Chapter 9

Vic patted Cady's shoulder as she sobbed. She was completely clueless what to do. When she heard a truck pull up in the driveway, she all but ran to the door. But it was Ferg who was helping Ruby up the sidewalk. She noted that it was snowing like hell again. She was going to murder Walt.

"Oh, dear." Ruby said, as Vic opened the door. She gave her a quick pat on the arm as she headed for Cady.

Ferg looked like he was going to start crying too. "I'll get the sidewalk cleared off for you, Vic." He said.

"Where in the hell is Walt?" Vic demanded, as she stepped outside with him.

"Somebody shot one of Mrs. Blessing's cows." Ferg swallowed hard. "Now, I'm pretty sure Mrs. Blessing wouldn't shoot me, but I don't think I could stop her from shooting anybody else. Ranger Parker called and asked for backup. I think she's going to kill him and the guy who shot her cow. He's an idiot, and he's insisting it's an elk."

"The guy shot one of those Yak things?" Vic asked in horror. Maybe Walt wasn't just being a complete ass by not coming back himself. Mrs. Blessings herd of cattle were all pampered pets.

"They're highland cattle, Vic." Ferg said, as he scooped snow off the sidewalk. "You got some more salt to put down?"

"I don't -" Vic stopped. "I don't want to go inside to get it, Ferg. I can't -" She stopped again. " Do you need to go back to help Walt? " she looked at him for a second. "I can go." And then she realized that she was being just as big a coward as Walt was, and swiped at her eyes angrily.

"Walt can probably calm Mrs. Blessing down better by himself." Ferg said, patted his radio. "He'll call if he needs us."

"Do you know what happened with Cady and Mathias?" Vic whispered, then wondered why she was trying to be so quiet.

"Mathias got an active shooter call and he had to drop Cady off at Skinner's and she got pretty upset."

Vic shuddered in spite of herself. "Well, I'd be upset too." She said. She'd gone into Skinner's a couple times with Walt looking for pawned, stolen guns, and the men who hung out there were just creepy. None of them had been disrespectful, but they'd just made her uncomfortable.

"Malachi and Darius shot it out at the Dino Mart. Malachi's dead, and Darius is barely hanging on. Henry almost drove right into the middle of it, and I think he and Emma had a fight because he wouldn't let her out of the truck."

"Shit!" Vic grabbed a shovel and helped Ferg clear off the sidewalk and the steps. The snow was wet and fluffy and falling fast. "Are you moving more of your stuff out to Emma's?" She asked, spying the boxes in the back of his truck.

"That's evidence!" Ferg said, dropping his shovel. "I'm working a cold case with Mathias."

"You can put it in my truck so it doesn't get wet." Vic said, reaching for her keys. "Why are you helping Mathias?"

"Actually, he's helping me." Ferg said, and looked troubled.

Vic helped him sit the boxes inside her truck. "Is Walt ok with this?"

"I'm doing it on my time. And I don't really think Walt would care - "

Ruby opened the door then. "You two come in and get warm." She said, in a tone that didn't leave any room for argument.

Ferg shot Vic a panicked look, but they followed Ruby inside.

Cady was still crying, but it wasn't the hysterics that had sent Vic into a panic. "I'm sorry." She said.

"Hey, it's ok." Vic said, knowing it wasn't, but what the hell was she supposed to say. "I wouldn't like it if Walt dropped me off at Skinner's either."

Ruby sat two more cups of hot chocolate on the table and pointed at Vic and Ferg to sit down. "Cady,honey, I think this has more to do with the fact that you couldn't help Mathias than anything."

" This damn cast!" Cady burst out. Then," I love him!" She said, and turned a furious red. "And it's so stupid. I just realized I love him and I was so scared that he was going to die before I got to tell him. And I just went a little nuts." She looked at Vic. "I was afraid to tell him to be careful. I was afraid to open my mouth. I thought anything I said might be a distraction. How do you handle that?"

Vic just froze with her mouth open, because she had no idea what to say.

"Is that why Lark wouldn't marry Lucian? Because she was scared?" Cady looked at Ruby.

"I don't think Lark's ever been afraid of anything." Ruby shrugged. "I think she wanted her career, and Lucian kept pushing her to marry him and have a baby before it was too late. And then he told her it was him or her job, and he should have known better. They could have worked it out. He was just too damn stubborn and he wouldn't compromise at all."

Ferg looked uncomfortable, and then he asked Cady. "Are you going to break up with Mathias?"

"I wasn't even sure we were dating." Cady said, and looked confused again. "But he told Skinner I was his girlfriend. And Rose seems to think the two of us are getting married? Matty just decides things, and that's the way they are -"

"He and Emma are just alike." Ruby said. "I really hope she doesn't break up with Henry because he tried to protect her."

"I hope so too." Cady said, and then she looked guiltily at all of them. "I'm sorry I got so upset."

Vic remembered those horrid awful moments when she thought Walt's body was in the bag that had been thrown down in the root cellar with she and Shaun, and shuddered in spite of herself. Even though she was a cop, she completely understood how Cady felt.

