“Whoa, boy. It’s okay.”
Just as he was about to force Reno to reverse his backward plunging, he changed his mind. Maybe Reno knew something he didn’t. He decided to trust his horse and let him have his head. Soon Reno had backed off his panic, and as he slowed, he nearly ran into Duke and Perry. It startled Reno again for a moment, and he reared. Patrick hung on to the saddle horn with one hand and put his weight over Reno’s neck until the horse lowered his front feet back to the ground.
Patrick held a finger to his lips and shook his head. Perry didn’t say a word, and neither did Patrick.
Patrick let his rattled horse catch his breath. As Reno’s lathered flanks heaved, Patrick tried to figure out what had just happened. His mind’s eye returned to the two lumps. The sorrel animal. What about it had been so terrifying to his horse? And then suddenly he knew.
Cindy. The lump was Cindy.
Chapter Twenty-eight: Startle
Big Goose Ranger Station, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
September 20, 1976, 9:30 p.m.
Susanne
After Ronnie drove them up Red Grade, Susanne was close to barfing up the potato chips she’d eaten in the truck on the drive from Buffalo. It had been past sundown, but not so dark out that Susanne couldn’t see the sheer drop on the side of the road—or fail to see the guardrail, had there been one. The truck tires had spun repeatedly—sending her heart on a hundred-yard dash each time—struggling against the weight of the trailer, the loose surface of the dirt roadbed, and the steep grade.
Fifteen minutes of much smoother, less steep roadway later, Ronnie let off the gas and braked to a stop in the middle of the road.
“What is it?” Susanne clutched the armrest on the door. She was jumpy. No, that word wasn’t strong enough to describe her current emotional state. She tried again. I’m coming out of my skin. She’d lost a few years of her life to that climb, she was sure, and a few more to Kemecke and to her wreck. Would she have gray hair next time she looked in the mirror?
“Just the turnoff to the Big Goose Ranger Station. See it?”
She relaxed, some, and tried to spot the ranger station. There were no streetlights, so she couldn’t see anything past the reach of the headlights. Well, not even that far, really. Her nighttime vision was the pits, and she was half-blind in daylight.
“No,” she said.
They rolled forward another hundred feet, then Ronnie eased the truck and trailer into a wide turn. They bumped over a cattle guard.
In the near distance, Susanne saw dark humps. “Is that it?”
“Yep. And a couple of cabins. I like to check in with them when I’m here on official business. I’m hoping there’s someone up here.”
“But this isn’t official business.”
“I know. But I want to do it anyway. As a courtesy.”
Susanne wanted to keep going, to get to Walker Prairie, wherever that was. Get there yesterday. But she didn’t say so. Ronnie was the deputy, and she was the one going out of her way to help her neighbor. Susanne would defer.
No sooner had Ronnie put the truck in park than a silhouette loomed in the headlights. Susanne yelped. Ronnie smiled. The figure grew larger and more distinct as it approached Ronnie’s door. A man, in civilian clothes.
Ronnie rolled her window down. “Hey, Chuck.”
“Hi, Veronica.” He grinned at her.
Veronica? How . . . feminine.
“You know it’s Ronnie.” Ronnie grinned back at him.
Chuck leaned down and propped an arm in the window. “Not between old friends.”
“Especially then.”
“What’s up—did you miss me and come all this way to tell me you’ve dumped Jeff and want me back?”
Susanne’s frustration level was increasing. At this rate she and Ronnie wouldn’t get to use the sleeping bags they were packing in to camp with Patrick and the kids tonight. It would be dawn before they even got there. But she was also intrigued. Tough Ronnie—who never wore makeup, dresses, or loose hair—a breaker of men’s hearts? It was like Wyoming was on a different planet than the South.
Ronnie turned back to Susanne and made a face.
