City of Rocks by Michael Zimmer

Author:Michael Zimmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2020-03-10T16:26:50+00:00

Joseph Roper Interview

Session Six

You know, even today, I don’t know the name of the mountain range where I found Lucy and took Ian McCandles into custody. I don’t know if it was in Idaho or Nevada or Utah, but it was in that general area. I’m not saying I was lost, because I wasn’t. Not in that hopeless, don’t-know-which-way-to-turn kind of way, but it was an unknown country to me, and I was leading mostly on instinct.

We kept moving south all that first day. Not pushing it, mind you, for the horses were already half worn- out after the long ride from Coalville, but we weren’t taking time to admire the scenery, either.

It’s a wonder my head didn’t come unscrewed from the way I kept swiveling it around to keep an eye on my prisoner—I wasn’t sure yet where Della fell in the equation. I kept expecting more trouble from McCandles, but he behaved himself the whole day long.

Oh, I didn’t trust that bird, not one little bit, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, either. We were making pretty good time for such a torturous country, and I savored the uneventfulness of the passing hours as I would a good meal or a full night’s sleep.

Just keep moving, I repeated to myself about a dozen times that day.

Toward dusk, we came to a shallow rill and stopped to water our horses. Because the grass was still green on both sides of the brook, I decided to camp there for the night.

Getting Ian and Della off the palomino wasn’t nearly as cumbersome as it had been to get them on. I untied Della first and hauled her from the saddle’s rear skirt. She just about toppled to the ground when I let go of her, she was so stove-up from riding all day. With McCandles, I uncinched the saddle and pulled it off, rider and all. I tried to catch him to break the fall, but he ended up smacking the ground hard enough to jar loose a couple of colorful epithets. I walked away leaving him there on his side, straddling his saddle.

I won’t mention that I handed my guns to Lucy every time I got within striking distance of McCandles. You’re going to have to take my word for that. I will say this: when it came to handling risky characters, I was learning.

There were stunted junipers in every direction, and I sent Della out with Lucy to collect a couple of armfuls of dead stuff. I didn’t intend to keep a fire burning all night, because I wasn’t totally convinced we weren’t being followed, but I’d seen Della pack some coffee in our gear back at her cabin, and I was hankering for a cup. My eyeballs were starting to feel like clay marbles inside their sockets, dry and itching and needing to be shut for more than just a few minutes at a time. I was hoping some coffee might lessen the discomfort.

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