CHAPTER 35

In Elko I had a meal in a Basque restaurant, the lamb spilling over the edge of the plate, more food than one person could be expected to eat. The bartender, a young woman, told me that her grandfather had been a Basque sheepherder who had walked the thousand miles with a thousand sheep over the Sierras from Los Angeles. She made me a really good Manhattan, and I slept on the far side of the railroad tracks that bisected Elko, comfortable in the roomy rear of the Range Rover.

The next morning I went south on Highway 229, over what was called the “Secret Pass.” The Ruby Mountains were to my right, rising pale and indistinct in the morning light. I passed through low-lying hills, grasslands, sagebrush, and in the early morning light it was more than beautiful. I stopped midmorning at a point where the road crossed over a small stream. I got out of the Range Rover and stood on the bridge, looking down into the water. I still had the giant’s pistol and I realized that if they caught me with it, it would tie me to his death. Even so, my car was still back at that campground and it wouldn’t take much for them to discover his body. Still, I had my Glock and I didn’t need his pistol. I went back to the car, got the gun out from under the driver’s seat and went back onto the bridge. I threw the gun into the deep water beneath the bridge, got back into the car and drove on. I threw the giant’s wallet out into the sagebrush on a long stretch, and it disappeared.

At noon I ate the rest of last night’s meal, saved in a small cardboard carton. I opened the windows of the Range Rover and lay in the back and slept. When I awoke, it was beginning to get dark. I drove further toward the Secret Pass, and suddenly was stopped by a huge herd of sheep that covered the highway. Dogs ranged at the sides of the herd, nipping at them, and they flowed like a white river across the road. At the rear was a small pickup truck towing a boxy wagon. The driver waved at me, and when he swung onto the road, his arm came out his window, and he waved to me again. At first I thought he was waving me on, but then I realized he was motioning me to follow him.

He pulled off the road, stopped, and climbed out of his truck. He whistled, and the dogs dashed to the front of the herd, slowing the sheep, ranging back and forth until the flock was stopped. The dogs sat at the perimeter, pausing only to get up and nip at a vagrant sheep. The man motioned to me to join him.

“I am Diego,” he said. “These are my sheep, but I suppose you figured that out. Join me for supper, unless you are in a hurry to get to some destination.”

Why not, I thought. I watched while he unhitched the boxy trailer and opened it up. It was a caravan with a bunk inside, shelves filled with cooking utensils and foodstuffs.

“You will have dinner with me,” he said. “It is a welcome thing to have dinner with someone else. All the company I have is four dogs and a thousand sheep. My father and I walked sheep from Hallelujah Junction. Do you know where that is?”

“It’s over on the California border. That’s a long way.”

“Yes, if you are driving to see your grandmother. But to us, it is just one day after another.” He set up a portable stand that held a grill, brought wood from a bin at the side of the wagon and started a fire.

“We will have lamb for our meal,” he said. “I will pick sage to flavor it. It will be just like my father made for me. And no doubt what his father made for him.”

I watched while he tended the fire and when it was going well, he brought out two folding chairs.

“I have some scotch,” I said. “Would you like some?”

“An improvement over the Spanish wine that I have.”

He got out two glasses and I got the bottle of scotch from my duffle bag.

“Where are you going?”

“I have no particular destination.”

“You have a fine machine to travel in,” he said, motioning with his glass at the Range Rover.

“Actually, it’s not mine. I’m simply using it.”

We drank silently and the sun went off the Ruby Mountains, sliding down over the westward ridge, leaving the tops of the Rubies in light and then they were grey, and his face was lit with the glow of the burning coals. He took a package from the trailer, unwrapped it, and rose to strip some sage leaves. He rubbed the sage onto the meat, rubbed some salt and pepper and said, “It cooks slowly, which is best.” He took two large potatoes, cut them in half and doused them with olive oil, laying them on the grill next to the meat. “In the morning,” he said, “I make bread.” He whistled and the dogs assembled out of the darkness.

