Timber Lake (The Snowy Range Series, #2) (14 page)

“Spot.”

“What?”

“You said to call him Spot.”

Michael snorted as Sonny wheeled his mount and the midget packhorse in a semi-circle and ambled off in the direction indicated. It seemed he might indeed be a bad influence on Dr. Rydell. The longer they were together, the more glimpses of Mister Zero were coming out to play. Just the thought of that had his belly flip-flopping and his cock doing a slow waltz instead of its usual salsa.

He’d taken care not to let Sonny see how sore he was. A stud muffin had standards and he wasn’t about to admit to any vulnerabilities. Not yet, though he sensed, with Sonny, there might come a time when he really
could
let down his guard and be himself. Whoever that might be. It had been a long time since he’d peeled off the armor protecting him from everyone, including himself.

He admitted that he’d been a surly, prickly son-of-a-bitch for so many years it came natural now. The short fuse, the anger management issues, being prone to shooting from the hip—or the rifle—all of that had roots back when he had been a short, fat, and in desperate need of a clue teenager. Pimple-faced, greasy-haired and the pride of nobody, not even his parents, though his mom had tried. He wasn’t laying blame necessarily. God knew, he’d been a hard kid to love.

And now that he was a grown man, not much had changed. That Sonny found him tolerable company was light years ahead of where he usually found himself when it came to the social niceties. His boss put up with him only because he was gone most of the year, hiking or packing into the wilderness and keeping his crimes and misdemeanors under the radar.

Of course, shooting a guy in a campground populated with open-mouthed tourists and sports-enthusiasts had more or less outed him to the public. It was no wonder the suits had flipped out.

Michael mumbled, “Okay, time to lose the psychobabble. We’ve got places to go, things to see, research to conduct. And some well-deserved tent time at the end of the day.” Red’s ears twitched in agreement.

The forest was dense but not like eastern woodlands with undergrowth so thick you’d need a machete or a bulldozer to make your way through. While this particular section had a heavy concentration of spruce, the dominant species was lodgepole pine, spaced wide apart. That made it feasible to wend your way through and around the stands of trees, if you weren’t too set on straight line travel.

The snowmobile trail passed just to the north of Timber Lake. He was banking on being able to spy the lake at elevation, then work their way down to it. What he’d find when they got there was anybody’s guess. The lake wasn’t on their current stocking list for brook trout so whatever was there was likely pretty puny pickings.

Just as he reached back to reposition his canteen, he saw the mule trotting toward him. Before he could register
what’s wrong with this picture
, the beast came to a halt and ducked his head to graze. Michael noted he was missing a rider. And his bridle.

Alarmed, he stood in his stirrups, about to shout Sonny’s name when the man came limping through the high needle and thread grass interspersed with sagebrush, dragging the mare and her burden behind him. Even from a distance, Michael could see Sonny’s mouth moving. He didn’t need to hear the words to get their meaning.

When Sonny got close enough, Michael called out, “You lose something?”

“Don’t start.” He held up the bridle. “Found your damn trail, Warden.”

“You want to explain what happened?”

Sonny ignored him in favor of slipping the bridle back on the mule and securing the throatlatch with both a clip and a plastic cable tie.

“Not a good idea, Tex.”

“Fuck, now what?”

Michael fished his folding knife out of his jacket pocket, then undid a latigo string from his saddle, handing both down to Sonny. “I’m not jerking your chain, Tex. You need shit to break out here. That plastic bridle’s never gonna do that. Secure the throatlatch with this leather piece. It’ll give your boy a fighting chance if he gets himself in a bad situation.”

Sighing, Sonny accepted the tools and set about fixing his mistake. Once he had the mule’s bridle on and adjusted for fit, he said, “Found the trail. It’s hard to see. I tried going down it for a ways to make sure it was what we thought instead of just a dead end.”

“Take it Spot didn’t agree?”

“Don’t know about that so much. What he did was rub his head on a tree and pulled the bridle right off. Apparently I didn’t do the snap up quite right. He bolted, me and Peanut here didn’t.” Sonny mounted and grimaced. “Ass two, cock zero.”

