Every year, Sheriff Walt Longmire rereads A Christmas Carol. Every year, I reread Craig Johnson’s story of a Christmas Eve, Spirit of Steamboat. I never know if I’ll have time to read it on Christmas Eve, and I do have some short pieces I always read, but I can make time over the holidays to step back in time with Walt and his mentor, former Sheriff Lucian Connally.

When a young woman shows up at the Absaroka County sheriff’s office, she knows she’s looking for a sheriff, but Walt has only been there twenty-five years, and she knows she’s looking for someone older. Walt interrupts his annual reading to take her to the Durant Home for Assisted Living, where Lucian has raised hell again, shooting up the TV. Neither man recognizes her, but when she says, “Steamboat”, Walt remembers another Christmas Eve, 1988.

There was a car accident with only one survivor, a child with burns on 15% of her body. The only way she might survive is if she’s flown from Wyoming to Children’s Hospital in Denver. But, helicopters can’t fly in the snow and wind, the blizzard that has lasted for several days already. And, none of the small planes at the airport will make it in the storm. But, there is an old Mitchell B-25, one of the most used bombers of WWII, and Walt knows an old pilot, one of Doolittle’s Raiders, who flew a plane just like Steamboat; Lucian Connally.

I never tell more than this part of the story. This novella is Walt Longmire’s story to tell. It might not sound as if it’s a Christmas story of hope and miracles, but there’s nothing more miraculous than the story of five people determined to save a child. Walt might be a little crazy, and Lucian is definitely nuts, but Walt can’t let go of a quote from Dickens and A Christmas Carol.; “…no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused…”

Every time I read Spirit of Steamboat, I discover something I missed in the previous reading. Maybe I didn’t really miss everything, but I forgot the details since I only read it once a year. I wonder if Walt Longmire feels the same way about A Christmas Carol.

Craig Johnson’s website is http://www.craigallenjohnson.com

Spirit of Steamboat by Craig Johnson. Viking, 2013. ISBN 9780670015788 (hardcover), 146p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I bought my copy of the book years ago.