"If you're ok, Ferg and I probably need to go back to work." Ruby said, looking at Cady.

"I'm sorry." Cady said again. "I'm really sorry."

"You've always been there for me." Ferg said. "With Laughing Bird and my Mom." He swiped at the tears that were starting to roll down his face.

"Damn Boulin to hell anyway." Ruby said, and she grabbed Ferg and hugged him hard. "I'm so sorry, sweetie."

Vic locked the door behind them, and looked over at Cady. "Are you ok? Can I ask you something?"

"About Laughing Bird?" Cady guessed. When Vic nodded, "She was Ferg's first girl friend. She was a really sweet kid. He thinks," she sighed, looked like she was going to start crying again. "He thinks Boulin killed her, and now that Matty's re-opened the case, he thinks so too."

"Shit!" Vic looked at her. "Back when you were kids?"

"I guess she was fourteen when she disappeared. It was a little over a year after Matty's Dad got killed, I think. He and Ferg's lives both kind of went to shit at the same time."

Vic wanted to ask some more questions, but realized that she was upsetting Cady again, and decided she'd just pester Walt tomorrow - if she still had a job.

Walt looked at the two cows down in the pasture in the distance. Ferg had told him that one cow had been shot. If the damn fool that Mrs. Blessing was holding at gunpoint had shot another one in the meantime - how in the hell was he going to keep her from killing the man?

"Walt!" With the blowing snow, what he had assumed to be a cow, turned out to be Kathy Blessing in brown Carhartt's, and she was trying to get his attention and hold the injured cow down with her broken arm. "Walt! I need some help! Doc Ramsey's coming!"

Well, the cow wasn't dead, yet. "Get your asses in there and help that woman!" Walt snapped at Ranger Parker and the idiot shooter. "Mrs. Blessing, let's help the cow, then I'll straighten all this out. Don't shoot anybody!" he called over his shoulder as he followed the men thru the pasture gate.

"Kathy, you need to go back to the house." Walt said. "You don't have any business out in this cold. I'll help Doc Ramsey, and they will too." The look he shot Ranger Parker told him to keep his mouth shut. Then he saw the bucket and the scattered alfalfa cubes.

"Were you feeding the cows when he shot this one?" he demanded, thinking he'd just go ahead and break the man's jaw.

"Arlette was." Kathy swallowed hard. "I had a Doctor's appointment this morning, and I can't drive the truck, and Grandma can't get the big gate open by herself, so she stayed home."

Doc Ramsey stopped at the gate and picked up Mrs. Blessing and her shotgun. "Kathy, you need to go back to the house." She said. "I called Skinner's and some of the men are coming to help."

"I'm ok." Kathy said stubbornly. "You need me. She still wants to get up." Patting the cow's neck.

Doc Ramsey jabbed two syringes of what Walt assumed were pain meds in the cow, checked her breathing, listened to her heart, and went back to her truck. She spread a drape out on the ground, and Walt automatically put his knee on one end of it and Kathy the other, to keep it from blowing away. Doc Ramsey positioned everyone. Kathy would assist her with the surgery, with Walt laying on the cows neck to hold it down, and Parker and the idiot were holding the hind legs, where they were quite apt to get the shit kicked out of them. "You better not let this cow get up." She told Parker, and waved her scalpel for emphasis. Walt almost laughed.

When she cut into the cow, he thought the shooter was going to pass out at the spurt of blood that came out. She rooted around with the forceps, pulled the bullet out, and said to the shooter, "Hold your hand out."

"Shit." Walt thought to himself. "She's going to get him kicked on purpose."

The shooter stuck his hand out, and she dropped the bloody bullet in it. "You made a damn mess." She said. "And if you throw up on me, I'll carve you up like a Christmas turkey. How in the hell did you think this was an elk?" Then to Kathy, "Is she pregnant?"

"Five months." Kathy said.

"Thirty five hundred plus my bill." Doc Ramsey said to Walt. "Say an even five grand."

"What?" the shooter stammered.

"What you're going to pay in damages." Walt said. He figured the cow was worth that much money. Doc Ramsey would probably have charged Mrs. Blessing two hundred dollars if they'd found the cow down in the field, but if she had a city idiot to pay the bill, he didn't blame her one bit for jacking it up a little. He hoped nobody volunteered that the fool could have shot little Arlette before she put her surgical instruments away. She had threatened to castrate Vic's prisoners. She'd probably slit this guy's throat.

"But it's an elk!"

Doc Ramsey slapped him upside his head with her bloody hand. "Just shut up. You're too stupid to live."

"That woman hit me!" the man whined to Walt.

"I believe she told you to shut up." Walt said, trying not to laugh. He watched the vet tie off a blood vessel, look for bleeders, and then suture a drain plug in. He heard Skinner's big tractor coming before she finished, and hoped he'd brought some help with him. Mrs. Skinner was driving the tractor, and Skinner and two other men were sitting on the stone boat. Walt hoped Mrs. Skinner stayed in the cab, and that no one told her that the fool had almost shot little Arlette.