Susanne studied her. High cheekbones. Icy-blue eyes. Pale pink lips. Thick blonde hair that Ronnie could barely contain in her braid, with curly wisps around her nape and face. The woman was strong, with muscular arms and shoulders, but she had a trim waist and a flare to her hips. Okay, Susanne could see the raw material was there. In Texas, Ronnie would have to work harder to be noticed, but here in Wyoming, she was like Lauren Hutton on a catwalk.
“Hush that. I’m up here with my neighbor, and you’re going to give her the wrong idea.”
“Or the right one.”
Ronnie shook her head. “Chuck Baxter, this is Susanne Flint. Susanne, this is Chuck.”
He nodded his head at her. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
Susanne didn’t feel charmed or charming. She felt anxious. “Nice to meet you. We’re looking for my husband and kids.”
“Oh?” Chuck said, his thick eyebrows lifting an inch. “Are they lost?”
Ronnie joggled her hand. “They were supposed to be at Hunter Corral, and then today we heard they might be camping near Walker Prairie. Susanne wanted to check on them, so we decided to ride up 312 together. And I’m just dropping by to let you know I’m playing in your sandbox.”
The raised brows dipped in a V, furrowing the space between them and above his nose. “What was that last name again?”
Susanne leaned all the way into Ronnie’s lap. Had Johnson County even called the National Forest Service like they’d said they would? “Flint. F-L-I-N-T.”
Chuck cleared his throat and looked into the distance. “Well, strangely enough, I just tried to call your home, ma’am.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but a man walked all the way down here from near 312 after his truck broke down. He’d talked to a man named Flint who was riding north on horseback with his little boy. They were looking for his truck, his trailer, some horses, and his daughter.”
“My daughter is missing?” Susanne went from worry to hysteria without stopping to collect two hundred. She’d been right. Her premonition that something was wrong had been right. She felt like a pawn in a chess match between good and evil.
“Honestly, ma’am, this is secondhand from a man who’d been nipping from a flask the whole walk here. He said the girl drove off with a boy about her age in a truck, pulling a trailer. I can’t say whether she’s missing or just taking a joyride.”
“She’s fifteen, and she’s gone. In the mountains. That’s missing.”
Chuck looked taken aback. After a moment he said, “No offense meant, ma’am. We just have our fair share of teenagers giving their parents a chase up here.”
Ronnie gripped Susanne’s hand in a bone-crushing squeeze. The calm down gesture reminded Susanne of home, of her mother, who’d always told her she’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So Susanne stopped just short of the ass-chewing she wanted to give Chuck.
She took a deep breath. “Please tell me what you are doing to find my missing daughter.”
“After I ran the drunk gentleman back to his camp, I radioed out for everyone to Be On the Look Out.” He shook his head, and his voice betrayed his irritation. “For the father and son, too. Because two flatlanders riding out in the dark on horseback with no map or destination means we’ll be looking to rescue them next.”
Susanne lunged at Chuck. How dare he. How dare he! Her daughter was missing, and her husband and son were out looking for her, and he was mocking them?
Ronnie put an arm out, restraining her. “Chuck, I know this kid. She’s a good girl. She was out hunting with her brother and her daddy. It sounds like this needs to be reported as a missing-child situation to the local sheriff’s department.”
“Sheridan and Big Horn Counties were the first calls I made.”
“And the stat
us?”
“I’m waiting to hear back.”
Ronnie put her hands on the steering wheel and pushed her shoulders back. “Okay . . . so in the meantime, what can the Johnson County sheriff do to help you find her?”
He crossed his arms over his chest but stayed close to the truck window. “I’ll be honest, we’re a little shorthanded. We’ve also had another couple of campers high on speed that had to be taken down to the emergency room. I think we’ve got a speed lab operating up here somewhere. We’re doing the best we can do to take care of everyone and everything in the whole national forest. Any personnel the sheriff can spare for a search would be appreciated.”
“I’ll call and see what I can do.”
