“Would you guys stop? Someone could see you,” Trish said.
There was nothing and no one but them on Interstate 90, five miles north of Buffalo and thirty miles south of Sheridan. Perry leaned toward her ear and sang louder. She swatted at him, and he ducked. It wasn’t long ago that she would have sung along, bouncing in the seat. Where has my little girl gone, and when did this sulky creature replace her? Her attitude took some of the wind out of his sails, but he didn’t let her see it. No way was he going to let her ruin this trip for Perry. Or for him.
They passed Lake Desmet. “Look, guys.” He pointed to a herd of antelope. Big, because it was rutting season. Fifty or more of them, enjoying the last offerings of the season from some poor farmer’s fields. It was an everyday scene this time of year. What he wanted most to see, and hadn’t yet, was a herd of bighorn sheep in the wild up in the Bighorns. He’d seen them at Yellowstone, of course. Anyone could see them at Yellowstone. They were practically domesticated there. What he craved to see was the rapidly vanishing creatures wild in their “home” mountains, where they were once so numerous that Indians had named the Bighorn River for them and later Lewis and Clark had adopted the name for the entire mountain range. “That male must be quite a stud to have such a big group of ladies. Did you know that the pronghorns communicate danger to each other by raising their white rump hairs?”
“Really?” Perry said.
“That’s kind of gross,” Trish said.
“They have exceptionally good vision, and they’re—”
“The second-fastest land animal in the world,” the kids recited together.
“We know, Dad,” Trish said.
Patrick smiled and stared into the herd and beyond. The early fall grassland colors looked monotone to some people, but he saw a whole palette of tans, browns, grays, and blacks. The life cycle of the prairie never ceased to amaze him. As he contemplated nature, the truck wandered to the shoulder.
“Da-a-ad.” Trish’s voice made the word into three syllables. “Watch where you’re going. Like, I don’t want to die today.”
“Whoops.” He corrected course.
“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” came on. Jim Croce was Patrick’s favorite. He and Perry shouted the words over the music. Trish’s foot started tapping. By the last chorus, her lips were moving, too.
“Bald eagle,” Perry shouted in his ear. His son pointed to a power line.
One of the majestic birds was perched there, head swiveling as it scanned for prey. “Good eyes, kid.” He snuck a glance at Trish. “Who wants to stop in Sheridan for McDonald’s?” he asked.
Trish knocked her book to the floorboard, with enthusiasm. “Last real food for days—are you kidding me? Fat Freds, yes!”
Patrick steered off the interstate and parked the truck and trailer on a side street, feeling only a little bit like a sellout for buying his kids’ affection with fast food. When Trish and Perry were little, he and Susanne couldn’t say “french fries” in the car without a riot. They’d started discussing potential McDonald’s stops in code, calling french fries “fat Freds.” They thought they were clever, but four-year-old Trish had been on to them from the first utterance and ratted them out to her little brother. And french fries became fat Freds henceforth and forevermore in their family lore.
As they parked and got out, a loud crash sounded from the trailer.
Trish said, “There she goes again.”
It was Cindy, Susanne’s horse. She had a terrible habit of kicking the inside of the trailer. She could do it for hours. The sides of their trailer bore hoof-shaped dents as witness. He hoped she didn’t get her little undersized feet stuck in there someday. Although it might cure her of the kicking.
They filed inside the restaurant. His friend Henry Sibley was depositing wrappers from a tray into the trash.
Patrick walked up behind the lanky rancher and clapped him on the shoulder. Dust puffed up from his shirt. “Hey, Sib.”
Henry whirled, then grinned. “Doc. Kids. What are you guys up to?”
“Elk hunting,” Perry said, his voice excited.
“Oh man, you lucky dogs. I wish I could go hunting this weekend.”
“What do you have going on?” Patrick asked.
“Hay delivery.”
“Too bad. We’ll invite you and Vangie over for elk steak sometime soon, then. I’m using my new compound bow.”
“What’d you get?”
“A Darton.”
“Nice. Which one?”
