He nodded. “Yeah, me too. And we don’t have anything in the car. We’ll have to try and get some breakfast at the ranch.”
She said, “What ranch?”
Stenko chinned toward the hill that rose behind him. “Over the top,” he said. “My money bought it.”
“Why don’t we go there now? I need a shower and a bathroom. I’m not used to sleeping in cars.”
“We’ll go soon enough. I need to scout it out first.”
“For what?”
“For my old friend Leo. Leo was my accountant. Still is, as far as I’m concerned. Leo knows where all my money is.”
She nodded. She could tell he wanted to say more.
“You know, April, I’ve learned a lot of important things in my life. It takes a while. When you’re young, you think you’re the only person to take this journey and you’re going to do it better, smarter, and more thoughtfully than all the people who came before you. But as you get older, you start to gain wisdom. Wisdom is a lost commodity. And here’s some wisdom in the form of a riddle: Who rules the world?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who really rules the world? Do you think it’s politicians? Lawyers? Presidents of the bank?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I never thought about it. All I know is it isn’t kids.”
He laughed. “Maybe this world would be a better place if you did. But no, April, it’s the accountants. Accountants rule the world. They can steal more with a pencil or a few clicks of a keyboard than a bank robber can with a gun or a politician can with a telephone. If the accountant is working for you and on your side, he can make you rich. But if he has his own dreams, well, he can secretly buy a ranch in Podunk, Wyoming, and live out his fantasy. He can be what he always wanted to be all those years in Chicago: a cowboy.”
With that, he rolled his eyes.
They both watched as Robert awoke in his sleeping bag. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair and stretched.
Stenko said, “You know, I’ve really come to admire Robert. He’s still young enough to think he can change the world. He still has passion—maybe too much. I want to enable that passion before I go. That’s what this is all about.”
“He shot that man in the drugstore,” she said.
Stenko nodded. “He did it for me. So I could keep going.”
SHE FOLLOWED STENKO and Robert as they hiked up the hill. Robert had the gun in his belt. A pair of binoculars dangled around his neck from a strap. Stenko’s breath was labored from the climb, and he had to stop several times to steady himself against the trunk of a tree and rest.
When they reached the top, Stenko dropped to his knees, and for a moment she thought he’d collapsed. She reached out for him but Robert slapped her hands away. “Leave him alone—he’s fine,” Robert said. “Get down. We’re crawling the rest of the way. We don’t want them to see us.”
She was angry with Robert for treating her that way, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d remember it, though.
The three of them wriggled through the dirt and over rocks until they reached the top. A lush wooded valley opened up before them.
“Wow,” she said, pointing to a massive rock column in the distance. “What’s that?”
“Devils Tower,” Stenko whispered.
The column stood high above the forest like a primitive skyscraper. It was cylindrical with a flat top, and the sides were fluted.
She said, “I saw it in a movie once.”
Robert said, “Yeah—
Stenko said, “The legend is better than the movie, though. See, the Indians say there were seven sisters and a giant bear came after them. The bear was a bastard and had caused all kinds of trouble with the tribe. Well, this bear cornered the sisters and planned to kill and eat them, but they prayed to the Great Spirit, and as the bear got close, the earth started to rise. The sisters were on top as the column went up higher and higher into the sky. The bear got mad and still tried to get at them by trying to climb the tower. Those are supposedly his claw marks on the side. But he couldn’t get them.”
She asked, “How did they get down?”
Stenko turned to her. “They didn’t. They went to the Great Spirit and turned into stars. Have you ever seen the seven sisters in the sky?”
“No.”
“Me either,” Stenko said. “But it’s a good story. And you know how I know it?” he asked Robert. Before Robert could respond, Stenko said, “That damned Leo told me. This was eight, nine years ago. See, he wanted to buy a ranch out here that had a view of Devils Tower. He said land was always a good investment, and we had too much money tied up in the islands and in Indian casinos. He said we should consider something way out here as a quiet investment. He called it a ‘retreat,’ as if I’d ever retreated from anything. Apparently, Al Capone had a ranch out here in the Black Hills back in the thirties. So Leo made this pitch to me and when I asked him what the hell Devils Tower was he told me that crazy story. I don’t know why I remember it, but I’m glad I did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have figured out where this place is.”