Michael raised his eyebrows but swallowed the obvious comeback. When a man was genuinely hurting, physically and ego-wise, sometimes it didn’t do to make it a big deal or to push a man to his limits, even if you were joking.

If he should have learned anything growing up, it was that jokes weren’t always funny. More often than not they cut deep, designed to hurt whether it was deliberate or not. While others laughed, the victim often didn’t.

The one thing he didn’t like about himself was he’d picked up that habit and made it his own. If he had the sense God gave geese, he’d have figured out by now that turnabout
wasn’t
fair play. Not fair at all.

Michael thought,
I’m learning, Dr. Rydell. Give me ten years and I might get there.

Sonny pointed uphill where the grassy lane detoured from the relatively easy going they’d enjoyed for nearly three hours. “What goes up must come down. I’m not fancying having the guys slide downhill on their butts, fully loaded. Think we should make the turn here?”

Michael grunted agreement. He pulled the map out and refolded it so only the section they needed was displayed. “Lake’s not much more than a spot on here. Scales too large for any useful local detail.” With one inch equaling two thousand feet, a typical topo map packed a lot of information into a very small space. What it didn’t tell you was the best way to descend a ridge on horseback. That came by trial and error, and they’d already had more than their fair share of errors on this trip.

Sonny crouched and leaned over the map, giving it the same assessment as Michael. “Not that I’m keen on volunteering, but Spot’s probably the best judge of what’s doable and what isn’t. If we let him lead, he’ll find the best way down.” He shrugged. “It’s a theory.”

“You trust him enough?”

“Most times no, but today... looking down that ravine? Yeah, my money’s on him getting us there in one piece.”

Michael quickly dismounted and said, “Let me have your mare. I’m going to tie her to the mustang so I can hang on to both of them while you and the mule scout ahead.”

Sonny objected, “It’s no trouble, I can handle her.”

“I know you can, but what you can’t handle is the mule deciding he needs to do something else at the drop of a hat and pulls a u-ey. He does that and you get tangled up in lines? Ain’t gonna be pretty, Tex.”

When Michael finished securing the pack horses, he checked the mule’s breeching and tightened it another hole. Remounting, he directed Sonny to head southeast.

“How do you know the lake’s in that direction?”

Since Michael’s guess he’d be able to see the lake from the ridge hadn’t panned out, he’d had to rely on his other senses. Tapping his nose, he said, “I smell water.”

“You do not.” Sonny sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “All I smell is me.”

“All the more reason to get your ass in gear.” Michael chuckled. “No pun intended.” He tucked the map away and gathered the reins. “I’m hoping what I heard about the lake is true. If so, you’re gonna have a very pleasant surprise waiting for you.”

“If it’s a mermaid with a cold beer, I’m in.” Sonny nudged the mule’s flanks with his heels and took the slope at an angle.

Michael called after him, “That’s merman, dude. And if you want in, in you’ll get.” Sometimes teasing was just teasing. And sometimes it came with a side of innuendo and a promise of things to come.

****

S
onny waited for Michael and the pack horses to negotiate the last of the steep incline onto a relatively flat section. At some point Michael had untied the horses, allowing them freedom to proceed at their own pace. His mare, Peanut, handled herself well, despite the bulky panniers and the saddle pack with his weather and other instruments. They were all three of them strung out in a line, converging on his position.

As Michael pulled alongside, Sonny said, “You were right, I can smell the water now.” And what he smelled didn’t make sense.

“We’ve come in on the downstream side.” Michael pointed to a gap in the trees. “If we follow the creek to its source, I’m betting that’s Timber Lake.”

As if on cue, the mule headed in the direction indicated, confirming once more the jerk understood English just fine, and that he really did like Michael best. And that was too damn bad. He’d found his warden first, and he planned on keeping him around. Sharing wasn’t his strong suit.

Sonny asked, “Why’s it called Timber Lake?” It wasn’t a stupid question. All the features got named one way or another, be it with map co-ordinates, a numbering system or descriptive terms that had appealed for whatever reason to the person in charge of such things.

Michael explained, “There’s a number of tie hack camps scattered all through the Snowys. West of here is the Brush Creek location on the Saratoga side. It’s positioned on a stream with easy access to where they cut trees for railroad ties. Last time I saw it there were four, maybe five, log cabins standing, though the roofs were gone.”

