Someone was pouring cold water down my throat and I almost choked on it. It ran down my chin onto my t-shirt and drenched me. It felt like blood, yet when I held up my hand expecting to see red, all I saw was water.
I was lying on the ratty couch in Matt’s lap and the rest of them were standing around looking like a scared mob.
“What happened?” Matt and I asked at the same time.
Involuntarily, I said, “jinx.” I was surprised at how sore my throat was when I swallowed.
“You turned white, your neck gaped open and blood began pouring out of it like your jugular had been slashed. You fell over,” the woman said. Her face showed utter shock and there was blood on each of their hands.
“Sorry, Debbiedoo,” I began softly, and she gasped. I knew who she was.
“What? What did you call me?”
“This is going to be hard to believe. Once, I was your son, Todd. You remember a man named Aaron Peters? The school Science teacher at Myers Point High School? He caught me out on the Bow Waterfall trail. Took me up to the old schoolteacher’s cabin and down to the mine.” I swallowed in the terrible memories of that day when I was Todd Danvers. “He raped me for days and when I was almost dead, he cut my throat with a hunting knife. He buried me in that dead-fall under the pines where campers corralled their horses. Turned his loose so that they packed the ground down hard and no one could tell my grave was there. Never even made it that far to look for me.”
“You called me Debbiedoo,” she said in a strangled voice. “Only one person ever called me that.”
“I never learned to say mama because everybody called you Debbie, so I thought Debbie meant mama,” I said gently. “Everyone was always saying, Debbie do this, Debbie do that.”
“My mom and dad were always saying that to me. I was the only one still around when it came time for chores. Tell me, what did I give Todd for his seventh birthday?”
I cocked my head. That was the birthday just a few days before my murder. She had planned a party in Telluride at the spring movie festival. “A 1945 German Pfennig that your dad had brought back from Germany,” I answered calmly. “It’s with my bones, in my blue and silver sneakers.”
She stifled a sob and tried to wrap me in her arms but was pulled back by Pepper. “Aunt Debbie, we don’t have time for this. There are men on the way here to murder these people.”
“What do we need to do?” she asked taking several deep breaths. I could see her entire body change in some subtle, but obvious way. As if the fire inside her had suddenly blazed back to life when it had been merely a puff of smoke.
“Load this gear in the trailer. Take them up to the Cut-off, unload the horses, saddle up, pack what we can, and you drive back to Wagoner’s Ranch. Tell the boys to cut tracks, come back for their SUV and hide it where it won’t be found. Send the word out to keep track of any strangers in the mountains that don’t belong. I’ll drive my jeep up after I get rid of any sign here.”
She nodded and started carrying out the piles of stuff. Food, blankets and camping gear. Matt sent me up to the bedroom to get dressed. I noticed that they had already done that, dressed in layers with coats laid out on the back of the couch. Hats, gloves and winter boots for cold weather already on or waiting to be put on.
Matt came with me. Probably to make sure that I didn’t fall over in another fit. He had me dress in long underwear, lined flannel jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, flannel shirt, down vest and heavy woolen socks. I protested that I would sweat to death if I could even move because I was so stiff. Yet, he made me pull on a set of ski-overalls. Lastly, a down parka that was wind and water resistant, light weight and rated to ̵40°. My gloves were wool mittens that folded back so my fingers could work for dexterity, pretty cool idea. My hat was plain silly but very warm, just like the one Elmer Fudd wore in those cartoons. I left the earflaps up. I wanted a cowboy hat like Pepper wore but they weren’t any good in real cold.
Walking like a stunted fireplug, I stumbled out to the truck, disgruntled when the four of them laughed at me. I buckled in after Matt hoisted me into the back seat and they finished loading. “I can’t move,” I complained. “If I fall over, I need a crane to get back up.”
“Better to be warm and take clothes off than to be cold and have nothing to add on,” he said.
The truck moved as the horses inside shifted. When the last bag went into the tack compartment, everyone climbed in except for Pepper. He slapped the truck fender and told us he would see us at the Cut-off. His Aunt nodded and handed him a small rucksack.
“Spare magazines. Water and energy bars. Space blanket. In case,” she said. He kissed her on the cheek. “You be careful, Pepper.”
“Yes, ma’am. You-all, too.” He watched us drive off.
Debbie drove, turning the big trailer around in less space than I thought possible, leaving very little tracks on the grass and gravel. I asked about Pepper and she said that he was getting rid of his jeep, our sign and that he would wait for someone to get Matt’s SUV and drop it off at the nearest airport in Long-Term parking. If someone did track it down there, it would send any searchers off in the wrong direction.
