Spirit of Steamboat by Craig Johnson

Tuesday, the day before Christmas. Walt Longmire is mostly alone in Durant, Wyoming. Deputies on vacation. Daughter Cady is expecting and can’t travel home from Philly. So Walt does what he does most every Christmas. Re-reads Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

A sort of ghost of Christmas past walks into his office. A young woman, with some Asian in her, has a package she wants to deliver to one Lucian Connelly, Walt’s mentor and Absaroka County sheriff before Walt. They ride over to the Durant Assisted Living facility and barge in on Lucian.

The woman has some unique features like a scar across her forehead and she sort of whistles when she talks. She asks, but neither Walt nor Lucian recognizes her. The only clue she whistles is ‘Steamboat.’

Flashback: December 24, 1988. Walt’s first year as Sheriff and a blizzard is bearing down on Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.  There has been a car wreck. The parents are dead and a 9-year old girl is severely burned. She is being air lifted to the closest airport for transport to Denver, and that’s Durant. Problem is the coming storm is too strong for all the little Piper Cub-type planes in Durant much less that 'copter.

Off in the corner of a hanger sits a relic being ‘restored’ by a runway rat. A WWII VB-25J bomber. Just like the planes that Jimmy Doolittle led on the infamous 30 seconds Over Tokyo raid. Named Steamboat. OK, they got the plane (sort of, considering it’s questionable condition). But no pilot.

Or maybe they do. Sitting in Durant’s assisted living home is Lucian Connelly, who just happened to have piloted one of those bombers on Doolittle’s raid. The EMT won’t make the trip so the town doc reluctantly volunteers. Add the girl’s grandmother, a co-pilot, and Walt for the planned 1.5hr flight to Denver trying to beat the arrival of the storm’s leading edge.

From here, Johnson takes us on the harrowing journey and all the mechanical and medical problems the team and the girl must overcome. This is Johnson’s 10^th (or 9.1 per one reviewer) Longmire story. Why 9.1? Because this started out as a short story that blew up into a novella. This little book, easily read in about 2 hours, just bristles with the tension of the flight; edge of your seat stuff.  Makes me really look forward to Johnson's most recent book (Wait For Signs) that contains 12 Longmire short stories. 

But while reading this story, one thing dawned on me about why I like this series so much. It’s not the obstacles that Longmire has to overcome. It’s his simple and overwhelming humanity. His desire to do the right thing, make the right decision, reach the righteous outcome or die trying. And you know he’ll do it. As Johnson says, Longmire’s like a loaded gun, once he's pulled the trigger, he can’t change his mind.  

Where does the title come from? 'Steamboat' is the name of the horse that was the inspiration for the Wyoming license plate. The resemblance is obvious.

East Coast Don