by Bea Bledsoe
Leigh growled at him, not helping her case. “Yes! You’re right, this is all a part of my elaborate plan to brutally murder you in the middle of Wyoming. Except that you stopped me on the way to the airport. You insisted on boarding a plane with me – in fact, when you think about it, it’s actually you are holding me hostage with your presence.” A headache crackled across her forehead and she ran her hands up over her cheeks.
Henry looked wounded at her words. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that…Leigh, there are grasses growing here.” He bent over and ran his hand over the very short weeds growing in the spot where her kitchen used to be.
Leigh nodded as a shadow from a cloud passed over them both. “I know. I don’t understand it.”
“Here.” Henry led her over to a small boulder that used to sit in her front yard. Together they sat down on the jagged, cold surface. Leigh looked out over the valley. There was no sign of human life here in Blackriver; only the abrasive calls of magpies echoed overhead. There was an eerie emptiness to this place, like the valley itself was mourning. A shiver crawled up her spine. Henry let out a long exhale and in it, Leigh could hear a palpable fear. I am stuck in the wild with this crazy girl. He spun to face her, one hand absentmindedly brushing a tear from Leigh’s face as if it were nothing.
“Okay, can you at least just humor me and let me talk over some possible explanations?” She nodded wearily, trying to ignore the pounding in her head.
“One: We’re in the wrong valley.”
“We’re not.” Leigh cut him off. “Next.”
“Maybe the entire town picked up and moved without telling you?”
Leigh carefully considered this for a moment. “It’s possible, but I find it very hard to believe that my parents wouldn’t tell me. We aren’t close right now, but they wouldn’t do that. Ever. They love me.” She took a deep breath, willing herself not to lose it. “They wanted me to come home for Christmas and that was only five months ago. There was no mention of moving.” Leigh ripped the postcard out of her pocket. “And look, this was mailed on February 28th, so that means the town was still here then.”
Henry bit his lip. “Okay. So, that gives us a time frame to work within. Whatever happened here happened between February and now.” His words echoed softly through the valley. Leigh turned over the postcard, the words like a punch to the chest.
Don’t come home.
“She tried to tell me.”
“Who?”
“My mother. The postcard. It said not to come home.” She took a deep breath, gathering herself up into a tightly controlled ball. She couldn’t be this person, this unraveling human who didn’t have control of the situation and felt like she was tumbling off a cliff. She was Leigh Mae right now, and she needed to be Leigh. Cold. Calculating. Harvard Leigh would have a plan. She let one last breath rip from her and then tried to step back from her emotions. There would be time to feel later. Right now, there was only the shock. “We need to go to the police, Henry.”
Henry didn’t even try to conceal his relief. “Yes, the police. Let’s go now. Where is the closest town?” Leigh stood shakily, refusing his outstretched hand, worried that if he touched her she would be buried in the emotions rising like a tide.
“Tensleep.” She said softly. “It’s a town about two hours from here. They just have a sheriff and a handful of deputies. It’s not a big place, but they are the closest. When I was younger, Sheriff Lacombie would come out once a year to check on folks.” She tapped her lip, trying to remember. “Yeah, he visited Blackriver last year, just around this time.”
Henry rested his hand on Leigh’s back as they walked to the car. The warmth of his palm was reassuring, his touch grounding her to the earth when she felt like she would float out into the open sky. “Keep breathing.” He muttered.
“I’m fine.” She snapped, as she stepped away from his touch. “We’ll head to Tensleep and get this all figured out. I’m sure it will be okay.” She smiled painfully at him, but it was a lie; nothing was ever going to be okay ever again.
They climbed back into the SUV, Henry at the wheel this time, Leigh looking silently out the window as she sucked on a mint. Through the glass, just beyond the place where her home used to sit, she watched as a western meadowlark fluttered up onto a dead tree branch, making its nest in its usual spot. Then Leigh closed her eyes as Henry began carefully maneuvering the SUV up and out of Blackriver.
