by Linda Mackay
“That’ll shut her up,” Todd cheered.
“I’m not going to shut up and I’m not going with you.” Amanda continued to squirm.
Horses and riders pulled in with the rest of us. Mac dumped Amanda to the ground where her butt landed with a painful thud. “You had your chance to go home. You don’t cut and run now. You man-up and have your team’s back.”
It looked like daggers were flying out of Special Forces eyes; his shoulders tense as a stone pillar, yet his hands relaxed like he was taking an afternoon stroll. No one moved. It appeared we were done changing our minds.
Frank led as we made our way toward the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake. No one was talking. We were too busy watching our surroundings and listening for any noise that would signal another person was in our vicinity.
To fill the silence my brain decided to sing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. Come along and sing our song and hope we aren’t soon dead. M.i.c.k.e.y. Crap, I’d managed to muck up a sweet kid’s tune.
I didn’t like this section of the Thorofare Trail, and singing usually calmed me. The trail is crowded between mountains, which always reminded me of early settlers driving their wagons into an ambush. I was hoping my dislike of this area wasn’t a premonition of bad things to come.
I’d spent a lot of time avoiding places because they made me nauseous or gave me severe headaches from the imprint of violence or emotional pain attached to the land. Right now my only feeling was my feet going numb from pressing to hard on the stirrups. I rubbed Arikira’s ears in apology, and let my feet dangle while the stinging brought feeling back to my feet.
“Anyone know what name John Colter called Yellowstone Lake?” Todd was either bored or scared if he was playing park trivia. I was betting on scared. I’d lost more money on this game than anyone. Someday, I hoped to know more about my home than flatlander Todd.
“Someone has to have a guess,” Amanda said.
“I’ll say Lake Madison.” I had no idea.
“That’s actually close,” Todd said. “It was Lake Eustis.”
“Why is that close and who names a lake, Eustis?” Amanda swatted the horse flies swarming around her. “Sounds like his moonshine making uncle to me.”
“John Eustis was the Secretary of War under James Madison.”
“A moonshining Secretary of War sounds about right.” Amanda flicked a dead fly. “God, I hate these things.”
“Who invented the donut?” Todd joined the fly swatting club.
“Baroness Elizabeth Dimsdale from Hertford, England,” Mac said.
“Wrong, it was 16-year old American Hanson Gregory in 1847,” Todd said.
“Americans think you invented everything.” Mac swatted a fly. “Baroness Dimsdale recorded her recipe in a cookbook in 1800. She is said to have gotten her recipe from a local cook named, Mrs. Fordham.”
“Good grief son,” Dad laughed. “That’s some serious trivia knowledge. Todd, I think you have a contender for your title.”
“I bow to his greatness.” Todd’s hat hit the ground as he bowed and swatted at the same time. “I could use a donut right now. I’d stick it on the butt of the pack horse and hope the sugar draws all these damn flies to it.”
“Why do you know that?” I asked Mac.
“My great-great grandmother knew the Dimsdale family and she swore her recipe was much better than the Baronesses’.”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “Millions of trivia questions and he gets that one.”
“Kind of like your Namibia win,” Todd said.
“Not my fault I know about Africa.”
“You don’t know anything about Africa. You answered Namibia to every question.”
“Not my fault it just happened to be the game winning answer.”
“Still not fair,” Todd said.
“Not fair like when you answered Tupac to all the Rapper questions,” I said.
Todd put his bug net over his hat, tucked it into the neck of his shirt, and got back on his horse. “Except, Tupac was never one of the answers.”
“I told you go with Vanilla Ice.”
“I hate to interrupt, but does anyone have an extra one of those bug thingy’s?” Mac asked.
“I kind of like the shirt tied around your head.” Through my net I could still see the flies and mosquitos buzzing in front of my face, but at least they couldn’t land on it anymore.
“You look like Kenny from South Park,” Amanda said.
