“Shot, all right,” I reported.
Hanks turned back to see Daniel White Buffalo leaning against his truck. “What are you doing over there?” he called.
“I’ve seen him,” Daniel said. “My getting wet again won’t change his condition much.”
Bucky folded his long frame to a knee beside me. “So, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“You got me,” I said. “He’s been shot. There’s no denying that.”
“I suppose I can get a vet to dig the slug out of his brain and try to match it up to one of the eight million guns in this county.”
“He was shot pretty close up,” I said. “Pretty messy.” I stood and walked upstream some yards, then up the bank. I spotted a beer can and beside it a place on the ground where someone had lost his footing. “Looks like he had a picnic,” I said.
Hanks started toward me. He turned back to the sheriff and said, “At least if the vet dug out the slug we’d know the caliber.”
“I’d say it was a two-twenty-three,” I said.
“And how would you know that?” Hanks asked.
“Shell casing,” I said. I held it up on the end of a stick.
Bucky gave me a look, a different look than he would have given me if I’d said thirty-thirty or forty-five.
Hanks picked up the can. “Pabst,” he said. “Still has beer in it. Whoever it was will drink anything, that’s for damn sure.”
Bucky shook his head. “Hanks, are you holding that can in your hand?”
Hanks dropped it. Beer spilled out and made a rivulet down the slope into the stream.
“Well, pick it up again, with a stick this time, and put it in an evidence bag. Maybe we can still get a print off the damn thing. As if that will do us a damn bit of good.”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” Hanks said. The deputy collected the can and the casing in separate plastic bags.
We walked back across the creek to Daniel White Buffalo.
“He’s still dead,” Bucky said.
“I thought so,” Daniel said.
Bucky looked back at the cow, then at the sky. “I hear that you were complaining in town about Clara Monday stealing your cattle.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that for a while,” Daniel said. “I’ve lost a couple beefs and I’ve seen her up on the ridge riding that horse. Spooky. Old lady riding around on a horse like that.”
“You think she might have done this?”
Daniel laughed. “I believe in my heart that she’s a rustler, but she sure as hell ain’t wasteful.”
That seemed to satisfy Bucky. “Well, that’s about all there is to see and do here. Let’s go back.”
“Who do you think did it?” I asked Daniel as I climbed into the passenger seat beside him.
“I don’t know. I have absolutely no idea.”
When we arrived back at the house, Hanks jumped out quickly and Bucky worked himself free.
“I’ll give you a call, White Buffalo,” Bucky said.
“Yeah, right,” Daniel said, more to the ground than to them.
Daniel walked slowly to my Jeep. “Sorry about the beef,” I told Daniel. “Scary stuff.”
“You got that right.”
We tossed absent waves to Bucky and the deputy as they rolled away toward the road.
“Speaking of scary stuff, when are you going to come pick up that mule of yours? He keeps escaping.”
“He’s yours.”
“He’s a nice ride now,” I told him. “But I don’t need a mule.”
“Indians don’t get on with mules,” Daniel said.
“Don’t give me that shit.”
“You ever see an Indian riding a mule? Not even in the movies.” Daniel gestured to his place with a sweep of his hand. “It’s nice here, and why? No mule.”
“Not so nice,” I said.
Daniel remembered the cow, too. “Not so nice,” he repeated.
“Why did you call me anyway?” I asked.
“I wanted a witness here for the sheriff, so he could see somebody seeing him.”
“You don’t trust Bucky?”
Daniel shook his head, then pulled out a cigarette, lit it. “I trust him about as much as I trust any white man with a gun.”
“Yeah, well, sorry about the cow.”
As I backed up to turn around, Daniel said, “Enjoy that mule.”
I stopped and pulled forward, close to him. “You understand that you owe me for his board and food.”
“How much?”
“Near five hundred dollars.”
Daniel whistled.
“What happens if I don’t pay?” he asked.
“Well, the law says, he’s mine to sell.”
“Have at it, buckaroo.”
I drove away. I’d been taken advantage of, but I wasn’t too upset. If I had a mind to, I could sell the beast for twelve, fifteen hundred. But I didn’t have a mind to. I actually liked having him around.
On Thanksgiving morning Morgan’s mother died. I was trimming hooves when Gus called to me from the house end of the barn. “Phone,” was all he said. I found myself trotting, then sprinting. Gus said, “Morgan,” as he trotted behind me. My messy boots slipped on the linoleum as I crossed to the phone.
“Morgan?”
“It’s mother.” She was crying. “She won’t wake up. I’ve called nine-one-one.”
“I’m on my way.”
On the phone with the emergency operator, Morgan had used the magic words “heart attack.” And so the medivac helicopter was already there when I arrived. The blades were still turning and the horses in the pasture were tearing around through the wet grass and mud. The sky was bright blue and the yellow helicopter set against it made the scene surreal. Emily was being carried to the open craft as I climbed out. Morgan ran to me and I held her, but she didn’t need to be held. She told me that the paramedics would not let her ride in the helicopter with Emily.
“I’m driving you to town,” I said. “Get in.”
I opened the passenger side and got her in. Suddenly she was like an elk caught in a bright light. I buckled her belt and closed the door. As I drove away from the house she stared ahead through the windshield.
“I knew she wasn’t right this morning,” she finally said. “I asked her, I said, ‘Are you okay?’ and she waved me off. Oh, god. I knew it. I just knew something was wrong.”
I put my hand on her leg. I considered a list of platitudes, but they all seemed unusable. Years ago, I had often felt ambushed by Susie when bad things happened. I would offer a quiet hand of support and she would ask why I wasn’t saying anything. Then I’d say something, admittedly vacuous but meant in the spirit of support, and she would snap at me, asking what that was supposed to mean or accusing me of belittling her fear or grief. Now, I remained silent and if Morgan asked me to speak, I planned to say, “I’m right here.”
“Do you think she’s going to die?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, realizing that ‘I’m here for you’ wasn’t going to work.
“She was so limp. Maybe she was already dead.”
I squeezed her thigh.
“John.”
“Yes?”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, honey.” We made the big curve around the mountain. “Twenty minutes,” I said.
“Twenty minutes?”
“To town.”
“Twenty minutes to town.” Morgan closed her eyes and let her head rest against the seat.
When we arrived, the helicopter was idle on its pad, and a nurse was watching through the emergency-room doors. Morgan looked at me and I pulled her close. We walked to the hospital, knowing already that Emily was gone.
Emily had been laid on a bed in a curtained stall. Her face still looked alive, with some color in her cheeks. A sheet was pulled up to her shoulders. Her hair was wild about her head and Morgan sought to straighten it. The doctor stood there with Morgan and talked to her. I stood there, feeling sad and sick and weak. I thought of the elderly person I had left at my house. I stepped into the hall and used the phone at the nurse’s station to call Gus. After I gave him the news there was a long silence.