6
They drove in silence, Leigh lost in the rapid-fire images flashing through her mind: her mother dancing back and forth, holding her as hanging laundry blew around them. Her father, grumbling about how loud Leigh was while simultaneously carving a wooden chess set for her. Riding Napoleon, her father’s horse, under the shaded summer trees. And then: a flash of cement walls. Leigh shook her head, unsure of what that memory was.
As the town of Tensleep grew closer, Leigh forced herself to look over at Henry. A line of sweat dotted his forehead, and he was gripping the wheel so hard that his knuckles were white. Every few minutes, she saw him glance down at his cell phone to see if service had returned; it hadn’t. His reassuring words were all a farce; Henry wanted to be out of here now, and Leigh couldn’t blame him. If the situation were reversed, she would have ducked out a long time ago.
“Left at the fork here. In about three miles, there is a sign for Tensleep.”
The sign was wooden, handmade, and marked with a white cross. Beyond it, rock plateaus dotted with shrubs sat like slumbering giants. Tensleep prided itself for its beautiful view of the Norwood Falls, but also for the it’s intensely close-knit community. No one from Tensleep ever left, and they didn’t readily welcome outsiders, whom they always regarded with suspicion. Sure enough, as soon as their car passed the town line, red and blue lights filled up in the rearview mirror.
“Thank God” Muttered Henry, and Leigh could hear the relief in his voice as he pulled the car over. “Be careful here.” Leigh muttered, as the police officer walked up to the car, one hand on his weapon. She tensed up, but Henry seemed completely at ease. Of course; what did a rich white boy from Back Bay, Boston, have to fear from a police officer? The officer slowly approached the window, a wide-brimmed hat hiding his face in shadow. Henry turned and smiled.
“Hello, Officer! We are so glad to see you.”
“License and registration, sir.” His voice was sharp.
“Absolutely, though you should know this is a rental car.”
Henry handed the papers out of out of the window. The officer barely looked at the license before tossing it back, his eyes finding on Leigh’s face. She caught the look of alarm that quickly passed through his eyes upon recognition; she recognized him too. Officer Michael Thorne had been a junior officer when she had last seen him maybe two years ago with Sheriff Lacombie. Now he looked ragged, with sunken eyes and a rail-thin frame.
“Leigh Mae Montgomery.” She heard the heavy drawl in his words. “It’s been a while since your face has graced these parts.”
She nodded, squinting in the late morning sun. “It has been, sir. Henry, this is Michael, er, I mean Officer Thorne.” She swallowed nervously. Of all the officers they could have run into. Her daddy had always said that Michael Thorne had a natural enjoyment for the more brutal parts of police work. Tucked in her lap, her hands clutched nervously. They did not want to get on this man’s bad side. Thorne leaned up against the car, looking past Henry, his eyes wandering up Leigh’s body before making their way to her face.
“How’s that fancy school out East treating you? Is that where you picked up this Yankee?” Henry opened his mouth to argue, but Leigh shot her hand across the console, grabbing his fingers in hers and squeezing hard. She smiled at the officer.
“It’s treating me just fine. Harvard’s a great place– my parents are very proud, as you can imagine.” Something in his eyes changed and Officer Thorne quickly tossed Henry back his license.
“I bet it’s pretty cold out East this time of year
. We’ve been having a warm spring out here, it’s been nice; good for the ranches. So, Leigh, what business do y’all have in Tensleep today?”
As she lived and breathed, Leigh would not deal with this gangly stick of dynamite. “We’re here to see Sheriff Lacombie.”
“He’s off today.”
“Please, sir, it’s an emergency. It’s about Blackriver.” She saw a tiny twitch on the side of his weasel mouth. Then Officer Thorne rested both of his arms inside the car, his gun dangling casually in one of them.
“You sure that’s worth bothering the chief about? I’m not sure he’ll be keen to talk to you and your pretty boy here.” Henry narrowed his eyes, but Leigh let a small smile slip past, both to put the Officer at ease and also… he wasn’t wrong. Henry was awfully pretty.
