Mary was quiet until they were in the pickup headed toward Browning. She stared resolutely out her side window as she spoke. “You’re taking Muddy when you go.”
“I have to.”
She nodded once, abruptly. “Yeah. I suppose you do.”
The silence hummed between them for another couple of miles. David stared at the white center line flickering past—zip, zip, zip—marking the distance between being with her and being alone. Mary stared south, toward the mountains that marched off to meet the horizon, no end in sight.
“What about the reward?” she asked.
Yeah. What about it? He hadn’t called the bank again to try to change Byron’s mind, and he hadn’t asked his dad to cosign on a loan. How did he figure on leaving day after tomorrow with Muddy in the trailer?
“I’m having a problem with the reward.”
Mary finally looked at him, poker-faced behind her sunglasses. “What kind of problem?”
“Well, first off, I don’t have that much money sitting around. Neither does anyone else in my family.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, like he could get a handle on the words he needed. “The thing is, if I fight you, I’ll win.”
She flinched, and her mouth trembled for an instant before she pressed it flat. “You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.” He drew in a breath, lining up the rest of what he had to say. “The reward was intended for someone who helped me find Muddy. If you’d seen an old picture, recognized him, and called to say, ‘Hey, we have your horse,’ there would be a check in your hand tomorrow.”
Her chin came up a notch. “You’re splitting hairs.”
“Am I?” He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her a hard stare. “You think you’ve been helpful?”
Her gaze dodged his, going back to the vast spread of prairie that now rolled out to the south, uninterrupted.
David couldn’t let her off the hook. “It’s up to you, Mary. You can force me to miss the next few rodeos, hire a lawyer, and camp on your doorstep until it’s settled. If you think that’s what’s right.”
Because he would. He hadn’t known it for sure until this very moment, but the hard kernel of resistance had been there from the beginning. It had sprouted when Rusty had shared his lawyer’s opinion and grown stronger every moment since, the roots winding deeper into his gut. Not logical. Not even smart. But there it was.
“And what do I tell Kylan?” Mary asked, her voice shaking. “Sorry, kid, you get the short end of the stick. Again. How does your conscience feel about that?”
Like shit.
If she hadn’t been on the verge of tears, he might’ve snapped back at her, but he knew her anger came from guilt, failure, frustration. She was hurting for Kylan, beating herself up for letting him down. She needed to lash out, and he was a big target. Fine. He could take it.
Mary’s phone rang. She had to clear her throat, take a steadying breath before she answered. David heard Starr’s agitated voice on the other end, saw Mary’s expression shift into alarm.
“We were up at East Glacier. There’s no service,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
There was more shrill chattering that made Mary’s face go grim. “Dammit. I should have known… No, it’s not your fault. Take a breath, calm down, and for God’s sake, drive safe. We’ll meet you at the casino in a few minutes.”
She jammed the cell phone back into the cup holder and cursed.
“What happened?” David asked.
“Kylan took off.”
Oh geezus. David’s stomach clenched, remembering what Mary had said about the last time. “How? Where? Can we catch him?”
“I don’t know.” She tilted forward in her seat, pressed her palms to the dashboard as if to make the pickup go faster. “They went to Cut Bank to a movie. The sequel to one of those stupid alien-invasion movies that Kylan loves. He’s been waiting weeks for it to come to town, so I thought maybe it would be good for him to go. Cheer him up, you know? I thought it would be okay—”
Her voice broke, and she had to gather herself before she could go on. “Afterward, they stopped for snacks and ran into one of his other cousins from Lori’s dad’s side. Weasel.” She spat out the word, made it both name and description. “The scuzzbag figured out Kylan had some money and talked him into going to a party.”
“Starr didn’t go with him?”
Mary shook her head. “She hates Weasel, and she doesn’t want any part of that crowd. She tried to talk Kylan out of going. They had a huge fight, and he left with Weasel.” Mary raked trembling hands through her hair, so it was as wild as the fear in her eyes. “Weasel’s crowd is older, and some of them…” She bit her bottom lip when it started to tremble, too. “Kylan’s not safe with them. And if he gets caught drinking, he’ll get suspended and won’t be able to go to nationals.”
So they wouldn’t be calling JoJo. If it had been any other kid, David would’ve said it served him right. But Kylan wasn’t any kid, and intentionally or not, David had had a big part in whatever set him off. “Does Starr know where they went?”
“A tire party somewhere north of town.”
“Tire party?” David echoed.
“Like a bonfire, except they’re too lazy to gather wood so they just burn old tires.”
