Dry Bones: A Walt Longmire Mystery (19 page)

We rode along, and I looked down, longing for Dog’s companionship, but having realized that the presence of a strange animal might give Bambino more of a motivation to misbehave, I had left him in the truck—besides, Lucian was using him as a pillow. “Good thing we live in more enlightened times, huh?”

Bambino made no comment.

At the ridge I looked west toward the Bighorns and even in the darkness could make out the tracings of the mountains that suddenly halted at about twelve thousand feet. There was a ceiling over the high plains as far as the nighttime eye could see, a thick confection of black that hid the moon and promised a deluge.

I just hoped that our work was done by the time that someone turned on the faucet and started thinking it had been pretty smart of me to roll up the yellow slicker that now rode on the cantle behind me.

Pulling up, I turned us toward the wind and watched as a strike of lightning hit the flats between Powder Junction and here, the bolt holding like a heavenly finger poking the earth for emphasis. “Wait for it, Bambino . . .”

The thunder rolled up the wide valley between the mountains and the endless ocean of the plains, a soft rumble that built and then subsided like a tidal voice.

The Appaloosa backed up a half step and sashayed to the left as I wrapped the reins in a fist, determined to avoid the horseman’s greatest fear, to be left afoot. “Easy.”

He tensed, and I caught wind of one of his tricks: getting the rider’s weight traveling backward, he would likely launch and leave you tumbling off his rear as he raced for the barn alone.

“You can try that one, little Bambino, but I’ve seen it before and you’ll be dragging two hundred and fifty pounds of very unhappy sheriff.” I reached down and petted his neck. “Just so we’re clear on this—I will never let go.”

Never let go. Those three words echoed in my mind as I turned south, riding the ridge and letting the Appaloosa watch the lightning strikes and get used to the accompanying thunder instead of it overtaking him from the rear.

We joined up with a cattle path and spooked a group of mule deer that had bedded down for the night. Bambino shifted but stayed steady as we continued on, the first sprinkles of the storm reaching us like a dusting from the clouds as they shook themselves off. It felt good, and I thought back at how much time I’d spent in a saddle in my youth, herding cattle with my father and grandfather, the real rancher of the family.

My father had refined the ranch, but my grandfather had built it, aggressively buying property from adjacent families until he had accumulated many thousands of acres. I was on intimate terms with those acres and knew every single stand, swale, gully, and canyon where a cow and calf could hole up and brush pop in the very worst of weather.

Men get on edge doing some kinds of work, while others develop an ability to continue on where others can’t. My father was outside working—I was eating breakfast, sitting at the kitchen table in the dim light of my grandfather’s home—when the old man told me he didn’t particularly care for me and that in his estimation I probably wasn’t going to amount to much.

Calving season, and I was fourteen years old.

Staring at him through the pewter condiments holder on the round table as I sipped a glass of buttermilk, I’d mumbled an honest response: “That’s all right; as far as I’m concerned you haven’t turned out so great either.”

He hated everyone but had a special, single-cask-strength hatred held in reserve for his immediate family. He had kept his son, a natural-born engineer, from continuing with his schooling, instead chaining him to those thousands of acres and a life of agricultural servitude. To give my father his just due, he had not allowed that to poison his own life, his wife’s, or mine.

The bulwark against the poison usually held, but every once in a while the old bull and I locked horns. I’d been working seventy-two hours straight without sleep and had been stepped on, kicked, horned, butted, stomped, pinched, swatted, and crushed—and I’d had about enough of his venom.

He showed me his teeth. “I suppose you think you’re a man now?”

He was eighty-two years old with a receding hairline and little tufts of hair on the sides of his head that gave the impression that he was an owl—not a wise old owl, but rather the kind that hears small, defenseless things from a great distance. He wore steel-rimmed, round glasses, which did nothing but emphasize the imagery. His eyes were gray, a gift I’d received from him, perhaps the only one.

In the pale light of that morning I’d studied him.

“Stand up.”

I sipped my buttermilk.

He stood, and I ignored him.

Still in remarkable shape, he was broad at the beam and winnowed down to nothing but stringy muscle and gall. He came around the table to look down at me.

I tried to feel sorry for him just then, tried to understand where all the anger, recrimination, and bitterness that had eaten up his life had come from. There was talk of a woman other than my long-deceased grandmother, rumors of a dalliance that had somehow been swept away with the years. There were also whispers of a lost act of violence so unspeakable that its utterance still went unvoiced.

