Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One

by W. Michael Gear

  Amber gave a quick laugh of agreement before saying, “Sam, I want you to get the field notes packed up and ready to go. Make sure the rest of the gear is picked up and in the dig kits. We’ll leave it in the supply tent for the time being.”

  Her weary eyes looked up at the fog. “Meanwhile, we’ll pray for a miracle and hope this isn’t as black as we think. That maybe we can come back and finish the project.”

  Shyla told him, “I’ll give you a hand. With two of us, it’ll be done in half the time.”

  “Thanks.” He noticed that her hair was silvered with tiny droplets of mist. It took all of his willpower to keep from reaching out and running a fingertip along the side of her cheek.

  And then there was Amber. Angular and brittle Amber, all edges, like shards of broken glass. Bestial men had done that to her, abused and broken her.

  I will never let that happen to Shyla.

  Memory of the revolver in his hands, substantial, controlled in his grip as the hammer fell, made him think he might actually have a chance of keeping that promise.

  It wasn’t until the rest of the crew had eaten that Pam stepped over to say, “Shanteel didn’t show up for breakfast.”

  “Might have overslept,” Sam said, getting up. “I’ll go give her tent a shake.”

  But after he made his way through the thick fog, calling out, “Shanteel, rise and shine,” her tent was empty.

  The Inconceivable Moment

  We were on motorcycles. Only bikes could get through the snarled traffic. Mimi, Felix, and Jill and me were trying to get out of the city. I saw them first: three people, one sprawled woman, two men who looked like they had laid down to take a nap. Their clothing was mussed, pockets pulled out while being robbed. The thing that hit me was the half-lidded, sightless stare. The slack expressions. The realization that they were dead. That the discoloration on their chests was drying blood.

  Just lying there on the corner of Wadsworth and Kipling.

  Around us no one cared. Traffic lights were out. The other drivers trying to thread their way through the jammed intersection just stared. Probably couldn’t believe it. And just drove on.

  Pointless death was too new to them.

  It wouldn’t be that way for long. By the end of the week, a dead person lying at the side of the road made the same impression as a road-killed deer, raccoon, or rabbit. All you had time for was the hint of sadness, then you were past it with more important things to think about.

  — Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The fog slowly drifted down to leave the camp in a magical world of bright sunlight and crystal blue skies. The Absaroka Range’s majestic and jagged peaks shone in the bright sunlight, gleaming, each crevice cast in dark shadow. Patchy snow fields shimmered in purest white.

  Penthouse Ridge—as they had come to call it—the surrounding high country, and the distant Wind River Mountains appeared as islands of up-thrust stone floating on a silver-white sea of cottony cloud. Beyond awesome, the sight of it was enough to stop a person’s breath short.

  And the students hardly noticed, concerned as they were to discover what had happened to Shanteel. Shouts of “Shanteel!” carried on the morning air as groups searched high and wide.

  Her tent and possessions were undisturbed, her sleeping bag top thrown back as she’d no doubt left it when she crawled out that morning. Her personal items looked as if she’d just stepped out; toothbrush and toothpaste were set beside the door, along with a water bottle, as though in preparation for her return.

  “Looks to me like she headed down to the latrine and got lost in the fog,” Frank declared, staring down the forested slope to where the tarp-wrapped toilet could barely be seen amidst the dark-gray maze of trunks and branches.

  Sam remembered how disoriented he had been that morning. “Yeah,” he agreed, “I almost got lost myself.”

  “Me, too,” Court chimed in. “If I hadn’t heard people talking up at camp, I’d have had no idea which way to go.”

  “Damn it!” Frank knotted a fist, expression grim. “This is my fault.”

  “How’s that?” Amber asked.

  “Forgot to give the lecture.” Frank stared anxiously down into the dark timber. “If you get lost, walk downhill. Follow the water. Every drainage on this side of the divide will come out at the house. On the south side of the divide, every drainage will come out at a ranch on the Wind River.”

  Thomas Star took a deep breath. “Me and Willy will cut for sign on our way back home. If she went that way, we’ll find her.”

