Slickrock (Gail McCarthy Mystery) (10 page)

Steel-shod hooves clicked sharply against rock; Plumber grunted as he struggled to haul the pack up the steepening trail. I could see the pass ahead of us-a curious collection of rosy pink, more-rounded boulders marking the spot.

Slowly, and then suddenly, we were there. Over the top, the wind in our faces, and all of Emigrant Meadow and Emigrant Lake spread out in front of us. I grinned in sheer delight.

Brown Bear Pass might have a steady slog of an ascent, but it also had a breathtaking view from the top. Looking over my shoulder, I could see the long vistas of granite and pine trees--the country I'd just ridden through. Relief Peak raised its head in the middle ground; in the distance were the shoulders of the mountains around Sonora Pass, where the pack station was.

And ahead of me was a vast, treeless meadow with a sheet of blue water in the middle. Beyond that the sharp outlines of the little ridge between Emigrant Meadow and Summit Meadow. And right next to Summit Meadow was Snow Lake. We were getting there.

I clucked to the horses and called the dog, who had plopped herself down in the shade of a boulder. She got up slowly, looking tired and a little footsore. Damn. I'd been afraid this long day might be hard on her paws.

Still, everybody seemed to be moving okay as we worked our way down the gradual slope to Emigrant Meadow. As I got closer, the meadow began to appear as blue as the lake-wide swathes of wild lupine carpeted it, the sweet, elusive fragrance as heady as the deep blue-violet color.

Riding through heaven, riding through the sky, I thought, as the lupine surrounded us. Flowery images, for sure. But what else could one say? How many people had ridden through fields of lupine, solitary on horseback, alone with the wind?

I sang. The dog pricked up her ears and lapped water from a stream. The horses drank; I took a long swallow from my water bottle.

"Not too far now," I told them all.

And it wasn't. Not too far, and not too steep. Just a gentle dirt trail, running through a series of small meadows and pot-hole lakes, climbing only briefly here and there. Until, an hour later, we reached the wide, grassy openness of Summit Meadow, with the peaks of Bonn Pass hovering above it.

I stopped to let the horses water one more time by the old stone cabin in Summit Meadow. Still plenty of daylight left. And Snow Lake was just ahead. No problem.

No problem at all. In fact, all my problems seemed to have dropped away as I'd ridden. I forgot about my job, I forgot about Lonny and our strained and tired relationship. As for the dead man in Deadman Meadow, he'd never crossed my mind, even once.

NINE

Snow Lake was a quarter of a mile from Summit Meadow. I rode over the little ridge that separated them, and was unprepared for the feeling of apprehension that hit me at my first sight of the lake.

I’d camped at Snow Lake before, with Lonny; I’d chosen it for my first camp on this trip because it was the right distance away, and there was a particular campsite I liked. I called it the lagoon camp. But I’d forgotten how dark and forbidding Snow Lake can seem.

Every mountain lake and meadow has its own particular character. I never wanted to camp by Emigrant Lake, for instance; it always felt too exposed to me. Snow Lake was sheltered enough, in a rocky hollow near the ridge line, but it seemed darkly opaque, mysterious, and even ominous. It never struck me as a pretty, sunny mountain lake.

This evening, already in the shadow of the ridge, riffled with little waves, Snow Lake looked more forbidding than welcoming. Oh well. We were here and we were staying, I told myself. Just ride on to the lagoon camp; you've always liked that spot.

The lagoon camp was half a mile away; we skirted the lake, riding west. And sure enough, as we rounded the tip, where Forest Service workers had built a little stone dam in the forties, I saw the small lagoon below the main lake lit with evening sunshine. It was empty; I hadn't seen another soul so far.

Once again my heart lifted, my mood as mercurial as the light. There was a meadow next to the lagoon, and a campsite in some boulders near the meadow. This was all going to be just great.

I tied my livestock to trees near the campsite and unsaddled the saddle horse and unpacked the pack horse. Judging that both were tired and hungry enough not to wander, I left them turned loose while I strung a picket line out in the meadow between two pines.