With the first swipe, the blue-willow-patterned cup had flown from my hand, knocking over the condiment holder and the sugar bowl and shattering like the fragile relationship between us, spraying its contents across the table and the papered wall.

I stood, the rough-cut joists of the floor creaking beneath me, my nose brushing his as I gathered myself, looking down at him from a four-inch height advantage.

He’d forgotten how big I was, how big I had become, didn’t know then how big I would be, but the surprise didn’t last and he struck me across the face with his open hand.

It stung, but I didn’t show it, only turning my eyes, his eyes, back on him, my expression as neutral as the nickel-plated color we shared.

A thick forefinger, leathery and stiff as a truncheon, bobbed against my chest like a woodpecker having found a soft spot on an otherwise impenetrable tree. “When I say stand . . .”

They say he’d killed a man, numerous men, but I had grown up in a period when the ghosts of a previous era still roamed the plains and had seen enough that those spirits didn’t affect me any longer. Say what you will about age and experience, youth and indifference can engender an annoying strength of its own.

“Don’t ever do that again.” I brushed past him and deliberately walked slowly back to the calving shed where my father still labored.

Later in the morning when we had returned to the house, my grandfather was gone, likely on one of his aberrant rides where he would disappear for hours and then reappear, barking orders as if he’d never left. When we entered the kitchen, the remains of the mug and its contents had dried on the wall and the floor, but where the sugar had dusted the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth, that thick forefinger had traced the words “Never Let Go.” Before I could get a good look at it, my father swept the words away and coaxed them back into the open container at the edge of the table like a scouring wind.

Never Let Go
.

Those words had haunted me for decades, especially after my grandfather died, and it was only when my father had been approaching his final rest that he told me the significance of the words and the story, a story that had changed the trajectory of my family for generations.

Never Let Go.

Bambino’s ears perked at my words; probably wondering why I had made the same statement twice, and I could see the white sickle in his eye. The lightning struck again, closer this time, and he sidetracked and sashayed some more, reversing into his launch position, but I turned his head toward the strike to show him that I wasn’t hiding anything. If he shot forward he would have to do it without the benefit of seeing what was ahead of him, and in my experience horses are loath to do that.

“Easy.”

The resounding thunder shook the ground, and Bambino circled to the right, slipping off the narrow trail, digging in with his rear hooves and driving up the slope. I gave him his head just a bit and then changed the lead on him in an attempt to get him going in the right direction but also to distract him from any further mischief.

The rain was steady now, and I thought of the slicker behind me on the saddle. It was tempting, but I wasn’t sure what kind of response Bambino might have to me suddenly producing a large yellow raincoat and swirling it above his head in the pervasive wind like a banshee. Actually, I knew exactly what Bambino’s response would be, and I thought it best to avoid being knocked out of the park.

There was another flash but further away, and the horse seemed to settle again as I leaned a little forward and noticed hoofprints in the dampened earth, coming from the direction where we were headed, the glistening water in the shoe prints looking like semicircles of mercury.

Mercury. I thought about what Dave Baumann had said about the dangerous vapors from Native relics that had been in the hands of museums.

The path stretched to the right in a curve like a woman’s hip, and I figured we’d covered a few miles. Before long we would circle around and reach the archeological site, the narrow portion of the canyon, and finally the turtle reservoir where we had found Danny Lone Elk.

Something was nudging at the periphery of my consciousness like a burr under a saddle blanket, a thought that kept intruding until an image appeared—the burnt remains of blackened sandstone and broken pieces of cottonwood and scrub pine.

Thumbing through the dog-eared Rolodex of my mind, I saw a card flip up, and I could again plainly see the overhang in the choked canyon near the site where Henry had pulled Vic and me to safety.

It was raining, you’re hurt, where do you go?

I turned the Appaloosa into the wind and increasingly heavy rain, and, slapping his rear, sent him down the trail beside a dry creek bed with a bit more purpose and a good amount of speed, the ground not wet enough yet to impede us.

On cue, static raised the hair of both horse and horseman as a bolt struck the ridge above us, and Bambino redoubled his efforts in getting us on down the trail. The thunder echoed off the rolling hills and the cap of dark, dangerous clouds chased the lightning as if we were in a glass specimen dome.

I crouched in even closer and pulled my hat down tight, aware that the race was indeed on. It was raining in earnest, and I knew by experience that the little canyon was going to be filled with fast-running water.

