Yellowstone Memories (22 page)

“You’re a good fellow,”
he’d said to Justin that day across the table, heaping strawberry jam on his biscuit.

Justin had stumbled away from the reverend’s battered Buick and crawled back into the steaming, glass-strewn wreck of his father’s Model T in a sobbing mess, trying to rev the gas in a vain attempt to flee. To forget. To force open his swollen eyes and pretend the whole thing had never happened. He careened sideways into a storefront and heard the vicious tearing of metal. Crushing weight on his arms, his feet. His consciousness fading like a falling curtain.

Shouts. The scream of a police siren. Brilliant lights and blinding pain …

“Frankie!” Justin cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled again, praying with all his heart that he could find the reverend’s daughter before it was too late.

Something rattled the leaves near the trail, breaking a branch. Justin stiffened and jerked his head up in the gloom, clenching his cold-stiff hands against the bracing gusts.

A noise like a voice and then silence.

And then he heard it over the wind: a crash of twisted underbrush. Snapping twigs and heavy footfalls, and the sound of tearing leaves. Faster, faster.

Justin raised his pine limb and whirled around, ready to beat off a coiled mountain lion or tooth-bared wolf. The shadow came faster than Justin could think—and he swung—almost whacking the daylights out of a shadowy figure.

“Don’t shoot!” came a familiar whiny voice, shrill with terror. Cringing and cowering. Covering his head with skinny arms.

Justin did a double take, nearly dropping the branch. He reached out with one hand, grabbing the guy’s shirt collar in a tight wad and jerking him closer. The last bit of remaining daylight falling, low and dark, on the thin lines of Frankie White’s pale, terrified face.

Frankie’s purple lips shuddered and stammered with cold.

“Frankie Stinkin’ White,” Justin hollered over the wind, rattling him back and forth. “Did you bring them up here? Where are they?”

And Frankie began to nod and bawl, pointing up through the woods.

Justin drew back his other arm in a clenched fist, ready to knock Frankie’s teeth into the nearest clump of cinquefoils.

In the shadowy darkness under the pine branches and stormy sky, Justin caught a faint glint of muted light on Frankie’s face. The terrified whites of his eyes, and tears streaking down his pale cheeks.

Justin’s heart raced, adrenaline pounding, but for some inexplicable reason his fist wavered. His fingers loosened, and he slowly lowered his arm.

He gave Frankie a shove, releasing his collar. “I oughtta pound you to kingdom come!” he shouted over the blustery gusts, his fingers still curled tightly shut. Not entirely sure if he’d decided not to sock Frankie. “You outta your ever-lovin’ mind? What in the name a goodness were you thinkin’?” He surveyed Frankie’s dirty, stained summer shirt and trousers and his flimsy leather loafers. “And dressed like some sorta ballroom dance boy at that?”

Frankie didn’t reply, his skinny shoulders shuddering with sobs.

“Answer me!” Justin grabbed his shoulders and shook him again. “Where are they?”

“I didn’t know it was gonna snow,” Frankie blubbered, wiping his face with dirty fingers. “Honest, I didn’t.”

“Course you didn’t! You ain’t been here long enough to know anything about Wyoming. You’re a city boy!”

Justin’s heart pulsed in an odd sort of pity at Frankie’s dirty, torn shirt and muddy shoes. One pant leg wet from apparently misstepping in a creek or something—and the shoe squished when he moved. The sole had come loose on the other, which had obviously been re-glued several times and patched with cardboard.

“My ma’s gonna kill me.” Justin had to lean closer to make out Frankie’s words through wimpish sniffles. “Lieutenant’s gonna send me home, and we’ll lose the house. We’ll be on the streets.” He doubled over, arms wrapped around himself as he shivered, gasping back sobs. “I know it’s my fault. I’m such a stupidhead. My brothers and sis ain’t gonna have nothin’ to eat, and it’s all my doin’. My brother’s sick, too, and they can’t pay for a doc without my paycheck.”

Frankie moaned, burying his head in his arms. “I thought I could do this job okay, but I ain’t. I’m gonna be back in Ohio again, doin’ nothin’ while my brother dies.”

He sobbed again then abruptly kicked a tree in anger. Making him howl louder.

