“It’s just a problem team. The old man has feelings for the lady. Like I said. And she doesn’t feel anything back. Except defensive. They were already starting in on each other over dinner last night. Longer you guys are out, the more tired and worn down everybody gets, the more you’re going to need to get in the middle and be the peacemaker. Got any experience in the field?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Your parents never fought?”
“Yeah. They did. But I didn’t try to get in the middle. I just stayed out of their way.”
“I tried to be the peacemaker,” Marcus said. “When I was a kid. Then I got sick of it. Now if people can’t get along—with me or with each other, either one—I just walk away. But you can’t exactly walk away. Not unless you’re willing to give up looking for your dad.”
“So how do you be the peacemaker?”
“I used to do it by reminding my folks they were putting me in the middle. That they were hurting me as much as they were hurting each other. When two people have a bone to pick with each other, they’re like a dog with a real bone. They just won’t put it down. They feel too entitled. Too right. They won’t let go. But usually they don’t want any innocent third parties getting hurt. You know what? I just realized. It’s going to take me a good two and a half hours to ride the long way across this valley toward home. If not three. I have enough moonlight to do that. By the time I get up on a pass it’ll be dawn, or at least halfway light. I’m just going to saddle that dinky little pony the old guy picked out for me on purpose, and feed him some grain and take off.”
And with that he rose to his feet and joined the hobbled stock, who stirred and shifted and snorted before realizing it was a known and trusted person. Someone they’d already met.
Rebar flattened his huge ears back against his neck and took a fast and violent shot at biting Marcus, but Marcus ducked the assault and led Rio to safety.
Ethan watched him saddle the pony in silence for a few minutes, wishing he could go over and thank him for at least trying. And for the peacemaker advice. But he felt moored. Frozen. Inoperable.
In time he wiggled back into the tent beside the trembling Rufus and the raucously snoring Sam. He curled back into position in his sleeping bag, as if he intended to go back to sleep. But he knew it wasn’t likely that he would.
Even the hunger pangs were enough to keep him tossing and turning. But they were the least of what he had working against him.
He was right. He never did get back to sleep.
Sam emerged from the tent not long after sunrise. Ethan was standing twenty or thirty feet away, wearing his jeans again even though they were still wet in the seams and the waistband. He’d been standing there for some time, scanning the valley with binoculars, hoping to see Marcus and Rio. Because to see them would be to know they were okay. To convince himself they were safe, so he could stop worrying. Or . . . well, at least so he could stop worrying about that.
But there were too many dips and gullies and hills to ride around and behind, and the pair might even have crested the pass by then.
In any case, he never saw them.
“You been up long?” Sam asked.
“Since about three,” Ethan said, without lowering the binoculars.
“Yeah. Well, that’s the problem, I guess, with going to bed at four p.m.”
Ethan looked around to see that Jone was up as well, and had begun firing up the camp stove for coffee. And hopefully breakfast.
“What are we having for breakfast?” Ethan asked. “I’m starving.”
“We saved you some stew,” Jone said.
“I know. Thanks. Marcus showed me where it was. But I was afraid to open the bear vault. I was afraid it might draw one into our camp. I know that probably sounds really stupid.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” Jone said. “I always try to get my food packed up and put away bear-proof by dusk. By the way. Where is Marcus?”
Ethan opened his mouth to answer, but Sam cut in.
“Probably out looking for a place to relieve himself. Like I’m about to do.”
“No,” Ethan said. Simply. When he realized they were both staring at him, waiting for him to go on, he added, “He’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Sam asked, impatiently, as though he’d expected just this kind of trouble.
“Home.”
“Why?” Jone asked. “Did he say why?”
“Yeah. He did. He said people who can’t get along are bullshit.”
“Can’t get along with him?” Sam asked. “Or with each other?”
“Either. Both. He said he used to be the peacemaker when he was a kid, but then he got sick of it. So now when people can’t get along he just walks away.”
