doorway to the cabin, I grabbed my saddle blanket from my horseand went to the lean-to. The wind wasn’t so bad just then.
Clarice was on Jen’s lap again, saying: “But won’t my mommy get cold?”
“We’ll put plenty of blankets on her, honey.”
“Will she wake up to say goodbye?”
“We should just let her sleep, honey. We won’t be gone that long and then we’ll come back here and take both of you back to town.”
I couldn’t figure out any way to say it any better. Maybe the kid knew the truth even without us telling her. Maybe she knew the truth but didn’t want us to say it. Maybe it was the only way she could deal with it—putting it off till she was stronger.
The wind stayed down most of the night. We ended up huddled together because the temperature dropped several degrees. We were awakened twice by Clarice’s screams. Nightmares. They would curse her the rest of her life.
At dawn we discussed coffee. We both wanted it but building a fire would waste time. We ate jerky and bread and drank water from the canteens.
When we were getting the horses ready to move, Clarice got away from us and worked her way back toward the cabin. She hadn’t seen the firewood I’d stacked in front of the door. In the light I saw what a poor defense it was. Any number of animals could rip it down and get inside.
But that wasn’t what bothered Clarice. She stood in front of the cabin and started sobbing.
I got to her first and lifted her up. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“That wood. How’s my mommy ever going to get out of there?”
Then Jen was there. She took her and carried her away. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but as the sun began to paint the snow hills a rich gold, Clarice stopped crying.
Getting upslope took a lot longer than getting downslope had. We didn’t reach the mountain trail for a good hour. The horses were still tired and, much as we didn’t want to admit it to each other, so were Jen and I.
Clarice rode Jen’s horse. We walked. And after a while, so quietly that you could barely hear it in the growing wind, Clarice cried. Jen would call words to her but that was about all they seemed to be. Words. They didn’t slow the little girl’s crying at all.
And for the first time, magnanimous son of a bitch that I am, I felt resentment toward the little girl. She was slowing us down. And what if she kept up crying like this? And how could we confront Connelly and Pepper with a kid in tow? And what if she started bawling when we snuck up on them?
That little brat was all kinds of trouble.
And then finally I realized what a bastard I was being.
I needed sleep. I hadn’t had a good bowel movement in three days. Tom Daly’s wife was going to blame me for Tom’s death.
The kid wasn’t the trouble; my life was the trouble.
She’d had to watch her brother be murdered and her mother raped and murdered in just about theworst way you could think of. And she was only seven years old.
And here I was feeling sorry for myself because I hadn’t had a good stool for seventy-two hours.
What a magnanimous bastard I am.
Chapter 20
T hat afternoon, the wind was the worst of it, strong enough to blow you back several steps so that a good share of your walking was covering what you’d already been over.
The mountain was a soaring wall that blocked out a good deal of sky. The very top was often lost in snow swirls that were like exotic mists in an adventure story. Even the wolves we saw looked whipped and beaten by the weather, hidden just a few feet off the path, their eyes lurid and lonely. Two or three times I smelled and heard bear but never actually saw one.
Clarice slept as she rode, bundled up mummy-like in blankets.
Always, relentless, there was the wind, the sounds it made in the mountain rocks above alternately friendly and eerie. Whenever I was in the mountains I always thought of how many different centuries of men had lived in them. The cries of the wind sometimes sounded
Clarice was on Jen’s lap again, saying: “But won’t my mommy get cold?”
“We’ll put plenty of blankets on her, honey.”
“Will she wake up to say goodbye?”
“We should just let her sleep, honey. We won’t be gone that long and then we’ll come back here and take both of you back to town.”
I couldn’t figure out any way to say it any better. Maybe the kid knew the truth even without us telling her. Maybe she knew the truth but didn’t want us to say it. Maybe it was the only way she could deal with it—putting it off till she was stronger.
The wind stayed down most of the night. We ended up huddled together because the temperature dropped several degrees. We were awakened twice by Clarice’s screams. Nightmares. They would curse her the rest of her life.
At dawn we discussed coffee. We both wanted it but building a fire would waste time. We ate jerky and bread and drank water from the canteens.
When we were getting the horses ready to move, Clarice got away from us and worked her way back toward the cabin. She hadn’t seen the firewood I’d stacked in front of the door. In the light I saw what a poor defense it was. Any number of animals could rip it down and get inside.
But that wasn’t what bothered Clarice. She stood in front of the cabin and started sobbing.
I got to her first and lifted her up. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“That wood. How’s my mommy ever going to get out of there?”
Then Jen was there. She took her and carried her away. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but as the sun began to paint the snow hills a rich gold, Clarice stopped crying.
Getting upslope took a lot longer than getting downslope had. We didn’t reach the mountain trail for a good hour. The horses were still tired and, much as we didn’t want to admit it to each other, so were Jen and I.
Clarice rode Jen’s horse. We walked. And after a while, so quietly that you could barely hear it in the growing wind, Clarice cried. Jen would call words to her but that was about all they seemed to be. Words. They didn’t slow the little girl’s crying at all.
And for the first time, magnanimous son of a bitch that I am, I felt resentment toward the little girl. She was slowing us down. And what if she kept up crying like this? And how could we confront Connelly and Pepper with a kid in tow? And what if she started bawling when we snuck up on them?
That little brat was all kinds of trouble.
And then finally I realized what a bastard I was being.
I needed sleep. I hadn’t had a good bowel movement in three days. Tom Daly’s wife was going to blame me for Tom’s death.
The kid wasn’t the trouble; my life was the trouble.
She’d had to watch her brother be murdered and her mother raped and murdered in just about theworst way you could think of. And she was only seven years old.
And here I was feeling sorry for myself because I hadn’t had a good stool for seventy-two hours.
What a magnanimous bastard I am.
Chapter 20
T hat afternoon, the wind was the worst of it, strong enough to blow you back several steps so that a good share of your walking was covering what you’d already been over.
The mountain was a soaring wall that blocked out a good deal of sky. The very top was often lost in snow swirls that were like exotic mists in an adventure story. Even the wolves we saw looked whipped and beaten by the weather, hidden just a few feet off the path, their eyes lurid and lonely. Two or three times I smelled and heard bear but never actually saw one.
Clarice slept as she rode, bundled up mummy-like in blankets.
Always, relentless, there was the wind, the sounds it made in the mountain rocks above alternately friendly and eerie. Whenever I was in the mountains I always thought of how many different centuries of men had lived in them. The cries of the wind sometimes sounded
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