Breaking Wild Read online

  He had poured hot coffee into each of the cups and had arranged the food on the table. He pulled out a chair for his wife.

  Farrell had packed the food that morning. He’d gotten the children ready to go to his sister’s as well. He’d told Amy Raye to sleep in, but Amy Raye never was one for sleeping in. Instead, she’d lain in bed listening to the movements of the children in the house, their footsteps going up and down the stairs, the exchanging of words between them and their father. She rose from bed, dressed, went down to join them, wrestled Julia and Trevor in her arms, made faces, even flirted with her husband. He was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, whether for Amy Raye and him, or Julia and Trevor, she didn’t know. She dipped her finger in the peanut butter jar. “Hey,” Farrell said, pushing her away with his shoulder. With a flirtatious spin, she dabbed the peanut butter on his nose, then on the noses of Julia and Trevor, then on her own, challenging each of them to touch their noses with their tongues, when she already knew Trevor was the only one who could. They all laughed at each other’s efforts, and Farrell took Amy Raye in his arms and kissed her nose and licked the peanut butter off her face.

  Only weeks before, Farrell had asked her, “Are you still in love with me?”

  They’d been lying in bed. Amy Raye thought he’d been asleep, the two of them having turned in hours before. Her breath tightened when he’d asked her this, tightened itself deep down in her lungs like a heartache, because for a split second she wondered if he knew, if perhaps he’d known all along.

  “I love you, but I don’t know that I’m in love with you,” Amy Raye said. When too much silence followed, she continued. “Everyone wants love to be this great, life-altering experience, their feelings to be so special, so unique, so dramatic, so beyond anything anyone else has. Is that even possible?”

  She was trying for a moment of truth, and yet even as she spoke the words, she couldn’t tell the difference between truth and what she’d created.

  “You are my love. You are my all,” Farrell said. “It’s simple for me.”

  “Is love really that simple, Farrell? Tell me, Farrell, exactly what you think love is. I’ve been spending lots of thoughts on this, and all the answers make love seem so common, and if love is common, does that make it any less? Love should be common?”

  Farrell was on his side, facing her. “I care for you, Amy. There are different levels to the way one cares for someone. The intensity varies. That’s what makes it more or less common.”

  Amy Raye felt the weight of her back pressed hard against the mattress. “You can’t expect one person to be everything. You can’t expect one person to meet all your needs,” she said.

  Farrell’s body retreated, though he did not leave the bed. “All I want to do is soar with you,” he said. And then he became too quiet.

  Until that night, perhaps Farrell had hoped that whatever the distance was that had prompted his question about her loving him was related to something outside them, like work or the global warming of the atmosphere, or something with the children. Without asking, he could have believed whatever he chose to believe. Without asking, there was hope. Amy Raye wondered if she would have asked the question had she been in his shoes. Yes, she thought. She would have demanded to know.

  And now they were in this cabin, protected from the inclement weather. There was stillness about them despite the sounds of the rain slapping on the metal roof. Amy Raye sat next to her husband and held the mug close to her mouth, letting the steam warm her face. “Sing to me,” she said.

  He laid food on a paper towel in front of her. “What do you want me to sing?”

  She sipped the coffee, then set the cup down and picked up the cracker that Farrell had prepared for her with cheese and meat. As she began to eat, she felt her husband’s knee against hers, a light touch. For some reason, she looked at him, and at that moment, it dawned on her that she had not looked at him, really looked at him, for a long time. Something warmed in her stomach. Was it desire? She set the food down and looked away, but he seemed to know. His hand reached for her leg; his fingers gently pressed upon her. Amy Raye wanted to cry for all that they had lost, for all that she had taken from them, for all they might have been. His other hand reached for her face, touched her chin, stroked her jawline, moved toward the back of her neck, beneath her hair that hung below her hat. His fingers gently massaged her muscles. But she could not look at him, as if she were afraid she might discover just how much she still felt for him, and once again fail the only one she had ever loved.

  His hands pulled away, and Amy Raye wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to tell him she was sorry. She turned to face him, but this time he wasn’t looking at her. Instead his eyes stared straight ahead.

