“Pain?”
“No, I have plenty, thank you.”
I wanted to punch him.
In spite of our hopes, the wind had increased and, with an introduction of ground fog, visibility had dropped to within ten feet. I once again glanced back at George and considered the 170-odd pounds I was going to be carrying for roughly the next three-quarters of an hour. At least it was downhill. My attention was drawn to the foot that stuck up just above the drop off, and I wondered if it might be a Vasque, size nine. When I turned back around, Henry had pulled the hood back a little, and his eyes had sharpened. “You must go, now.”
The longer I waited, the less chance he had. “You want me to move you up against one of the trees for a little shelter?”
“No, I am not moving until you get back.” His jaw clamped shut, the muscles bunched like fists on both sides of his face, and I wished like hell that I were the one who had been shot. I slipped off my jacket, careful to take out the bottle of water, and placed another layer over his front. “What are you doing?”
“If I’m carrying him out, I’ll be sweating like a pig once I get there. You’ll need this more than me.” I opened the water bottle and drained it in one continuous chug.
“Go.”
I bent down to scoop up the water bottles that had fallen on the trail. He watched as I vented a lot of frustration by throwing each of them as far as they would travel. We listened as they glanced off the tree branches in the distance and landed with satisfying thumps. I turned and looked down at him and tossed the empty over the hill. “Promise you won’t eat the snow.”
“I promise.”
I gave him a quick smile of my own. “I just thought I’d tell you, I’m taking you off the official suspect list.”
“I am comforted.” He didn’t look it, but I placed my hand lightly on his shoulder, and we understood what it was that we didn’t have to say.
I stood and trudged the small distance down the hill and paused at George’s boots: Vasques, size nine. I brushed the snow away and tried to gently shake the still unconscious George Esper into some semblance of awake. If he came to, it was possible that I could assist Henry and we could all get out; but there was no response, so I reached into his pockets, found his keys, and stuffed them into my Carhartts. If nobody was there to meet us, at least I would have a place to put George. But if nobody was there, how was I going to get a gut-shot, 220-pound man out of the woods? I decided to tackle one problem at a time. Grasping George by one arm and drawing him over my shoulder, I leveraged him up. He didn’t weigh 170, probably closer to a buck and a half, which reassured me a small amount. I stood with him over my shoulders and straightened my back, even though the majority of his weight seemed to remain on my right side. It wasn’t going to be easy but leaving him in an unconscious state and making a mad dash for the trailhead didn’t seem to be an option. He might die of hypothermia, even though I wasn’t so sure that Henry wouldn’t. But if I was betting on who could withstand the rigors of staying alive, my money was on the Bear. I was careful as I made my way up the small grade to the general flat of the trail and stopped to look down at my friend. “Couldn’t you have shot him first?”
He didn’t raise his head, but his voice rumbled, “What do you think?”
I thought about kicking his foot in response but was afraid that any unnecessary movement should be avoided, even a sign of affection. So I turned into the wind, shrugged George a little higher onto my shoulders, and kicked off the first steps of many to come.
* * *
Just a little away from all the action, I came across a nice fly rod and a creel resting beside the trail. I kicked the creel over, but it was empty. George’s luck was holding. I was frustrated and getting angry, so I used that as fuel to get me going. The problem with anger is that once it burns out, you’re left with empty tanks. I stopped and caught my breath. I thought about shrugging George off and taking a rest, but I didn’t do it for fear that putting him back on might be more than I could manage. There was that, and then there was Henry.
As I had been making my way, I had heard him begin singing. It was a low voice that found a way to cut through the noise of the wind and join with it to carry its ghostly sound across the valley. I had heard Henry sing a number of times at religious ceremonies on the reservation and at powwows that he had dragged me to. I was always surprised by the tonal quality of his voice. The power and strength were a given, but the intricate patterns that it expressed, the infinite ability instantly to change tone, always made me smile. Good friends are the ones who can remain close without losing their ability to surprise. I listened as the driving rhythm of his song carried me farther, and his voice remained with me down the long descent into West Tensleep Valley.