“I’ll trade you Kenny for your safari-sarong,” Mac said.
“Hold on son,” Frank said. “I’ve got an extra net.”
“Dammit.” Dad scratched his leg. “Fly bit right through my jeans.”
He’d been on foot, so didn’t have the luxury of leather chaps to protect him. But he was resourceful. He unpacked a tarp from the packhorse and wrapped it around his legs. It might not be leather, but it was better than legs covered in horsefly bites.
“I thought these damn horse flies were bad in Virginia.”
“You’re from Virginia?” I asked.
“Born and raised.” Mac settled in on his horse. “Never left till I went to college.”
“Where was that?”
“The Citadel.”
Todd whistled. “Wow, guess that explains how you ended up at the DIA.”
“Where in Virginia?” I didn’t want to talk about The Citadel. Brains were a requirement and I was still pretending he didn’t have any.
“Small town near Richmond.”
“Is that where you learned to ride?” I asked.
“Yep.”
I’ve pulled thistles easier to get out of the ground than information out of Mac. “Had a little pony on the farm?”
“Thoroughbreds,” Mac smiled.
I don’t want to talk about Virginia either.
“You grew up on a Horse Farm?” Amanda asked.
“Rode every day,” Mac said.
He just kept rubbing it in so it hurt like hydrogen peroxide on an open cut.
“How did you go from horses to The Citadel?” Todd asked. “Joined the Cavalry?”
“I had a freakish aptitude for languages, which came in really handy when my folks sold horses to Germans or Saudi Arabians. Teacher at my high school passed the word to The Citadel and they recruited me.”
“What languages do you speak?” Todd asked. “No wait. Let’s bet on it. I say seven. Whose in for five bucks?”
“Eleven.” Dad was in.
“Nine.” Frank too.
“Nineteen.” Amanda was way in.
“Okay Jorie, up to you,” Todd said.
“I’m not playing.”
“Jorie, Jorie, Jorie…got her feelings hurt cause she thought Mac couldn’t ride,” Todd sang.
“Screw it. Ten.”
“How many, Mac?” Todd asked.
“Thirteen, if you don’t count all the regional dialects.”
“I’m closest, fork over the dough,” Dad said.
“Not so fast,” Todd said. “Name them.”
“Russian, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, Kurdish, Turkish, Pashto, Croatian, Dutch, Italian and Chinese.”
“No Swedish or Finnish?” Amanda asked.
“Not my jurisdiction,” Mac said.
“Then you won’t be on my mom’s Christmas dinner invite list.”
“That’s why I’m never invited?” Todd flipped his hair. “I’m so insulted.”
“You’re not invited because your cooking is so good you’d overshadow her personal chef. And she does have a reputation to maintain.”
“So true. I’ll stick to visiting when her chef is on vacation. We have so much fun.”
“You’ve been to Amanda’s mom’s house?” I asked. Why don’t I know these things?
“Of course. I stop by every spring on my way back from the island and we party, party, party.”
“It makes my annual visit much easier,” Amanda said. “I sit on the beach and watch hot guys while Todd en
tertains my mom.”
I really do need to ask more questions. “What the heck is Pucko?” It’s a start; don’t judge me.
Mac laughed. “If you mean Pashto, it’s spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.”
I was slightly impressed. “Are you fluent in all of them?”
“Enough to get by.”
“Well that’s vague,” I said.
“It’s what counts in my former line of work.”
“You said you weren’t a spy.”
“I’m not. I’m an agent.”
“Sounds like a technicality to me.” He was really pissing me off, and he knew it. “Explain to me as a lowly civilian what a DIA agent does.”
“We provide foreign military intelligence.”
“Thought that was CIA.” I can be obtuse also.
“They provide info to the President, Vice-President, National Security Council and members of the cabinet.”
Like pulling teeth. “Then who gets your information?”
“The Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs, and all the Military Services.”
