Cold Wind

39

The rock fell the next day.

It was the season opener for pronghorn antelope in the rest of the hunting areas throughout Twelve Sleep County, and Joe called to Tube and they were out of the house two hours before dawn.

As he rolled down Bighorn Road in the dark, he called dispatch. “This is GF53 heading out.”

“Morning, Joe,” the dispatcher said.

He ate his sack lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple on the same sagebrush knoll he had used weeks before when he discovered Earl Alden’s body. He tore off small pieces of bread crust and fed them to Tube while he looked over vistas of sun-drenched terrain complicated by sharp draws and hidden arroyos. The mountains filled his rearview mirrors.

He could be seen for miles. His presence on the perch, his green Ford Game and Fish pickup, was enough to remind most of the hunters to keep their noses clean and follow regulations.

All the work that had once been going on at the wind farm had ceased. He saw no Rope the Wind employees or vehicles out. The Tinkertoy assemblage of wind turbine parts sat where they had when he first saw them. And the assembled turbines turned slowly in the wind, generating empty power that went nowhere.

He’d spent the morning checking hunters and inspecting their harvest, but he’d done it by rote and felt disconnected to his task the entire time. Joe’s mind was still in the courthouse, if his body wasn’t.

Cars and pickups were scarce on the two-lane blacktop of the state highway leading up to the mountains. He paid no attention to them unless they slowed and left the pavement and turned into the hunting areas.

For some reason, though, he noticed the yellow van towing a trailer on the highway, and swung his spotting scope toward it. It was the same van he’d seen leaving Earl Alden’s funeral. The back of the van was covered with bumper stickers. The van was moving slowly, as if the driver were looking for something. Joe zoomed in on the plates: Montana. Then he focused on the driver.

Bud Longbrake Jr. was at the wheel. His sister, Sally, sat next to him, slumped over. Joe sighed and sat back, assuming the vehicle would continue on. But then it slowed and turned onto the gravel road and under the elk antler arches to the Thunderhead Ranch. Were the siblings out to take a last look at the place they grew up? And why take a trailer?

The van stopped at the gate, and Bud Jr. got out and worked the keypad. It swung open.

He watched the van roll down the distant gravel road until he could confirm that it took the road that led to the former Longbrake ranch. He watched it through his scope until all that was left of its appearance was a long trail of settling dust.

He was wondering how Shamazz knew the keypad combination when Marybeth called on his cell phone.

“Mom called,” she said. “They’re having an acquittal party at the Eagle Mountain Club tonight.”

“An acquittal party?”

“That’s what she called it. She wants to know if we’ll come.”

Joe winced.

She said, “If she asks us about her offer, what are we going to say?”

“You mean, do we want to take over a multi-million-dollar ranch and never have to worry about financial difficulties ever again in our lives?” Joe said.

“When you put it that way. ” Marybeth said, but didn’t finish her sentence. “Did you hear about Bud?”

“No,” he said, expecting the worst.

“He’s in a coma. No one expects him to come out of it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joe said.

“It’s awful. It’s just awful. I suppose I should feel good about all this-not about Bud, of course, but about how the trial went-but I guess I can’t wrap my mind around it yet.”

“Me neither,” Joe said, thinking about Bud Jr. and Sally driving to the ranch with a trailer attached.

When it hit him, he felt something cold and sharp shoot through his stomach and chest. The calls between Missy and Bud. The rifle in her car. Bud’s last-minute revelation and recanting. Missy’s odd behavior from the arrest to the end of the trial. As if.

He said, “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to check something out.”

“So what about tonight?”

“I may not be able to make it. I’ll let you know,” he said, closing the phone.

He tossed the rest of his sandwich out the window, put his pickup in gear, and nosed the vehicle off the knoll in the direction of the wind farm.

Joe parked next to the wind turbine where he’d discovered Earl Alden’s body. He got out and called for Tube to follow him.

His dog was ecstatic to be out of the truck on such a fine clear day. He wasn’t as pleased when Joe looped a chain around his middle and started hoisting him up inside the tower.