  “Is it too late?” he asked.

  Amy Raye remained silent.

  Farrell scooted out his chair and stood, and as he did he extended his hand to his wife. Hesitantly, she clasped his fingers, let him lead her away from the table and over to the cot. He let go of her hand just long enough to remove his coat and lay it on the mattress. Then he sat on the edge of the small bed, unzipped his wife’s jacket, wrapped his arms around her waist, pressed his head against her abdomen.

  Instinctively, Amy Raye held his head in her hands. She removed his hat, let it drop onto the floor, ran her fingers through his thick, mossy hair, her breathing deepening into a longing for him she had not allowed herself for some time.

  Biting into the fleece of her shirt, Farrell lifted it away and tucked his head against her skin. “I didn’t come to take pictures of the mountains,” he said, the warmth of his breath creating shivers along her flesh. “I came to the mountains to take pictures of you.”

  “People take pictures of those things they may not see again. They take pictures to remember.”

  “I know,” Farrell said. His lips grazed her skin. His hands reached for the waistline of her jeans. Amy Raye did not resist. She let him unfasten her jeans, slide them down her legs.

  Amy Raye removed her jacket, pulled her shirt over her head, stripped down till her entire body was exposed to the cool air and to the eyes of her husband, because she wanted at that moment to make things right, because she wanted to give her husband something for all the things she had taken away. Farrell then removed his clothes, stood before his wife, and Amy Raye became filled with grief and a terrifying confliction. Farrell stepped toward her, reached for her hips.

  PRU

  It was late in the morning, around ten, the ground covered in a fine layer of snow, the sky a deep, smooth blue. I had just finished writing up a ticket for a hunter out of Wyoming who’d failed to retain evidence of gender on the deer carcass he was carrying in the back of his Dodge pickup. His license tag was for a buck, except the head and genitalia were gone. I’d put in a call to the Division of Wildlife to have the carcass withheld, but there were no DOW game wardens in the area, which meant I’d have to haul the animal to town in the back of my Tahoe. It was times like these I wished the government had given me a pickup. The Tahoe was for Kona’s sake. He generally rode in the back with the gear: GPS maps, first-aid kit, extra clothing, spotting scope, rope, come-along, a couple of tarps.

  The hunter smelled of campfire and body odor. His soiled cap read Cowboys do it better.

  “Fine, take the animal.” The tailgate of his truck was down. He grabbed hold of the deer’s legs and, with one hefty pull, yanked the animal out of the bed and onto the ground, staining the dusty layer of snow dark brown. “Go ahead,” he said. He leaned his flat hips against the tailgate and spit a stream of tobacco juice just inches from my black hiking boots. He obviously didn’t think I could lift the animal. He didn’t know I had a come-along.

  I spread the blue tarp over the cargo floor, draped its end over the Tahoe’s bumper, laid out the come-along, and then tied it to the seat belt anchor with nylon rope. I hooked the payout line to the deer’s left bac
k gambrel and began pumping the come-along lever like a jackhammer, slowly hoisting the bloody carcass into my vehicle. The cowboy didn’t budge an inch, though the smirk on his face seemed to loosen its cement grip. He spit a couple more times, slammed the tailgate of his truck shut with both hands, and walked around to the driver’s side.

  “Have a nice day!” I yelled toward him as he drove off, his tires kicking up a spray of mud and snow.

  I was glad the animal had been gutted properly. I unhooked the deer and disassembled the come-along. Kona didn’t like to share his quarters. He trotted over to the passenger door. I grabbed hold of a hunk of his black fur and tugged it playfully. Then I opened the door. “Think you’re going to ride up front with me, huh?” Kona leapt in, pawed a tight circle, and settled down.

  I called the DOW to see if there were any wardens out my way but didn’t have any luck. I’d have to drive the carcass to town. I was about to head back to Rio Mesa when my cell phone rang.

  “Pru, it’s Colm. Where are you?”

  “The middle of Piceance Basin with a headless deer in the back of my Tahoe. Where are you?”

