enough to-” I stopped speaking and turned to look at her. “They don’t get many high-profile cases like this one. Generally, it’s Bubba shot Skeeter while they were drinking beer in the cab of Skeeter’s truck and trying to figure out if Bubba’s Charter Arms revolver was loaded.” I leaned back and sat on the windowsill. “You see, the mechanism that I’m a part of-it feeds on high octane, and that’s what this case is. Everybody is going to want a piece of it-of you.” The sun cast shadows on the crown of my hat. “They’ll call for a change of venue, and they’ll get it; possibly Casper, maybe Cheyenne, and you’ll get a jury trial-and that won’t go well for you. I’ve stood through a lot of trials, and I can tell you that those prosecutors are going to tap into something-a virulent little strain of human nature that’s going to sway that jury into getting somebody, somebody rich, beautiful, and powerful-somebody they’ve never had a chance of getting before. It’s going to be you, Mary, and not just because you confessed.”
She watched me intently. “Why then?”
“Because you are incapable of showing the one thing that they are going to demand, whether you’re guilty or not-repentance. They want you to feel sorry; it makes them feel better about themselves.” I couldn’t look her in the eye, so I turned my face and gazed at the pillow beside her head. “Most people…” Her head dropped a little, but with my peripheral vision I could see she kept her eyes on me, on my polyester shirt and my dull and unpolished badge still with traces of her blood in the engraving. “They go through their lives believing in things that they never have much contact with-the police, lawyers, judges, and courts. They have an unstated belief in the system; that it’ll be impartial, fair, and just.”
I could hear normal conversations through the door. It was good to know that normal conversations could still happen while I was engaged in this one. “But then there’s the moment when it comes to them that the police, the courtroom, and the laws themselves are just human, vulnerable to the same shortcomings as all of us, that they’re a mirror of who we are, and that’s the heartbreaking dichotomy of it all-that the more contact you have with the law, the less belief you have.” I took a breath. “Like some strange little religion all its own, the one thing that makes the whole system work is the one thing it robs you of-faith.”
I turned my face and looked at her directly. “But you have to believe that justice is truly blind, and that those scales aren’t tipped.”
She had taken a breath of her own. “Or what?”
“Or else you’re in a dark place.”
She looked at the sheets covering her legs. “But you haven’t answered my question: why is this important to you?”
I smiled sadly. “This is important to me because I believe you’re innocent. And I’ve spent most of my life defending and protecting the innocent.” I crossed to the door and opened it. “I’ll let you in on another little secret- the sheriff of Campbell County believes you’re innocent, too. Otherwise he never would’ve sent you over here to me.”
I allowed Dog to enter the room. The beast was waiting outside the door. He looked at her, then at me. I nodded, and he crossed to the bed and placed his broad head next to her hand. “Mary, tell me about that night.”
She had laughed a sad exhale and scratched the fur on his muzzle as his big tail fanned in a counterclockwise circle the way it always did when he was happy.
October 30, 2:20 P.M.
We drove across the railroad tracks and headed south on Echeta Road, which went past the local cemetery. It was an odd place with an iron archway and two bands that went across the drive to which the words ABSALOM CEMETERY were attached. There were lights on either side, a ranch gate below that was closed to keep any stray cattle from grazing between the markers, and a cross affixed above, which was black against a sky so blue it hurt my eyes. Most everything hurt my eyes this morning, so I closed them and nodded off.
It was a good thing that Hershel was driving. I woke up when we hit a rough stretch on the only road leading to and from the Battlement’s flat mesa, and I hoped we wouldn’t meet another truck as there was only room for one and a half. It was the kind of road where, if you met anybody coming up or going down, somebody was going to have to put it in reverse.
My headache was subsiding but only commensurate with the increasing pain of my eye socket. I’d tried to cradle my face in my hand with an elbow resting on the truck’s windowsill, but the constant jolting of the uneven road only resulted in my periodically punching my damaged face with the palm of my hand. It was an ongoing battle, which had not gone unnoticed by Benjamin, who was seated on the bench seat between Hershel and me.
I stretched my jaw and felt the unsettling pop in my temple.
“I bet that hurts.”
I glanced down at the little bandito as he leaned forward to get a better look at my face. I pulled my Ray- Bans from my shirt pocket and slipped them on in an attempt to hide the evidence. “You’d be right.”
He nodded. “Have you decided what your name is today?”
I shrugged. “I thought we’d all go by aliases.”
“You mean nicknames?” He seemed excited by the thought and turned his attention to Hershel for approval.
“Sure.” The older cowboy’s face remained immobile as he negotiated the grade, the oversized pickup, and the two tons of trailered horseflesh behind us.
The boy struggled against his seat belt, which was my dictate, and peered over the dash at the road ahead. “I’m going to be El Bandito Negro de los Badlands.”
I waited a moment before replying. “You don’t think that’s a little long?”
He looked dissatisfied with my response. “Why?”
“Well, if I have to say El Bandito Negro de los Badlands look out for that rattlesnake, you’re likely to already be bitten.”
He swiveled in the seat back toward Hershel and pulled the stampede strings into his mouth. “Are there rattlesnakes up here?”
The puncher shrugged. “Rattlesnakes everywhere.”
We topped the mesa and turned northeast. The top of Twentymile Butte looked like a pool table for Jack of bean-stalk fame. If there had been dinosaurs up there, you’d be able to see them from a long way off.
Hershel pulled the caravan to the left and slowed.
The boy looked at him. “Why are we stopping?”
He growled. “Because my nickname is Pequeсa Vejiga.” Benjamin laughed as Hershel climbed out, unzipped, and began watering the broken rocks at the edge of the road.
Thinking a little air might clear my lingering headache and figuring Dog could always use a leg-lifting opportunity, I decided to get out and stretch my legs. Benjamin followed us as we walked into the middle of the rutted and powdery two-track that stretched to the horizon; the only other road curled off to the right and disappeared into the distance as well.
I thought about how we tilled and cultivated the land, planted trees on it, fenced it, built houses on it, and did everything we could to hold off the eternity of distance-anything to give the landscape some sort of human scale. No matter what we did to try and form the West, however, the West inevitably formed us instead.
I watched the dust collect on the left side of my boots as the constant wind kicked up a dust devil about seventy-five yards down the road. Dog looked up at me and Benjamin took a few steps past us, and I could feel the palpable urge in him to go chase the miniature twister. “This is the biggest butte in all of Wyoming.”
I had to smile at the absolute assurance of all his statements. “No, it’s not.”
He looked up at me and pulled the stampede strings into his mouth again; I was beginning to see a pattern. “Is too.”
“No, because technically it’s a mesa.” He turned his head and searched the horizon for justification. “Mister Bandito Negro de los Badlands, you want to know what the difference is?”
Maybe I had dampened his enthusiasm, because his voice mumbled as he chewed the braided leather and a hand crept down to pet Dog. “Nope, not really.”
I started to raise an eyebrow, but it hurt my eye, so I settled for nudging him with my elbow. “I shudder for the fate of future generations if your scientific curiosity is indicative.”
He shook his head at my funny talk. “You gonna feel better if you tell me?”
I thought about it. “Yes.” He didn’t deign to look at me but threw out an open palm as if to accept the
