“I’ve got some questions about the timing of that night.” I carefully avoided actually mentioning her husband’s murder. “Do you remember leaving the house?”
She nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“Do you have any idea when that was?” She shrugged and then lay there looking at me. “Before midnight, after?”
“Before.” She didn’t wheeze quite so much with this answer.
“You don’t have any idea when?”
She shook her head and swallowed carefully. “Why?”
“The volunteer fire department in Clearmont didn’t get a ten-seventy fire alarm until almost one o’clock in the morning.” I lowered the report and looked at her. “That seems like an awful lot of time between the fire in the barn and the anonymous call.”
“I could have been confused about the times.”
“I don’t think you were.” I allowed the pages of the report to fall against my chest. “Mary, you stated in the report that the hired man, Hershel Vanskike, was the one who found you.” I let the image sit there with her for a moment. “Was there anybody else there that night?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?” I leaned forward, closed the file, and dropped it flat on the floor between my boots as a symbolic gesture. “Mary, for me to really know what happened to you that night, I need you to think about it clearly-and tell me. See, I’m beginning to think that there were a lot more people there than you’re willing to say and possibly more than you know about.” I rolled my lip under my teeth. “Let’s start with the ones you do.”
“Why is this so important to you?” Her voice was stronger with this question, even if it was without emotion.
I stared at her and then nodded toward the manila folder on the floor. “This is your life we’re talking about.”
I stood up and walked over to the window. I could see the back of Kyle Straub’s sign, where another meadowlark was singing. There was something about the sign that was bothering me, and not just because it was a reminder that the thought of Kyle Straub or his grammar made my ass hurt. I let it submerge in my mind and shifted my weight from one size 14-E to the other.
“It’s going to happen like this: the statements that you’ve made to the Campbell County investigators are enough to-” I stopped speaking and turned to look at her. “They don’t get many high-profile cases like this one. Generally, it’s Bubba shot Skeeter while they were drinking beer in the cab of Skeeter’s truck and trying to figure out if Bubba’s Charter Arms revolver was loaded.” I leaned back and sat on the windowsill. “You see, the mechanism that I’m a part of-it feeds on high octane, and that’s what this case is. Everybody is going to want a piece of it-of you.” The sun cast shadows on the crown of my hat. “They’ll call for a change of venue, and they’ll get it; possibly Casper, maybe Cheyenne, and you’ll get a jury trial-and that won’t go well for you. I’ve stood through a lot of trials, and I can tell you that those prosecutors are going to tap into something-a virulent little strain of human nature that’s going to sway that jury into getting somebody, somebody rich, beautiful, and powerful-somebody they’ve never had a chance of getting before. It’s going to be you, Mary, and not just because you confessed.”
She watched me intently. “Why then?”
“Because you are incapable of showing the one thing that they are going to demand, whether you’re guilty or not-repentance. They want you to feel sorry; it makes them feel better about themselves.” I couldn’t look her in the eye, so I turned my face and gazed at the pillow beside her head. “Most people…” Her head dropped a little, but with my peripheral vision I could see she kept her eyes on me, on my polyester shirt and my dull and unpolished badge still with traces of her blood in the engraving. “They go through their lives believing in things that they never have much contact with-the police, lawyers, judges, and courts. They have an unstated belief in the system; that it’ll be impartial, fair, and just.”
I could hear normal conversations through the door. It was good to know that normal conversations could still happen while I was engaged in this one. “But then there’s the moment when it comes to them that the police, the courtroom, and the laws themselves are just human, vulnerable to the same shortcomings as all of us, that they’re a mirror of who we are, and that’s the heartbreaking dichotomy of it all-that the more contact you have with the law, the less belief you have.” I took a breath. “Like some strange little religion all its own, the one thing that makes the whole system work is the one thing it robs you of-faith.”
I turned my face and looked at her directly. “But you have to believe that justice is truly blind, and that those scales aren’t tipped.”
