by Linda Mackay
“Afraid you might like sitting on my lap.” Mac raised his eyebrows.
I ignored him. “Todd I need a leg up.”
I put my foot in his cupped hands, took hold of Mac’s hand and swung onto his lap. Chimayo stomped her hooves with the added weight. “It’s okay girl.”
“She may be okay, but I’m not sure I am.” Mac whispered in my good ear.
Relax, breathe…you can do this.
Mac lightly kicked Chimayo’s sides and directed her back to the trail. Telling myself not to move was a futile plan since every step Chimayo took rocked me back and forth on Mac’s lap. His left arm wrapped around my waist and he held the reins with his right.
“I could ride like this all day,” Mac said.
It actually was the most comfortable I’d been since we added Marty to the mix, but I wasn’t telling Mac that. “Your bones are jabbing me so let’s make this quick.”
“Sugar, something may be jabbing you…”
“Stop!”
Chimayo halted at the sound of my voice. Mac laughed and squeezed me tighter to him. Ahead of us, Tata gave us thumbs up and I gave them a sign of my own. Mac flicked the reins and she moved out again. “Jorie, a horse becomes confused if you give it mixed signals. Kind of like men do.”
“What do you want to talk about?” I was ignoring that comment also.
“You can’t make any sound or movement when I tell you. I don’t want anyone, especially Marty, to notice anything wrong.”
“Okay.” My heart was beating like I’d run a marathon, and my ears were ringing.
“Under that dead elk was a body.”
Mac held me tight as my body shivered. I squeezed his hand.
“It was the body of the guy we hung in the tree. I didn’t mention it because I wanted to see what Marty’s reaction was to the situation.”
I thought back on what transpired at the elk. I leaned into Mac and turned my head so no one but Mac could hear me. “He didn’t know it was there.”
“Correct. I think he confirmed the location of the body, told his boss like a good little drone and they sent someone to deal with it. Rigor had set in and presented a horrendous problem with moving the body.”
“Did Dad see it?”
“I don’t think so, he was on the other side of the elk and he hasn’t said a word about it.”
“Why dump it where it was easily spotted?”
“It could be a warning, but unlikely. I think carrying out the body became too much trouble and they killed the elk to encourage scavengers to devour the remains. The elk was simply to cover up the human.”
“They weren’t carrying a shovel to bury it, so let nature do the work. But again, why there?”
“I don’t think they intended to leave it there. I think the marsh and quicksand became too much and they gave up and dumped it before they were all sucked in.”
“America’s dumbest criminals,” I said.
“I’m glad I’m with you. This place is harsher than most others simply by its extreme inaccessibility to even the smallest necessity. I’m also concluding the people behind this are getting careless because they didn’t have a plan for deep wilderness cover-up.”
“What exactly do you mean by that.” I failed in the relaxing department. I had tensed up and now my right butt cheek was going to sleep.
“There were only a few completely in-the-know. With each thing that goes wrong with a plan they are forced to add people to their group. They engage a tier of people who have no idea what their role really is and are just taking orders.”
“What now?”
“Marty keeps saying they’re going to kill us before the Thorofare Ranger Station, so he knows something. It may be as simple as they have a helicopter landing site tucked in a hidden meadow near there.”
I wish people would stop talking about wanting to kill me. I was starting to get a complex. “Problem with this place, unless we want to leave the horses and go on foot the fastest and safest way out is on the trail.”
“That much has become very clear to me in the last week. Frank and I talked about leaving the horses at the ranger station, but with thermal imaging and the terrain we aren’t any better off on foot.”
I don’t think I’m going to like what’s next. This week has taught me that Mac never runs from a fight. “What’s next?”
“I want to draw them out if they’re watching.”
“Shit. We’re almost to the station.”
“Don’t panic. Marty is their tell. And he’s a very bad liar.”
I looked at Mac. “What’s he lying about?”
