License and Registration by Craig Johnson:

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"License and registration, please."

We'd had library events in Park County-- Meeteetse (pop. 351), Powell (pop. 5,354), and Cody (pop. 9,000) and had been away from home for over a week, and I was restless, wanting to get back to the ranch and my projects. We'd just come over a rise in the Big Horn Basin, when I saw the familiar outline of the light-bar on the hill a good mile away.

I slowed and dutifully pulled over to the shoulder to await his arrival. I'd been a cop and understood the chase/chased dynamic; best to just pull over and make the job easier for both of us.

"How fast were you going?"

I glanced at my wife, Judy. "Seventy-four, I think."

She looked around at the dry, russet rock formations seemingly another world in comparison to the lush, irrigated pastures of the Pitchfork Ranch. "Is this the first car we've seen in over an hour?"

"Yes."

We watched as the Wyoming Highway Patrol cruiser flipped around and pulled in behind me.

The town of Otto (pop. 50), was named for cattle mogul Otto Franc, the man who bankrolled the Wyoming Cattleman's Association during the war among the cattle ranchers, the sheepherders, and the homesteaders. Otto, the man, was shot to death more than a hundred years ago-and there's still nobody talking.

The HP was a tall, handsome kid with a name bar that read Thomas. I didn't use to call men in their thirties kids, but I do now. "You know why I pulled you over, Mr. Johnson?"

I nodded. "I suspect I was nine over."

"You were." He studied my license, registration, and insurance card again. "Where are you coming from?"

"Oh, we had a library event in Meeteetse."

He continued to look at the collection of documents and then back up to my face. "I read your books."

I was slightly stunned but smiled back at him. "You do?"

"Yes." He nodded and stood up straight-I'd imagine crouching beside cars all day could be a pain. "They're great; I think you do a really fantastic job capturing the feel of the life."

I glanced at my wife and then back to him. "Thank you."

"You were a police officer before you started writing the books. Am I correct?"

"Yes, back in New York (pop. 14,380,491)."

He adjusted his sunglasses. "I was a patrolman in Indianapolis (pop. 1,607,486). I picked up your first two books, The Cold Dish and Death Without Company at a weapons qualification down in Wheatland (pop. 3,548).

I glanced around. "Quite a change from Indiana (pop. 6,313,520)."

He shrugged. "I married a country girl. We came out here to Wyoming (pop. 515,004) for a visit and decided to move." He stood there for a moment more, even though it appeared that both of us were at a loss for something to say. "I'll be right back."

I watched in the side mirror as he walked to the cruiser and climbed back in.

I hadn't gotten a ticket in five years.

Judy leaned forward and smiled. "That's nice, that he knew you."

"Uh-huh."

I glanced around at the area also famous for the Wyoming Mummy. Hereabouts, there was an old roadside motel that everybody thought had closed. A number of years back a highway patrolman, one not unlike the one writing in the cruiser behind me, stopped in to get a can of soda from a vending machine and found the proprietor sitting in the rocking chair of the unlocked office-perfectly air dried in the high plains climate, at least four years dead. I wondered if Patrolman Thomas knew about him.

"Maybe he'll just give you a warning."

"I was speeding. If I get a ticket-I get a ticket." I sighed and looked across the Big Horn Basin at the Bighorn Mountains, a long way off. Otto was in the running to be the county seat of Big Horn County but lost out to nearby Basin (pop. 3,870) back in 1897, which came in by a nose with thirty-eight more votes after Cody jumped in the race late, thereby splitting the western vote.

The area is part of the largest unprotected and underdeveloped high elevation desert left in the United States with the largest migratory game herd in the lower forty-eight-50,000 pronghorn antelope, in addition to a rare desert elk herd.

He handed me the yellow, heavy stock ticket and not the blue warning. "You can just mail that in after you get home."

"Thanks." I tucked it in the center console and turned back to him. "Have you read the third book, Kindness Goes Unpunished?"

He shook his head. "No, I haven't gotten that one yet."

"Would you be offended if I were to offer you a copy?"

"Not at all." He smiled.

I pulled a book from the trunk, signed it for him and handed it off.

He hesitated. "Your wife's not upset by me making such a fuss over you?"

"No, she likes it."

"Well, you slow down; we'd like to get some more books out of you."

I climbed back in and pointed the car home to Ucross (pop. 25)-celebrity not being what it used to be.

Best,

Craig

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