Текст книги "Dry Bones"

Автор книги: Craig Johnson

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

12

I was lying on the wet ground with the sound of hoofbeats rapidly diminishing into the darkness.

I sat up and shook my head, hearing a high-pitched whine that eclipsed the thunder and everything else, truth to be told. Scrubbing my hands across my face, I discovered the reins still wrapped in my right hand, so I draped them over my shoulder and looked around for my hat and the radio, discovering both underneath me. Pulling the small device out, I discovered the source of the noise and examined the broken housing and the few wires and partial circuit board that hung out the side. I clicked the thing on, but no lights illuminated and no sound emitted from it except the screech.

“Great.”

I gathered myself. It was slow going, standing, but I did it, feeling a spasm in the small of my back and deep within my horseman’s pride as I pulled my hat back on—all hat and no honor.

Rain pulled like curtains across the landscape, and I figured I’d better get moving. Setting off at a hitch—I favored my right hip, which was probably bruised where I’d landed on the radio—and started toward the dinosaur ridge.

I tried to keep it in front of me, although when I had to cross some lower hills, my objective disappeared. I watched with concern as the dry creek bed at the bottom of the ravine to my left began filling, reminding me again that I had limited time.

Trudging on, I started missing the slicker almost more than the horse, but then, speak of the devil, I spotted something on the trail ahead. I bent and picked up the yellow package, cracked and rumpled but still whole.

I unrolled it and slipped my arms in. Fastening it closed, I was a little more protected from the elements and decided that I would follow the creek bed rather than traverse the hill and dale in my attempts at reaching the ridge. The route would be more circuitous and opportunities to fall into the knee-deep water more plentiful, but where the stream was coming from was where I wanted to inevitably go, and with the lightning continuing to strike the ridges, I felt a little safer at a lower altitude.

The ground began sucking at my boots, but I kept my footing and only once slid toward the water, partially submerging a size 13. When I righted myself, I could see something big ahead on the trail.

“Bambino?”

It didn’t move at first, but then, in the momentary light of another strike, I saw the Appaloosa tense through the thunder and then amble over to me as if all sins were forgiven. I found a crumbling sorghum treat from the pocket of the slicker and held it out to him.

He stretched his neck forward, and I slid a hand up and took hold of his mane. Feeding him the cake to keep him occupied, I examined the bridle and could see that the rings that had held the reins had opened. I pulled them free from my neck, glad that I’d saved them.

The rings proved useless so I threaded the leather strips through the halter portion of the bridle and brought my face close to his, my hat brim dipping forward and releasing a small waterfall that caused him to start. “Let’s try and not have any more epic drama, okay?”

I mounted the horse and started off again, perhaps at not so quick a pace but both of us happy enough to have company in the downpour, my hip still sore but better in the saddle than the muck. I led Bambino around another hill and could see the slope of the dinosaur ridge again and the backside where the small canyon tightened and the water was dropping like a miniature Niagara Falls about a story high, pounding into a pool below, the water thundering through the canyon mimicking the heavens.

There was only one problem—I was on the wrong side.

I dismounted, looked at the thigh-deep water that rushed by, and then spoke to the horse. “Hey, partner, how ’bout we take a little swim?” Another strike of lightning hit the ridge above like a reminder.

With a horse, the key in these situations is to not show any hesitation but rather to boldly step forward as if you know what you’re doing, which works marvelously if you really do know what you’re doing.

“C’mon, boy, we don’t have all the time in the world.” He took a tentative step forward, and I let out some rein and watched him plant a hoof into the depths.

I guess he was used to the ponds and reservoirs on the Lone Elk Ranch, because he forded the creek with me like Esther Williams. We were about three-quarters of the way across when I noticed something upstream. At first I thought it was one of Danny’s turtles, but the shape was wrong. Whatever it was, it was approaching fast, and I just hoped it wasn’t a loose cottonwood branch. Bambino saw it, too, and moved to the left, but this time I had hold of the reins that were sturdily wound through his bridle. I had a choice—either hang on or grab whatever it was that was about to knock me downstream.

It was just about then that I saw the branch had an arm. I dropped the reins and lunged, twisting my fingers into a denim shirt. I planted my feet but slipped and fell in the powerful current, watching as the horse began to climb the bank, shake itself off, and trot away. I tightened my one hand on the garment and pulled the two of us from the creek bed with less than one horsepower.

