Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic

Author: Ramos

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'

Author's note: As far as I'm concerned, Nora Lou's 'In the Wind' is far too perfect to even begin to attempt to answer the end of Season 2 in any way. So, we'll pretend Fales has been thwarted, even if temporarily, and this takes place after Henry is released from his murder charge related to Miller Beck.

~Longmire~

A choppy breeze flirted with the 'For Sale' sign, making it waver back and forth as if waving for attention for buyers of the house. It was nice, by Durant standards, but it held the abandoned air of a house that was no longer a home. Pots of chrysanthemums, caught somewhere between dried out and frosted to death, marched up the short flight of steps to the front porch, and the grass had grown just a hair too long between its last mowing and going dormant in the face of the oncoming winter. Not that I could blame it; hunkering down for the winter and letting the rest of the world go on without me was an appealing idea.

The problem with that plan involved an abandoned trailer full of cattle at a truck stop off I-25, the fact that this was my deputy's house, and my deputy, one Victoria Moretti, was nowhere in sight. Considering she'd been at work less than eight hours ago, it was a puzzlement.

I picked up my radio and keyed the mic. "Ruby."

"Go ahead, Walt."

"Where's Vic?"

There was a short pause. "At her place, the last I heard. She wasn't real happy about getting called in, but she said she'd be ready by the time you got there."

Vic and The Ferg had had the late shift, but we were all working longer hours with Branch still convalescing. He was home, walking wounded but healing up as fast as he could, mostly out of desperation. Branch's father had taken up hovering over his one and only son when he wasn't haranguing me about the shooting, but the Wyoming Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and every other government agency with an extra oar to stick in had pretty much told me to keep out of it. Which I did. Mostly. In the meantime, Branch was suffering an overabundance of paterfamilias and it was driving him out of his mind.

That still left me short-handed, and with a possible cattle rustling to investigate. Despite the old movies, rustling is a real and serious issue in cattle country, resulting in millions of dollars in losses each year. A full grown steer is worth a thousand dollars, even in bad times. Given a pair of wire cutters, a trailer, and an hour in an unwatched field, a thief can make off with fifteen to thirty thousand dollars in a night. The people of Wyoming have had a dim view of cattle rustling for over a hundred years, and we take it seriously. When the clerk over at the truck stop had called in an unattended trailer full of black Angus beef still on the hoof, Ruby informed me that I would be taking back-up with me and had been dialing Vic's phone before I could argue.

"Well, I'm at Vic's place, and the house is empty. As in, sale sign in the yard, the lights are off, and nobody's home."

There was a suspiciously long pause before Ruby's unflappable voice came over the radio. "Walt, if you're over on Sycamore Street, you're in the wrong place."

"She moved?" It was news to me.

"Yep. Vic's renting a trailer over at the mobile home park."

"When did that happen?"

The pause was longer this time, and I recognized it. Every woman I've ever known did it; my wife and Ruby would have glanced at the ceiling in a plea to the Almighty for patience. Vic would have been muttering 'dumb-ass' under her breath.

"Walt," Ruby said, voice overflowing with that prayed-for patience, "she's getting divorced."

I pondered that as I drove to the trailer park, spot checking the few mobile homes that had numbers on their corners against the one Ruby had rattled off to me. Like most of my county, I'd served enough warrants or been called out to enough domestic abuse cases to know roughly where to find the new casa di Moretti. The yards here varied as much as they did everywhere else; some were pristine, showcasing flowerbeds and bird feeders that indicated their occupants were retired folk with time on their hands. Some were clogged with bicycles and toys, what my old boss used to call 'tricycle engine factories.' A few held rusted hulks of cars that their owners probably swore they'd get around to fixing up one day.

The yard in front of a shabby little sixty-by-ten was devoid of any decoration save a rapidly pacing blonde in a brown jacket who shot me a look of pure venom but got in the truck without a word.

I grunted something close to 'morning' in her direction, and received a semi-feral growl in return. Having been married for as long as I was, I knew when to keep my lip buttoned. Ruby had told Vic the basics when she woke her up, and further conversation was apparently not necessary – she didn't say a word the entire trip.

