I pulled at the stiff collar of my jacket to try to protect the side of my face and could feel the ache at the top of my once-frostbitten ear.
The road turned west after a few miles, and it was a relief to be facing the wind. I dipped my head down and rocked back and forth as the bay plodded on. The urge to hurry ran through my blood like fractured streaks of lightning imitating the bursts overhead, and I thought about Benjamin and the dust devil; but the packhorse couldn’t take speed, and all I’d find was an empty trailer for my troubles anyway.
We continued on, and I could just see something in the sporadic lightning that continued to illuminate the mesa.
It had to be the horse trailer.
I nudged the bay, and we came to the wide spot of the road at a trot. The trailer was as we’d left it, except that there was a pile of blankets, some feed buckets and ropes, a half bag of oats, and Hershel’s prized canteen near the back of the end stall. The rear door of the trailer was held open with a hooked rubber strap, but not enough to stop it from rhythmically tattooing against the metal flanks.
Upon closer study, there was also a fluttering piece of paper on top of the blankets with a large rock holding it as a paperweight.
Something moved on the top of the trailer, and the bay spooked again. I reeled him in with a wrap on the reins, my free hand on the Colt at my back. The next uneven streak of lightning revealed the horned owl. He was seated on the sliding rail of the horse trailer, and he was about half the size of Benjamin. He turned his gigantic head and stared at me with eyes as gold as others I knew.
“Hello again.” He didn’t move and continued to stare at me for a moment; then he looked disgusted and flew off. I watched and listened to his wings slap the air as he circled south. “I was just kidding about holding my calls.”
There was no dun horse tied off or inside the trailer.
The tiny alarms began ringing in the distance in my head, and I could feel the familiar cooling of my face and the stillness of my hands. I pulled the big Colt from the small of my back and wheeled the bay into a tight circle where I could see the surrounding area.
The packhorse balked along with the pony, but then they both circled around and looked off into the darkness south, just as they all had when we’d first arrived and saddled up. I didn’t know what to look for as I peered into the remoteness of the south mesa. I knew that they couldn’t see as well as I could but that they could feel more.
I wondered what, or who, they were feeling.
13
October 30, 10:00 P.M.
The pencil was blunt and Hershel’s handwriting and spelling was pretty bad, but I could still make out the gist of it.
Sherif,
Raydio did not work and truck was gone when I got here.
Dropped off the xtra stuff and went down hill and back to town. I spose Bill decided he needed his truck after all. Your dog was here, his leg is hurt, and he’s limping bad so I threw him over the saddle and took him.
Hershel
PS: I lef the canteen for you but took the radio just in case it works, and will be back soon with the calvry.
I studied the note. It was odd that he’d misspelled the word “radio” the first time but then spelled it correctly in the postscript.
I tied my bay and the grulla off to the trailer and unloaded the packhorse. There wasn’t that much water left, so I just emptied the plastic containers into the buckets, collected the canteen for myself, and took the flashlight over toward the head of the trailer. There were boot prints and ones from running shoes, and I shined the Maglite in the granules of gritty snow that had collected in them. I placed one of my feet beside one of the boot prints-it was definitely from a shoe that was a couple of sizes smaller than my own.
I circled around the other side of the trailer and picked up the four-wheeler’s tire marks, which circled to the left and back to the road. When I got to the two-track dirt road, I could see that Hershel had made for town, but the ATV and duellie both turned and went east.
Dog’s prints were everywhere, and it was difficult to tell which were new ones and which ones were from before.
I stood there for a moment, registering what it all meant.
I walked past the back of the trailer to where Benjamin and I had stood earlier. I looked off to the south and remembered the turnoff that we had seen that was just ahead. I started walking and pulled Hershel’s canteen from my shoulder, unscrewed the top, and took a swig. It tasted like a Civil War mud puddle, and I was immediately sorry I’d given the horses all the water. I screwed the cap back on and slung the canteen over my shoulder.
The tracks continued to the cutoff and then abruptly turned. Whoever had the boy had gone south, but had the truck met the four-wheeler, followed them, or gone ahead?
No matter what had happened, the boy was south.
I went back to the trailer with the idea of writing a note but then couldn’t find anything to write with. I hung the canteen over the horn of the bay’s saddle, pulled the extra ammunition and clip I’d brought in the saddlebags, and dumped it all into the pockets of my jacket. The wind had stopped but the cloud cover was getting heavier, and it looked like there might be more precipitation.
I buttoned up my jacket, re-gloved, put a foot into the stirrup, and saddled up. I hadn’t been on horseback this much in years. I felt the weight of the large-frame Colt against the small of my back and started off. I followed the road with the flashlight beam leading the way. I looked into the darkness south and watched as the lightning continued to pound the Battlement like artillery fire.
I clicked the Maglite off, flipped up the saddlebag cover, and dropped it inside.
No sense advertising.
October 26: four days earlier, afternoon.
I had placed my hat on the handle of the semiautomatic, crossed my arms, and softly exhaled, afraid I would break the spell.
“The voice told you to go in the house?”
Mary Barsad studied the bedsheets, her eyes wide and staring, as if she was seeing that night over again. “Yes, he said for me to go into the house.”
“You said ‘he’ again.”
She thought, and I watched her. “It’s always the same voice, a male voice.”
“Do you recognize it?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s familiar.”
“Who is it?”
She took a deep breath of her own, and you could see the frustration tensing her body. Her eyes searched the sheets, and her brow furrowed, the lines deep between her eyes. I was afraid that she would lose the story, and she almost panicked at losing the story herself. “I went into the house, and I remember that he’d killed my horses-Wahoo Sue, my horse.” There had been a catch in her breath, and she plucked at the blanket before she spoke again. “The bedroom, I remember going into the bedroom, and it was strange because the lights were off.”
I spoke gently. “Was he asleep?”
“Yes.”
Even more gently. “But if he was-”
“No. He always slept with the lights on, because he said he could. It had something to do with the time he’d spent in prison, like those little lists of paper he kept.”
“The kites?”
“Yes, there was a particular one that he accused me of taking, and I think I did… Once, just to see what it was.”
October 30, 10:35 P.M.
There’s nothing romantic about a dead body, and the romantic poets notwithstanding, there’s nothing romantic about death.
About thirty minutes down the road, the bay skittered to the left and tried to rear. I was getting tired of his nervousness and was prepared. I wrapped the reins again and stayed put, allowing the big horse to back away but not turn and run. Something was out there a little ahead, something the horse didn’t like. I didn’t want to chance riding him closer, but I didn’t relish the idea of walking around out here, trying to find him in the dark, either. The closest thing I could find to tie him off to was a sprig of dead blue sage-it was brittle but looked strong enough to hold the bay unless he was really determined.