She lowered her head to me, and the old me voice said something about Hershel’s horse at the burned house and at the corral on Barton Road.
I leaned in very slowly and exhaled.
Wahoo Sue stuck her big, velvety nose out to me and inhaled, just as the old cowboy’s horse had. We stood there like that, exchanging breath, and I could feel the anxiety start to leave her.
It was as if I’d thrown a switch, and she stood there, stiff-legged but in a small way compliant. I slipped the rest of the treat into her mouth and took hold of the logging chain, careful to hold it away from her skinned and scabbed body. Slowly, I took a step in close, trailing the hated attachment to my left and turning toward the trunk of the mare’s body. She twisted to look at me but held still.
I was only going to get one shot at this, and even in my doped state, I knew it wasn’t going to feel good. I had to do it smoothly and quickly, neither of which were catchwords in my physical repertoire, even without a broken foot and a drug overdose.
It was almost as if she knew my intention, but I wasn’t sure if she pawed the ground in anticipation or warning. I took hold of the Henry rifle and then reached up to her withers, spreading my one hand over her spine, set my good foot, and leapt.
My weight caused her to shift slightly to the right and then she stood on stiff legs as I clambered for a seat. I waited and, to my surprise, absolutely nothing happened.
Almost adding insult to embarrassment, Wahoo Sue turned and looked at me with a large, soulful brown eye. Just to be sure, I stroked her neck, careful not to touch her wounds, and repeated the magic words. “So-o-o girl, easy girl . . .”
Cly called out from my left. “Hey, Sheriff, how are you going to get that stake out of the ground?”
Bureau boys.
I kept stroking her black neck, and it was like the wind was blowing inside me. I slumped forward with one of the waves of fatigue, which knocked my hat back. Somehow, I held the rifle across her withers with one hand and, with the other, I held Wahoo Sue’s mane. “Good girl, so-o-o good.” I took a few breaths and leaned back, kicking my heels down and gigging her toward the center stake to gain some slack.
I looked over the horse’s shoulder to the wounded man on the ground and kept my voice in the same soft tone as I had used with her. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’ll be back for you, so don’t go out crawling around and don’t lose my sidearm.”
His voice was still strong, and my hopes were that he’d hold out. He was tough, I knew that; the question was going to be how tough. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“If Barsad comes back, don’t take any chances, and do what you need to do.”
I saw him reaching with his far hand and pulling the weapon up and onto his chest. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let him have another crack at me.” I could see a light spot in the darkness where his face must’ve been. “You’re talking like this is our last conversation.”
I rubbed my hands up the mare’s neck. “Just for now, because once I unbuckle this harness, I don’t think I’m going to have time to say anything.”
“What do you think she’s going to do?”
I stretched my eyes in an attempt to get a clearer view of the harness buckle. “I think she’s going to go for water, and that’s off the mesa and toward town.”
“Do me a favor?”
The nylon was stiff with blood, but I finally got it loosened enough so that I could move the flap under the keeper and through the buckle. “What’s that?”
“Don’t run over me.”
I nodded and slipped the rest of the strap out, and the harness dropped about an inch on Wahoo Sue’s long muzzle. I leaned in close and spoke softly into her ear. “I know you’re sick, I know you’re tired, but if you don’t get us both out of here, an awful lot of bad things are going to happen. They say you can run, so you show me.”
The halter fell away, and it was all she needed. She dropped her head, lunged back and to the side away from the chain, and was out of the circle. I felt the lift as my chest crashed against her withers, and I clutched the rifle and the big mare’s mane.
She crow-hopped to the right, then gathered her big haunches and launched in one great leap. And she was like a missile. I held on as we veered to the right and away from Cliff Cly. He screamed after us as we rushed by.
“Hi-yo Silver, away!”
15
October 31, 3:55 A.M.
Two quick strikes, and we were at speed.
I’d been on fast horses or, what I thought were fast horses, but nothing like Wahoo Sue. I felt like my ears were going to touch behind my head.
