“Hi, Steven, what’s up?...No, Molly’s not with us,” he heard Dani say. “Yesterday she said she might visit Luther Makes Elk and might see us at the ranch when we got back. Did you call the Bow and Arrow?” Dani caught Joe’s eye as he sat up, alerted by the tone of her voice. “Okay, okay...No, I get that part, Steven. Of course you’re worried. You stay home in case she calls or shows up. We’ll drive out to Luther’s place and see when she left there. We’ll call you from there. She hasn’t been feeling well. Maybe you should call all the local hospitals, too, just in case...Try not to panic, Steven, I’m sure she’s fine. She may have gotten off to a late start this morning and then lost track of time. Cell phone reception is lousy out there. We’ll probably cross paths on our way to Luther’s. I’ll call you when we get there. It’ll probably take us an hour or so. Let us know if you hear anything.”
Dani slipped her phone back into her purse and looked at Joe. Her face was grave. “Molly never showed up at the Bow and Arrow, and she’s not home, either,” she said. “Steven’s pretty worried. Molly promised she’d be back home by six, and she’s not answering her cell phone.”
“She’s probably still visiting with Luther Makes Elk and, like you said, she lost track of time and forgot to charge her cell or she’s out of range,” Joe said, already on his feet and fastening his belt. “We’ll probably meet her on the road somewhere.” But his stomach had twisted into a knot before they left the motel room and headed back to the Subaru. Joe knew his sister was always punctual. If she was going to be late, she would have found a way to contact Steven.
Molly was missing, and they had to find her before it was too late.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DANI WAS ONLY too glad to let Joe drive. She was trying not to overreact, but her nerves were drawn taut as a fiddle string. Molly was pregnant and she hadn’t been feeling well and now she was missing. She dialed and redialed Molly’s number, text messaged her, left voice messages.
“She should have stayed home!” she burst out as Joe accelerated down the long empty stretch of road toward the Crow Indian Reservation. “Where could she be?” She dialed Pony’s number on her cell. Pony answered on the second ring. Yes, Steven had called. No, Molly had not shown up at the Bow and Arrow. Caleb had driven into town to ask if anyone had seen her. Nobody had, so he was going to drive out toward the rez to retrace her path from Luther Makes Elk’s place. He’d left half an hour ago. Pony gave her Caleb’s cell phone number.
“The reception is spotty,” Pony warned. “You might not be able to reach him.”
Caleb didn’t pick up when Dani dialed. She sent a text message, then stopped trying and cradled her phone in her lap, willing Steven to call and tell her Molly was home, but the miles passed and her phone didn’t ring. She had a deep foreboding that something was really wrong.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” she said.
Joe was driving fast, faster than her Subaru had ever gone. His phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket. “Ferguson,” he said. He was silent for a few moments and then Dani heard him say under his breath, “Oh, shit.”
“What happened?” she cried out. “Is it Molly? Has something happened to her?”
Joe was shaking his head in response to Dani’s outburst. “Are they doing an autopsy?” Another long silence. “Listen,” he said to the caller. “Alison sent Ferg to a boarding school in Ledyard called Sedgewood Manor. Bring him in, Rico, and let me know when he’s safe. Molly’s just gone missing and this whole thing is starting to look really bad.”
Dani felt a deep chill seep into her bones as Joe ended the call and set his phone on the console between them. “What?” she said through numb lips.
“That was Rico. My ex-wife was found dead in her apartment of an apparent heroin overdose this afternoon. The coroner’s office is examining her but the results won’t be released until tomorrow. It could be a coincidence. Alison never really shook her heroin habit.”
“But you think it’s more than that, don’t you?” Dani pressed. “You don’t think she died of a heroin overdose. You don’t think Molly just stayed late with Luther Makes Elk. You think this is all connected, that Marconi’s behind it. You think he took Molly, and you think your son is in danger, too.”
Joe shook his head, concentrating on the road. “I don’t know what to think, but I’m not taking any chances with my son.”