  “Yeah,” Willy agreed. “So, if she left before breakfast, and it’s nearly eleven, how far could she have gone?”

  “In a straight line?” Frank made a face. “Five or six miles, but this country’s anything but straight. Lost, she’d wind around, skirt canyons... Hell, I don’t know.”

  He turned, cupping hands around his mouth. “Pam! Signal shot. Ten-minute intervals.”

  At the cook tent, Pam waved back and vanished inside the smaller tent she and Frank shared. A moment later she emerged with a rifle, stepped clear, and raised the muzzle to the sky.

  The rifle’s report cracked loudly, everyone in view turning in surprise.

  “She’ll hear that,” Amber said with relief.

  “There’s a catch,” Willy told her. “She’ll know which way it comes from if she’s in line of sight, or out in the open. If she’s in timber, or around a shoulder of the mountain, or in one of the canyons where the echoes bounce around? That can be really confusing.”

  Frank kept knotting and unknotting his fist, as if he blamed himself. “At least she’ll know we’re looking for her. Just knowing that someone’s out there? You’d be surprised what a relief that can be when you’re lost. If she’s got any smarts, she’ll find a high point, listen for the next shot, and follow it in.”

  At Sam’s side, Shyla said, “Another good use for a gun, huh? ‘Cause, if Shanteel had one, she could shoot, and we’d be able to find her, right?”

  “That’s how we do it when we have elk down,” Frank told her.

  “Hey,” Amber pointed. “There’s Brandon. Maybe he’s seen her.”

  As if out of nowhere, like a magical centaur on his mahogany-colored horse, Brandon pulled up beside where Pam stood. He leaned down from the saddle, talking to his mother. One of the ranch dogs, Talbot, was demanding that Pam pet him as he wound around her legs, tail whipping.

  Brandon reined around, his horse sauntering their direction. “Missing the black girl, huh?”

  “We think Shanteel got lost in the soup this morning,” Frank told him, looking back toward the trail to the ranch. “Where’s Grandad?”

  “He’s in town.” Brandon gave the rest of the crew a thoughtful look. “Big meeting with some guy named Kevin Edgewater. He’s from Homeland Security. Story is that Governor Agar threw Edgewater’s ass out of Cheyenne. He’s got his local guys with him. Including our lazy-assed excuse for a sheriff. Says he’s in charge of the entire Basin. Then there’s the county FEMA director backing Edgewater. That’s your old friend Steve Fallow.”

  “Figures. He’s always looking to be more than he is, isn’t he?” Frank looked even more sour.

  “Anyhow,” Brandon continued, “Ty Rankin drove out last night special. Said that Grandad should be there along with Fred Willson, Merlin Smith, and some of the other political bigwigs.”

  “Why do I not like the sound of this?” Frank asked.

  “Maybe because Ty told Grandad, and I quote, ‘You might want to pack your nineteen eleven just in case.’”

  “Shit.” Frank winced, expression tightening.

  “You’re all ready to go?” Brandon looked around where people had piled their packs and belongings. “Meggan and I brought the mule string up. She’s down watering them at the spring. You want to pack up while I go find Shanteel?”

  The way he said it was no more concerned than someone at home saying, “You want me to pic
k up John from the office, and we’ll meet for beers and burgers at four?”

  “That’d be a load off my mind,” Frank said.

  Sam remembered the smoldering resentment between Shanteel and Brandon. How good an idea was this?

  “Yeah,” Brandon said easily. “I’ll take something of hers for scent. Ride a circle. Have Talbot sniff while I watch for sign. If she’s up high, I’ll have her in a couple of hours. If she’s got down in the canyons, might take a bit longer. Saddle old Theo for her to ride, and I’ll take him along. Oh, and pack her bedroll in case there’s complications.”

  Brandon reined his horse around, trotting the animal back down toward where the mule string was drinking under Meggan’s watchful eye.

  “Just like that?” Amber asked. “He’s going to find her?”

  Willy laughed. “That kid? Brandon could track a bumble bee across a meadow. And do it two days after the fact.”

