Buffalo Jump Blues (16 page)

S
ean saw John Running Boy's eyes slowly come back into focus.

“Did you actually see Gary Hixon? His body?”

John turned his face away.

“You can tell us,” Campbell said. “Whatever you did, or did not do, it is all right. I promise.”

Slowly John nodded. He said that after the brothers had left, he got to his feet to go to the river, but that his leg hurt so bad with the added pressure of going downhill that he side-hilled around instead. He said he had to go upstream anyway to find the ford to cross the river. That's when he heard him. He was moaning, and for a long moment he thought it was the dying of another buffalo.

“Where was that?” Sean wanted to see if John's version of the death scene differed from what Martha had told him.

“He was curled up under a big rock with a tree growing out of it.”

“What did you do?”

John didn't answer.
A part of him is still back under the cliffs,
Sean thought,
still taking the shallow breaths
.

“I'm sorry,” John said. “I was a coward.”

“John, please, we are not judging you.” Campbell's voice was gentle. “Just talk to me as if no one else is here. Was he alive? Could he speak?”

“I tried to talk to him, but I don't know if he heard me. I just held his hand. He kept taking these long breaths. A hundred times I heard him breathe. It was like this.” John drew in a long breath and held it, then slowly let it out. “Each time I thought he would die. Then this
sound came out of him, a sort of rattle from his chest. It went on a long time and then it finally stopped. And then like half a breath came out but it was different. I think he was already dead.”

John looked at Campbell with tears in his eyes. “I saw him die.” He got off the love seat and, kneeling before Campbell, touched the old man's slippered feet.

“I left him. I told myself I would never leave his side, but I was afraid. I am not worthy of forgiveness.”

“You do not need to be forgiven. Please sit back down. You were brave to stay with him when he was alive. It is not sin to leave him when he died, to save yourself.”

Campbell looked at Sean. “Do you have more questions?”

Sean nodded. “Just a couple. John, did Gary have an arrow in his leg?”

“No. Maybe they took it, I don't know. But there was a lot of blood.

“So then you waded across the river.”

“I didn't know how long they'd be up above the cliffs. I felt that I had to get the car and get out of there before they came back down.”

“Where did you go?”

“I drove up the West Fork and turned onto some two-track until I was in the trees. I wanted to go farther away in case they came looking, but I didn't have a lot of gas. So I cut some branches to camouflage the car.”

“Did you really think they would come after you?”

“You weren't there. Levi, he'd sniffle and talk in a baby voice around his brother, but you'd see him sometimes, he'd get this look, locked in, like a cat looking at a bird. Like he was ready to snap.”

“As I'm sure Ida told you, Gary Hixon was killed by an arrowhead. The sheriff says it could have been accidental, but I don't believe that, and I don't think you believe that. Do you think one of the brothers shot him?” Sean was deliberately contradicting what John had intimated earlier.

John shook his head. “I don't know. From what I heard, it sounded like the other guy, that the other guy did it.”

Sean led him further along the track of his memory, confirming. “You're talking about the one you saw at the beginning of the drive, up above with the brothers.”

“I don't know who else it could be,” John said. “But like I told you, there weren't supposed to be any others.”

“So this would be who they called the highway man?”

John shook his head. “All I can tell you is what I heard.”

Sean changed tack.

“Okay, when you were in the Madison Valley, before the jump, who else did you see the brothers with?”

“No one. We went into town once, but all I remember is some girl with pink hair looking at them, like following with her eyes, and Brady said he'd banged her. But he didn't stop to say hello or anything.”

“How about their parents? Did they swing you by the ranch where they were staying?”

“I didn't even know where that was.”

Sean was getting nowhere.

“Okay, one of the brothers said the highway man was a time bomb. What was that about?”

“I think he meant Gary, not the highway man. Gary was sort of out there. He used to live in New Mexico, you know, that town where UFOs are supposed to be.”

“Roswell.”

“That's it. He said he'd written a book about aliens and was going to find a publisher, take a Greyhound to New York City.”

“I don't get how that makes him a time bomb.”

“Well, he talked about how after that, he was going to write a screenplay about the buffalo jump, that he'd sell it to Hollywood and we'd all get rich. Brady started thinking he'd open his mouth about what we were doing. I didn't see how that was a big deal because the plan wasn't to keep it a secret. We were going to be there skinning the buffalo for the TV people, make our case—that was the whole point.
But Brady, he regretted letting him in on it. He wanted to take all the credit. I think it was an ego thing.”

“John, do you really think it was the highway man who killed Gary? Or do you think it was Brady and Levi Karlson?”

John looked down. His voice was all but inaudible. “I think it was them. I think . . .” He paused. Slowly he shook his head, his hair hanging down, hiding his face.

“What, John?” Ida said. Sean saw her squeeze John's hand. “What do you think?”

He took a big breath and let it out. “Everything went to shit,” he said. “I don't know if Gary, if he got hurt first or what happened, but I think they knew if he lived, he would talk, and they just wanted to disappear, make like it never happened. I think they killed him. I think, if they found me, they would have killed me, too.

He raised his head. “I think I'd be dead.”

No one spoke. Outside, Sean could hear birds.

“John,” he said quietly, “would you be willing to come with me to Bridger and tell my friend, Martha Ettinger, what you just told me? You can trust her.”

“No way. They'll know I talked to you.”

“You could be in more trouble if you don't. Once they know they're under suspicion, they know that if anything happens to you—”

“No, you're twisting words. That's your snowman's tongue talking.”

Sean could see the futility of carrying the argument any further. He said, “All right, John. Think back. Did you tell them about Melvin, about being in this house when you were a kid?”

“I mentioned him. They saw the books he gave me. But I didn't say where he lived.”

