Dead Man’s Fancy Read Free Page A

a whinny.” She tapped at her GPS.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œChecking to see if we’re close enough to the headwall to hear one of the searcher’s horses. We’re,” she waited, “a mile, no, mile and a half from where the trail comes closest. In this timber, I don’t think we’d hear a horse that far away.”
    â€œMaybe it’s that wrangler’s horse. Maybe he saw something that took him off the trail.”
    â€œMaybe. Let’s just sit and listen.”
    But a pall had fallen over the wilderness, and she sat in silence except for the assorted groans coming from the direction of Walt’s silhouette. The minutes ticked by. “What now?” Walt said finally. “I can probably sit the saddle but I don’t know about hobbling out to where it’s open enough to mount up. You could keep going, Marth.”
    She shook her head. “I’d keep pushing if there was something to push toward. No, we’ll check in with IC and then I’ll water the horses down at the creek. They’re ground-tie trained, but if they get wind of the wolves I’m afraid they’ll bolt, so what we’ll do is run a high line between a couple trees and tether them to the line. Then build up a fire, keep it going. If that girl wandered down into the basin, she might spot it and come in.”
    Martha unholstered her radio. The crackling as she turned the volume knob brought a short snort from Petal and she immediately dialed it down to listen, to see if she’d hear the horse she’d thought she’d heard earlier. Horses that want company talk. It was logical that one separated from its rider would neigh, especially if it heard another horse. But the wilderness was silent.
    Jason Kent’s voice was broken but audible. He’d been following the crumb trail from Martha’s GPS on his computer screen. Bad luck about Walt’s foot. He agreed that where they were was as good a place as any to spend the night. Nothing to report on the search except that Harold Little Feather, after following the trail the wrangler had taken, had met up with Bucky Anderson on the headwall. They’d heard the wolves howl, too, but of the woman they’d seen nothing. Nor had they bumped into the wrangler.
    â€œSo now we’re looking for two people could be in trouble. Citizens want to help, but all they do is make my job harder.” He sounded tired. To Martha, Jason always sounded tired. She told him about maybe hearing a horse in the distance. The radio went silent and Martha could picture the incident commander sipping coffee from his paper cup. “All the more reason for you to stay put.” He said he’d put out the word to the searchers and signed off.
    Martha rigged the tarp she’d packed in a saddle bag; it was the time of year when once a week you’d wake up to see the high elevation forests dusted white. An hour later, lying on a rough saddle blanket that smelled of horse with Walt snoring beside her, Martha heard the long, drawn out bugle of an elk. The voice was faint, floating into the basin on the cold sink of night air, and in the light flicker from the fire, she saw Petal cock her ears. But the bugle was not joined by a rival bull, and after a while Petal relaxed her vigilance and Martha felt sleep coming as the fire hissed from the first snowflakes.

CHAPTER TWO
Hard as Bone
    W hen she awoke, it was so light that Martha thought it was dawn. She pulled up her jacket cuff to glance at the luminous hands of her watch. Three a.m. It was just the diffuse light of the moon reflecting off the snow. She unbuttoned the waist of her pants to take the pressure off her bladder. Walt was still snoring, a line of blown snow in the center crease of the hat tilted over his face. The man could sleep through anything. Still, he was, at least marginally, a human being and she would not rather have been alone.
    â€œOh, quit