Kathy finally agreed to go to the house, her knees were soaked thru. Mrs. Blessing walked with her to make sure she didn't fall. It took all the men to heave the cow on the stone boat, with Doc Ramsey holding its head to make sure they didn't damage its neck. She positioned Parker and the idiot at the rear again, and sure enough, they both got full of cow shit. Doc Ramsey and Walt rode on the stone boat with the cow. Skinner drove the vet truck to the barn and the other men walked alongside to keep the cow from falling off.

Half an hour later, the cow was in the barn, hooked up to an IV. She looked like shit and Walt didn't think she was going to live. Doc Ramsey was still mad. The idiot had opened his mouth one time, and the look that Skinner had given him had made him turn green. Ranger Parker had tried to leave, and Skinner had told him that he couldn't go until Doc Ramsey said it was ok.

Walt had borrowed a cell phone to call Violet to come and pick up the shooter's truck that he was impounding. He really didn't want to cuff the guy and toss him in the back of the Bronco as covered in cow shit as he was but it looked like he wasn't going to have any choice.

There was something going on in his county that he had missed. None of the men had left, and all of them were watching Parker. They weren't trying to be inconspicuous about it either. And Parker was scared. Mrs. Skinner was assisting the vet. Doc Ramsey was a halfbreed Blackfoot, and tough as hell. She and Mrs. Skinner were a lot alike, they were always kind to animals and children, but they didn't have much patience with anybody else. They were more than capable of looking after themselves.

Walt knew that Parker was an ass when he was drunk, but something bad was going on here that he didn't know about. When he heard Violet pull up in the tow truck, he caught Skinner's eye and nodded to the idiot, and Skinner just casually reached in his pocket, and Walt knew he'd shoot the guy if he tried to run.

First Martha had gotten sick. Then she'd been killed. Then the whole sordid mess with Branch. And Vic, always Vic. He needed to send Vic someplace far away where she would be safe. He should have made Ruby stay in Texas. He should have sent Cady to join her.

"Damn nice truck." Violet said, and ran a hand over the shiny new Silverado's fender.

"Tell me about Ranger Parker." Walt said. "I seem to have missed something."

"He's a pervert." Violet said. "A little too friendly with his hands. Mathias has had a couple complaints about him, but you know he can't do anything because he's a white man."

"Why didn't he tell me?" Walt demanded.

"Walt." Violet looked at him like he was an idiot. "If Mathias told you everything that goes on on the Rez, that you probably do need to know about, it would take him an entire day. Every week. I try to filter out stuff and talk to both of you."

"Point taken." Walt said. "Parker actually hurt anybody?"

"He hasn't raped anybody yet. Or I haven't heard about it, if that's what you're asking. Mathias did file a complaint with the feds, and it wasn't me who told you."

"Okay, thanks. Put the truck in the impound yard."

"Will do." Violet said cheerfully.

Vic hadn't heard a car pull up, and the knock on the door surprised her. She knew Nighthorse's men were still on guard though, so she tiptoed to the door, with her hand resting on her gun.

"It's Mathias." He said thru the door. "I don't know if I'm persona non grata, or if Cady will even talk to me -"

Cady jumped off the couch so fast she nearly fell, and Vic opened the door, and barely managed to get out of the way before Cady all but tackled Mathias. She hit him so hard he nearly fell over, and started kissing him. "I guess we're ok." Mathias said. The look of sheer bafflement on his face almost made Vic laugh, and she headed into her room and shut the door.

She heard the outside door open and close, and then Cady tapped on her room door. "Vic, I'm sorry, that was rude. Come out and have a beer with us." When Vic opened her door, "Well a non-alcoholic beer. Matty doesn't drink, because he's never really off duty."

Mathias came back in with a six pack of long necks and opened them and passed them around.

"Thanks." Vic said, wondering how she was going to manage to choke down something that she knew was going to taste like crap. She took a small swallow and was really surprised at how good it tasted.

"This has been one hell of a day." Mathias said, and Vic noted the sheer exhaustion in his face. He looked so bad she wanted to hug him, and she didn't even like him, for god's sake.

"Are you and Emma ok?" Cady asked him.

Mathias shrugged. "Emma and I are either annoyed with each other or not speaking at all, so it's nothing new."

He has no idea how much Emma loves him. Vic thought. He's as dumb as Walt is in that respect.

"I owe Henry big time." Mathias said, and the look on his face said that he really did not like that.

"I have never understood why the two of you don't get along." Cady said.

Mathias shrugged. He wasn't sure he could even put into words what he felt. Not in front of Vic anyway. Maybe after he and Cady had been married for twenty years, he might find the nerve to try. He had thought he'd lost her today. He had thought he was going to have to arrest Emma. When he'd looked at the surveillance video, he'd realized that Henry had probably kept Emma from being shot. And though he and Emma fought like dogs and cats, the thought of anything happening to her was enough to terrify him. His phone rang, and he groaned out loud before he could stop himself. Cady reached and gently put her hand on his arm, and Vic dashed into the kitchen to make him a sandwich.

