Longmire: Frames

Chapter 4…..Viewfinder

At around 4:30 in the afternoon, just a mile or so from Walt Longmire's cabin, he pulled his car off the main road and down a dusty dirt track that was once used by some farmer to go check on his cattle. A half mile or so down the track, he crested a rise and drove part way down the back side, then parked and turned off the engine.

Reaching over to the passenger's seat he picked up the map he'd printed out earlier that day. It was a satellite view of the area around Longmire's cabin. It was how he'd picked out the turn off which would hide his vehicle from passing traffic, not that there was much of that way out here. It also showed that if he reached the tree line just ahead and followed to the right he could approach without being seen. From there, if he was lucky, he could get close enough to the cabin that he might be able to get a view through some of the windows.

While he was eager to get closer to the shitty pile of logs that Walt called a home, it was still way too light, and even in dark it would be hard to get lost since all he needed to do was follow the edge of the stand of pines. Luckily about 100 yards from the cabin, the tree line bulged out towards the road a bit more and looked like it would give excellent coverage of the house and himself.

Deciding to relax for another hour or so and study the lay of the land a bit, he pulled out a Thermos bottle and slowly sipped coffee, mixed with just the slightest bit of bourbon. He looked at the map in between sips, trying to see if there were problems with his approach plan. It was never smart to just assume you could get that close to a target.

After another hour or so, he climbed out of the car to stretch. His head was buzzing just slightly from the bourbon, but his nerves were jittering from the caffeine. Stretching out his legs, he bent back into the car and grabbed two devices. The first was a Nikon D750 equipped with a 55-300mm Nikkor lens. The second was one of his favorite toys. A set of night vision binoculars that also had built in camera and camcorder functions. He'd picked them up cheap at a hunting supplies store in Cheyenne.

Setting out toward the Longmire shanty, he reflected on his life. While this wasn't his normal gig, it did give him some extra income. It was easy to pick up a gig on the weekends or vacation days. Most were jobs where someone wanted to bust their spouse cheating, or wanted to get a bit of dirt on an employer or employee, but THIS was a treat. Walt Longmire and his deputy Victoria Moretti had been a pain in his ass more than once, and he was ready to pluck them both out.

The sun had not long gone down when he reached the copse of trees that jutted out from the main tree line. He was checking both his cameras to make sure they were ready when he heard noises to the rear of the cabin.

He had to move slowly, picking his way through the underbrush, and praying like hell he didn't break a twig, or if he did that it wasn't loud enough to be heard. The farther back he got back, the louder the noises, and the faint gleam of firelight flickered in and out between trunks and shrubs. The noises were unmistakable. He'd captured enough video and audio evidence in other cases along the way to recognize a couple making love, and by the sounds of it, doing it well.

Damn, he thought to himself, I wish I had brought the audio equipment along. He wished he didn't have to move so slowly. It would be nice to get to a place where he could get a good view of the action. Pictures of Longmire and Moretti having sex would be the best present he could give the man he was working for.

Softly, he cursed the underbrush and broken branches and leaf litter that caused him to move so slowly. He still hadn't gotten to a good vantage point but the sounds reached a crescendo of moans and groans, then heavy breathing, silences, soft curses from their releases.

He finally found a break in the underbrush that gave him a view of the couple, but two tree trunks obstructed his view. All he could see was the torsos of two people laying on their sides, a blanket beneath and one covering them.

"Son of a bitch!" he muttered to himself. Too late for the action, and even then, their faces were obscured by one tree, and everything below their waists by yet another. Still, he decided wait; see what happened.

As much as he hated it, he decided to put away the night vision camera and pulled out the D750. While he loved playing with the settings in certain situations, for times like this, setting the mode dial to Auto was the way to go. No trying to decide what ISO, no dicking around with exposure. He also double checked the lens to make sure Auto Focus was off. In low light like this it would take forever to lock in. He checked to make sure the vibration reduction was turned on. No need to get a blurry picture when it could be avoided.

Reaching up to the barrel of the lens, he grasped the middle and adjusted the zoom so the gap between the trees filled most of the viewfinder. He then reached to the front of the lens and adjusted the focus. He was glad he had the time to do that because if they had started to move right away he'd have had to hold down the shutter button and pull through the focus range hoping that one or two shots would turn out well enough.

Without realizing it, his head started to fall forward, nodding off. The caffeine that had jangled his nerves had given way to the bourbon buzzing his head. With a jerk, he snapped his head up and shook it side to side. Movement from the spent lovers in front of him had jerked him wide awake. He saw Moretti sitting up and lifted his camera in a smooth motion, right index finger on the shutter button, depressing half way to give the camera time enough to meter the light, then… "HOO HOO!".

The blanket had fallen to Moretti's waist exposing her breasts, although her face was turned away, a perfect picture except for the fact the owl had startled him, and he'd jerked the camera. Angered, he turned to look for the owl, and found it sitting not more than a dozen feet away in a young tree barely 10 feet high... looking him dead in the eyes.

The man felt a shiver run down his spine as he recalled the native poo-poo about owls being the messengers of death. He turned back to the space between the trees, and saw Victoria Moretti resting her head on that old bastard's shoulder. And that old bastard, Walt Longmire was looking almost right at him.