a head.”
“I’ll pay you four,” Cody said, thinking he had barely eighteen hundred dollars between his checking and savings accounts and he could maybe get another thousand if he got his pickup running and sold it. Maybe he could get a thousand from Jenny, who could dip into the bottomless coffers of His Richness…
Bull scratched his chin, thinking about it.
“Dad,” Angela said, “this is crazy. It could be really dangerous. You said yourself horse packing like that is a young man’s game-that’s why you sold the business, remember?”
“I sold it because I couldn’t take dealing with the Feds anymore,” Bull said, flashing a look at Cody to gauge his reaction.
Angela put her hand on her father’s arm. “Dad, if you find them you’re finding a potential killer. Think of Mom.”
He just looked at her. His voice dropped. “Your mother is all I think about and you should know that by now. Do you have any idea how much that facility she’s in costs? Thirty-five hundred a
Angela didn’t back down. “Dad-if you’d get some help…”
“I don’t want any goddamn help,” he said flatly. “I never asked for it and I don’t want it now.”
She said as an aside to Cody, “We’ve had this discussion many times before. There are federal programs my parents qualify for but he won’t take the money. In fact, he sends it back with mean notes attached. I’ve read some of them and they’d curl your hair.”
Bull nodded. “If everybody did that we wouldn’t be in the shithouse like we are now.”
She said, “And you won’t let me help you, either.”
“Nope,” he said. “Taking charity from my daughter is the last thing I’d ever do. Might as well just shoot me in the head and leave me there if it comes to that.”
Angela said to him, “But you wouldn’t have to be seriously thinking about going back to the park right now. Like I said, think of Mom.”
“Your mother,” Bull said to her, “she don’t know me from week to week, Angela.”
“Then think of
Bull placed his own massive hand on top of hers.
Cody said, “Five thousand just for trying. And two thousand bonus for finding them.” He’d get His Richness to kick in more. “That’s more than two months of care.”
Angela shot him a look that was designed to freeze him into silence.
Bull took the second beer and drank half of it in two long pulls.
Angela said to Cody, “With all due respect, you should be talking to the park rangers, not my dad. It’s their job to do this kind of thing in Yellowstone. And if you didn’t get yourself in trouble, you could be doing this all legitimate.”
Bull said, “Talk to the bureaucrats? The time it would take you to lay this all out to the Park Service and for them to have meetings and come up with a budget… hell, you don’t have that kind of time. And I doubt any of ’em really know the backcountry well enough to find that trip. They’d probably have to hire me anyway, as much as they’d hate that.”
“Exactly,” Cody said.
Bull leaned forward and his daughter’s hand dropped away from his arm. He said to Cody, “It’ll take me some time to put everything together. I haven’t used any of my equipment for a while.”
Cody nodded.
Bull said, “And we need to go in and get back within a week. One week, because I can’t miss the storytime. You got me? I can’t miss it. And I’ll tag a three-thousand-dollar-a-day penalty on you if we do.”
“Okay,” Cody said, refusing to even consider the ramifications. He could tell by Bull Mitchell’s eyes that it was a deal kill should Cody balk or want to negotiate further.
“I don’t suppose Margaret will mind us taking some of Jed’s horses and panniers,” Bull said to himself.
“Dad, you can’t be really thinking about this,” Angela said. “Just do the smart thing-both of you-and call the park rangers.”
“They’ll fuck it up,” Bull said, growling. “We can’t risk lives while they screw around.”
Angela left the booth and stomped toward the bathroom.
“She’s upset,” Bull Mitchell said. “In her mind, I’ve been out of the game for a long time.”
Cody said, “What you do at the library, man. It’s, you know, pretty dedicated.”
Bull shook the compliment off. “Gotta do something. She was there for me for forty-five years and believe it or not, being with me ain’t a sweet picnic all the time.”
“Somehow,” Cody said, “I can believe that.”
Bull stifled a smile.
Cody said, “You knew my dad and my uncle Jeter, then?”
“Yeah,” Bull said, his face contorting as if he’d bitten into something sour. “I turned in your uncle for poaching elk in Yellowstone, and he threatened to kill me for it. I said, ‘Come on down to Bozeman, Jeter Hoyt.’ I think he was on his way when the judge sent him to Deer Lodge the first time. I’ve been kind of looking out for him ever since. Is he still around?”
Cody looked away. “We can talk about it later.” Then: “Why are you called Bull?”
“’Cause I’m hung like one,” he said, and finished his beer.
As Angela came back to the booth, Bull said to Cody, “I’ll meet you at Jed’s place at four thirty tomorrow morning. Get some good boots and clothes and put your personal crap together in a duffel bag weighing no more than twenty pounds.”
Cody nodded. He was seeing Bull Mitchell the outfitter reemerge. “Any way we could get going sooner?” Cody asked. “I mean, I’ve already wasted a day.”
“That’s your problem, not mine,” Bull said. “I got things to get ready and business to put in order.”
Angela said, “I guess there’s no point in talking about it anymore.”
Bull said, “Nope. Sorry, sweetie. We’ve got to go get this young man’s boy.”
She said to her dad, “This has nothing to do with his boy. This has to do with you acting like one.”
Bull clapped his hand over his breast, and said, “Straight to the heart.”
Cody was outside the door of the Crystal Bar when Angela chased him down and grabbed his shoulder.
Her face was set. She said, “If my dad gets hurt on this trip, I’ll be your worst nightmare.”
Cody said, “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do,” she said. “I think you’re just focused on your son. But if my dad gets hurt or doesn’t come back-it’s on you. And if you think getting suspended from the sheriff’s department is a big deal, just wait to find out what it’s like to find me on the other side of the table.”
Cody said, fingering her card, which read ANGELA MITCHELL, ATTORNEY AT LAW, “I was kind of hoping we could be friends. But I’ve never gotten along real well with lawyers.”
“I’m shocked,” she said, her eyes flashing. She said, “I’m going to open a case file this afternoon with a tab that reads ‘Cody Hoyt.’ By the time I see you next I’ll know everything there is to know about you. And I have the feeling it’ll be a real thick file.”
He nodded. “You’re probably right.”
She said, “The only way you’re going to skate is if you bring him back better than he left and you do it within a week. Otherwise, I’m calling your sheriff and every cop I can find to come after you.”
“Got it,” he said, sliding the card in his pocket.
“Good,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go help my dad get ready.”
He watched her storm back into the bar. He thought she looked pretty good doing that. He tried to imagine what her face would look like when she started researching his record.
“Another reason to get the hell out of here,” he said aloud to himself.
