Jimmy had ridden the mesa many times in the rain and lightning. It was one of her favorite things—even though a person on horseback is the highest object above the flat ground and subject to a better-than-average chance of being electrocuted. No matter. She loved—if one were so bold as to identify hers as a feminine attribute—the way the rain released the fragrance of the dry sagebrush and the way it mingled with leather and wet horse. She would miss that. And when there was a nearby hit of lightning, it excited her—the stream of maverick electrons seemingly passing through her navel and tingling all the way to her groin. She would miss that, too. But no use getting sentimental when there was still work to do.
The rain on the Lame Horse Mesa road had turned the finely grained dirt as slick and slippery as the woman’s wrestling match that Jimmy had once attended with a bunch of cowboys in Laramie, Wyoming. Nicker was having a hard time of it as he worked his way up the mile and a half road to the Mallomar house, his hooves clumped with mud. Jimmy rode, slumped forward holding the pommel for dear life. She was feverish and twice had to lean over the saddle to throw up. Up ahead, she could see a halo through the rain.
“Thar it is, Nicker. We’ll show’m who’s the Big Dog around here!” She gave her horse one last gentle nudge in the ribs, but the horse just stood in the road, frozen like a statue. “C’mon, boy,” she urged with another poke of her spurs. “Just a couple more and we can both go back to bed.” But the horse stood still and took uneven shuddering breaths. “Not used to the action anymore, huh?” She clucked, scolding good-naturedly. “Giddyap.” Nicker knelt down on both front legs. “You want me to get off, is that it? Don’t have the gumption for it anymore? Well, that’s some gratitude for ya, after all these years! Lemme walk a mile in the cold rain?” Breathlessly, Jimmy swung her leg over the saddle and jumped off. “All right then, dammit! Why don’t you go the hell home and read the goddamn newspaper?” The horse gave one long sigh and keeled over onto his side. The evening’s excitement had been apparently been too much for the heart of the twenty-six year-old horse.
“Damn you to hell!” Jimmy was screaming over the pouring rain. “Get up!” The horse’s breathing grew faint. Jimmy suddenly became scared and fell to her knees. “Oh, no! You ain’t gonna die on me, are ya? Please don’t!” Jimmy took off her hat, shielding the horse’s face from the rain. She gently caressed his muzzle. “You’re the best damn horse ah ever had. There, ah said it. Satisfied? Now, come on now…Git up!”
The horse’s breath grew even shallower. Jimmy lay down in the mud beside him. “Nicker, ah done a terrible thing! A terrible thing! Ah was allus meant to tell ya…” she began with a lump in her throat. “Yor real name was Ranger.” She waited for a grateful acknowledgement, but Ranger would ride to the sound of Jimmy’s dynamite no more. Jimmy just sat there for a moment in disbelief. Finally, she cleared her throat and struggled to her feet. “Ah ’spect ah’ll be joinin’ ya shortly. Lissen fer ma whistle.” Then Jimmy pulled her hat back down on her head and started slogging up the road—for the first time in her life, on foot.
Up at the reservoir, the water level had risen two feet. The levee would have been safe for another three feet if it hadn’t been infested with muskrats—the result of Mrs. Mallomar’s orders. By one-thirty that morning, the rising water began to pour into the tunnels that they had honeycombed across the width and length of the levee. By two o’clock, a tiny hole, no larger than a fist, had broken through, jeopardizing the levee’s structural integrity. By 2:30, large portions of the levee had collapsed. It was set to go. The muskrats climbed out of the levee and scampered off to save their own skins.
In a cedar chest under the stairs, beneath a pile of antique Pendleton blankets—that he had bragged to everybody that they were better than the new ones that they make—Mallomar had stashed his loaded pistol—the same gun the police would later find after a more thorough search of the demolished house. Mallomar, gun in hand, crept down the stairs. Buster and Dana, the cattle herd between them, waited for him to say something.
“I guess nobody took the cattle out for a walk,” he finally said.
The last fifty yards of road to the front door of the Big Dog Lodge had been steeply graded to allow drainage. If that wasn’t enough of an obstacle, the situation was exacerbated by a new development for Jimmy. Her tank had just run out of oxygen. Incredulous, she ripped the mask from her mouth and gulped for air like a landed catfish. The front door was just there, but she couldn’t get her legs to obey. Lack of oxygen was shutting down her whole system. Soporifically, she stared down at her blue fingers, her numb and useless toes. Red, muddy water was pushing against her shins. Something must have happened to the reservoir up above. Was anything going to go her way tonight? Using every last bit of her strength, she pulled herself up on a boulder to get out of the way of the water. Then she heard a gunshot. There was a horrendous crashing sound, and a wall of mud and rocks came crashing through the house. The roof fell like someone kicking the legs out from under a chair.
From her safe perch on the boulder, Jimmy’s figured out her escape plan and prepared her alibis. Her ranch was a good mile away. Walking was out of the question. Jimmy had no choice but to crawl like the wounded animal she was. Slowly, excruciatingly, she eased herself down from the rock and onto her stomach. She grabbed one tuft of grass at a time, pulling herself along. But now providence stepped in to deal a joker in the form of a cud chewing, wide-eyed steer that had escaped the house before the roof came down. It was following her along—not wanting to be alone after what it had just been through.
“What’re you starin’ at, you stupid sonofabitch?” Jimmy hissed. Then she got an idea. “Come over here, sweetheart,” she said in a kindly voice that even surprised her. The steer played coy for another fifteen feet until it found a clump of cheatgrass to rip out. Jimmy took the opportunity to drag herself over and grip its shit-covered tail. After that massive oxygen-expending effort, she took a moment to rest and pant. Then she reached into her holster for one of the Colts and fired off a single round singeing the steer’s rump. With a terrified bellow, the steer took off on a flight-for-life, dragging Jimmy over the mesa in a random zigzag pattern that ten cartridges later, brought her within ten feet of her front door.