“We should notify the police,” Dani said.
“No. We’ll wait until we know what’s going on.” He shot her a glance and Dani’s chill intensified. Everything he felt and thought was in that brief glance, and none of it was good.
* * *
THE SUMMER TWILIGHT turned the distant mountain ranges violet and gold as they approached the reservation, but neither Joe nor Dani paid any attention to the beauty of the landscape they were traveling through. For miles they’d traveled in silence, each trapped inside a prison of dark thoughts.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” Dani heard Joe mutter. He wasn’t talking to her; he was damning himself out loud.
“That’s not true,” Dani said quietly. “You can’t blame yourself for any of this.”
He didn’t respond. It was as if she hadn’t spoken. He’d shut her out as completely as if she wasn’t sharing the vehicle with him. Dani shivered. The spring air was quite mild, but she’d never felt this kind of cold before. She ran different scenarios through her mind, of what might have happened to Molly. Molly had left Luther Makes Elk’s shack and headed for the Bow and Arrow. Scenario 1: A cow had stepped out in front of her car and she’d gone into a ditch, hitting her head on the steering wheel and losing consciousness. Scenario 2: She’d left Luther’s place and somehow gotten turned around on one of those rez roads and had run out of gas. She tried to call for help but her cell had no reception. She was probably walking along the road right now and they’d spot her at any moment. Scenario 3: Her friends in the area had sprung a surprise baby shower on her and she would have called Steven but her phone battery was dead.
But none of those scenarios were plausible. There was no Molly. No familiar car off the road in a ditch or out of gas. There were just endless miles of flat black road and a handful of slow-moving vehicles that Joe whipped past until finally they were turning onto the dirt road that led past Luther’s place. It was just after nine p.m. when Joe pulled to a stop in front of the shack. Dani could see Luther sitting on the wall bench outside his shack and her car door was open before the vehicle even came to a stop. She covered the distance to the shack on knees that felt rubbery. Her mouth was dry. Luther acted as though he’d been expecting them. He was wearing his flat-topped black hat with the broad brim, and over his shoulders was draped the red-and-black-striped Pendleton blanket Steven had mentioned over the phone. Molly had been here!
“Luther,” Dani said in a voice that sounded faint to her own ears. She dropped to her knees in front of him. “Nobody knows where Molly is. She was supposed to go to the Bow and Arrow but she never showed up, and Steven is very worried. When did she leave here?”
Luther watched Joe approach and nodded slowly in response to Dani’s words. “She brought this blanket,” he said, stroking the fine wool. “She came when she knew I was hungry and she brought food. She stayed a little while and then she left.”
“Noontime, then?” Dani said. Her stomach churned with anxiety. Molly had been missing for hours. “Did she say where she was going?”
“She said you were trying to find who killed the wild horses and that she was worried about her brother Joseph,” Luther said, looking at Joe. “She said she thought he might be in danger.”
“What did you tell her?” Dani asked.
“I told her this was a good blanket, and it would be warm when winter came. I told her that her brother could take care of himself. You had a sweat lodge?”
Joe nodded. “Last nigh
t.”
“Good. You will need to be strong. If I was strong I would not be sitting here. All good things come from the mother earth and we need to stay close to her. When you sit on the earth you think more clearly. If I was sitting on the earth I would see more things and the spirit would move through me like it used to, but I am old and my bones are weak. You are young and strong, but your biggest enemy is yourself. When you don’t know what to do, be still and quiet. The spirit will talk to you if you wait and listen. Your courage will come when the doubts have gone from your head. Never forget there is great strength in silence.”
Dani felt the sting of tears. She reached to grip Luther’s twisted hand. “If you could hold good thoughts for her, Luther?”
Luther nodded, squeezed Dani’s hand, then removed the blanket from his shoulders. “Take this blanket with you. You will need it before the dawn,” he said. “It gets cold up in the high places.”