Mathias put his phone back in his pocket, and looked at Cady sadly. "Sorry, Red, I've got to go. Darius just died. We knew he wasn't going to make it, but - Emma's upset and needs a ride home. Henry left because he had to get up at 4 to start breakfast for the ranch hands."

"Mathias, I made you a sandwich." Vic said, thinking maybe she shouldn't have.

"You haven't had anything to eat since lunch, have you?" Cady asked, knowing she was right.

"Thanks, Vic." Mathias said, taking the sandwich from her hand. Then he looked at Cady, "You and I, we're ok?" He was really worried, and trying to hide it.

"Go take care of Emma, Matty. You and I are fine." Cady said, smiling at him.

"Oh!" Vic said, "Ferg had some boxes of evidence for you. We put them in my truck so they wouldn't get wet. They can wait 'til later -"

"No, I'll take them." Matty said, knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway.

Vic grabbed her coat and went outside with him. As she handed him the last box, a photograph fluttered out. She picked it up and looked at it in surprise. A young Ferg was sitting with a Native American girl, with a huge dog who looked exactly like Fluffy between them. They both had an arm around the dog, and their fingers were just barely touching. It was really sweet. They were trying to look at the camera, and not each other.

"Can I keep this for awhile?" Vic asked. It was an old Polaroid, and badly faded, but maybe she could clean it up a little.

"Not if you're going to tease Ferg with it." Mathias snapped, and she looked at him in shock. "I'm sorry." He said. "He loved that little girl." He swallowed hard. "And I know it was a long time ago, but some things you just don't forget."

"First loves are special." Vic said, and she saw the way Mathias looked at Cady. "He's always loved her." She thought. And just been too damn stubborn to do anything about it.

"Jesus, Red! Could you make anymore of a target of yourself? Turn the light off and get your ass out of that door!" Mathias yelled at Cady.

"Oh, shit." Vic thought. She knew he was upset. She knew he'd had a bad day, but Cady wasn't going to put up with that.

The light snapped off and she heard Cady move a little. "You bring your ass back here before you leave!" She yelled at him.

Vic thought it was probably a good thing she was on crutches. Or not. She was liable to brain Mathias with one. He tossed the last box in the back of his car, gestured for Vic to keep the photo she had in her hand, and resolutely went back inside. Vic dimly saw Cady grab a handful of his coat, and from the way Mathias winced before he put on his inscrutable face, she thought she had gotten some skin as well.

"If you ever speak to me like that again, I'll knock you on your ass." Cady said, right in his face.

"Oh, shit." Vic thought and froze. Surely Mathias wouldn't hit Cady. If he did, and she tried to stop him, it would be a free for all brawl.

"As soon as that cast comes off, we'll just see who gets knocked on their ass." Mathias said, and he wasn't kidding.

"I'm looking forward to it." She remembered how she and Matty had wrestled when they were younger, and suddenly the image in her head was of them tangled up in an entirely different way. From the look on his face, he was thinking the same thing.

"I'm looking forward to that." He said, and he still wasn't smiling. He put his mouth against hers, but he didn't really kiss her. She wasn't sure if it was a challenge or a promise.

"Boulin doesn't usually shoot people, does he?" Vic asked, after Mathias had left and she and Cady had gone back inside.

"I think he probably killed his brother Arlen the night of the Dino Mart robbery."

"What?" Vic looked at her in shock.

" Arlen was a pretty decent kid. He just had the misfortune to be born in the wrong family. Maybe Arlo bullied him into trying to rob the store and he got cold feet. Or maybe Arlen knew that Arlo had killed Laughing Bird, I don't know."

"But how did Arlo get away with the robbery?"

"A lot of the people who were shooting probably weren't supposed to have guns in the first place. And they recovered part of the money." She shrugged. "They probably got all of it back and Malachi helped himself to some of it. And Arlo had an alibi. He swore he was in bed with his girlfriend Marigold Hoskins. And his truck was at her house and the neighbors said that he hadn't left."

"Is she still alive?"

Cady looked at her in shock. "I don't know if anybody thought to look for her."

She whipped out her phone, and Vic thought she was calling Mathias, but then realized that it was Ferg she was talking to. "She's working up in Red Lodge, Mathias had already found her, but he hasn't had time to go and talk to her."

"I'm sorry to bother you, Matty." Emma said as she got in the car. "I talked to Sue earlier and Wally cut his hand pretty badly today, and I knew he wouldn't let her come without him."

"It's ok."

"Eat your dinner." Emma said, spying the wrapped sandwich sitting on the console. Then she noticed the boxes in the back. "Are you finally moving out of that awful apartment?"

"Evidence." Matty said, unwrapping the sandwich, and offering her a bite. He was surprised when she took it. He took a bite too, and chewed, and chewed, and chewed. Both of them looked at each other, and Emma hunted around in her purse until she found a napkin and spit hers out. " My God, Vic must have cooked this! What did she do to it?" Then "Matty, spit it out! You're going to choke!"

