23. Logan
I sat up in a pine tree that was too thin to hold my weight and prayed that I didn’t fall and break my neck before I had a chance to find out how Heidi was doing. Every time she asked for space, I tried to give it to her, only to turn around and crowd her more, so we’d decided that maybe it was time for me to take that trip up to the Midwest while she recovered at Lago Colina. I thought we’d handled it pretty damn well when the doc told her she had a tumor on her spine. I’d even managed to wait until she was out in the backyard with Hope before I vomited from sheer anxiety.
God, I didn’t want to lose her. She, of course, was tough as nails about it and agreed to do whatever was necessary to get rid of it. That ended up including radiation to shrink it, and surgery to remove it.
Eli had turned out not to be such a bad guy, for being so socially stupid with women. He kept Heidi on, working remotely, and explained to the crew that her cancer made it impossible for her to go into the office. As soon as she’d had her surgery, he’d accept her resignation, and we’d never heard from him again. I appreciated what he was doing, but I’d seen Heidi up until well after midnight right before her treatment, catching up on work. He wasn’t in it for the charity, and I’d been happy to see the last of him.
Boyden gave me a bird call from a few hundred feet away, and I shook my thoughts off and brought my camera up to my face. Using the telephoto lens instead of binoculars, I scoped out the clearing ahead of me, trying to find what Boyden had found.
Five men in army fatigues they’d probably purchased from the Smith and Edward surplus store fanned out among the trees and sighted their guns on the mountain lion we’d been tracking. I started hitting the shutter, getting as many pictures with defining features and faces as possible, while I saw the tree Boyden was in shaking near its crown. Shit. What’s the old fool up to? Poachers weren’t just thugs. They were thugs with a lot to hide and a love of killing things. We’d been told when we arrived that it was a problem, but to steer clear. Even taking pictures was dangerous if it was done from too close.
My heart pounded in my chest hard enough to make it impossible to hold the camera steady. I looked toward Boyden’s prior position through my camera and searched for signs of him in the tree, then on the ground. I found him crouched in the tall grass at the edge of the water that separated us from the hunters. The cougar, however, was getting closer to him, stalking along the water’s edge for muskrat, or hunting the strange large man-shape that had come down from the trees. I swore under my breath and checked the poachers’ positions on the opposite shore. They were still in the trees, but Boyden was now right in the line of fire if they took the cougar down from there.
In a split-second decision, I put my camera back in the sack I’d hung from a hook on my hide/platform and jumped out of the tree to the one adjacent, screaming like a banshee and praying no one shot me for scaring them. The cougar bolted, and two shots rang out, and I instantly checked myself for holes or the agonizing pain I would expect from being shot.
Upon finding my body whole and my pants still urine-free, I shot a “thank you” skyward and started yelling for Boyden. I couldn’t see where he’d hidden anymore, and I feared the worst. I clambered down from my tree, ignoring pine needles in my hair and stuck to my face with sap, running to the place where I’d seen him last.
He was face down in the dirt, and I skidded to a stop, afraid of what I’d find. Hesitantly, I reached out and touched his shoulder, and he flinched and rolled over onto his back. I realized he was gripping his arm, and when I pulled his hand away, it was obvious he’d been grazed by a bullet. Pale-faced and wide-eyed, he sat still and quiet while I tore him a bandage from the bottom of my t-shirt and bound it up.
“I’m glad that was just a shallow wound,” I chided him. “What the heck were you doing? Martyring yourself for the animals won’t get poaching stopped; it’ll just get you dead.”
“Maybe I just trusted you to keep me alive and stop those men.”
“Maybe you planned on getting shot and making headlines for being murdered by poachers.”
“I was going for wounded, not murdered,” he countered. “Hey, look, it worked!”
I couldn’t bring myself to participate in his good mood. “I get that what you do comes with risks. But I don’t want to be the one to have to take pictures of you and hike the Staties back in to claim your body.” I didn’t say it aloud, but I also didn’t want to be the one to go to jail for whatever illegal things we were doing, such as trespassing, unlawful surveillance, and I’m sure a myriad of other things I’d never even heard of.
Boyden hissed as his brain finally acknowledged the pain searing through his arm, and I helped him to his feet, glancing around for the hunters. He was able to walk on his own, and together we collected the things from the blind he’d been using. I climbed up and tossed his things down to him, and he bagged it up as best he could one-handed until I made it back to the ground and could help him.
“You know,” I panted as I climbed down from the tree I’d used, “I need to be available to go to Heidi. I can’t be stuck in some godforsaken podunk town because you pissed off poachers and got shot. Especially since around here, the poachers could be the police.”
“I won’t bore you with the number of North American predators that have gone extinct in the last twenty years,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes and hefted my duffel over my shoulder. “I won’t bother to remind you that dead people can’t save shit. And don’t you dare risk my ability to get home again. You want to pull a stunt like that, do it with someone who doesn’t have obligations to meet back home,” I growled at him, then picked up his duffel bag as well.
“I can carry my own gear,” he huffed, but his eyes were on the ground, and he’d lost his swagger, either from pain or from the guilt that he’d asked me to leave Heidi all alone to photograph the wildlife in the foothills of the Killdeer Mountains when she needed me.