* * *
THEY DROVE AWAY from Luther Makes Elk’s place and into the gathering darkness, heading toward the Bow and Arrow. Joe’s head was full of the old man’s words. He heard them over and over again like distant echoes from a deep abyss. He remembered his vision from the sweat lodge the night before. Molly, walking away from him, looking over her shoulder once and then moving farther away.
Dani sat with the wool blanket folded in her lap. The silence filled the space between them and Joe wondered what she was thinking. He wondered if the silence between them was the silence Luther had spoken of, because he didn’t feel stronger for it. He felt helpless, paralyzed with fear, and when Dani’s phone rang he thought his nerves would snap.
“Hi, Caleb,” Dani said. She listened for several long moments, her head turned toward him and her brow furrowed. “Okay. We just left Luther’s,” she said in a voice that shook with emotion. “We’re probably not far from you right now. Hold on a minute.” She lowered the phone. “Caleb just found Molly’s car,” she choked out. “He says it’s parked on the shoulder of the main road, heading toward the Bow and Arrow. Her phone’s on the center console and the keys are still in the ignition. He said he didn’t touch anything. He didn’t even open the door. He’s waiting for us.”
“Let me talk to him.”
She handed him her cell. “Don’t walk around the car,” he said. “We’ll need to look for evidence, footprints, signs of a struggle.”
“Okay,” Caleb said, his voice terse. “I’m sitting in my vehicle and my emergency flashers are on. I’ll wait until you get here. Should I call the police?”
“Not yet. Not until we know if Marconi’s involved. If he isn’t, we call the cops. If he is, and we bring the cops in, he’ll kill Molly. Something else you should know. My ex-wife just turned up dead of a drug overdose. Might be a coincidence, but my gut says Marconi’s behind her death and Molly’s disappearance. I hope I’m wrong. Sit tight. We’ll be there soon.” Joe handed Dani’s phone back. “We’ll find her,” he said, and wished he felt as confident as he sounded.
Dani phoned Steven to tell him the latest development. Her voice betrayed her emotions and after she ended the call she started to cry. She stared out the side window, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Steven told me he’s coming to the Bow and Arrow. Now that he knows she’s been taken, there’s no point in him staying home.”
“We’ll find her, Dani,” Joe said. “Molly’s going to be okay.” But he knew that if Marconi was behind this, the odds were against them.
* * *
BADGER HAD BEEN a part and parcel of the Montana landscape long enough to know when bad weather was brewing, and he predicted a heavy rain by morning. “Bet we get the first thunderstorms of spring tonight,” he groused to Charlie, who was sitting beside him on the ranch house porch. “Nothin’ like mountain thunderstorms. They’ll flash flood the creeks and wash the passes clean of snow.”
“Hope she ain’t caught out in it,” Charlie said mournfully.
“That gal? She’s not lost and nobody’s snatched her. You wait and see, all this crazy foofaraw’ll be for nothin’. She’s probably driving into her driveway right now and Steven’s goin’ out there to tell her what for. Women can behave might strange when they’re in a family way.”
“As if you know about such stuff,” Charlie said, working a cramp out of his leg.
Jimmy and Roon stepped out onto the porch from the kitchen, where Ramalda was making her usual clatter, cleaning up and washing dishes. Lamplight spilled through the open door onto the worn planking and cast the boys’ shadows far into the yard. They sat on the bench beside the two old codgers and shared a thoughtful silence that spanned two cultures and over six decades.
“What’ll we do if Molly’s been snatched by that gangster?” Jimmy said.
“Marconi?” Badger scratched his whiskers. “He wouldn’t dare come out here. This place is too wild for them city folk from back east.”
“You said yourself the wildest critters live in the city,” Charlie countered. “What if he did snatch that pretty girl? We can’t just sit here and do nothin’.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “We have to do something.”
“What exactly do you boys propose we do?” Badger said. His hip was bothering him worse by the day, and no matter how he shifted his weight on the bench, he couldn’t ease the pain. Caleb had suggested more than once that he get a hip replacement. He’d even offered to pay for it. Imagine, going into a hospital like it was a garage and getting his hip replaced like it was a tie rod end or a ball joint. “Supposing, just supposing, this Marconi snatched that gal. What makes you think he’d be anywhere near here?”