David grimaced, imagining the stench of burning rubber. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to—”
He ignored her, taking a right into the casino parking lot. “If this crowd is as rough as you say, you shouldn’t go alone.”
And if Kylan didn’t want to come home, Mary wasn’t physically capable of making him. David was. She wanted to argue—he could see it in her eyes—but good sense and concern for Kylan won out. She nodded reluctantly.
As he pulled into a parking spot, Starr leaped out of her battered car and came running, her face puffy with tears. She jerked open Mary’s door. “I called my cousin Janelle. She parties with Weasel sometimes.” Starr gulped, her dark eyes fixed on Mary. “She said they were going to Freezeout Ridge.”
Mary’s face went pasty, and she clenched her hands into white-knuckled fists.
“Janelle said she wasn’t going because the border patrol’s been on a tear,” Starr added. “Bustin’ up any parties they run across and callin’ in the tribal cops.”
“Shit.” Mary squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Then she dragged in a deep breath and opened them again, setting her jaw. “We’ll go get him.”
“Maybe me and him should go,” Starr said with a doubtful glance at David. “I know the way, and that place…”
Mary shook her head. “I’m going.”
“Me too,” Starr said.
“No. You know those guys—”
“Yeah. I’m related to most of ’em.” Starr settled the matter by climbing in the back seat and slamming the door.
Mary hesitated only a beat. Then she nodded at David. As he wheeled around, she said, “Take a left and go to the end of Main Street. Then take another left at the stoplight by the concrete tipi.”
He followed her terse instructions and ended up on Highway 89, heading straight north out of town, past the hospital and signs that said Port of Piegan and Canada. A couple of miles out, Mary said, “Take a right up there.”
The smaller highway angled to the east for a bit before cutting north again, getting narrower with every mile until the pavement ended completely. The gravel road started out broad and well maintained but degenerated into rutted dirt pocked with mudholes. The pickup bounced and rattled, jarring David’s bones and slamming his shoulder against the door as they jolted through yet another washout.
Starr kept up a running monologue from the back seat, cursing Weasel, all of his crowd, and Kylan’s hard head. How he could believe those jerk-ass scumbags were any friends of his? Was he trying to lose his chance to rope at nationals?
“I told him.” She sniffled, the tears starting up again. “I said he’d get suspended if he got caught, but he said it didn’t matter, ’cause if he didn’t have Mutt, he couldn’t rope for shit anyway.” She punctuated the sentence with a glare at David.
“That’s no excuse,” Mary said tightly. “I’ve told Kylan flat out to stay away from Weasel and them.”
“But—”
“No but.” Mary braced one hand on the dashboard as David wrestled the pickup over a set of axle-dragging ruts that didn’t fit his dual rear tires. “He won’t have to worry about having a horse for nationals. I’m not hauling him down there if this is how he acts.”
David’s head bounced off the ceiling hard enough to make him see stars as they lurched over a cattle guard. Would Mary really refuse to take Kylan to nationals? Or was that just bravado, anger easier to handle than fear?
And curse David’s selfish soul, he couldn’t help but think—just for a second—that if Kylan couldn’t go to nationals, taking Muddy away from him would be a whole lot simpler.
“Take that road,” Mary said, pointing to the left.
“What road?” David braked almost to a stop, squinting at what appeared to be a dried-up mud bog.
Tire tracks ran through it to a packed dirt trail on the other side. But since it obviously saw little or no traffic, at least it wasn’t as rutted. The so-called road circled the flank of a long, high ridge, backlit by a sun that had only now dropped low in the western sky.
“Is that Freezeout Ridge?” he asked.
“Yeah.” As Starr leaned forward, peering between the front seats, a column of black smoke billowed ahead. “Those dumb shits. They ain’t even smart enough to wait ’til it’s dark to light their fire. If there’s border patrol anywhere close, we’re screwed.”
The draw narrowed, squeezing the road into a tight S curve. Out in the open, the prairie gleamed with slanted golden sun, but in the dense shadow of the butte, it was twilight.
Mary wrapped her fingers around the door handle. “Stay in the pickup, Starr.”
“I’m not scared—”
“Kylan’s still mad from your fight,” Mary cut in. “If he sees you, it’ll be harder to get him to come with us.”
And David wasn’t absolutely sure they could force him, especially if Weasel and the others decided to interfere. David’s hands bunched in reflex, his body tensing for a possible fight. His last attempt at brawling had been an embarrassment, but he was sober now and a whole lot more motivated.