“The sheep will stay where they are. Sheep are not adventurous animals.” The mewing sound of the sheep echoed in the darkness.

“What is the most pressing thing in your life?” he said. “That is a question I ask everyone.”

Perhaps it was the scotch. Or the isolation. Or the easy-going manner of this old man. For some reason I wanted to tell him what I had done.

“I have killed people,” I said.

There was a silence.

“Were you a soldier?” he asked.

“No. I was not a soldier. But I pulled the trigger to make them die. I planted a bomb. The last one was a huge man who wanted to kill me. But I killed him instead,”

“We have all killed people,” he said. “Sometimes in the old country, sometimes here, perhaps someone who has designs on our sheep. And sometimes it was not known to us that somebody died because of our carelessness. You are not alone in this affair. “We sat in silence, the sound of the sheep punctuating the darkness. I dozed off, woke when he whistled at the dogs. They scattered into the dark. “They will gather the sheep into a tight knot,” he said. “They will stay that way during the night unless something comes at them, perhaps a coyote. The dogs will know about it.”

He lifted the piece of meat, cut off a slice with a knife that he withdrew from a scabbard at his belt. He offered it to me. It was delicious.

“The sheep,” he said, “They do not demand much. If I find a sheep that the others will follow, then it is easy. My dogs are faithful and I do not have very many thoughts during the day.”

He had said nothing else about my admission.

“Are the sheep ever silent?”

“Sometimes. When that happens, the dogs and I are on alert. Something approaches.”

“Sort of like a silent alarm? And then what do you do?”

“I listen. I listen for words that come to me, words that tell me that I am doing what I should do. Words that say, yes, you can tend these creatures and protect them from the vagaries of the world. That is all I require. Sometimes you do the things that are required. You do not seem to be a man I should be afraid of.”

“I have no grudge to settle with you.”

“But you had one with someone.”

“Yes.

“I will not judge you. It is enough that I bring the sheep back to the owner in the fall without too much loss. Some of them die. But death is part of what I do.”

After that we did not speak of what I had admitted. We finished eating; I crawled into the Range Rover and slept. I did not wake and I did not dream.

I slept well and in the morning I watched while he baked bread in a Dutch oven propped next to the rejuvenated fire. We ate the bread with honey from a small jar that he produced and there were bits of the succulent lamb from the evening meal. I asked him if he had a gun.

“No,” he said. “I have the dogs. They are enough.”

I took out the Glock and held it out to him.

“Take this,” I said. “You can do with it what you want, sell it, keep it, use it. Throw it off in the sagebrush. It makes no difference to me. I want nothing else to do with it.”

He contemplated the weapon, and when I placed it in his hand he continued to look at it, detached, as if it were a piece of meat or a slice of bread, something that had no more significance that the biscuits we had for breakfast.

When I left he wished me luck. The sheep had spread out over the hillside.

It was just outside Lamoille that the Nevada highway patrol cruiser came up behind me and turned on his lights. In the rear view mirror I could see the throbbing blue lights and I thought, have I been driving too fast? Did I do something to attract his attention? The voice from his cruiser came from a loudspeaker. “Get out of your vehicle. Keep your hands visible. Turn and face the vehicle and place your arms on top of the vehicle, hands flat on the surface.”’

An officer stepped out from behind the driver’s wheel, leaning over the open door, a pistol in his hand, aimed at my car. I thought briefly of jamming my foot on the accelerator, outrunning him, but I knew, immediately, that it wouldn’t work. I was fucked. Just as the note on my windshield had said.

I opened the door, stepped out and the officer shouted, “Slowly. Hands where I can see them!”

I did as he asked, turned and faced the car and, put my face against the smooth black surface, put my hands up on top of the car, palms down. He approached carefully, a step at a time, and when he was behind me, he told me to bring my hands down behind my back and suddenly I was handcuffed.