She had taken a breath of her own. “Or what?”
“Or else you’re in a dark place.”
She looked at the sheets covering her legs. “But you haven’t answered my question: why is this important to you?”
I smiled sadly. “This is important to me because I believe you’re innocent. And I’ve spent most of my life defending and protecting the innocent.” I crossed to the door and opened it. “I’ll let you in on another little secret-the sheriff of Campbell County believes you’re innocent, too. Otherwise he never would’ve sent you over here to me.”
I allowed Dog to enter the room. The beast was waiting outside the door. He looked at her, then at me. I nodded, and he crossed to the bed and placed his broad head next to her hand. “Mary, tell me about that night.”
She had laughed a sad exhale and scratched the fur on his muzzle as his big tail fanned in a counterclockwise circle the way it always did when he was happy.
October 30, 2:20 P.M.
We drove across the railroad tracks and headed south on Echeta Road, which went past the local cemetery. It was an odd place with an iron archway and two bands that went across the drive to which the words ABSALOM CEMETERY were attached. There were lights on either side, a ranch gate below that was closed to keep any stray cattle from grazing between the markers, and a cross affixed above, which was black against a sky so blue it hurt my eyes. Most everything hurt my eyes this morning, so I closed them and nodded off.
It was a good thing that Hershel was driving. I woke up when we hit a rough stretch on the only road leading to and from the Battlement’s flat mesa, and I hoped we wouldn’t meet another truck as there was only room for one and a half. It was the kind of road where, if you met anybody coming up or going down, somebody was going to have to put it in reverse.
My headache was subsiding but only commensurate with the increasing pain of my eye socket. I’d tried to cradle my face in my hand with an elbow resting on the truck’s windowsill, but the constant jolting of the uneven road only resulted in my periodically punching my damaged face with the palm of my hand. It was an ongoing battle, which had not gone unnoticed by Benjamin, who was seated on the bench seat between Hershel and me.
I stretched my jaw and felt the unsettling pop in my temple.
“I bet that hurts.”
I glanced down at the little bandito as he leaned forward to get a better look at my face. I pulled my Ray-Bans from my shirt pocket and slipped them on in an attempt to hide the evidence. “You’d be right.”
He nodded. “Have you decided what your name is today?”
I shrugged. “I thought we’d all go by aliases.”
“You mean nicknames?” He seemed excited by the thought and turned his attention to Hershel for approval.
“Sure.” The older cowboy’s face remained immobile as he negotiated the grade, the oversized pickup, and the two tons of trailered horseflesh behind us.
The boy struggled against his seat belt, which was my dictate, and peered over the dash at the road ahead. “I’m going to be El Bandito Negro de los Badlands.”
I waited a moment before replying. “You don’t think that’s a little long?”
He looked dissatisfied with my response. “Why?”
“Well, if I have to say El Bandito Negro de los Badlan
ds look out for that rattlesnake, you’re likely to already be bitten.”
He swiveled in the seat back toward Hershel and pulled the stampede strings into his mouth. “Are there rattlesnakes up here?”
The puncher shrugged. “Rattlesnakes everywhere.”
We topped the mesa and turned northeast. The top of Twentymile Butte looked like a pool table for Jack of bean-stalk fame. If there had been dinosaurs up there, you’d be able to see them from a long way off.
Hershel pulled the caravan to the left and slowed.
The boy looked at him. “Why are we stopping?”
He growled. “Because my nickname is Pequeсa Vejiga.” Benjamin laughed as Hershel climbed out, unzipped, and began watering the broken rocks at the edge of the road.
Thinking a little air might clear my lingering headache and figuring Dog could always use a leg-lifting opportunity, I decided to get out and stretch my legs. Benjamin followed us as we walked into the middle of the rutted and powdery two-track that stretched to the horizon; the only other road curled off to the right and disappeared into the distance as well.