“Shoot.” Sam spat the word down toward the dirt.
Then he wandered out of camp, probably for the reason he’d previously stated.
“To answer your question,” Jone said, “we’re having pancakes and scrambled eggs. But don’t get your mouth all set for something heavenly, because these are dehydrated eggs. You know. Powdered. They look like the real thing once you get them rehydrated and scrambled, but they don’t taste like fresh. But it’ll get some protein in you and fill up your stomach.”
“I’d eat anything at this point,” Ethan said. “I’d just rather not eat another energy bar if I can help it.”
Sam came stomping back into camp from behind a tree, as though something back there had angered him.
“Walked away? Or did he ride away? On my pony?”
“He rode away,” Ethan said. “He told me to tell you he’d put Rio in the pasture with your other horses. Why did you give him a pony? You have big horses. Why not give him a big horse?”
“Rio’s a good pony.”
“I’m not saying he isn’t. But you have so many bigger ones. I guess I just wondered because it seemed like you had something against the guy.”
In his peripheral vision, Ethan saw Jone watching. And he thought he could feel her listening. Her attention seemed almost palpable. But she did not open her mouth. She didn’t take a side this time. She let Ethan have his say.
“He tell you that?” Sam asked.
“I saw it with my own eyes. And heard it with my own ears. You were always giving him a hard time.”
“He was just being too sensitive,” Sam said. He said it in a strong voice, nearly shouting. But Ethan got the impression that he was shouting at Marcus, not at Ethan. Even though Marcus was gone. “I gave you a bad time, too, about being saddle sore. Jone had to jump in and stand up for you. And you don’t think I have anything against you, right? He just had some kind of a complex or something.”
“No, really,” Ethan said. “Why didn’t you like him?”
Jone poured about a quart of water from the big hanging gravity filter into the cooking pot, which she then placed on the camp stove burner. She pulled to her feet, looking nearly as stiff and sore as Ethan felt.
“Guess I need to follow suit and find me the ladies’ room now,” she said. And she wandered away.
“Damn it,” Sam hissed, half under his breath, “I’ve been waiting a long time for a thing like this. To get to spend some real time around her. I just thought this was my one chance to impress her. You know?”
Ethan limped stiffly over to the pot and crouched down to watch the water heat. Not that it’s interesting watching water heat. But he was that anxious for it to turn into coffee and rehydrated eggs.
“Why not impress her by being a patient guy who gets along with everybody?”
Sam snorted. “Yeah. Right. That’s what she wants. Woman drops grizzly bears in their tracks without blinking, but you figure she wants a guy who plays well with others, like they teach you in kindergarten.”
“You never know. She didn’t want you teasing me. So she seems like a fan of fair play to me.”
“Ah, I blew it now anyway,” Sam said, popping the lid of the bear vault and sorting through the packets o
f dehydrated food.
“I don’t know. Don’t say that. Trip’s not over yet.”
“But this conversation is,” Sam said.
That’s when Ethan looked up to see Jone walking back into camp.
“You warned me,” Ethan said, vaguely in the direction of Sam.
Ethan had just put away two cups of coffee, six big pancakes topped with honey from individual squeeze packets, and the equivalent of about four scrambled eggs.
The eggs had been okay, but only because Jone had cautioned him not to get his mouth set for the real thing.
Besides, it really wasn’t so much about flavor. Not that morning. He’d wanted to fill his stomach. Steady his nerves with protein and that feeling of fullness. Put an end to the hunger pangs that had been his constant and unwanted companion almost as long as they’d been on the trail.
It was hard to believe that had only been a little over twenty-four hours.
But Sam had warned Ethan not to stuff himself too full.
“You’ll regret it when that mule gets to rocking,” Sam had said between pancake four and five.
Now Ethan found even the prospect of climbing to his feet a bit daunting. He’d slept plenty, maybe too much. But his head felt muddy and thick. He pushed such thoughts and feelings away again, because there was no place for them. No time to indulge his discomfort.
