Elgin, Page 2

  Chapter 1

  In which our protagonist meets an enigmatic old man and a girl who could just eat him up

  Elgin woke up with a splitting headache and various other aches, not the least his back and butt, which appeared to be resting on a slab of ice cold rock. He opened his eyes without realizing it at first, it was dark, very, very dark. His nose told him he might be in a cave of some kind, which would explain the lack of light and what he was laying on. Then his nose also caught a whiff of burning wood and his eyes caught the faintest tint of firelight on the ceiling, light that had not been there an instant before. A roll of the head on the hard stone located the fire, across some kind of cavern, behind a rock reflector. On the other side of the fire a figure sat upright, very still, the firelight bronzing a bare chest and grimly hawk-like face.

  The beaky nose lifted to point at Elgin, eyes with fire glitter highlights fixed the cowboy, a small smile crooked the thin lipped mouth, “Ah, my young friend, recovered from your little tumble have you?”

  And Elgin was filled with a whole body memory. His stomach sour with the buzzard piss whisky he’d bought at Bounty Liquor, his head swimming as the horse swayed and slipped under him. The wet snow of the early fall snow lashed at them both, he was almost certain that he’d taken a wrong turn but the path was too narrow for the horse to turn around. He could hear the rush of water nearby, the streams hadn’t frozen over yet, and a lot of the heavy snow was melting and rushing down the mountain.

  The weather was at that deadly tipping point between winter and fall where the ground could be slicker than snot. And as if that thought had been a trigger the horse’s front hooves slipped, in an instinctive move that saved the horse’s life it dug it’s rear hooves in and flinched it’s weight back. Unfortunately this tossed the loosely seated Elgin out into space.

  The first break in his fall was a solid rock wall that snapped his arm and dislocated his shoulder, a leg caught in a dead bush’s gnarled remains and snapped, the other was broken over a rocky knob as he flipped over and down. Elgin’s skull met a flat section of rock and he did a good imitation of a dead man flop into the bottom of the rock gully, landing face down, blocking an icy rush of water.

  He was a cork in a bottle, or rather, a not very good dam. In a few seconds Elgin was underwater, covered with water that would have frozen if it had stopped moving. Not that he cared; Elgin was already, to all intents and purposes, dead.

  Elgin yelped as he slammed his shoulder into another rocky spur, this one in the fire lit cavern. Staggering, flailing, whimpering a little, he tried to make sense of what he remembered, and what he felt now, and he didn’t like any of it because he was naked, and his right arm, both legs and side of his skull all hurt, though more in the healing bruise sense than shattering, killing blows, sense.

  “Hey boy, you should be careful, you’ll hurt yourself. By the way it’s a lot warmer over here by the fire.” The man’s voice was a very pleasant baritone, faintly foreign, or at least educated to Elgin’s ear.

  “What did you do to me?” Elgin looked around, there was no sign of an exit, nor of his clothes.

  Or of the other man’s clothes, other than the leather breech-cloth held up by a leather thong around skinny hips, The stranger, who was rather short and slight, bronzed with a beaky nose he didn’t look much like the Amerinds Elgin had spent his life around. Elgin forced himself to stand straight and face the other man, who nodded, with that irritating hint of a smile, “I, or rather a, uh friend of mine, saved your life.”

  “How? I was dead, man!” He ran a shaking left hand over his right arm, could feel the bump of a healed break where there had not been one before. “I was drowned, my skull cracked, the water covered me.” Grinding his teeth he fought back unmanly tears.

  The beaky nosed man’s effeminately fine eyebrow had risen in interest, “Really? You remember being dead?”

  “I remember.....rem..?” Suddenly it struck Elgin as very peculiar, how does one remember being dead? But it hadn’t been a nightmare, had it?

  “It is interesting that you much at all of that incident. I suppose its not surprising since Eldest directed me to you.” The old man stopped, waved Elgin forward, “Come, sit with your back against the reflector, it will warm you more quickly.” He also moved to a small leather satchel that had been hidden behind a rock, he pulled out another breech-cloth, this one of a fine cloth, even the belt and tossed it to Elgin.

  Elgin put the cover on and settled down in front of the fire warmed rock, the fire had warmed the surface of the rock at his back and it felt wonderful on his chilled skin.

  “I am sure you are wondering who I am?” Beaky nose remarked.

  “And your friends?” Elgin glanced around, still unable to see an exit to the rock chamber.