“Molly was coming here,” Roon said. “Marconi probably followed her, knowing she would lead him to her brother. If he thinks Joe’s here, he might not be that far away.”
“And if he’s close by,” Jimmy continued, “we just have to ambush him and rescue Molly.”
Badger rubbed his whiskers and shifted his position. “And how do you propose to find him? This is a mighty big ranch.”
Jimmy was silent, but Roon spoke up. “We know this land and he doesn’t. We know how to be quiet when we travel. We know how to read signs, how to watch the animals and listen to what they tell us. If Marconi’s anywhere around here, we can find him. He has Molly, but he really wants Joe. All we have to do is find him before he hurts either of them.”
Badger sighed, listening to the brave words of youth. He remembered when he was young and thought no weight was too heavy to lift, no distance too far to travel, no horse too ornery to ride, but his fires had been banked long ago. “Marconi’s a very dangerous man,” he said carefully. “A cold-blooded killer. You boys stick real close to home if it turns out he’s in the neighborhood.”
“We are the Apsáalooke, children of the raven, and we are great warriors,” Roon said. “If Marconi is near here, we will find him. We won’t let him hurt our friends.”
* * *
BY THE TIME they saw the flashing lights in the road ahead, Dani had regained control of her emotions. Darkness had fallen, and made the situation all the more dire. Joe pulled over a good distance from Molly’s car and cut the ignition. “Do you have a flashlight?”
“In the center console.” Dani opened the compartment, rummaging for and producing an LED headlamp and a small flashlight.
“Stay put until I check things out,” he said, pulling on the headlamp. “I don’t suppose you have a pair of gloves?”
“I have a first-aid kit—there might be a pair in that.” She pulled a compact kit from the glove compartment and unzipped it. “Here.”
Joe pulled them on. “Just in case Marconi’s not behind this, we’ll need to get fingerprints.” He reached to switch the headlamp on but his hand paused and he held her eyes with his. “Get into the driver’s seat and stay inside the car. If anything happens, turn around, go back to town and call 911 w
hile you’re driving. Don’t stop for anyone. Don’t stop until you’re outside the police station in Bozeman, surrounded by two dozen cops. Understand?”
Dani nodded, paralyzed with a kind of fear she’d never experienced before. She watched Joe approach Molly’s car, where he did a very slow walk-around, scanning for tracks, then dropping to the ground and sliding under to examine the underside of the car. He went around the vehicle three times, inspecting every minute detail, then he proceeded to Caleb’s vehicle and switched the headlamp off while they talked through the driver’s-side window. Dani’s hands cramped and she realized she was clenching them together tightly. She tried to relax, tried to take deep breaths and quell the panic that was building inside of her. There was no traffic. There never was on this part of the road.
What were they talking about? She climbed into the driver’s seat and rolled down the window. From this distance she barely heard the murmur of their voices, but suddenly she heard something else, and Joe did, too. The ringing of a cell phone inside Molly’s car. Joe straightened and approached the car again. He switched the headlamp on, panned inside and then opened the driver’s-side door cautiously. He leaned in and picked up the phone.
Dani watched as he listened to the caller. The headlights of the Subaru illuminated him like a target and she switched them off in a swift, impulsive movement. Joe glanced up and a moment later switched off his headlamp. He stood in darkness, still listening to the caller, then said two words, “All right,” and put the phone back inside the car. He removed the keys from the ignition and walked toward the trunk.
Dani watched him. She felt a silent scream building inside her. The pressure in her lungs increased until she couldn’t breathe. She wrenched the door open and jumped out. “Joe!”
“Get back in the car,” he ordered, his voice curt. The trunk lifted open and the interior light came on. She ignored Joe’s orders and rushed up to the trunk, half expecting to see her best friend stuffed inside, dead. But the only thing there was a lock of Molly’s red hair.
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