“There has to be more.” They both looked at me. “That night, the night that Bobby died, something happened. Something with the money . . . I don’t know.” I pointed a finger toward the women. “But at least one of them does.”
We watched as the two women finished their conversation and then hugged, long and hard. They stood there holding each other and maybe it was me, but the tall trooper in her long slicker and the tiny medicine woman seemed to change places, and I could almost see them as they had been all those years ago, the sha-woman and the little blond girl who must’ve loved her more than life itself and gone everywhere with her. It was strange the paths the human heart chose to take and the attachments it made along the way. The surest sign of the altruistic nature of the organ is its ability to ignore race, color, creed, and gender and just blindly love with all its might—one of the most irrefutable forces on earth.
They broke apart, arms still entwined, as they held each other at arm’s length, a miracle of synchronicity.
Rosey placed an arm over Kimama’s shoulder, and they walked toward us but stopped where Sam’s Toyopet Crown sat waiting. They looked at each other again, hugged once more, and then Rosey helped Kimama into her seat, giving Sam a quick look as she closed the door.
“Gotta go.” He swung away from us, and he and Rosey exchanged a few words over the metallic blue top of the vehicle before he wedged inside and began cranking on the starter.
Rosey walked toward us as the ancient Toyota finally caught and belched a cloud of bluish black smoke before dying. Sam cranked the starter again, and the Toyota started on the fourth try, rattling to life, stuttering and pulling out, only to die one more time.
Rosey looked back, shaking her head. “I think we may have to push that thing to get it going.”
“Maybe.”
She slapped the snow from her hat as she cracked open the door of her unit while Henry and I stood by, me pulling my pocket watch from my jeans and reading the time to her. “It’s 12:32, in case you were wondering.”
She settled in the seat, still watching the Toyota as Sam ground the starter. “You know what? I really don’t care.”
I smiled down at her. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“I can’t help but think that it’s all over, you know? That Kimama and I were meant to find each other and now that we have, that it’s done.”
“Maybe so.”
Pulling his duster closed and folding his arms, Henry leaned a hip against her car. “Perhaps that is what this was all about.”
I continued to smile, but something caught the corner of my eye as I glanced at the road heading north, something shiny. I turned my head, but it still glistened, a sparkle in the snow-dusted road.
Stepping off, I walked toward it down the scenic byway, passing the Toyota as it finally caught and started again. It was up the road, but even in the falling snow it caught the light like a beacon.
Rosey’s voice called out after me. “Walt? What are you doing?”
Hoping against hope that it wasn’t what I thought it was, I kept walking with my back to them and then stopped. I thought about kicking it to the side of the road and pretending that it wasn’t really there, but that’s not how the fates work; they align themselves like gears in a giant and inevitable machine, the spanner kicks forward, and the teeth mesh in an inexorable whir, a noise that decides your fate like a roulette wheel.
Walking to the centerline, I turned and knelt, picking up the silver dollar. There were only a few flakes on it and it was warm, very warm. Carefully palming the pocket watch I still held in my right hand, I turned the face upward and read the time.
12:34.
Automatically and in that slow motion that overtakes you in those lean moments of disaster, my eyes went to the tunnel, but no apparition was there, only the sputtering Toyopet Crown, which had shuddered and died once again, stalling just in front of the entrance of the tunnel and coasting to a stop.
As Sam Little Soldier tried the starter again, I turned back to Rosey and Henry, the trooper sitting in the driver’s seat of the Dodge with the Bear standing by the door, both of them looking at me. As I stared past the coin, it became more obvious that they were not looking at me but farther up the road.