  “Ah…my…friend,” he emphasized the singular but also made it sound like a question. “I suppose that was a misstatement. I should rather say a relative of an acquaintance of long standing…who was out and about when she shouldn’t have been.” The beak nosed man grimaced, “She’ll be back soon.”

  “Uh, a woman?” Elgin squeaked.

  “Don’t worry about your state of dress, she won’t.” the strange man’s eyes were hooded as he looked into the fire.

  Elgin bit back a hot retort, straightened his shoulders; objectively he knew he wasn’t bad looking, with or without clothes, but he had never had enough experience with women to get over his shyness.

  “I find it interesting that you are certain that you were dead.” The other man said into the fire, “You see that makes two of us.”

  “Dead?” Elgin squeaked, but then frowned; the man didn’t look like a zombie or vampire. And that was all crazy fantasy stuff anyway. But he couldn’t shake that memory of the water rushing, its gurgling giggle as it filled in around him, covering him.

  “For a very long time actually.” Elgin heard the other man whisper.

  Suddenly there was a rush of cold air and light, Elgin twisted, bright cold light illuminated the shelf of rock he had woken up on. A hidden door had opened across from it, around the corner from the alcove with the old man and his fire. Abruptly the light dimmed as a shadow blocked most of the entrance.

  “Uh-oh, she’s back for her banquet quicker than I anticipated.” The beak nosed man who claimed to be dead said with a sigh.

  The shadow took form and then someone, a long legged, shapely someone; stepped into the cavern, standing in the flood of sunlight she was starkly black and white. Stark naked had never been as appropriate a term. There was a hiss of indrawn breath from the woman, no girl was built that way, and she took a long step forward. The light blinked off as abruptly as it had come on. Leaving Elgin blinking, but still able to see the visitor, who appeared to notice the fire and the two men only now.

  She was even more stunning from the front, a teenager’s dream, red glinting dark hair and a pale oval face filled by huge green eyes and a pouty mouth and a body that would have made a teenager forget the face. And now Elgin saw she wasn’t naked, very strangely, given the weather outside, she was wearing an old fashioned looking swimsuit that started about midline on her breasts and ended high on her thighs. Old fashioned in form, but utterly new age in material, Elgin couldn’t help staring at other things than her face, the swimsuit’s material was skin tight, he could see details of her feminine anatomy that made him jerk his gaze upward, the material was weird, almost scaled.

  The woman-girl was staring at Elgin, then seemed to search beyond him as if she couldn’t see the beak nosed man who claimed to be dead. She was licking her lips with a pink tongue tip, in a seductive way, though her face was a blank, her eyes oddly flat.

  Elgin heard the other man whisper near his ear, or did he hear it inside his head? “Don’t be fooled boy, she’s not human, not even a she really. She can sense you right now but not see you, she can scent you, that’s why the tongue, the nose is just for show, she can sense your bodies heat, knows you�€
™re near but also senses a fire she cannot see. Don’t hate her for what she, it, but do fear her. She did d save your life, but only because her kind likes its prey alive and screaming when they take it.”

  The girl moved, relaxed, smiled, “What are you afraid of handsome?” her voice was throaty, welcoming, she rested a hand on one shot hip but she wasn’t, quite, looking Elgin’s way.

  It was more than any man-boy could take, it was not Elgin’s cerebellum that answered, “Uh, nothing ma’am.” He stood before he remembered his own near nakedness and breech-cloth, as he realized how nearly naked he was, he felt a shaky shiver of excitement.

  Not that it mattered, in the blink of an eye she had crouched and launched herself at him, her mouth suddenly open to reveal the rending teeth of a shark rather than a human, anything even vaguely human. She was only halfway to him when Elgin’s world-perception flinched, stopped.

  -o-

  He was uncomfortable, his sleeping bag was resting on rock with his old insulator pad not doing a good job of padding the knob that was digging into his hip. He could smell the old and not particularly frequently washed liner. There was also the smell of horse, in more ways than one. Elgin opened his eyes. Daylight lit the cove in the rock he had ridden out of to his doom.

  The fire in the semi natural pit in the rock had burnt down to hot ashes. There was a pile of wood lying next to it. Across the fire, in the depths of ‘his’ secret camping hollow the old pack horse was dozing, one leg folded up, a shoulder propped against the rock.

