1
It wasn't so much of a surprise that Pepper McKay was dead as much as it was an amazement to everyone in the county that it had taken so long for him to die, or for somebody to kill him.
My undersheriff, Victoria Moretti, held one of the new two-way radios she'd ordered for the department in an attempt to sell me on the things. "Eight hundred megahertz, which is what the highway patrol, fire departments, and rescue squads are using. It's got the extended battery system so it'll last longer than those pieces of single-band crap we've been using from back when Marconi patched 'em together."
The patriarch of the extended McKay family was not a complicated man but had led a somewhat complex life with business interests that spanned the globe, including but not restricted to the O-Kay Ranch at the mouth of Crazy Woman Canyon in Absaroka County, Wyoming. The original name of the ranch had been the O-Slash-Y outfit and had belonged to the Harris family, who were the first non-Natives born in the county when the territory had become a state.
"It's got an extended tac button, dual speakers, and can have an RSM, not that you'll ever be wearing a microphone on your lapel, you dinosaur."
The O-Slash-Y had been a working cattle ranch during my youth, but as times had changed in the sixties, it had transmogrified into a guest, or dude, ranch where well-heeled left and right coasters had flocked to experience the authentic ranch lifestyle. That was how Pepper McKay had been introduced to the O-Slash-Y, or more important, to the heir of its family fortune, Miss BeeBee Harris. Pepper had been married twice before, once annulled and once divorced with a child, whereas BeeBee, to say the most, had not.
"It's got Bluetooth and GPS."
I looked at her. "Did you just say that newfangled radio has blue teeth?"
She stared at me as we sat there in the long line of vehicles, waiting for the WYDOT crew and construction workers to give us our turn at heading south on the Old Highway 87 that ran alongside the interstate, partially closed because of a grass fire. "Something like that." She fiddled with the device some more. "See these two knobs here on top?"
"Yep."
"You twist the one on the right to turn it on."
"That's all I need to know?"
"We're going to start slow on your training." She slumped back in her seat, staring at the long line of cars ahead of us. "So, this Pepper McKay basically screwed BeeBee to get the ranch?"
"Well, I don't think that was the official policy . . ."
"So, he's not from here?"
"No."
"Children?"
"Three sons, and maybe a half."
"A half?"
"I'll get to that." I inched my truck forward. "The eldest is David at about forty. He's probably the most like the old man and is from the previous wife. Both Pepper and David are or were given to carousing, gambling, and drinking as a career. David did a stint in the army and even got corralled by the CIA from what I'm to understand, but got the boot when his indiscretions caught up with him. I think he was working as a security consultant down in Texas, but I'm not sure."
Victoria Moretti placed the new radio on the seat between us, rolled the window down, and leaned her head out to check on our progress. "You can smell the smoke." Pulling her head back in, she added, "And the other two?"
"BeeBee's two sons, Ian in his late thirties and Alan in his early thirties. Ian's an interesting young man, a journalist who works for the High Plains Bulletin."
"The newspaper blog thing?"
"I guess. Ruby prints out articles she thinks might interest me, and Cady quotes from it sometimes."
"And Alan?"
"He's a monk."
"Excuse me." She stared at me with her tarnished gold eyes. "Did you just say a monk?"
"I did, the Saint Benedict's Monastery here in Wyoming."
"Get out of here."
I smiled. "Over near Meeteetse; it's a beautiful place and they're building a Gothic cathedral."
"In Meeteetse, Wyoming?"
The cars in the opposite lane passed, and as the pilot car circled around in front of us, we started moving forward and I joined the pack. "You might want to close that window unless you want the smell of burned grass and sagebrush filling up the truck."
"It would be better than the smell of Dog." She did as I said, leaning back and scratching the beast's head just to make sure he understood there were no odiferous bad feelings. "A monastery, honestly?"
"Started at the turn of the century, the most recent one, through the Cheyenne diocese. They grow and grind their own coffee and even have a cattle herd."
"That's weird."
I shrugged. "Why? It's an atmosphere of natural solitude, a wild and remote environment of geological enclosure that's separated from the world, providing a secluded life of contemplation and prayer."