The sun was fully up by the time we pulled up to the truck stop. Sure enough, there was a stock trailer parked at the far end of the truck stop parking lot, battered but serviceable, and it held a complement of dark furry critters whose breath steamed in the cool air and who didn't seem all that distressed for the change in their usual routine.

"I'll run the plate," Vic muttered, firing up the laptop and craning her neck to catch the numbers on the dusty tag. It was a Cumberland county plate, just one county over, and that eased the high alert I'd felt since we rolled up. I walked around the trailer, noting the cattle seemed unstressed. Combined with the fairly clean trailer and the fact that it had good tires led me to consider that this might not be a crime scene after all. That was bolstered when Vic joined me near the tailgate.

"Plates came back as belonging to TCO Enterprises, owned by one Tucker Owens. It's not reported stolen." Vic stared pensively at the cows, who stared back. They knew a predator when they saw one.

Her usual edgy energy seemed muted, somehow, and her bright blonde hair was showing their dark roots in the clear morning light. I tried to imagine her as the brunette she said she used to be, that day in my office, but it didn't seem right. The dark shadows under her eyes gave me a slight twinge – we were all feeling the longer hours these days but she was thinner than I remembered her being.

"Got a phone number?"

"Yeah, I tried it and got voicemail. Did the guy at the truck stop have any idea how long it's been here?"

"Can't be that long." I nodded to the trailer. "You can still see the floor."

Vic wandered over to the tailgate and peered down through the gaps. "Huh." A moment later she cursed. "Shit!"

"What is it?" I asked quickly, concerned.

"Shit," she repeated, holding out her right hand. Sure enough, she'd put her hand against the grating and had a generous line of Grade-A cow manure across her palm and up the sleeve of her duty jacket. "Got any napkins in your truck?"

Scrounging under the passenger's seat, I found a wad of paper towels that were mostly clean - clean enough for this job, anyway. She snatched them from my hand and began wiping the semi-solids off her sleeve in vigorous motions.

"Let it dry – it'll brush out," I told her, though I doubted the muck would be so cooperative. She shot me a look but transferred her efforts to skin rather than fabric.

"Yech. It's getting between my fingers," she groused.

"Beats having it between your toes," I told her.

"Is that the voice of experience?"

"Yep."

Her fingers were splayed wide as she cleaned them, and I couldn't help but notice her fingernails. Generally speaking, she kept them short and neat, but these were trimmed clear back to the quick, and showed signs of having been chewed ragged. If nothing else, a dose of cow shit will keep you from biting your nails.

After getting most of it off her hand, Vic unzipped her jacket and wiggled out of it, folding the soiled sleeve over and put it on the floorboards. Not that it mattered; I quit worrying about the cleanliness of my vehicle about two weeks after getting it - right around the time Bob Barnes tried to exhale his innards all over the back. When a professional drunk tells you he's gonna hurl, trust him to know what he's talking about.

The thought of offering her my coat crossed my mind, but I ignored it; she's a big girl, and it wasn't that cold any longer now the sun was up. Besides, I was already on thin ice with her, and a chivalrous gesture just might get me shot.

"So what – we call the cow cops, or just let them loose and hope they find their way home?"

"Stock detectives," I corrected, ignoring her snark. "I wanna talk to the store clerk first."

Any reply she might have made was lost in the rumble of a diesel engine as a large dually pulled up alongside the trailer. A king cab 4500 with an extended bed and the extra wide tires four across in the back, it made my patrol vehicle look like an underfed runt.

As it turned out, Mr. Tucker C. Owens had had set out for an auction this morning, pulling his heavy trailer with a standard F250. However, the transmission began slipping badly less than an hour from his home. He'd limped the rig into the nearest truck stop, unhitched the trailer, and left it behind while he ran home to get the monster beside us.

"I told that moron in the store I'd be back in an hour or so," Tucker swore, rubbing his hand over his balding forehead before tucking his hat back on as if he could keep his remaining hair from escaping. I checked his driver's license just as a matter of course, while Vic looked over his gigantic truck with a bewildered scowl.

"Maybe it was a different moron," she offered. "What kind of gas mileage does this monster truck get, anyway?"