“Yes, Officer, I’m sure.” The policeman stared at her for a long moment, taking in her tear-soaked face, the lines of mascara that were surely running down her cheeks. Leigh was sure that she looked wrecked and was glad for it. Whatever got her to her parents. Whatever got her answers. Michael Thorne seemed to be considering shooting them when he stood up.
“I’ll be happy to escort you there. Follow me.”
“Thank you, officer.” Henry rolled up the window, a long breath escaping his lips. “That was intense.”
“That’s Tensleep.” She replied. “They take their six-person police force very seriously. Sheriff Lacombie is a good guy, but his deputies have a bad reputation. They are always being accused of excessive force, and they chased the one Hispanic family that settled here right out of town.”
“Why doesn’t he hire better deputies?”
Leigh shook her head. “From where? There isn’t a huge pool of people to pull from. Small towns like this, they have to do the best they can with what they have.” Henry started the car up as Officer Thorne pulled ahead of him.
“How are you doing?” he asked, glancing over at her. Leigh sat back in her seat, trying not to give in to the anger that was flooding her system. How was she doing? Her goddamn town had vanished. How the hell did he think she was doing? Still, she constructed her words carefully, lest he think she was even more unstable than he already did.
“Henry - until I know where my parents are, the answer to that question is going to be “not well.”
He nodded. “That’s fair.”
They entered the town of Tensleep, passing over an aging viaduct that sprawled over two abandoned grain mills, steel silos glinting in the sunlight. Everything about this town was sandblasted into muted colors of despair, the houses with their broken windows and the shuttered storefronts of the downtown. The dilapidated playground equipment and the bleached brick of the elementary school. Tensleep had always seemed huge to Leigh as a child, like a modern metropolis, full of big buildings and fancy parades on the Fourth of July. Now she could see what it truly was: a slowly dying town of about a thousand people, struggling to make ends meet in a world that had moved on without it.
Henry seemed to be searching for the right words. “This town is…”
“Depressing.” Leigh answered. “Yeah, but only the main part of town looks like that. Tensleep stretches for over fifty pocketed miles, and there are some unbelievably huge ranches scattered amongst the hills.”
“I could see wanting to leave a town like this.” Henry said after a moment. “It’s kind of soul-curdling.”
“Blackriver didn’t feel like this,” retorted Leigh. “Blackriver didn’t want to be Tensleep, which was I think was something this town resented. They were always trying to get people from our town to move here, but no one wanted to.” Leigh watched out the window as they passed a rusted mobile home. No wheels remained, and the window on the door had been covered with duct tape. There were claw marks on the outside where a bear had probably tried to get at the food inside. Leigh shuddered and curled back in her seat. “Why would we? Blackriver was tiny, but it was beautiful.” The police car in front of them pulled off the road and began making its way toward a house cloaked in the shadow of a low plateau.
“That must be the sheriff’s house up there. That’s quite a view.” Henry shifted nervously in his seat. “What’s his name again?”
“Sheriff Lacombie.”
They pulled up in front of a three-story log home. Pines hid the face of the house and the newly planted aspens beside it. In front of them, Officer Thorne gestured from his window for them to approach the door. Leigh wound her legs out of the car and made her way to the front door, with Henry trailing behind her. The deputy climbed out and leaned against the outside of his car with his prying eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses.
At the framed-in porch, Leigh took a deep breath before knocking hard on the door. It was yanked opened immediately, almost as if he had been expecting them. “Good afternoon,” Leigh said sharply, reaching out her hand. Sheriff Lacombie was a tall man with broad shoulders, a small beer-gut and a face with the weathered skepticism of a TV detective. She had last seen him about two years ago in Blackriver and he hadn’t aged well; his hair was now a salt-and-pepper gray, his once carefully maintained beard overgrown. Dark shadows marked the skin under his eyes and Leigh smelled a whiff of liquor as he opened the door. Still, he smiled kindly at her and Leigh felt relief wash over her. Maybe, just maybe everything was fine. He would help them.
The sheriff squinted at her and then smiled. “Hello Leigh Mae Montgomery! It’s been many, many years since I’ve seen you around these parts.”
