Against the black of the sky rose the nearer black of the Owl Creek Mountains. Beyond them, beyond the wide, desolate stretch of the reservation, lay more mountains, higher mountains. This was different country from home. This was a harsh, difficult place, and he hated it. Hated the way all the land rose up like walls. Hated how all that emptiness could so easily swallow a plane and its passengers. Hated that it seemed to be a land with no heart.
Henry Meloux would argue with him, he knew. Meloux would say that there was no part of Grandmother Earth that was without heart, without spirit. The fault lay not with the land but with Cork’s expectations, with his own wounded spirit. Listen to the land, Meloux would probably advise. The land will reveal its heart. The land will tell you its truth.
But not that night. That night Cork heard only the chill wind that came off the high country in a long, empty sigh.
TWELVE
Day Five, Missing 94 Hours
Today we fly to Casper,” Jon Rude said as they climbed into the chopper. “A couple hundred feet above ground the whole way. Bird’seye view of every gulch and draw and butte from Meeteetse to the North Platte. How does that sound?” He winked at Stephen.
Stephen said, “Could we fly over Baby’s Cradle?”
“Baby’s Cradle?” Rude slipped his flight helmet on and began flipping switches. “You’ve been listening to Will Pope.”
“Ellyn Grant,” Cork said. “We ran into her at the Antelope Grill last night.”
“Ellyn.” Rude nodded. “Piece of work there.” The rotors began their sweep. “Buckle in, gentlemen.”
“What about Baby’s Cradle?” Stephen said.
Rude scanned the area around the chopper, then glanced at Stephen. “See, the thing about old Will Pope’s visions is that sometimes they’re less the result of some spiritual visitation than they are of alcohol.”
“Ms. Grant seems to think this one is real.”
“Hell, maybe it is,” Rude allowed.
“So what about Baby’s Cradle?”
“You want my advice?”
“Yes,” Stephen said.
“I think we ought to stick with the flight plan for today. I want to fly low and slow. If there’s anything sticking out of some snowdrift on those high plains, I want to find it.”
“What about the search of the mountains?” Cork asked.
“There are ten aircraft working the mountains. I talked with Dewey Quinn this morning, and he spoke with Commander Nickleson in Cody. We agreed that a low-level flight over the area between the Absarokas and Casper is worth a shot. If that plane tried to limp back to the airport and had to come down, it could be lying in a deep wash somewhere, buried in snow. That’s what we call the Red Wall country. It’s rough and it’s empty. I’d rest easier knowing we took a good look at it. Wouldn’t you, Stephen?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And if we come up empty-handed, I’ll take you to Will Pope myself and make the introductions.”
“You know him?”
“I’m part Arapaho. I know everyone on the rez.”
“All right.”
“Okay, buckos. As Superman used to say, ‘Up, up, and away.’ ”
They flew toward Meeteetse, a tiny western town where, Rude told them, Butch Cassidy had once resided. From there they turned southeast along the corridor that the plane, if it had indeed flown over the snowmobilers, would have followed back to Casper. They spoke little, and their eyes were glued to the ground below. Once they’d flown beyond the relatively gentle basin of the Bighorn, the land took on the feel of Armageddon, of upheaval and warring elements, a place where gods had battled and it was the earth that had suffered most. Long ridges had been chopped in half, leaving ragged cliffs the color of blood. In other places, the earth had been cut into deep arroyos or scraped to clean, hard flats. It appeared to be an area where nothing, human or otherwise, could possibly survive.
“Hole-in-the-wall country,” Rude said. “This whole stretch is part of what used to be called the Outlaw Trail. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jesse James, just about every other desperado of that period was reputed to have hid out here at one time or another.”
They reached the outskirts of Casper without spotting anything hopeful, and Rude turned back. He altered course so that on the return trip they’d fly over different country. The land below them was the same, however, just as empty of hope.
“Got stuck out here in a blizzard once,” Rude said. “Not much more than a kid then. Tried to race a storm to Casper. Thought I was immortal. Wind came up, snow began blowing like a son of a bitch, next thing I know I’m way off the road, up to my windshield in a big drift. Got out to check the situation and suddenly I’m in a whiteout. Up, down, left, right, didn’t mean anything. Confused as hell. Finally stumbled against my car and crawled inside to wait it out. Took a day and a half for the whole thing to blow over. By then, the snow was so deep, it completely covered my old Crown Victoria. Had me a couple of Snickers bars that I nibbled on and about a gallon of Mountain Dew. When the sun came back, I dug my way out, and a few hours later a plow came along. Was pretty hairy there for a while.”
“Why’d you do it?” Stephen asked. He never stopped scouring the landscape below them, even when he was part of the conversation.
“Best reason in the world for a man to do stupid things, Stephen. A girl. She lived in Casper and I was desperately in love with her. Still am, for that matter. She’s my wife.”
They reached the airstrip at Hot Springs a little after 3:00 P.M. Rude radioed in and checked the status of the rest of the search effort. Through their own headphones, Cork and Stephen heard the reply: No one had spotted anything.
“You want, we can go back up and fly a grid. Or we can go talk to Will Pope. Your call.”
“Will Pope,” Stephen leaped in.
Rude looked at Cork.
“Pope,” Cork agreed.
Rude radioed Dewey Quinn and explained what the plan was. Cork and Stephen had removed their flight helmets, so they couldn’t hear the deputy’s response. But Rude laughed and said into his mic, “Give ’em a break, Dewey. When they meet Will, they’ll understand.”
Rude shut down the chopper and explained that because it would be best to keep their visit to the reservation low profile, it would be more prudent to drive. They squeezed into his pickup and headed west.
Red Hawk lay beyond the Owl Creek Mountains, fifty miles from Hot Springs, at the convergence of two narrow streams. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere on a back highway that would be used only if you wanted to go to Red Hawk, which, from the poor condition of the road, Cork suspected not many people did. The village was a scattering of run-down BIA-constructed housing. At its heart was a school, a nursing home, a two-pump Chevron gas station with a mini-mart, a tiny stucco church named St. Alban, and the Reservation Business Center, which held the tribal offices. The business center looked new. Everything else looked as if it hadn’t been worked on since the Korean War. Rude drove in from the alkali flats to the east. The day had been sunny and the temperature almost balmy. The snow was melting, and the grid of streets-half a dozen running north-south and again as many running east-west, most unpaved-had turned to mud. Will Pope lived at the end of a street that ran past the little church and was called St. Alban Lane. His trailer sat on cinder blocks. A gray station wagon, rust-eaten and mud-spattered, stood parked next to a big propane tank. Behind the trailer, a satellite dish was positioned to catch a signal from the east, and beyond the dish lay a hundred yards of snow-laden sagebrush that ended in a line of cottonwoods growing along a stream bank. There was nothing beyond the cottonwoods except the distant, inevitable collision of white earth and blue sky.