The footprints ended at tire tracks left by a large four-wheeler, which must have been parked along the edge of the rock wall. The fat marks of the ATV followed the road heading southeast, and Dog’s prints followed.
October 30, 8:22 P.M.
The radio wouldn’t reach the repeater-tower across Antelope Basin and only mocked us with a crackling static; maybe it would get reception farther south. I clicked it off to save battery power and handed it up to the old cowboy.
Hershel watched me from horseback as I finished saddling the bay and tied off my saddlebags. I pulled a large-frame clip-on holster from the closest bag and slipped it at the small of my back. It was getting gusty and almost cold, so I put on my jacket. “You’re going to be a hell of a lot faster than I am across broken ground; just don’t break your neck in the process.”
He looked apprehensive but nodded. “I’ve got a tough neck.”
I steadied the bay and checked the reins on the packhorse and Benjamin’s pony. Hershel had already had the majority of our gear loaded up and ready to go by the time I’d gotten back to our camp; evidently, he had come to the same inklings I’d had. “The service road from the abandoned drilling site appears to go southeast but turns and arcs back toward the main road where we parked the truck and horse trailer?”
He nodded. “Yep. It’ll take longer for you, especially trailin’ a pack line.”
I pointed at the device. “Then check that radio and see if you can raise my department. If you can’t get anything, load up your horse, get in that truck, haul your ass down to Absalom, and start making phone calls to get us some backup.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow the tracks and see where they took him. I’ve got a suspicion Dog trailed after them.”
He looked down the ridge that fell toward the dark and endless surface of the mesa, his hand playing on the old brass receiver of the Henry, still in its sheath. “That’s a lot of territory.”
I slipped a boot in the stirrup and saddled up, the bay pivoting right but not so much this time; apparently he was getting used to my weight. “I’ve got tracks, and there’s only one way off this rock.”
The old cowboy sat there in the saddle. “Well, there’s two, but let’s try and stick with the one.” He didn’t look up and, after a second, he slapped the worn leather reins against the gelding’s rump and the powerful horse leapt forward, the shoes on his hooves raking sparks from the rocks as he disappeared across the ridge west and into the night.
I led my horse forward, along with the packhorse and the silent reminder of the riderless pony, and they steadied only when I pulled us east along the rocks in the opposite direction. We picked our way down the same draw that I had covered on foot, past the struggling sage, and I think the horses were as relieved as I was when we got to the flat area at the wellhead. I strung us toward the woodpile, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, but the site looked just as it had.
I pulled the flashlight from the saddlebag and checked the far side of the well where the pipes were stacked and a few fifty-gallon drums lay rusting on their sides. I circled back to the tracks to my right and stopped where the four-wheeler had been parked. I shined the Maglite along the patterns in the dirt, and I could see that the driver had hit Dog, but not badly enough to keep him from following. I could see the spot where he’d rolled and then where he had righted himself. He must have hurt his right rear leg, but a contract is a contract and he had limped off after the ATV.
October 30, 8:40 P.M.
About a mile down the two-track and between the buckshot breaks, it had begun to snow-not hard, but enough so that if it increased, the ground would be covered and the tracks would be lost. I spurred the horses forward.
I thought about the running-shoe prints at the wellhead and tried to think whom I’d seen lately with that style of footwear. Cliff Cly had on motorcycle boots the first time I’d met him in the bar but was wearing tennis shoes during the fight. Bill Nolan had worn boots the entire time I’d seen him and, as near as I could remember, Pat from the bar had also worn hard shoes.
I rode on and thought about the latest turn of events. Why take the boy? Had he seen something? Was he leverage against Juana because she’d seen or done something? Was it about Hershel, since he and the boy were so close? Was it about me?
One thing was for sure, it was an open declaration of war. Whoever was doing these things wasn’t locked up in the Absaroka County jail, and whoever it was couldn’t stay behind the scenes any longer. I’d turned up the heat, and now a boy was missing, and possibly dead due to my efforts.
I turned and looked at the empty saddle on the grulla.
I felt miserable, cranked my hat down against the increasing wind, and followed the single road that emptied itself onto the hardpan surface of the dry, endless stretch of flat badland called the Battlement.
I had to admit that in my current mood, it was the perfect place for me.
My horse’s ears pricked and something blew up from one of the clumps of sage and came straight at us in a monumental burst of gray feathers and talons. The bay went berserk and reared on his hind legs and the two other horses tried to bolt, but I held on and was able to withstand that little rodeo. After I got them turned and settled a bit, I watched as the great horned owl I’d been hearing flapped his way south and across the hardpan of the Battlement with a five-foot wing-span.
I took a deep breath and watched him, the messenger from beyond, as the Cheyenne called them. “Hold all my calls, will you?” The bay was still a little skittish but settled back into a steady walk as I rolled my hips and tried to gain a new seat that would give my own seat a little relief.
It was a partially moonlit night; the pale deadness of her heavenly body pitched back and forth between the clouds, one minute illuminating the scrub sage and sparse tufts of buffalo grass, and the next, hiding her face completely. The snow had slackened for the moment, but I was betting that wouldn’t last.
The road was slightly rutted and nothing had attempted to grow again in the running depressions that the oilmen had grooved in their hurry to drill. Environmentalists had pointed out just how fragile the crusted surface of the high desert is and how it would take hundreds of years for the land to repair itself. I could see where the drillers had forged new roads across the tundra in an attempt to make money in a place where time equaled cash and expedience meant jobs. I hoped that they had blown an engine.
The four-wheeler had made my tracking a little easier by staying on the main road, but I figured with the advantage of an internal-combustion pace, they had a good forty minutes on both Hershel and me. Dog’s prints came and went as if he’d been trailing the ATV but hadn’t wanted to be seen-that, or I’d watched too many episodes of Rin Tin Tin.
I let out a deep sigh and watched as my breath joined with that of my horse and trailed southeast, following the road. My hands and face had gotten a little numb, which at least made my cheekbone feel a little better, if nothing else. It was snowing harder and the flakes stuck to the right side of everything, including the horses and me but, with the perversity and volatility of Wyoming weather, it seemed to be getting a little warmer. There were flashes of lightning in the clouds to the west, and it was possible that the wet snow would turn to rain.
I switched hands and discovered an old pair of buffalo gloves my wife had given to me decades ago in my between-seasons jacket pocket. I pulled the gloves on, tied off my scarf at my throat a little tighter, and cranked my hat down again, dipping my head a little to protect my exposed ear and busted cheek. Now I looked the part completely and remembered why I didn’t like cowboying.