  “Listen, Dean found the vehicle. No hunter, no body, just the truck. How long till you can get out there?”

  “I’ll need to drop the carcass off first.”

  “Call the DOW,” Colm said.

  “I did. There’re no wardens out this way. Most of them are up in the forest. I’m supposed to drop it off at the station.”

  “What about the warden over in Rangely?”

  “That’d be Wally Henderson.” I’d already started the truck and was pulling out. Kona’s neck was stretched over the console, his head tucked in the crook of my arm. “Go ahead and give Wally a call,” I told Colm, knowing I’d lose signal soon. “Have him meet me at the intersection of 64 and 139. Tell him we got another gift for the food bank. Have Dean meet me there, too. I’ll follow Dean out to the vehicle. Maybe Kona can track something. Any snow out there?” I asked.

  “As much as a foot in spots. Mostly fresh.”

  Kona was avalanche certified. Still, fresh accumulation made any search more difficult. “We’ll give it our best shot,” I said.

  Piceance Basin is a rolling expanse of knolls and ravines. I stared out over the thickening snow as my truck climbed a steep knob spotted with sage and juniper.

  I’d already listened to the weather. Twenty- to thirty-mile-per-hour winds, with gusts up to forty. Temperatures were expected to drop to the low teens by nightfall, the clear skies being a sure indicator. Northwestern Colorado was known for its strong winds, currents that swept out the canyons and gulches, twisting and shaping the vegetation.

  “Will you be able to get a helicopter in there?” I asked.

  “One of the reserve guards in Rangely has a chopper ready. As long as the weather holds out.”

  “What about a physical description of the woman?”

  “Around five-six. A hundred and thirty pounds. Blond hair. And let’s hope to God she was wearing orange.”

  I worried about the cold. Hypothermia would have already been a likely factor. And with the reduction in body temperature came erratic behavior. They’d have to find tracks. No telling where the woman might have wandered if she hadn’t been thinking straight. A standard-issue lighter could save a person’s life. It was amazing how few people in this country carried one. But then again maybe the woman had been able to build a fire.

  The connection was breaking up. “I’m losing you,” I said. “I’ll check in with you later.”

  Colm was sheriff of Paisaje County. The town of Rangely, about sixty miles west of Rio Mesa in an expanse of high desert and sage, fell within his jurisdiction. I drove with my windows partway down to keep the carcass cool. The sun and wind burned my cheeks as my hair whipped across my face.

  I removed the glove from my right hand, rubbed my palm over the smooth area above Kona’s brow, his black hair warmed by the sun. Kona and I were a good fit, but it hadn’t always been that way. He was an alpha, and I was determined to be one, so neither of us was eager to let go and give in.

  “Get a dog,” Angie at the movie store had told me just three months after Joseph and I had lost Molly, the border collie I’d had since before Joseph was born. Angie, with her thick German accent, who kept dog treats behind the movie rental store counter.

  “Down the road,” I said. “It’s not the right time.”

  “Me, I always say a dog can get a person through anything. Get a dog,” Angie said again.

  At the time, I was on my third rental. This one was a blue modular about four miles west of town. The small rectangle sat on a parched mesa overlooking a field of sage. In the evenings, I’d listen to the yipping of coyotes, the baying of mule deer, the rattling of snakes. And the next day when I’d walk the property, I’d find the baby rattlers in patches of sand basking in the August sun.

  On a warm evening that past May, I’d taken Molly hiking along the ridge that backed up to the south edge of town. The sky had turned to dusk, and the deer were coming out to feed. So were the coyotes. One of the coyotes jumped into our path and lured Molly on a chase. But as is often the case with coyotes, Molly was being baited and was led to a pack on the other side of the ridge. I’d heard her cries before I could get to her. I’d heard the coyotes. And as I scrambled over the crest of the butte, as I screamed and threw rocks and charged the pack, Molly was already dead.

  Right, get a dog, I had thought, knowing my heart was too vulnerable to risk losing anything else.

  Then Angie called. It was late, ten or eleven. I was in bed, a double mattress on the floor, and was reading through the cooking tips that came with my new Kenmore gas grill. Joseph was sleeping beside me.