I didn’t know what kind of song it was, I didn’t know what the words were, and I didn’t want to know. I only listened to the complex melodies and carried them in my heart and mind, as other footprints seemed to join in with mine and share the load of George Esper. Old footfalls, old as the mountains and just as enduring. I listened as other voices joined in Henry’s song, strong voices, voices that carried not only over the valley but through it. The Old Cheyenne were with me, and I could feel their strength as I continued along the trail, my heavy boots forming the snow as I went. The drums were there too, matching my progress in perfect fashion, providing an easy rhythm and keeping my legs moving. I felt strong, like I hadn’t in many years, perhaps like I never had. I watched as my breath began blowing out ahead of me, and it was as if the wind did not affect it. The searing air felt good in my lungs, and I almost felt as if I could run; but the steady beat of the drums held, and so did I.
I felt as though the Old Cheyenne were challenging me for my friend, were attempting to take him with them back to the Camp of the Dead. It was a good, spirited challenge, one that pulled at my heartstrings, but one that I would not allow. I looked at their shadows as they walked along with me. Darting between the trees with closed-mouth smiles on their faces, nodding to me when I caught their eyes, they carried their coup sticks but kept them far out of my reach. Their steps were steady, like my own, and it was only after a while that I became aware that they were matching them precisely. I smiled back in the friendly assurance that their company was appreciated but their mission was not. They could see it as a smile, or they could see it as a showing of teeth. It didn’t matter; I would pass this way again very soon, and they were welcome to join me, but they should not get in my way. They were dressed in their summer loincloths with only low moccasins on their feet, but the cold didn’t seem to affect them any more than it was affecting me. One of them nodded in a knowing fashion and dipped his shoulders sideways to slip between the close-knit lodgepole pines only to disappear on the other side.
There was a small rise ahead, and it was only when I realized that my gums were freezing that I knew I was smiling in full anticipation of it. My stride lengthened, and the songs kept step. I had slept little in the last twenty-four hours, I was over five decades old, and yet none of it mattered. The young man on my shoulders felt like an oversized bag of baking potatoes as I kept the pace and continued on.
Even with the cloud cover, I could tell the sun was setting; there was the slightest darkening of the valley. I concentrated on my feet, leaving the Old Cheyenne to their devices, and tried not to slip into the icier areas of the trail. I had been right about the heat I would manufacture, and my clothes began attaching themselves to every outline of my body, causing an impediment to my speed as they started to harden. My muscles felt just the slightest twinge of ache and fatigue as I stayed on the high side of a sweeping turn that opened into a small meadow that I remembered from years ago. The wind hit me like a swinging door, knocking me back a half step before I caught myself and surged forward, still concentrating on my feet.
The weight of my burden was just beginning to take a toll when I noticed something else besides my boots in my line of vision. It was a hide-wrapped knob with pony beads and what I now knew to be owl feathers. I raised my head as the little rivulets of sweat raced down the middle of my back and from my face. Someone was there, in the trail before me, walking backwards with every step I took. It was a large man with hair like Henry’s and, when I squinted my eyes through the stinging snow, I could see even more of a resemblance. The face was harder and leaner, and there were scars where Henry had none, but I had no doubt it was family. His eyes were sharpened to slits of chipped obsidian that shifted to the left and then to the right. He had the same look as dogs have when they stand over a bone.
I shrugged George farther up on my shoulders and kept my pace as the warrior continued to back away, keeping the end of a stick only inches from my stomach. Every time I surged ahead in an attempt to run into the staff, he would back away at exactly the same speed. The clouds of his breath seemed to pour forth only to be caught in the suction of my own breathing, and it was as if we were sampling the same air. It agreed with both of us as we picked up the pace again, and I moved forward, stepping like some strange four-legged animal.