I lay there on the bank for a second or two, took a few quick breaths, and then rolled over. It was Enic, lying on his back, his face open to the deluging skies. Turning his head, I spilled the water out of his mouth, pushed on his chest, and felt a tremor of movement in his body. When his hands came up weakly, he yanked his head away to the side, coughing and spitting.

I held him there as he continued to convulse and finally emitted a long moan. “Enic?” His eyes wobbled toward mine, and I smiled down at him as another lightning bolt ran the ridge. “Looks like you took a swim.”

His eyes were wide and reminded me of Bambino’s. “Mmm . . . Mahk jchi.”

I shook my head at him. “English, Enic. My Cheyenne isn’t that good.”

He blinked the rain away from his face, and I leaned forward in an attempt to shield him with the brim of my hat, his hanging from its stampede string.

“The boy . . .” He sputtered the words out. “The canyon where they found the dinosaur. Got them out but then slipped.”

“Do you know where they are?”

He coughed and then nodded his head as his hand came up and fingered my raincoat, his teeth bright in the pitch darkness as if illuminated from behind. “Can I borrow that slicker?”

 • • •

“So, why did they run off?” Maybe it was the lightning strike or the fall, but everything was sounding like I was in a barrel.

The older man, insisting that he knew where they may have gone, slogged along in the steady rain, keeping up a pretty good pace for a guy who’d almost drowned. “Maybe he was protecting the girl from you.”

I hustled to keep up and wished I’d brought two slickers. “I’m the one who’s trying to find them, lost out here at the ends of the earth.”

He grunted. “Or the one trying to keep them from being happy ever after.”

With this pronouncement, he turned, trudged the rest of the way up the hill, and paused at the top. “We should get going.”

He disappeared over the side, and I had little choice but to follow. Making my way in the greasy grass on the far side of the hill, I called after him again.

He said nothing.

Over hill and dale we trudged along, slipping and sliding until I decided to swing him around and ask, “Enic, where the hell are we going?”

Our noses were very close, and I could see the expressionless look on his face, much like the one that I had seen on Taylor’s.

“Take your hand off of me.”

“Not till I get some answers.” I could feel pressure at my midsection and looked down to see the point of a deer-hoof skinning knife pressed against my shirt. Bringing my face up slowly in the same rhythm as the now distant thunder, I merged the waterspout from the brim of my hat with his and spoke carefully. “You go ahead and do what you need to do, and when you’re finished I’m going to shove that skinning knife down your throat, turn it sideways, and yank it back out.”

There was another lightning strike, which although distant was bright enough to illuminate an opening in the hillside guarded by a few huge, ancient timbers that marked what looked to be an old mine.

Enic smiled slowly. “You know, I believe you would.”

13

We stood at the opening in the hillside, Enic running a hand over the horse that blinked with a sleepy expression on his long face as the old Indian tied him off, out of the rain. “When he runs away there are only three places he goes to and this is one.”

“I know how he feels.” I glanced up at the heavy, rough-cut timbers and felt like Dante, preparing to enter hell. “Looks old.”

“Before my time, but Danny and me, we found it.”

“I think I might’ve seen it when I was a boy.” I ran a hand on the wood, moving my hip in an attempt to get it mobile again and failing miserably. “Coal?”

“Maybe.”

I thought about the Dead Swede Mine. “Gold?”

He shrugged. “We never found any, and it’s not in the right place for that, but I never found no gold nowhere so what do I know?”

Hoping the sun would begin showing a glimmer in the east through a crack in the iron sky, I stared into the inky gloom of the shaft, at least looking forward to getting out of the rain. “So, where are they?”

He shook his head. “It’s very deep, and when Danny and I found it we used dynamite to clear the debris so that we could have a way into the larger, natural tunnel inside, maybe carved out from the reservoirs. That’s probably where they are.”

Just inside the opening there were two broom handles sticking out of a medium-sized plastic garbage can with a lid that had a hole in it along with a lighter. Enic pulled out a sawed-off floor mop that had seen better days and palmed the lighter.

The smell was unmistakable. “Kerosene?”

