I nodded my head. “Is that what this is all about, me getting my story straight before meeting the family?”
The silence hung around the two of them like the clouds on the mountain, and just as majestic.
“Joe Iron Cloud discovered your. 45 on the Knife’s Edge, and I found Omar’s rifle standing next to the boulder where you rested before the final ascent. It was propped up where we couldn’t miss it.”
I should’ve stopped playing with my ear before somebody yelled at me again, but it was itching. “Did it have any rounds left?”
“One.”
I glanced at Vic and reached out for my beer, which she started to hand back to me but then pulled away. “You think I’m crazy?”
She smiled a saddened smile. “Hey, you say Les Brown and his Band of Renown, Cy Young, and Harvey the six-foot rabbit were up there-I’m okay with it.”
Henry returned his gaze to the mountains. “Just because he was not there, does not mean he was not there.”
“I wish you would stop saying that.”
I felt a warm arm slip across my shoulder from behind and encircle my neck as Cady pulled my hand away from my ear. She smelled good as she propped her pointed chin on top of my head, strands of her red hair slipping down beside my face and covering my wounded feature. “I think insanity runs in the family. Hell, it practically gallops.”
To keep my hand away from my ear, I stuffed it back in my pocket. “Thanks a lot.”
Her voice vibrated through my head, and I was reminded of the echoes on the mountain. “I think…” She paused, and I noticed Henry had turned to look at us-for the first time he was smiling that flat, barely detectable smile of his. “That your brain produced what you needed to keep going, kind of a psychological enabler. Your mind realized your body was running out and that you needed help, so it summoned up Virgil. He’d already been on your mind because of Owen, and your greatest concern became your greatest need.”
Vic continued to sip my beer. “You were about to die, and you needed help.”
I didn’t respond.
“Is it that hard to believe?” Cady swung around looking at me with those frank, gray eyes of hers and sat on the arm of my chair. “Or would you rather believe in ghosts?”
I brushed a glance at Vic and then at the Cheyenne Nation. “I believe that he was there.”
“There was no cave, there were no prints.”
“The wind could’ve blown…”
“No, there were spots where they would have still been there, but the only tracks everybody found were yours.” She turned to look at Vic and then Henry, who could’ve nodded but spared me that. Cady turned back and kissed my ear. “I don’t know why it is you’re dwelling on this-you’re home, and you’re safe.” Her eyes started to well. “I’m just so glad. It was horrible to get that phone message. I couldn’t hear a lot of the words, but I knew it was you.”
My own eyes filled a little, too. “I just wanted to talk to you, hear your voice.”
She sobbed a little and then stifled it with her serious look. “I think you should stop doing things like this. You’re no spring chicken, you know.”
I pushed my fingers through the torn bottom of my pocket and into the lining of the Gore-Tex jacket. I thought about the things Virgil had said but tried not to dwell on the prophecy of upcoming sadness. “I know.”
She smiled bravely, and I watched as all at once the tears sprang in her eyes and wet her face, her whole body swelling. “No more mountains.”
I punched my fingers down to the bottom seam of the jacket. “No.”
Vic joined in. “No more falling off cars.”
My fingers closed on something. “No.”
Henry’s turn. “No more getting shot.”
A circle trapped in the corner. “No.”
“Good.” She swallowed and sniffed. “Because I’ve got something important to tell you.”
My fingers closed on the metallic object in the lining of my jacket, and I thought about what Virgil had said about the horrors of the Inferno, that they were the horrors of the mind and the only ones we need truly fear. “You’re pregnant.”
Cady inhaled and looked at both Henry and Vic, and then they all stared at me with more than startled expressions.
“And it’s a girl.”
Cady swiped at the tears streaking her face, and I wanted to say something more to her, something fine. It seemed that on the tip of my tongue was something it had taken me more than a half-century to learn, something wise, beautiful, and brave. They were words that my daughter and granddaughter would especially need to know now, about everything that would hold Virgil’s other prophecies at bay.
I pulled Cady off the armrest and into my lap, holding her close. I gasped a little in my happiness of having both of them in my arms, and lost the words, unable to hear them in the rushing sound of our blood-all three of us.
I kept her on my lap with one hand and continued to twist the fingers of the other into my pocket. I fished the piece of jewelry out of the lining. Wolves circled the silver background in turquoise and coral, chasing each other around the enormous band. Angled sideways, I could read the inscription: ICHISSHE, SANDRA-BACHEEISAA VIRGIL.
“With love for my husband Virgil, Sandra.” I held the ring up where they could all see it and then turned it sideways so that I could look through it and focus on the platinum strip of dying light at the very top of Cloud Peak.
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Hell Is Empty wl-7 Page 26