“You mean there’s a camp like that near here?”

“Used to be. The lake’s actually a fair distance from the tie camp, but the loggers explored the region pretty thoroughly, searching out the best stands of timber suitable for ties. Whoever found the lake named it. Been a long time since anyone’s used those camps. Most of them had access to roads. Where we are, it’s not nearly that developed. There’s a track that skirts Rock Mountain and dumps into the Arlington area. I don’t know enough of the history to give you any more particulars.”

“Might be worth looking up when we get back.”

Michael grinned. Seamus Rydell was definitely a researcher at heart.

They emerged onto a flat pan of alpine meadow and marshlands with a fair-sized creek meandering through the grasses and a carpet of alpine forget-me-not. Michael pointed out a section of marsh marigold in the wetter areas. In all directions, the ridges loomed around them, soaring a thousand feet or more.

Sonny grumbled, “Smells like sulfur.”

Michael sniffed appreciatively. “Promised you a surprise.”

“Get out of town. Are you telling me there’s a hot spring?”

Grinning, Michael said, “Apparently the rumors were true. Come on, Tex, let’s find us a spot to pitch our tent. I have a powerful urge to get naked.”

“Is it safe?”

“We’ll find out. You got sensors, right?”

“I don’t think I’m going to need them.” Michael stared at Sonny curiously, his eyebrows shooting toward his widow’s peak. Urging the mule forward, Sonny said, “I already got lift-off.”

Michael stared at his lover’s retreating back, muttering, “Well, dayyum.”

Base Camp

––––––––

R
ed was still blowing hard from his descent down the ravine so Michael dismounted and loosened the girth enough to give his big guy a respite. The air had turned moist and warm as the steam from the lake’s surface rose in a dense fog.

Sonny hopped off his mule, remarking, “That’s a good idea. I need a break anyway.” Lips puckered with curiosity, he surveyed the area. “The lake is bigger than I thought.”

Michael came even with Sonny and tapped his elbow, directing his attention toward the curve of the shoreline. “See that bend up ahead?” Sonny nodded. “It’s clear of mist on the south side.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Dunno. Let’s find out.” Leading the way, Michael guided his horses onto higher ground, following the contours of the lake. He chuckled and motioned Sonny to join him. “I see why it’s clear. We got us a beaver dam across the narrows there.”

“Whoa. He’s been busy.” Sonny had seen a few dams in his day, mostly in Jersey and Pennsylvania, but nothing to compare with the size and scope of the engineering involved to close off a substantial portion of the valley floor. The flooded area ran back to a feeder stream emerging from a thick stand of lodgepole pine. Water from snowmelt had swelled the dammed portion of the lake to where the spillway resembled a miniature Niagara Falls.

Michael nodded in the direction of an outcrop of rock that appeared flat and large enough to pitch their tent and stack their belongings on a dry surface. He said, “That’s high enough off the valley floor we won’t get flooded out in case it decides to go biblical on our asses again.”

“How are we going to secure the tent?” Sonny wasn’t interested in spending another night like the one when the snowstorm had hit out of nowhere.

“I’ve got pitons.”

Sonny muttered, “Of course you do.”

“I heard that.” Michael tossed Sonny the reins. “Watch them. I’ll go check it out.” A few minutes later he returned. “This is a good spot. I think I can pound enough anchors into the chinks to hold the tent. We’ve got potable water and forage. And there’s plenty of deadfall so we can make a fire.”

“What about the horses?” Spot-the-mule did a head butt into Sonny’s shoulder. “Sorry, what about the horses
and
the mule? Where are we going to set up a high tie?”

Michael scratched at his thick chin whiskers, considering the question before replying. “You said the mule’s worn hobbles, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Fish around in your panniers, left side. I threw in a couple sets just in case.”

“Thought you said your horses don’t do so hot with them.”

“They don’t, but if yours are okay, then we can turn them loose to graze during the day. Nobody’s going anywhere with this much grass to be had. And they certainly aren’t leaving unless Spot says so.”

Sonny snorted. “Spot told you that, did he?”

“You don’t give the fella enough credit, Dr. Rydell. When mules know their job, they’re about as reliable as anything.”