We’d veered back west and had collided with the road like it was a wall, the big mare’s hooves hammertoeing into the hard surface of the mesa like twelve-pound sledges. I had never been on a horse whose pace was so ferocious, yet whose gait was like a twenty-dollar shave. I could feel the blood and energy that passed between us like an electric current, and it was almost as if the poison was being pulled from my body and cast to the dirt and dust flying behind us. I was enhanced and could feel the wind on my skin unlike I had for some time.
I had never succumbed to the idea of a horse as transportation and was always quick to point out that machines, when you turned them off, stopped eating.
But they didn’t have a heart.
As I’d slung my two-hundred-forty-odd pounds onto the mare’s back, I’d been worried about her weakened state, but I shouldn’t have been concerned. Feral and unfettered, Wahoo Sue was doing what she did best, what came natural to her—running within an inch of her life and mine.
I could see the road stretching to the horizon north like the tensioned string on a gigantic basalt banjo. I slipped my heels in and down, and I rode close, like some grotesque jockey, and dipped my head at her withers to catch my breath—she was that fast.
We galloped past a smattering of rocks that were scattered across the surface of the two-track where something had run into them; I only hoped that it was Barsad and not Benjamin. The road canted slightly to the left, and I assumed that in less than twenty minutes we would be heading into the final furlong with the horse trailer as the finish line.
I became aware of something breaking trail across the gnarled brush of the mesa to my right. I had a brief twinge of panic, thinking it might be Barsad in the truck, and thought about trying to raise the Henry rifle, but there wasn’t any way he’d be off the road. I thought it could be Benjamin, but there were no lights, and finally, in the slight sliver of moonlight, I could see it was another horse.
My horse with no name.
He was doing his best, and you could see the stirrups, reins, and even the canteen bouncing with a comic effect. He tried to close the apex of our trajectory, but she was just too fast. I was glad to see he was still alive and unhurt, but the last I saw of him, he had joined the road but was falling away. Wahoo Sue must’ve been aware of him also, because she shifted into an even higher gear, and I thought about the old cowboy and how happy he’d be if he could see her now. I settled in for the straight shot to the trailer.
The voices were back again, the old me and everyone else; as fast as Wahoo Sue was, she couldn’t escape my anxieties. Where would Benjamin go?. Where could he go to escape the truck? He’d have to stay off-road; it was the only advantage he’d have in avoiding the much faster vehicle, but how could he when there was only one way down?
A quick jarring as Sue stumbled for a single hoof strike, and I almost dropped the heavy rifle. I had to pay attention so that when we got to the main road, I’d be able to steer her to the water buckets at the trailer.
As near as my rambling mind could tell, we’d been at a full gallop for miles, so I tried to pull her back into a canter. At first she wouldn’t hear of it, lunging forward whenever I pulled on her mane and repositioned my feet. Wahoo Sue had two speeds—fast and damn-well faster.
I tried a second time and could feel her relax a little and finally loosen i
nto a comfortable lope, but after a few more minutes I saw the four-wheeler in the middle of the road. I could only hope that the damn thing had run out of gas. I pulled the dark horse up as close as she’d go and looked down.
There were truck treads beside the ATV, but also a pair of miniature boot tracks leading off into the sagebrush. There were no other footprints, especially ones from running shoes, and it looked like Barstad hadn’t even bothered to get out of the truck when he had passed.
That cagey kid had gone to ground and had been smart enough to get away from the road. His Cheyenne half was showing.
Now, where would he go?
October 31, 4:15 A.M.
I could see the regular shape of the horse trailer. I knew there wouldn’t be any feed left, but I was hoping that the grulla and the packhorse hadn’t gulped all the water. As we made the turn onto the main access road leading to the cliffside trail down from the mesa, however, I could see that the other horses were gone.
I pulled Wahoo Sue up beside the line where I’d tied the two animals. I could see the fresh tracks where either Benjamin or Barsad must have retrieved them. I was betting on the kid, as the horse tracks scattered toward the road and continued back down from the mesa, but there were marks from the truck as well.