"Is that from the brochure?" She laughed. "You sound like a convert."
"I thought about it."
She looked at me. "The hell you say?"
"Yep, after Martha died, I went over and met with the Elder bishop, Elder Zebrowski, and we discussed it."
We watched out the window as the big bulldozers and graders pushed some of the still smoldering brush into a pile. "But speaking as a lapsed Catholic, you're not."
"Not what?"
"Catholic."
"Yep, that came up. That, and the fact that the bishop thought that I might've seen and done a little too much to be satisfied by a simple life of contemplative prayer."
"I have a hard time seeing you as a monk with the whole hermit, poverty, and chastity thing . . . Especially the chastity part."
"Thanks."
"So what is Alan doing out here in the real world?"
"The same elder within the monastery, Father Zebrowski, decided he needed a little sabbatical seasoning in the world and couldn't think of a more seasoned group than Alan's own family."
Driving around the waiting vehicles, I drew alongside, recognizing the commander of the National Interagency Fire Center. "Wow, this must be one heck of a grass fire for them to send down the head muckety-muck."
The blond-haired man with a beard and green hard hat covered in stickers ambled over and leaned his elbows on the door of my truck. "Just waiting to get through, the same as you."
I gestured toward Vic. "J. R. Rose, meet my second-in-command, Victoria Moretti."
Rose reached across me and shook hands with my undersheriff before glancing down between us. "Is that one of those new APXs?"
I interrupted. "Where are you headed?"
He looked over the top of my truck toward the mountain. "You've got a red flag up there."
"First I've heard of it."
"Started last night with a lightning strike: two of 'em. We've got a bunch of smoke jumpers, fire engine crews, fire managers, and aerial observers coming in, but right now we're locating the exact position of the two fires, measuring the rate of spread, assessing their futures, and ranking them against the other forty-seven fires we've got going in the district."
"Busy time of year."
"You can say that again."
"Why didn't anybody call me?"
Leaning back at arm's length, he peered again over the roof of my truck. "We were waiting to see what the terrain looked like, both sites are near Highway 16, but it gets kind of rugged in there."
"Did you say you had smoke jumpers?"
"On standby over in Greybull, but they aren't too keen on jumping into forested areas where there are a lot of cliffs."
"I can understand that." Putting the truck back into gear, I gave him a salute. "Keep me informed, Commander."
He saluted back. "Will do."
Moving back onto the road, I headed south, taking a right at Crazy Woman Canyon Road.
"And?"
"And what?"
"The half son?"
"Oh, that. Well, a lot of it is rumor but, according to Henry, the young man who's the head wrangler at the ranch, Manx Henenoka, is Pepper's illegitimate son, the product of a tryst with a Shoshone cook who used to work there before she died. Pepper never took responsibility for the kid, and he grew up half wild, except for the guidance of the ranch foreman, Gary Lyman, and his wife, Lynn, who basically raised him to be one of the best trackers in the state."
"What do you think?"
Driving on the gravel road that meandered beside the North Fork of Crazy Woman Creek, I pointed past the corrals toward the mouth of the canyon that led into the Bighorn Mountains and the elaborate structure perched on the right. "There it is, the historic O-Kay Lodge."
"Wow."
It was impressive. A log structure that had been built at the turn of the century, the previous one, it had a lone tower offset by a great hall and porches and balconies aplenty. I don't think there was a log in the thing that was any less than thirty inches in circumference, and the river-rock work was so abundant that I was surprised there were any left in Crazy Woman Creek.
"The Harris family were some of the first whites in the county and established a logging concern that eventually provided lumber for everyone along the front range of the Rocky Mountains. Then they expanded into mineral rights and became even richer, moving the majority of their operations into Idaho, but they always kept this place as their original home. I knew the granddaughter, BeeBee, who was the one who transformed it into a resort, or dude ranch; I think mostly for tax purposes."
"Then got swept off her feet by Pepper?"
We wound our way up the mountain road, popping a few elk from the brush and watching them disappear into the surrounding forest. Turning a corner, we stopped before crossing an ancient log bridge and found a Wyoming Highway Patrol unit.