She tilted her head. “Sure, it has been awhile since I visited Tensleep.”
“I’ll say. Come on in. What’s your name, boy?” Henry reached past her to shake hands. From the curl of his lip she could see that he hated being called “boy.”
“Henry Champney, sir.”
“Well, I know a Boston accent when I hear one! I’ll tell you, were excited about your Red Sox winning, even all the way out here. Come on in, you two, and tell me to what I owe the pleasure.” They stepped inside. The main room of the house was comfortable and elegant; a wooden staircase led up to the second level of the house, where stained glass windows let in filtered purple and blue light. The walls were decorated with paintings of Yellowstone and the Sunlit Basin. It was modern but cozy, the perfect mountain home.
Lacombie led them over to shiny brown leather couches, where a golden lab lazily thumped its tail at their arrival. “Lynn’s out visiting some church members, so it’s just me and Sawyer here today. Do you care for some coffee? I think we may have some juice in the fridge…”
“No, thank you.” Leigh quickly replied. “None for us.” She wanted answers, not some damned juice.
Sheriff Lacombie sat down beside her, his face close to hers. “I’m surprised to see you here Leigh. Your daddy was always such a friend to our department, though it’s been far too long since we’ve spoken.”
Leigh prepared to say something that was going to sound downright insane.
“Sheriff, I don’t know how to best say this but…Blackriver is missing.”
He tilted his head at her, a strange half-smile on his face. “What do you mean, Leigh?”
“It’s gone, sir. The entire town, the people and the buildings are gone. There’s nothing there but grasses and soil. I flew back from school after my mom sent a postcard to me.” One of his eyebrows raised, but his face remained passive. “She told me not to come home. I called and couldn’t get ahold of anyone, and so I flew back. And when we got there earlier this morning…” She choked on her words, struggling to get out the feeling of it, of your home missing. “Blackriver is gone, Sheriff. It’s gone.”
He looked at her for a long moment before standing and planting his hands on his hips. “And when was this?”
“Today. We were out there just this morning, early. After we saw that they were all missing, we headed straight for you.”
“Did you call anyone else?”
“No sir, we came straight here.”
He nodded, his eyes darting left. “And ev
erything is still gone, you say?”
“Yes. Even the buildings aren’t there anymore.” Suddenly Leigh paused, the hairs on her neck standing up. “Wait. What do you mean, still gone?”
Sheriff Lacombie looked at her with confusion. Then he sat back down beside her and took her hand in his. It was sweaty and hot. “Leigh, I’m not sure what you’re talking about sweetheart, but whatever’s going on, I swear to you, we’re going to get you the help you need.” Leigh felt the ground fall away from her. He didn’t believe her. She heard her voice climbing higher, the frayed ends of her speech pouring out in short sparks come tumbling out.
“No, you’re not listening to me. You have to go there, you have to see, right now. I don’t know where my parents are, and I don’t know where the rest of the town is. Please, just get in your car and we’ll go see it. We need to call someone, more departments.” She started pulling his hand softly. The sheriff’s eyebrows were raised as he leaned back from her, his face a mask of confusion. Leigh felt her own self-control crumbling. “God, what are you waiting for? 162 people are missing!”
The sheriff rested his hand on her shoulder. “If this is your idea of a joke, Leigh, then I’m not having it.” She jerked away. His tone was the kind of placating tone you would use when speaking to a rabid dog. “Sit down.” He ordered, rubbing his beard thoughtfully as Leigh sank back down to the sofa.
He knelt in front of her, gently taking her hand in his. “Leigh Mae, you’re right - Blackriver is gone. There’s nothing there.” She let out a cry of relief, reassured that someone else was confirming what she knew was true. “But the fact of the matter is that the town of Blackriver has been gone for eight years.”
The words passed through her like a wrecking ball.
7
It seemed as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room as Leigh stared at Sheriff Lacombie, noting how his back hunched forward and the way his weathered hands curled in themselves. As he spoke, he released her hand and began spinning his wedding ring nervously. Henry’s eyes widened, and his gaze landed uncomfortably on Leigh.