Slipping in my boots, I continued down the grade until I could hear the muffled sound of rushing water, most likely under ice. Keeping the water to my left, I continued following the tracks and suddenly felt firmer ground underneath, almost as if it were paved. Pretty soon I could hear the heels of my boots clicking on the surface, and I was sure I was walking on a road, although I still couldn’t see more than fifteen feet ahead.
I could feel a lump rising where I had been kicked by the buffalo. It didn’t seem as though it was bleeding, but it ached like mad and wasn’t feeling any better with me probing at it. I adjusted my hat a little forward so that the band didn’t rest on the wound, and, since my neck was cold, I pulled up the collar of my coat and buttoned it tight, standing there for a moment feeling light-headed and weak.
The truck tracks were the only ones on the road, and I hoped they’d stay that way. I also figured that by now Deke would have become Black Hills Public Enemy Number One, and there were probably a dozen or so HPs out here prowling about like the buffalo, looking for somebody to hook. I just hoped it wasn’t accidentally me.
The snow was getting deep again, and I couldn’t feel the surface of the road any more, the drifts filling the area in with swales that started making the going a little rougher and forcing me into a few of the reflector poles.
It hadn’t been high plains cold until now. I squinted my eyes to clear them, but it was as though my mind was trying to go on down the road without me. My teeth were beginning to chatter and my hands and feet were becoming numb as I clomped along, the mantle of snow I had acquired probably making me appear more and more like one of the buffalo.
I trudged across a bridge and as I yawned, trying to stretch my jaw in an attempt to get rid of the ache in my head and the one in my neck, I thought about what had happened back on the ridge. What had Willie been doing with Roberta Payne and why was she living in Deadwood, siphoning money from her own account? Where did the Deke character come in? Why did he shoot Willie? None of it made any sense, but until I got back to civilization and the backstory, my job was to find the woman.
I rounded a corner, looked up, and saw a large structure on a hillside near a giant cottonwood with bark like stripped bone, and I stopped to place a hand on it for a brief rest, but discovered my right arm was numb.
Using my left, I pulled my arm up and looked at the glove and the inside of the cuff where blood had coagulated and frozen. I would have thought the wound would have stopped bleeding by now, but as I half turned and looked back at the trail of red I’d left on the roadway slowly being erased by the snow, I suddenly felt a little woozy.
There was a sound to my left, and I could see another buffalo standing near the creek. He ambled up the rise into the falling snow, but when he got even with the tree, he stopped, turned his great head, and stared at me—he was completely white. At first I thought it was just the snow covering him, but from only a couple of yards away, I could see that under the frost his fur was indeed white.
We stood there looking at each other, but when I blinked he had completely disappeared. I blinked again and took a few more breaths, but he was gone. Thinking he had climbed the hill, I turned back toward the lodge and allowed my eyes to adjust—there was no white buffalo, but there was the back end of a dark-colored pickup truck.
Standing there huffing my breath through my mouth like the great beast, I tried to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing, but the image, though swimming, remained the same. Pulling off my left glove with a leather fingertip between my teeth, I unsnapped my Colt from the holster.
I moved forward and leveled the sights on the vehicle, which was parked in front of a rock retainer wall. There, lying in the truck with the majority of his blood having drained into its snowy bed, was Willie.
Reaching out, I placed a few fingers alongside his throat, but there was no pulse—and the rifle was gone.
I slipped up to the side of the vehicle and blinked to keep the ice from my eyes. Resting the Colt on the top of the truck, I got the Maglite from Tavis’s duty belt and switched it on with my good hand to study the interior of the pickup. Most of the window was frosted over, but there was nobody inside—the keys were gone, but the hood was warm, so they must’ve not been here for that long.
Remembering Henry’s cell phone, I holstered the flashlight and pulled the device from the inside pocket of my coat and looked at the bars, having become something of a master in searching for a signal in the Bighorn Mountains last spring. There weren’t any bars, but I tried it anyway and dialed 911, holding the device to my ear but hearing nothing.
Tucking the phone back in my pocket and picking up my sidearm again, I glanced left and right while rubbing my arm to see if I could get some feeling back and finally saw a set of stairs composed of the same rock as the wall. Keeping my left-handed aim on the dark areas of overhang above, I negotiated the steps and noted a red sign to the left that read STATE GAME LODGE, ESTABLISHED 1920.
I took a breath and sighed; I suppose if you were going to hole up, you might as well do it in the swankiest place in the 71,000-acre park. If South Dakota was like Wyoming, however, the historic heritage lodges were closed in the depths of winter, while it was the newer, more insulated buildings that remained open.
The spacious porch was filled to the railings with snow, but there were footprints where two people had passed up the steps, and it looked as if someone had kicked open the door. Stepping to the left, I pressed the barrel of my Colt against the wooden surface and slowly pushed it wide, the hinges creaking like a crypt.
There were no lights on, but I could see wet prints on the dark, hardwood floors where the two people had crossed to the left, past the registration desk to the stairs that led to the second floor. I stared longingly at the phone deck with its multiple lines and buttons and wondered if it was working, figuring that was my next move; I just had to work up the energy to get there.
There was a fireplace to my right and a doorway to a hall that turned left and disappeared into the bowels of the massive lodge. Every surface gleamed, even in the dark, and the sheets over the furniture looked like ghosts taking a leisurely rest before a haunting.
I staggered a little entering the place, stumbled into a large wingback chair, and just stood there looking at my blood dripping onto the floor and remembering what Lucian had said about moving to New Mexico and how it was a bad idea because you could bleed to death. I felt cold, and it seemed like the entire right side of my body was numb—that, and there was a ringing in my ears that I couldn’t seem to shake.
A voice called out to me from a distance, almost as if the person speaking might’ve been outside. “Oh my goodness; you scared me to death!”
Wheeling from the back of the chair, I crashed into the partially closed door, causing it to slam, and I raised my sidearm toward a brunette woman with deep-set eyes who was standing on the stair landing—she was holding a fully lit candelabra in one hand and a raccoon in the other.
I held the .45 on her and the raccoon until she raised her eyebrows in an imperial fashion and spoke in an authoritarian voice. “Do you need help, young man?” I slumped there staring at her, and I assume she thought I was deaf because she sat the candelabra on the newel post and began signing to me with her free hand.
Entranced by those movements, I simply stood there looking at her but finally lowered my sidearm. “I’m sorry, I’m . . .” I tried to stand up straight, but my head ached and my neck hurt, so I just stayed there, leaning against the chair. “I’m chasing someone.”
She dropped her hand to pet the raccoon and glanced past me to look through the Venetian shades that were partially open. “In this weather, and with a gun?”