WITH THE BUNDLE of topo maps on the passenger seat of her car and her outdoor gear piled in the hatchback, Cassie swung around the corner of Rachel Mitchell’s street to see a three-quarter-ton pickup—it looked like something out of a World War II museum—with a four-horse stock trailer parked out front.
The juxtaposition of the battered four-wheel drive and peeling trailer in front of Rachel Mitchell’s magnificent brick house, as well as the other million-dollar homes in the subdivision, was striking. It was like seeing a hitching post in front of an Apple Store, she thought.
Bull Mitchell, wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and lace-up outfitter boots, was struggling under the weight of a pack saddle he carried across the lawn from the house toward the trailer. Two piles of horse manure steamed on the clean black asphalt of the street.
It was a crisp and sunny fall morning. The sky was cloudless and the mountains on the southern horizon were so clear that it almost hurt her eyes to look at them.
Because it was dark the night before, Cassie hadn’t realized the big brick home backed up to a pasture. Or that Bull—and possibly Rachel—had horses as well as a barn within walking distance of their back door.
She parked parallel to the street and climbed out. Bull acknowledged her with a curt nod of his head. It was obvious there were animals in the trailer by the way it rocked from side to side.
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
Bull grunted as he hoisted the pack saddle into the bed of the pickup. He was breathing hard, but to Cassie the man appeared twenty years younger than he had the night before. He had a full barrel chest on top of his big belly and he looked stout and strong.
“I’ve loaded up my best three horses,” Bull said. “Gipper, Rummy, and Dickie. Gipper and Rummy to ride and Dickie as our pack horse if we need him. I think I’ll start you up on Gipper. That’s the horse Cody Hoyt rode. There’s no way you’re a worse rider than him.”
Cassie was taken aback. “Gipper?”
Bull winked. “Named after the greatest president of the twentieth century. Rummy’s full name is Rumsfeld and Dickie is named for Dick Cheney. They’re all damn fine horses.”
“This is exactly what Rachel didn’t want to happen.”
Bull grinned before turning back to the open garage for more gear.
“Bull? I thought you were going to take me up there and point the way. That was the deal I had with Rachel.”
Mitchell gathered up saddle pads between his arms and walked toward his truck and trailer. His heavy boots made loud clunks on the pavement.
“Do you want to honor your deal with my nanny,” he said after swinging the pads over the bed wall into the back, “or do you want to find that boy?”
Cassie took a long time to find the right words to respond.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I left her a note. She’ll get over it.”
“I’m not so sure,” Cassie said.
He paused and grinned. It was almost boyish. There was no doubt, Cassie thought, that he was back in his element.
“There’s plenty of room in the back of the truck for your gear. Maybe instead of just standing there you can start loading.”
*
BULL’S PICKUP AND TRAILER rumbled through the outskirts of Bozeman onto Interstate 90 with all of the subtlety of a slow-motion train wreck. The exhaust belched black smoke and the inside of the cab shook as if trembling. Cassie held on to a worn leather strap that hung from above the passenger door. She cranked down her window a few inches for fresh air because the carbon monoxide fumes inside were making her nauseous.
She’d noted the faint hand-painted BULL MITCHELL’S WILDERNESS ADVENTURES logo on the door as she climbed in.
“When is the last time you drove this thing?” she asked. Bull ignored her as he built up speed on the interstate after shifting through all four gears. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw someone work a clutch. Cars and trucks shot past them and Bull kept the vehicle and trailer on the right shoulder of the road as they approached the canyon out of town.
“I said,” Cassie shouted, “when was the last time you drove this thing?”
Bull grinned but didn’t look over. He reached out and patted the metal dashboard and answered a question she hadn’t asked.
“She’s a classic 1948 Dodge Power Wagon, the greatest ranch or mountain vehicle ever made. It’s a three-quarter-ton four-by-four perfected in World War Two. After the war all the rural ex-GIs wanted one here like they’d used over there and pretty soon they were on every ranch in Wyoming and Montana. I bought this baby when I opened my company and I never found a reason to get anything else. The original ninety-four horse, 230 cubic-inch flathead six won’t win any races but it can grind through the snow and mud, over logs, through the brush and willows. It’s as tough as a damn rock. A damn rock! With the big tires and high clearance we could load a ton of cargo on this son of a bitch and still drive around other pickups stuck in a bog.”
She nodded.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“And if we do get stuck—which we might—I’ve got that direct-drive eight-ton winch on the front to pull us through or over anything.”
“Can you hear a single thing I say?”
“We’ll need to gas up in Livingston or Gardiner and fill the two five-gallon cans I brought along, just in case we need them. And we probably better grab some food to take along. I’ve got a couple of bottles of whiskey but I didn’t want to run Rachel out of grub. Plus, she eats all healthy and that’s not the kind of food we need in the wilderness. We want steaks!”
So, she thought, they were going to take the interstate to Bozeman and turn south at Livingston on US-89 to Gardiner.
“You took your hearing aids out, didn’t you?” she asked. “I hope you put them back in at some point.”
Bull looked over at her and frowned. He said, “If you’re talking to me I can’t hear a damn word you’re saying. I took my hearing aids out.”
“Where are they?”
“We’re gonna take a couple of old back roads out of Livingston straight up the mountain,” he said, taking one hand off the steering wheel and waggling it from low to high to indicate the turns on the road. “Those were bad roads twenty years ago so I doubt they’re any better now. But once we get on top we’ll be close to the area where Frank Pergram used to hunt. It’s about two hours from town and in really rough country.