Mathias shook his head stubbornly, but then gave up and took the napkin she gave him. She produced a bottle of water and handed it to him. "Damn." He said, and then he looked at Emma and they both laughed, and then Emma started crying.

"It's ok, Emma." He laid a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, but you scared the shit out of me."

"I was going to kill him and Henry wouldn't let me." She said. "I would have. He wouldn't have left us and those children as witnesses -"

"Emma, it's ok." He squeezed her arm gently. "Talk to Lucian when he gets home."

"What?"

"Talk to Lucian. He's older and smarter than me and he'll know what to tell you to make it alright. It is alright. It would have been alright if you'd killed Malachi. I'm just glad you didn't have to." He sighed. "I'm really glad that Henry didn't let you get hurt. You didn't break up with him, did you?"

"He's really mad at me." Emma said. "But I'm mad at him too."

"I seem to recall you and Uncle Robert having a couple go rounds too."

"We did. But Robert and I loved each other. I'm just too damn old to start over." Emma swiped at her eyes and tried to smile at him.

"Hey, Walt." Vic said when she walked into the office the next day. It was mid-morning, and he hadn't been there earlier when she had to leave on a call. "Can I ask you about Laughing Bird?"

"Come in my office and close the door." He said, not getting up from his desk. "Sit." He pointed at the chair.

Vic sat. "Oh, shit." She thought. "He's going to fire me. I'm going to have to get a job flipping hamburgers."

"You need to leave." Walt said. "You're a good cop, but you just don't fit in here and you never will. I'll give you a good reference."

Vic looked at him in dismay, and then she said, "Walt, has it occurred to you that Cady can't manage by herself?" At the look of confusion on his face, "If I leave, you're going to have to hire a home health aide to help her. You have no idea how embarrassing it is to have to ask for help getting in bed, or taking a shower." She glared at him. "Surely you and I can be adult enough to work together until after Cady gets her cast off and starts her re-hab." Dear God, she'd actually said that to him. And he was furious.

"Surely I can manage to act like an adult for another six weeks." He said, and for half a second as he got up, she thought he was going to hit her, or maybe something else? She had never seen a look like that on his face before. He picked up his coat and hat and she waited for the outside door to slam. But he closed it so quietly it didn't even click. And that's when she knew how mad he really was.

Walt clenched the steering wheel of the Bronco. Why in the hell hadn't he just fired her? She would have been back in Philly before the end of the week. Safe. Out of Boulin's reach. It had nearly killed him when Martha died. If he had to bury Vic, it would finish him off. He had almost yanked her out of that chair and kissed her. But he couldn't trust himself to put his hands on her. If he did, he knew he'd tell her that he loved her.

But little as she was, Vic would fight. If Boulin came after Cady with her there, she'd do her best to take him down. Maybe, just maybe, the two of them together could fight him off. If she left, and he hired a health care worker to help Cady, he'd just be putting a poor innocent woman in danger. There was no end to this mess. And now Lucian would be bringing Lark into it.

Vic laid her head down on Walt's desk and cried. She'd known she was going to have to leave. She had thought about it. Even imagined going in Walt's office, plopping herself down in his lap and kissing the hell out of him, before saying, "I QUIT!" Maybe she'd still do it, on her last day. He would strangle her. At least then she wouldn't be hurting like this.

She heard Ferg come in, and the phone rang, but she just couldn't make herself get up. She knew she looked like hell. She didn't want Ruby to see how she'd been crying, and she was afraid to use the outside door, for fear that Walt might still be out there. She didn't trust herself not to shoot him. He'd liked her once, he'd talked to her. They'd been really good friends. She had no clue what she had done to make him just completely shut her out.

"Walter?" Ruby tapped on the door and opened it. "Oh, Vic, honey." She said in dismay.

"It's ok, Ruby." Vic said tiredly. "We all knew it was coming." She tried to smile at her. "Just let me splash some water on my face."

"I'm sorry, Vic." Ruby said. "You and Ferg have to help Ranger Parker get a drunk out of a tree stand."

"Why in the hell can we just not let the guy fall?" Vic grumbled to Ferg as they went downstairs. It was snowing again, and she cussed under her breath and went and got in the passenger side of Ferg's truck before he could open his mouth. She did not want to be stranded out in this weather. She didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity of Ranger Parker.

"Vic!" Ferg said quietly, but he grabbed her arm as they started down the trail. "That guy's drunk! We don't know how long he was hanging upside down before somebody called it in. He's got a loaded gun."

"Shit!" Vic said, stopping so fast that Ferg bumped into her and nearly knocked both of them down.

" You're not thinking right." Ferg said, not letting go of her arm. "I'm going to tell you what to do -" At the glare she gave him, "Have you ever done this before?" When she shook her head, "Well, I have. And if you won't listen to me, we're going right back to the truck and waiting on Walt." His hold on her arm tightened. "I am not letting you get shot!"