“Holy crap!” Todd said. “Sounds like a cross-over cluster fuck to me.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Mac said.
“I still say you’re a spy.” Semantics be damned.
“I do spy movement ahead. Everyone keep close together.” Mac pulled out around me. “Frank you come with me.”
They moved ahead towards the lone rider. Dad stopped his horse and turned to the rest of us. “Safeties off.”
“I’ve got my little friend right here.” Todd patted his shirt like he was putting a hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance. I don’t want to know what little friend he was referring to. With Todd it could be everything from a tiny pistol that couldn’t hurt a mouse to a vibrator that could.
“I’m ready.” Amanda held up her slingshot.
“Holy bug fart, we’re screwed, we couldn’t fight an army of Legos.” I said releasing my safety.
The rider stopped and talked briefly before continuing on. My heart thumped in my chest; the rider was dressed like a ranger. It didn’t take long before I recognized this park ranger. Marty Thomas had been a backcountry ranger for twenty years. We weren’t going to need Todd’s little friend.
“Howdy everyone.” Marty tipped his hat. “Enjoying your day?”
“Very much,” Dad said.
“Joe, nice to see you. I enjoyed our dinner last week.”
“Thanks for bringing the steaks, I was getting tired of freeze-dried food.”
I saw Mac shaking his head at me as Amanda talked. “Marty, hope you’re planning to get that…”
I reined Arikira into Blue’s side with a bump that neither horse appreciated. Amanda appreciated it even less. She had laid her reins across the saddle horn and was casually sitting in her saddle, easily allowing me to interrupt whatever she was about to reveal to Marty. She slipped off the saddle and hit the ground. “Sorry, Manny, a fly bit me and I accidentally kicked Arikira. Are you okay?”
“Just embarrassed.”
Marty rode around us and headed up the trail. “Be careful out here.”
“You too.” Dad tipped his hat as Marty rode by him.
Six riders moving north into the danger zone and Marty hadn’t stopped us. I felt like my world was a dryer tumbling me over and over and I had no access to the controls to stop it. And I’d also just lost my bet.
Mac smiled at me. “Looks like you’ll be singing tonight.”
I changed the subject. “Can someone explain to me why Marty didn’t stop us?”
“I showed him this.” Mac held out a badge.
“Thought you were retired?”
“Retired is a relative term in my business.”
“Did he say the Feds issued a BOLO on the explosion?” Todd asked.
“This isn’t a TV crime show,” Mac said. “And they don’t issue BOLOs for geologic events.”
“Still bet they did?”
“Why can’t we just go home?” Amanda asked.
“Because I have evidence.” Dad tossed a granola bar at Amanda. “And I’m not giving it to anybody but Mac.”
“You didn’t tell Marty anything?” I asked.
Todd interrupted, “Did you tell Marty about the fake ranger? Did you tell him to check out Trail Creek patrol cabin to see if clothes were stolen?”
Mac held his hand up stopping Todd. “He’s been there. One dead ranger, two horses missing, he didn’t say a thing about missing clothes.”
“We know where one horse, and an imposter in ranger clothes is,” Amanda said.
“We told Marty where to find the body.” Frank climbed back on Junior. “That was enough. Let’s move out.”
“Crap,”
“At least she didn’t say the F word.”
“I gotta do some business.” Todd reined his horse to a stop.
“Five minute rest for everyone,” Mac said.
“Good luck with that, son.” Frank stepped off Junior and let him have his head to graze. “Todd has never completed his business in five minutes.”
“I can’t help it if I have an irritable bowel.”
“Your bowel wouldn’t be so irritable if you’d quit eating all those spicy foods,” Dad said.
“Maybe his butt is irritable because it doesn’t get enough action.”
“Amanda!” Dad chastised her like the petulant toddler she was most of the time.
“Manny, don’t worry about my action, your mama sees that I get plenty.”
“What the hell,” Mac said. “Is your mother a pimp or something?”