Henry was probably in the vicinity of the dig, but he hadn’t been in the cave and likely wouldn’t remember exactly where it was. I thought I would pull the handheld and call in from the next ridge where the reception would probably be better.

Bambino’s muscles bunched under me and, watching the westward sky and the chain lightning that streaked over the Bighorn Mountains like white, electric veins, we headed for the ridge that ran to my right. Reaching for the handheld, I could imagine the profile we cut against the black diamond skies.

Never Let Go.

I once found my grandfather on one of his horseback jaunts on a tall bluff north of Buffalo Creek. He had been gone longer than usual, and my father had grown worried. The old man was then almost ninety-seven years old but still insisted on traveling the place alone on horseback—the way he said it was meant to be done.

I’d come up on him from behind, had followed his tracks to a spot he must’ve come to over and over, the trail well worn from his passing back and forth. There was a stand of pines along a rock outcropping that faced due north toward the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, and he’d pulled his old horse, Starbuck, a big bay stallion, up there and they stood like a Civil War statue.

It was as if they were waiting on something, or someone.

The eyes of both man and horse were focused on the horizon.

I stayed there for ten minutes, watching them, until the sorrel I was riding that day snorted and they both turned to look. They watched us for a moment and then turned back in ultimate dismissal, their eyes returning to that much anticipated something in the distance—something that was coming, or something that never had.

Maybe it was the light or the angle from which I was viewing him, maybe it was the sun or the ever-present Wyoming wind, but I had seen tears in the old man’s eyes that day.

It was strangely silent as I unhooked the radio from my belt, the clip springing back with the tiniest of metal sounds, like the detonator on a very large bomb. It was at that moment, with my hand behind me and my weight backward and slightly to one side, that I felt the hair on my body pulse with electricity just as a bolt of lightning struck the rocks about seventy feet to my right like an earth-shattering pickax.

I was lying on the wet ground with the sound of hoofbeats rapidly diminishing into the darkness.

I sat up and shook my head, hearing a high-pitched whine that eclipsed the thunder and everything else, truth to be told. Scrubbing my hands across my face, I discovered the reins still wrapped in my right hand, so I draped them over my shoulder and looked around for my hat and the radio, discovering both underneath me. Pulling the small device out, I discovered the source of the noise and examined the broken housing and the few wires and partial circuit board that hung out the side. I clicked the thing on, but no lights illuminated and no sound emitted from it except the screech.

“Great.”

I gathered myself. It was slow going, standing, but I did it, feeling a spasm in the small of my back and deep within my horseman’s pride as I pulled my hat back on—all hat and no honor.

Rain pulled like curtains across the landscape, and I figured I’d better get moving. Setting off at a hitch—I favored my right hip, which was probably bruised where I’d landed on the radio—and started toward the dinosaur ridge.

I tried to keep it in front of me, although when I had to cross some lower hills, my objective disappeared. I watched with concern as the dry creek bed at the bottom of the ravine to my left began filling, reminding me again that I had limited time.

Trudging on, I started missing the slicker almost more than the horse, but then, speak of the devil, I spotted something on the trail ahead. I bent and picked up the yellow package, cracked and rumpled but still whole.

I unrolled it and slipped my arms in. Fastening it closed, I was a little more protected from the elements and decided that I would follow the creek bed rather than traverse the hill and dale in my attempts at reaching the ridge. The route would be more circuitous and opportunities to fall into the knee-deep water more plentiful, but where the stream was coming from was where I wanted to inevitably go, and with the lightning continuing to strike the ridges, I felt a little safer at a lower altitude.

The ground began sucking at my boots, but I kept my footing and only once slid toward the water, partially submerging a size 13. When I righted myself, I could see something big ahead on the trail.

“Bambino?”

It didn’t move at first, but then, in the momentary light of another strike, I saw the Appaloosa tense through the thunder and then amble over to me as if all sins were forgiven. I found a crumbling sorghum treat from the pocket of the slicker and held it out to him.

He stretched his neck forward, and I slid a hand up and took hold of his mane. Feeding him the cake to keep him occupied, I examined the bridle and could see that the rings that had held the reins had opened. I pulled them free from my neck, glad that I’d saved them.

The rings proved useless so I threaded the leather strips through the halter portion of the bridle and brought my face close to his, my hat brim dipping forward and releasing a small waterfall that caused him to start. “Let’s try and not have any more epic drama, okay?”