“Yeah.” He held the flame to the mop head and it slowly lit. “One of the torches is missing, so they’re in there.”

Enic held his up, and I was starting to feel like I was in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I lifted the lid and pulled the remaining mop from the can, aiming it toward his.

He pulled it away. “You don’t trust me?”

I thought about it. “Not really.”

“What would the next person do?”

“What, you’re planning on a meeting?” I held the thing closer, and he finally lit it, albeit with a frown on his face.

Remarkably, there was no writing on the walls, and the cave was pretty broad. I could see where it narrowed ahead, so I attempted to stay close to Enic; even with my own torch, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him too far out of sight.

He turned sideways, keeping the light in front of him, and continued on, looking back only once. “Well, c’mon.”

From the angle of the rock, you could see it was the same formation shelf as the ridge that contained Jen, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had hollowed the cave out other than human beings. I watched as he squeezed his way through, and as I attempted to negotiate the same space, I could see his torch turn a slight corner and continue on. “Hey, Enic! Slow down, would you?”

The passage was about as wide as a hallway, and I stepped off at a lopsided jog, turning the corner at the end of the thoroughfare just in time to see his torch in the distance. I went around an abutment and found myself in a spacious passage with a smooth floor made out of compacted dirt.

I looked to the right and could see that the path was at least as large as the one I’d just been in, whereas the one to my left was narrow. Picking the one of least resistance, I headed right, figuring that if I didn’t see Enic in a straightaway or hit a turn pretty quick, he must’ve gone to the left.

I continued on, even though I was aware that my shoulders were scraping both walls. I was pleased to see another opening ahead and figured that he must be in there, but he wasn’t. The chamber was the size of a one-stall garage with a couple of other tunnels leading in opposite directions but nothing that looked, on closer inspection, promising.

With just a little panic setting in, I retraced my steps back into the original tunnel and struck out back to the area where I’d been. Looking up at the rock ceiling and having faith that it was sturdy, and still hoping that Enic was on the level and that it was only his familiarity with the cave that had caused him to accidentally escape me, I started allowing my thoughts to grow dark. What if he’d turned the corner and then doused his torch, leaving me, well, in the dark?

There was another opening to my right, this one even bigger than the first, but it separated into two tunnels also angling off in opposite directions. I chose the larger one and switched the torch to my left hand so that I could hold my .45—better safe than sorry.

Setting off, I suddenly felt my boots splashing in water and held the torch so that I could see the shiny surface and the image of myself looking back up at me.

Great.

With retreat being my only other recourse, I started wading forward, figuring that if the water got thigh deep, I was turning back, no matter what.

There was a series of bulb sockets overhead in this passage, strung together with old, cloth-insulated wiring, which led me to believe that the place had been electrified back in the dirty thirties or possibly the forties. “Too bad there aren’t any bulbs or a switch.”

I continued to study the ceiling and as I did could see that my torch was making black marks on the roof of the cave. Stunned that I hadn’t thought of it before, I stood there looking at marks on the rock when I noticed that some were darker. This one time in the cave I was thankful for my size; I reached up and rubbed a finger on the ceiling and withdrew with a completely fresh, black fingertip.

Sighing a breath of relief and trusting my black smudge technique to at least show me where the most recent occupants of the cave had passed, I waded ahead, ignoring the other passageways.

To my right was what I was pretty sure was a handmade ladder. As I got closer, I could see that the thing was constructed of lodgepole pine, and I was just as glad not to have been responsible for carrying those into the narrow passageways.

I ran a finger over the rung closest to my face and noticed it was wet; Enic, or somebody, had climbed this way.

The treads were roped on, and the rails of the thing shot up through a break in the rocks above. I slipped my sidearm back into its holster and decided to climb. Placing my boot, dripping with water, on the first rung, I shifted my weight and listened to the loud crack as it spilt in two.

I stood there in the semidark muttering, which had no effect on the broken step whatsoever. Lifting my leg a little higher, I rested my boot on the next rung, this time gently applying my weight until the majority was on the ladder.

Sighing, I lifted myself up, holding the torch in my right hand a little away from the ropes so that I wouldn’t set them on fire.

