“They do,” Howie said. “Killing a sheriff isn’t regarded too highly in Wyoming, I hear.”
“I just mean—”
“I know what you mean,” Howie said gently. He replaced the arrow and picked up the next one. He’d never shot a man with an arrow. He didn’t want to. But if Joe’s serial killers appeared out of the darkness he’d have one shot, maybe, to save their lives. He was better with arrows than he was with bullets. He’d have to shoot perfectly, and at once, or they would all die. Arrows were what Howie knew, so arrows it would be. “We’ll be fine, Jimmy, you know that. Stop worrying, brother.”
“Not possible,” Jimmy said. “But I’ll stop telling you how worried I am.”
Second Watch, Devils Tower, Wyoming
“I knew she’d packed Pop-Tarts,” Mark said happily. “See? A little smashed but they’re okay.”
“Excellent,” Nolan said. “Hand one over.”
They sat in the chairs vacated by Howie and Jimmy and munched on strawberry Pop-Tarts. Zilla slept at Nolan’s feet now, her nose on her one front paw. Nolan caressed her head absently, his other hand full of crumbly pastry. They talked softly so their voices would be hidden in the crackle of the fire and the sighing of the night wind through the pine trees. Nolan hadn’t slept well before his watch. Now he felt totally awake, totally alive, every inch of him aware of every windblown star and shift of pine tree. He thought he could even hear the slow steady sound of the horses, shifting and creaking the leather bands that held them within the dark meadow.
“I have to tell you, man,” Mark said eventually, after wolfing down his pastry and taking a deep drink of water. “I’ve never had a better time in my life. I know that’s kind of sick, what with the archeologist guy and the sheriff and all, but –”
“I know what you mean,” Nolan said. He peered into the darkness and counted the sleeping humps in the bags. Everyone was there, and every bag was still. Above them the stars packed the sky, so thickly he could see the frosty glitter of the Milky Way. The night was growing colder as the thin air gave up the heat of the day. The fire felt good on Nolan’s face. “It’s like we were dropped into the middle of somebody else’s adventure.”
“Just as long as we’re not the guys in the red shirts,” Mark said.
“What’s that?” Nolan asked.
“Red shirts. You know, Star Trek. The new crewmember in the red shirt was always the one sent behind the rock to investigate the strange sound. Then gachh – no more crewmember.”
“Oh, yeah,” Nolan said. “You’re a software geek, you’re required to be a Trekkie, right? They plant some sort of electrodes in your brain during one of those classes down in the dungeons?”
“That’s a closely guarded secret,” Mark said. He crumpled the Pop-Tart wrapper and threw it into the fire. It unfolded into flame, blossoming for a few seconds and then abruptly collapsing into ashes. “So are we red shirts, or not? And what’s with you and that girl, anyway?”
“Nothing, yet,” Nolan said gloomily, poking at the fire with a stick. “She won’t talk to me. She’s pretty upset right now.”
“But we know one thing,” Mark said with a grin that was simultaneously shy and wicked.
“I know what Beryl said,” Nolan nodded. “My Dad’s a movie producer. That’s why I know Howie. I’ve known him since I was a kid. There’s lots of every type in Hollywood. I thought I had a chance with her the moment I met her. But now, well…”
“Well what?” Mark said. He took a drink from his water bottle and raised his eyebrows at Nolan.
“I think I might be in love with her,” Nolan said miserably. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the soft sound of the wind in the trees.
“Sorry, man,” Mark said eventually, in what sounded like real sympathy. “I don’t think she likes you much. I don’t think she likes anybody very much, really.”
“Maybe I can change that,” Nolan said. “I’m still starving. Is there anything else in there?”
Third Watch, Devils Tower, Wyoming
“Coffee, love,” Eileen said, handing Joe a cup. She’d fumbled with the Coleman stove but she didn’t have to dig through the saddlebags to find coffee. Tracy had set up the coffee pot before she’d gone to bed. The smell of the coffee, hot and fresh, was enough to wake her up. It was the grave of the morning, three o’clock.