“The location. He wants us to worry now, and when they don’t show up he thinks we’ll let our guard down. I think they’re past Hawk’s Rest simply because there are fewer people. For a wilderness, the ranger station and Hawk’s Rest patrol cabins are a metropolis and present too many witnesses, which they already have and are trying to mitigate.”
“Why haven’t they just picked us off like ducks on a pond?”
“A sniper is not as effective because there are six people; hard to kill us all at once from a distance, then dispose of the bodies. They are looking for a closed in space to ambush us.”
“We’re safe in the open?”
“As long as I’m correct, we should be reasonably safe for a few more miles.”
“Don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.” I shifted to my left to relieve the pain in my butt.
“It may be time for you to ride with Amanda.” Mac tickled my side. “I can’t take much more of this.”
Me either.
We stopped to water the horses, and I took the opportunity to walk off my numb ass. It was probably a good thing it went numb as it kept me from enjoying the ride more than I already had. I tried to remember the last time I’d had a satisfying sexual encounter. I’d last seen Dr. Dumbass, as Todd and Amanda called him, almost 15 months ago and while it was sex; it was far from satisfying.
Sitting on Mac’s lap was more sexually fulfilling than hiding the salami with Dr. Dumbass. That kind of thinking is what happens when you spend half your time with Tata, and the other half with a bunch of unruly cowboys. My mother would have sent me to etiquette school for my uncouth thoughts. Sorry Mom.
I looked around hoping Mac was right and this open space not to the bad guys liking. Behind us the Yellowstone River cut her path through the Thorofare Meadow. Looking back to the north the finger-like ridges of the Trident Plateau stood on my right, a mass of geologic wonder rising above the valley floor guarding the entrance to the Absaroka Mountains. To my left the Two Ocean Plateau rose like a viewing area for the meadow below. The remote wilderness had developed a closed in feeling. I felt like a small child with both parents standing over me.
No roads, no businesses, no vehicles and no discord, were the hallmarks of this wilderness serenity. It’s untouched by the Internet. It’s void of people walking down a crowded street bumping into others because they’re too busy looking at their phones to pay attention to those around them. It’s perfection.
I often dreamed of spending a winter in the Thorofare. Was it survivable? How many trappers or Shoshone had been stranded here and died? The destiny of anyone in this remote place is short. It isn’t a landscape humans can tame and doesn’t invite long-term winter interlopers.
Surviving a winter at Lake Yellowstone was wild enough, even with modern snow machines to allow reasonably quick passage to civilization. So how had Marty and his group managed to plug enough vents this spring to amplify any explosion in such a short window? It wasn’t a short window. They had to have controlled experiments and that wouldn’t have been possible this spring. Someone was working on this before the freeze-up and monitoring it all winter.
Who was the winter keeper at Lake Yellowstone?
“Dad, who’s the winter keeper at Lake?”
“Sam Hammond and his wife, Esther have done it for years.”
I vaguely remembered meeting them, but I was
a summer worker and had almost no contact with the winter crew.
“Wait,” Dad said. “Last fall Hammond was seriously hurt in a freak accident in the backcountry. He was lucky not to be killed. They spent last winter in Billings.”
From his position over the map, Mac looked up. “An accident? Who took his job?”
“I did,” Marty said. “Someone let me down so I can pee or I’m going to go all over your precious saddle.”
Mac untied Marty and helped him off Blue. “It wasn’t an accident was it Marty?”
“Nope, but it was damn hard to make it look like one. I told those goons the old coot was a savvy backwoodsman.”
He was actually proud of no one finding out, and he was bragging!
“I’m impressed,” I said. “They managed to seriously injure him and then you take his job. I bet you also monitored the bay all winter.”
“Sure did. Those two idiots kept diving and pouring concrete in the freezing water until they almost died diving as the freeze-up rushed in. I warned ‘em they were idiots, but those morons thought they knew better than me.”
“You showed them who was the smartest,” I goaded him.