I thought about how we tilled and cultivated the land, planted trees on it, fenced it, built houses on it, and did everything we could to hold off the eternity of distance-anything to give the landscape some sort of human scale. No matter what we did to try and form the West, however, the West inevitably formed us instead.
I watched the dust collect on the left side of my boots as the constant wind kicked up a dust devil about seventy-five yards down the road. Dog looked up at me and Benjamin took a few steps past us, and I could feel the palpable urge in him to go chase the miniature twister. “This is the biggest butte in all of Wyoming.”
I had to smile at the absolute assurance of all his statements. “No, it’s not.”
He looked up at me and pulled the stampede strings into his mouth again; I was beginning to see a pattern. “Is too.”
“No, because technically it’s a mesa.” He turned his head and searched the horizon for justification. “Mister Bandito Negro de los Badlands, you want to know what the difference is?”
Maybe I had dampened his enthusiasm, because his voice mumbled as he chewed the braided leather and a hand crept down to pet Dog. “Nope, not really.”
I started to raise an eyebrow, but it hurt my eye, so I settled for nudging him with my elbow. “I shudder for the fate of future generations if your scientific curiosity is indicative.”
He shook his head at my funny talk. “You gonna feel better if you tell me?”
I thought about it. “Yes.” He didn’t deign to look at me but threw out an open palm as if to accept the unwanted knowledge. “A butte is taller than it is wide, whereas a mesa, like this one, is wider than it is tall.”
“What’s Devil’s Tower?”
I thought about it. “That’d be a butte.”
He looked puzzled. “Then why did they call this Twentymile Butte?”
“With respect to all the knowledge that our frontier forefathers carried, a steadfast understanding of geological terms may not have been a strong suit.”
He nodded, and we listened to the wind. “You ever been up here before?”
I kept my eyes on the edge of the world, which was to the south. With the vastness of the plateau, it was difficult to tell if we were looking at the edge, but I had my suspicions. “Once or twice.”
“When?”
I glanced down at the top of his hat, thankful for a view that didn’t pull at the corners of my eyes, especially the sore one. “When I was about your age.”
He looked up at me with the stampede strings still in his mouth and continued to pet Dog, who now sat on his foot. “Really?”
“Yep.”
He looked around. “Is it the same?”
“No.” I shrugged back at the dirt path we’d just driven on. “There weren’t any roads, and the only way up was a horse trail that they must’ve built this road over.”
“Were you hunting Indians?”
I smiled down at the half-Cheyenne boy. “Nope, as a matter of fact it was Indians who brought me up here.”
I figured I’d finally hit upon a subject that truly interested him, since he spit out the stampede strings, and looked up at me. “Cheyenne?”
“Yep.”
“I’m half Cheyenne.”
“I know.”
He now turned toward me fully, forcing Dog to reseat himself. “My father was Cheyenne.”
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” I nodded, and his next statement was as if we were discussing the difference between buttes and mesas. “He got run over by a train.”
I stopped nodding. “I’m sorry.”
He stood there for a while without moving. “Why do people say that?” He took as deep a breath as his young lungs would allow and sighed. “It’s not like I think they drove the train.”
“Well… maybe they’re just sorry for your loss.”
He nudged Dog and walked past me to the edge of the road. “He lived in Chicago with my mom, that’s where I was born.” He took his frustration out on a few rocks with the toes of his scuffed boots, his hands stuffed tight in his jeans as if he didn’t trust them. “He was a construction worker; he built big buildings and bridges.” I nodded, even though he still wasn’t looking at me, and patted my leg for Dog to come over. “My mom was mad at him because he took me up on one of the bridges he was working on one night. He carried me up on the girders and stood with me over the water, and it was really far down.”
Dog sat on my foot, and we both looked at the boy. “The water?”