“Then my advice is stay put. Get word to your mom. No, don't worry about that. I'll have Joseph give her a message when she gets back. But you stay here with Ida. Stay low while I look into this.”

Ida shook her head. “I can't give you money I don't have.”

Sean waved a hand. “I was in a bad place before I met you. I did
something that I was going to see a therapist about. I feel better now because I have a purpose. So you saved me the shrink fee. I should be paying you.”

It sounded good. But he'd have to hit Sam up for some guide days soon, if he wasn't to end up like John Running Boy, with no coins to drop through a torn pocket.

They stood to shake hands—if not John's friend, at least Sean was no longer his enemy—and as the warped boards creaked under their combined weight, the shotgun standing in the corner fell, the hammer tripping when the action hit the floor. The explosion was deafening. They froze, stunned.

“Is everyone all right?” Campbell said. His voice sounded like it was echoing from another room.

Sean and John helped the old man to his feet to survey the damage. There was a hole you could kick a soccer ball through on the side of the house. The charge of BB shot had missed the chair where Sean had been sitting by no more than a foot. He felt a prickling sensation, as if a tiny sweat bee had stung the back of his neck.

“You're bleeding,” Ida said. She told him to turn around and fingered the collar of his shirt, where a stray BB had torn a hole. She showed him the blood on her finger.

Melvin Campbell was hunched over, probing with his cane through the hole in the wall.

“We better board this up before the mice get in,” he said.

—

“Quit squirming.”

Martha Ettinger folded his collar down, tut-tutting over the minor wound. “Who patched you up?” she said.

“Ida Nightingale.”

Martha frowned. “You just drove six hours with duct tape over a piece of rag.”

“It was a lightly worn sock.”

“Uh-huh. This is going to hurt like the dickens.” She yanked as Sean clamped his teeth. “Now you know what a woman feels like getting ready for a date.” She dangled the bloody bandage in his face. “Come on into the bathroom. I'll patch you up, but you need to get dosed with some antibiotics so it doesn't get infected.”

“I have amoxicillin from when Choti got into a porcupine. That'll work, right? I don't have health insurance.”

“Go to Urgent Care in Bridger. I'll reimburse you.”

“Does that mean the county's going to hire me?”

“No. It means you mean enough to me to make me want to make sure you're okay. Promise you'll do it.”

He nodded. “I came this close to being killed, but wasn't. How do you react to something like that?”

“You don't. I was elk hunting once, me and Petal up in the Judith, and I was leading her when a Doug fir fell. No wind, no warning. It felt like an earthquake. I looked back and there's Petal on the one side of the trunk and me on the other. Came down smack dab on the lead rope, couldn't have missed either of us by three feet. It was over so quick that Petal forgot to go crazy. I said, ‘Petal, that was a close one,' and an hour later I got the elk I was tracking.”

“It didn't haunt you?”

“Nope. When I think of that day I remember the hunt.”

“Is that the skull and antlers up in the living room, the six-point?”

“That's the one. Life's strange. You never know how you're going to react to a situation until you're in it.” Martha rubbed at her throat. “Why are we standing around like this is a cocktail party?” She led him into her office, which was part of the living room, passing a piano that Sean had never heard her play and seemed to be there only for the purpose of displaying old pieces of crockery. She switched on track lighting and they glanced up at the elk mount, hats hanging from its brow tines, and then sat down at the polished slice of stump that served as her desktop.

“What are the chances of getting a warrant for arresting Brady and Levi Karlson?” Sean asked.

“Without a signed statement from John Running Boy?” Martha shook her head. “Zero and zero. And what's the charge, wearing wolf skins and yelling at buffalo?”

“What about murder, or at the very least leaving an injured man to die?”

“What your John Running Boy heard was ambiguous. And if I did start poking around, you better believe the old man would get wind and sew up their mouths with a lawyer.”

Sean's nod was grudging. “Martha knows best,” he said under his breath.

“What's that?”

“Nothing. Boot up your computer.”

He read the question on her face.

“Humor me, as you like to say.”

“What do you want to look up?” She pulled her chair over to the desk.

“Highway man. That's what Brady called the man who tipped them off about the buffalo. John mentioned seeing another driver up with the brothers, but he couldn't be sure. I think it was this highway man. I think he could have been the brains of the outfit.”

“You say it like it's two words. It's one—highwayman.”

“I thought he said it as two. And he might have said highway men, so I'm not sure it's the singular.”

“You don't know what a highwayman is? You never heard the song?” She hummed. “‘With gun and pistol at my side'?” Johnny Cash recorded it with Willie Nelson. They called themselves the Highwaymen. It's about an outlaw.”

“Must have been before my time.”

“No. You just don't know music.”

Sean shrugged.

“Sometimes I think you're smart and sometimes I'm just not sure. Me, I know a lot about a lot and a little about a lot more. You know a heck of a lot about maybe six subjects and nothing at all about the rest. You have gaps.”

“I know that a March brown and a gray drake mayfly don't look alike but are actually the same species,
Mccaffertium vicarium
.”

“That and a five-dollar bill will buy you a tater pig at the Sweet Pea Festival.”

“Along with a few good trout. Just look up ‘highway man.'”

“What do you think I've been doing?” She read aloud. “Highwayman. A horseman who robbed travelers at gunpoint. Often depicted wearing a dark coat and light straw hat. Archetypical 1500 to 1800.” She stood up and took a straw cowboy hat off the elk rack, tipped it back on her head, and sat back down. She cocked her thumb and forefinger like a gun. ‘Your baubles or your life.' Ring any bells?”

He shook his head. “Go to some other sites. Do you want any more tea?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Sean got up to make it, and when he came back, Martha was stroking her chin, looking at the screen.

“What do you have?” He leaned over her shoulder.

“It's a video game called
Highwayman and Bandolero
,” she said. “Read the introduction.”