Randy caught me studying the artifact, resting on a center table with a Plexiglas box over it. “I know, a monster, isn’t it?”

“Where did it come from?”

“Here, at first; then it was acquired by the Canadian Museum of History. The tribe went to war, legally that is, and reacquired a lot of these items. Dad kept a few of them with permission, but now that he’s gone I guess we’ll hand ’em back over to the Culture Commission.”

There were some smaller items surrounding the megalith—rattles and dance sticks, all made with turtle parts, each in its own Plexiglas box. “This stuff must be worth a fortune, Randy.”

“I guess, but it’s the tribe’s now. Dad would’ve wanted it that way.”

Eva carefully lifted up one of the Plexiglas boxes and retrieved a rattle adorned with an intricate painting of a turtle shield, feathers, and strips of horsehair and beads. “This . . . This was one of his favorites. I would come in and find him asleep in his chair with this on his chest.” There was a pause as she handled the piece, her eyes full of tears. “I used to find him in here asleep with it every day.”

She handed it to Vic, who gave it a cursory look and then handed it to me. Running my fingers along the edges of the box-turtle shell, I noticed a smell emanating from the thing, something antiseptic. “What’s that smell?”

Randy stepped into the room from the doorway and took the rattle back and placed it on the stand, re-covering it with the Plexiglas. “They disinfected these things when they were in the museum in Canada.” He half smiled. “I guess if they hadn’t the mites and stuff would have eaten them all up. Smells funny, huh?”

I looked around the room. “Maybe you should ask to keep this one . . . I can’t see how the tribe could be upset by you keeping just one.”

He nodded. “I might, for Eva, as a remembrance of Dad.” He gestured toward the collection. “He kind of had a turtle fixation. Hell, he used to bring the things back and have Eva here cook him up turtle soup on a regular basis.”

Vic made a face. “I thought he held them as sacred?”

“Oh, he did. He’d sit on the front porch and talk to the turtles and apologize for eating them. I’m surprised he didn’t have Eva cooking up pink elephant stew, what with his hallucinations.”

I glanced around, wondering where I’d be if I were a bottle of whiskey. Lucian kept his liquor in a corner cabinet, but I didn’t see anything like that in here; the moss-rock fireplace, however, looked remarkably clean for one that worked. “Is that fireplace operational?”

Eva shook her head. “No.”

Randy stepped up and used a fingernail to pick at the moss growing on the stone. “He had a spray bottle that he filled up with old beer and sprayed on the mold to keep it alive—drove Eva here crazy.”

“Who built it?”

Randy shrugged. “I don’t know, why?”

“It’s a Rumford design, unique in this territory.” From my peripheral vision I could see Vic shaking her head and placing her face in the palm of her hand, but I continued. “Benjamin Thompson, a.k.a. Count Rumford, designed the fireplace that was state-of-the-art in the late eighteenth century.” I leaned in and looked up the flue. “Jefferson had them built in Monticello, and Thoreau said they were one of the modern conveniences most taken for granted.”

Vic’s muffled voice sounded through her fingers. “So?”

I reached a hand up the flue, feeling my way. “The fireplaces were tall and shallow to reflect more heat into the room and had streamlined throats that carried the smoke away, but one of the truly inspired aspects of the design was a shelf that redirected the incoming cold air and then reflected it back up with the heated air from the fire.” Finding what I was looking for, I carefully pulled the almost-full bottle of E. H. Taylor Straight Rye from the flue. “Also makes for a magnificent hiding place, when not in use.”

 • • •

Under the gathering gloom of thunderheads and the overcast sky, we said our good-byes. “Hey, Randy, do you mind if we take a look at the dig where they found Jen on our way out?”

He leaned on a post. “Why?”

“No particular reason; it’s just that with all the excitement the other day, we didn’t get close enough to see anything, and with all the excitement in town now, I’d like to talk about it from a more informed position.”

“Sure.” He pointed a finger at me. “No souvenirs, though.”

“I promise.”

“You better hurry; that storm’s coming in and the washes flood if there’s enough rain, and those roads get like axle grease once they get wet.” He studied the angry skies. “You think you can find it from here?”

We started off the porch. “You can loan us your nephew.”

He laughed as his sister followed us to the edge of the porch, clutching the coffee mugs to her chest with a worried look. “I want to apologize for Taylor. He’s having a really hard time with his grandpa’s death.”

Randy draped his arm over her shoulder. “You better get going.”

Eva continued, “Even to the point where he thinks . . .”

He interrupted, “They don’t need to hear that stuff.”

Vic, never one to shy away from asking a question, didn’t. “What stuff?”

The woman’s head dropped, but we could still hear her voice. “He keeps saying that he sees things.”

“Eva, they’re going to think we’re all crazy.”

She looked up past us where the thick smell of ozone permeated the air. “That he keeps seeing his grandfather standing on the hills out here . . . watching him.”

6

“I am officially creeped out.”

“Why?”

She shook her head and then turned to look at me as if I were the sole member and president of the Absaroka County chapter of stupid. “Umm . . . that kid is having the same visions you are.”

Without thinking, I found myself looking in the rearview mirror to make sure that Taylor wasn’t running along behind us. “It’s a pretty generic vision.”

“Maybe the two of you are tuned into the same channel from strange.” She lodged her boots onto my dash. “I notice you didn’t want to hang around and discuss it with him. You know, compare notes?” I ignored her chatter and watched as she scanned the hills in the available light that made them glow just before the storm. “I want a vision of my own.”

“Well, you go ahead and get yourself one.”

“Is that how it works?”

I tried not to smile as we sped along with the wind gusts buffeting the truck. “I don’t think so.”

She turned in the seat and stared at me. “Well, fuck special you. How come you and the kid get to run around communing with the netherworld while the rest of us mere mortals slog along?”

I humped my shoulders in a shrug. “How should I know how it works?”

“Because you have them like clockwork, like the eleven o’clock news.”

I actually gave it some thought as I slowed for one of the few turns on the road. “Maybe you should talk to Henry.”

“He can give me a vision?”

“I doubt it, but if you’re looking to have one, he might help you find it in yourself.”

She turned further in the seat. “That doesn’t sound hopeful.”

“I think some people are more susceptible.”

Her tone sharpened. “What, I’m not susceptible?”

“You’re pretty rational.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I think you have to be open to . . . I guess, influences.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“No, I mean it’s still bullshit that you get to have visions and I don’t.”