"Dunno – never bothered to keep track," the man replied. "Long as it works hard and gets the job done, I don't care."

"Kinda early for working this hard, isn't it?"

"You never run cattle, have you, missy?"

I cringed at the 'missy' but Vic didn't react other than to sneer. "I had a hamster when I was eight, does that count?"

"Everything looks fine, Mr. Owens," I cut in, handing him back his paperwork before he could continue. "You just drive safe now, you hear?"

In short order I had Vic back in the Bullet and Mr. Owens began hitching his cattle trailer up to his monster. We turned around and headed back to Durant, calling Ruby to check in. That pretty much exhausted all the conversation in the cab and a thick silence set in, punctuated only by the sound of the highway beneath the tires.

"So," I said finally, deciding not to let a woman half my age and weight intimidate me. "How's the new place?"

She grimaced, that almost-smile that pulled her lips thin across her teeth. "It suck ass, Walt."

"You know, you need to file a change of address form…"

"Did that weeks ago," she interrupted bluntly. "All taken care of."

"Oh," I replied sagely, nodding, then shot a glance towards her. "Weeks ago?"

"You were a little busy then," she allowed, her voice quieter. "I didn't think you needed to know."

"You were busy, too," I told her. Her knowledge of big-city police politics had been invaluable when Henry was arrested, and she'd been working nearly eighty hour weeks since Branch had been shot. "Why didn't you say anything?"

She almost-smiled again, throwing one hand up in the air. "Henry had been arrested, you were a suspect, Branch nearly died… my problems were hardly important enough to get prime time coverage."

I kept quiet for a moment – it's one of my best tricks, and I use it often. "Still," I finally added. "You coulda told us."

"Not your business," she muttered curtly. "It's almost over with, anyways. No big deal."

I nodded, accepting both her statement and her clear desire to let it drop, and drove back into Durant.

The Bullet pulled up to the Busy Bee cafe of its own accord, without me having to steer it. The lot had a fair share of cars, but most folks around here don't linger when there's work to be done and there was plenty of room at the counter to sit. Even better, there was a familiar form leaning over a set of Dorothy's biscuits and gravy and the morning paper.

"Hey, Henry!" I greeted him, glad for at least one friendly face. "What're you doing in here?"

My oldest friend peered at me over black reading glasses and grinned. "The sign saying 'no Indians allowed' is missing, so I came in." He stood up and nodded at Vic. "Besides, sometimes I get tired of eating my own cooking."

Vic favored him with a genuine smile, but waved me towards the seat as she stepped back. "I'm gonna go wash. It might not bother you all, but where I come from we don't eat breakfast with cow shit on our hands."

That got a raised eyebrow from Henry, and I shook my head. "Close encounter with a stock trailer this morning," I explained. We both sat, and Dorothy brought over some coffee cups and a fresh pot. Ordering a plate and a half of biscuits and gravy – full order for me, half for Vic – took all of a minute and I sipped my coffee watching for the return of my deputy.

"Did you know Vic is getting divorced?" I asked Henry. The words were out before I even realized I was gonna ask him.

He did not put the paper down, but his dark eyes shot towards me for a moment. "No, I did not. But it makes me feel better."

"Why would that make you feel better?"

"Because she was at the Red Pony a few nights ago, drinking and dancing with what could best be described as 'abandon.' And she did not leave alone."

The cup in my hand had a tiny chip on the edge, and was given a thorough inspection. "That so?"

"It is so. And that was not the first time."

"Not the first time dancing, or the first time she left with somebody?"

"Drinking. Dancing. She has been there several times over the past few weeks."

"You didn't tell me?"

That earned me another look over those dark specs. "It is not your business, any more than it is mine. She is not your daughter, or my god-daughter."

Being told things weren't my business twice in less than an hour was enough to shut me up, especially when Vic arrived back at the counter around the same time as our breakfast. She dove into the coffee and the food with a spark of her usual exuberance, and I considered what was and was not my business while we ate.

