I spoke to her in the same steady voice I’d used on the mesa. “I know you’re tired, and I know you’re sick, but we’ve got another hundred feet between us and safety. If we can make it across, then we’re done-I promise.” I swiveled my head to look back down the road and could see the damaged Dodge wheeling around the corner. “I promise.”
I dug my heels into Wahoo Sue and let her rip. “Yaaah!”
I almost fell off but got myself positioned as the barricade and bridge swallowed the view. I was in close, but when the mare gathered herself and leapt, I was even closer and was pressed hard against her withers. In that one brief second, we were flying.
From my perspective, it felt as if we’d cleared the blockade by fathoms, and the next instant we were clattering across the length of the bridge. I was expecting the world to fall from beneath us, and I remembered a blood spatter and another saddle with a smooth and shiny surface, worn by both human and beast in a sacred bond of speed. At that one moment it came to me that if we died like this, there could be no bitter or better end.
I felt the pressure of her second leap, the world was silent, and it was almost as if we hung there between heaven and earth while the spirit of Wahoo Sue decided which firmament we would join.
We pounded onto the pavement of the Powder River Road like sledgehammers on Rodin’s doors to hell, and I could feel her steel shoes sliding on the slippery surface of the worn and cupped road.
She slowed to a canter on the dirt and grass that made up the supply lot where WYDOT and Range had parked their equipment. Dust floated up from the dry ground as I reined Wahoo Sue into a tight turn and looked back across the bridge through the clouds of talcum scoria that filled the air.
Barsad hadn’t seen the blockade or had decided to ignore it, and scattered the sawhorses, two-by-fours, and signs in every direction as he charged across the bridge in the three-ton vehicle. I watched as the surface separated with the lateral movement and the planks split and began falling into the water. The truck’s undercarriage dropped, and his momentum stopped as the wheels fell and the Dodge became high-centered on its axles while the diesel motor wailed like some Tyrannosaurus rex buried in tar.
He gunned the motor in desperation, but the three-hundred-and-fifty horses couldn’t do what my one had.
I drifted Wahoo Sue back toward the end of the bridge and looked down at the Henry rifle, which I had lost on the side of the road with the impact of our landing and which, with my broken foot, might as well have been on the other side of the Bozeman Trail. I turned the big black horse sideways so that we could both watch the show.
The motor loped into an idle, and we all waited, unmoving. I didn’t know if he’d had time to retrieve his 9 mm from the floor of the truck; even if he had, it wouldn’t shoot through the windshield, so he was going to have to come out.
Barsad attempted to open the door, but with the listing of the massive truck it only lurched about two inches and then jammed into the wooden planks.
I motioned with my chin and raised my voice. “Shut it off.”
Dutifully, the diesel went silent, and it was eerie how I could all of a sudden hear the flow of the river below. I listened as the bridge creaked, and the electric window on the driver’s side whirred and went down. His hand came out holding the 9 mm, and it was one of those wicked little Smith amp; Wesson autoloaders. I watched as he extended his arm out the window and glanced at the Henry rifle lying between us.
He finally looked at me with one hand stretched across the top of the cab, the other pointing the pistol. His voice was a little tight. “This is an interesting situation, don’t you think?”
“Not for me.”
He smiled. “You know, I really hate that horse.”
Wahoo Sue didn’t even give him the benefit of a glance. “That’s all right; I don’t think she cares that much for you, either.”
He smiled again, but it was more of a smirk. “You know, I didn’t really want to kill you.”
“Is that so?”
“Then why would you want to kill me?”
“There’s Hershel Vanskike as a starting point.”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t me, that was Cliff.”
“Cliff Cly is a federal agent. You’re lucky at least he wants you alive.”
There was another squealing creak, and one of the planks under the mighty engine gave way, dropping the truck’s cab at an even more drastic angle and lower into the surface of the bridge. Barsad scrambled to get both hands over the cab but still managed to hold the semiautomatic on us.
Wahoo Sue took a quick two-step back with the noise and then sashayed her substantial rear for a moment, but that was all. I wondered if she wanted to remain close because she was rooting for the truck to fall into the river and, once and for all, kill the son-of-a-bitch.
Again, nobody moved, and again the only sounds were the twisting load of the bridge and the water beneath.
Barsad’s one hand was flat against the roof of the cab, the other, still holding the 9 mm, was hooked on the window channel. He didn’t look quite so smug.
“You know, I don’t know how much longer that bridge is going to hold.”
His eyes flicked up at me, and it was as if he were afraid to move his head for fear of causing the final collapse. “Well, maybe we can make a deal, okey?”
I thought about the old Bidpai parable about the scorpion that makes the deal with the frog to carry him across the river. “I doubt it.”
He studied the gun in his hand. “I’ve got an awful lot of leverage here.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Well, I’ve got a lot of money.”
“So?”
“A lot of money, and even more tucked away.” When I didn’t respond, he breathed a quick but careful breath out. “You can’t tell me that-”
“You know, the longer this conversation is, the greater the chance that you, that truck, and the bridge are going to collapse into the river.” I listened to him breathe. “Now, I don’t particularly care, but maybe you do, seeing as how you went to all the trouble to come back from the dead.” I started untying the riata from the saddle strings of the old McClellan. “From my perspective, it looks like you’ve only got one choice. I’m going to throw you this lariat, but I’m not going to do that till you throw that nifty little Smith amp; Wesson into the river-and I want to hear the splash.”
He glanced up at me, and his fingers tightened on the pistol. “This is an eight-hundred-dollar gun.”
I smiled. “That’s okey, you’ve got plenty of money and more tucked away, right?”
I thumbed the comforting surface of the plaited rawhide in my thumb and forefinger, rolling out the leather hondo and trying to think about the last time I’d thrown a riata. “You know, one of the worst images perpetrated on society is the idea of a cowboy with a gun-you give a real cowboy a choice between a gun and a rope and he’ll take the rope every time, because that’s how he makes his living. No self-respecting cowboy makes a living with a gun.” I tossed the loop out with one hand, uncoiling it through the burner to a sizable length. “Now, I’m no cowboy and it’s been an awful long time since I threw the hoolihan, but you can more than double my chances by grabbing it.” I threaded more of the rope out and kept looking at him, his hand still holding the Smith amp; Wesson. “It’ll take a basic, flat loop with a good wrist twist, finishing with a palm-out release.”
His voice was sounding high and tight. “Look…”
“This old McClellan doesn’t have any horn to dally to, so I’ll just have to brace it off the fork and hope for the best. I don’t know when the last time this rawhide was oiled, so it could just snap like a piece of brittle cottonwood-maybe it’ll hold, maybe it won’t.”
I watched him swallow the last tiny bit of courage he’d been holding between his teeth, and his knuckles whitened around the black plastic grip of the 9 mm. If he was going to do something stupid, then now was the time.