“That would have been approximately when Bobby Womack died.”
I thought about it as I swerved to miss the slow-moving tanker that Coleman had gotten back on the road, then watched as he steered into the pullout behind me and ground to a stop, probably in an attempt to avoid any more brushes with the law. “Yep.”
The Bear turned to look at me in the dim light of the cab, the greenish glow of the instrument panel reflecting off the sharp angles of his face. “What has changed in the canyon?”
I flipped off the emergency lights. “What?”
“The conversation we had previously about what could have been the catalyst for all this.”
I thought about the conclusion we’d drawn, the one that hadn’t seemed to make sense at the time. “Rosey.”
He turned toward the Wind River. “Rosey.” His voice resounded against the closed window, his breath fogging the surface. “She was there, too.”
More than a few hairs stood up on the back of my neck. “The night Bobby Womack was killed.”
He turned to look at me. “Yes.”
“She was with Kimama?”
“Kimama said that she used to come up into the canyon to visit him while they were having their affair, and if she was babysitting for Rosey she must have brought her with her.”
I sputtered. “Okay, let’s say she was there. What in the world, or out of it for that matter, would’ve started these radio communications after all these years?”
He raised his hands and gestured at the cliffs. “Rosey returning to the canyon.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Henry . . .”
“She became what he was, a trooper. Someone made the connection between the two. Bobby never had children, suppose he made some kind of spiritual link with Rosey. Her return could have triggered all of this.”
“Just so you know, you are way out on a limb with this hypothesis.”
He braced a hand on the dash as we made the last turn. “Do you have another?”
I put my foot on the brakes and slowed, feeling the rear of the three-quarter-ton break traction before pulling into the service area in front of the north tunnel. “Not yet, but I will.”
I’d barely gotten stopped before Rosey was at my window, the heat of her breath fogging the glass the way Henry’s had. “Did you find her?”
“We did—they’re coming along behind us.” She looked back up the road, but they had yet to appear. “Look, Rosey, I wouldn’t get my hopes pinned on all this. It’s just a coincidence.”
She kept looking north. “It’s not.” Her eyes turned to me, and the blue there was otherworldly. “I’m remembering things.”
? ? ?
Sam Little Soldier joined us at the truck with the spring snow collecting on him as it would on a mountain, and we watched the two women from a distance as they stood by his vintage import and talked. “This gladdens my heart.”
“You knew.”
He turned to look at Henry and nodded. “About the relationship, yes.”
“But not about Rosey’s connection with it?”
“No. That was not something Kimama mentioned. I had had my suspicions about her and Bobby, but she had never said anything, and neither did he.”
“Then who did?”
He glanced down at the snow, the slush soaking his moccasins. “I would rather not say.”
I went ahead and threw in my two cents’ worth. “I’d rather you did. All things considered, I don’t give a hoot in hell for who’s involved with whom, but when it starts having an effect on the performance of a Wyoming trooper and a friend of mine, I want answers.”
Sam stepped away from us and turned, his hands still in his pants pockets. “This is not a criminal case.”
“No, it’s personal.” I waited a moment before continuing. “I can find out from Kimama, but I’d rather spare her that.”
He stared at me a good long while in the glow of the revolving emergency lights on Rosey’s cruiser, glistening yellow from the reflection of the granite canyon walls. “Mike Harlow.”
“The trooper?”
“Bobby Womack was his training officer and in that time, he became . . . umm, aware of the situation.”
Henry and I looked at each other as I turned back to Sam. “And he kept his mouth shut?”
“The thin blue line.” Sam smiled. “And they were friends.”
“Did Harlow make the connection between Rosey and the little girl that used to accompany Kimama?”
“I doubt it—none of the rest of us did.” He shrugged. “Besides, all you blond-haired blue eyes look alike to us.” His eyes came back up to mine. “And it was thirty-five years ago, man—she was a toddler.”
“But . . .” I glanced at the Bear. “Just for argument’s sake, why would Womack’s soul bond with that little girl anyway?”
Henry took a few steps toward the two women and then turned, his voice carrying back to us. “Kindred spirits.”