Depth of Winter: A Longmire Mystery - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire mysteries, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Longmire. He is the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for fiction, the Nouvel Observateur Prix du Roman Noir, and the Prix SNCF du Polar. His novella Spirit of Steamboat was the first One Book Wyoming selection. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population 25.

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1

I turned my water glass in the slick circle of condensation on the smooth, red lacquer of the table between us and studied the man across from me. I was afraid that if I didn't pay attention, he might disappear. The Seer was like that; it was as if he simply drifted away, giving him access to places without appearing to be there, making other people's secrets his own.

"You should take in some of the culture while you are here south of the border-go to the bullfights." Adjusting his straw porkpie hat to a jauntier angle, the hunchback smiled. "You might enjoy it."

I said nothing.

He looked in my general direction, the smile slowly fading. "My friend, Miguel Guerra, says you are highly motivated, but that if I can talk you out of this, I should."

I still said nothing.

He stared at me. "Do you speak Spanish?"

I wiped the sweat from under my eyes with a thumb and forefinger-I had a hard time convincing myself it was coming up on November. "Very little."

He had taken his cheap sunglasses off and placed them next to his drink. His eyes were opaque, and they wandered past me, toward the knobby hills to the south that rose from the desert like a bony hand, the fingers spreading to make peaks and battlements, as if the mountains were at war with the flat land. "That's not good, because where you are going there will be places where no one speaks English."

The Seer sipped his soft drink and then batted the white cane between the knees of his threadbare pants at the exact place where his legs ended.

"Your English is very good."

He shrugged. "I have lived my whole life here in Ju‡rez and back before the new drugs, we were just a suburb of El Paso." He glanced down at his truncated legs. "Not the old drugs that did this. My mother traveled to Germany in the sixties and was given the drug that took my legs and my sight and in the process gave me this humped back." He vaguely waved at it sitting there like one of the battlements behind him. "Did you know that hunchbacks are seen as lucky in my country-that we bring good fortune?"

"I hope that's the case."

"Personally, it has never brought me any providence." He paused for a moment and then turned toward the Club Kentucky, seeing it the way it was in his mind's eye. "Ju‡rez used to be Las Vegas before there was a Las Vegas-twenty-four-hour bars, casinos, cabarets, brothels." The Seer sipped his soda. "It is said that this club invented the margarita." He nodded. "Marilyn Monroe sat on that very stool where you sit now."

"How do you know Marilyn Monroe?"

He smiled broadly for the first time, and I was surprised at the blinding perfection of his teeth. "My mother was here."

"In this bar?"

"S’, January twenty-first, 1961. Monroe filed for divorce from Arthur Miller here in Ju‡rez. She was with two men, her lawyers, Aurellano Gonz‡lez Vargas and Arturo Sosa Aguilar. They filed a suit of incompatibility of character." He leaned in confidentially. "A marvelous playwright, but she told my mother he was hung like a cocktail sausage."

"Huh."

"She also saw your John Wayne drink himself senseless and walk out onto the sidewalk where he fell face-first like a tree." Sensing my disinterest, the Seer leaned back against the wall. "Most tourists love stories about Hollywood celebrities."

"I'm not here as a tourist."

He waved his cane toward me and changed the subject. "Can you ride a burro?"

"I can ride a horse."

"That does not mean you can ride a burro; there are places where you cannot go by horse or car."

"Fine, I'll walk."

"It is not enough." He studied the problem for a while and then shook his head. "Where you are going you will need a reason to be there, or they will kill you just to hear the sound of their weapons."

"I guess trying to blend in isn't much of a possibility?"

He smiled and slowly began shaking his head. "Let's see, shall we?" His face became somber, and his mouth hung open as if he were tasting the air between us like a snake. "From the timbre of your voice and lung capacity I would say you are at least two hundred pounds, and from the way the floorboard creaked when you walked in I would say two-fifty."

"I am."

"From the angle of your voice, I would say you are six-foot-four or five."

"Five."

"Facial structure also affects the voice-you are of Northern European descent so I am guessing blondish, but considering your age possibly gray, and with blue eyes-but not pure blue, more likely blue with either green or gray."

"Gray, no blue."

"Ah, eyes are difficult. . . . But you will have to forgive me in that I have never actually seen blue or gray or any other colors for that matter." He glanced toward the bar where he knew without seeing that the entire staff of four aged bartenders were watching and listening to us. "And from the deference of the staff, I am guessing your persona is formidable."

I sighed. "Lately."

"You are armed?"

"Yep."

"With what?"

"Colt 1911."

He shook his head at the antiquity of my sidearm. "Why the .45?"

"Because they don't make a .46."

He smirked and allowed his sightless eyes to rest on the surface of the small table between us. "I regret having to ask . . . but can you shoot?"

"Yep."

"How well?"

"Well enough for whatever needs to be done."

He paused for a moment and then nodded. "Maybe we use this." He tipped his head to one side. "There have always been men who come here from your country mostly for money and women, but other things, too. I propose a safari, but not for animals."

"For what then?"

"There were men like yourself who came to Old Mexico in search of antiquities. Even now. There was a good friend of my cousin's, a Mr. Guzm‡n, who was here searching for a particular Russian Model P made by your Colt company."

"JosŽ Guzm‡n." I smiled. "Although I think his friends call him Buck."

"I believe that is his name, s’. He was a lawman like you-you know him?"

"A legend."

"My cousin was with him when he bought the single-action pistol from a fat policeman who was directing traffic in the middle of the street in Nogales." He sipped his Guayaba Jarritos. "What kind of lawman are you?"

"Absaroka County Sheriff, Wyoming."

"We don't see many sheriffs." He warmed to his purveyor of antique armaments idea and nodded more vigorously. "This will provide us with an excuse for being in areas where we might not normally be, and it gives us a bargaining reputation without the hazards of drug money." He finished his soda. "I will begin spreading the word that there is a gringo in town looking for vintage armaments and that we will be traveling around the area south of here."

"We?"

He lowered his eyes. "Yours is a good cause, and I would like to help you."

I shook my head but then spoke, realizing he couldn't see my response. "I can't let you do that. I appreciate your help, but if you go with me you're likely to be killed."

"I am half dead now, so what does it matter?"...