  “I got a dog for you,” Angie said.

  “I don’t want a dog,” I told her.

  “He’s black. I’d say he’s about four months old. Looks like a German shepherd. Somebody got rid of him.”

  “What do you mean somebody got rid of him?”

  “You know the Dumpster behind the movie store? He was in a box behind the Dumpster. There were two others with him.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “I got one of them here with me. I don’t think she’s going to make it. The other one, another boy, was already dead. I buried him in my backyard. But this one, he’s strong.”

  “Why would somebody do that?”

  “The box was taped shut. I heard this one crying when I closed up and took the garbage out.”

  And so Joseph and I drove to Angie’s that night.

  “Where are we going?” he’d asked, his voice full of sleep.

  “To get a dog.”

  “I thought you didn’t want a dog.”

  “I never said that. I just said I didn’t want a dog now.”

  “So why are we getting a dog?”

  “Because he needs us.”

  “Okay,” Joseph said. “I like dogs.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Where will he sleep?”

  “With us.”

  “Okay.”

  But Kona didn’t sleep with Joseph and me that night. Kona kept jumping off the mattress and running to the door.

  “I think he needs to go out,” Joseph said.

  “I just let him out.”

  “I think he needs to go again.”

  So I would let Kona out on a short leash, all the while listening for the snakes that had overbred on the mesa, listening for the coyotes that lived in the rocky clefts as close as sixty yards away.

  Finally I put Kona back in a box, because I didn’t have a crate. And Joseph and I listened to him cry and bark and yelp until we pitied him and went to retrieve him, where we found that he had shat all over himself. We bathed him and played with him until the sun rose.

  —

  I
squeezed a hunk of fur around Kona’s neck, patted his head. Wally was pulled over in the dirt just to the east of where the highways intersected. He rolled down his window when he saw me approach.

  “What was it this time?” he asked.

  “No sex, no head.”

  “Tag was for a buck?”

  “Yep. Last day of the season. Guy got desperate.”

  Wally opened his truck door and stepped out. “Go ahead and back up to my tailgate. We’ll slide the animal over.”

  I did as Wally said, leaving only enough space to open my back vertical doors.

  Kona had leapt over the seat and was on all fours, his tail wagging and his head lifted toward Wally, encouraging a pat.

  “Hey, Kona.” Wally grabbed him on both sides of the head, tousling him around. Then Wally and I each took hold of an edge of the tarp and pulled it toward the bed of his truck.

  “Keep the tarp,” I said when we were finished.

  “I got a clean one in the cab. I’ll swap you out,” he said.

  Wally set the folded tarp in the back of my Tahoe. Just as I closed the doors, Dean pulled up. He climbed out of his deputy Cherokee and rubbed a hand down each of his legs, as if trying to adjust the tight fit of his jeans.

  “Any luck yet?” I asked.

  “Nope. Maybe Kona will have a better go of it.”

  Wally said, “I’m going to head out. Nice work, Pru.”

  I waved to him as he drove off. Then I tucked my hands in the pockets of my black parka, my back against the truck. I looked at Dean. He was short and stocky like a middle school linebacker, and wore a cap over his mostly bald head.

  “Any leads?” I asked.

  “Just the vehicle. A couple of miles into East Dry Lake Canyon.”

  I knew the Douglas Creek area well, a coarse arrangement of pipelines, oil and natural gas wells, and a vast expanse of boulders and draws. I’d surveyed maybe thirty sites in that area, rock art and shelters once occupied by the Fremonts, predecessors to the Shoshonean tribes. East Douglas was also one of the wild horse management areas. The herd was nonviable and was in the process of being zeroed out. There just wasn’t enough genetic diversity anymore. The band used to be part of the Hill Creek management area in Utah. The horses would travel across the border back and forth between Utah and Colorado, but with the development of towns and highways, the herd in East Douglas had become isolated. There were only about thirty horses left. In all my time working the area, I’d never seen the horses, and they were becoming more and more difficult to catch and auction off. A bigger concern was the level of inbreeding that was going on with the ones that might be caught.