  Despite his occupation Elgin wasn’t a morning person, or a person to get out of bed at all unless he had good reason to. But now he couldn’t just lay and drowse, instead he wriggled out, tossed some kindling and sticks on the fire then slipped into his insulated riding pants and shirt as the fire caught. As he fed the fire up to coffee and breakfast size he looked around. Beyond the lip of the overhang the world was white, gray, brilliant blue, and white gray again. The angle of the sun told him it was morning, nine-ish, the sky and wind said that the weather had settled into a pretty but dangerous cycle of snow showers and blowing snow, with temperatures probably slipping down not going up.

  The old mare gave Elgin a jaundiced look as he approached, he rubbed her shoulder, “Sorry old girl, I’m an idiot, a drunken idiot.” He checked his saddlebags, and found one filled with horse feed and a collapsible watering bucket, so that was the first job, the horse seemed a little surprised by all the attention, but ready to accept it as her due. By the time the horse was dealt with the coffee was burping happily in the blackened old percolator and the fire pack meal had popped its seal to say it was done. Elgin sighed, poured himself some coffee, spooned in far too much brown sugar and settled back to eat the breakfast meat pie and think about his situation.

  Coffee scented steam spurted as he stated the impossible, “Yesterday I died.” He stared into the snow that had begun to fall again. He could see the icy underlayment that yesterday’s wet fall had left behind. “Maybe twice?” His stomach clenched as he remembered the horror leaping at him, he remembered the pointy ears revealed when her hair had streamed behind her in mid leap. Like nightmare she had turned from seductive coed into a monster in the blink of an eye, without even having to grow hair or fangs. It had all been there, just out of sight.

  He was utterly sure that both events were real memories, but why? He’d been drinking heavily and even taken a few recreational chemicals, a new low, he’d been hallucinating, had to have been. But the memories of waking up yesterday afternoon, staggering out into the snow to puke his guts up, saddling the hungry and cold mare and starting out into the storm, those memories were rock hard real. Even though now Elgin could hardly believe the stupidity of then Elgin.

  Finishing the ready cooked breakfast he put it down to deal with in a few and walked around the low stone wall that provided a weather break and fire reflector. A few yards outside he crouched down and brushed aside the snow. He hissed in soft resignation when he found the disgusting evidence of then Elgin.

  A few moments later, a second cup of syrupy coffee cupped in his hands he glanced around, at the rock, the reflector he’d built himself when he was younger, the ledge next to the mare. He hadn’t recognized it yesterday but the beak nosed man had been sitting on the rock to his left, new risen Elgin had been sitting with his back to the reflector a few feet from where he sat now. That campfire had been this campfire except it had seemed enclosed, or had it, had the girl-monster stepped through some other worldly door?

  He shook his head, rubbed a sore spot, his arm and legs ached, and he didn’t like to think what the side of his face looked like. He had been dead, or as good as, and he’d been healed in hours, not days, not weeks it should have taken to get to this point, if he hadn’t died.

  Elgin closed his eyes.

  “Boy there is much more to this world than your civilization knows.” The old man was sitting propped up against the reflector, in jeans and a thick farmer’s plaid shirt, a cup of coffee steaming between his hands.

  Almost jumping up Elgin’s eyes flew open. And he was alone with the weather once more. Except for the silent chuckle that came from where the old man was, just out of sight, hidden by the light.

  Sitting down, taking a sip of his coffee syrup, Elgin closed his eyes. The old man grinned, “Very good, boy.”

  “I’m twenty nine, I’m not a boy,” was all Elgin could think to say.

  “I’m something like five thousand, you’ll always be young to me.” The beaky nosed man took a sip of the coffee, nodded, “This is good.”

  Elgin studied the man, realized that if one wrapped him in a turban and let his beard grow in scraggly gray black, the other man might stand in for Osama Bin Laden in a bad TV movie, “You from the Middle East?”

  “It was the center of the world in those days boy, and much of it a paradise you would not recognize today. I was born on the edge of the burning desert and died there from youthful stupidity, just like you. But when the Iffrit found me in my moment of death, I wasn’t stuck head down in a rocky stream, plugging up the flow. The old one didn’t need the help of the Basik to salvage my carcass, he just waited for me to wake up alive, after being stabbed and flung off a cliff.”

  “Stabbed?”

  “My father said she was a sand asp interested only in gold. Turns out he was right, he was very surprised when I went back to admit he had been, it was a bit late for me.”