“She’s something,” Todd said.
“Shut up Todd! Mom just happens to know a lot of nice gay men.” Amanda pulled the net off her face, stuck out her tongue and flipped him off. “Be nice, or I’ll tell Mom.”
“I retired because I thought the people I worked for were nut-jobs. But after being around all of you, they’re looking pretty normal.”
“Don’t knock crazy, till you’ve tried it.” I tightened Arikira’s cinch and scratched her ears. “Life is easier if you’re a few crayons short of a box.”
“Are there any crayons in their boxes?”
“Todd is a member of Mensa, and Amanda can do advanced math problems in her head faster than you can do it on a calculator.”
“I guess that counts for a couple of big crayons.” Mac swatted flies off Chimayo’s withers.
“Why did you decide to move to Wyoming?” I said I was going to ask more questions, so I might as well start with the one that had been bugging me for days. I watched Mac pick stickers out of Chimayo’s saddle blanket, his eyebrows scrunched up. Why was that such a hard question?
The howl startled me.
Wolves talk to each other. They howl, bark and yip in a language they all understand. Just because humans don’t understand the language doesn’t mean it’s not as distinctive and emotional as human languages. My mother’s ancestors were Blackfoot, and every generation had Shaman that understood that language. In our family, those abilities were passed down every generation in some form.
Generations passed and the Blackfoot, like most Native Americans, had to keep Shamanism and their native rituals secret since the “white man” didn’t believe. Little has changed. I keep my ability to speak the animals’ language secret. My primary animal language is the wolf. I understand most animals, but wolves are my totem animal, my heart and soul.
This howl was telling of death.
Multiple deaths.
Violent deaths.
The grief was new and overwhelming.
Others answered with understanding and questioning. I closed my eyes and howled. Her sorrow became my sorrow. The alpha female had lost her pack; she was all that remained. Vengeance was her cry.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, opened my eyes and Mac was kneeling beside me. I didn’t realize I had kneeled as I howled. His fingers gently wiped the tears from my cheeks.
“Death?
” He asked.
“Yes, many.”
“Do you know where?”
“She is a descendant of the Delta Pack who in the past roamed the Thorofare and southeast arm of the lake. I believe she is howling north and slightly east of us. I’m guessing in the Brimstone Basin area.”
“I’m sorry, Jorie.”
“They are part of my family.”
Mac pulled me in next to him and we sat listening. No more howls echoed.
“Promise you won’t laugh at this?” I asked him.
“Promise.”
“Her final howl was a cry for vengeance. I’ve never heard anything like it before. I swear she was telling wolves to unite against a common enemy.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Humans tolerate a situation until it reaches their specific level of crisis tolerance; we then find a way to put aside differences and unite. We temporarily form one large pack.”
“You believe me that she’s calling for wolves to unite against a common foe?”
“Yes, and I think that foe is the same one who killed the President.”
“I don’t understand the reasoning for killing everything, animal or human, in their path.”
“Jorie, not everyone’s brain operates the same. You keep telling me about the mistakes people make in the backcountry. Well, you and most people make a big mistake when reaching conclusions about terrorists. To them, killing to get something out of the way is the same as you choosing to open a door to walk through it.”
“I don’t like the scary world you live in.”
Mac smiled and held out his hand to help me stand. “It’s why I moved to Wyoming.”
“Kinda sucks it followed you.”
Chapter 12
Every time I travel through Brimstone Basin, I expect Captain Picard and Data to step from behind a rock and point a Phaser at me. Halt, state your business! Maybe I should find another hobby over the long, cold, winter besides watching Sci-Fi reruns.
One thing is for sure; the backcountry of Yellowstone is not like a survival TV game shows. Producers and doctors aren’t standing by to help if you get into trouble. The Thorofare will kill you if you don’t check your ego at the trailhead. If I were going to die an ugly death, I was pretty sure it would be here in Brimstone Basin.
