What I liked about the cave, and perhaps any cave, the idea of a cave, was the place where light from the outside ceased to have any influence. That was why I liked being in it at night. I turned my lamps back on and made my way back long before any of my light sticks might begin to fade.
Back at my bedroll, I put a couple of medium-sized sticks on the embers and gave them a gentle blow until they showed orange and flared. I then added the split end of a fat log I’d dragged in earlier. Zoe trotted off outside to take care of business and I followed.
I started back to my house well before first light. I couldn’t sleep because of Zoe’s snoring and for some reason my horse would not stand easy at the cave’s mouth. As I made my way across the creek and through the south gate, I thought something looked odd near the barn. As I reached the edge of the big field I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The mule was lying on his side, trying to wriggle his body under the bottom rail of the paddock fence. I rode up slowly and looked down at him. Only his head and neck were out, but they were well out. The mule opened his right eye wide and looked up at me, but, in that mule way, he didn’t panic. He just let his head slap into the dust and lay there.
“So, what now?” I asked in a calm voice.
The mule didn’t move.
I dismounted and dropped to my knee in front of the animal’s nose. This was a potential disaster. If the mule got excited and tried to get up, he could be in real trouble. I couldn’t push him back because he might go nuts. I decided to back off and let the mule figure it out for himself. I tied the Appaloosa, unsaddled, then sat on a bale of straw and watched the mule from a distance. The damn thing lay motionless for better than half an hour.
The sun was good and up and the animal hadn’t moved a muscle. The horses were getting antsy, waiting for breakfast.
Gus came from the house. “You’re back. What are you doing?”
“I’m watching one of god’s creations,” I said.
Gus looked over at the mule. “What’s he doing?”
“Hell if he knows.” I stood and stretched. “I guess I’ll feed everybody. I’ll be inside in a while.”
“You want flapjacks?”
“Sounds great,” I said.
I made the rounds, throwing hay, scooping grain, dumping bad water, filling troughs with good water. When I came back to the mule’s paddock, he was still in the same pathetic position. I dropped a couple flakes in the mule’s feeder and left for the house.
The mule was planted in that spot until near noon, when, while no one was looking, he must have squirmed his way out. He’d walked to the house and stood there staring at the back door.
I’d been watching what piece of him I could see from the kitchen window off and on. “Gus, you’re not going to believe this,” I said.
Gus looked out the window. “I wouldn’t ride that thing if you paid me in American dollars. He’s spooky.”
I went outside, walked to the animal, stood briefly in front of him, then walked on past him to the barn. The mule heeled like a dog.
FOUR
DUNCAN CAMP’S giant horse was slowly coming around. He tried to walk over me a couple times on the lead rope, but a well-placed pointy stick had put an end to that nonsense. I’d tied the horse’s head high at the kickboard and irritated him with bags of cans, rustling plastic and even a gas-powered weed cutter. He showed wide-eyed panic at the introduction of anything new, but then began to settle down. He couldn’t get away and he wasn’t being eaten by anything. That morning, after fifteen minutes of stretching out my own muscles, trying to work out the tension of anticipation and ward off injury, I saddled Felony and climbed onto his back in the round pen. I could feel he was wired, but he rode like a dream, cantering clockwise and anti-clockwise equally well, pulling for quick, if not sliding, stops, backs. He even did a side pass on a moderately gentle cue. So, I opened the gate, took a deep breath, and rode out into the yard, then into the big field. The big horse felt good, a little too tense to be smooth, but he responded quickly. Before an elk could pop out from behind a bush or a helicopter appear out of nowhere, I took Felony back to the barn and let the short ride remain a good one. I brushed him out for a long time, talking to him, and he pushed at me with his nose. I could feel him relaxing. I didn’t give him a treat, only scratched his belly. I don’t think there’s a better feeling in the world than having a big, scared animal relax around you. I untied him and walked him back to his stall.
As I walked out of the barn, I tossed a look at the mule. He was munching happily in his new indoor quarters.
That afternoon, after a few long hours in the pasture getting the rest of my hay, I saddled Felony for a longer ride. I left Zoe in the house with Gus. I didn’t need her giving him a start by darting off after a rabbit or chipmunk. I rode west out onto the BLM land adjacent to my place, just east of the Red Desert. It was dramatic land, dry, remote, wild. It was why I loved the West. I had no affection necessarily for the history of the people and certainly none for the mythic West, the West that never existed. It was the land for me. And maybe what the land did to some who lived on it.
I rode along in the shadow of a butte, protecting myself from the intense afternoon sun. Ahead I saw something odd. On the red soil, the black was out of place, so I approached slowly for a closer look. Right over it, I still wasn’t sure what I was seeing. But as I dismounted it came together for me. The ears and the shape of the face were easy to see once seen. The coyote had been burnt. I touched the charred remains and put my fingers to my nose. I thought I could smell gasoline. Whether I smelled it or not, I knew what had happened. Someone had poured fuel down into the animal’s den and tossed in a match. It was something sheepherders did occasionally; they hated coyotes.