  Elgin nodded, opened his eyes, the beak nosed man was gone. Finishing the coffee Elgin made his plans. The weather was not going to get any better, and he didn’t have the supplies to last out a storm, he wasn’t really that far from help. Just far enough to make it unlikely that anyone would find him, if they bothered to realize he was missing in the first place.

  He looked out into the weather, bright white, gray and blue right now, though the wind was whipping the snow around and biting at Elgin’s face when he poked it out of the wind shield his niche in the rock provided. Turning this way and that he finally settled on west, something west bothered him, not the Basik nest, that was west and north, their rift resealed behind its twist in space-time.

  Elgin’s internal soliloquy stopped, how did he know that? What did ‘behind its twist in space-time’ mean? Elgin didn’t know, not quite, but a mind that was almost part of him knew, somewhere, somehow.

  West, what was west, and not that far west? This was fabulous hiking country in good weather, good rock climbing country as well. But it was lethal in the winter, everyone went elsewhere to ski and snowboard in the winter. People did come here late in the season sometimes, drawn by the raw beauty stripped of the soft green of the warm months. Backpackers? Not horse or mule riders, none of the guides would have brought their animals into this danger, unlike stupid then Elgin.

  He went back into his niche, pulled on his tawny duster and Stetson, kicked his boots into the cleats he’d found with the horse bucket and feed. He checked the mare, made
sure she had some warmed water and a few mouthfuls of feed, she seemed utterly shocked at his behavior, nudging him in horsey worship. He scratched her behind the ear, “Keep your ears open for any trouble, would you kid?”

  Elgin went into the weather without really thinking about it. He knew these hills and mountains as well as anyone and he wasn’t half drunk, wholly hung over, or riding a horse this time. Making two turns by instinct he found himself on the top of a low ridge that faired into a more massive one in a big fall of rocks, now covered with snow. When he saw that he knew he’d found his target.

  A few minutes later he cupped his hands and called, “Anyone there?” His voice boomed out across the rocks and echoed back off ridge and snow. Elgin checked to make sure that there weren’t any dangerous slopes that might let lose with an avalanche. He was about to yell again when he saw a movement, an arm waving, a colorful bobble hat, a white face with a wide smile, a moment later another bobble hat and big smile, man and woman. In a moment he slid that back to boy and girl in their late teens, probably a couple.

  “Oh My God, you found us!” The girl screamed as she flailed through the snow towards him.

  “I thought that we were toast when my iPhone gave up the ghost!” The boy, he looked like a geek to Elgin.

  “Hey lady, slow down, STOP. You don’t know what’s under the snow!” Elgin bellowed in his best imitation drill sergeant voice.

  She dutifully froze, “Oh Crap! Not Again.” She almost screamed looking around her feet in horror.

  Elgin sighed, then, “Hey, my name’s Elgin, what’s yours?”

  The “Lacie!” and “Chad!” he got back seemed almost inevitable.

  “Well Lacie, let me walk over to you, then we can walk back over here.” Elgin walked, not straight towards her, he was almost certain there was a narrow cleft in the ridge top a few feet in front of her and he knew he was walking on the main path. His mind’s eye was overlaying his location with the many memories of coming this way in the past.

  Lacie and Chad, though excitable and apparently spoiling for (stupid) adventures, were also used to following adult’s orders so they cheerfully waited for him to get them onto ground he knew was safe. They both looked at him with big eyes, “You the Snow Patrol or something?” Chad asked.

  Elgin smiled, “Nah, just a cowboy out for a ride, didn’t mind the weather too well. What happened to you two?”

  They colored up and exchanged somewhat shamefaced looks, Lacie kicked the ground, “Kinda the same, but worse, I wanted to go to Snowbird for the skiing, but dad said its still crap snow cover and he needed to work, too high at the Bird, gives him headaches. So we came to Beauty for a cheap and quiet stay. He’s been holed up with his laptop the whole time writing his blog and mom’s been on her laptop and cell running the show back home remotely.”

  Chad finished, “We heard it was going to snow, but it wasn’t supposed to be too bad, figured it would be really pretty up here in the snow. But we got turned around and my iPhone’s not a good compass without a cell net, and I forgot to turn it off, burned through the battery. I figured the Sommers would call out the National Guard when they realized that Lacie and I were missing.”

  “Sure they did. This isn’t good country for finding folks on the ground in bad weather, and they can’t fly in these conditions.” Elgin waved at the rockfall, “the weather’s not going to get better any time soon, get your things, and we’ll go.”