“When can you start looking for her?” Susanne asked. Terror was overtaking her anger. She felt short of breath. Her baby. Her firstborn. Her precious daughter. Missing.
“We can organize searches and get started just as soon as we have the manpower.”
Susanne didn’t let up. “Which is when?”
“Hopefully pretty soon after the sun comes up.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Chuck bristled. “I’m afraid it’s the best we can do. I literally just got off the phone from making these reports. It takes people, and a plan, or bad things happen. Do you realize how much wilderness there is out there?”
“Do you realize how much wilderness that is for my daughter to be lost or hidden in?”
Ronnie turned to Susanne, her face inches from her. Her voice was calm, firm, and determined. “He understands. So do I. I expect his phone is ringing off the hook in the station. We should let him get to work.”
“Don’t they need things from me? Pictures, descriptions, information about our truck?”
Chuck backed away from the vehicle. “Yes, we do. Please. Come on in.”
Ronnie turned off the ignition. “I’ll radio my department while you work with him, Susanne.”
Susanne reached for the door. Her hands were shaking so badly it took her three tries to open it. She stepped out onto wet ground, and the cold seeped through her boots and into her bones. She pressed a fist to her mouth. The three people she loved most in the world were out there somewhere, in bad weather and total darkness, and no one was going to look for them until dawn.
It was almost more than she could bear.
Chapter Twenty-nine: Gather
Woodchuck Pass, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
September 20, 1976, 10:15 p.m.
Perry
Perry woke with a jerk. Duke was standing still. He scrubbed at his eyes, his arm bumping the brim of his dad’s hat. The chin strap bit into his throat, so he loosened it. It was pitch dark, and he was so, so sleepy.
“Dad? Are you there? Where are we?”
“Woodchuck Pass. We followed all those sets of tire tracks to here,” his dad said from just in front of him. “You’ve been asleep nearly the whole ride, kid. I don’t know how you and Duke do it.”
It all came back to Perry with a jolt. Trish missing. The long ride. Cindy dead. He wanted his mom, only he didn’t want to see her face when she learned about Trish and Cindy. It would make her really sad, unless he and his dad could find Trish and bring her home.
Perry stretched his eyes open wider, but it didn’t do any good. All he saw was darkness, except for one little patch of stars high in the sky. He knew there should be a creek and a valley between two mountains. He even knew their names. Woodchuck Creek. Dome Mountain on one side, Bruce Mountain on the other. His family liked this place. They didn’t come very often, because the crossing over the East Fork of the Tongue River was too high until nearly July, from snow melt. Then, by mid-September it would start snowing again. He knew this firsthand because it had started snowing on them about this time last year when they were hiking near the pass. By the time they got back to the truck, there was two feet of snow piled up on the road. It took all of them digging together for the rest of the afternoon to get the truck out of the pass. His mom had grumbled a couple of times that hiking was a summer sport, but his dad hadn’t let it bother him.
Perry really hoped it didn’t snow this time. That hadn’t been fun at all.
He yawned. When his eyes opened, he realized he was starting to see a little better. “Is Trish here?”
Patrick got off his horse. “I don’t know. But the tracks from our truck and trailer led here.” He pointed up an incline. “They head that way. Into the trees. I think. Something else drove in here after our truck, but they kept going.”
“How do you know it’s our truck?”
“The two sets of tracks are different. But I don’t know for sure until I check it out.”
Perry’s back tingled like someone or something was watching him. If there was, he couldn’t see them, and that freaked him out a little. His dad always said animals were more scared of him than he was of them, but he didn’t buy it. He moved Duke closer to Reno. Reno flattened his ears and pulled his lips back at Duke. Duke ignored him.
His dad turned to Perry, a scowl on his face. “Don’t mess up the tracks, son.”
“It’s scary out here. I can’t see.”
The scowl softened. “I know. But you’ll be fine. Try turning your head a little to the side and using your peripheral vision. The Indians called it their owl eyes. It works better in the dark than looking straight ahead.”