Instead, Ethan watered the horses and Dora, one by one, leading each down to the nearby creek by its halter rope, Rufus trotting faithfully—if somewhat stiffly—behind. He left Rebar for Sam to water, because he didn’t dare get close to Rebar. While he performed this simple task, which seemed surprisingly challenging to Ethan, Jone washed up the camp kitchen and broke down the tents. Sam fed, saddled, and bridled each of the horses as Ethan returned them, and repacked all their equipment into Rebar’s canvas packs.
Ethan thought he could feel a pall, a sort of darkness, hovering over and among the three of them. Some bad feelings left over from Marcus’s desertion, and maybe fueled by a general sense of discouragement regarding their mission.
Jone walked over to get her saddled horse, and Rebar laid his ears back and lunged in her direction as if to bite her. Jone pulled herself up tall, raised one hand in a threat of her own, and looked the mule right in the eye.
“You bite me, I’ll bite you right back, you swaybacked, ornery old cuss from hell. You think I won’t do it? Just try me.”
Rebar stopped. Froze a moment, as if considering her words. Or at least the tone of them. Then he dropped his head, shook it as if shaking off a blanket that troubled him, and turned away.
Jone led her horse back into their recently vacated camp.
“I know a mule that just met his match when I see one,” Sam said. “Lemme just take Rebar down to the creek and give him a drink before we head out. Don’t blame you for not wanting the job. Plus I know you’re not gonna bite him. And so does he.”
“Why doesn’t he try to bite or kick you?” Ethan asked as Sam led the mule away.
“He knows better,” Sam said. And left it at that.
Then Jone came back and took hold of Dora’s reins, and Ethan didn’t know why. Was she going to ride Dora today? He hoped not. Her chestnut horse was too tall, and a little spookier than the others. Much as he’d initially complained, Dora was just about Ethan’s speed. Sam had been right on the money about that.
“Walk with me,” Jone said, leading the mule into what had so recently been their camp.
Ethan did, though he didn’t know why.
“I wonder why they call that mule Rebar,” Ethan said, still regretting the size of his breakfast. And dreading the feel of that hard saddle on yesterday’s sores.
“I asked that same question last night. While you were sleeping. Sam said that used to be the only thing that could get him to go.”
“Wait. What was?”
“Rebar. You know those metal rods they use when they pour concrete? To reinforce it?”
Ethan felt his eyes go wide.
“Sam hits that mule with a metal rod? No wonder he’s so bad-tempered!”
“I don’t think Sam did. The mule was already named when Sam bought him.”
“Oh,” Ethan said.
They had stopped walking now. Dora stood, quiet and with her head down, her left side close against a good-size boulder, one that came up higher than Ethan’s knees.
Jone reached one hand out to Ethan, but he didn’t know why.
“What are we doing?”
“I know you’re sore. Take my hand and step up onto this rock.”
Ethan did as he’d been told. Still not really knowing why. The hand helped a lot. More than Ethan would have wanted to admit. Everything hurt. It was hard to lift his leg that high and even harder to raise the rest of his body to join it. Ethan was sure he would have tumbled backward without the helping hand.
“Now go for that stirrup,” she said.
Then Ethan understood. From his elevated position he would be swinging his leg over, not up. He really wouldn’t be pulling his body upward at all.
“Oh, I get it,” he said. “Thanks.”
He found the stirrup and eased himself gently into the saddle, resisting the temptation to say “ow.” Resisting it twice, in fact. Once as he lifted and swung his leg, and again when his weight settled onto his sitting bones, forcing them against the saddle’s hard seat.
“Weather’s good today,” she said, before walking off to get her own horse.
Ethan looked up and around, even though he’d seen the weather. Even though he’d been watching it since three a.m. The sky had gone a rich light blue with morning. Not one single cloud dotted that perfect blue canvas.
