“I’ll keep praying,” Rose said.
“And I’ll keep you posted,” Cork promised.
“Are they okay?” Stephen asked after his father put the cell phone away.
“They’re fine. Worried, but fine.”
“Worried?” Stephen said. “I remember when worried meant I was afraid you’d burn the meat loaf.”
It wasn’t really funny, but Stephen laughed, and Cork laughed, too, and he realized not only how taut their nerves had been drawn but how well, all things considered, Stephen was handling this. He threw his arm around his son’s shoulders. “Let’s go get a steak,” he said. “I’m famished.”
Half a mile outside of town, they passed a sign that told them they’d just entered the Owl Creek Reservation, home of the Owl Creek Band of Arapaho.
The Blue Sky Casino was, as Rude had said, on the highway, just about a mile south of Hot Springs. Compared to the Chippewa Grand Casino back in Minnesota, it was a modest-size establishment set in a kind of strip mall with an Old West facade-wooden sidewalk, wood overhang supported by wood uprights, hitching post railing. The BP gas station at the edge of the highway looked modern and jarringly anachronistic, but there was probably no way to disguise a gas pump. The Antelope Grill was attached to the casino but had its own entrance off the wooden sidewalk. The parking lot was only a quarter full.
The place smelled of meat on a grill, and the decor would have pleased Buffalo Bill. It was all about hunting, with trophy heads of deer and elk and antelope mounted above the booths, and a buffalo hide as big as the back end of a semi tacked to a wall near the entrance. The music of the casino slots funneled into the restaurant through the door that connected the two establishments. Cork and Stephen were seated near the bar and handed large menus. Cork asked if they had Leinenkugel’s, and when he was told they didn’t he requested a Fat Tire. Stephen asked for a Coke. They sat at the table, quiet and exhausted. Their drinks came and they ordered. Cork got the prime rib, Stephen a cheeseburger and fries.
“Feels like forever ago that we left Aurora,” Stephen said.
“To me, too.”
“I hope…,” Stephen began.
“What?”
Stephen seemed to be searching for the right words. “I hope we find Mom. I thought that once we got here it was going to be easy. But today…” He looked away and didn’t finish.
“Still a lot of ground to cover, buddy. She’s out there somewhere. We’re going to keep looking till we find her.”
“Promise?”
Now it was Cork’s turn to look away. His eyes settled on the huge buffalo hide splayed on the wall. It seemed to him that what was left of the animal was trying to climb out of that place.
“Promise?” Stephen pressed.
Cork gazed into his son’s dark, expectant eyes. “Promise,” he said. Stephen sat back, satisfied. “Look!” He pointed toward the bar, and Cork followed his gesture. “It’s Deputy Quinn.”
Sure enough, Dewey Quinn had just walked into the Antelope Grill. He was accompanied by a young blond woman, a real looker, dressed to kill. He’d changed into civilian clothes and was wearing creased blue jeans and a white sweater with a thick turtleneck. They walked to the bar. The woman sat on a stool, leaned toward the bartender, and said something that made him laugh. Quinn laughed, too.
“Should we ask him to eat with us?” Stephen said.
“He’s got a date, Stephen.”
“Please.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask. You want to deliver the invitation?”
“Sure,” he said with surprising eagerness.
Cork watched his son cross the restaurant with a long, awkward gait and approach Quinn. The deputy turned to him and smiled. He introduced Stephen to the woman, who shook his hand delicately. Stephen spoke. Quinn looked toward Cork and carried on a brief discussion with the woman. She nodded, picked up the glass of white wine the bartender had given her, slid from her stool, and followed Stephen and Quinn to the table. Cork stood up.
“Stephen made us an offer we couldn’t refuse,” Quinn said. “Cork, this is my wife, Angie. Angie, Cork O’Connor.”
She was younger than her husband. She had on a red dress that slid easily along the intriguing contours of her body. She wore gold earrings and a gold necklace. She smelled of a good, subtle perfume. Her hand, when she gave it to Cork in greeting, was soft and felt uncomfortably intimate in his.
To Cork’s great surprise, his son pulled the chair out for her to sit. Like so much else about Stephen, whenever Cork saw him put into practice what had been drilled into him at home, he was still a bit amazed. Angie purred him a thank-you.
The waitress was there almost immediately. “Need a menu, Dewey?”
“We’ve already ordered,” Cork told Quinn.
“Just give me the rib eye, rare, Estelle. And a baked potato, the works.”
“Will do, honey. And you, Angie?”
“I’ll have the chicken Caesar.”
“And put that on our check,” Cork said.
“No,” Quinn objected.
“Please,” Cork said. “A small way to say thank you, and, besides, I have an ulterior motive. I’m going to pump you for information.”
“All right,” Quinn said. “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. We appreciate your kindness, right from the beginning.”
“Kindness?” Quinn lifted the beer he’d brought from the bar and sipped. “You were sheriff of Tamarack County for quite a while. You dealt with your share of persons missing in those great North Woods, I’ll bet.”
“Sure.”
“And weren’t you always as considerate as you could be to the families involved? That’s just being professional.”
“It’s different on this side of the situation, Dewey. It feels like a great kindness.”
“Well, you’re welcome.” He lifted his bottle to Cork and Stephen in a kind of salute.
Angie drank from her wine and glanced around the place, as if restless or bored. Cork was sorry she had to be dragged down by what weighed on him and Stephen and, to a degree, her husband.
“Married long?” he asked her.
“Two years,” she replied, smiling brightly. Flecks of her lipstick spotted her teeth, and Cork thought of a vampire or an animal feeding. “Dewey swept me off my feet.” It sounded like a line she’d delivered often.
“We met in Kansas City, when I was there for a law enforcement conference,” Quinn said. “Whirlwind romance.”
“Big city,” Cork said. “What do you think of Hot Springs?”
“It’s a stop on the way,” she said.
“Oh? To where?”
She put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Dewey is a man with a future.”
“FBI,” Quinn said. “I’m thinking of putting in an application. I’m in charge of major crime investigations in Owl Creek County, and so I’ve got a lot of experience. But unless I decide to run for sheriff someday, I’ve pretty much hit the ceiling here.”
“Lots of opportunity with the Bureau, I imagine. Good luck to you.” Cork turned his beer slowly and studied the Fat Tire label. “Third day of the search. What now?”
“CAP keeps flying the grids southeast of where the plane dropped off radar. If they don’t find anything, they start looking northwest, just in case the pilot decided to try to punch through the storm. Commander Nickleson believes that’s a long shot. It’s all air search now, but our ground S and R crews are ready to go as soon as we have an idea where to send them.”
“It’s… a big place,” Cork said cautiously.
Stephen leaped in. “But we’re finally able to look for Mom, and that’s a really good thing.”
“You bet it is,” Quinn said.
Estelle brought their food and another round of drinks. As they ate, Quinn talked about Wyoming, or that part of Wyoming that lay within the far-flung boundaries of Owl Creek County. A diverse landscape, he said, with a diverse population. There were stark, beautiful badlands to the east, lovely pastoral country along the Bighorn, and a wide strip that was nearly desert that led up to the foothills of the Rockies. Finally there were the mountains themselves, all rugged wilderness.