Back of Beyond

when really it was so damned simple. So damned simple. Cody was born damaged. His Maker had flinched when soldering his hard wires together, and they would always short out or overheat at the wrong time. He could probably blame his white-trash family for his criminal tendencies and penchant for self-delusion and self-medication, but he didn’t believe in justifying bad behavior with that kind of touchy-feely crap. Cody was not good and he was incapable of being good, but that didn’t mean he didn’t recognize and revere goodness, and he’d do anything- anything-to protect those blessed with clean, unimpeded wiring. Like his friends the McGuanes, whom he’d helped. Like Hank Winters, whom he’d failed. Like Justin, his miracle son, whom he had to save.

* * *

He slowed through Townsend, glancing over his shoulder at a yelp that came from two drunks stumbling out of the Commercial Bar into the street. Thought maybe he might even know them, and smiled bitterly.

Two miles south of Townsend, the inside of the Ford exploded with red and blue light. He glanced into his rearview mirror and squinted at the intensity of the wig-wags on the light bar of the Highway Patrol car.

“Shit,” he hissed, noting he was only five miles over the speed limit.

Fuming, he pulled over. He reached for his badge which was no longer there and sat back and closed his eyes. He hoped like hell he knew the trooper and could manage to talk his way out of a ticket so he could get back on the highway as soon as possible. For a second he considered flooring the Ford once the trooper got out of his vehicle, but he knew that wouldn’t work for long. No doubt, his plates had already been called in, and there wouldn’t be a record of them.

He was caught, unless he could talk his way out of it and get the plate search canceled.

A flashlight blinded him through the driver’s window and he looked away.

The trooper, an unfamiliar beefy youngster who looked six months out of the training center, said, “You were aware you only have one operating headlight, mister?”

Cody said, “I’m an investigator for the sheriff’s department. I’m in a hurry.”

The trooper grinned, his teeth glinting in the secondary light of his flashlight’s reflection.

“Well, you’ll just have to show me a badge and get the sheriff on the horn,” the trooper said. “And in the meanwhile you can follow me back to town until we can get that headlight fixed. What happened, anyway? It looks like you hit something.”

“A fucking elk,” Cody said, not able to keep the anger out of his voice.

“Yeah,” the trooper said, shining his beam on the damage. “I can see some hair and blood. Male or female?”

Cody sighed and covered his face with his hands. “Female,” he said.

“Got your cow permit?” The trooper chuckled.

Part Two

Yellowstone National Park

8

Sixteen-year-old Danielle Sullivan was furiously texting her on-again off-again boyfriend Riley as fourteen-year-old Gracie Sullivan looked on. Their father drove the rental car and pointed out bison far below in the valley and two distant elk crossing a river in the early morning sun. Danielle and Gracie were in the backseat.

“I’m surprised he’s even up this early,” Gracie said to Danielle. She marveled at her sister and the desperate fire in her eyes as she tapped out messages with a blur of her thumbs.

“He’s got to get up early for work,” Danielle said, not looking over. “Remember-he’s got that stupid job with the grounds crew with the schools. They make him show up every morning at eight. They’re evil.” Gracie nodded and snapped her phone open. She didn’t expect any messages although she’d be ridiculously thrilled if there were any. There weren’t, so as she often did in the presence of her beautiful, popular, constantly in-demand sister, she tapped out a message to her own phone via her e-mail account:

How are you this morning?

When it came through, she wrote:

Crappy start, but thanks for asking.

I’m sorry.

Don’t be. Things are looking up. WE’RE IN YELLOWSTONE PARK.

Even though Danielle thought Gracie pathetic for spelling out all the words in her texts rather than using text- speak or shorthand, Gracie thought there was no harm done since she was, in effect, talking to herself. It was a scheme she’d come up with to make Danielle think she had admirers in constant contact as well.

You’re up early.

I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking I forgot something.

Like what?

Toothbrush. Glasses. I got up at 2:30 to make sure I packed underwear. I had a nightmare I didn’t bring underwear and I had to borrow a f**king thong from Danielle.

She lowered the phone to her lap with the screen facing away from her sister and looked through the window. There were no buildings, no roads, no power lines. To the south was a vast river valley with tall grass that rippled in the cold morning breeze. A ribbon of river that looked like sheet metal serpentined through the valley floor. To the north the terrain seemed to swell and rise to meet tendrils of pine trees, and above them a dark wall of forest.

“Oh my God,” her dad said as the car slowed suddenly. “Look, girls: wolves.”

Gracie snapped her phone shut and hurled herself forward. All her life she’d wanted to see a wolf.

Her dad pulled over to the side of the two-lane blacktop and rolled down his window. The small of pine, sage, and cool fresh air wafted in. He pointed toward the river.

“See them, at that bend? Near those big rocks the sun is starting to hit?”

Gracie threw her arms over the front seat and squinted where her father was pointing. Far below, she saw movement.

“They look like dots,” she said. “Two little dots.”

“They’re wolves,” her dad said. “Aren’t they magnificent?”

Magnificent dots, she thought. She wished she could see them closer or figure out what they were doing to make them seem magnificent to her father, who tended toward hyperbole.

“Here,” her father said, handing her a pair of binoculars that still had the price tag on them. “You focus using that little wheel in the middle.”

While Gracie tried to manipulate the binoculars and frantically rolled the wheel all the way to the left and then to the right and finally realized she was bringing the hood ornament into sharp relief, she heard her dad say to Danielle, “Don’t you want to see these fantastic animals, Danny?”

“Maybe in a minute,” Danielle said, still texting.