“Hey, Omar.”

He started, just visibly, and spoke to us over his shoulder as he continued throwing pebbles into the water. “Walt. Vic.”

“What are you doing?”

He glanced at us but then tossed another stone. “Trying to keep those snapping turtles off that body out there.”

We tiptoed to the edge of the bank in an attempt to keep the water from seeping into our boots, and Vic and I joined Omar in his target practice, Vic showing her acumen by bouncing a flat stone off the shell of a small turtle that skittered and swam into the depths. “Any idea who it is?”

Omar leaned forward and lifted his Oakley Radarlock yellow-tinted shooting glasses to peer into the reflective surface of the water at the half-submerged body. “I’m thinking it’s Danny.”

I stared at the corpse, which was a good forty feet from the bank, and tried to figure out how we were going to retrieve it, in that we had no boat. “Himself?”

My undersheriff squinted. “How can you tell?”

“Not everybody has hair like that.” Omar nailed a big turtle that had risen beside the body like a surfacing submarine and had gotten caught in the mass of silver locks that had fanned out from the body. “Danny always had nice hair.”

Omar reached behind him and, pulling out a fancy, stainless steel thermos of his own, poured the tomato-red contents into a cut-glass double-old-fashioned tumbler. “Libation?”

She stared at him, one hand on her hip. “It’s eight o’clock in the morning.”

He shrugged and sipped. “Sun’s over the yardarm somewhere.”

Omar and I watched as Vic expertly skipped a pebble across the glossy surface of the water, the pellet deflecting off another turtle. “How many turtles are there in this damn thing, anyway?”

Omar grunted. “Danny and his brother Enic protect them; nobody is allowed to hurt them—they’re sacred to the Crow and the Northern Cheyenne.”

Vic shook her head and nailed another. “Is there any living thing that isn’t sacred to the Crow and the Northern Cheyenne?”

I tossed a stone but missed. “Nope.”

Omar sipped from his Bloody Mary. “They’re a totem for fertility, protection, and patience.” He turned to look at me. “How are your daughter and granddaughter?”

There was a silence as I formulated an answer, but before I could speak, Vic chimed in. “Excuse me, but did I miss a transition in the conversation here?”

I tapped my shoulder. “Cady’s got a tattoo of a turtle—reminiscent of her willful youth at Berkeley.” I glanced back at him. “Should be here the day after tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Lookin’ forward to meeting Lola.”

I smiled and picked up my thermos. “Any ideas on how we get him out of there?” I glanced at the big-game hunter. “You’ve got your waders on.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no. The bank drops off ten feet out, and the reservoir is about sixty feet deep—used to be a shale pit.”

I nodded and drank some coffee as Omar refilled his glass and Vic tossed a rock, this time missing her shelled target but causing it to duck its head and silently retreat into the depths. “Can I assume that nine-thousand-dollar Oyster fly rod of yours will do the trick?”

Vic crouched at an inlet on the other side of the pond. “I’m trying to resist saying something about the ironic aspect of a guy who protects the turtles but then falls in his own pond and becomes snapper chow.”

“We don’t know it’s him.”

“Sure we do.” She held up a paper bag. “I found his lunch, and it’s got his name on it.” She read, “Daddy-O.”

“Topflight detecting, that’s what that is.” I watched as Omar flipped the fly rod back and forth, trailing the line in cyclical patterns, reflecting in the morning sunshine. “Think you can get him on the first try?”

He ignored my crass remark and flipped the fly forward, yanking it back to set the hook in what appeared to be the sleeve of a green canvas shirt. The outdoorsman carefully walked the banks and reeled in the body as we watched who we assumed was Danny Lone Elk spin slowly with his one arm extended like a superhero in flight, a trail of disappointed turtles in his wake.

As the body came alongside the bank, I reached in, grabbed it by the collar, and dragged the upper part of him onto the grass. “He weighs a ton.”

“Lungs are probably full of water.” Vic leaned over and grabbed the other side of his collar and we both heaved the deadweight onto the bank, a forty-pound snapping turtle with a carapace the size of a washbasin attached to the dead man’s left hand.

Vic dropped her side and backed away from the radially set iridescent eyes, the color not unlike her own. “What the fuck?”

The aquatic monster released the dead man’s hand, hissed like a steam train, and extended its neck toward us, evidently not willing to give up its breakfast.

Vic drew her sidearm, but I pushed it away. “Don’t. It doesn’t mean any harm.”

“The hell it doesn’t; look at him.” She considered. “I’ve shot people for less than that shit.”

I kneeled down, and the beast stretched out its neck even further and struck at me with snakelike speed, the reach surprisingly far. “You know these things are seventy million years old?”

Vic reluctantly holstered her weapon. “This one in particular?”

“They appeared before the dinosaurs died out.” I picked up a stick and extended the end toward the animal’s open mouth. “See the little wiggly red thing at the end of its tongue?”

Vic raised her eyebrows. “What, that means he’s popular with the ladies?”

“That’s what he uses to ambush fish—they think it’s a worm.”

“That’s disgusting.”

I walked around it and raised its rear end, placing my hand underneath the plastron and lifting the creature, rather awkwardly, from the ground. Its head swiveled back, and it snapped with the sound of a small firecracker.

Both Omar and my undersheriff stepped back. “He’s going to bite the shit out of you.”

“No, they can’t reach if you’re holding them from the bottom.” A stream of something dribbled down the length of my jeans onto my boot.

They studied me, Vic, of course, the first to speak. “Did that thing just piss on you?”

“I believe it did.” I swung the big beast around, lowered it back into the water, and watched as the creature settled in the mud and looked back at me, apparently now in no great hurry to get away.

“I guess he likes you.”

I shook the water from my hands and studied the round eyes that watched me warily. “Might be a female.”

“Well, anytime you’re through turtle diddling, we’ve got work to do.” She approached the cadaver again and rolled the body over, looked at what remained of Danny Lone Elk’s face, and immediately turned away. “Oh shit, his eyes are gone.”

Omar kneeled by the dead man and turned his chin. “Critters always go for them first.” He sighed. “Those turtles sure did a number on him.” They both turned to look at me as I stared at the body. “Walt?”

It was a man I’d seen before, in my dreams.

“Walt?”

In the dreams, he also had no eyes.

“Walt.”

The man’s words came back, and it was almost as if he were standing beside me, repeating the mantra of warning I’d stowed away: You will stand and see the good, but you will also stand and see the bad—the dead shall rise and the blind will see.

“Walt.”

I took a deep breath. “You’re sure it’s Danny?”

Omar nodded and looked back at the body. “His belt says Danny.” He paused for a moment. “And I recognize what’s left of him.”

“Does he have a wallet or anything else on him, like a fishing license?”

Checking the pockets of the dead man, Omar shook his head. “Nothing, but he’s on his own property. I don’t carry my wallet with me when I’m fishing—always afraid I’ll dunk it.”

I glanced at Vic. “Did you check his lunch?”

“Might as well; I’m about to lose mine.” She reached down, picked up the brown paper bag, and, rummaging through the sack, called out the items. “Daddy-O had one can of orange soda, one cheese sandwich, one bag of Lay’s potato chips, an assortment of celery and carrot sticks, and . . .” She fumbled in the bag, finally pulling out a withered, handmade billfold. “One wallet.”