Fiona gathered her purse and rose. “I was just taking my friend Olympia home. She gets very exuberant in the right crowd. Sorry Lauren, we best be going. I’ll be in touch and thanks.”
“No problem, Fiona, good luck,” said Lauren.
Sgt. King said to the miners, “You boys need to move the party someplace else, preferably to your hotel room to sleep it off.”
Grumbling, the boys threw money on the table to cover their drinks. Sgt. King motioned them to the door. Fiona and Olympia followed, the latter singing Pistol Packing Mama at opera house volume.
At the racy red car Fiona unlocked the doors and helped Olympia in while she blubbered and gushed over how much fun those miners were. Fiona would have preferred that Olympia not be quite so exuberant.
“Thank you, Officer, for your help. I apologize for my friend here.”
Standing on the sidewalk by the car, Officer King said, “Are you sure you’ll be able to drive home? How much have you had to drink?”
“Me? Only a glass or two. I’ll be fine.” She hurried to get in the car.
“May I see your license, please?”
Oh, no thought Fiona. Not again. How could she have another run-in with law enforcement in such a short period of time? Of course, her license was expired. She dug in her purse for her wallet.
“Officer,” she said, pulling out her expired license, “I need to explain.”
Officer King smiled. “They all do.”
“My license is expired.”
The officer looked at the license. “Yes, it has. And it is out-of-state. Are you ladies just passing through?”
“I’m here on a contract job and my friend is visiting. We’re staying at Opal Crawford’s place out in Harney Valley.”
The woman nodded. “I see. I’m going to have to give you a citation on the license. You gals have a ways to go to get home. I’m not sure you should be driving.”
“I’m perfectly okay, Officer.”
Lauren came out of the brew pub and walked over to where they were standing. “Hi, Ann. I see you’ve met my new friends.”
“Your new friends? Well, then, do you think you could give these ladies a ride home?”
She smiled. “I’ll do one better. They can stay at my place tonight and sleep it off.”
“Then I won’t do a breathalyzer test on the driver whose license has expired.” She pulled out her ticket book and proceeded to scratch away.
Lauren said, “Fiona, leave your car here. I’ll give you a ride over to my place. I might even make you dinner since we never got around to ours.”
Fiona accepted the ticket with resignation. By the time she left Harney Valley, she was going to owe a million bucks in fines.
Jake and Hoover rode most of the day, tracking faint outlines and broken brush. By the time they made camp close to sundown both were too tired to talk. The wind was blowing so hard they didn’t try to make a campfire. They both toted hip flasks and were enjoying a whiskey and beef jerky dinner.
“I have the uncomfortable feeling we’re being watched,” Jake said, as he finished off the jerky. His eyes searched the rim rock ridges that crowded the narrow valley.
“You’ve been saying that all day, enough so you have me worried,” said Hoover.
They leaned against their saddles on the ground while the horses grazed what scant grass could be found. The last spring they had passed was nearly dry, and the horses hadn’t had much to drink.
“Why would anyone be tracking us?” asked Hoover.
“That’s what I would like to know. The rustlers are long gone. If they were smart, they’d a kept on going. If they weren’t smart, they might be back for more. It’s a good thing we moved what was left of the herd closer to the ranch.”
“Their easy pickings are gone.”
Jake nodded still eyeing the ridges. “We might want to sleep with our rifles tonight.”
Hoover nodded, watching the ridges himself.
The horses snorted and came to attention, ears up, nostrils flaring, sniffing the breeze.
“They sense something, too,” Jake said, “though this stiff wind makes them nervous. I might have a walk around before it gets too dark.” He tucked the flask inside the down vest he wore and rose.
“I’ll circle the other way,” said Hoover, rising with him.
“Take your rifle,” said Jake. “I don’t like this feeling I have.”
Hoover nodded and checked his. “Let’s try not to shoot each other.”
“Right,” said Jake. He picked up his rifle, checked the safety and walked over to the horses. “Easy boy,” he said to his pinto gelding, Blitzen. “Take it easy. No cougars around here, no wolves. Easy there.” He stroked the horse who continued to gaze into the distance with worried eyes. Jake followed Blitzen’s gaze. “What do you hear, big boy?”
The horse snorted and shook his head, shaking his black mane into his eyes Jake tried to focus on a far away fall of rock, but the light was fading as the sun dropped behind the ridge to the west. He strode off in the direction of the rock fall. What had Blitzen so worried? Maybe cougars had moved back into this territory. He patted his vest to make sure he had the small LED flashlight with him. If he was going to be stumbling around in the dark, it wouldn’t hurt to have some light to show the way back.
He walked through a rough stand of greasewood that gave way to a slope of loose flat rock. The footing was treacherous. He stopped to get his bearings, listen, and watch. The wind was dying with the cooling of the high desert. It would be a chilly night, and he was glad for the warm vest. He cradled the rifle over his arm. He detected no movement, no odd looking thing that didn’t fit into the high desert landscape. A pair of ravens flew over, headed to their evening roost, their rusty cawing alerting the high desert fauna.
He checked the ground and brush for clues of what life had crossed before him. The desert buttercups had closed for the night. The bitterbrush was holding back its bloom. A movement of rock brought him up sharply, and he paused to look round again. Was it the high desert settling for the night or something else? He waited, listening, but heard nothing. Maybe he was making this up. Maybe this was all in his head. Maybe he was being too jumpy. Maybe there was nothing out there at all.
He kept circling and eventually came back to their campsite. Hoover had not returned so he stood by the horses and took a sip of whiskey. Since the wind had died down, he decided to gather wood and start a fire. It would help Hoover find the camp. If someone were watching them, they already knew where the camp was.
Jake gathered dry branches from the sage and rabbit brush, stacked them, gathered dead leaves and sticks and lit the fire. It caught right away, and he stood back to watch it burn. A sharp crack behind made him whirl only to connect with a blow to the head. As he dropped back, he remembered thinking it had been a bad idea to start the fire because he was falling right into it.
The next thing he knew Hoover was crouching over him. “Jake, can you hear me? Jake?”
Something was burning. He hoped it wasn’t him. “I got hit,” he said.
“And you fell in the fire. I had to use the rest of our water to put it out. I came running when I heard the commotion. Whoever it was ran off. Here, let me help you.”
Jake tried to sit up. “What’s that horrible smell?”
“It’s that ratty vest you wear. Might be the best thing ever happened, it getting burnt up. Saved your back at any rate.”
Jake managed a sitting position. “Dang, I hope it isn’t ruined.”
“It was ruined a long time ago, you just didn’t know it.”
Jake coughed and slapped what was left of his vest for the flask, pulled it out and took a swig.