There was another flash but further away, and the horse seemed to settle again as I leaned a little forward and noticed hoofprints in the dampened earth, coming from the direction where we were headed, the glistening water in the shoe prints looking like semicircles of mercury.

Mercury. I thought about what Dave Baumann had said about the dangerous vapors from Native relics that had been in the hands of museums.

The path stretched to the right in a curve like a woman’s hip, and I figured we’d covered a few miles. Before long we would circle around and reach the archeological site, the narrow portion of the canyon, and finally the turtle reservoir where we had found Danny Lone Elk.

Something was nudging at the periphery of my consciousness like a burr under a saddle blanket, a thought that kept intruding until an image appeared—the burnt remains of blackened sandstone and broken pieces of cottonwood and scrub pine.

Thumbing through the dog-eared Rolodex of my mind, I saw a card flip up, and I could again plainly see the overhang in the choked canyon near the site where Henry had pulled Vic and me to safety.

It was raining, you’re hurt, where do you go?

I turned the Appaloosa into the wind and increasingly heavy rain, and, slapping his rear, sent him down the trail beside a dry creek bed with a bit more purpose and a good amount of speed, the ground not wet enough yet to impede us.

On cue, static raised the hair of both horse and horseman as a bolt struck the ridge above us, and Bambino redoubled his efforts in getting us on down the trail. The thunder echoed off the rolling hills and the cap of dark, dangerous clouds chased the lightning as if we were in a glass specimen dome.

I crouched in even closer and pulled my hat down tight, aware that the race was indeed on. It was raining in earnest, and I knew by experience that the little canyon was going to be filled with fast-running water.

Henry was probably in the vicinity of the dig, but he hadn’t been in the cave and likely wouldn’t remember exactly where it was. I thought I would pull the handheld and call in from the next ridge where the reception would probably be better.

Bambino’s muscles bunched under me and, watching the westward sky and the chain lightning that streaked over the Bighorn Mountains like white, electric veins, we headed for the ridge that ran to my right. Reaching for the handheld, I could imagine the profile we cut against the black diamond skies.

Never Let Go.

I once found my grandfather on one of his horseback jaunts on a tall bluff north of Buffalo Creek. He had been gone longer than usual, and my father had grown worried. The old man was then almost ninety-seven years old but still insisted on traveling the place alone on horseback—the way he said it was meant to be done.

I’d come up on him from behind, had followed his tracks to a spot he must’ve come to over and over, the trail well worn from his passing back and forth. There was a stand of pines along a rock outcropping that faced due north toward the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, and he’d pulled his old horse, Starbuck, a big bay stallion, up there and they stood like a Civil War statue.

It was as if they were waiting on something, or someone.

The eyes of both man and horse were focused on the horizon.

I stayed there for ten minutes, watching them, until the sorrel I was riding that day snorted and they both turned to look. They watched us for a moment and then turned back in ultimate dismissal, their eyes returning to that much anticipated something in the distance—something that was coming, or something that never had.

Maybe it was the light or the angle from which I was viewing him, maybe it was the sun or the ever-present Wyoming wind, but I had seen tears in the old man’s eyes that day.

It was strangely silent as I unhooked the radio from my belt, the clip springing back with the tiniest of metal sounds, like the detonator on a very large bomb. It was at that moment, with my hand behind me and my weight backward and slightly to one side, that I felt the hair on my body pulse with electricity just as a bolt of lightning struck the rocks about seventy feet to my right like an earth-shattering pickax.

12

I was lying on the wet ground with the sound of hoofbeats rapidly diminishing into the darkness.

I sat up and shook my head, hearing a high-pitched whine that eclipsed the thunder and everything else, truth to be told. Scrubbing my hands across my face, I discovered the reins still wrapped in my right hand, so I draped them over my shoulder and looked around for my hat and the radio, discovering both underneath me. Pulling the small device out, I discovered the source of the noise and examined the broken housing and the few wires and partial circuit board that hung out the side. I clicked the thing on, but no lights illuminated and no sound emitted from it except the screech.

“Great.”

I gathered myself. It was slow going, standing, but I did it, feeling a spasm in the small of my back and deep within my horseman’s pride as I pulled my hat back on—all hat and no honor.

Rain pulled like curtains across the landscape, and I figured I’d better get moving. Setting off at a hitch—I favored my right hip, which was probably bruised where I’d landed on the radio—and started toward the dinosaur ridge.

I tried to keep it in front of me, although when I had to cross some lower hills, my objective disappeared. I watched with concern as the dry creek bed at the bottom of the ravine to my left began filling, reminding me again that I had limited time.

Trudging on, I started missing the slicker almost more than the horse, but then, speak of the devil, I spotted something on the trail ahead. I bent and picked up the yellow package, cracked and rumpled but still whole.

I unrolled it and slipped my arms in. Fastening it closed, I was a little more protected from the elements and decided that I would follow the creek bed rather than traverse the hill and dale in my attempts at reaching the ridge. The route would be more circuitous and opportunities to fall into the knee-deep water more plentiful, but where the stream was coming from was where I wanted to inevitably go, and with the lightning continuing to strike the ridges, I felt a little safer at a lower altitude.

The ground began sucking at my boots, but I kept my footing and only once slid toward the water, partially submerging a size 13. When I righted myself, I could see something big ahead on the trail.

“Bambino?”

It didn’t move at first, but then, in the momentary light of another strike, I saw the Appaloosa tense through the thunder and then amble over to me as if all sins were forgiven. I found a crumbling sorghum treat from the pocket of the slicker and held it out to him.

He stretched his neck forward, and I slid a hand up and took hold of his mane. Feeding him the cake to keep him occupied, I examined the bridle and could see that the rings that had held the reins had opened. I pulled them free from my neck, glad that I’d saved them.

The rings proved useless so I threaded the leather strips through the halter portion of the bridle and brought my face close to his, my hat brim dipping forward and releasing a small waterfall that caused him to start. “Let’s try and not have any more epic drama, okay?”

I mounted the horse and started off again, perhaps at not so quick a pace but both of us happy enough to have company in the downpour, my hip still sore but better in the saddle than the muck. I led Bambino around another hill and could see the slope of the dinosaur ridge again and the backside where the small canyon tightened and the water was dropping like a miniature Niagara Falls about a story high, pounding into a pool below, the water thundering through the canyon mimicking the heavens.