“Yeah and you could see the reflections in the river from all the lit up windows ’cause it was nighttime.” He turned to look at us. “We flew that night.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I mean, we didn’t really except for maybe one second, but he held me out over the water and told me to not be afraid because even if he dropped me I’d just fly.” He kept looking me in the face, the way only children can without becoming self-conscious. “I closed my eyes for just a second when he held me out there-and I think I really flew, for just a second. Really.” His dark eyes seemed remarkably familiar for just a moment. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
I laughed. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“You aren’t going to tell my mom about me flying, are you? ’Cause she doesn’t know about that part.”
“No, I won’t tell her.”
He continued to study me. “Why’d you laugh?”
It was a time for truth telling and with children, if you didn’t make the reach, they might learn to stop asking. “I have dreams like that.”
He smiled back at me, and something passed between us, something old and powerful.
Hershel approached from around the truck, placing his palms at the small of his back and stretching. “Did you fellas know this is the biggest butte in Wyoming?”
Benjamin, Dog, and I continued to look at each other and we smiled, but none of us said anything.
October 30, 4:30 P.M.
We drove the truck as far as the first high shelves of rock that rose above the plateau, which created a giant series of sedimentary steps leading north. Hershel paired me off with a big bay, about seventeen hands, and watched as I tightened the belly cinch with a quick yank before the gelding could expand his lungs. Satisfied that I knew what I was doing, he assisted Benjamin in saddling the same grulla that I’d seen in front of The AR, as his dun waited patiently by the shade of the horse trailer along with Dog.
“I give you that big’un so you’d be comfortable, and so he would be, too.”
I checked the bedroll he’d provided, and the saddlebags I’d brought along. “I appreciate it.”
“Only one we got bigger is a Morgan from up in Montana, but he can get wonky when you put a saddle on him.”
The thought of a wonky draft horse on the high plateau was one my rear end was just as happy not to contemplate. “This on
e got a name?”
The old cowboy replied with a well-worn sentiment. “Don’t like naming things I might have to eat.”
“You got any rawhide? Some of the saddle strings on this one are broke offf a little short.” He motioned toward the rear end of the trailer, so I walked back and took some strings from a hook inside the door. Hershel had already established squatter’s rights. There was an antiquated McClellan saddle, along with an old cavalry canteen with the number 10 and the letter G stenciled onto its canvas side. It would appear that Hershel was quite the collector.
I fixed the strings on my horse’s saddle and tied my horsehide jacket to the bedroll. I found a neckerchief in the inside pocket and knotted the bandana at my neck, slipped a foot in the stirrup, and stepped up, gently flinging a leg over the bay. He took a slight counter to the left but then planted and turned to look at me, probably wondering why it was I was riding him and not vice versa. Then his long face turned south, almost as if he were looking for something in particular. I searched the horizon along with him but saw nothing and turned him along with the others.
After getting the boy saddled and seated, Hershel checked the sawbuck rigging on the packhorse and the canvas bags filled with supplies, oats, and two five-gallon containers of water, which we especially needed since there wasn’t any on the entire mesa.
Benjamin gigged his horse and yelped as it crow-hopped a little to the right and shot out about twenty feet before stopping and craning its long neck to inspect the foreign ground.
Hershel laughed and climbed aboard his own mount, where he readjusted the Henry Yellow Boy in his rifle scabbard and draped the old cavalry canteen I’d seen in the trailer off the horn of his saddle. “You know what they say about a horse bein’ only afraid of two things?”
“What’s that?”
“Things that move, and things that don’t.”
I smiled at the old joke and followed as he trailed the packhorse from a lead position. The horses fell into a walking pace with Dog going up ahead to stay with Benjamin.
There are people who prefer the spring and summer on the high plains, but I’m not one of them. My blood quickens, and I begin to sleep better when the cottonwood leaves begin their weekend turn to a varsity gold and a slight skim of frost surprisingly appears on your windshield one morning. I was glad I’d brought my jacket, and only hoped the bay, whatever his name was, didn’t notice that it was made out of horsehide.
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