Lola wrapped her fingers into her mother’s and the Bear’s hair, and all I could think was, hang on, little one, hang on to the ones you love because that’s all we’ve got in this world. Never let go.

His voice resounded off the top of Cady’s head. “Are you hungry?”

The head shook. “No, thought of food doesn’t sit well right now.”

“Understandable.” Loosening himself, he handed the baby to me and stepped to the counter, opened the refrigerator, and placed the large pot inside. “Remember that this is in here.”

We both nodded and watched as he walked to the door. “If you need anything, anything at all, please call me.”

Cady responded, knowing the social ethic of the Northern Cheyenne and that he would not return again until invited. “Uncle Bear, come back over for coffee in the morning.”

He smiled. “I will.”

The door closed, and we were left with ourselves.

I nudged the baby up and smelled her, clean and powdered. She gurgled, and I smiled at her mother. “How ’bout a cup of tea?”

“Tea?”

I raised an eyebrow in an attempt to be funny. “What, I don’t seem like a tea guy to you?”

She smiled, humoring me. “No, you don’t.”

I handed her Lola and began about the business of putting the steam kettle on. “Ruby gave it to me for Christmas; she thinks I drink too much coffee.”

“You do drink too much coffee—you have your whole life.”

I pulled the teabags from the tin box that had been kept over the refrigerator since her mother had been alive and brought out two mugs, both of them stolen from the Red Pony Bar and Grill. “Your mother once switched to decaf one week without telling me.” I set the mugs on the table between us. “I thought I was dying.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could whip them back. “I’m so sorry, Cady.”

Looking at the surface of the table, she swallowed and hugged Lola a little closer. She finally smiled. “What am I going to do, Dad?”

“Come back to Wyoming.”

She seemed shocked by the statement and stood there looking at me. “I meant this week.”

“Oh.”

Shaking her head, she sat at the table and whispered, “What am I going to do with you? What would I do with me?”

“It’s selfish, I know.”

“What would I do here, hang out a shingle? Wait for Lola to grow up and hope she will decide to be a lawyer?” She sadly bounced her on her knee. “Moretti and Longmire?”

I was frozen at that moment, thinking about what Virgil White Buffalo had said on the mountain, his words carrying with the rushing wind that wound to a screech: “She is to be married this summer and when she has the daughter she is now carrying, that daughter, your granddaughter, will carry the wrong man’s name . . .” I hadn’t understood what it was he was telling me at the time, but maybe the other name my granddaughter would carry would be my own.

“Dad?”

I looked at her. “Sorry, I was just thinking of something . . . something somebody said.”

She glanced away with a funny look. “The kettle is steaming.”

“Sorry.” I got up and went to the stove, took the whistling thing from the burner, and brought it over, filling the mugs. “Moretti and Longmire . . . Kind of has a ring to it.”

She shook her head, still bouncing Lola, the baby giggling from the pony ride. “So, what do you think, Monkey—you want to be a lawyer?” The baby immediately wrinkled her face and cried out. “I guess not.”

Automatically, I reached across the table and took her, resting her in the crook of my arm, picking up the rattle Henry had used to distract her. “C’mere, you Sweet Pea.” She whimpered a little but then settled down and stuffed the horse’s nose into her mouth. “Maybe she’ll be a sheriff.”

Realizing what I’d just said, I looked and found Cady staring at her mug.

 • • •

In the early morning, after calling Henry to make sure his arrival was imminent, I looked in on my daughter and granddaughter, warm and cuddled together on my bed. Dog and I had taken turns on the sofa; I’d had a troubled night, finding myself standing at the window, looking out at the Wyoming hills with my fingertips against the glass, half waiting to see the great horned owl on the teepee.

I kept thinking how much easier this would have all been if my wife were still here, and how I would’ve gladly traded places with her if only she could be here to console Cady and care for the baby. Martha was like that—she didn’t have to say anything but would simply lay her hand on you and suddenly things were all right.

Grabbing my thermos with too much coffee in it, I pushed the door open and stepped outside, pausing to hold it for Dog but finding my ever-present companion nowhere to be found. Quietly, I whistled, but he still didn’t come.

I crossed back toward the open bedroom door and could see that the great beast had crept up onto the bed and was now sleeping with the girls.

Abandoned. Say what you will about canine intelligence, he knew who needed to be comforted and protected. I shook my head, went out the door, and headed for town with a message I sorely did not want to deliver.

When I got to the little Craftsman house on Kisling, Vic was sitting on the front stoop, barefoot except for the protective boot, crutches at her side, and a cigarette swirling a thin plume past her face like the steam kettle from the previous night.

“Need a cup of coffee?”

She took a strong drag on the coffin nail. “I need two days off to go to Philadelphia and kill a cocksucker.”

“They catch him?”

“No, that’s why I need two days.”

I sat on the porch, spun off the top of my thermos with the words DRINKING FUEL printed on the side, and poured her a cup. “You’re smoking.”

She flicked ash into the wet grass. “Thanks, I think you’re hot, too.” She sipped the coffee. “I’m serious—I need some days.”

“Take a month.”

She nodded with a curt jerk of her head and took another slug of caffeine. We sat there for a while as she alternately inhaled the cigarette and sipped the coffee. Once or twice she turned and started to say something but then stopped and went back to her two-part job.

“Did you turn your phone on early this morning?”

“Yeah. The thing started ringing as soon as I did—scared the shit out of me.”

We sat there for a while more. “Your mother?”

“Father.”

Knowing the rocky relationship between Vic and the Chief of Detectives North back in Philadelphia, I was glad I hadn’t been here for that phone call. “What have they got?”

“The guy walked away clean.”

I studied the side of her face. “Walked? I thought it was a traffic stop.”

She turned and looked at me. “He pulled this asshole over, and then another asshole stepped up behind him and shot him in the back; then when he went down, the motherfucker shot him in the face.” She stopped talking, and her nostrils flared. “I mean while he’s fucking lying there on his back . . . In the face.”

“No arrests?”

“No, I told you . . . if I have my way there won’t be any, just a brief impression on the muddy banks of the Delaware River before the current carries the body away.”

“Plates?”

“Stolen.”

“Driver’s license, ID on either of the men?”

She puffed the cigarette some more. “A sketchy description from a taxicab driver and a woman looking out her third-floor window.”

“Your family on it?”

She shook her head. “Internal Affairs and Admin won’t allow for it, but if I know my brothers and my father . . .” She turned and looked at me. “Thirty-two years old.”

I took a deep breath. “I know.”

“That family thing, it never lets up, huh? I mean, here I am two thousand miles from mine. I know I act like it’s not really important to me, but . . .” She sighed. “The ties that bind.” She studied my face, and there was a spark of triumph. “I finally came up with one you don’t know?” She drained the dregs of her coffee. “Bruce Springsteen.”