  The pair had high tech backpacks with all the modern conveniences including emergency food. Stuck out here two nights and days they’d done pretty well, very well, considering. They were dressed for the weather and as soon as they were packed he had them following him at as fast a clip as reasonable.

  They made it back to the niche in the rock and the mare nickered her welcome and gave the two colorful additions a jaundiced eye before accepting another handful of feed from Elgin. Lacie, of course, was horse crazy and made a fuss of the old work horse, who seemed to enjoy the attention.

  Elgin finished packing, tied the kid’s two backpacks to the saddle and had his little pack train heading downhill in less than half an hour, the mare trailing them head down but uncomplaining. It was coming up on noon and he figured it could take the rest of the daylight hours to get off the hills.

  Then the clouds he had been watching finally blotted out the sun, and the snow settled in. And then the wind kicked up, cutting visibility to about nil. Elgin was glad he’d linked them together with a length of climbing rope. “Hey mister Elgin, shouldn’t we stop?” Chad called from behind Lacie, who was a few yards behind Elgin.

  Normally Elgin would have said, yes, but he was certain that they would be in real trouble if they stopped. And now Elgin could see...or was it sense? where he was, and memory told him where to go, almost where to plant each step. He called back, "I know this path well enough, if it gets too much worse I know some safe places further down, where a search party’s more likely to find us.”

  -o-

  Caitlin SweetBear had been sheriff of Black Bear Lake County for almost fifteen years, every one of those years she'd had to call out the Winter Rescue Team at least once, but never this early or to such poor results. The Sommer's daughter and foster son had combined typical adolescent heedless behavior with the great bad luck of getting trapped in the little Rockies badlands by one of the nastiest storms she had ever experienced.

  And there was a rumor that Elgin Chalmers, the town tragedy waiting to happen, had gotten drunk and headed into the hills again. She sighed, she liked Elgin, almost everyone who knew him did, and almost as many worried about the boy, man-boy really, and the pointless path no one had been able to get him off.

  This was the sort of weather that killed even experienced people like Elgin, and well equipped semi-competent people like the Sommer kids. Normally even in deepest winter she'd be able to call in air spotters and choppers for a few hours at a time. Not this time, the weather report said they'd be lucky if the weather cleared in two more days.

  The Rescue Team had been hampered, then driven back by the nature of the storm, the icy slush of the first day had bogged them down in mud and behind overflowing streams, then as they got higher in the evening one of the squad leads had slipped on the ice and broken an arm and given herself a concussion. Today the alternating heavy snow, howling wind and bright sunlight had made progress even slower. Caitlin had called around for some support, a couple of more squads would be here very late in the day.

  The Black Bear Lake County Forest abutted the federally managed badlands and the reservation lands. The park office was a sprawling historic ranch house that had once been rented by Teddy Roosevelt, today it was Rescue Team base camp. The great room ran front to back and at the back massive picture windows bracketed the vast native rock fireplace. Caitlin stood staring out at the mountainside behind the hills, the view softened by the dozens of eight by eight glass panes that made up the century and a half old window. It was already beginning to dim down here in the flatlands and the search squads would have to establish camp soon.

  The latest snow shower ended in a blustery slap at the window and suddenly the sky was blue though the shadows were getting long and everything was getting that darker coloring that said evening was coming fast.

  "Uh, sheriff!" Deputy Smitts called, Caitlin looked the way the young man was pointing. Emerging from the tree line was a small string of figures, a tall man in a Stetson and heavy riding coat, two gaily dressed hikers and a horse with big hikers backpacks slung over the saddle.

  Caitlin was sure she knew the figure in the lead, she blew her cheeks out, “Elgin, you lucky, glorious fool, thank God you found them!”

  She was outside waiting for them when they reached the rammed snow platform around the park office. Elgin pulled off his hat, looking around at the cars of the rescue team, then back at her, his expression abashed “Ma’am sheriff, hope this wasn’t ‘cause of me?”

  The two Sommer ki
ds were looking around with wide eyed delight. Caitlin pointed her chin at them, “Fraid not El, you’re being missing was just a rumor, those two were a national emergency in their family’s eyes. They’ll be here in a few, you’ll be their hero.”