"Ok." Vic said, "Tell me what to do." She'd assumed that Ferg was going to take the lead and be the big strong man who disarmed the guy. She'd assumed wrong.

"You're going to have to get the guy's gun because you're the lightest." At the look she gave him, "Most tree stands are only designed to support two hundred and fifty pounds. If they're put up properly. I put a foot on that ladder, the whole thing's liable to come down."

"Ok." Vic said, understanding now.

"I'll shoot the guy if he makes a threatening move towards you." Ferg said. "If Parker won't back off and let us handle this, we go back to the truck. Understood?"

"We could just let Parker climb up and disarm the guy and watch the tree stand fall." Vic suggested.

"I wish." Ferg said.

"You took your time getting here." Ranger Parker said. Vic just ignored him and took a careful, closer look before heading for the ladder. She missed the leer that he gave her, but Ferg didn't.

"Sir?" Vic said politely as she started up the ladder. "I'm here to help you. It looks like you're having a really bad day. I need to take your gun so that we don't accidently shoot anybody -" she stopped. He wasn't breathing, and his face had turned purple.

"Take your time, Vic." Ferg said quietly, from underneath her.

"Ferg?" She didn't know why she suddenly thought she was going to be sick. She'd seen dead bodies before. "Ferg, he's dead." He'd already suffocated.

"Well, shit." Ranger Parker said. "Maybe if you'd gotten here sooner -"

"Just shut the hell up!" Ferg snapped, surprising everybody, apparently including himself. Then, "Vic, I'm sorry. We still need to get his rifle."

"It's caught in the safety harness." Vic said. She didn't see how she could get it loose without cutting it.

"Are you sure he's dead?"

"Ferg!"

"I don't want him waking up and killing all of us!" Ferg yelled up at her. "I can't see him. You can. Check his pulse."

"Ok, calm down." Vic stretched as far as she could, caught the safety harness and wrestled the guy over. She inched her hold up the harness, and when the guy swung eye to eye with her, she knew she didn't need to check his pulse. He was gone. "He's dead, Ferg. I don't know how to get this rifle loose. Maybe you should move! He's got a death grip on the trigger." Which meant he'd been dead awhile.

"Can you push the safety on?" Ferg asked.

She heard Parker mutter something, and then a thump, and wondered if Ferg had hit him.

"Ok, Ferg. It's on. Now what?"

"Can you reach your knife to cut him loose?"

"We're just going to drop him?" Vic turned so she could look at Ferg.

"The son of a bitch is dead." Ranger Parker said. "It's not like he's going to feel it. It's cold as shit out here -" he suddenly shut up, and Vic wondered what Ferg had done.

It seemed to take forever, but Vic finally managed to saw thru the harness. She cringed in spite of herself when the body hit the ground. When she finally made it off the ladder, she bent over to catch her breath, panting, and that's when she felt Parker's hands on her. Everything went into a red haze, she was so angry.

"VIC! VIC!" Walt had hold of her, pulling her off him. "VIC! STOP IT!" He shook her gently, laid his big hand on her cheek. "You in there?" It was almost teasing, almost a caress. He had one arm around her waist, holding her off the ground. And he was laughing his ass off. She had never seen Walt laugh like that. Her heart caught in her throat, and right then, she knew she loved him. She had fought against it for so long. She didn't love Shaun, but she hadn't wanted a divorce. Another failure.

It had been a day from absolute hell that had started with a 6am call from Walt, waking her up. It was midafternoon when Vic had finally thought she was going to get to drink a cup of coffee. Walt's nasty coffee from his thermos. If she didn't have some caffeine, she was going to fall out. She didn't know how Walt could go all day and not eat, the way he did.

"We'll stop and get some lunch before you murder somebody." Walt said, shooting a sideways glance at her. And then the radio crackled again, and Vic cussed.

This time, it was an altercation between a buffalo and a car. The poor elderly lady had stopped when she saw the bull in the road, and patiently waited. But he'd decided that he had the right of way and rammed her car. And kept ramming her car. Ruby was flooded with calls from panicked tourists. Unknown to her, when some of them couldn't get thru to the sheriff's department, they'd managed to call the tribal police. Never mind where they were, a buffalo was trying to kill a woman.

"Shit." Vic said, when Walt stopped the Bronco. "Walt, what do we -"

The buffalo backed up, pawed the ground, and rammed the car again. The elderly lady inside flapped around like a rag doll, and more steam started pouring from the hood.

"Shit." Walt said, and grabbed his rifle as he climbed out. "Shit." He said again, as he braced the rifle across the truck hood. A horn suddenly started blaring, and Vic wondered which one of the stupid tourists it was, and a huge truck slowly maneuvered its way thru the assorted cars who had stopped to watch the carnage. Walt visibly breathed a sigh of relief, though he still kept a bead on the buffalo.

Whoever was in the truck just eased up behind the bull and bumped him in the butt. The buffalo wheeled, smashed his head into the truck bumper, and the truck just inched him backwards off the road. Just a slow, constant push.

"Vic, help that woman in the car!" Walt yelled, never taking his eyes off the buffalo.