I looked around and found tire tracks about twenty yards away. They were the tracks of a dually pickup; that much was clear. The impression of the rear tires was nearly as deep as the front, so the bed must have been loaded. A heavy load, I guessed. I followed the tracks backward and located the coyote’s lair on a steep place on the butte’s face. The entrance was blackened from the fire. The coyote had run a hundred yards aflame and whoever had struck the match had followed along in the truck, watching. I felt sick. I was confused, near tears, angry. No one was keeping sheep there, so the lame excuse of protecting stock didn’t even make sense.
Then I heard them. The whimpering seemed to come from nowhere at first and for a second I imagined it to be the last ghost sounds of the dead coyote. I listened and traced the whimpering to a clump of sage and there in the shade and red dust were two pups, smoke darkened, eyes just opened. They could not have been more than two weeks old. One, a female, had a badly burned foreleg, but she was moving with slightly more strength than her intact brother. I wet my kerchief with water from my canteen and tried to wring drips into the pups’ mouths. Their little tongues weakly lapped at their lips. I put them in my saddlebags and mounted.
I loped along, checking on the babies every few minutes. I tried to keep them wet, cool. They were no longer whimpering, but they were still alive. I also poured water over my saddlebags to soak the leather. I tried to shake the image of the mother dog from my head. She had no doubt been between her pups and the den opening and had tried to carry the fire out and away with her.
When I cantered up to the back door, Gus came rushing out before I was off the horse. He knew something was wrong because I never rode an animal hard up to the barn.
“What’s the trouble?” Gus asked.
“I found some coyote pups. They’re injured.” I opened the pouch with the babies and he looked in with me.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
I blew out a breath, collecting myself. I looked at Gus. I couldn’t trust Felony alone with the old man. The horse might walk over him. “You take the pups into the kitchen. I’ll take care of the horse.”
Gus took the bags inside. I loosened Felony’s girth and took off his bridle. I led him over to the hot walker
and clipped him up, left to make slow circles while he cooled down. I grabbed my big first aid kit from the barn.
Back in the kitchen I could see that Gus had carefully unloaded the puppies onto the table. The little female with the burned leg actually managed to drag herself a couple inches. The male didn’t move. I put my hand on the little body and felt no life. I stepped away from the table, poured myself a glass of water and drank it all down. I believed I was shaking, but I couldn’t see it in the hand that held the glass.
Zoe was at the table, looking up with obvious concern.
Gus brought me back to where I needed to be. “Well, let’s take care of this one,” he said.
“Okay.” I went back to the table. “Gus, go get me those little scissors you use for your mustache.”
Gus left and was back quickly.
I clipped away the fur above the burned area. The left paw was pretty much gone. But there was no bleeding. I told myself that was a good thing. I couldn’t believe the little girl was alive. I shook my head and looked over at Gus. “She ought to be dead,” I said.
“She’s tough.” The way he said it I knew he was already forming an attachment to the animal.
Gus tried to call the small-animal vet in town without success. I’d hardly ever used him anyway. My horse vet, Oliver, was two hundred miles away doing some work for a pack outfit in the high country. I looked at the little coyote and imagined her as a tiny horse. I went to the refrigerator and got some antibiotics, divided what I would have given a horse by a thousand and injected it. Then I mixed up some sugar and warm water and asked Gus to try to get some of it into the pup. I thought it might help with the shock.
“You okay in here?” I asked.
Gus didn’t look up. He used a dropper to put the sugar solution on the pup’s lips. “I’m fine.”
I called Zoe twice, but she wouldn’t budge from Gus’s side, so I left her. I went back out to put Felony away. With all my concern over the coyotes I hadn’t given much thought to what Felony might unexpectedly do. The horse had been great, steady, and still felt so as I finished unsaddling him and led him to his stall.
I returned to the house and made a bed out of sheets in the corner of the study. Gus came in and put the pup down in the nest. Zoe came close and Gus stopped her. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Gus, let Zoe check her out.”
Zoe sniffed the pup, then lay down, curling herself around the little thing. She gently licked at the burned leg.
“Maybe that’s the best thing,” Gus said.
I thought he was probably right.
Gus asked me if I was hungry and I told him I wasn’t. He then made me a sandwich and I ate it. That night I slept in the den on the recliner. Zoe stayed put beside the coyote.
The next morning, the puppy was struggling to move a little more. She would take a step, become exhausted, and fall over. Zoe remained by her. Gus tried again with the sugar solution, then with some warm milk. The pup licked at her lips finally and I could see Gus’s shoulders relax. I went out and fixed what needed fixing, worked a couple horses, then came back to check on the patient. I didn’t want to go into town, but Gus pretty much pushed me out of the house.