“The Trailmaster Forty-five K.”
“Let me know how it performs in the field.” Henry frowned. “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”
Patrick pulled a twenty out of his wallet and handed it to Trish. “Get me a Big Mac, small fries, and a Coke.”
“Yes, sir.” She and Perry raced each other to the line, throwing a few elbows as they jockeyed for position. So much for his daughter worrying about what people would think of their behavior.
As soon as the kids were out of earshot, Patrick said, “What’s up?”
“I was just talking to Harry Bethel.”
Patrick had to think for a second until he remembered who Bethel was. “He’s a Sheridan County deputy, isn’t he?”
“Yep. He told me a prisoner killed a deputy and escaped custody last night during transport from county to state facilities. Billy Kemecke, the one that killed that Gill Hendrickson with Game and Fish.”
“Yep. I was on call. They brought the deputy into the ER. A young guy named Robert Hayes. He was gone by the time he arrived. Nothing we could do. Left behind a wife and a baby. Very sad.”
“How did Kemecke get him?”
“Strangled him with a wire, then snapped his neck for good measure.”
“That’s bad. Really bad.” Henry wiped his hand down from his forehead to his chin, leaving a weary expression behind. “Did you hear anything else when they brought him in?”
“They said it happened on the west side of the mountains near Ten Sleep when they were driving him down to the state penitentiary. But that’s about all I know.”
“You don’t want to run into Kemecke. Not a nice fella.”
Patrick nodded.
“Where were you planning to hunt?”
“Walker Prairie.” Patrick hadn’t really thought about it, but Walker Prairie was all the way across Cloud Peak Wilderness from Ten Sleep. That was a plus.
Henry said, “Good.” Then he gave Patrick directions to his favorite spot to camp, close to what he considered the best hunting areas. He’d grown up hunting the area, so he knew what he was talking about.
Perry trotted up, dangling a paper McDonald’s bag and grinning. “Dad, we got your food.”
Patrick rubbed the boy’s stubbly hair. The kid hadn’t had a growth spurt yet. He was pretty much a runt with a high-pitched voice and a soft middle. Had Patrick been like that as a kid? He seemed to recall growing late. He’d turned out normal-sized, and Perry would, too, he hoped. But damn if the boy wasn’t all heart. His smile washed away a little of his lingering disquiet from the hard night before and from his row with Susanne.
He couldn’t help smiling back at him. “On my way, son.” Then he noticed Trish wasn’t with him. “Where’s your sister?”
“Pay phone.” Perry gave him a conspiratorial eye-roll and sigh.
“Huh.” Who in the world did she already have to talk to? She’d only hung up from her last phone call an hour before. Oh well. He’d just have to accept that when it came to teenage girls, he might never completely understand.
Henry nodded at him. “Watch your six.”
Patrick saluted with two fingers to his forehead. “Always.”
Chapter Five: Pause
Buffalo, Wyoming
September 18, 1976, 12:30 p.m.
Susanne
Through the storefront windows, Susanne could see locals and a few late-season tourists crowding the Busy Bee Café. The place was a local institution. Sandwiched between Clear Cree
k and the Occidental Hotel, it shared some of the latter’s Old West charm. Wooden siding. An old wood-burning stove in the dining area. An ornate countertop and bar back. The tourists were easily identifiable by their bulky cameras and relaxed demeanors. Labor Day was the end of the summer season, but the area did get some early autumn visitors to admire the fall leaves and enjoy the crisp weather in relative solitude. Hunters, too, were starting to show up—in too-much camo and in need of a bathtub—but she didn’t see any in the restaurant.
As she reached for the door, Susanne heard her name called from behind her. She turned to see Hal Greybull, the county coroner. He was crossing the street and waving, his figure a cutout against the red brick facades of the downtown buildings. Darn. She hadn’t told Patrick that the coroner had called. Leaving it to Trish had been petulant of her, and she regretted it. This was Patrick’s job, their livelihood. She pasted on a smile and waved back.