  His handsomely craggy face twitched a little, it was mainly around the brilliant blue eyes that you could see the horror he was feeling. “Oh no, no, wasn’t anything special. They were up there, I brought ‘em back. The weather’s set to be really bad for a while and you know it’s hard finding anything a’tall back in the badlands.”

  A big expensive black SUV came up the trail from the main road far too fast and fishtailed to a stop not far away. With cries of delight the Sommer family was reunited, the two news vans that had been trailing the Bimmer disgorged their loads of trouble and Caitlin went to do her best to keep it all going in the right direction, not least because the next election was only a year away now.

  After the first flurry of kisses, hugs, cries of eternal love, then remonstrations of foolish risk taking and apology, the focus shifted to finding and thanking the hero of the moment. However Elgin and the old mare were nowhere to be found. The Sommers quickly gave up, loaded up the car and headed for the hotel, a good meal and a good night’s sleep, the newsmen trailed off to see if they could find where Elgin lived, since Caitlin had smilingly ignored their questions on the topic.

  Caitlin found Elgin where she had figured the cowboy would be, in the old house’s stable, behind a rather nondescript door. He was cleaning his tack, having dried and brushed the old mare. The old horse, contentedly eating feed, gave the sheriff a careful once over before going back to the food.

  The Sheriff leaned against a post and watched Elgin’s spare, long practiced motions. The tow headed cowboy was slim hipped and broad shouldered, with long faintly bow legs and long strong arms and hands, she had never seen him without a tan. In fact some said he wasn’t tanned at all, perhaps the only indication of the fact that he was at least quarter blood Amerind.

  At last he looked up, his blue eyes crinkled with amusement, “Ma’am sheriff, thank you for not telling them where I was.”

  “You’re welcome Elgin, least I could do since you saved those two, you helped the whole county look heroic.”

  He cocked his head, the smile a little more evident, “I ‘spose that’s how the newsies ‘ll spin it won’t they?” He went back to rubbing the tack down. Pointed at the phone on the end wall, “Called Charley Calhoun, told him I’d bring the mare back in a day or so, I’ll borrow Little Wolf’s old horse transport. I’ll leave her here till then, if I might?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Of course Elgin,” she answered, then hesitated before going on, “Elgin the two kids say you appeared out of the snow on foot, walking towards them as if you knew they were there. How’d you know they were there?” The story had sounded odd to her, if no one else.

  Elgin shrugged, “Was drunk the first night of the storm, spent a time wandering around up there, I think I must have seen them and then forgotten, only thing I can think of.” He was frowning at his tack.

  It sounded thin to the Sheriff, but possible, his mother had been almost uncannily observant and Elgin had a similar reputation, though everyone made fun of it rather than almost fearing it as they had in Jess Beauty.

  “You need to be more careful Elgin, a little bird came to talk to me yesterday, told me that perhaps you’d had more than whiskey the night before. There was some fear that perhaps you might have gotten more than anyone had bargained for. A couple of kids ended up in the emergency room after taking some over strength crap.” One of her informers had told her that Elgin had bought some peyote and Quaaludes and the payload had been a lot more potent than the seller had expected.

  Elgin hung up the bit he had been polishing and turned to pick up his long buff riding coat, holding it up to see if it needed seeing to. Caitlin wondered if he was going to ignore her roundabout question but at last he glanced at her, “I’ll be more careful sheriff. In that way at least, I think my partying days are done.”

  “Not a day too early if they are Elgin. We’re a small community, folks care for each other, even the ne’er do wells.”

  He grinned at her, “I know ma’am, thanks.”

  She made to turn around, then turned back, “And Elgin, keep that mountain lion you call a cat close to home. Festus Pauls called to complain about it again, claims it took one of his prize hens.”

  Suddenly he was brooding, dangerous looking, “Festus Pauls prize hens my butt. His wife has those free range cacklers ‘cause she thinks the eggs are more healthy. And Humph doesn’t range that far, if he ate a hen it was off Festus’ land.”

  That was a fib at the very least but Caitlin let it slide, “OK, but you know Festus, once he takes an idea into his head he’s not likely to give it up and he hates that saber tooth Siamese of yours.”

  Elgin nodded, “Understood, thanks for the warning, I’ll see what I can do.”

  Caitlin left him alone with the horse. She wondered if he’d been serious about the giving up on the booze, she hoped so. But she was almost certain that part of his problem had always been boredom and unless he found something else to do with himself he wasn’t likely to stay sober even if he was serious.