The house was just as I had pictured it in my dream, weathered and leaning at an acute angle away from the predominant wind. Part of it had collapsed, and it looked like a cottonwood had leaned against it for a moment of support that had turned into forever.
I stopped the truck at the edge of the meadow, cut the engine, and decided to get out and check the ground before driving across. I had done enough swimming for one holiday season. I let the dog out and walked around to the front of the truck where Henry met me. The gusts had increased, channeling their force through the ravine, and hit us full in the face. It wasn’t actually snowing, but the wind was strong enough to take a percentage from the ground and make it airborne. The wind was the only sound. We squinted toward the little house as Dog arched out, dipping his head in the snow and rooting for who knew what. Henry flipped his collar up to protect part of his face; his hair trailed back and swirled above the hood.
I squinted and watched an underlying cloud cover approach from the mountains. You could vaguely see the snow-covered peaks. I thought about a damaged woman, bareback on a horse, racing through a rainy night, and three small children huddled in a back bedroom forbidden to move. It seemed sacrilegious to speak in the face of all the tragedy that had unfolded here.
“What are you thinking?”
I was startled by his voice and took a moment to allow the words to form in my head. “I am thinking about how complicated this case has become.”
He nodded. “It just got worse.” His hand came up and pointed past the dilapidated house where, just visible through the blowing ground snow, was the back corner of a mobile home attached to a black Mack truck.
15
We stood there at the apex of the meadow, with the Big Horn Mountains strung across the far horizon like some painted backdrop in the theatre of our lives. I always felt things that Henry could better describe. “I know it is the earth that is moving, but at this moment it is as if the clouds are in motion, and the world is still and waiting.”
His black leather duster was flapping in the wind, and I noticed the Special Forces tomahawk in his hand. “I’m getting the shotgun.”
I unlocked the Remington and a handheld radio from the cab. Henry spoke to Dog. “Hinananjin.” Dog went over and sat beside him. It had already been established that the furry brute was conversant in Cheyenne, Shoshone, Arapaho, Crow, and Lakota; English was the language he chose to sometimes ignore.
I flipped on the radio and listened to the static. I didn’t expect to get any reception in the canyon, but it never hurt to try. I punched the transceiver button. “Come in Base, this is Unit One?” I looked over at the mountains and felt a familiar sinking feeling.
“Nothing?”
I blinked my one eye at him, dialed the frequency up a few clicks, and tried again. “Base, this is Unit One. Anybody there, come in?”
More static. Then a faint reply. “BR75115, come again?”
I smiled at the radio, keyed the mic, and deferred to the foreman. “Hey Jess, this is Walt Longmire. We made it down here to the old Nurburn place on Crazy Woman. We found your truck.”
Static. “The Mack?”
“Roger that. How long are you guys going to be on it today?”
Static. “Weather’s supposed’ta get bad, but we’re gonna try’n’ stick. I got a meetin’ at 4:30.”
“What’s the meeting about?” It was quiet.
Static. “Firin’ me, I’d imagine.”
You had to love the guy. “I might need you to relay messages back up to my office. This canyon is causing too much interference, and I can’t get through.”
Static. “We can try, but if it gets bad, reception’s kind of touch and go. How you wanna do it?”
“How about I give you a call every hour on the hour?”
Static. “This mean I’m officially deputized?”
I smiled. “I’ll talk to you about that.” I pulled out my pocket watch and rekeyed the mic. “In ten minutes it will be 3:00. Call me at
4:00.
Static. “Roger that.” If I hired him, at least he already knew radio procedures.
Henry had kept an eye on the homestead while the foreman and I had finished our conversation. I clipped the radio to my belt as he turned to look at me. “We are walking from here?”
I stared at the corner of the mobile home. “Yep, after I put Dog in the truck.” He wasn’t happy about it, but I figured Henry and I were aware of what we were getting ourselves into, so we deserved whatever we got. I told Dog not to play with the radio.
There was a level area to our right where the banks of Crazy Woman shallowed, but it seemed assailable by an 18-wheeler and a house trailer. We crossed the frozen creek and moved within fifty yards of the house. There were a few dormers and a lean-to addition on the near side, and a screen door continually slapped in the wind, a brittle noise that grew louder as we approached. The broken trunks of the cottonwood were bleached out and whitened by the sun and the unending wind.
There was nothing at the house itself to indicate that Leo might have been in there. The Mack truck and the mobile home were buried axle deep in the powdery snow about twenty-five yards west of the homestead. The house trailer was fairly new and was small by white man standards, but it was still almost twice the size of the cabin. I could see where the folding steps had been pulled down at the front door; they were covered with snow and appeared undisturbed.
I glanced over at Henry. “You see anything?” He had stopped about thirty feet from the cabin; I could imagine his nostrils twitching. We had unconsciously fanned out from each other as we had approached; both of us had won hard lessons on what could happen when individuals bunched up in situations like this.
“No.”
“One of the things I don’t see is an ’87 Wagoneer, not that I thought I would have. I don’t think he could’ve gotten a car down in here with all this fresh snow.”
I thought about the dark stories I knew and started forward. It was three steps up to the front door where the screen door beat its arhythmical response to the wind. I placed my hand on it and felt some of the paint crack and fall away like sheet music. The wind had stopped for a moment, and it was quiet. I looked into the house, and you could plainly see it was empty; the only thing that moved were the drifts of some tattered, faded, once-white lace curtains that rolled and fell back against the broken window glass. The curtains, shredded and billowing with the wind’s persistent caress, reminded me that Mari had been here. I hoped she still was, because I needed all the support I could get, but I doubted it. She had lived the majority of her life in the house in Powder Junction. As I saw her, she only came here in the spring or summer, and she never entered the house itself. Her presence was there, though, along with the faded pieces of wallpaper. The house had contained her spirit but had paid the terrible price of purposeful neglect and had died a slow and inevitable death with no songs ever to be heard again.
His voice was soft and, if you weren’t listening, it would have drifted quietly along playing a variation with the wind. “There is a cellar.”
I clicked the flashlight on and cast a beam across the stairs; they looked as if they might hold me. Not much of the snow had blown into the basement, and you could see the hard-pack dirt floor, but not much else. I handed the shotgun to Henry and pulled out my. 45. We looked at each other for a moment, and then I stepped onto the first tread, which squealed but held. I hated basements. I ducked my head under the jamb and continued down, casting the light from the flashlight across the small room. The stairs were centered, so I checked underneath and on either side first. There were a few broken nail kegs and floor parts from the room above. The flashlight illuminated the heavy beams and supports that stood centered on raised stone that had been chiseled from the bedrock of the canyon floor. I stepped down onto the smooth surface of the dirt, turned the flashlight back into the darkness, and I heard something move.