“Thanks,” Joe said, taking the cup from her hands. Zilla was with Joe now. He was petting her and rubbing her ears. Nolan and Mark had stumbled off to bed, red-eyed and grateful their watch was over. The firewood was getting a bit low, but it would last until dawn. When Paul and Tracy took the watch from Joe and Eileen they would have a two-hour nap while her parents set up breakfast. Even if there were serial killers after them, Paul and Tracy would have an enormous pancake and sausage breakfast for everyone, with lots of hot coffee to revive them.
There was a late moon in the sky, dim and thin, that silvered the tops of the pines. A thin milky haze covered the stars. Eileen sat in the canvas chair next to Joe and sipped her cup, feeling a glorious rush of hot caffeine through her. The hardest part about a three o’clock watch was getting out of the warm depths of her sleeping bag. That was always the worst. Now that she was up, she felt like tackling the world.
“Nolan said their watch was fine. He said Howie reported no problems either,” Joe said.
“I wouldn’t expect Rene to come into these woods. He’s a city type,” Eileen said confidently. “I don’t know what he’ll try, but being Daniel Boone isn’t one of them.”
“I think so, too,” Joe said. “I’m trying to figure out if I’m feeling uneasy because I’m worried about Rene or if I’m still spooked by your mom’s story about Devils Tower.”
“She’s good, isn’t she?” Eileen grinned, curling up in her chair. “She tells stories in such a quiet, reasonable way that you don’t realize until much later that she’s got you spooked to death.”
“That’s the real legend?”
“That’s the legend,” Eileen said. “I’ve never been on top of the Tower. I heard that it’s beautiful up there, that you can see for hundreds of miles. But I’ve never been into climbing and rappelling, so unless they bolt a ladder on the damn thing, I’ll never go.”
“I don’t know how you could climb it. It wouldn’t feel right,” Joe said.
Eileen thought of the immensity of the structure, how it looked as though it had just been unzipped from the earth and resented it.
“It looks as though it might just shrug you off while you’re halfway up,” Joe added.
“Exactly!” Eileen said. “I know Lucy feels that way. It’s strange. I’ve been to the Tower a lot, and every time I’m there I hear tourists talking about how disappointed they are. They’re always saying something like ‘I really wanted to see this, but now that I’m here I’m kind of disappointed.’ Or they say ‘I don’t like it, somehow. It just isn’t what I expected.’ Eventually I realized that these people were all saying the same thing: ‘I’m nervous. I’m afraid.’”
“They feel it, even if they don’t know what they’re feeling.”
“Right. That’s why I was going to take you to the Native American ceremony tomorrow. The natives want us to leave the Tower alone not because they want to keep it for themselves, but because they want to keep the manitou away. That’s why you’ll see prayer bundles along the paths. They’re for protection.”
“You just sent a shiver up my spine,” Joe said. “And the climbers just want to climb it, right? Because it’s a big damn rock, and it’s there?”
“Well, if what the Lakota say is true, and the only good and true place in this area is the top of the Tower, what do you think it feels like to climb up and out of evil and into pure goodness?” Eileen asked.
“Oh,” Joe said.
“Exactly.”
There was silence between them as Joe got up to put more wood on the campfire
and Eileen refilled their coffee cups. When they were seated again Eileen held her hand out and Joe took it. They sat together, not talking, as the flames consumed the new wood and the night grew colder around them. The dawn was rushing over the earth, the daylight that would launch them into a new day. She didn’t know what would happen, but she knew she was ready to face it.
“I love you,” Joe said in a low voice, not looking at her.
“I love you,” Eileen said. “Remember when I told you I loved you, in the hospital where my Dad was in the operating room and we didn’t know if he would live or die?”
“I remember.”
“Before then, I ran away from you to try and solve my problem. Now, we stand together. Nobody runs.”
“Nobody runs,” Joe said, and twined his fingers through hers. “For better or worse.”
Morning, Devils Tower, Wyoming
“Mama,” someone said, patting her cheeks. Lucy struggled awake and opened her eyes to see Hank, barely an inch away, holding her face in his little hands.