Victoria Moretti was a grown woman, old enough to handle her affairs – in every sense of the word. Just because she worked for me, that didn't give me the right to put in my two cents worth or even know what went on outside of her duty hours. I'd had that out with Branch not so long ago, and that was when he was sleeping with my daughter – something that still stuck in my craw. Considering Vic was the same age as Branch, I didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

Vic was the same age as Branch, and Branch was older than Cady… I got lost in the arithmetic. When she'd started working for me, Vic was within spitting distance of thirty. I remember thinking she was a good five years older than my daughter, and that made her better than thirty now since Cady was twenty-six. Or was she twenty-seven? Not being able to instantly remember my own daughter's age made me feel bad until I tried to base it off my own age – I was only twenty-three when we had Cady – and damned if that didn't leave me staring straight at the big Five-Oh and wondering why the hell it mattered in the first place.

Henry finished his plate before long and passed me the paper, mentioning something he needed to get done before opening his bar later that day. I laid it down between me and Vic, but neither one of us gave it much attention. She mopped up one last bite then raised her hand and waved for Dorothy, who brought over the ticket, a couple of Styrofoam to-go cups, and a fresh pot of coffee to fill them up and send us on our way.

As we headed towards the truck, Vic reached in her pocket and fished out a few bills.

"Keep it," I told her. "I got you up early, Vic. The least I can do is buy you breakfast."

"Oh. Okay." It was either the coffee or the food, but her quick smile was brighter than the thin autumn sunshine and even brought out one of her dimples as she yanked at the door to the truck.

"Got a hole there," I informed her as a flash of white caught my eye. In cooler weather she usually she wore her uniform over a thermal long sleeve shirt, and the tan fabric showed a flaw along her side.

"Huh," she commented, fingering the hole. Or rather, two round holes, set parallel to each other on the seam. "One of those assholes at the dump musta got closer than I thought."

The world went still for a moment. "What?"

She gave me a look, still pulling at the hem of her shirt. "The other night? The reason my truck is in the shop?"

Her truck had received three holes in the radiator when she'd gone out on a call about teenagers shooting up the local dump – not the official county dump, but the unofficial, really-ought-to-be-cleaned-up-when-the-county-has-the-money illegal dump down one of the old rural gravel roads. The replacement parts were taking their sweet time to arrive, which was why I'd had to go get her in the first place this morning.

"You said those boys were out there shooting rats – not at you!"

"Yeah – and the glass bottles and cans and anything else they find. Though I gotta give them credit for not doing it during the summer – it smelled bad enough as it was."

The coffee went on the roof of the truck as I yanked at the cloth in her hands. They were small holes – my fingertip didn't fit through them – but it was too damned close to her liver and kidneys to keep my breakfast from turning into a lump in my belly. I'd read her report. She'd busted up a party of youngsters with more beer than sense, confiscated the weapons, arrested the two that were the most inebriated (one underage) and sent the rest home with their tails between their legs. Each one would eventually get their weapons back, but it would cost them a trip to my office, a fine and another scalding lecture from either Vic or myself when they came to get them.

"Why didn't you tell me they were shooting at my deputy!?"

"They weren't shooting at me, Walt. They were just being stupid."

"Were you wearing your vest?"

"No-o-o," she drawled.

"You should have. And you should have called for back-up."

"We don't have any back-up, not till Branch gets back. And I'm not wearing my vest!"

"If this were Philadelphia, you would have."

"This isn't Philly, and a couple of hillbilly rednecks shooting .22's is not the same as a carload of meth-head gangsta wanna-be's doing drive-by's! Jesus, Walt! Give me some credit!"

I glanced up at her sea-green eyes, snapping with irritation, and I fumed rather than answer her back. I considered making it a rule that anyone answering a call on the night shift had to wear body armor. Then I realized I wasn't sure if Ferg had a vest, or if mine even fit any more, or if the meager budget bestowed by the county would stretch to buying them. If Branch had been wearing his last month, he might have had some broken ribs, but he'd have been ambulatory rather than hospitalized.

Vic shifted, her anger melting as she looked up at me. "You realize you have your hand on my ass," she remarked casually.

When I glanced down, it only confirmed that my left thumb was looped over her hipbone and my fingers had spread across the back of her fanny to hold her still as I'd inspected the bullet hole. Her hip was warm and firm under my touch, and I let go before I could notice –or touch – anything else.

