“Be careful.” He climbed in the van, which was towing a bright yellow inflatable raft, and they sped away to their fate.
I leisurely circled Thermopolis to take in the town, then swept back onto Route 20 and headed south, tacking through the switchbacks, just enjoying the drive. It was one of those crisp Wyoming spring mornings that made you feel sorry for anyone who lived anywhere else. There were a few snowdrifts up high where last night’s low-flying clouds must’ve unladed themselves, but the pastures were still showing bright green, the juniper trees almost black in the morning light.
I’d asked Rosey if she’d heard the radio calls the two nights she’d found the coins, and she’d said that she had, but that she’d heard them on numerous other nights too with no coins attached.
I’d asked her why she hadn’t tried to record the calls, but she’d said she had tried with an old cassette recorder, but all that came through was static.
? ? ?
Jim Thomas was right; it wasn’t particularly hard to find Mike Harlow’s place at the southern end of the canyon with the eagle, globe, and anchor on full display.
The Marine Corps flag carried ashore by Captain Samuel Nicholas onto New Providence Island in the Bahamas in 1776 was likely the British/American hybrid Grand Union Flag, but it’s also possible that it was the GADSDEN DON’T TREAD ON ME. A more indicative version arrived in the 1830s with the anchor and eagle and the words TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI, which changed to FROM TRIPOLI TO THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA after the Mexican-American War.
I parked the Bullet in a spot to the side of the driveway, which was blocked by a reinforced gate locked into two concrete pillars. On each side of the gravel road, a steel fence with three-inch pipes stretched as far as I could see in both directions.
I stepped up onto the second rail of the gate and swung a leg over, landing on the other side.
By the time the Corps hit the beach in Vera Cruz in 1914, the flag was blue, with a wreath encircling the globe and an anchor emblem at the center with two scarlet ribbons and the words U.S. MARINE CORPS above and the motto SEMPER FIDELIS below.
I glanced around and gazed up the road with a steep terrain that swept to the right and then circled to the left, disappearing in the juniper trees, where I assumed there was a cabin.
There was a period during World War I when fringe and inscribed battle honors were sometimes attached to the flag, but an order in 1925 put an end to such shenanigans, and in 1939 the official colors of scarlet and gold were adopted as the Corps standard, resulting in the flag we have today.
I paused to salute both the Stars and Stripes and the current version of the Marine Corps standard, along with the smaller guidon beneath it. This guy was seriously gung ho.
When I reached the turn, I took a breath and could see a small cabin built out of river rock notched between two very large boulders. Swiping my hat off, I wiped away a little sweat and started up again as a voice barked at me, “That’s close enough.”
I stopped and peered into the shadows of the porch and two partially open windows and noticed a thickset man with a light-colored cattleman’s crease cowboy hat and Vandyke facial hair the color of coal; he was sitting on a swing with a rifle propped up in his lap.
I raised my hands in mock surrender. “Howdy.”
He didn’t move. “Go away.”
I dropped my hands. “How about a little western hospitality.”
“No.”
“Are you Trooper Mike Harlow?”
He took a few seconds to think about it. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Walt Longmire, sheriff, Absaroka County. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
“About?”
“It might be a wide-ranging conversation; would you mind letting me come up and sit on that porch while we talk?”
He didn’t say anything, so I took that as an invitation. I approached the house, stepped up on the wide-planked deck, and sat down in an old wicker chair, which was barely big enough to hold me.
He eyed me with the butt of the weapon still resting on his knee. “Careful, I’m armed.”
I nodded. “I can see that. You mind putting the safety on that Red Ryder BB gun?”
He shook his head and studied me through a pair of Ray-Bans. “Cocked and locked, that’s just how I roll.”
“You’ll put your eye out.”
“That’s why I’ve got these safety glasses.” He adjusted the Wayfarers again and pointed the barrel of his weapon at a collection of bird feeders in the junipers between the boulders. “Damn magpies won’t let the little wrens eat, so I’m on watch.”
I smiled. “Third Battalion, 9th Marines?”
“You read my flags.” He cocked his head. “You?”
“1st Marine Division, Military Police.”
“When?”
“Vietnam.”
His head lolled back on his neck. “Good, you were before my time, so you probably didn’t arrest me.”
“Not unless you committed a homicide.”
“Investigator? You must’ve been one of the first.”