“Frankie.” Justin grabbed his shoulder, trying to pull him away from the tree as he kicked again wildly and then tried to ram it headfirst. “Get a hold of yourself, for Pete’s sake! Cut it out!”

“I can’t face ‘em!” Frankie’s voice strained with tears. “I’m done for.”

“Lieutenant ain’t gonna send you home.” Justin jerked him still.

“Oh yes he is! He said if I so much as screw up one step on this hike, he’d can my tail first thing in the mornin’. Charlie bailed like I thought he would, and once the rest of us got lost, I didn’t know what to do.”

Frankie tried to head-butt the tree again, letting out a roar of grief, and Justin grabbed him, wrestling him to a halt and slapping his cheeks. “Pull yourself together, fella!” He stuck his face close to Frankie’s. “We’ve gotta get the others, and you’re gonna help me. You know where you left ‘em?”

“Sure. Under a ridge, sorta outta the snow. Although it’s comin’ down so hard in all directions that they might as well be in the North Pole.”

Justin groaned. “What’d ya do, leave ‘em there as bear bait?”

“Mr. Parker fell and hit his head on the rocks, and that other dame slipped on a ridge. I was a fool to bring ‘em up here. I just wanted to show Cynthia …” Frankie’s voice trailed off into another bawl. “So I decided it was better to go and get help than stick around and let us all freeze.”

“Lia’s hurt?” Justin bristled again. “If anything happens to that gal, Frankie, or her friends, I swear I’ll …” He clenched his jaw. “You just better pray like the dickens that everybody’s okay when we find ‘em.”

He shook the snow from his hair and started to pull Frankie toward the trail when he suddenly stopped, glancing up through the woods. “Say, if you were goin’ to get help, then why’d you come this way and not toward the camp?” He pointed. “Camp’s over that way. This trail leads down to the road, and it’s a doggone lot farther away than the camp.” He narrowed his eyes. “Were you runnin’ out on ‘em like that fool Charlie?”

Frankie flinched, blinking faster. “N–naw. I swear. I thought I’d … I’d flag down a car or somethin’.”

“In this storm?” Justin narrowed his eyes. “There are shelters down at the ponds by the road. You knew that, didn’t you? You could dry yourself off and weather out the storm then stick out your thumb and hitchhike back to Ohio. Vanished. Eaten by a mountain lion. Everybody’d think you’re a martyr—a hero.”

Frankie’s eyes darted back and forth away from Justin. “What … what ponds? What are you talkin’ about?” His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.

For a split second Justin felt like throwing Frankie White headfirst down the mountain. His gut churned, not sure what to believe. Justin stood there, hands on his hips, feeling his arms and shoulders clamp tight with anger.

And then he shoved Frankie back toward the mountain trail, nearly knocking him down. “Git on up there, Frankie, and show me where they are before I kick your tail to kingdom come.”

Frankie trotted ahead through the snow-sodden underbrush, sniffling. “I’ll show ya. I swear, I left ‘em in the best place I could. They’re gonna be all right.”

“They’d better be.” Justin started forward like a bull, steam practically snorting from his nostrils.

Then he jerked Frankie to a stop. “And gimme those doggone stupid shoes a yours.”

“What?” Frankie wiped his tear-streaked cheek.

“Your shoes. Give ‘em to me.” Justin bent down and started to unlace his boots.

“You ain’t gonna …” Frankie’s eyes widened, and his breath shuddered. “Naw. I ain’t takin’ ‘em off.”

Justin shook a finger in Frankie’s face, losing patience. “You get those fool things off in ten seconds or I’ll pound you into next week, hear me?” he bellowed. “And quit stallin’ ‘cause we ain’t got no time. And put this on. You’re gonna catch pneumonia out here dressed like this.” He shrugged off his backpack and threw his coat at Frankie. “Put it on. Now. You squeak so much as a word and I’ll deck you flat out. And I ain’t haulin’ your sorry tail down the mountain. So hurry up.”

Frankie hastily grabbed the coat and stuck his arms through, double time, not daring to protest as Justin tugged off his boots and threw them at Frankie.

Justin stuck his feet into Frankie’s own cracked, river-sodden shoes. One broken sole flapping.