“Mrs. Flint. Nice to see you so soon after speaking to you.” Greybull’s ruddy cheeks and white beard reminded her of Santa Claus, but one in need of a few good meals. His belt was fighting a losing battle against gravity with no hips or butt to hold his pants up.
After they shook, she shielded her eyes from the midday sun with one hand. “You, too.”
“Were you able to get my message to Doctor Flint? We’re under a fair bit of pressure from the family to close out the Jones case.”
“Did he not call you?” It wasn’t a lie, but still she almost touched her nose to see if it was growing. “I’m so sorry. It was a hectic morning. He left to go elk hunting with the kids for a few days, but he’ll be back Wednesday.”
Hal tugged at his beard, his face somber, but then he smiled. “’Tis the season.”
“Yes, it is. They’re camping at Hunter Corral, if it’s an emergency.”
“I’ll just take my phone off the hook, and then it won’t be.”
She laughed. “Is everything okay on the case?”
“I’m not at liberty to say much, other than Doctor Flint did all he could. I wouldn’t be surprised if the family files suit anyway.” He lowered his voice and looked over both shoulders before stepping closer to her. “You didn’t hear this from me, but it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve sued someone when things didn’t go their way.”
“Oh no.”
“So we’re needing to make sure we dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. But again, don’t worry. Your husband wasn’t at fault.”
“I’ll be sure he calls you first thing when he gets in.”
“Hopefully they’ll have caught that fugitive long before then.”
“What fugitive?”
“You haven’t heard? It’s all over the radio. A prisoner killed a Big Horn deputy and escaped in his vehicle over near Ten Sleep. The same guy that murdered the game warden.”
“Oh my goodness!” Ten Sleep was on the other side of the mountains, but she was spending the night alone, and she lived in the country. She’d have to keep Patrick’s shotgun by the bed.
“They’ve got every state, federal, and local law enforcement officer in the northern half of the state looking for him. He’s a local guy, too—grew up in Buffalo. The radio promised updates on the hour.”
“I’ll be sure to tune in.”
“Take care, Mrs. Flint.”
“You, too, Mr. Greybull.”
He tipped an imaginary hat to her, then walked back across the street, pants sagging dangerously, whistling “Blueberry Hill.”
Susanne hustled into the restaurant and stood at the door looking for Vangie. A group seated under the huge bison head looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember their names. She kept scanning. In addition to the packed tables, every round-seated stool at the bar was full. Some of the waitstaff were clustered near the coffee station, staying out of the way as patrons stood in line for the sole bathroom. Cutlery clanked pottery, cutting through the din of conversations. The place was a zoo.
Susanne heard “Over here.” Vangie waved from a table overlooking Clear Creek. Her friend was dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt, her black hair in a no-nonsense bob, like the native Wyomingites, but her thick Tennessee accent gave away her Southern roots.
Susanne knew her own Texas accent betrayed her as well. Maybe that’s why she’d been so drawn to Vangie in the first place. Two fish out of their native waters. But Vangie was swimming, whereas Susanne felt like she was sinking. Vangie sat with her back to the creek, which Susanne still pronounced with a long e sound instead of as “crick” like the locals. Another way in which she didn’t blend. She smoothed the neckline bow of her polka-dotted blouse. And another.
“I ordered you a sweet tea.” Vangie had set the glass on Susanne’s placemat, a laminated menu. “I do that just to mess with them. It always comes out unsweet with sugar packets and a spoon.”
Susanne shuddered. “Not the same thing.” Actually, she drank her tea unsweet, so she was glad for it, but she understood Vangie’s point.
“I mean, I boil my hummingbird feed, for heaven’s sake. Sugar doesn’t dissolve in cold water. Any real cook knows that.” Vangie arched a brow toward the kitchen, as if to suggest that possibly there was no real cook back there.
The two women ordered chef salads and caught up on each other’s lives.
“How’s the baby?” Susanne asked. Vangie’s pregnancy was a secret except to close friends. She’d had several miscarriages, and she wasn’t yet through her first trimester with this baby.
Vangie looked out at the creek. It was low. Mostly rock instead of water. “I’m spottin’.”