Damn.
First things had to come first or Sue might collapse under me, and I’d be ineffectively afoot. I directed the big mare over to the black rubber buckets that still hung on the side of the trailer. As I’d suspected, the ones that had held the grain were empty, but as I had hoped, the water containers were three-quarters full. I watched as she submerged half her nostrils and sucked in the water like a sump pump.
I patted her neck and then slipped off the side, took one half-step, and collapsed, dropping the rifle and slamming my head against the trailer only to slide down and lay there propped against one of the tires.
I’d forgotten about my broken foot.
Sue skittered away only a short distance to the next pail, and I listened with my hat over my face as she emptied the other bucket. After three deep breaths, I could feel the pain in my foot lessening, but I felt like I was sinking into the hard ground. In my mind’s eye, I could see the surface growing farther and farther away as I slipped through the hardpack of the mesa, passing through geologic time, each layer sporting one of those nifty little signs that WYDOT plants along the cut bank sections on the highway: Quaternary, present-day; Tertiary, 1.8 million years ago; Cretaceous, 65 million years ago; Jurassic, 144 million years ago.
Something moved my hat and water dripped in a practical deluge onto my chest and face. I raised a hand to readjust it and looked up at her. “Did you swallow any of it?”
She moved to my right a little, rustled a few oats that the other horses had dropped on the ground, and pulled up a few stalks of dry grass. She chewed and watched me.
I took another deep breath and could feel another wave of exhaustion. I could see myself rolling over and passing out. The boy. The dead man. The bleeding man. The jailed woman.
I crunched my abdominal muscles with a substantial effort and pulled up my good foot, digging the heel of my boot into the ground and pushing myself along the side of the trailer. I propelled myself up and over the wheel well, pushed back on the fender, and sat there.
I looked off to the south expecting to see the bay, but there was nothing there and he must’ve stopped to take a break. Lazy bastard; he didn’t deserve a name. Wahoo Sue continued to nibble at the ground. I wasn’t looking forward to hauling myself on her bare back again and remembered that Hershel had that McClellan saddle in the trailer stall. It was old, hard, and likely dry-rotted, but it had to be better than my ass.
I picked up the Henry and pushed away, hopping around the trailer to the back gate, which still hung open, attached with the rubber strap. I pulled the extra blanket out and looked at the torturous device. It was surely intended for someone half my size and even then looked like it would rend a man in two. George B. had seen the Hungarian model used in the Prussian service and made a few modifications; in 1859, the United States adopted the McClellan saddle. It had afflicted cavalry soldiers all the way to the Second World War.
Wahoo Sue had followed me, and I felt for the last horse treat in my shirt pocket. I pulled it out and said the magic words, “So-o-o girl, good girl.”
She nuzzled me; I gave her the treat and then draped the blanket onto her back. She didn’t move but just stood there, chewing. I reached in and lifted the light saddle with one hand, flipping the far stirrup up over the seat. There was a hand-plaited riata attached to the far side of the saddle that looked like it might’ve been from a more modern age, but not by much.
Wahoo Sue looked at the primitive saddle and then back to me.
“I know it looks like it came from a rummage sale, but it’s all we’ve got.” I leaned the Henry against the doorway, ran the single strap of the McClellan carefully underneath her belly, and said a silent prayer. I pulled the strap up and attached it at the disclike fender. Now that I was handling it, I felt that the leather was supple and soft and saw a patina of saddle soap. I thought again about the old cowboy and glanced south; of course he had taken care of it.
I felt another relapse of chemical fatigue descending from my head into my upper chest like a cold rain, and rested my head against the side of the leather seat. After a moment, I took a deep breath and hopped to the back gate of the trailer to see what we had in the way of bridles.
The only thing I saw was an ancient, plaited, rawhide hackamore, but at least it had reins and a headstall and might not rub her in the same spots as the stable halter had.