“Sure did. I watched that lake all winter and it was one fucked up mess. Small eruptions would bust out of the Lake and I’d record them, then spring thaw came and those assholes were back under the water. I kept telling them it was a mistake. Just set off a bomb and let it rip. They wouldn’t listen to me. And now both Parks are fucked.”
“Marty, they should’ve listened to you about the hydrothermal and volcanic system being directly attached to the faults.” I was going to hell for encouraging his insanity.
“People made fun of your dad’s theories. And people made fun of me too. Got real damn tired of it last winter. Sure glad ‘the brain’ of this was killed in the explosion.”
“Who was that?”
“No way lady. I still got money to collect.”
Crap. I’d pushed to far. Whoever this ‘brain’ was, he was also an egomaniac if he needed to be so close he could watch the President die. And what if the bomb didn’t work? Would the ‘brain’ be sure the President was dead?
“Marty, what if the explosion hadn’t killed the President. Was the ‘brain’ planning to finish him off?”
“Hell no! He was too important for that.”
“Time to move out.” Mac showed Frank and Todd the map. “I think we’ll turn-off on this trail and keep following the Yellowstone River.”
“Why are we going out that way?” Todd asked.
“I don’t want to run into anyone else with a gun. Frank and I have decided to take a detour through Brooks Lake. He thinks once there we can call the Feds and pass off Marty,” Mac said.
“That’s some crazy detour. Can’t we just go home and let them come get Marty?” Amanda asked.
“We don’t even know if the ranch road is passable, and law enforcement will still be involved with earthquake cleanup.”
“Marty you suck.” Amanda said mounting Arikira.
“I think we should go the way we came and leave him tied to a tree at Two Ocean Pass and let the bears have him,” Todd said.
“He goes with us.” Mac tied Marty, who was unusually quiet and his eyes were darting every direction. “Jorie, where you riding?”
“With Amanda.” Mac had baited Marty and it was obvious even to me that the last direction Marty wanted to go was southeast. Mac was right. Marty had been lying about the conspirators location. Marty hadn’t had access to a radio in 48 hours so exactly where they were was still anyone’s guess.
“Frank lead out.” Mac said from his position at the rear of the group.
We bypassed the Thorofare Ranger Station. I was starting to become accustomed to operating like everyone you meet wants to kill you. But it was still hard to ride past the old log cabin with her big stack of wood creating an enclosed porch around the front door. I wondered if we’d ever know all those involved, and it pissed me off that I wasn’t sure I could be satisfied to let it go.
We circled around Bridger Lake and neared the turn-off to Trail 3060. I wished Mac would take the trail since odds were there wouldn’t be any bad guys with guns waiting to ambush us. That detour would never happen as this had become bigger than all of us. Our lives were not as important as the information we possessed. Mac signed on years ago to put his country above his life. The rest of us had been thrown into this mess. Somehow we’d each, in our own way, come to accept we were part of history. How it was written was up to us. Chicken shit geologists hide in bushes till help arrives. I’m good with that headline.
The fork in the trail loomed ahead. “I’ve changed my mind. Take Atlantic Creek,” Mac said.
“We’re going home. Wehoo,” Amanda said.
“Let’s make Enos Lake tonight,” Frank said.
Mac told everyone before we mounted up to have a firearm easily accessible. Amanda had her slingshot sticking out of her coat pocket and when I climbed on Arikira I felt her pistol in a shoulder holster. My bow was on my back and my .44 in a hip holster. As we road down trail we looked like an old west posse taking our prisoner back to town. Unfortunately, I felt like a geeky geologist play-acting in a really bad B-western.
We all had our rain dusters on as the sky looked like it would open up at any moment. Ahead of me Todd had his duster unsnapped and flung around the back of his horse. I knew he was wearing a pistol in a shoulder holster, his stun gun in a hip holster, and rifle in a scabbard on his horse. His black cowboy hat was pulled low over his eyes and he was singing Get Along Little Doggies. Dad was leading Marty’s horse and Frank was in the lead holding the reins in his left hand and his rifle in his right.