“I got amazing footage, Boyden. More than good enough to make people open their purse strings. Not to mention the great shots of the indigenous people. Lucky for me, you were here. I couldn’t have gotten them to speak to me, let alone invite me into their homes and customs.” I shifted the bags on my shoulders and picked up our pace. Even though his wound didn’t seem life threatening, I wanted a more expert opinion and to get him stitched up.
The reservation was just around the hillside from where we’d chosen to camp out, looking for animals like the cougar to make an appearance. In reality, we were on reservation land, which made me curious as to how the elders would feel about the white poachers I’d caught on film.
The trees rustled and swayed as the breeze moved through them, and I glanced around, wary of the danger still present in the woods. The poachers could have stayed to see who they’d shot. If they realized it was the ‘animal-rights dirtbags’ whose vehicles they’d been vandalizing all week, I was afraid they’d go ahead and finish the job.
I saw the truck up ahead and tossed Boyden the keys, so he could start her up while I loaded our gear. Every sound, every moving blade of grass, made me twitch. I couldn’t wait to get back onto reservation land and feel safe again. Boyden seemed to feel the same, and watching him peering into the trees as I secured our bags and checked his wound before he climbed into the cab made me feel less paranoid.
“I swear, Logan, something’s out there,” he muttered as I shut the door on him and ran around the truck to climb in on the driver’s side.
“Yeah, Boyd. Five pissed-off game hunters who were planning to bag our momma cougar. I feel like we should check her den now. What if they already got the kittens?”
He shook his head and glanced in the side view mirror. “If they know where the den is, there’s nothing we can do to stop them, other than talking to my friends on the reservation and telling them where we found the den, and where we found the hunters.” He clenched his fists in his lap and let out a shuddering breath.
Boyden was a ridiculously wealthy man who disliked people, generally. He was rude and sexist and seemed to constantly be putting a valiant effort into becoming the most hated man alive, among his acquaintances and strangers alike. But he loved nature, and wildlife, and was a constant source of immense knowledge on subjects of flora and fauna in the wild. I knew he hadn’t given a second thought to whether he was getting me detained or arrested with his stunt. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, at least short term. Protect the cougar, who we’d named Kira.
“I can do better than tell them where we found the hunters, Boyd. I can show them what they looked like.” I glanced at him sideways as I slowly got the truck moving through the tall grass and uneven ground. He grinned at me and reached over to clap me on the shoulder, grabbing it and shaking me as I tried to navigate our way out of the clearing where we’d parked.
“Good man, Logan. Even if we can’t take those pictures to the local PD in Bismarck, we can take them to Standing Rock.”
I nodded, then cut him off. “Boyd, what’s that up ahead?”
He leaned forward then swore. “It’s a bunch of pissed-off damned poachers, that’s what. Shit, Logan. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and no one knows we’re here.”
“Well, Heidi can track my phone, but I think the best bet is if they see us using it. I don’t care who you call, just do it, quick.” He tugged his old flip phone from the pocket of his shirt and keyed in a number before pressing it to his ear.
I slowed the truck down and drove around them, staring into angry faces as we rolled past. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I’d thought they would run away. It was stupid to assume that men who liked to kill things illegally would suddenly run and hide from a couple of unarmed hippies with cameras.
“God. If George could see us now, he’d be smacking us both up the backs of our heads for coming out here unarmed,” I scoffed, my voice overly loud from relief and adrenaline letdown.
“I’m not going to start carrying to make the Hargraves dislike me less. But I’m sure George would tan us both, no doubt.” He stared out the window, chin in his hand as he thought.
“I don’t think any of my family dislike you,” I assured him.
“Yes, they do. It’s part and parcel for men like me to lose friends because of who I am. But with your folks, it’s because they’re afraid I’ll do something that gets you hurt. Something exactly like I did today.” He rubbed his beard, and it reminded me how much more gray than brown I’d noticed in it lately.
“Don’t go soft just because of my family, Boyd. You know they support you. They’d just rather do it with their wallets than their son,” I quipped.
“They think I’m a communist, and in Texas, you know there’s no bigger insult.”
“No, they think you’re a hippie. It’s slightly less undesirable, and they’re hoping safer than another son going off to a ‘real war,’ right?”
“Right now, we need to get to Standing Rock and get their sheriff your photos. Then,” he checked his watch, “we need to get you back on a plane. You ready to see your girl yet?”
“I was ready to go home the second I fastened my seatbelt on the plane, Boyd.”
He laughed at my sardonic honesty and hugged his hurt arm to him as the ground got even bumpier than it had been. We were in a washout, and the ground was pitted and run through with rocks and gravel and tiny ruts that made driving a truly teeth-chattering experience.
I took it slow to keep from jarring Boyden too hard, but when I glanced over at him, his face had gone paper white, and he listed to the side to rest his head on the window, despite the bumpy terrain causing his head to bounce against the doorframe. I headed toward Standing Rock reservation, but stopped as soon as I saw the now-familiar outline of the sheriff’s old crown Victoria.