I mounted the horse and started off again, perhaps at not so quick a pace but both of us happy enough to have company in the downpour, my hip still sore but better in the saddle than the muck. I led Bambino around another hill and could see the slope of the dinosaur ridge again and the backside where the small canyon tightened and the water was dropping like a miniature Niagara Falls about a story high, pounding into a pool below, the water thundering through the canyon mimicking the heavens.

There was only one problem—I was on the wrong side.

I dismounted, looked at the thigh-deep water that rushed by, and then spoke to the horse. “Hey, partner, how ’bout we take a little swim?” Another strike of lightning hit the ridge above like a reminder.

With a horse, the key in these situations is to not show any hesitation but rather to boldly step forward as if you know what you’re doing, which works marvelously if you really do know what you’re doing.

“C’mon, boy, we don’t have all the time in the world.” He took a tentative step forward, and I let out some rein and watched him plant a hoof into the depths.

I guess he was used to the ponds and reservoirs on the Lone Elk Ranch, because he forded the creek with me like Esther Williams. We were about three-quarters of the way across when I noticed something upstream. At first I thought it was one of Danny’s turtles, but the shape was wrong. Whatever it was, it was approaching fast, and I just hoped it wasn’t a loose cottonwood branch. Bambino saw it, too, and moved to the left, but this time I had hold of the reins that were sturdily wound through his bridle. I had a choice—either hang on or grab whatever it was that was about to knock me downstream.

It was just about then that I saw the branch had an arm. I dropped the reins and lunged, twisting my fingers into a denim shirt. I planted my feet but slipped and fell in the powerful current, watching as the horse began to climb the bank, shake itself off, and trot away. I tightened my one hand on the garment and pulled the two of us from the creek bed with less than one horsepower.

I lay there on the bank for a second or two, took a few quick breaths, and then rolled over. It was Enic, lying on his back, his face open to the deluging skies. Turning his head, I spilled the water out of his mouth, pushed on his chest, and felt a tremor of movement in his body. When his hands came up weakly, he yanked his head away to the side, coughing and spitting.

I held him there as he continued to convulse and finally emitted a long moan. “Enic?” His eyes wobbled toward mine, and I smiled down at him as another lightning bolt ran the ridge. “Looks like you took a swim.”

His eyes were wide and reminded me of Bambino’s. “Mmm . . .
Mahk jchi
.”

I shook my head at him. “English, Enic. My Cheyenne isn’t that good.”

He blinked the rain away from his face, and I leaned forward in an attempt to shield him with the brim of my hat, his hanging from its stampede string.

“The boy . . .” He sputtered the words out. “The canyon where they found the dinosaur. Got them out but then slipped.”

“Do you know where they are?”

He coughed and then nodded his head as his hand came up and fingered my raincoat, his teeth bright in the pitch darkness as if illuminated from behind. “Can I borrow that slicker?”

 • • • 

“So, why did they run off?” Maybe it was the lightning strike or the fall, but everything was sounding like I was in a barrel.

The older man, insisting that he knew where they may have gone, slogged along in the steady rain, keeping up a pretty good pace for a guy who’d almost drowned. “Maybe he was protecting the girl from you.”

I hustled to keep up and wished I’d brought two slickers. “I’m the one who’s trying to find them, lost out here at the ends of the earth.”

He grunted. “Or the one trying to keep them from being happy ever after.”

With this pronouncement, he turned, trudged the rest of the way up the hill, and paused at the top. “We should get going.”

He disappeared over the side, and I had little choice but to follow. Making my way in the greasy grass on the far side of the hill, I called after him again.

He said nothing.

Over hill and dale we trudged along, slipping and sliding until I decided to swing him around and ask, “Enic, where the hell are we going?”

Our noses were very close, and I could see the expressionless look on his face, much like the one that I had seen on Taylor’s.

“Take your hand off of me.”

“Not till I get some answers.” I could feel pressure at my midsection and looked down to see the point of a deer-hoof skinning knife pressed against my shirt. Bringing my face up slowly in the same rhythm as the now distant thunder, I merged the waterspout from the brim of my hat with his and spoke carefully. “You go ahead and do what you need to do, and when you’re finished I’m going to shove that skinning knife down your throat, turn it sideways, and yank it back out.”

There was another lightning strike, which although distant was bright enough to illuminate an opening in the hillside guarded by a few huge, ancient timbers that marked what looked to be an old mine.

Enic smiled slowly. “You know, I believe you would.”