I twisted around to see what Mac thought of the derelict bunch. He smiled and winked at me. I wasn’t sure if he’d decided this scraggily, untrained group could hold our own. Leaning forward so Amanda could hear me I whispered, “Do you think we’re going to be okay?”
“Damn straight I do!” Amanda tapped the pink grip on her pistol. “Never underestimate the power of pink.”
Thunder popped overhead and lightning quickly followed. I took a deep breath, and then breathed out slowly. I rocked with the motion of Arikira and called to the animals. I repeated this process several times before I felt my mind flow into the universe around me.
What was I doing? This was the dumbest thing ever. I wasn’t my mother. I was acting like the nut everyone claimed my mother was.
Jorie! Our gifts are not a curse.
Then give me a sign if humans are in the area.
You must see them yourself.
I can’t.
Then my daughter, I cannot help you.
Not a curse? What did she mean? I loved hearing the animals. Oh boy, now I was hearing a human, and one long passed from this life. She wanted me to see what was around us for myself. I closed my eyes and my head filled with images of humans. Too many humans. I had to focus. I breathed in and out, over and over, and let the weight of my body settle on the flanks of the horse. I held both my hands out to my sides, palms up and asked for signs of humans hiding ahead of us, bipeds who made animals cautious or fearful.
The universe was silent for a long time, then an animal I couldn’t identify filled my head with thoughts of two bipeds. I could see them. They were on the left near water and the trail. It was Atlantic Creek. No, it was where Senecio Creek merged with Atlantic Creek.
I knew you could do it.
Now what was I supposed to do with the information? What if it was wrong?
Trust yourself.
“We need to stop. I’ve got to count leaves, like now!” I slid off the back of Arikira. I gave Mac a look that I hope he’d understand and ran into the trees.
“Guess we’ll take a quick bathroom break,” Mac said.
My wait behind the cluster of trees wasn’t long. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“I was expecting you, and you still scared the shit out of me.”
“It�
��s a talent.”
“Speaking of talents, I saw two men on the left side of the trail at Senecio Creek.”
“Where would that be?”
“Not far.” Mac didn’t even question ‘how’ I saw the men. I wasn’t sure who was crazier, him or me.
“I’ll alert Frank and Joe,” Mac said. “Once you feel we are close give me a signal and I’ll have everyone get off their horse and walk on the right side of the horse.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about using my horses as cover?”
“Do you prefer to use the humans?”
He had me there. “No.”
“Don’t give Tata to much information. Tell them to be aware of surroundings and that I’m going to signal us to walk for a while.”
“They aren’t dumb.”
“I know. But let’s keep details to a minimum. Frank and I will take these guys out and hopefully it will all be over before Tata can react.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Are you always this much trouble?”
“Are we playing the question game again?” I could do this all day.
“Just stay out of the way. I can’t worry about the rest of you.” Mac swatted my butt and was gone.
I waited a few minutes before leaving the trees. “Thanks for stopping. I feel much better.” I stopped by Todd’s horse Stud, rubbed her ears and told Todd to be careful and if Mac said dismount to do it on the right and stay on the right. He leaned forward on Stud, rubbed her mane and winked at me.
Amanda helped me mount up behind her and I relayed the same message to her. “Got it boss,” she said.
I couldn’t get those two to do anything without an argument. When the message came from Mac they were, “yes, sir, whatever you want.” I wasn’t complaining since this newfound discipline made my life easier.
I settled on Arikira’s flanks and opened up to the world around us. It was completely quiet. I was so tired I was afraid my meditative state would put me to sleep. After the first few minutes my mind went from exhausted to alive and alert with activity. The colors were more vivid, the noises in nature louder, and there was a focus point that moved like a blip on a radar screen the closer we got to the two men.
