“You know where they live?”
“I followed them. Assholes. All you have to do is open your nose and follow the ass smell.”
“Where?”
Elvis started to say something and then stopped. “You should go in and say hello to my mother.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said. I went to my truck, to Gus’s window. “Gus, open up the jockey box and hand me that pack of cigarettes.”
Gus opened the box. “What are you doing with cigarettes?” he asked.
“I just keep some for times like this. Old Clara is traditional. There’s a new towel in a plastic bag under your seat. Give that to me as well. You got any money?”
“I’ve got a twenty,” Gus said.
“Let me have it.”
He did. I took the towel, the cigarettes, and the bill and walked past Elvis into the house. Clara Monday looked as old as anyone I had ever seen, but she had looked that way for fifteen years. She was a skinny stick of wrinkled muscle wound up and ready to spring. She wasn’t cooking, but was sitting in front of a little black and white television. The picture was very clear. She was watching CSPAN.
“Hello, Clara. I brought you these,” I said.
She looked at the gifts and nodded, gestured for me to put them on the table. Then she nodded toward the chair beside her.
“Watching the government?” I asked.
“Their government,” she said. “They sure like to talk.”
“Your house is looking nice.”
“Thank you.”
“The president is a liar,” she said. “I say that because he doesn’t tell the truth. I could understand if he didn’t want to get caught, but he’s caught anyway. Why lie when the truth is in plain view?”
“That’s the way our government works,” I said.
“Do you still run cows?”
“No ma’am.”
“Too bad. Why not?”
“I don’t like cows. I just train horses now.”
She nodded.
“They get away with everything,” she said, nodding to the television again.
“I guess they do.”
“They just get away with it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“When you’re out there, tell Elvis the house is cold,” she said.
“I’ll tell him.” I stood and walked back out. Elvis was at the truck talking to Gus through the passenger window. He looked down and stepped back from the truck. He came around to my side as I climbed in behind the wheel. “Your mother needs some wood in the stove,” I told him.
“Okay. I must do that,” Elvis said. “The assholes are squatting in the old cabin up in Mouse Canyon. Not far from the creek.”
“Thank you, Elvis.” As we rolled away I looked over at Gus. “What was that all about?”
“What was what all about?”
“What were you two talking over?”
“Just talking.”
FOURTEEN
WE DROVE EVERY BACK ROAD we could find while there was light and Gus finally asked me, “What do you plan to do with what Elvis told you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to tell the sheriff?”
“I don’t know. I do know that it’s a little dark to be messing around up in that canyon now,” I said.
“I’m going up there with you,” Gus said. “I know you. That’s why you didn’t head straight there.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m going with you.”
We headed west toward home. All we had gotten for our efforts was tired and I was more than a little discouraged. In fact, I was terrified, but too much in shock to actually feel it. As we rolled down the hill to the house I saw an unfamiliar car and only then remembered that Howard and Sylvia would be there. I set the brake and looked over at Gus.
“Here we go,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
“Not so well,” I said.
We climbed out of the truck. Morgan came out onto the porch. Howard and Sylvia hung back inside the doorway. Morgan gave me a sympathetic touch on the shoulder and I stepped inside.
“Sylvia, Howard,” I said. “I wish I could say I’m glad to see you.”
“Any news?” Sylvia asked.
“No.” I looked to Morgan. “Any calls?”
She shook her head.
“Well, let’s sit down and I’ll tell you what I know. I’m sure Morgan’s told you everything, but you’ll hear it again.”
I sat with Sylvia and Howard in the kitchen and told them the story. Morgan and Gus went about the business of feeding the horses and checking the water. Sylvia was in shock. I could tell she would have cried if any of this made sense. Not the how of it, but the why. Howard was uncharacteristically quiet, until I glanced at him following a prolonged silence.
“You want to blame me for this,” he said.
I didn’t understand.
Sylvia was confused as well, looking from Howard to me, but she spoke up. “What are you talking about?”
“Tell her, John,” Howard said.
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say.
Howard looked at Sylvia. “I came here for New Year’s to see David and we got into a fight. He ran out and got lost in the snow. John had to find him.”
“He was fine,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s why he needed a doctor.” Howard was yelling at himself, looking to hurt himself.
“A doctor?” Sylvia tried to catch up.
“I came here with Pamela, the woman I’m planning to marry.” Saying it embarrassed him.
This was news to Sylvia and it made her cough up an involuntary laugh, then her face went blank. “What about David? A doctor?”
“We had a fight, an argument, like I said, and he ran out in the snow and nearly froze to death. He was drunk and I was drunk and, yes, it was my fucking fault.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked away.
“That has nothing to do with this,” I said.
“What if he’s just disappeared to get some attention? Maybe he’s okay, just out there waiting for the fuss.”
“Shut up, Howard,” Sylvia said.
“Tell me it’s not a possibility,” Howard said. “Look me in the face and tell me it’s not a possibility, Sylvia.”
“It’s not a possibility,” I said. But I was lying. As much as it was unlikely and I didn’t believe it, it was, in fact, a possibility and probably one considered by the state policeman, McCormack.
“What do we do?” Sylvia said.
“You wait,” I said.
Howard huffed, a sound suggesting that he had stumbled on a way to understand it all and a way to blame someone other than himself, namely his son. I didn’t like him right then any more than I had during our last meeting, but I did understand. I understood how fear was making his mind work.
“Shut up,” Sylvia said to him again.
Morgan and Gus came into the mud room and kicked off their boots. Gus used a towel to wipe the dogs’ feet and let them go.
Howard reached down to pet Emily. His yelp went right through me. The coyote had ripped his hand open with her teeth. It bloodied quickly. He held it to his chest and rocked back and forth.
“That son of a bitch bit me,” he said.
“Let me see that,” Morgan said. She peeled his good hand away and looked at the wound. “It’s not bad.”
“Has it had its shots?” Howard asked.
“Yes, she has,” Gus said, showing no sympathy and certainly no concern. He called Emily and she followed him into the next room.
I relaxed back into my chair. I didn’t have the energy for any kind of fuss. The dog had bitten Howard and that was that. There was nothing to do about it. There was no training that was going to happen that night. I didn’t know what had frightened the dog to make her bite, whether it was the way he had reached down to her or his smell, his voice. The truth was I felt like biting him, too, and I recognized that as my way of dealing with the fear.