He doesn't know what day it is. It's cold again. Thoughts flash through but he can't stay focused. The pain is the only reason he knows he's alive. They take turns. One at a time; kicking, punching, but the bat is the worst. His arms stretch above his head, his shoulders press against his carotid as he nearly renders himself unconscious. The handcuffs ripped into his flesh days ago, the scabs ripped open again as they hold his weight. He can't feel his toes anymore. They never responded to his questions. He doesn't know who or why. They never pretended this was a negotiation.
He thinks about his family name as lifelike images of him and Standing Bear dash through. Happy times. Free times. Martha's hair falling to his face. He thinks about Cady and his heart fills with hope. As another blow is absorbed by his thighs he cries out and he thinks he is ready. Ready to surrender. Then he thinks of her and the pain inside matches the pain of his flesh. Another blow, another strike, another punch. The air escapes his lungs and the coughing starts once more as liquid seeps in where it doesn't belong.
They laugh.
He grits his teeth, tastes his own blood, as they release him from the metal bar leaving him as a slump of meat on the basement floor.
He asks her to forgive him. He asks for another chance. He tells her he loves her.
Small rings of smoke filter through his beard before ascending to the realm of higher thoughts. His tenure and stature are enough to ignore the ordinance forbidding smoking in a government office. His disposition appropriately matches the matter at hand.
He makes them wait as he reads the affidavits and peels through pages of Black's Law 9th edition. Modern technology skipped his office. Vic nods and looks to Pryor and Hayden silently begging them to tolerate the exercise in detail and authority.
Judge Peter Thompson, a native son of territorial descendants, raises his silver coif and sighs.
"Judge, sir, you can see we have exigent circumstances."
"What it appears you have Deputy Moretti is a vast exaggeration of the law."
"Your Honor, our request may be pushing the boundaries and in this situation we believe it is indeed justified." She stays on her best behavior.
"Hmmm" he says, resting the pipe in his stained ashtray.
"Are we wasting our time here?" Pryor asks while shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Excuse me, sir." Thompson challenges with is full baritone voice.
"Do you not care that the Sheriff of this county has been kidnapped?" Pryor responds in equal measure.
"You cannot change the law to fit the facts and the fact is you do not have the basis for a warrant. Wyoming law does not allow a warrant based on pure speculation."
"What else would you need?" Hayden asks in a much softer tone playing a necessary her role in this high stakes drama.
"You do not have anything but conjecture. You have not created a nexus to suspect any of these men. You do not have witness statements. You have three unidentifiable men who presumably kidnapped the Sheriff. "
"Presumably." Vic is on her feet, her hands on her hips, and she rails against the anger boiling inside of her blood.
"You off all people understand the Constitution. You know all that claptrap about being innocent until proven guilty." Judge Thompson scolds all three as they are held hostage to his decision.
Vic's lips tighten as she reminds herself that there is only so far she can go with the judge and still recover.
"Every minute is a mile farther from us bringing him home alive." Hayden adds.
"Well, I gently suggest you three vacate my office and use your investigative skills to gather more evidence because here in the Equality State there's not a judge alive that will grant this warrant." Thompson looks up and does the oddest thing. He winks.
Pryor's face turns to stone but just as quickly his continence softens as Vic turns to him and Hayden. They all three click with the subtly of the clue at once. Pryor extends his hand and the old man stands, spry and strong, and returns in kind.
"Deputy Moretti, may I speak to you for just a moment alone." His question sounding like an order so she stays behind promising to catch up at the station.
He puts the unlit pipe back in his mouth, the stem clicking on his teeth as it settles.
"I'm an old man. I'm tired. Both are excuses for my candor." He smiles displaying two rows of natural teeth before he pauses and dismay fills his aristocratic features.
"Walter is an imperfect man who has led an imperfect life. I can only imagine the pain he has endured, the pain you have endured with the events of last year. There is obviously a great deal of affection between you two." His thick eyebrows move closer together as if they recognize the gravity of what is coming. "Don't let your heart dictate your mind in this investigation or you will never find him."
Vic takes in his words and lets them soak into her skin. She nods her head in affirmation.
"Thank you, your Honor."
"You're welcome, child."
She sprints down the street, takes the stairs two at a time, and meets Pryor and Hayden in the office bay.
"Ok, we all picked up the old man was saying, right?"
They shake their head while they both punch in telephone numbers.
"Hayden is getting the Federal court clerk and I'm on the line with the home office to get everything transcribed to Federal affidavits."
"What can I do?"
"Drive fast." He quips.
Ninety-eight minutes later they are headed back to Durant with a half-dozen warrants and Federal teams setting up on their covert operations, extracting cell phone records, and consulting engineers to verify triangulation figures.
"This would have only worked in a handful of state's like Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, and..." Vic asks attempting to confirm what just happened.
Hayden cuts her off, "Unless you're going to name all 50 states let me stop you."
"What do you mean?"
"Sovereign citizens, Vic. They are the greatest domestic terrorist threat. Homegrown terrorist that's what they are."
"Shut the fuck up."
"That terrorist nexus got us these warrants." Pryor verifies, "They are everywhere, Moretti. The Patriot Act came through this time."
Vic rubs her fingers across her forehead. The headaches have never gone away. She keeps them to herself. Her memory is cloudy at times and it has made her question her sanity especially when it comes to him. Her memories of him maybe loving her and liking her are void of action as if she's blended dreams with reality. She doesn't trust the images anymore. Especially the one of him asking her to stay. What she has believed to be real has nearly killed her.
"Who is this Chance Gilbert?" Hayden asks ruffling through the manilla case folders.
"What can you tell us about him and his clan?" Pryor asks still looking out of the window.
Vic sighs, "What do you want to know?"
"Everything." He turns and looks at her this time.
"He kidnapped me and my husband, tried to kill us, but Walt made a last minute deal. Walt let the sovereigns go and the two basically counted it off and Walt was left standing."
"Like Dodge City?" Pryor asks
"Like Dodge City." Vic answers
"I'll be damned." Hayden believing the myth for the first time.
"Walt killed Chance's brother in a shootout years before and Chance wasn't going to miss his opportunity to exact revenge. In the end, Walt got both brothers."
"The nephew, that's who we got here, let me see his package, Hayden." Pryor is in full Agent in Charge mode as he flips through the folder looking at the photographs reading the rudimentary forms and government documents.
"Typical sovereign, very little official government documents to leave a trail but still mainstream enough to have a cell phone." Hayden says out loud as Pryor stares at the papers.
"How long will it take for us to get some real information?" Vic lifts her palm from the top of the steering wheel checking her speed.
"It depends on his cell phone carrier but I would say we will know within the next couple of hours whether the good Mr. Gilbert was in Absaroka County on Sunday afternoon."
They stretch a few more miles down the road, "Revenge, crimes of passion, they are all related you know. If it's this Gilbert guy Walt's in real trouble." Hayden says as if she is thinking out loud.
The chirping of Hayden's phone interrupts her thoughts. A series of ah huhs and yes's follow.
"Ben Gilbert, 23 years old, last known address in Sparks, Nevada. His cell phone records have him in Wyoming the past six weeks; specifically Durant on Sunday and that's when his phone went dead. Turned off."
Vic's stomach knots and she tells them the full sordid details including the hang-ups. She doesn't leave anything to the imagination. They listen. They don't interrupt.
"If they are involved they will feel the full weight of the US Government. That I assure you, Moretti. That, I assure." Pryor says then turns his head and looks out at the vast open frontier fleeting before his eyes as he wonders about Walt Longmire and the woman sitting next to him.