I looped the reins over her head, adjusted the fiador so that it rested on the ungalled portions of the horse’s skin, and picked up the rifle. There wasn’t any horn on the McClellan, but there was more of a rise than that on an English saddle, so I grabbed the fork and cantle and pulled myself up with one quick hop and a lot of scrambling.
She didn’t move.
I looked east and could see the solid platinum of the rising sun, which looked like the horizontal filament of a halogen lamp. The force of the flat light illuminated the underside of the clouds, and they looked like gray crinoline. The heavens were giving me a quick look up their skirt.
I looked south, where one man was dead and another was dying, then pulled the reins and wheeled the black toward the road off the mesa. With one quick “hyaa” we took off, and brother, at speed. I’d needed superhuman assistance and had gotten it from her, even if it was like driving a Ferrari with a shoelace.
We turned the corner and dropped off into the darkness of the mesa’s west side, where the sun hadn’t yet made an appearance and, as far as I could see, there was nothing on the horizon.
The scoria road was rough, but the larger chunks of red rock had been kicked off to the sides, and Sue was making full use of her speed and of gravity. In the far distance, I could see the dusk-to-dawn lights of Absalom and, with so much happening, I almost couldn’t believe it was still there. I knew Wahoo Sue’s thoughts were the same as mine, and we shifted into that rarefied speed that no other horse in the surrounding counties, and maybe no other horse in the country, could match, especially in a straight line at distance.
October 31, 6:30 A.M.
We made the Echeta Road without incident, and I still didn’t see any traffic, so I eased Sue into a comfortable canter and we loped our way north and west toward Absalom, the power poles on the side of the road contrasting darkly against the gray sky like six thousand crucifixes leading from Capua to Rome.
About halfway to town, I could see a truck sitting on the side of the road, but even with the gloom of early morning, I could see it wasn’t the Dodge. I rode up beside the battered ’63 and looked around for the Cheyenne Nation. The windows were up, but I could see my thermos on the seat, along with a sleeping bag, a canvas sack full of grocery items, and a small backpack.
I shook my head. Evidently, Henry, following his pinpoint
intuition, had been on his way to the mesa; unfortunately, it appeared that Rezdawg had decided to take a rest on the way. This close to Absalom, Henry must have decided to hoof it back to town or had caught a ride with either man or beast. Knowing Barsad’s knack for self-preservation, I was sure he hadn’t picked up the big Indian, but Benjamin might have.
Wahoo Sue pawed the ground; she was in a hurry to get going, but my exhaustion was catching up to me. I shook my head and studied the raw dirt.
I could still see the hoof prints where the little grulla had stayed on the right track, and the packhorse and Hershel’s gelding looked to have followed. I could also see that the horses’ tracks were over the duellie’s, so Benjamin must have followed Barsad. That was a good sign.
October 31, 6:39 A.M.
I was sure that Wahoo Sue would have tired, but she must have been so happy to be free of her shackles that she continued on at a brisk clip as we topped a rise that looked across the triangle of land where the abandoned old town, deemed too-wicked-to-survive by the railroad, had existed.
There were a few old stone foundations and a broken-down and partially petrified wagon missing two wheels which had augered into the soft bottomland, and there, in the old cemetery that Hershel, Benjamin, and I had passed on our way out of town what seemed like a century ago, were two horses.
It was Hershel’s dun and the packhorse.
I slowed Sue and, even though the mare didn’t want to diverge from our path into town, she turned, and we approached the other horses at a trot. They were both munching on the grassy hillside but raised their heads to look at us as we rode up.
My eyes played over the surrounding area in hopes of seeing another horse with a boy astride or Henry Standing Bear, and also hoping that I wouldn’t see a red Dodge duellie, but there was nothing to indicate where anyone was or where they might’ve gone. There was only the faint glow of yellow dawn on the cardboard cutout hills with the clouds still pressing close from overhead. After being on the mesa, everything in the valley felt close and looked like a page out of a child’s pop-up book.
The Dark Horse Page 23
