arcs back toward the main road where we parked the truck and horse trailer?”
He nodded. “Yep. It’ll take longer for you, especially trailin’ a pack line.”
I pointed at the device. “Then check that radio and see if you can raise my department. If you can’t get anything, load up your horse, get in that truck, haul your ass down to Absalom, and start making phone calls to get us some backup.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow the tracks and see where they took him. I’ve got a suspicion Dog trailed after them.”
He looked down the ridge that fell toward the dark and endless surface of the mesa, his hand playing on the old brass receiver of the Henry, still in its sheath. “That’s a lot of territory.”
I slipped a boot in the stirrup and saddled up, the bay pivoting right but not so much this time; apparently he was getting used to my weight. “I’ve got tracks, and there’s only one way off this rock.”
The old cowboy sat there in the saddle. “Well, there’s two, but let’s try and stick with the one.” He didn’t look up and, after a second, he slapped the worn leather reins against the gelding’s rump and the powerful horse leapt forward, the shoes on his hooves raking sparks from the rocks as he disappeared across the ridge west and into the night.
I led my horse forward, along with the packhorse and the silent reminder of the riderless pony, and they steadied only when I pulled us east along the rocks in the opposite direction. We picked our way down the same draw that I had covered on foot, past the struggling sage, and I think the horses were as relieved as I was when we got to the flat area at the wellhead. I strung us toward the woodpile, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, but the site looked just as it had.
I pulled the flashlight from the saddlebag and checked the far side of the well where the pipes were stacked and a few fifty-gallon drums lay rusting on their sides. I circled back to the tracks to my right and stopped where the four-wheeler had been parked. I shined the Maglite along the patterns in the dirt, and I could see that the driver had hit Dog, but not badly enough to keep him from following. I could see the spot where he’d rolled and then where he had righted himself. He must have hurt his right rear leg, but a contract is a contract and he had limped off after the ATV.
October 30, 8:40 P.M.
About a mile down the two-track and between the buckshot breaks, it had begun to snow-not hard, but enough so that if it increased, the ground would be covered and the tracks would be lost. I spurred the horses forward.
I thought about the running-shoe prints at the wellhead and tried to think whom I’d seen lately with that style of footwear. Cliff Cly had on motorcycle boots the first time I’d met him in the bar but was wearing tennis shoes during the fight. Bill Nolan had worn boots the entire time I’d seen him and, as near as I could remember, Pat from the bar had also worn hard shoes.
I rode on and thought about the latest turn of events. Why take the boy? Had he seen something? Was he leverage against Juana because she’d seen or done something? Was it about Hershel, since he and the boy were so close? Was it about me?
One thing was for sure, it was an open declaration of war. Whoever was doing these things wasn’t locked up in the Absaroka County jail, and whoever it was couldn’t stay behind the scenes any longer. I’d turned up the heat, and now a boy was missing, and possibly dead due to my efforts.
I turned and looked at the empty saddle on the grulla.
I felt miserable, cranked my hat down against the increasing wind, and followed the single road that emptied itself onto the hardpan surface of the dry, endless stretch of flat badland called the Battlement.
I had to admit that in my current mood, it was the perfect place for me.
My horse’s ears pricked and something blew up from one of the clumps of sage and came straight at us in a monumental burst of gray feathers and talons. The bay went berserk and reared on his hind legs and the two other horses tried to bolt, but I held on and was able to withstand that little rodeo. After I got them turned and settled a bit, I watched as the great horned owl I’d been hearing flapped his way south and across the hardpan of the Battlement with a five-foot wing-span.
I took a deep breath and watched him, the messenger from beyond, as the Cheyenne called them. “Hold all my calls, will you?” The bay was still a little skittish but settled back into a steady walk as I rolled my hips and tried to gain a new seat that would give my own seat a little relief.
It was a partially moonlit night; the pale deadness of her heavenly body pitched back and forth between the clouds, one minute illuminating the scrub sage and sparse tufts of buffalo grass, and the next, hiding her face completely. The snow had slackened for the moment, but I was betting that wouldn’t last.
The road was slightly rutted and nothing had attempted to grow again in the running depressions that the oilmen had grooved in their hurry to drill. Environmentalists had pointed out just how fragile the crusted surface of the high desert is and how it would take hundreds of years for the land to repair itself. I could see where the drillers had forged new roads across the tundra in an attempt to make money in a place where time equaled cash and expedience meant jobs. I hoped that they had blown an engine.
The four-wheeler had made my tracking a little easier by staying on the main road, but I figured with the advantage of an internal-combustion pace, they had a good forty minutes on both Hershel and me. Dog’s prints came and went as if he’d been trailing the ATV but hadn’t wanted to be seen-that, or I’d watched too many episodes of Rin Tin Tin.
I let out a deep sigh and watched as my breath joined with that of my horse and trailed southeast, following the road. My hands and face had gotten a little numb, which at least made my cheekbone feel a little better, if nothing else. It was snowing harder and the flakes stuck to the right side of everything, including the horses and me but, with the perversity and volatility of Wyoming weather, it seemed to be getting a little warmer. There were flashes of lightning in the clouds to the west, and it was possible that the wet snow would turn to rain.
I switched hands and discovered an old pair of buffalo gloves my wife had given to me decades ago in my between-seasons jacket pocket. I pulled the gloves on, tied off my scarf at my throat a little tighter, and cranked my hat down again, dipping my head a little to protect my exposed ear and busted cheek. Now I looked the part completely and remembered why I didn’t like cowboying.
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.