"Where is your vest?" I asked, repossessing my coffee, which had miraculously not spilled.

"It's in my truck. Which is in the shop."

"You get it, first chance you have. I want everyone to have the equipment they need. You get me?"

"Yes, Sir!" she glowered, getting in the truck. I guess the coffee and food were only good for ten minutes.

The Ferg was in when we got back to the station, filling out some paperwork and chatting with Ruby. The conversation stalled as Vic swept by, headed towards her desk. She pulled out drawers and slapped them shut, while Ferg resumed his tale of the car wreck he'd been working while we were keeping the cattle safe.

"David Munroe got fired from that gas crew up in Montana, so he decides to borrow his daddy's new truck and go into town to get some groceries and such. Only he was going too fast and rolled it on that curve out by Sweetwater Creek."

I held back a sigh. David Munroe getting fired wasn't a surprise; the surprise would be if his old man didn't tan his hide for wrecking his truck. Ferg kept talking, so I kept listening.

"We really need to do something about that road, Walt. Get the DOT to put up a Dead Man's curve sign or something."

"Nobody's died there yet, Ferg," I pointed out.

Vic looked up from her rummaging efforts. "Make it a Dumb Ass curve sign. It'd be more accurate. Hey, Ruby? Do you have a needle and thread or something to fix a hole in my shirt?"

"You sew?" Ferg asked, unwisely. Both women gave him a look but Ruby nodded and pulled open a drawer of her own. We didn't have a lot of spare uniforms in Vic's size, and if she could salvage this one, all the better.

"Don't think the WyDOT will go for that one, Vic."

"Okay, how about we name it 'Alexandre Dumas Curve.'" She flashed me a grin, and I couldn't help but return it. The Three Musketeers was one of the greatest contributions to literature since the written word, but Dumas was doomed to have his name mispronounced by the uncultured for the rest of time.

Ruby found a needle and a spool of white thread, and handed it over. We all pretended not to watch as Vic bit off a length and threaded it with the air of someone who knew what she was doing. I tried to imagine Vic as a twelve year old in the Girl Scouts, honing her cussing skills while sewing her badges on a sash, but it didn't quite fit.

Her cell phone rang just as she was shaking the uniform down off her long arms, leaving her in a white thermal tee. When I was a kid we called them long johns, but the newer styles were form fitting and hers did its job well. The needle, spool of thread, and holey uniform landed on her desk in a haphazard pile while she dealt with the phone, and I turned my attention to Ruby and her list of Post-It notes. She rattled through them quickly; it was a relatively quiet day so far in Absaroka County, and that was just fine as far as I was concerned.

Ferg was still talking about David Munroe and his dispute with the tow truck driver's cavalier handling of his father's 'borrowed' truck, but Vic's words and tone caught my attention.

"Could you repeat that please?"

Something about the set of her shoulders, the curve of her spine as she turned away from the rest of the room set off alarm bells. I held up a hand to stall Ferg. Both he and Ruby grew silent while Vic's murmured words became louder, until she reached her boiling point.

"So, what – you need me to come up and identify the body?"

The palm of one hand was pressed against her hairline, something she only does when she's on edge. She nodded several times, muttering 'yeah' in response to the voice on the other end of the call.

"It'll take me better than two hours to get there," she warned whoever it was. "Oh, and by the way? Your notification skills suck ass."

From the corner of my eye I could see Ferg and Ruby exchange concerned glances, but I kept my attention on the tense woman standing on the other side of the desks. Vic punched at the buttons and fumbled the phone towards her pocket, but it missed and went clattering across the floor instead. Rather than picking it up, she rubbed her face with her hands.

If she were surprised to see us watching her, she didn't show it. She just looked past my shoulder to the far wall.

"Walt, I need to take off for a while. Ferg, can I borrow your car?"

The other two looked at me, reminding me I was nominally in charge here. "What's going on, Vic?'

"I, um…I have to go up to Billings and ID a body."

Consternation and frowns were exchanged, but Ferg was the only one either brave or foolish enough to ask. "Who's dead?"

Vic's breath hitched, ever so slightly. "My husband."