Perry tried it. It was a little better. “A flashlight would help more.”
“And ruin our night vision. We’ll only use one if we have to.” Patrick handed Perry his reins. “Hold Reno.”
“Here? I thought you wanted me to hide and stay out of the way.”
“I’m not going far. And I don’t hear anything that makes me think we’re near people. But if things go wrong, take the horses and ride back out to the main road.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You can. But you won’t have to.”
Perry was afraid he’d cry if he said anything else, so he stayed quiet. He darted glances left and right. It was so big out here. His ears tuned in to the night sounds he hadn’t heard moments before. The tumbling creek. The whine of insects. A jet airplane far overhead. The breathing of the horses. None of them should have bothered him. They wouldn’t have, normally, but nothing was normal. Nothing. His bed in his own room in his own house would feel so good right now. Pancakes in the morning. His mom would ask whether they wanted sausage, bacon, or Lit’l Smokies. Trish always wanted Lit’l Smokies. He got really sick of them, but he wouldn’t argue when she demanded them like some kind of princess.
“I’ll be right back,” Patrick said.
His dad drew his revolver and took a few steps forward. He scanned the ground, then leaned over to pick something up. Perry could see him pretty well from the side, at least when his dad was moving, but it got harder as he moved farther away. Something cold landed on Perry’s face. His first thought was that it was raining again. But it wasn’t rain. It was soft and light. Snowflakes. He lifted his face. Millions of flakes were passing through the tunnel of starlight. It was hypnotizing. He leaned back, his head almost on Duke’s rump, and watched the snow float down at him.
Patrick’s voice ripped through the stillness. “Son of a bitch.”
Perry shot up in the saddle. Were things going bad? Was he supposed to ride away? “What is it?”
Patrick walked back to Perry, shaking something and holding it up. “It’s a Polaroid of a moose and its calf. The same one those guys on the dirt bikes showed us.”
Perry put both reins in one hand and took it from him. “The dirt-bike guys were here? Maybe they dropped it.” Perry held the picture where he could see it. His arms were bulky with the layers of shirts his dad made him put on under his jacket, back when they found Cindy. The picture was familiar, although damaged by water.
Perry handed it back to him.
Patrick paced and scanned the ground again. “Either them or Trish. My money’s on Trish. She’s been lea
ving us clues the whole way. You were asleep when I found the second smiley-face hair fastener at the turn off Red Grade to here.”
Maybe his dad was right that Trish left the picture, but that didn’t mean Trish wasn’t with the dirt-bike guys. Perry hadn’t liked them. His stomach started to hurt again, and he clutched it with one arm. He hoped they hadn’t taken her. Then Reno snorted. Perry heard the trees rustle where his dad had said the tracks led. He gripped his saddle horn and bit his lip. He tasted blood in his mouth.
His dad drew his revolver. Two men rolled dirt bikes out of the trees. They waved when they saw Patrick and Perry.
“What the hell?” Patrick said under his breath. Then, louder, he said, “I’m armed.”
Perry’s stomach cramped so hard he nearly hollered. He’d known it. The dirt-bike guys were bad. Bad, bad, bad.
“Hey, man,” one of the guys said. “We come in peace. No need for guns.”
He stopped his bike about ten feet from Patrick and Perry. Close enough that Perry could see snowflakes landing in his long beard and the bandanna covering his head.
Patrick lowered his revolver but didn’t holster it. He held the moose picture up in his non-gun hand. “Is this yours?”
“What?” the bandanna guy said.
Both men set their bikes up on their kickstands and walked to Patrick. The younger one had a stocking cap on his head. He took the picture first, squinted at it close to his face, then handed it to the guy in the bandanna.
The bandanna man rocked side to side as he talked. “No, dude, we gave it to a girl this morning.”
Patrick snatched the picture back from him. “Where is she?”
He shrugged. “Back on Walker Prairie, I think. With some old dude and kid.”
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