The rung held, and I listened to the wood squeal as I placed my other boot on the next and slowly climbed up with my hip still aching. There was a trapdoor with hinges and a handle at the top of the ladder. From the distance I’d climbed, I calculated that I must be pretty close to the surface.

I thought about pulling my sidearm again, but I was sure that if I made some sort of dramatic entrance, the ladder was likely to buckle and dump me, the torch, and my .45 back in the cave.

Carefully taking the handle, I raised the trapdoor an inch or two so that I could see the interior of what looked to be an old lineman’s shack, a small, rough-cut, wooden structure. The portion I could see had an empty bunk against a wall, a closed door, and Enic Lone Elk sitting in a chair in my slicker, a single-barrel shotgun pointed at the opening. “Hi, Sheriff.”

“Mind if I climb the rest of the way out?”

“You better—I’m not sure if that ladder will hold you for too much longer.”

Lifting the hatch the rest of the way with my right hand, I climbed out and sat on the floor with the torch still in my left, and commented on the small potbellied stove crackling with a few burning logs. “You had time to make a fire?”

He kept the shotgun on me. “Took you a while.”

“There were moments when I wasn’t sure I was going to make it at all.”

He nodded. “Lot of caves down there—we cleared a bunch, but there are a bunch more.” He gestured with the single barrel. “Stuff that torch in the fire there.”

I did as he said and watched as the flames leapt a little at the introduction of the extra fuel. “You and Danny?”

“We were redoing the floor in this place and found the trap. Pulled it up and discovered the cave down below. Figure they must’ve used it to get away or store stuff.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know—found empty bottles of hooch from the twenties, so it might’ve been used by bootleggers, and who knows before that—maybe Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for all I know.” He gestured with the shotgun again. “Wanna close that thing? Causes a draft.”

I closed the door in the floor and reached out to warm my hands near the fire, noticing a pot of coffee on the stove and a few tin cups. “You know, if I hadn’t found my way up here, you’d have had a lot of explaining to do.”

“You would’ve just disappeared; people disappear in this country.”

“Like Jennifer Watt?” He said nothing, and I poured myself a cup of coffee and set the pot back on the stove under his careful eye. “And Taylor.” I studied him. “What’s going on, Enic?”

He unsnapped a few of the clasps on my slicker and pulled a drenched hat from his head, ignoring bad luck and throwing it on the bunk. “You’re a smart fella—you tell me.”

I sipped the coffee, and it tasted wonderful. “I was just about convincing myself that you didn’t have anything to do with the death of your brother.”

“I didn’t.”

I gestured with the cup toward the shotgun. “Then why is one of us having this conversation at gunpoint?”

“Just slowing you down so that the young ones can get away.” He didn’t move, but his eyes drifted from me toward the fire. “Danny was hard on Randy, and now Randy’s hard on that boy. So, I’m putting a stop to it.”

“Danny was hard on Randy?”

The older man nodded. “Danny was drinking and worked Randy like a mule but it made him tough, made him capable. Randy’s been tough on Taylor, but all it’s done is wear the boy down. I knew both Eva and Randy wouldn’t want that boy running off with a white girl, so I took a hand.”

I nodded. “Where are they headed?”

“None of your business.”

“Actually, it is my business. Someone murdered your brother.”

“They didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Then who did?”

He didn’t answer—just sat there with the shotgun pointed at me. I noticed the hammer wasn’t pulled back. “Enic, I’m having a hard time believing that you would shoot me.”

“Don’t want to, but I need you to stay put for a while.”

“Then what? There’s an APB out on the two of them and every highway patrolman in the territory is going to be looking for whatever vehicle they’re in.”

“Drink your coffee.”

I did and then set the empty cup down on the kindling box. “Enic, I’ve had a little drama in my family just lately, too. My son-in-law was killed a day ago, shot in a routine traffic stop in Philadelphia where he was a police officer. So, now my daughter is going to have to go through what I’ve been going through for a bunch of years since my wife died.” I rubbed my face with my one hand and then dropped it in my lap with the other one and looked at him. “That’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, let alone the two people more important to me than everything.” I sighed and shook my head at the thought of it. “But now there she is with a brand-new daughter and no husband to help her. She needs me, and if you think I’m going to sit here and sip coffee and pass the time of day with you, you’ve got another think coming.”