He looked up at the trail, though not for the first time. It climbed the left flank of the mountain ahead of them, twisting up its sheer side. Ethan wondered how they would water their horses after leaving the snaking creek. Or water themselves, for that matter. He wondered if a horse or mule—or person—had ever walked off the edge of that precipitous cliff.
He noted occasional outcroppings of rock below the trail that might break a person’s fall if they were unlucky enough to slip. Not in a comfortable way, from the look of it.
Jone led her chestnut horse up behind him.
“I need to use the mounting block,” she said. “Such as it is.”
“Oh. Sorry. I was lost in what I was thinking, I guess.”
He pressed his calves to Dora’s sides, and the mule stepped out of the way. Ethan reined her to a halt and turned back to watch Jone mount. Jone was sore, too. Ethan could tell. It surprised him, because he thought of her as being so experienced. Maybe halfway to indestructible. But she was older. No matter how tough you are, he realized, older has to play a role.
“What were you lost in thinking?” she asked him as she landed carefully in the saddle. “That is, if you don’t mind saying.”
“I was looking up at that trail. And looking at the spots where a person could go off the edge and not fall all the way down into the valley.”
Jone shielded her eyes from the low sun with one hand and looked where Ethan was looking.
“I guess I see your point,” she said. “But it’s only a handful of places. You’d have to go off in just the right spot. There’d be some luck involved.”
“Maybe,” Ethan said.
Sam came riding up, towing the fully packed and freshly watered Rebar behind his solid bay.
“And I think if he was on one of those rock shelves he’d be pretty easy to see from a plane,” Jone added.
Sam shielded his eyes from the sun and looked as well.
“Trouble is,” he said, “you wouldn’t see what’s on there from below.”
“But we’re riding up there,” Ethan said.
“And you want to walk your mule so close to the edge that you can see over?”
“Oh. Right. Maybe I should go up that trail on foot, then. Lead the mule instead of ride her. Then I could go right out to the edge. Even get down
on my belly and look over the cliff if I needed to.”
“Up to you,” Sam said. “It’s two and a half miles with twenty-three-hundred feet of elevation gain. But if you think you’re up to it . . .”
“I think we’re out here to find my dad,” Ethan said. “If we’re not willing to do stuff like that, what’s the point? We can ride around out here forever, and it’s pretty and all, but I just don’t see what good we’ll be doing if we don’t look everyplace we can think of looking.”
They rode to the edge of the valley, which Ethan figured took more than an hour. Occasionally calling for Dad/Noah. Ethan had to clamp down on a small expression of pain at the mule’s every step. He found himself looking forward to walking the steep trail he could see up ahead of them, just to give his saddle-sore spots a break. Part of him knew the hike would bring its own pain. But somehow a new and unfamiliar pain felt like a worthwhile trade.
Just as they reached the junction between the edge of the valley and the climbing section of the trail, Ethan was startled by the sudden movement of a large, darting animal. He instinctively reined back on the mule and turned his head to see. Dora turned her head, too. Behind them, Ethan could hear Jone gently cooing “Ho, ho” to her spooky mount.
It was an elk, Ethan saw. Stepping out from around the flank of the mountain base and into their view. And then another elk. And then three. Two were female, with small, neat heads, necks that bulged out in front, and ears that tuned forward as if trying to bring in a radio station. The third was a huge buck with a rack of horns nearly as tall and wide as he was, bowing out from his head and then pointing skyward and halfway out along its back. Each horn sported six impressive points.
Their slightly shaggy coats looked a dusty golden brown, going to darker brown on their necks and knobby-kneed legs.
They stopped dead, apparently more surprised to see Ethan’s search team than the other way around.
For what seemed like a full minute, nobody and nothing moved. The elk just stood, wide-eyed, as if holding perfectly still might prove an effective substitute for invisibility.
Then one of the females threw her head, and they darted downhill, their hooves drumming on the hard ground. And then more elk stampeded from behind the flank of the mountain. And more. And more.
Leaving Blythe River: A Novel Page 16