“Oh no. But maybe it’s nothing. What does your doctor say?”
Vangie had started seeing an obstetrician in Billings, Montana. “I haven’t told him yet. I’m afraid to talk to him.”
“You’ve got to call.”
“I know. I will if it gets worse.”
Susanne reached for Vangie’s hand and squeezed it. “Can I do anything?”
“Your prayers and friendship are all I need.” She wiped a tear, then her face changed. She smiled, which accentuated her high, round cheekbones. “I was surprised when you asked me to lunch. I thought you were going elk huntin’.”
“I was.”
“And?”
Vangie may be her closest Wyoming friend, but Susanne doesn’t talk out of school about Patrick. Not to anyone. “Patrick needed some bonding time with the kids.”
“What a good dad.”
The waitress placed their salads in front of them. “Anything else?” Her mouth had the dry, wrinkled appearance of a lifelong smoker.
Vangie winked at Susanne. “More sweet tea, please.”
The waitress sighed and headed back to the kitchen.
Susanne dug into her salad. Forget sweet tea. What she missed was good ranch dressing. Homemade with real buttermilk. All she could find in town was the kind made from regular milk and one of those new seasoning packets with fake buttermilk flavor in it.
“How are the kids?” Vangie asked.
“Perry is great. Boys are so sweet.”
Vangie smiled. “And that means Trish is . . .”
“Less likeable all the time. Am I a bad mother for saying that?”
“You’re a great mother. And it’s a stage. She’ll grow out of it. Besides, I saw her in town last week and she was nice to me. It’s probably just a girls-and-mothers thing.”
In town. Susanne wondered how she got there. Trish rode the bus to school. “Who was she with?”
“A group of kids.”
“Walking?”
“They were getting out of an old truck.”
“One of them wasn’t Brandon Lewis, was it?”
Vangie nodded. She taught at Buffalo Elementary and thus knew all the kids in town. “I believe he may have been the one driving. Why?”
“I overheard her calling him today. He’s too old for her.”
“Ooh. Yes. He’s a very mature boy. Quite the Casanova with the teen set, if the rumors a
re true.”
Great. Just what I wanted to hear.
A woman’s voice interrupted their conversation. “Ladies. How are you?”
Susanne looked up. The newcomer with the coronet of blonde braids and light blue eyes smiled down at them from her considerable height. Ronnie Harcourt. If Susanne had to identify a woman who embodied every trait that made Wyoming women so different from her, Ronnie would be the one. And she just happened to live on the neighboring property to the Flints. S-h-i-t, Susanne spelled in her head. Ronnie was a deputy in training for the Johnson County sheriff’s office. She roped and branded and yes, hunted. She also had a habit of showing up every time Susanne revealed herself as a hopeless flatlander greenhorn. Like putting the wrong foot in the stirrup to mount a horse. Getting the truck stuck in a snowdrift. Or accidentally pointing a loaded gun in the wrong direction, sending everyone around her to their bellies.
“Hi, Ronnie. Care to join us?” Vangie asked.
Susanne groaned on the inside. She would be nice, sociable, even, because that was how she was raised. But it didn’t mean she’d like it.
Ronnie declined. “I’m picking up a to-go order and heading back to work. But I’m hiking up at Circle Park this afternoon when I get off shift. Anyone care to join me? The leaves should be fantastic.”
Vangie looked legitimately disappointed. “I wish I could.”
Circle Park—that was near Hunter Corral, where Susanne’s hunters would be. Out of nowhere, anxiety rolled through her. The faces of her family clicked one by one like 35mm slides in the carousel projector of her mind. It felt like a premonition, but vague and unspecific. She didn’t believe in premonitions. Patrick did. He encouraged her to listen to her gut, waxing rhapsodically on its connection to the mind and all it could tell her. About the only message she got from hers was when it was time to eat. It was surprising that someone so scientific and rational harbored this mysticism. Maybe it was related to his obsession with what he deemed the supernatural connection of Indians to nature.
Switchback Page 4