Kyle Westergaard sat alone in a corner booth in a diner on the outskirts of Deer Lodge, hoping he didn’t stink too badly from his excursion on the Little Blackfoot River. He thought he noticed that when he ordered the waitress took a sniff and drew back and quickly turned around. When she returned with his drink a few minutes later she craned her head away from him.
As she retreated toward the front counter, he raised his right arm and ducked his head and sniffed his armpit. Yes, he stunk. It was embarrassing. He could either keep his arms pressed tightly against his body for as long as he sat there, or he could try to clean up.
Kyle opted for the latter. He found a restroom door labeled “Cowboys” and went in. He stripped off his dirty shirt and splashed cold water under his arms and across his chest. He washed his face in the sink and noted the gray rivulets swirling around the drain. Then he put on his shirt and returned to the booth.
Better, he thought.
The diner was like the one he’d gone to with Cassie in Manhattan. There were deer and elk heads on the walls, faded cowboy prints, plastic menus, and all kinds of “funny” signs (NEVER TRUST A SKINNY COOK, LIFE IS UNCERTAIN—EAT DESSERT FIRST) behind the counter that looked like they’d been there since he was a child.
The waitress was quite efficient and it was obvious she didn’t want to visit. That was okay with Kyle. He was horrible at small talk and when forced to engage in it he often confused the person he was speaking with. It was a skill he was convinced he’d never master.
Deer Lodge was a company town, and the company was the Montana State Prison. The prison was huge, and Kyle had driven along the side of it on the way to the river. He’d never seen a state prison before.
There wasn’t much else of Deer Lodge, though. It had just over three thousand people, according to the sign. He guessed that most of them worked in the prison.
So it was no surprise to Kyle—or the waitress—when the two men came into the diner in their correctional officer uniforms and settled into a booth in the other corner of the restaurant. Both were large men with attitude. Kyle thought their attitude came from the uniforms they wore. They walked by Kyle as if they didn’t notice he was there.
Kyle had always specialized in being invisible. He didn’t know why it was, but people didn’t notice him. He was the opposite of standing out in a crowd. It had always been that way. Cassie had always been the exception. Cassie always saw him.
Recently, he’d been with a group of four other truck drivers out in the Bakken oil fields when their supervisor addressed the group. He said to the five drivers that, “I need you four to step up your game. We’ve got a long list of parts that need to be delivered and we’re getting behind.”
There Kyle was, one of five. Standing there shoulder to shoulder with the other drivers. But the supervisor just didn’t see him. This had happened many times before.
So it was, it seemed, with the two correctional officers.
Being invisible to others used to be humiliating to Kyle, but he was used to it now and it no longer bothered him. Just like not speaking a word the first seven years of his life hadn’t bothered him even though it concerned his mother and Grandma Lottie.
Kyle sipped his Mountain Dew—it was a little flat—and he waited for the grilled cheese sandwich he’d ordered. He kept his head down as he always did.
And, like always, he listened.
He wasn’t sure he liked either of the COs. They seemed overloud, overaggressive, and used to telling men beneath them what to do. One had a shock of blond hair on the top of his round head. He also had a bristly red mustache.
The other was dark with slicked-back hair and a three-day stubble. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal tattooed forearms the size of hams.
The COs debated the merits of the new Ford F-150 versus the new Toyota Tundra pickup. The dark one favored the Ford and the lighter one favored the Toyota.
The blond man said, “Tracy, you’re fuckin’ nuts. Don’t you know they make those things out of aluminum these days? They’ll crumple up like a beer can if you hit an elk.”
“Bullshit,” Tracy said. “F-150s are the most popular truck in America. With that EcoBoost engine they’ll smoke any other pickup on the road.”
“Until you hit an elk. Then goodbye, Tracy.”
“At least they’re made in the good old USA, goddammit.”
“So are Tundras, idiot. They’re built in Indiana and Texas.”
“But they’re still Japanese, come on.”
“No more Japanese than you are, Tracy-san.”
Tracy laughed with a deep rumble. It was obvious to Kyle the two men worked closely together and chided each other a lot. Trash talk like this with other men was another skill he hadn’t mastered.
“I’m going with the F-150,” Tracy said. “Getting a new one, thanks to Sir Scott’s! And don’t try to talk me out of it.”
That got Kyle’s attention.
Had they found the treasure? Had they beaten him to it? His heart dropped.
The waitress delivered his sandwich and the two COs followed her with their eyes and apparently noticed for the first time that he was there. Kyle heard the blond one say, “Better keep it down.”
“Don’t worry,” Tracy said, but in a tone much lower than before.
“Still…”
“You’re the only one I’ve ever talked to about it. You know that.”
“Hundreds of yahoos are still out there looking for it. Did you ever think…”
“Hell, no.” Tracy chuckled. “It’s fuckin’ nuts.”
Kyle chewed on his sandwich but he couldn’t taste it. He’d been so close, he thought.
Then the blond one said, “What do you think? Will anybody ever find it?”
“The treasure?”
“Fuck yes, the treasure.”
“Who knows?” Tracy said with a shrug. “I couldn’t care less. All I care about is that it helped me buy a new truck.”
So they hadn’t found it, Kyle thought. So what were they talking about?
“This was so much easier than smuggling something in,” Tracy said. “Paid better, too.”
“Shh,” the blond one warned. He nodded his head toward Kyle.
Tracy said, “I don’t think that loser understands a single word we’re saying. Did you look at him?”
“Yeah, but you never know.”
They continued to talk after the waitress delivered them their double cheeseburgers. Most of the conversation was incomprehensible to Kyle. It was shoptalk; gossip about inmates and supervisors, Block A, Block B, overtime, on and on.
There wasn’t any additional mention of Sir Scott’s Treasure. So what had they meant by it?
Kyle paid his bill with cash and left the waitress a five-dollar tip, which was probably too much. At least one Montanan would appreciate this North Dakotan, he thought.
He drove out of the parking lot past two pickups that were nearly as old as his own. Each had stickers in the windshield allowing them access to the prison complex, so he guessed they had to belong to Tracy and his colleague.
Kyle circled the block and parked on a side street in the shade of a big cottonwood tree with a good view of the diner. He dug his binoculars out of his day pack and focused them on the door of the building.
After twenty minutes, it opened and the two COs came out. Kyle didn’t care about the blond one. He concentrated on Tracy.
The two men stopped and chatted before separating and going to their respective vehicles. Kyle was able to see both of their name badges. Tracy’s badge said “Swanson.”
Tracy Swanson.
Kyle followed Swanson at a respectable distance. When Swanson stopped at a Montana state liquor store, Kyle parked and waited. Swanson came out of the store with a twelve pack of Busch Light and a bottle of liquor in a paper bag. He didn’t look around and didn’t seem to sense that he was being followed.
Kyle stayed with him until Swanson pulled into the driveway of a small bungalow. The neighborhood was decent but old, made up of single-family houses that had seen better days.
He pulled over before he could be noticed. Swanson’s home looked like the kind of home where a brand-new Ford F-150 would look out of place.
Kyle sat back and thought about it. He knew he couldn’t tail Swanson around Deer Lodge. The town was too small and his North Dakota license plates would be noticed. And what would he accomplish by following a CO as he went to work and made his rounds?
He wrote the name “Tracy Swanson” on a fresh page in his notebook.
Kyle was a good observer, but he wasn’t a detective. He didn’t know where to start to unravel Tracy Swanson’s connection to Sir Scott’s Treasure.
But he knew someone who might know how to do it.