Vic grabbed the first aid kit and ran. She saw the buffalo back up, shake his head, and then kind of half heartedly ram the truck once more, before he turned around and trotted off. She thought it was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen in her life. As she opened the woman's car door, she realized that Mathias and one of his deputies had pulled up in a cruiser with the lights flashing, and the deputy had a shotgun across his lap. And there was something strange about it? Mathias flicked a salute at the man driving the big truck, and the deputy threw up his hand. The man waved back at them, and they just drove away.

"I'm fine, dear. Sorry to be so much trouble." The elderly lady said, and patted Vic's hand.

Vic checked her vital signs anyway. A young man that she didn't know jogged up to the car, ignoring Walt's order to get back in his car.

"I'm a paramedic." He said to Vic. "Can I do something to help?"

"I told you to get back in your car." Walt said, as he approached.

"He's trying to help, Walt." Vic said, as she took a piece of gauze and daubed at the cuts on the woman's arm.

"You ok, Mrs. Folson?" The big man from the truck asked. Vic noted that Walt didn't tell him to get back in his vehicle.

"Thank you, Wally. Seeing how you handled that was almost worth getting rammed." Mrs. Folson said.

Wally nodded to her, then turned to the kid. "Thanks for offering to help, but I think they've got it under control."

"Ok." The guy said, and then he looked at Wally like he didn't know what to say. Then, "I think that was the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life."

"Had a lot of practice." Wally said.

The guy just nodded to them and backed off.

"I'll take you home, Mrs. Folson." Wally said. "I don't think your car is going anywhere."

"Walt, I think she needs to go to the hospital to get checked out." Vic said, knowing the woman would probably overrule her, but listen to him.

"Oh, no dear, I'm fine." She patted Vic's hand again.

"I'll take you to Kel's." Wally said. "That way if you get dizzy there'll be somebody to help you. Or you can come home with me, Sue'd love to have you. Maybe you can straighten out Sissy, we've about given up."

"You can just drop me off at Kel's. I don't know if I'm up to tangling with Sissy."

"I don't know if a T-Rex is up to tangling with Sissy." Walt said, halfway under his breath. Wally grinned a little, but he didn't laugh.

After Violet had finally gotten there, and towed away Mrs. Folson's car, Walt had asked Vic for her cell phone, and called Ruby and told her they had to have something to eat, to call Ferg to come in early, but she already had.

"They had on muffs." Vic said suddenly.

"Huh?" Walt asked, shooting her a sideways glance.

"Mathias and his deputy had on earmuffs."

Walt nodded. "It about blows your head off when you shoot a shotgun from inside a car."

"They were going to shoot the buffalo from inside the car?" Vic asked, horrified.

"Safest way to do it." Walt said.

"But isn't that illegal?"

"Mathias is the law on the Rez."

"Mathias is an asshole, and we're not on the Rez." Vic said.

"He's an asshole who dropped what he was doing and came to help Mrs. Folson." Walt corrected. "If that bull had rammed her car door, he could have killed her."

"Yeah, I know that." Vic said, embarassed.

Walt placed another call and told Henry to get them some cheeseburgers ready, they were on their way. Vic headed into the restroom the second they got there. As soon as she came out, she saw a drunk grab one of Henry's part time waitresses. When he didn't let go, she brained him with a tray, and they both fell in the floor. Viv was a tough college girl whose Mom was a Windy, and had actually named her Vivien Leigh. She was more than capable of looking after herself. But Vic didn't even think about it before she tackled the drunk. There were plenty of cowboys in the bar who would have intervened, but she was closer, and she'd had a very bad day.

It took Walt and Henry both to pry her off the guy, mainly because Walt was laughing his ass off. When they finally got her loose, a big cowboy picked the drunk up and threw him out the door. Everybody cheered, and then all the cowboys had tipped their hats and raised their beers to Vic. She was mortified. That was the night she met Ranger Parker.

"Vic! Jesus!" Suddenly, it wasn't Walt holding her, but Ferg. "Jesus, Vic!" She thought he was crying. "Please calm down! I can't - I can't let you kill him!"

She didn't know what had happened. Ferg was holding her, with his arms around her waist from behind her, and Parker was on the ground. Somebody had beat him to a bloody pulp. She didn't remember doing it. But suddenly, she couldn't breathe, her chest hurt, both her hands were bleeding, and she was crying. No, it was raining. Then she realized that Ferg was crying, and she was crying too.

They collapsed on the ground, and Vic struggled for breath. When Ferg tried to pull her upright, she recoiled.

"Vic! Look at me!" Ferg panted. "Let me sit you up! LOOK! AT! ME!"

His words finally penetrated, and she stopped struggling, and he propped her up against the tree trunk. "Breathe." He said gently, holding both her hands. "Just breathe. It's ok."

She saw Parker scrambling to his feet, and cast a frantic look at Ferg. "It's ok. " Ferg said, "I got it all on video." At the exclamation of dismay from her, "Vic, we can finally stop him. I may not have enough to get him arrested, but I bet I've got enough to get him fired."

