There was nothing on the ridge, but my heart practically leapt from my chest when something moved right above me.
I fumbled with the. 45 trying to get it from my chest, but in one savage swipe a massive paw struck my hand like a baseball bat; the Colt fired harmlessly into the air as it flew away and cracked against the ice-covered stream a good forty feet below.
I scrambled to get the hat from my face and then lurched upward trying to strike at the beast, but the weight and size of the thing was too much. I was yelling as loudly as my raw lungs could support in hopes that I might scare the monster away, but it just stayed there.
I howled for a while and continued my doomed struggle until I noticed the creature was attempting to do something other than tear me apart. I froze as its massive paws dug underneath the machine and, in an incredible show of strength, actually lifted the gigantic four-wheeler off of me. The roar that came from the bear was enough to rattle my own lungs, and it flipped the Arctic Cat down the hill where it rolled once and then landed upright on the ice below.
I didn’t move, and the furry head with one ear hanging comically from its side looked at me. All I could think of was Lucian Connally’s adage, “They can kill us, hell, they can eat us-but we don’t have to taste good.”
I stared up at the shaggy head that seemed as wide as the trunk of my body. Astonishingly, it spoke. “What’chu doin’ this high, Lawman?”
Virgil.
9
“The first thing I ever killed was a couple of rattlesnakes.” The gigantic man shifted his weight and turned his two heads toward the opening. “When I was ten, I came upon two prairie rattlers mating. They saw me and tried to get apart, but they couldn’t. I cleaned them; snakes are easy, and I remember them with their heads cut off still striking at my hand on the handle of the frying pan.” He tilted the pot in front of him and inspected the beef stroganoff that he was cooking.
There may have been stranger places in which I’ve woken up than Virgil White Buffalo’s cave in the Bighorns, but I can’t remember where they might’ve been. As caves go, it was a comfortable one, with rugs, pillows, and even a jury-rigged exhaust flume wedged into and continuing through one of the large cracks in the rock ceiling. Assorted hides were piled against the front, and I had to admit that the whole system made the place pretty cozy.
“I don’t know how many lives I’ve taken since then, hundreds, I suppose. None of them really in the right.”
I studied my host, crouched over the fire and illuminated by the flames, and could’ve sworn a bear was cooking my supper. “I thought there weren’t any grizzlies in the Bighorns.”
“There aren’t.” He picked up a wooden spoon and dipped it in the concoction, moving the crustier parts at the side back into the center of the pot. “Anymore.”
Virgil White Buffalo was a legend, and last summer I’d had him in my jail when I’d mistakenly arrested him for the murder of a young Asian woman. He’d assisted me in apprehending the actual culprit but then had melted into the Bighorn Mountains. I hadn’t had any contact with him since then but had suspicions that the Cheyenne Nation might have.
“Where did you get the head and cape, Virgil?”
He stopped stirring the formerly freeze-dried concoction and nodded, mostly to himself. “He was a neighbor, but we ended up not getting along.”
I filed away the thought that it might behoove me to do everything within my power to get along with the very large Crow Indian. I rubbed my head where the handlebars had struck it; the goose-egg lump made me feel like I was growing a horn. “You heard my SOS?”
“No.”
I sat up a little, careful to keep the sleeping bag around my legs, especially the bruised one. “The gunfire.”
“Yes.”
Virgil’s rocky abode wasn’t very far from where I’d overturned the vehicle, and with a little verbal assistance he’d retrieved my. 45, had gotten the Cat running, and had parked it underneath a tree. The cave was a ledge that Virgil had closed off with a multitude of rocks, almost a Bighorn cliff dwelling. Thirty feet in the air and sheltered by the towering fir trees, there was no way you’d ever notice it if you hadn’t known it was there.
The elk hide that was draped across the only opening blew inward, the powdered snow skimming across the granite floor. “Still crappy out there?”
“Yes.” He gazed toward the opening and then crouched over to rest a few rocks at the bottom of the hide to keep it from blowing. “It will likely continue through the night and maybe for a few days after.” He went back to the fire but glanced at me. “Why, you’re in a hurry?”
I shrugged. “On the job.”
“Always with you people.” He nodded again, occupying himself with the stirring. “The shoebox.”
“Yep.”
“Have they done something bad?”
“Escaped convicts.”
“Oh.” For the first time, he smiled, and it was a sly one. “Like me.”
“Well-” I glanced at the surrounding rock and noticed that Virgil had gone so far as to decorate his walls with some ledger drawings, the one nearest me showing the epic battle between Virgil and the grizzly. “Not exactly.” Strangely enough, the figure of Virgil seemed to be turned with his back toward the bear so that he was driving the spear behind him.
He carefully spooned the rehydrated dehydrated-de-jour into two metal bowls and brought me some. Virgil’s entire cooking kit was in an olive drab army surplus box, probably from WWII, complete with pots, pans, plates, utensils, and cups carefully held in place by narrow leather straps and small brass rivets that reflected the fire. He reached behind him, brought over an old percolator, and poured us both cups of coffee. “I have some powdered cream, but I think it might be left over from the Ardennes Offensive.”
“I’ll pass.” I wondered how many other people in the Bighorns knew the German term for the Battle of the Bulge. When I’d first met Virgil, I’d attempted to crush his larynx, and our relationship had been verbally one-sided. To my shame, I hadn’t thought he was all that intelligent-a judgment I’d soon amended upon discovering beneath the heavy brow the fine mind capable of playing chess on a grand-master level. I spooned a few mouthfuls and sipped my coffee. “The beef stroganoff is always a good freeze-dried bet.”
“Yes, it is. Thank you for including it.” He sipped his own coffee and studied the expedition pack and beaded leather gun sheath lying next to me. “You have a lot of supplies and are well-armed.”
“They’re bad guys.”
He finished the stroganoff in his usual record time and sat the tin bowl back by the fire; then he gestured toward the opening with his lips the way Indians have a peculiar tendency to do. “They have a woman with them.”
We studied each other, and I had to concentrate so that I would not keep making eye contact with the grizzly’s features that hovered over his own. The bear’s jaws were separated into two pieces on the headdress and hung alongside the open maw along with beads, eagle feathers, abalone shell discs, and strands of rawhide with tiny, cone-shaped bells made from snuff container lids that made a faint tinkling sound when he moved his head.
“You’ve seen them outside the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
Virgil didn’t exactly offer a lot of information, so I primed the pump. “Where?”
“Near the falls, about a quarter-mile from here.”
I blew a breath. “Why’d they stop?”
He gestured toward my bowl with a forefinger as thick as a broom handle. “Are you going to eat that?”
I handed it to him, waited until he was through, and then asked again.
He placed my bowl on top of his own and reached across to pull a bottle from my pack. “Can I have some of your whiskey?”