Joe crossed his arms and shook his head. There was no way what he was thinking could be possible. Even if it was, he thought, there was no way that all of the people who had been there since the explosion would not have seen it. Someone, at some point, had to look up.
He left his daypack and holster at the base of the tree and started to climb. Dime-sized scales of bark snagged at his shirt and jeans, but there were enough sappy branches to provide footholds and handholds. He climbed until he was just below the dead branch and found a protruding knot he was able to rest a boot on. Hugging the trunk, he raised himself up until he was eye-level with the dead branch. His other foot was suspended in the air, so he wouldn't be able to maintain his position long. Already the quad muscles in his thigh were beginning to burn.
The branch, close up, was certainly dark enough to have been stained with blood. But what he hoped to see was proof-dried rivulets or strands of fiber from clothing. He saw neither. Pulling himself even tighter to the tree with one arm, he reached out with his free hand and tried to break the branch, to no avail. Using his fingernails, he tried to chip off some of the stained wood so he could have it tested. But the branch was hard and he had no leverage to splinter it. His leg began to quiver and his calf and thigh muscles screamed. To relieve the pressure, Joe grasped the dead branch to balance himself. He pressed his cheek to the trunk of the tree.
Suddenly, there was percussive flapping above him. The sound frightened him and nearly made him lose his grip. He looked up at a huge black raven that had just landed inches from his hand. The raven looked down at him with sharp ebony eyes and sidestepped along the branch until one clawed black foot touched Joe's hand. The bird stared at Joe and Joe stared back. He had never seen a raven this close, and it was remarkable how inert and shiny the bird's eyes were. Its beak was slightly hooked on the end and "was the color of dull black matte. Its feathers were so black that they reflected blue, like Superman's hair in the comics.
Then the raven struck, burying its beak into the back of Joe's hand. Reflexively, Joe let go, which shifted his balance, and his boot slipped off of the knot. He clearly heard the hum of his shirt on the bark as he dropped and he felt his trouser cuffs gather up beneath his knees. A live branch that had been welcoming on the way up hit him under the arm on the way down and knocked him backward where he fell cleanly for a moment, then crashed through another branch, then landed hard on his back at the base of the tree with his knees wrapped around the trunk like a lover.
when he was able to breathe normally, Joe opened his eyes. Small orange spangles floated through the sky along with the clouds. He did an inventory of his limbs and found that nothing was broken. His back ached, his hand was punctured and bloody near the knuckles from the raven, and his shirt and pants were disheveled and torn. The insides of his legs were rubbed raw and his shins were scraped. But he was all right.
He rolled to his feet and stood up warily He had landed on his hat so he retrieved it and tried to restore the smashed-m crown. Painfully he looked back at the dead branch. The raven was still there, and stared coldly back at him.
"You okay?" someone asked from the other side of the crater. The voice startled Joe, and he turned toward it. "You really made a lot of noise coming down out of that tree. We thought a tree was falling over or something."
It was Raga and Tonk, the two campers he had met the week before. They had just emerged from the pathway in the trees. Both wore day packs.
"I'm fine. You're still here?" Joe asked. "Weren't you going to Canada or somewhere?"
Raga leaned forward on a walking stick. "Been there and back."
"Where's the woman who was with you?" Joe asked. Raga and Tonk shared a conspiratorial glance, but didn't answer Joe's question.
"Did you hear about Hayden Powell? The writer? His house burned down in Washington state," Raga said, his eyes cold. "This time, they found the body"
Joe had heard the name Hayden Powell somewhere, but was not familiar with him or Tonk's story
"Charred beyond recognition," Tonk added for emphasis.
"So first there was Stewie, then Hayden," Raga continued, his tone fused with deliberate irony "I wonder who will be next?"
Joe clamped his misshapen hat on his head. "You folks like conspiracies, don't you?"
Raga sneered and gestured toward the crater. "The people who did this will come back. I hope you're ready for them when they do."
Joe tried to read the faces of the two men. Raga was still sneering, Tonk nodding in agreement with what Raga had just said.
"Do you know something you should tell me?" Joe asked.
Raga slowly shook his head no. "They'll be back here," he said simply
10
RETURNING HOME, Joe crossed the bridge that spanned the Twelve Sleep River and drove through the three-block length of Saddlestring's sleepy downtown. The insides of his thighs and the palms of his hands still stung from the fall. There was a dull ache in the back of his neck. Worst of all, his hat was crushed. It was just after five o'clock and most of the shops -were already closed and the street virtually empty of traffic. Knots of cars and pickups were parked in front of the two
bars on Main Street.
Saddlestring, once on the verge of a natural gas pipeline boom two years before that Joe inadvertently helped stymie, had once again settled into being a place considered "unchanging and rustic" in the view of some or "nearly dead" in the view of others. The discovery of species thought extinct--Miller's weasels--had created a tourism surge at the same time the town was seeing a brief cessation of traditional industries such as logging, mining, and outfitting in the remote area of the Bighorns, now known, sort of, as the Miller's Weasel Ecosystem. Interagency squabbling was still delaying the official unique designation of the ecosystem. In the meanwhile, the last known colony of Miller's weasels, the Cold Springs Group, had died out. Although Joe knew of another colony, the location remained a cherished secret between Sheridan and him, and neither ever talked about it. Scientists, biologists, and ecotourists no longer came for the purpose of seeing where the creatures that "captured a nation" once were, but the town, and the valley, continued to limp along. Saddlestring, as a place of interest to most outsiders, had once again dropped out of view.
Joe stopped at the corner before he turned toward Bighorn Road. Across the street were two buildings with ancient western storefronts, Bryan's Western Wear and Wolf Mountain Taxidermy The taxidermy studio was a rarity in that it was so well known in the state and throughout the Northern Rockies that it stayed open the entire year.
Most studios closed for three or four months until hunting seasons opened again. The taxidermist, Matt Sandvick, had won dozens of awards for his work and was sought out by wealthy hunters. In addition to moose, deer, pronghorn antelope, and other Wyoming big game and fowl, Sandvick often did tigers, Alaskan brown bears, and other exotic species from around the world. He was the taxidermist of choice for wealthy, status-conscious men.
Which is why Joe canceled his turn signal and proceeded through the intersection and parked his pickup on the curb. He had been thinking of Matt Sandvick's work for several days. He was the best Joe had ever seen. A Sandvick mount had a certain clean, natural simplicity that brought the animal back to life. His work was subtle but regal, and left an impression on the admirer. Joe was just such an admirer. And it made him wonder about something.
As usual, there was no one in the outer office when Joe entered Wolf Mountain Taxidermy. Dozens of photos of mounts were beneath a sheet of glass on the counter, and a huge moose head dominated the wall above a door that led to the studio. Joe rang a bell next to a brochure rack full of price lists and waited.