I pulled over and waved down Sheriff Song, still looking around me for a sign that we’d been followed. The only silver lining to Boyd’s eccentricities when it came to people was that he had an abiding respect for the indigenous people of the land, and they returned it with hospitality and, from what I could tell, honest appreciation for his work. His good relationship with the people of Standing Rock would’ve been something his shooter wouldn’t have guessed.
As if reading my thoughts, a dark truck with KC lights rolled up slowly over the ridge we’d just come over and stopped in plain sight. I looked around for a signpost that said we were on reservation land, but as the sheriff put her hand up to shield the glare from the sun, the truck engine roared, and it barreled down the hill straight at us. The sheriff dove past the front of the truck toward the ditch, and I slammed my door shut, sliding over and out the passenger side with Boyden, just before they reached the bottom of the hill.
They sideswiped the truck, lifting it up on two wheels for a moment before it fell back onto all four and then they sped down the road and spun around, making a giant dust cloud in the gravel road as they spun around and started back toward us.
Sheriff Song was shouting something into her radio that I couldn’t make out. Boyden grabbed my arm and pulled me down into the deep ditch. I looked back just as the sheriff followed us down the side, all of us clinging to the cattail reeds to keep from sliding out of control. At the bottom, the mud seeped through the mesh of my hiking shoes and flowed into them around my ankles.
The three of us were silent for what seemed like an eternity as the driver revved his engine and spun his wheels, sending gravel down the embankment onto our heads. With imitation Indian war whoops, the men shrieked and the truck roared. With a final cascade of gravel into the ditch, it sped off toward Bismarck, away from us, and the reservation.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, Boyden Grimness, but I thought maybe you’d slowed down a bit in your advancing years,” she quipped as we clambered out and sat on the side of the road, letting the water run out of our shoes.
“I suppose you wouldn’t be averse to me getting stitched up from this gunshot wound, would you, Sheriff?” he replied, patting the now dirty bandage wrapped around his arm.
“No, Boyd, I wouldn’t mind getting you patched up… again. But I hope you know who did this, and that it happened on federal land, because those boys don’t seem too worried about running over a Blackfoot sheriff.”
“Sorry, Sheriff. We caught those poachers on reservation land. And by caught, I mean, I have pictures of all their faces,” I offered, pointing at the truck. “The shooting was accidental, I think. The scare tactic though?”
“That’s just trailer park speak for ‘hello’ around here,” Sheriff Song sighed as we all got to our feet. “Well, let’s get you boys cleaned up and stitched up. No offense, but I hope your work here is done. We need that evidence in court, not a couple of white men getting themselves killed on our land.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a camera and removed the memory stick. “I’ve got everything we need to get the foundation and the reservation an infusion of money, and I’ll give you the pictures I took of the poachers before Evil Knievel here decided to run into the line of fire.”
The sheriff sighed again and shook her head. “Follow me into town, fellas. We’ll get you patched up and on your way. And stop poking the white men with guns, Boyden Grimness. We got enough problems around here without you stirring up trouble.”
Boyden dropped his gaze to the ground, and I cleared my throat. Sheriff Song glared at us until we both muttered our agreement, then chuckled. She motioned us to follow her, and I climbed into the cab of the truck because they’d damaged the driver’s side too badly to open.
“My truck,” Boyd sniffed, patting the dashboard. “Man, I hate those guys.”
I shook my head. We’d made enemies who had shot at my friend, deliberately attacked us, and knew we were staying on the reservation. That meant I couldn’t just walk away and forget about North Dakota like I’d hoped.
“I have to get on that plane, Boyd, but I promise, I’ll be back to help with the cleanup for this.”
Boyd laughed and patted my knee, like an old man. “You go take care of that girl. Nothing will happen to those guys. Nothing ever does. You just tell the story the way you always do, and I’ll buy a new truck… again… and life will carry on. Trust me. I know a thing or two about women. You don’t want to blow this and lose her before you get a ring on her finger.”
“Boyd. You’ve been married three times.”
“And it was never wrong to marry them. It’s keeping a good woman that I’m lousy at, Logan. You don’t have to be me.”
“I can’t ask her to commit to me after six weeks. We hardly know each other. Besides, you were shot. That requires some justice.”
“So? I’ve been in love before, and I’ve been shot before. I can tell you with some expertise to back me, that they’re equally surprising, explosive, and sometimes painful. Go get your girl. Don’t lose her because you think there are rules to this stuff. There ain’t.” He fell silent and stared out the window the rest of the way to the reservation, and I pondered his words.
Heidi had exploded into my life, all right. Her tenderness and generosity had surprised me, and her illness had wounded us both beyond words. But every minute away from her felt like a century of torture, and even with my friend bleeding in the seat next to me, all I could think about was returning to her. Even the tiny, sharp needle of fear that pierced my thoughts was for her. I had lost a love already in my life. Now that I’d found the perfect contradiction of innocence and lust, brilliance and naivety, shyness and generosity, I couldn’t let her be taken from me.
“Boyd, don’t stay too long, hey? I’m gonna need a best man.”
He didn’t answer or even turn back toward me, but grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it while he sniffed and looked out the window. “Let’s get you home to your girl.”