  Sam touched Amber on the sleeve, indicating she stay as the rest walked over to where Pam was bent over some of the packs.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Brandon and Shanteel don’t exactly like each other. The other night at the fire, they were the last to leave, both of them doing this ‘I could kill you’ eye duel. You sure we shouldn’t say something?”

  Amber glanced at Shyla, who shrugged.

  “Let me talk to Evan. See what he says. In the meantime, you and Shyla get everyone ready to go.”

  “Yes, boss lady.” Sam paused. “Out of curiosity, what’s a nineteen eleven?”

  Amber’s blue eyes had a nutty kind of intensity. “It’s a gun, Sam. 1911 is the model number. Usually in .45 caliber. A SEAL once told me he thought it was the finest combat handgun ever designed.”

  Must have been some kind of meeting old Bill had gone to. Made Sam wonder what happened if someone denied a motion from the floor.

  As Amber walked off to find Dr. Holly, he glanced at Shyla and raised his eyebrows in a “who knows” gesture. He could feel the tension in the air as he and Shyla headed over to where the crew was piling their gear. They got more incredulous looks when they explained that Brandon was going out to find Shanteel.

  “Now that ought to be interesting,” Kirstin noted with distaste. “Think he’ll bring her back over the saddle, or just leave her to rot in a canyon?”

  “God,” Shyla said with a start, “what do you think Brandon is?”

  “A redneck bigot?” Dylan suggested with fake mildness. “I overheard Shanteel call him a Cracker under her breath once.”

  “I think I’d rather be lost in the wildness with a chainsaw murderer,” Danielle added. “Something about that guy creeps me out.”

  “I think we ought to go looking for her.” Ashley brushed her thick blonde hair back, squinting as she looked around at the horizon as if to spot the wayward Shanteel.

  Shyla asked, “What if all those clouds rise again, and we’re out there? Think you could find your way back to camp when you can’t see ten feet?”

  “Walk downhill.” Sam repeated Frank’s advice. “Pay attention to this: Follow the water. It runs downhill, right? If you’re on this side of the drainage, the creeks will lead you out at the Tappan Ranch. Remember that, all of you. And now, here’s what’s going to happen: We’re all packing up. Riding down the mountain.”

  “And Shanteel?” Kirstin demanded.

  “Brandon will find her and bring her back,” Sam said firmly, hoping he wasn’t lying through his teeth. “Bet she’s back at the ranch before dark.”

  “She better be,” Dylan said, “because she said she’s heading to Denver with us.”

  “You’re going to leave her up here with that cowboy racist son of a bitch?” Kirstin almost shrilled. “Abandon her? To him?”

  Sam bent down to glare into her wide brown eyes. “She’ll be fine! Willy says that Brandon’s the best tracker on the mountain, and he’ll keep her safe. And you believe Willy, don’t you? He’s an Indian, and they don’t lie.”

  Sam expected her to say, “Bullshit. People are people, and they all lie.” Instead, she nodded in agreement, a token to her politically correct belief in stereotypes.

  “Meggan’s coming with the mules. Let’s get packed, people.” Sam cocked his jaw, snapping, “Now!”

  Pam fired off another signal shot. It sounded like the crack of doom.

  Social Justice?

  When it came to social justice, I was a poser. I came from a rural Wyoming ranching background. I left home under a thundering black cloud fueled by anger and recrimination. So as soon as I landed in Denver, at the university, I shed every bit of my previous red-neck conservative life. The last thing I wanted my liberal, socialist, progressive circle of friends to know was that I had been a rodeo queen. Yeah, really. Like, horse, hat, boots, and spurs.

  I was a hypocrite. Even as I adopted all those progressive Democratic ideals, I was studying to be an investment banker. The ultimate capitalist. My friends might have chattered on about the virtues of socialism, but I could never bring myself to mention its failures. I might have voted for gun control candidates, but I still kept my S&W pistol hidden in my room. Sure, I wanted free education, health care, and redistribution of wealth, but that didn’t mean I was willing to bankrupt the country to get it.

  Try as I might, I guess I couldn’t shake that damned practical horse-sense ethic my family had pounded into my bones.

  In the end, it saved my life.

  — Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sam would forever remember Kirstin and Dylan’s departure. The crew had barely arrived back at the ranch, maybe not as stiff and sore as when they had ridden up the mountain, but aching, burning, and hurting, nonetheless.

  Nor were they the only ones. On the trail down, just after it started to rain, they had no more than made the creek-side fork when Thomas Star and Willy came riding up behind them on mud-spattered horses, calling out, “Hey, you take extra guests? The kind who can’t pay?”

  “What happened?” Frank had called back.

  “That storm moved in thick on the south side of the divide,” Thomas returned. “Me, I’d a gone for it. Willy, here, he’s young yet. Filled with caution, you know? Told me, ‘Grampa, we’re following the Tappans down to their place.’ Said he didn’t want to have to pack my broken bones back home over the steep places.”

  “Glad Willy’s got all the sense in the family,” Frank called back. “Celia’s room is empty.”

  Somehow, knowing Thomas and Willy were riding along behind had reassured Sam. He kept looking around in the shadowy places along the trail, halfway expecting to see Nynymbi.

  Being back at the ranch came as a relief. Houses. Running water. Electricity. A shower in the bunkhouse, brief though it might have to be.

  The rain had turned from big drops to fine drizzle by the time they pulled up at the barn and swung down from the horses. All of them were soaked to the bone. Most shivering.

  As Sam hit the ground, he was calling out orders to the crew. And together—under Frank and Pam’s supervision—they unsaddled their horses, brushed them, and turned them out into the corral.

  Sam even remembered to delegate Danielle and Court, who were shivering the worst, to get the oats.

  Shyla and he did the work side-by-side, helping each other. Despite their numb fingers, shivers, and puffing breath, he loved every second of it. Curious, but he thought they seemed to anticipate each other’s actions, as if they’d been a team for years.

  Sam, Shyla, Frank, and Pam were still pulling saddles off mules when Dylan and Kirstin walked back from a restroom break to announce, “Who all is going with us?”

  Everyone stopped, staring through the drizzle to where Dylan stood, hands thrust in his pockets, one leg defiantly forward.

  “Ashley? Get your stuff. We’re out of here,” Kirstin stated factually, her brown hair hanging in wet strands. “Anyone who wants to try for home, this is your chance. We want you all t
o come. Together, with our cash pooled, we’ll be able to go a lot farther.”

  “What about the roadblocks?” Danielle asked.

  “We don’t believe there are any roadblocks.” Kirstin flipped her wet hair back.

  Amber was over at Dr. Holly’s cabin, seeing to the field reports. Sam bit his lip and walked out in front of the pair. “Don’t do this,” he said reasonably. “Not until we have a chance to see what the smart move is.”

  “We may not have time for that,” Dylan said firmly. “It’s four-thirty now. Driving straight through, Kirstin and I are going to be in Denver a little after midnight.” He looked around. “Sleeping in a real bed. After a long, hot shower. Maybe go out to a restaurant for breakfast in the morning.”

  “Not stuck out here shivering to death in the fucking wilderness.” Kirstin almost spat the words. “Ashley, I said, go get your stuff.”

  But Ashley had stopped short, shivering, her soaked hair dripping. Her face reflected agony, tears leaking down her cheeks to mix with the rain.

  “Thought you were going to wait for Shanteel.” Sam crossed his arms. “Giving up on her already? What was the word? Abandoned? Wasn’t that it?”

  “No.” Dylan jutted his jaw defiantly. “It’s just that this is our chance. Right now. Before Amber can do anything to stop us. We wouldn’t put it past her to take us prisoner or something.”

  “The woman’s a psycho,” Kirstin agreed. “And Shanteel? If you think that sociopath up there is really going to bring her back, you’re crazier than Amber.”

  Sam was painfully aware at the way Pam and Frank stiffened, at the flaring anger on their faces.

  “We’re out of here,” Dylan insisted. “You’ll have to shoot us to stop us.”

  Sam said, “Last I heard, Denver was under curfew; the National Guard was patrolling the streets. The people there were shooting each other, and half the city was on fire. Or did you listen to a different radio station than we did?”