Both horses lay down and rolled right away, choosing a sandy spot near the lake. I smiled, watching them. Once they'd gotten up, shaken off, and taken one more drink, I caught Gunner and tethered him to the picket line. He was tied long enough to reach the grass, and short enough that (I hoped) he wouldn't tangle himself up.

Methods of dealing with livestock while camping were as various as the people who went. Some hobbled their horses, some staked them out, some built rope corrals, some tied everything up, some left everything loose. The last method was a bit fatalistic in my opinion: the traveler trusting to his horse's loyalty and love of grain to stay in camp.

I didn't care for hobbles; many horses could move along at a fair pace in them. Nor did I like staking out; I'd seen too many horses get tangled up. Rope corrals were notoriously unreliable. My preferred method was to keep one horse on the picket line and one off, during the daylight hours, and tie both up at night. Generally speaking, a horse is very reluctant to go off on his own; I had no doubt that Plumber would stay within sight of Gunner.

Keeping half an eye on the horses as I worked, I unpacked and set up my small dome tent, unrolled and laid out my pad and sleeping bag, gathered firewood and built a fire. Then I tied Plumber up and turned Gunner loose.

Next I fetched a pot of water from the lake and pumped it through a filter, unfolded my collapsible chair, got out some salted peanuts and a bottle of Jack Daniel's, and made myself a drink.

The light slanted low and golden over the meadow and the lagoon, raising bright sparks on the surface of the water and gilding the feathery stems of ryegrass. In fifteen minutes or so, the sun would drop behind the rim of the canyon behind me. I leaned back in my chair, watching the fire flicker, and took a long swallow of bourbon and branch water. Ah, the cocktail hour.

The horses cropped grass peacefully; the dog lay sacked out flat on her side, taking a well-earned rest. I put my feet up on a boulder, ate a handful of peanuts, and sighed with contentment. I was here.

Content lasted until dark. I had two drinks, not because I'm so fond of Jack Daniel's, but because it was all I had. Wine and beer are prohibitively heavy to pack in, and nothing seems to mix as well with lake water as bourbon. So I drank my whiskey and water, ate peanuts, and watched the light die out of the sky.

When the air began to grow dim, I caught Gunner and tied him up, made myself another tortilla with salami and cheese, and gave the dog a bowl of dried dog food, which she disdained. All she seemed to want was to sleep.

I put another log on the fire and thought I'd do the same. This long day was trailing its way toward night, and I was tired. I'd brought some steak and cans of chili, and other more labor intensive dinners, but I really didn't feel like cooking.

What I felt like, suddenly, was having somebody to talk to. Dusk gathered around me; smoke rose from my small fire and curled out over the lagoon. Flickers skimmed over the water, hunting flying insects. A fish jumped with a splash, making a ring on the still surface of the lake.

I could go fishing, I thought. If Lonny were here, he'd go fishing. If Lonny were here, he'd be sitting next to me now, happy to be in camp. And whether I felt frustrated with him or not, I'd also feel safe. And I'd have someone to talk to.

I made myself another drink and put my jacket back on. Why the hell had I wanted to come on this trip alone, anyway? Had I forgotten just what it felt like to be alone in the mountains as dark closed in?

I got up and got my gun out of my saddlebag. There was still enough light to see by. I checked to make sure there was no shell in the chamber, though I knew this was how I'd left the gun. Five bullets were what I had; I'd brought no spare ammunition. The pistol was for self-defense in an emergency, for scaring off bears in the unlikely event it was necessary, for shooting a horse in what I hoped was the extremely unlikely event of a broken leg. I sincerely believed I would get through the whole trip without using it.

Putting the gun back in its leather holster and snapping the safety strap over the hammer, I hung it on my belt and sat back down. The pistol was bulky and awkward there around my waist, but comforting, too.

I took a long swallow of my drink. Bright against the darkness, flames crackled in dry pine boughs. I could hear something moving in the trees and scrub, probably a deer.

