He looked dissatisfied with my response. “Why?”
“Well, if I have to say El Bandito Negro de los Badlands look out for that rattlesnake, you’re likely to already be bitten.”
He swiveled in the seat back toward Hershel and pulled the stampede strings into his mouth. “Are there rattlesnakes up here?”
The puncher shrugged. “Rattlesnakes everywhere.”
We topped the mesa and turned northeast. The top of Twentymile Butte looked like a pool table for Jack of bean-stalk fame. If there had been dinosaurs up there, you’d be able to see them from a long way off.
Hershel pulled the caravan to the left and slowed.
The boy looked at him. “Why are we stopping?”
He growled. “Because my nickname is Pequeсa Vejiga.” Benjamin laughed as Hershel climbed out, unzipped, and began watering the broken rocks at the edge of the road.
Thinking a little air might clear my lingering headache and figuring Dog could always use a leg-lifting opportunity, I decided to get out and stretch my legs. Benjamin followed us as we walked into the middle of the rutted and powdery two-track that stretched to the horizon; the only other road curled off to the right and disappeared into the distance as well.
I thought about how we tilled and cultivated the land, planted trees on it, fenced it, built houses on it, and did everything we could to hold off the eternity of distance-anything to give the landscape some sort of human scale. No matter what we did to try and form the West, however, the West inevitably formed us instead.
I watched the dust collect on the left side of my boots as the constant wind kicked up a dust devil about seventy-five yards down the road. Dog looked up at me and Benjamin took a few steps past us, and I could feel the palpable urge in him to go chase the miniature twister. “This is the biggest butte in all of Wyoming.”
I had to smile at the absolute assurance of all his statements. “No, it’s not.”
He looked up at me and pulled the stampede strings into his mouth again; I was beginning to see a pattern. “Is too.”
“No, because technically it’s a mesa.” He turned his head and searched the horizon for justification. “Mister Bandito Negro de los Badlands, you want to know what the difference is?”
Maybe I had dampened his enthusiasm, because his voice mumbled as he chewed the braided leather and a hand crept down to pet Dog. “Nope, not really.”
I started to raise an eyebrow, but it hurt my eye, so I settled for nudging him with my elbow. “I shudder for the fate of future generations if your scientific curiosity is indicative.”
He shook his head at my funny talk. “You gonna feel better if you tell me?”
I thought about it. “Yes.” He didn’t deign to look at me but threw out an open palm as if to accept the unwanted knowledge. “A butte is taller than it is wide, whereas a mesa, like this one, is wider than it is tall.”
“What’s Devil’s Tower?”
I thought about it. “That’d be a butte.”
He looked puzzled. “Then why did they call this Twentymile Butte?”
“With respect to all the knowledge that our frontier forefathers carried, a steadfast understanding of geological terms may not have been a strong suit.”
He nodded, and we listened to the wind. “You ever been up here before?”
I kept my eyes on the edge of the world, which was to the south. With the vastness of the plateau, it was difficult to tell if we were looking at the edge, but I had my suspicions. “Once or twice.”
“When?”
I glanced down at the top of his hat, thankful for a view that didn’t pull at the corners of my eyes, especially the sore one. “When I was about your age.”
He looked up at me with the stampede strings still in his mouth and continued to pet Dog, who now sat on his foot. “Really?”
“Yep.”
He looked around. “Is it the same?”
“No.” I shrugged back at the dirt path we’d just driven on. “There weren’t any roads, and the only way up was a horse trail that they must’ve built this road over.”
“Were you hunting Indians?”
I smiled down at the half-Cheyenne boy. “Nope, as a matter of fact it was Indians who brought me up here.”
I figured I’d finally hit upon a subject that truly interested him, since he spit out the stampede strings, and looked up at me. “Cheyenne?”
“Yep.”
“I’m half Cheyenne.”
“I know.”
He now turned toward me fully, forcing Dog to reseat himself. “My father was Cheyenne.”
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” I nodded, and his next statement was as if we were discussing the difference between buttes and mesas. “He got run over by a train.”
I stopped nodding. “I’m sorry.”
He stood there for a while without moving. “Why do people say that?” He took as deep a breath as his young lungs would allow and sighed. “It’s not like I think they drove the train.”
“Well… maybe they’re just sorry for your loss.”
He nudged Dog and walked past me to the edge of the road. “He lived in Chicago with my mom, that’s where I was born.” He took his frustration out on a few rocks with the toes of his scuffed boots, his hands stuffed tight in his jeans as if he didn’t trust them. “He was a construction worker; he built big buildings and bridges.” I nodded, even though he still wasn’t looking at me, and patted my leg for Dog to come over. “My mom was mad at him because he took me up on one of the bridges he was working on one night. He carried me up on the girders and stood with me over the water, and it was really far down.”
Dog sat on my foot, and we both looked at the boy. “The water?”
“Yeah and you could see the reflections in the river from all the lit up windows ’cause it was nighttime.” He turned to look at us. “We flew that night.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I mean, we didn’t really except for maybe one second, but he held me out over the water and told me to not be afraid because even if he dropped me I’d just fly.” He kept looking me in the face, the way only children can without becoming self-conscious. “I closed my eyes for just a second when he held me out there-and I think I really flew, for just a second. Really.” His dark eyes seemed remarkably familiar for just a moment. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
I laughed. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“You aren’t going to tell my mom about me flying, are you? ’Cause she doesn’t know about that part.”
“No, I won’t tell her.”
He continued to study me. “Why’d you laugh?”
It was a time for truth telling and with children, if you didn’t make the reach, they might learn to stop asking. “I have dreams like that.”
He smiled back at me, and something passed between us, something old and powerful.
Hershel approached from around the truck, placing his palms at the small of his back and stretching. “Did you fellas know this is the biggest butte in Wyoming?”
Benjamin, Dog, and I continued to look at each other and we smiled, but none of us said anything.
October 30, 4:30 P.M.
We drove the truck as far as the first high shelves of rock that rose above the plateau, which created a giant series of sedimentary steps leading north. Hershel paired me off with a big bay, about seventeen hands, and watched as I tightened the belly cinch with a quick yank before the gelding could expand his lungs. Satisfied that I knew what I was doing, he assisted Benjamin in saddling the same grulla that I’d seen in front of The AR, as his dun waited patiently by the shade of the horse trailer along with Dog.
“I give you that big’un so you’d be comfortable, and so he would be, too.”
I checked the bedroll he’d provided, and the saddlebags I’d brought along. “I appreciate it.”
“Only one we got bigger is a Morgan from up in Montana, but he can get wonky when you put a saddle on him.”
The thought of a wonky draft horse on the high plateau was one my rear end was just as happy not to contemplate. “This one got a name?”
The old cowboy replied with a well-worn sentiment. “Don’t like naming things I might have to eat.”