“Hi, Hank,” she said groggily.
“Mama awake,” he said happily, and jumped on top of her.
“Hank,” Eileen said, laughing. “Let go of your mom. She needs to go potty, I imagine. Jumping on her like that isn’t going to help.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lucy said. “Is it morning?”
“It’s morning. Dawn is about a half hour away, so you can go pee in the dark if you’re quick about it.”
Lucy sat up quickly and then groaned. Her bottom and legs felt as though she’d run a marathon. “I’m so stiff!”
“Horseback riding,” Eileen said with a shrug. “Best if you get up and hobble around. You’ll warm up.”
Lucy pulled on her dirty jeans from yesterday, trying not to grimace, and quickly slipped on her socks and shoes. Luckily she’d brought sturdy walking shoes and they were holding up well.
“I’ll hang on to Hank. Coffee when you get back,” Eileen’s voice floated after her. Then she heard Eileen speaking quietly to Jorie. Eileen was getting all the women up first, so they could comb their hair and pee in the woods in peace, before the men got up. Damn men, Lucy thought crossly, crouching in the bushes and trying not to splatter her shoes. There was something wrong with a world where men could pee standing up, writing their names and everything, and women had to squat like setter dogs.
She felt much more cheerful with a steaming hot cup of coffee in her, a comb run through her curly hair and with a warm washcloth to clean her face and hands. By this time Eileen was waking up the men. Jorie was neat and clean. She was wearing fresh clothes. She had her pack with her and hadn’t left it behind. She’d carried it all day yesterday too, without complaint. She sat quietly next to Lucy and drank a cup of coffee. Paul and Tracy were busy with sausage and eggs and pancakes.
“Can you eat pancakes?” Lucy asked curiously. She was sitting on a sleeping pad struggling with a diaper, Hank, and his clothes. He was at the age when diapering was a major wrestling match, but he was so intrigued with a pinecone he’d found that his struggles were half-hearted.
“I’m a vegan,” Jorie said with some of her old waspish bite. “I won’t eat eggs or milk.”
“No milk?” Lucy asked, smiling as Hank’s face popped out of his shirt. He grinned at her.
“I think milking cows is cruel,” Jorie said loftily. She sipped her coffee.
“As a former milk producing mammal,” Lucy said, tickling Hank’s toes, “I have to tell you I loved making milk and giving milk. It feels wonderful. Don’t you think cows feel that way, too?”
Jorie looked at her blankly and Lucy grinned up at her. “I just can’t imagine going through life without chocolate chip cookies and a big glass of milk.”
“Cookie?” Hank said.
“Breakfast, no cookie,” Lucy said. “Pancakes, too, Hank! Now hold still while I put your sock on.”
Ted kissed her behind the ear, a very prickly one. She turned and kissed his lips, which weren’t prickly at all.
“Hi, love. Hi, Hank,” Ted said.
“Daddy!” Hank squealed.
“Breakfast,” Paul said.
They ate around the campfire, now a few ash-covered coals, and the food was hot and very good. Ted, his black beard and wildly curly hair making him look more like a mountain man than ever, ate ravenously. They all did, even Hank. Jorie, who subsisted once again on an energy bar, used her finger to poke all the crumbs from the wrapper and then unselfconsciously turned the wrapper inside out and licked it clean.
“All right, everyone, clean up and pack up. We need volunteers to get the horses, and then we’ll be on our way,” Paul said. “First, I want –”
His voice broke off and Lucy, who’d been trying to get Hank to eat the last bite of his sausage link, turned to look at him. Silence fell over the camp. Zilla was standing stiffly, eyes to the north, tail quivering. Lucy had seen Zilla do that once before, when she’d pointed to the crystal skull that Jon McBride had hidden before he died.
Howie reached behind him and in one seamless movement had an arrow to a fearsome compound bow. Paul put his hand on his revolver strapped to his hip, and as Lucy blinked she saw Eileen’s black gun appear in her fist. No one else had time to do more than draw a breath.
