . . I wasn’t elected, but I’m de facto.”
    “I thought you were a Moretti.”
    “Ha ha.” She poked my shoulder with an index finger. “Answer the question.”
    “Yes, I do.” I watched the buildings go by and had to admit that I liked the county seat quiet like this. “And it’s even more worrisome since Tim Berg says the head honcho up at that place in
his
county also goes by the name of Lynear.”
    She turned to look at me. “You’re kidding.”
    “Nope, but we also don’t know for sure that our Lynear’s place is a cult.”
    “Uh-huh—that conversation had more Bible quotes than a revival meeting.” She thought about it. “You think Cord’s mother might be mixed up with this bunch rather than the one in South Dakota?”
    “Not with Sarah coming into the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and the pants Cord had on from Belle Fourche, but there has to be a connection explaining why Cord showed up here.”
    “Other than a grandmother in Short Drop who obviously didn’t know that he exists?”
    “Yep.”
    “Considering the newfound information, I think it was very politic of you to not bring up the familial connection between the interstate Lynears with Eleanor Tisdale.” She readjusted, tucking one boot under the other leg. “So, it sounds like you’re getting ready to have a wide-reaching conversation with young Cord.”
    “I am now that the county psychologist says I can.”
    “What are you going to do about Roy Lynear and his bunch?”
    I sighed. “Not a lot I can do until they do something against the law.”
    “Like walking around shoving their guns in people’s faces and cleaning their fingernails with illegal knives?” She mused on the supposed compound to the south. “Your worst nightmare come true.”
    “And Eleanor Tisdale’s, since apparently her husband sold the place to them.”
    She nodded to herself and smiled. “So, when are we going to go poke around the East Spring Ranch?”
    I really didn’t have the right, but I was curious, especially with the probable connection with the compound in South Dakota. It was also possible that I just didn’t like Roy Lynear and his gun-toting son; either way, it was important to know what was going on down there in one of the neglected corners of my county. “First thing in the morning.”
    “What do you make of the Spanish blade?”
    I thought about the man. “Doesn’t fit, does he?”
    “One severe case of badass, if you ask me.”
    “Why is that?”
    “He wasn’t scared, Walt. Considerate, yes, but not scared at all. Anybody else in that situation would’ve been just a little bit intimidated, but he wasn’t.” She waited to make the next statement