She left Pederson and Bull inside to talk logistics and order another round.
Outside on the sidewalk she turned toward the south. The mountains could be made out only because they blocked out the night sky and stars. It was twenty degrees colder than when they’d crossed the alley to enter the diner.
“Maybe tomorrow, Kyle,” she whispered. “Stay strong, little man.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
EARLIER THAT EVENING and fifty-four miles away, as they approached the small National Park Service building at the north entrance in the Ford pickup, Ron said to Kyle, “We’re just a dad and his son visiting Yellowstone National Park. Can you do that, Kyle?”
“Yeah.”
He was starting to understand the boy’s odd speech pattern.
It was five-thirty in the evening. Tiffany’s body, which had been rolled up in the blue plastic tarp, was on the floorboards in back. It was covered by two dark blankets as well.
Ron thought: I’m still the Lizard King.
*
HE’D LEFT AMANDA with her arms and ankles duct-taped to a chair facing a corner in the cabin. She’d been bawling her eyes out even after he’d smacked her and told her to stop it, so he’d double-taped her mouth shut. Before they left he made the conscious decision not to feed the dying fire in the woodstove.
She’d spend hours sitting in that corner in the dark, feeling it get colder inside the cabin because of the open window, really thinking about the stupid thing she’d tried to do.
Thinking about how she got Tiffany killed.
*
HE’D MADE THREE STOPS in Gardiner on their way into the park. Gardiner was hard on the border of the park itself. The Roosevelt arch proclaiming FOR THE BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT OF THE PEOPLE was within sight of town.
The first stop was on a side street in an unincorporated subdivision that led to a transient trailer park filled with camper trailers and single-wides. He’d explained to Kyle that the camp was used primarily by seasonal concession workers who couldn’t find housing inside the park during the summer months. Because the season was over, many of the lots had been freshly abandoned.
The transients had left black plastic bags of garbage and things they didn’t want to take with them, as well as a few vehicles that no longer ran.
Ron pulled up behind a battered 1982 Dodge pickup mounted on blocks and swapped out the North Dakota plates on the Ford for the Montana plates on the Dodge.
The second stop was at the hardware store and he asked Kyle to come inside with him.
He’d said to Kyle, “Remember: You’re a kid spending time with your dad. Stick close and keep your mouth shut even though that doesn’t seem to be a big issue with you. Oh, and pull your hood up. I don’t want anyone seeing that collar.”
Kyle did as he was told.
The boy followed him inside and kept his head down as Ron bought an aluminum-framed window to replace the broken one back at the cabin.
At the third stop, the Gardiner Market on Scott Street, Kyle played his part extremely well, Ron thought. The boy shadowed him as he pushed his cart down the narrow aisles and acted as bored and sullen as any other teenager. When asked if he wanted thick-cut bacon or regular bacon, Kyle had shrugged.
Ron wasn’t worried about standing out in this small town. It was a tourist town, after all. Only in the deep winter did residents notice strangers.
Kyle’s only transgression was when he mishandled a jar of olives and dropped it on the floor where it broke. The boy’s face turned bright red as he bent to gather up the shards of glass. The odor from the spill was strong and Kyle was so upset by what he’d done he accidentally kicked a few dozen individual olives across the floor trying to gather them up.
“Just leave it,” Ron said. “They’ll clean it up.”
I’m sorry, Kyle said. Nime sore-ee.
“Forget it, son.”
Then Ron realized Kyle had sliced his finger open from the glass. It was bleeding small droplets into the olive juice on the floor.
“Christ,” Ron said. “Now you’ve cut yourself.”
Kyle clasped his cut finger with his other hand. It’s okay.
“No—go clean it up. The bathroom is in the back.”
Ron had glared at him to show his displeasure but he followed Kyle to the back of the store where the restrooms were. He waited just outside the door with his cart until he heard the flush inside, then he rapped with his knuckles to indicate that Kyle hurry.
The boy came out looking sheepish. He’d wrapped a wad of toilet paper around his finger.
Ron had leaned inside the bathroom to make sure Kyle hadn’t left anything. He hadn’t.
Ron bought a box of Band-Aids. In the truck he said, “Let me see that finger.”
Kyle held it out. The cut was long but not deep—a bleeder but not bad enough to require stitches. Ron fastened two strips around it. Kyle watched him carefully as he did it, and the moment seemed to bring them closer together, Ron thought.
They continued through town on the way to the north entrance. They met only three vehicles coming out, all three with out-of-state plates. In the height of summer, Ron knew, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper in the evening.
*
THEY CRUISED THROUGH the Ranger Station without stopping.
Ron saw the puzzled look on Kyle’s face and explained.
“These are federal employees who work at the entry stations here. They start slacking off in the fall when very few people come into the park this late in the evening. It’s the same way early in the morning, believe me.”
Kyle nodded slightly.
“You know what I used to say? I used to say that as long as I entered the park before eight or after five, America’s first national park belonged to the Lizard King. What do you think about that?”
“I don’t know.” Ah non’t no.
“You’ve never been to Yellowstone before, have you?”
“No.” Nuh.
“I figured that. Well open your eyes and look around. It’s quite a place.”
Kyle nodded dutifully.
“How’s your finger?”
The boy held his hand up. The Band-Aid was stained with blood but his cut was no longer bleeding.
*
BEFORE RON NEARED the Gardiner River and the narrow switchbacks that would take them up through the canyon and on to Mammoth Hot Springs, he said, “Tiffany didn’t realize how good she had it. That’s the trouble with most of them. You feed ’em, you give them clothes and a warm place to sleep and they turn on you anyway. It’s something you need to learn, Kyle: Whether it’s women in general or your own family—they’ll always turn on you because you’re different. Always.”
Kyle looked away.
He was a hard kid to figure out, Ron thought. He kept his own counsel. But he might be coming around.
If only, Ron thought, he’d had a guy like him around at Kyle’s age.
He’d have conquered the fucking world.