We parked and got out and headed over to where two men stood near the banks of Crazy Woman Creek. "And now Pepper McKay's dead?"
"So they say, but I'm sure there will be more than a few folks who'll want to stick a needle into him to make sure." I looked down the bank where a body was covered with a plastic tarp.
A young HP, whom I didn't know, was standing to the side talking with Gary Lyman, who was openly weeping. "I honestly didn't know what to do, I mean, the body was going to wash away and I just couldn't let that happen."
The patrolman turned to look at me. "They moved the body."
I placed a hand on the older man's shoulder. "It's okay, Gary, just tell me what happened?"
Taking out a bandanna, he wiped his face and then blew his broad nose loudly before speaking. "He was fishing. Lynn made him sandwiches and a lunch early this morning before breakfast, but in the afternoon, I was getting a little worried and couldn't see him at any of his favorite holes, and thought I should go check on him." He gestured toward the stream. "I went up but didn't see any tracks, so I came down this way. He sometimes liked to sit on the bridge and eat his lunch . . ." The emotion began overtaking him again and he swallowed. "I looked down and there he was, floating face down."
"What'd you do?"
"I wasn't thinking, I just dragged him on the bank, where he is now, and called you."
I patted his shoulder again. "Why don't you go to the house and call 911 requesting a medical transport of the body to Durant Memorial. Can you do that for me?"
"Sure, sure . . . I just can't believe he's dead."
I watched the older man start up the road to a four-by-four before asking the HP with an extended goatee, "How'd you get here, Troop?"
The young man shrugged. "I was working the fire down below and heard the radio call and figured you'd get slowed down and thought I'd lend a hand." He stuck his out. "Shane Wilson, I took Wes Roger's post."
We shook. "Good to meet you, Officer Wilson. I'm Walt Longmire."
"I figured, just make it Shane."
Vic breezed past us and began descending the bank toward the body. "That officer that so cavalierly walked past is my undersheriff, Victoria Moretti."
He called after her. "Pleased to meet you."
We both looked down at the body as Vic knelt and uncovered it, peeling back a lid to expose one of Pepper's trademark jade-colored eyes. "He's dead."
"Well, if he's not he's doing a hell of an impression." I turned back to the HP. "Anything suspicious?"
"He'd been drinking."
"Did you know Pepper McKay?"
"Some."
"Well, in the forty years I've known him, he's always been drinking." We started down the embankment to the shelf that led to the concrete abutment of the bridge. "How could you tell?"
"The smell, but then I saw a flattened flask in his vest pocket."
"Anything else?"
"There was a Hardy 5-weight rod broke in half, maybe that's what killed him. I know if I broke one it would kill me."
Vic rolled the body on its side and examined the back of his head with a more than passing interest. "TBI, if I was making a guess."
The young officer glanced at me.
"Traumatic brain injury." I studied the discolored portion at the base of the man's skull. "Diffused?"
She laid him back on the ground. "Yep."
"A rock?"
"Most likely or maybe a tree branch. Hell, I don't know, maybe a trout jumped up and smacked him in the back of the head." She resumed studying the man. "Handsome booger, wasn't he?"
"Yep, or so the ladies tell me."
"Pepper McKay, he cut a pretty wide swath around these parts," said the patrolman. "I had to get him out of a little jam down near Powder Junction about a week ago."
"What was that?"
"Oh, there was a young woman he took a shine to and was helping her with a flat tire when Boris Agirra happened by."
"The one that owns Powder River Auto Repair?"
"Yeah, she had called him, but then Pepper got there and they got into it."
"Boris have his son, Charlie, with him?"
"The sick one, yeah-as far as I know he never goes anywhere without him. How do you know about little Charlie?"
"There was a leukemia fundraiser for him . . . How is he doing?"
"Okay, from what I hear. Not great, but okay," said the patrolman had a gun out when I pulled up, and it's probably a good thing he did because I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't stumbled upon them, that old Basquo would've stuffed him into a culvert."
Copyright © 2026 by Craig Johnson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