He smiled a tight-lipped smile, and the light that reflected from his eyes brightened the trail ahead. He caught me looking at something large and square that loomed in the distance over his right shoulder. He motioned with the staff, only missing my stomach by a hair’s width, and I could smell sweetgrass and cedar. I looked back as he smiled, and his words were the whisper of many voices, “Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.”
* * *
I nodded my head and laughed so hard that the weight of George Esper pressed on the back of my neck and forced my head down. When I resettled the young man and raised my eyes, the brave who had been in the path was gone. I looked around; the only thing I saw was the back of the trailhead map that indicated the path leading to Lost Twin. I laughed some more as I trudged around the two poles that supported the eight-foot sign, leaned against it, and looked at the snow that had plastered the north-facing side. I lunged on as the pressure of two men ground the gravel of the parking lot under the surface of snow.
There are two levels to the gravel lot, and I was hoping that the lower one, which also happened to be the closest, was where he had parked. There was a rise where the Forest Service had used railroad ties as bumpers, and I walked alongside of them until I literally ran into the fender of a snow-covered vehicle, almost dropping George onto the rear deck in the process. I caught my balance and turned toward the back of the small SUV, fished for George’s keys in my pocket, and prayed the car was his. When I got to the back of the vehicle, I wiped a hand across the deck and looked in satisfaction at the partially exposed chrome letters, MAZDA. Just for the heck of it, I tried the handle, and sure enough the tailgate let go with a small click. I raised the lid and gently slumped George in like so many groceries. There was a travel blanket that I wrapped around him and, after checking his leg, I closed the back, staggered around, and opened the driver’s side door. I slid into the seat. The steering wheel pressed against my stomach so I released the catch, allowing the seat to slide back with a thump. I took the keys in my hand and, as quickly as my frozen fingers would allow, separated the Mazda key from the rest and slid it in the ignition with a determined warning. “You better start.”
I turned the switch, and the engine roared to life along with some indiscernible heavy metal band that had been lurking in the CD player at full volume. I slammed my hand against the dash, splitting all the knobs from the deck, and they fell to the floorboards. I sat there for a moment in the relative quiet, then reached down and turned the heat on full, adjusting all of the louvers toward the back.
His gas gauge was at three-quarters; I figured I could leave the truck running, get back with Henry, and still have plenty of gas to get us all out of here. Where was my backup is what I wanted to know. I would have thought that once everybody had gotten the details of the plan somebody would have been here. I rolled down both front windows about an inch just in case George’s luck stretched to carbon monoxide poisoning. I heard a low moan come from the back. I threw my arm over the passenger seat and stared at the lump under the blanket.
He began rubbing a hand over his jaw while simultaneously holding his leg with his other hand. “Ohl, gawhd . . .” It was garbled, but you could still make it out.
“George?”
One of the eyes opened a little, then rapidly closed. “Pwhlat?”
“Do you know who I am?” The eye partially opened again, and he strained to remember my face. “I’m Sheriff Longmire, remember me?” He nodded, slightly. “George, we’re in a really bad situation here, so I need you to understand what I’m saying.”
He grimaced and raised his head a little. “Whmy laghwurts . . .”
“Yep, I know your leg hurts, and I’d imagine your jaw doesn’t feel too good right now, either. But I need you to listen to me. You’re hurt, but I’ve got you stabilized. There’s not a lot more I can do until we get you out of here. The problem is, I’ve got another man injured, back on the trail, and I need to go get him.”
“Thehindiyan?”
“You remember him, huh? Do you remember shooting him?” He remained silent and didn’t move. “Well, you did, and now I’ve got to go back and get him.”
His eyes widened a little, and he blinked. “Whtryed tookill me . . .”
“No, he didn’t. It’s Henry Standing Bear, and he came up here with me to try and get you out safely.” I sighed and tried to wrap it up. “George, we’re stuck in a snowstorm, and I’ve got to go back and get Henry before it gets so I can’t find him . . .”
“Whtryed tookill me . . .”
“No, George, he didn’t try and kill you because, if he had tried, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”