Nowhere to Run

Willie shook his head. “I’m not.” He pointed out toward the foothills. “Washakie Four through One Hundred Forty-two are out there grazing.”

Joe smiled, “Got it. It’s easier to remember their names when they’re all named Washakie.”

Shoyo said, “I know each one by color and personality, but they come and go so often I quit giving them individual names.”

Said Joe, “Will you take a government voucher for the cost?”

A frown passed over Willie’s face.

“It’s a state voucher,” Joe said quickly, realizing what the deal was, “not a federal one.”

“So I can’t charge you three times the going rate, then?” Shoyo lamented. He looked as offended as Washakie One, Two, and Three.

“Sorry.”

The cloud passed, and Willie said, “Okay, then.”

From near the pickup, Alisha said, “Uncle Willie, are you sure you want to do this? You’ve heard what happens to Joe Pickett’s horses, haven’t you? They meet the same fate as his vehicles.”

“Thanks, Alisha,” Joe said, his face flushing. He wanted to argue, but he had no argument.

“I’ve heard,” Willie said. “We can hope these horses bring you more luck.”

“I’ll need it,” Joe said.

Willie said, “I understand you need a couple of saddles and a pack saddle outfit, too, because you lost yours with your horses. I can lend you those.”

“Thank you,” Joe said.

“I’m doing this as a favor to my favorite mare,” Willie said, glancing toward Alicia and talking loud enough so she could hear. “I mean my favorite niece.”

“What’s he talking about?” Alisha asked Nate suspiciously.

Nate shrugged and said to her, “I don’t understand all this horse talk. You know that.”

AS JOE AND NATE APPROACHED Muddy Gap, towing the horses in the horse trailer, and took the highway toward Rawlins, the Green Mountains loomed like sleeping lions on the horizon. Nate said, “I don’t see where the woman fits. Do you think she’s up there with those brothers voluntarily, or is it some kind of Stockholm-syndrome type of deal? Is she a hostage, a kidnap victim, or a willing accomplice?”

Joe shook his head. “First, we don’t know if it’s Shober or if she’s still okay. She could be anybody.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nate said dismissively.

Said Joe, “If you saw those brothers in person like I did, there’s no way you’d think anyone in their right mind would stay with them willingly. They creeped me out.”

“Maybe you didn’t meet them in the best circumstances,” Nate said.

Joe shrugged. “Diane is a puzzle. I don’t see how those guys could have taken her up into the mountains if she didn’t want to go. She didn’t seem to fear them nearly as much as she regretted letting them down by taking me in. Are you thinking she’s the key to all of this?”

Nate sat back and sighed. “No. I can’t figure out how she fits. Or why, of all the places on earth, she’d end up there.”

Joe grunted.

Nate said, “Well, she had to know people were looking for her a couple of years ago, right? So even if those Grim Brothers grabbed her and kept her captive at the time, from what you said she was moving around of her own free will. If nothing else, she could just up and outrun those knuckleheads.”

“If it was even her,” Joe said wearily.

“And if it isn’t,” Nate asked, “then who is it?”

“Don’t know.”

“If it isn’t, how are you going to tell Mrs. Shober?”

Joe cringed.

After a few more miles, Joe said, “Nate, I want to thank you for coming along. I couldn’t do it without you.”

Nate said, “We haven’t done anything yet except rent some horses.”

Joe didn’t say anything.

“This thing spooked you, didn’t it?”

No response.

“You don’t have to be ashamed,” Nate said. “You got your butt kicked over and over. These guys ran circles around you up there and took everything you had, including your confidence. I can tell. You don’t want to go up there for revenge as much as to see if you can get your courage back, isn’t that it?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Joe said, swerving to avoid hitting a jackrabbit that darted out onto the blacktop. There were so many dead, flat rabbits on this stretch of road that the asphalt looked cottony in places, as if the rabbits had been violently hurled down to the pavement from the sky in a fit of pique.

“Like I said, they kicked your butt up one side of the mountain and down the other,” Nate said.