“He seems mysterious,” Gracie prompted.
“Oh, he is that. He’s always got something going,” she said. “Did you know he was a poet? He’s published a couple of books of poetry. Can you believe that?”
“Is it good poetry?”
“I can’t tell,” she laughed. “It’s beyond me. I mean, I get parts of it, but it’s really difficult to understand. He’s even won a couple of awards for it, I guess. And there have been times when he reads it to me. It sounds beautiful when he reads it out loud because he has so much passion, but it’s not like I understand most of it. I pretend I do, but I don’t. I think he’s kind of frustrated more people don’t recognize his genius.”
Gracie peered ahead, trying to see Jed McCarthy in a different light.
“Is he nice to you?” she asked Dakota.
“Much of the time,” Dakota said.
“But not always.”
“No,” she said. “He can be the most obtuse son of a bitch I’ve ever met sometimes. Worse than a mule. And when he gets a new idea in his head, like a new poem or a new way to make more money, he gets pretty full of himself. I think he prefers his own company to anyone else because he’s the only one smart enough to stand himself, if you know what I mean. That’s when I feel like throwing in the towel and just hitting the road.”
“Are you feeling that way now?”
Dakota looked over and gave Gracie a long searching look. “How did you know that?”
“I watched you two earlier.”
“Sometimes I just can’t figure out what’s going on under his hat,” she said. “And this is one of those times.”
“Why do you think Mr. Glode left?”
Dakota sighed. “Mrs. Glode,” she said.
“Simple as that?”
“It’s a hell of a lot more complicated,” Dakota said. “I think the two of them were hoping they’d find something out here they didn’t find. There have been other couples on these trips looking for the same thing. So at least I can sort of understand that.”
“What else?” Gracie said.
“Wilson,” Dakota said.
“You mean you don’t know why he left, too?”
Dakota nodded. “I’m going to tell you something nobody knows,” she said. “I didn’t stay with Jed last night. We had a fight and I slept outside by the fire. At one point I had to get up to pee and I walked up above the tents into the trees. In the moonlight, I could see somebody lurking around. Kind of moving real slow and deliberate-walking back and forth from the tents to the lake. I sort of snuck down there and I saw it was Wilson. I don’t know what the hell he was doing, but he gave me the creeps. He was just out walking around.”
“Did you tell Jed?”
“Not yet. His head is too far up his butt to listen to anyone.”
“What do you think Wilson was doing?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But it looked like he was planning something, or waiting for someone. Maybe it was Tristan Glode, but that doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Gracie thought about that.
“Maybe it was Wilson and Mr. Glode who had a fight?” she said.
“Maybe. But you’re the only one who said they heard anything.”
“Don’t you believe me?”
Dakota said, “Let me put it this way. I believe you think you heard something.”
Gracie said, “But why would they leave together after that? And what would they fight about? I mean, if it was Tony and Mr. Glode at least they’d have a reason.”
“I know. It beats me.”
“I didn’t hear an argument,” Gracie said.
Dakota shrugged. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but something is. You look ahead of us at all those people on horses in this setting, and you think, what a perfect thing. But what you don’t know is what’s going on in everyone’s head, and what they might be thinking about everyone else.
“That,” she said, “is the reason I prefer horses.”
Jed had pulled his horse and mules off to the side of the trail to let his clients ride past. When Gracie and Dakota reached him, Jed said, “Dakota, you take lead for a while. I’ll tail up.”
Gracie saw that Dakota wanted to argue but clamped her mouth closed, pulled her hat tight, and urged her horse and mules on. Jed fell into place where Dakota had been but he didn’t stay there long.
He said, “So, you enjoying the trip so far?”
There was something disconcerting in the way he asked, she thought. Like he couldn’t wait to get past the formalities. Like he kind of enjoyed playing with her, enjoyed reeling her in with his soft voice.
“I guess.”
“What about your sister? She seems like maybe this isn’t her dream vacation.”
Gracie had to smile at that.
“Thought so,” he said.
“I wanted to ask you something,” he said. “I saw you talking away with Dakota. What on earth were you girls chatting about for so many miles?”
“Nothing in particular,” she lied.
“Really?” A hint of sarcasm.
“Girls do that,” she said. “We just talk about nothing for hours. You know, clothes, nails, shoes. Girly things. That’s just how we girls are.”
He chuckled. “You are a pistol,” he said. “Now really, what were you two talking about for so long?”
Gracie squirmed in her saddle. She wondered why it felt like it had gotten warm, like those car seat heaters did in her mother’s Volvo. She said, “I asked her how she liked her job. Since I like horses and all.”
“Ah,” Jed said. “And she told you what?”
“She said it was pretty good most of the time.”
“My name come up?”
“Of course,” Gracie said. “You’re her boss.”
Up until that moment, she hadn’t noticed the sheath knife on his belt that lay across the top of his thigh. She guessed it had always been there amidst the things he wore, but she’d just not focused on it before.
He said, “Females always talk too much.”
She didn’t know if he meant her or Dakota. Or both. He had looked away from her but there seemed to be a lot going on in his head.
“Are we going to find those two guys?” she asked.
“Oh,” he said, almost vacant, “we’ll find ’em.”
26
Bull Mitchell roared and fired his.44 Magnum over the backs of the wolves. The concussion in the epic stillness was tremendous and Cody flinched and came back up with his ears ringing. The big slug slapped the surface of the water twenty feet out and all three wolves wheeled toward them on their back haunches.
Cody could look into their black eyes and see their long red teeth and pink-tinged snouts and he instinctively
