“Neither do I,” I said. “Not unless they’ve got a death wish. Or a huge pain wish, at the very least.”
HAPPILY, NO ONE IN COOKE COUNTY HAD A DEATH wish, nor a Waylon-sized pain wish. Aside from the deputy’s monster truck, I saw no vehicles trailing us back to Jonesport, nor on the twisting drive back to the interstate.
As we turned off River Road and onto the westbound ramp of I-40, I rolled down my window and waved. Behind us, I saw the headlights of the mammoth truck flash once, twice, three times, and the notes of the truck’s aftermarket horn—tooting the opening bars of “Dixie”—came wafting through the twilight, growing fainter as we picked up speed and merged with the stream of cars meandering out of the mountains and flowing, a ceaseless river of humanity, toward the distant confluence of Knoxville.
The drive was quiet. Perhaps Miranda was preoccupied with her own thoughts—possibly thoughts of the young man whose fragmentary skeleton rode behind us in the truck’s cargo bed—or perhaps she was simply giving me room to think my own thoughts. At any rate, we rode in silence.
As we neared the outskirts of the city, I overtook a slow-moving semi. Flicking my turn signal, I checked my outside mirror to be sure the left lane was clear.
It was, but in the mirror, I caught a glimpse of a lighted billboard on the other side of the median. COMFORT INN, it read. AARP. AAA. HBO. ESPN. THIS EXIT & EXIT 407.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as it fell farther and farther behind, shrinking and dwindling until finally it disappeared altogether, and I felt my chest loosen and lighten.
Almost as if something in the air around us had shifted, Miranda now spoke.
“At least Hugh Glass had a fighting chance,” she said sadly.
“Who Glass?”
“No, Hugh Glass,” she said, and I was reminded of the old “Who’s on first?” joke.
“Who’s Hugh, and what are you talking about?”
“Hugh Glass, the mountain man. In The Revenant. You’re kidding, right?” Despite the darkness in the cab, I could tell she was staring at me. “Oscar-winning performance by Leonardo DiCaprio? In a movie that won two other Academy Awards this year, too?”
I shrugged, feeling sheepish. “I don’t see a lot of movies,” I said. “Kinda depressing to go by yourself.”
“Duh,” she said. “Tell me something I don’t know. But you should totally see this one.”
“Because?”
“Well, for one thing, the guy—this mountain man, Glass, played by DiCaprio—he’s torn to pieces by a bear, a big grizzly, and gets buried alive by the guys who are supposed to be taking care of him. So there’s a connection to our case, sort of. For another thing, the movie’s full of Arikara Indians.”
Now she had my full attention. “Arikara? But they’re all gone. Died out, mostly, and assimilated with the Mandans and Hidatsu.”
She made an impatient, clucking sound. “The film’s historical. Set in the 1820s. Along the Missouri River.”
I grinned. “Why didn’t you say so? That’s where all my skeletal remains come from!”
“Duh,” she repeated. “I know. That’s why I mentioned it. But the movie’s set farther north—up in North Dakota or Montana, looks like. Serious mountains.”
I turned off I-40 onto James White Parkway, to loop along the riverfront to Neyland Stadium. Across the Tennessee, streetlights and houselights on the south shore smeared and danced in the black, rippling river. I was puzzling over the plot of the movie Miranda was describing, worrying at it, like a dog with a bone. “What are Plains Indians doing up in the Rocky Mountains?”
“Good grief, Dr. B. Don’t pick it apart before you even see it. So this guy Glass is a guide for a bunch of fur trappers. The trappers get attacked by a band of Arikara Indians. The Indians are looking for an Arikara woman who’s been abducted by a white man. Maybe that’s what brought them to the mountains—the search for the woman. Anyhow, Glass spends a lot of time getting chased by them.”
“I thought you said he got killed by the bear?”
She sighed. “Just see it,” she said. “You’ll love it. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll thank me.” By now we had arrived back at UT. As I turned off Neyland Drive, Miranda said, “Don’t you want to take this stuff out to the facility? Put the bones in to simmer?”
I shook my head. “It’s late. Just do it in the morning, how ’bout?” Glancing over, I saw her shrug and nod.
I pulled in front of her pale green Prius, which was tucked beneath the stadium just outside the bone lab, and switched off the truck’s engine. “So, this mountain man, Glass—is he the one who abducted the Arikara woman?”
“Quit asking annoying questions. I’ve already told you too much.” She paused, then added, “You know what? Forget I mentioned it. Don’t see it. You’d probably hate it.”
Now, of course, wild horses couldn’t keep me from watching it.
As Miranda jolly well knew.
CHAPTER 4