No doubt because of the coyote, I was hating people more than usual as I drove into town. I drove past the Wal-Mart that I refused to enter, past the McDonald’s that I refused to enter and past the church that I refused to enter. I glanced over at the parking lot of the Rusty Spur Motel, wondering if David Thayer’s car was there. When I’d called to set up lunch with David, he sounded cool. But why not? I hadn’t seen him since he was a kid. To him I was just some old fogey mate of his father’s. That was true enough. I told him we’d meet at the Little Winds Café. I’d suggested it because it worked at some kind of cosmopolitan front and I thought David might appreciate the effort. But also the food was the best in Highland, though that statement in and of itself was not all that significant.
I arrived first. The hostess, an overly skinny cowgirl I remembered from the barrel-racing event at the summer rodeo, led me to a booth against the far wall.
“How’s this, Mr. Hunt?” she asked.
“Just fine,” I said. “You’ve got the drop on me though. I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Becky.”
“Thanks, Becky.”
Highland was a small enough town that most people had a vague knowledge of who everyone was, but it did facilitate matters to be different in some way. In my case, in was the color of my skin. It could easily have been a problem for some folks, but it hadn’t turned out to be. I, of course, realized that I was referred to as the “black rancher.” I suppose had I been extremely handsome, I would have been the “good-looking, black rancher.”
I studied the menu, remembering a time when I would not have needed the narrow specs perched on my nose that fit too tightly against my temples. From where I sat I could look across the room and out the window at the street and the storefronts on the other side. A monstrous SUV pulled up at Ken’s Sporting Goods and four men got out, stretching and looking at the sky. I knew they were buying fishing licenses and I was a little envious. They were no doubt headed up into the Winds, with a stop first at the tribal office for permission, then the drive up. I considered the long drive through the reservation to the Owl Creek hills. The low, red and yellow ochre range always relaxed me, in spite of the heat, in spite of the arid desolation, probably because of it. I actually had a jar of soil from there on a shelf in my barn.
Two young men entered the restaurant. One was of medium height, about six feet, the other a littler taller and in the taller man I could see Howard’s eyes and cheekbones. They wore jeans, new Western boots and short-sleeved shirts. They were not so differently dressed from others in town. They were healthy looking and strong enough, but their postures said they weren’t ranch men. They walked like nothing really hurt.
I stood and signaled to them with a wave.
“John?”
“That’s me.” I shook David’s hand. I could see his mother in his face.
David introduced me to his friend, Robert. Robert managed to seem aloof without looking away.
I nodded and shook the man’s hand. “Come on, let’s sit down,” I said. I straightened the napkin in my lap and looked at David. “I can’t believe you’re all grown up. Last time I saw you, you were fifteen, I think. Considerably shorter.”
David nodded.
“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” I said, “but what a long time. So, you’re in college now?”
“University of Illinois,” David said.
“Me, too,” from Robert.
“How’s your mother?” I asked.
“I suppose Dad told you.”
“Yes, he did. I was sorry to hear about that. Is she okay?” I felt somehow caught, having attempted to play dumb.
David nodded, again.
“So, what brings you to the outskirts of no place?” I asked. I hated working at conversation, but he was my friend’s kid and I wanted him to feel comfortable.
“We’re here for a rally.” David said.
“Rally? What kind of rally?”
The waitress came. She was obviously intrigued with the young men and she admired them while she named the specials. “The tortilla soup is real good,” she said at the end of the list. “Well, I’ll give you guys a few minutes.”
David and Robert laughed a little.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Robert said.
“What kind of rally?” I asked again.
“It’s a gay pride rally,” Robert said.
“I see.” I took a sip of water.
“Because of the killing that took place here last week,” David said.
I nodded. “Awful thing. When is this rally?”
“Tomorrow at noon.” David ran a hand over his hair. “It’s going to be in front of the city hall building. Tell me, what is this place like?”
“Place?” I asked.
�
��This town,” Robert said.
I shrugged. “It’s a little town. It’s okay. Mostly white. Indians get treated like shit. You know, America. The murder hit everybody pretty hard.”
Robert might have smirked. I felt it as much as I saw it.
“My father’s a bastard,” David said. It came out of nowhere and not.
I studied his eyes.
“He screwed around and hurt my mother. He had an affair. He didn’t think about her or me or anything.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
David was staring at me, as if somehow I was representing his father at that moment. “He’s a real bastard,” he said again.
Robert leaned in, perhaps to break the tension. “So, what do you do here?”
“I raise and train horses,” I told him. “I’ve got a ranch about thirty miles from town. I used to run cattle, but not anymore.”
“How do you know David’s father?” Robert asked.
I glanced at David. “We were at college together. Berkeley.”
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