We rode in silence and I think I was the most nervous of all. Debbie wanted to ask a million questions; I could see it in her eyes, but she restrained herself. She drove the big truck and trailer with the ease of someone who had done it for a long time. Accelerating slowly, cornering gently and not breaking so hard that she threw the horses off balance. Once she hit 160, she turned right instead of left, heading towards Silverton and away from Cortez.
Fifteen miles down the other end of the highway, she turned onto a smaller feeder route which in turn became a series of smaller and narrower routes until the truck was inching along a trail. Huge pines crowded the edges of the lane and I wondered how she was going to turn the rig around on what was clearly a one lane approach. There was no way in hell that a driver could back up that far either, especially hauling such a long trailer.
We came to a short hill that clawed its way up and at the top, the road opened into a meadow. From the packed dirt, campfire rings of rusted metal and general looks of the place, it was easy to see that it was a popular staging ground for campers, hikers and trail riders. There were hitching posts near the tree line yet far enough away so that the horses could not chew the trunks and kill the trees.
She turned in the circle so that the truck’s nose was pointed back towards the entrance. Parked and shut off the engine. It ticked in the cool air. Only then did she twist around and face me, speaking.
“Do you know how to saddle a horse?” she asked. Not the first thing I was expecting out of her mouth.
“I do,” I said. “But, if the saddle weighs more than 30 lbs, I can’t lift it.”
“Pepper will be here soon to help. I suppose you can tie a diamond hitch?”
“A Decker pack saddle if the load’s light, too,” I shrugged. “I’m only 12 and weigh maybe 60 lbs. I can’t lift more than 25 that high, plus I broke my arm not too long ago.”
I looked at my still reddened hands. “Burned them, too.”
“I can lift the heavy stuff,” Jake added. “And Matt can help.”
“If you know anything about horses, you can help. If you don’t stay out of the way. They kick, bite and strike,” she said flatly. She exited the truck. I had to wait until one of them opened the door. Matt rolled his eyes at me.
The horses that jumped out of the front were dark bay Quarter horses with narrow blazes and an assortment of white socks. Well made, they stood at least 15.2h and had quiet temperaments.
The two that came off the rear were also Quarter or maybe mustang. One was a dark buckskin and the other a cool grulla. The mules were the last off; big suckers, dark bay and both had wicked eyes. Their tails were belled with three cuts, I asked what that meant.
One was for a mule that drove, two for drove and pack, three for a mule that was broke to ride, drive and pack. I also learned that the expression ‘shavetail’ for a brand-new recruit came from the cavalry for a new mule that didn’t know anything yet.
As I tied them to the hitch ring on the trailer, the bigger one tried to bite me quick as a snake. “Hey!” I yelled. I cursed him, but it was the sharp punch in the nose that made him sit back in disgruntled respect. I still watched his hooves as I worked around him.
Debbie laughed. “That’s Sonny ‒short for Son of Satan. He’s a bas‒ dog but the best pack and riding mule around for two-hundred miles. So, we put up with his quirks.”
She began to pull out the saddles from the rear tack compartment along with saddle blankets, bridles and leads. Showing me what went on which horse, I helped saddle all four. We bridled them, leaving the halters on underneath with the lead ropes done up in a cavalry knot on their necks. All four horses stood quietly.
She buckled rifle scabbards on all four, loaded them with a .30-06, .30-30 and two .308s. A special horn bag carried extra cases of ammunition. We were loaded for a small war. By the time we were ready to start on the pack mules, Pepper showed up with another truck and trailer. Four more men climbed out, looking straight out of an old Western movie set.
“These are my cousin, my brothers and my father,” he said. “Asus, Bobby, Andy and Jonathon.”
They unloaded three more saddled horses and another pack horse. Jake had to put me on the saddle as I was so stiff with all the layers that I couldn’t get my foot in the stirrup. Debbie had taken them up all the way but because I was still short, they were too long even all the way up. I said that was okay, most of the time I rode without the stirrups anyway.
Half an hour later, we were mounted and moving out on the trail called the Cut-off which climbed from the very start.
Matt and Jake looked uncertain on their horses but not awkward. The memories of Captain Lacey and Mr. Fitzsimmons let them ride safely. Debbie and the older man, which I suspected was her husband, watched us ride off.
“Be careful, Pepper,” they said. He waved over his shoulder. We heard the trucks leave long after we were out of sight.