As I started to stand, he raised the bore of the barrel toward my face. “Hold up right there.”

“And it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that shotgun to stop me.” I stood. “Besides, my hip hurts and my legs are getting stiff from sitting on this floor.” I arched my back and straightened my hat. “I’m stiff all over, but I think I’m mostly tired, tired of everything, to tell the truth.” I walked past him as he stood and rested a hand on the doorknob. “You can go ahead and shoot me if you want, but as tired as I am, I can’t guarantee that I’ll feel it.”

It was about then that everything went black and I realized I’d been wrong about a couple of things—that Enic was not afraid to use that shotgun and that that shotgun had stopped me after all.

 • • •

Number one: the sudden deceleration or acceleration of the head is pretty important in a concussion, generally occurring when the blow is from the side or from behind with, say, oh, the butt of a single-barreled shotgun.

I tried to rise up on one forearm, but it wouldn’t support me, so I just lay there.

Number two: evidence suggests that a good concussive blow that results in a knockout generally has a twisting motion which results in the brain reacting within the skull something like a Mixmaster.

I finally opened my eyes and stared at the floor, expecting pools of blood but not seeing any through the crashing waves of tsunami pain that were attempting to overturn my brain in its pan. Incapable of much else, I rolled over and looked at the ceiling and listened to my breath rattle, the warm air from my lungs creating a cloudy vapor in the now cold interior.

As I thought back, I could only come up with a handful of times this had happened to me, which is good because I felt like my brains were leaking out of my ears.

Sitting up, I noticed that Enic must’ve covered me with my slicker. I picked up my hat and carefully placed it on my head, avoiding the lump, and rubbed my face. It was still raining, and the fire in the stove was out, the torch end having burned off and fallen to the floor, which gave me an indication of how long I must’ve been lying there: too long.

Struggling to my feet by sliding my back against the door, I stood, sort of, and looked through the grimy windows; it was still dark out, early morning being my guess—before sunup, at least.

Feeling the bile rising in my throat, I swallowed and stretched my jaw and felt for my .45, relieved to find it still in my holster. Taking a few unsteady steps, I went over to the stove and felt the coffeepot—cold, but still half full. I picked up the tin cup, refilled it, and took a swig to clear the taste from my mouth.

Taking a few steps, I draped the slicker over a shoulder, and threaded an arm through a sleeve, stopping to rest before threading the other. I waited a moment and then buckled the thing closed, flipping up the collar and pulling my hat down in the front.

Grasping the knob, I turned it and stumbled around the door as the wind and rain blew it against me, and I trudged into the dark, not really sure where I was and certainly not sure about where I was going.

The rain wasn’t as hard as I remembered it being before, but the wind had picked up. Since it generally came from the northwest, I tacked into it and down a hill onto what appeared to be an old cow path.

Figuring that Enic must’ve taken Bambino, I decided not to look for him and kept walking, assuming I’d eventually find a road and start my way back toward civilization on foot.

The cow path turned to the left and stayed on the lowland and out of the wind, for which I was thankful. My head was killing me, and all of a sudden, while wiping the rain from my face, I found myself lying on the path, struggling in the mud to stand.

I fell down a few more times but then managed to keep my footing. It felt like I was walking for a hundred miles, but I just ignored time and distance and kept going, hoping I wasn’t just walking in circles and not knowing it.

Trudging through the barrow ditch, I climbed up the hillside, and when I got there I kneeled in an attempt to catch my breath and fight back the vertigo.

I breathed heavily, again watching the vapor trail from my nostrils, and stood, at first a little unsteadily but then feeling somewhat better. I noticed that the rhythm of my steps was matching my breathing, possibly the only thing that was keeping me going. I pushed my hat up and gripped my forehead in an attempt to chase off the pain, but it stayed right there with me until I unexpectedly ran into something.

My thighs struck the blunt edge of a solid impediment, and when I tried to grab whatever it was, I slipped and fell backward. I lay in the road thinking I’d better get up before either I drowned like a turkey or something ran over me.

There was a lot of noise, and I swore I could hear voices as somebody, two somebodies actually, picked me up, trailed my arms over their shoulders, and dragged me to the backseat of a car. The Bobs.

I mumbled.

“What’d he say?”

“Something about not letting go.”