When they reached the top of the trail, snow poured down so hard they could barely see. The temperature had dropped, and a thick layer of icy white crust, beaded like glass pellets, coated the pine boughs and rocks.

Justin dug in his bag and pulled out an army surplus flashlight—cold, cylindrical metal—and flipped on the weak beam. His toes had grown numb stuffed into Frankie’s too small, battered shoes, ice leaking through the broken sole. Wind cut through his wool shirt, stinging his arms and shoulders.

They mounted a rocky clearing, the boulders slippery with snow, and struggled through the jagged openings to a wide field. Low clouds boiled overhead in a soupy fog. Justin held on to a group of boulders with one hand and his hat and flashlight with the other arm, trying to keep his balance in the thickening storm—and slowly losing hope that he’d find the others alive.

“We came up here to pick bellflowers and look for the gold.” Frankie sniffled back a runny nose, gusts nearly snatching the words out of his mouth. His lips were ringed with purple, and he shivered even under Justin’s thick coat. “Cynthia’s uncle said the letter might be real, and he thinks Jeremiah Wilde is a relative of some lawyer named Kelly—who swears he saw the gold with his own eyes.”

“A lawyer.” Justin’s eyebrows made an angry line. “You believed a stinkin’ lawyer? I wouldn’t trust one farther than I could throw him.”

“I dunno. It sounded legit.” Frankie sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “But we shouldn’ta come up here like this. I know it now.”

Justin was too tired and cold to respond with an insult, although several raced to the surface of his cold-leaden brain. “Where’d you go from here?”

“Behind the falls.” Frankie pointed a trembling finger. “Mr. Parker got some swell pictures, too, and we were about to head back when the storm started brewing. The rocks got slippery, and …” He swallowed hard, looking like he might cry again. “I left everybody under a ledge and sorta outta the snow. Over this way.”

Frankie hobbled through the snowy meadow, Justin’s heavy winter boots sticking in the white muck. He linked arms with Justin to brace himself against the heavy gusts.

Frankie said something in low tones, his face turned down as if ashamed, but the wind snatched it.

“Huh?” Justin maneuvered around a boulder, trying to keep the snow out of his pant legs and bare ankles. He’d stripped off his wool socks, too, to warm up Frankie’s frozen feet. If he got frostbite, he’d let Frankie work to pay off his medical bills, the stinker.

“I said, ‘How’d ya know about my ma?’ ” Frankie turned to him.

“What?” Justin screwed up his face, wiping sleet from his brow and eyes with the back of his wrist. “You lost your marbles, Frankie? I don’t know the first thing about your ma.”

“No, I mean what you said the other night in the barracks.” His lip trembled. “About somebody back home prayin’ for me.”

A blast of wind hit hard, kicking up a wall of snow, and both boys turned to cover their faces. When Frankie got his breath back, shaking the snow from his hair and finding another solid step through the thick layer of white, he sniffled again. “My ma’s real into all that God stuff, ya know. Says He’s watchin’ out for us, and all this crazy mess about Jesus dyin’ on the cross.”

His words tumbled over themselves, fast as snowflakes. “I don’t believe a word of it. I mean, what’s a good God gotta do with me, first of all, the biggest dunce you ever seen—and second, why’d He let my pa get some kinda crazy disease?” His voice choked with emotion. “I watched him die, Fairbanks. He was a good man. And now my brother’s got the same thing. Docs say it’s some kinda genetic thing, and ain’t no cure. All of us outta work. No jobs, no nothin’. Life is rotten, you know? I say there’s no God up there who’d let all this happen to us, and if there is, I sure don’t want nothin’ to do with Him. My ma’s a fool.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “But how’d you know she was prayin’ for me? Tell me that.”

“You watch your mouth about God.” Justin boiled up, raising his voice over the howl of wind through the rocks. “And your ma, too. Show some respect for once in your life. Maybe your ma’s right, and you’re the one who’s a fool. After all, your own way hasn’t done ya so swell, has it?”

Frankie didn’t answer, pushing his way between some crystallized ferns. His breath smoky in the downpour.

“Has it?” Justin rattled Frankie’s shoulder, softening his voice just a touch.

“I reckon not.” Frankie’s words carried a note of despair, like the barren sky over a whitening field.