A bush full of berries crackled and was pushed aside by something huge, a dark shape that wasn’t a man, it was bigger than any man could ever be. Lucy thought with a falling sensation of the manitou, the enormous bear that wasn’t a bear. She swept Hank up into her arms and stood, trembling head to foot, as the bushes parted.
An elk bounded into the clearing. The elk had an enormous set of antlers. They were thick and furry looking, and Lucy remembered reading how elk and deer grew their antlers all summer, shrouded in thick velvet, and had to rub the velvet from their antlers in the fall. This elk was in velvet, then. It stood like a forest king, head up, large carved nostrils wet and black as it snuffed and snorted. The chest of the elk was a dark brown and the enormous hindquarters were a soft and lovely beige. The delicate looking legs were dark brown too, thin and beautiful like a showgirl’s legs. The elk put its nose in the air and the enormous rack of antlers dropped to the elk’s back. It leaped across the clearing in one gigantic bound and then it was gone, crashing into the underbrush. Lucy could smell the elk as it passed her, a musky wild odor that filled her nose and made her feel as if she couldn’t breathe.
The clearing was totally silent. Howie let his bow down and the creaking of the bow’s wheels was clearly audible. He put his arrow back in his quiver with mildly shaking hands.
“That was a seven point bull,” he said conversationally. “I’ve never seen a bigger bull in my life. And he wasn’t even out of velvet yet.”
“Wasn’t he beautiful?” Lucy asked. She realized her voice was trembling. “Wasn’t he beautiful?”
“If that’s what this forest holds, Paul, then I’m—” Howie started, when Paul held up his hand. His entire body was concentrated to the north, where the elk had come from.
“What is it?” Tracy asked, as everyone fell silent once again.
Paul dropped his hand and turned around. His face was pinched and white and, for the first time since Lucy had met him, he looked deathly afraid.
“Fire,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Devils Tower Junction, Wyoming
Rene watched with satisfaction as the first State Patrol car screamed by, siren blaring. He was parked just north of Devils Tower Junction, a ridiculously small town that existed solely to sell T-shirts and souvenirs to Tower visitors. He’d studied his Wyoming map until he figured out where to set the fire and where to park and wait for his prey to run out of the woods. He had never taken an interest in hunting but he’d gone on a couple of pheasant hunts in France once. The beaters interested him, the way that the men and boys walked the woods and made noise until the frantic animals leaped from their hiding places and ran into the guns of the hunters. He’d used the concept
several times since then, but never in an actual wilderness.
And this was a wilderness, he realized. The cooler in the trunk was almost empty and the gas was starting to dip below the halfway mark. He had to have the air-conditioning or he’d go absolutely insane. There were mosquitoes outside, and biting flies. He’d gotten bitten several times while he was setting up Ken’s body and starting the fire. The thief who’d stolen his wallet had stolen all his money. He had to have it back or he’d be forced to actually knock off a store or gas station, something he’d never lowered himself to do. He was a contract man, not a common robber, and he had respect for businessmen.
His setup was good. He’d wait while the fire swept down from the north and as the tourists and the Park Rangers ran, he’d wait. Then when his fire flushed Joe Tanner and his friends out of their ranch, Rene would be ready. Though he would regret shooting the detective first, he knew she would have to be the first to go. She would be armed, and capable, and thus too dangerous to keep alive. Once she was taken out the rest would be like panicked animals.
Joe Tanner would be last, Rene promised himself. Tanner was the cause of all of this. Rene was sweaty and dirty. He’d been in the same clothes for two days, and he hadn’t had a decent meal. His wallet was gone with his father’s picture inside. Ken was gone, too. Everything had been stripped from Rene. He felt odd, disconnected; as though he was in some sort of new dimension that wasn’t exactly the earth he’d always known.
A fire engine with “Sundance” printed along the side roared north, men in hastily donned fire uniforms hanging from the sides and back. They looked pale and wide-eyed, even at a distance. Rene checked his map and nodded in satisfaction. The Hulett fire department, if they had one, had discovered that the fire was too large to contain and had called for help. They’d find the fire impossible to stop.
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