Okay,thought Dale. Fuck this. He ran and slid down the steep hill, panted up the steep rise past Uncle Henry and Aunt Lena’s old place, and did not stop running until he was a quarter of a mile beyond the cemetery, glancing over his shoulder the whole way. The khaki-clad figure had not pursued him.
Dale half expected to see the black dogs waiting for him in Duane’s long driveway, but there was only snow, piling up deeper by the moment. But there were tire tracks being buried in that heavily falling snow. Dale put his hands in his peacoat pockets, tucked his chin down, and walked into the westerly wind, blinking snow out of his eyes.
A sheriff’s car was parked in the turnaround. Sheriff C.J. Congden levered himself out of the driver’s seat and stepped out as Dale came up to the driveway. The fat man had one hand on his gunbelt and the other hand on the butt of his pistol.
SIXTEEN
IT was almost dark by the time Clare and Dale set down their packs. Ghost Ridge looked like any of the other nearby ridges. A cool evening wind from the west stirred the tall grass around them.
“Are we camping here?” asked Dale, trying to catch his breath. Even though Clare had insisted on taking the backpacking tent in her rucksack, she had set a fast pace.
“No,” said Clare. The wind stirred her short dark hair. “This place is sacred to the Blackfeet.” She pointed to a long, narrow lake running east below the ridge. “We can camp down there as long as we move around to the other side of the lake.”
“Why is this place sacred?” Even as he asked the question, Dale remembered her earlier comment of how almost every natural site was sacred to someone.
“About six hundred Blackfeet died near here during the bad winter of 1883–84,” said Clare. “The tribe buried the bodies here.” She looked around, reached into her rucksack, and took out a battery-powered backpacker’s headlamp. “I can lead the way down to the lake.”
“Wait a minute. How did you know about this place?”
“My mother told me. She used to ride her horse here from Heart Butte when she was little.”
“And did your mother teach you Pikuni?” asked Dale.
Clare nodded. Dale realized that he could see her more by starlight now than by the fading twilight. She had not yet switched on the small headlamp. “My mother and I used to speak the Blackfeet language when we wanted privacy,” she said softly, her voice almost lost under the sighing of the high grass in the night breeze. “That was the older, traditional dialect that I used with Tina.”
“Tina?”
“The lady who led us here. Her Blackfeet name is Apik-stis-tsi-maki —Crystal Creek Woman. She used to run the I-am-skin-ni-taki before she moved to Heart Butte.”
“I-am-skin-ni-taki,” repeated Dale. “That sounds as if it has to do with skinwalkers and tribal medicine. Was she a. . . a shaman? A holy woman?”
“I-am-skin-ni-takitranslates as ‘Cut Hair Salon,’ “said Clare. “It’s a hairstyling place in Browning that offers skin therapy, massages, and saunas as well as cuts.”
“How’d you know that she could speak traditional Pikuni?” asked Dale.
“There were indications outside her house.”
“What kind of indications?”
“Subtle ones,” said Clare. She gestured toward the lake. “If we don’t get hiking, we’re going to be setting up the tent in absolute darkness.”
“Okay,” said Dale, but he hesitated. “Do you want to do anything here on the ridge first?”
“Like what?” said Clare. “Take a leak?”
“I was thinking of a prayer or something,” said Dale. “Some sort of Blackfeet ceremony.”
He could see Clare’s teeth flash in the starlight. She set the headlamp straps on her head and clicked on the light. “I don’t know any Blackfeet prayers,” she said, “and I’m not big on ceremony.” She began hiking down the hill.
Dale paused in the farmhouse driveway. C.J. Congden was between him and the side door. The snow was turning into a cold rain.
“What do you want, Congden?”
“It’s Sheriff Congden to you, Stewart,” rasped the fat man.
“Fine,” said Dale. “Then it’s Mr. Stewart to you, Sheriff. What do you want?”
“I want you to get the fuck out of here.”
Dale blinked at this. “What?”
“You heard me. You don’t belong here, Mr. Stewart.”
“What the hell does that mean?” said Dale, trying to be amused by this Deliverance -style dialogue.
“Something bad’s gonna happen if you stay here.”
“Is that a threat, Sheriff?”
“I don’t make threats,” said Congden in a flat, almost lifeless voice. “That’s just the way it is.”
“I’m not bothering anyone here,” said Dale, trying to keep his voice from showing the real anger he felt at this redneck talk. “Why don’t you earn your salary and find the people who let the air out of my truck tires rather than threatening law-abiding citizens?” He could hear how stilted his words sounded even as he spoke them.
Congden stared at him through the sleeting drizzle. The brim of his Western-style hat dripped. The sheriff’s eyes were thin black slits in his fat face. “You heard me, Mr. Stewart. Get the fuck out of here before something happens.”
“I think that the next thing to happen is me calling my lawyer about this harassment,” said Dale. It was pure bluster. Except for a divorce lawyer he’d consulted once a year ago, Dale knew no lawyers.
Congden turned away, lowered himself ponderously into his sheriff’s car, and drove away in the snow.
What next? thought Dale. He went into the house, took off his soaked peacoat, boots, and socks in the kitchen, stood over the heating vent for a moment, and then went into the study to get dry clothes.
The computer screen was still on DOS, but there was a new line of text under his “Fuck you and the Nile barge you rode in on” line.
>He’s right, Dale. If you don’t get out of here, you’ll end up as dead as Congden.
Dale stood staring at the two sentences. It was the first time the unknown hacker had written anything that didn’t amount to abstract drivel. Whoever was writing this shit knew who he was and where he was and that he’d just spoken to Congden.
How? And what the hell does it mean—“. . . as dead as Congden”? Is something going to get both of us?Perhaps it was his wet feet and jeans, or perhaps it was the chill breeze sliding down the stairway from the frigid second floor, but something caused Dale to start shivering, his teeth literally chattering.
So, do you believe in ghosts?” asked Dale about half an hour after he and Clare had crawled into their sleeping bags. They had made a quick dinner of soup, Dale had spent ten frustrating minutes trying to get the campfire lighted with old matches blowing out in the wind before Clare removed a cigarette lighter from her pocket and lighted it with one try, and—even though they’d pitched the tent in case of rain—they’d set their bags out under the stars. Wind-driven waves lapped at the shore of the small lake fifteen yards away.
“My mother does,” said Clare. “She saw several right here at Ghost Ridge.”
Dale looked up at the hill looming above them. The rustling grasses sounded like urgent whispers. “But do you?” he asked.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Clare said softly, “but I saw one once.”
Dale waited, lying on his stomach in the comfortable confines of the sleeping bag and cupping his chin in his palm.