What is it about sitting by a fire and hearing animal noises outside in the night? Despite the fact that I knew perfectly well that deer were the likeliest cause, I felt nervous. Fixing my eyes on the fire, I listened to the sounds of brush breaking and wondered what exactly was out there. Bears? Bigfoot?

I took another swallow of my drink. You knew this would happen, I reminded myself. You’ve been alone here before. Some kind of caveman instinct kicks in as it gets dark. The animal noises seemed to scare me almost automatically, a reaction as simple and primitive as hunger.

Time to go to bed. I put another log on the fire, wanting the companionship of its flickering light as I went to sleep. Roey looked up at me as I dug my flashlight out of my duffel bag, her first sign of life since we’d made camp.

“
You can sleep with me,” I told her.

Clicking the flashlight on, I followed its beam out to where the horses were tethered. They stood quietly, unperturbed by the deer or whatever it was. I ran the light over them. Plumber looked pretty ganted up, his flanks sucked in high and tight. Damn. This was not a good sign.

I checked him over closely, but he seemed okay otherwise, one hind foot cocked in a horse’s typical resting pose. I’d just have to see how he was in the morning.

Back to the fire. I took off my jeans and boots, left my underwear and tank top on, made a pillow of my jacket, put the pistol under it, and crawled into the sleeping bag.

“
Come on,” I said to Roey.

She got up stiffly and picked her way over the ground toward me, looking pretty damn sore. I lifted her paws and checked them in the firelight; the pads were intact, no cuts or scrapes. She wagged her tail when I was done, stepped carefully into the tent, and curled up in a fold of my sleeping bag.

I left the tent door open, so I could look out at the night sky, and the fire made comforting orangey shadows on the nylon. The dog’s warm weight pressed against my side and I snuggled deeper into the bag. In a rush as sudden as it had come, the fear went. I felt cozy and happy lying there alone, miles from any other human. The distant white sparkle of the stars seemed friendly. I dozed. Then I slept.

Sometime later I woke up. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep; it was still dark. I lay in my sleeping bag with the feeling that something was wrong.

The fire had died; I must have slept for a few hours, anyway. What had woken me?

Then I heard it. Thump, thump, thump. A familiar sound. The sound of a horse pawing the ground.

I scrambled out of the sack, fear twisting inside of me. Shoving my bare feet into my boots and grabbing the flashlight, I went to check the horses.

As I’d more than half suspected, it was Plumber. Pawing the ground and looking unhappy. Colicked.

Damn, damn, and damn. I had known this might be a problem. What Plumber probably had was a stress colic; I had seen it before with other young horses on their first pack trip. The long day and unaccustomed circumstances produced a mild bellyache.

Trouble was, in horses a mild bellyache could be life-threatening. The equine digestive system is constructed such that a horse can’t vomit. Thus, upset stomachs could result in ruptured guts and death. Colic, a general term for any sort of intestinal disturbance, is a common and often serious problem that I frequently had to deal with in my role as a veterinarian.

But it was different when it was my own horse and we were twenty miles into the backcountry. The sort of help I would need with a severe colic—the ability to hook the horse up to an IV, a surgery center if need be—was simply not available. And Plumber was my friend. The distress in his eyes upset me in ways that overrode the detachment I’d cultivated in my veterinary career.

Still, I’d come prepared. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I patted Plumber's neck and walked back to camp to get my vet kit.

In the kit was a bottle of banamine and a syringe and needles. Setting the flashlight down on a rock, I filled the syringe with eleven cc's, my hands shaking a little with chill and anxiety.

Back to Plumber, who was pawing the ground again. I took his pulse briefly and watched his respiration in the flashlight beam. Both were only slightly elevated, and he wasn't sweating. There was every chance in the world this shot of banamine would put him right.

I slipped the needle into his jugular vein, watched the blood well into the syringe, and injected the shot. Then I waited.

Plumber had accepted the pinprick of the needle quietly; now he watched me watch him. In a minute I could see a change in his expression. The worried look in his eyes vanished, and the normal curious brightness returned. He bumped me with his nose.