"Great." Vic said, swiping at her face. "My ass is going to be all over you tube."

"I wouldn't do that to you."

"Oh, shit, I tore up my hands!" Vic couldn't believe how bad they hurt now that she wasn't so mad. She let Ferg help her up.

"I'll drop you off at the ER while I go around to the morgue."

Mathias had had the morning from hell at a tribal council meeting. Bill Rogers had gotten so angry that he'd stormed out over the other tribal council members repeated refusals to give Mathias a little more money for the department. Mathias knew that it was a complete and total waste of time to tell them that his cruiser needed to be replaced with an SUV, but he said what he'd come to say anyway. Sometimes he thought Harve was right. He had no idea why he did this job.

Then Nighthorse, who shouldn't have even been on the tribal council to begin with, stood up and said, "I think we made a serious mistake when we allocated the casino profits. We set aside some money for the Rez clinic, but we should have given some to the tribal police as well. We didn't take into consideration that the casino's existence automatically means more calls for them, which costs them more money. I, for one, don't think it's right, that our policemen buy supplies out of their own pockets." He looked at all the tribal council members. "Most of you have 4WD vehicles, but you expect our tribal police chief to get by in a car?"

When nobody said anything, he threw up his hands in disgust. "Mathias, go down to the Chevy dealership and pick out what you need. I'll pay for it."

"That's not -" Mathias stopped. He damn well did need a better vehicle. "Thank you, Jacob." He said.

"What are we going to do with the car that nobody wants?" One of the older ladies asked, eyes twinkling. She was the only one who always voted to give Mathias more money.

"Sell it and give the money to Mathias to run his department with." Jacob said. Mathias couldn't believe it when that was unanimously approved.

He'd spent the rest of the morning patrolling the back roads. This was the part of police work that he liked, and so seldom got to do anymore. It seemed like the tribal council was always on his back about something. It was starting to snow again and he would be really glad to get rid of this infernal car. He would go down to the Chevy dealership tomorrow, he decided.

He saw Violet's wrecker pulled off the road, and slowed to a stop. All of Benson's wreckers looked alike, and one of Vi's friends had made the mistake of flagging down Boulin, when she thought it was Violet driving. The day after that, Violet had turned her grandkids loose on the truck. Her wrecker now sported a paint job that included flowers and stick animals and people. It actually looked pretty good.

Then he noticed the Highway Patrol SUV in front of the wrecker, and realized that big, tough, Trooper Williams, the man who never even cracked a smile, was having a snowball fight with Violet. Trooper Williams looked embarrassed, but Violet just kept pelting him.

Mathias just waved at them and drove on." Good for Violet." he thought, smiling to himself.

Trooper Williams caught Violet. "You'll pay for that!" He said laughing.

"Oh I do hope so." She grinned back at him. He was just leaning down to kiss her, when she said, "HOLY SHIT!" He spun around, his weapon already drawn, just in time to see the green forest service truck come out of a side road at a high rate of speed and plow into Mathias's cruiser.

"MATTY!" Violet screamed. She was already in the wrecker and moving before Williams got in his car.

"Matty!" Violet yanked the car door open, and grabbed him, unbuckling his seat belt, and hugging him close, even as she put pressure on the wound on his head that was bleeding.

"SHIT." Mathias said. "What the hell?" Then, "Violet, move -" She barely managed to get out of the way before he threw up.

"Matt, here, lean back against me." Trooper Williams had climbed in the passenger side of the car. He picked up the bottle of water that Matty had that had been thrown in the floorboard. "Rinse your mouth out."

"Thanks." Mathias said, weakly, thinking he was going to pass out. He was sandwiched between Trooper Williams and Violet, who was still holding pressure on his head, that was bleeding steadily. "What the hell hit me?" he managed.

"Hospital." Violet said, ignoring him.

"Hospital." Williams agreed, sliding out of the car, easing Matty over the console, and carrying him like he was a child.

"Hey, I can walk." Mathias protested weakly.

"Mathias, shut up. You've scared Violet half to death and taken ten years that I don't have to spare, off of my life." Williams said, as he carried him to the wrecker.

"Kiss her." Matty said, grinning at him.

"What?" The Trooper wrapped a blanket around him and buckled him in the seat, as Violet duct taped a handful of paper towels over his head wound.

"Kiss her." Matty said. He was grinning the same way he had when he was five years old and knew that he'd been bad, but he was so damn cute, he knew he was going to get away with it. It had melted Violet's heart then and it did the same thing now. And she was really afraid that he was seriously injured.

"Oh, what the hell." Violet said. "Be still." She pointed her index finger at Matty, leaned around him, and kissed the Trooper on the mouth. "Sorry honey, that's all I got time for." She said, and Williams laughed.

"Cady?" Mathias asked suddenly, looking around. "Where's Cady?"

"She's fine, Matt." Violet said. "I'll have her meet us at the hospital, ok?"

"Ok." Mathias said, and then he passed out.