Day 9

[Brain too tired to write more. Must stop.]

They came up over a rise and then they were at the house. Hugo saw the hand flick the curtain again, and made a move to get out.
Bonanza waved him back. “I won’t be a minute.”
Hugo shrugged and opened another beer. He looked at the garden; he could see pumpkins, tomatoes and peppers. The Three Sisters, he thought. No, wait, that’s corn, beans, and squash.
The sun had crested he hills and began to warm the valley. Hugo looked forward to a warm fall day. He tired of the rain quickly.
A door slammed in the house, and then another. As the third door slammed, Bonanza came running out the back door and down the steps. He totally forgot to limp on the way to the truck.
He threw a paper sack on the seat, jumped in, and gunned the engine. He threw gravel as they headed out the driveway.
“What was that all about,” Hugo asked?
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What is in the sack?”
“That’s for later. Just in case,” said Dr. Bonanza.
***
They had planned to meet Mandy and the Duck at Mandy’s house at 10:30. Hugo looked at his watch as they left Bonanza’s drive: 10:32. Well, they would just have to be late. The drive to town took at least ten minutes, and Mandy lived on the other side.
When they found her house, she was sitting on the steps waiting for them. She wore khaki pants, and a loose sweater. On her head she had a wide brimmed rain hat. Her hair hung in one long braid down her back. She had a backpack and a raincoat on the stoop beside her. As they approached, she stood up and waved to them. Hugo looked at his watch again: ten till.
“Sorry we’re late,” Hugo said as they pulled up.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I was just enjoying the morning, listening to the birds.”
“Where’s the Duck?” asked Bonanza.
“He isn’t feeling well. After you two left last night, we went over to McMichael’s and met some friends. We stayed up way too late.”
“In that case, we might as well all take my truck. Hop in.” He grinned an evil grin at Hugo and climbed back in the truck.
Mandy sat in the middles. They had to shift odds and ends that sat on the seat, but they weren’t crowded on the large bench seat. Hugo, however, felt uncomfortable being this close to Mandy again. When he climbed in, he made sure not to touch her leg with his and tried to keep plenty of room between them. He felt childish and petty, berating himself to act his age and not someone twenty years ago with a crush on the most beautiful girl in school.
Bonanza drove them back out to the highway and turned them south, toward the refuge. Hugo thought that they should probably talk to a ranger, hopefully the ranger who first saw the dead deer, and possibly, whoever found the other one as well. The last he had heard Mike McReedy was working down there. He and Mike had gone to school together, though they had grown apart when Mike went away to college when Hugo had stayed in town. Maybe we will have some luck, he thought.
“Why are you two so interested in a dead deer?” asked Mandy as they got up to speed.
“Well…” began Hugo.
“One of my sheep was killed, too,” said Bonanza with a scowl. He reached into the box of beer and offered one to Mandy. She opened it and looked at Bonanza. Waiting for more.
“Did you call anyone? Fish and Game? The sheriff?”
“Those chuckleheads don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground,” said Dr. Bonanza. “Hugo and me figure that we can solve this one. Don’t we Hugo?”
Hugo nodded.
“Why are you here, Hue.”
He gritted his teeth. He didn’t feel that she had the right to call him that anymore. “Dr. Bonanza’s my friend,” he said.
She looked at him skeptically. “It has to be more than that,” she said flatly.
Hugo thought for a moment. Why am I out here? He thought. Somehow, I am connected to it. “I don’t know.” Hugo said lamely. “I just feel like I should be here doing something. I don’t know…”
She sipped her beer, unconvinced. Hugo looked at Bonanza: he had a wide grin on his face. What the hell is he smiling about? He thought. Takes his mind off of his own tension, I guess.
The drove in silence for a few miles. They passed many farms, that turned to ranches, more spread out, then they were on the refuge. Ponds, some still dry, others partially filled with the recent rain, lined the road. Hugo spotted a few coots and some Canada geese that over-wintered in the valley. He also saw mallards and a couple of late migrating pintails.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been down here,” Hugo said wistfully.
Bonanza grunted, not having much time for wistfulness.
“We used to come down all the time in college, remember, Hue?” She touched his arm.
Of course he remembered. They had spent hours and hours exploring the trails, through the marshes, and the caves over by the visitor center. Even in high school…even in junior high, he and his friends came down on the weekends and messed around, pretending to be soldiers or explorers or rock climbers. Hugo and Mandy had picnicked, many times, bringing their schoolwork, lying in the sun in the early fall or the spring. Those had been some of his best days. His most cherished.
“I remember,” he said. He noticed that their knees touched. He drank the last of his beer and as he put the empty behind the seat, he moved his knee away. She looked down and then into Hugo’s eyes. She was sad. Her eyes seemed to say, Don’t be like that, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to be her friend, he wanted to grab her and kiss her and take her home with him and he could forget about the broken dreams and the way that things were supposed to work out and who he was and who he wasn’t. He looked down and muttered, “I’m sorry.” He took out another beer.
Mandy looked out the windshield. “It’s right up here, Dr. Bonanza,” she said. “The next left.”
“I know where it is,” Bonanza muttered as he turned up the gravel road. A sign said, Torture Rock and Skeleton Cave. The road drove straight through some ponds on a canal bank, then as it climbed out to of the flat, it began to twist and turn. A few sparse junipers began to grow along the road, but they were stunted.
The road took them for about a mile and a half, when Bonanza pulled off at a trailhead. They got out, Mandy slinging her backpack. Clouds moved in from the west, blocking out the sun. The air stood still. It was cold.
Hugo looked to the north, toward Bonanza’s place, twelve miles distant, or there abouts. He wondered again about what could be killing these animals, wondering if it was capable of killing a person. Best not to think like that, he thought. I’ll scare myself for no reason.
They started off up the trail. The rabbit brush, and the sage were thick. Trees grew sparsely, mostly near the trail. The air grew steadily colder as they ascended. The ground grew rockier, and they left the trees behind. Hugo always found the weather in the refuge to be a little strange. Here, they were almost a hundred feet below where Bonanza’s house sat, but always it seemed colder: the snow lasted longer. Usually the wind blew, as well. But today there wasn’t even a breeze.