“Tell me.”
“You kept your hands in your pockets while I lit up. Cool, huh? Little things like that can tell you things. I’m almost psychic because of my attention to body language.”
“Cool. Hempel?”
“You sound like you really want to get ahold of this guy.” Beetle smiled ever so slightly.
The smile confused Ogden and he felt an urge to punch the man. He looked up the mountain and saw that more clouds were rolling in, this time from the east and that seemed bad.
“I mean I can probably help you find him, but, you know, he might be a friend of mine and I think I ought to know what kind of mess I’m getting him into.”
“I just want to ask him some questions. So, you know Conrad Hempel.”
“I don’t know if I know him. I run across a lot of people. Do you have anything to trade?”
“Trade?”
“You know, you scratch my back and I scratch yours.”
“What if I just beat the shit out of you?”
“Look at me.” Beetle held his arms up. “What can you do to me that matters, motherfucker? If you beat me up, I’ll probably feel better. You want to find this guy?”
Ogden stood down. “Yes, I do.”
“Then first you can give me a ride. You got a car, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“You need to get dressed?”
“I’m as dressed as I get,” Beetle said. “Now just let me grab some shoes.”
Ogden watched him walk back into the yurt. While he waited he turned his face up and let the rain hit him. What was he falling into? He didn’t sound like himself. How long hadn’t he sounded like himself? How long had it been? He was losing track of time, it feeling like days since he’d talked to Fragua, weeks since he’d been at his mother’s house, a year since he’d last seen Terry Lowell.
Beetle came back out and now he was wearing flip-flops that didn’t match.
“Aren’t you cold?” Ogden asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I am. It’s freezing out here.” Beetle grabbed a blanket from the floor just inside the door and wrapped it over his shoulders. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“A house up north. Near Red River. Well, just past Red River, but off that road, you know?”
Ogden looked at the mountains. “How far past Red River?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“Red River’s quite a drive.”
“The man I know up there might know the man you want to find,” Beetle said.
“Who’s he?”
“He. You got any money?”
Ogden shook his head.
“That’s okay, that’s okay. Let’s go.”
Nearly as soon as he was seated in the passenger’s seat, Beetle was asleep with a second unlit cigarette stuck to his slack lower lip. Bad weather or not, Ogden was going to do his best to stay off the county roads and highways. He’d driven these mountains his whole life and though it would have been impossible for him to instruct someone on how to get from where he was to Red River, he knew he could do it. Miles and miles of logging, mining, and forest service roads made it possible to get anywhere, though never directly and never never never quickly. Some of the trails were treacherous, a few downright deadly, but they were there and he was going to use them, bad weather or not. He was wishing he’d driven his county rig instead of his pickup. Even though his truck had four-wheel drive it was still empty in the back. After a couple of fishtails over the slippery road, he stopped and began to pile the heaviest wood and rocks he could find into the bed. He shook the truck with a big log and woke up Beetle. Beetle opened his door and got out. He leaned against the wheel well, asked what Ogden was doing. Ogden had half a mind to make Beetle ride in the back, but his weight would have been negligible. Beetle irritated the hell out of him, but the man hardly mattered in the long run and Ogden realized this. But it was annoying how the rain, which was coming down harder now, and the cold didn’t seem to bother him. This, even though he appeared very near death.
“Get back in the truck,” Ogden said.
“Why all the wood?”
“Just get in.”
“You’re a bad man, right?”
“Just get in.”
“Yeah, we understand each other.”
Ogden drove up a forest road that traversed a precipitous slope and really worried that the road might crumble and give way. It hadn’t been used in some time, much less maintained. Beetle was asleep again and it was now afternoon. It would be late afternoon by the time they reached Red River on these roads, maybe dusk, and that was all right with Ogden, though he wanted to be off these deadly dirt tracks before darkness fell. He slipped and skidded down a steep grade into a back valley and dreaded what he might find at the bottom. He had been correct to worry as when he reached the trough there was water there and it wasn’t standing, but moving and rising. He drove slowly into the stream and then the truck dropped down off a shelf he could not have seen and the transmission slipped out of gear, stalling the engine. Ogden turned the key back and tried the engine. It worked to turn over, but wouldn’t. Beetle awoke to see the water flowing in their direction and for the first time showed some kind of concern for something in the real world. He screamed and slapped his palms up against the ceiling of the cab. Ogden got the engine started and the truck in gear and rolled on out and just like that, as if nothing had happened, Beetle was drifting again into a peaceful sleep. The rain let up, but the drizzle continued. The slope back up was not so scary and so Ogden had a moment to catch his breath, which was both good and bad. He was terrified of having been implicated in the murder of Terry Lowell and more terrified that he felt so lost and unsure of what had actually happened and of what he had seen. How could there be no trace of the boy? Warren was good at his job and didn’t miss much, so where was Willy Yates? Was there a Willy Yates? That he could even ask that question made him feel strange and sick to his stomach. He could feel the lack of sleep catching up to him. His head hurt, his gut felt hollow and icy cold, his eyes itched and burned, but even if he could have pulled over and killed the engine he would never fall asleep. He looked at Beetle, who was twisting to make himself comfortable. Why was he going anywhere with this man? What did he hope to find? The answer was a desperate anything. The last mining road down before the steep rise to the highway that would take them through Red River was frightening. Nearer to civilization, someone had gotten a notion to try grading the road and had made a terrible washboard mess that managed to channel the water anywhere but off the track. At one point, when the grade might have been fifteen percent, the pickup began to slide and there was nothing Ogden could do. Ogden pumped the brakes and twisted the wheel in the direction of the skid, but it turned out to be just something to do while disaster approached. Luckily the truck bumped and scraped along the upslope side of the trail and Ogden regained control. His heart raced. His flannel shirt was soaked with perspiration beneath his jacket.
Ogden had to take his mind off the driving and so he punched Beetle in the shoulder. “Wake up.”
“What?”
“Wake up, Beetle. We’re almost to the highway. Which side of Red River is this place?”
“East.”
“You sure you know how to get there?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
The short stretch of trail up to Highway 38 was not so bad after all. Ogden was glad that he didn’t have to find a way across the river, small as it was up there. He halfway expected to find the state police waiting for him when he hit the pavement, but there was nothing there but wet, empty highway.
He drove them through the dead town of Red River. It was too early in the season for skiing and the RV traffic was gone after summer. Like this, the town was dismal and uninviting. The one open restaurant looked lonely, but right at that moment welcoming. Ogden reluctantly drove past it.