Here's the run down on this very lengthy update.

These two chapters just fit together, and I couldn't see posting one without the other. If you're a character-driven return reader, start with Chapter Five to deepen your understanding of the romantic journey of this very odd couple. If you like more plot-driven novels with lots of action, skip over to Chapter Six where there's a big surprise waiting--I had sooo much fun shocking our boy Colton in this one!

This lovely, otherworldly interlude will end soon, and the bubble burst will bring things to a seemingly insurmountable "end." But for now, the joy of discovery and deepening affection has been a revelation to me. Writing is such a fascinating journey...

 Chapter Five

It was over the minute she laid eyes on him.

Him being my favorite four-legged, big Butch. He’s this sick bay quarter horse with a shiny reddish brown coat, a long, jet black mane and eyelashes to match, as the women always notice.

I think he’s a hand or two taller at what they call the “withers” than usual, too. Big, buff dude, Butch. And he stands all tall and steady with that head up high like he knows he’s the alpha up in this bitch.

It was an outstanding day, sunny and warm for December—Arizona does that sometimes, even up there. And man, when Wyatt saw him standing there by the corral fence shining like a new penny she got all weak in the knees.

So I went, “Another one bites the dust,” and took her and the kids on over—they were in their carriage. And manly man that he is, Butch still nickered for me a little bit, even though I only see him about three or four times a year.

I leaned down and pressed my forehead against his face and just stood there for a little while. It’s like me saying, “You the man,” when I do that. And when I felt him nod a little, I pulled back and scratched his muzzle. We’re brothers, him and me. I’m the older one he has to mind, but I treat him with respect. And he respects me, too.

When I looked over, Wyatt was standing there all mesmerized.

She said, “He is...just...I don’t even know.”

“Yeah, the ladies love Butch,” I said.

And then Aisha arrived with a half of an apple in each hand as an offering. He gobbled them down right quick and let her love all over him for a while, after.

“Butch is his name,” Wyatt said, like she was memorizing that for future reference.

“Yep. He’s a good old boy,” I told her. “I got him when he was three. He’s five now. The outfit that had him was strapped for cash but I still can’t believe they let him go.”

“Couldn’t nobody afford him around there,” Aisha told me. “We got ‘im for ‘way less than we should have, but it was still more than they were ever gonna get if we didn’t take ‘im.”

“Well, whatever you paid for him, he is a beauty,” Wyatt said.

Butch nodded his head up and down like he was agreeing with her, which, of course, made us laugh.

I rolled the carriage up a little closer and Taylor raised her arms up to be held so she could see Butch better. Tyler was still sort of making up his mind, but Aisha hauled him up and walked him toward the corral until he put on the brakes to let her know he wasn’t ready to go any farther.

I showed Taylor how to hold her little hand close but not too close to his nostrils. They need to smell you. But if you move too fast or your hand looks too much like a claw coming at ‘em, they might bite your damned hand off.

But Butch is a gentle fella. So Taylor touched his muzzle and squealed. And then she leaned like she wanted to kiss him, which I loved, even though I wasn’t about to let her do that. I don’t want my kids not to be like the one in that old commercial who sees a cow from the car window and goes, “Doggie!”

I mean, who knows? Maybe all the friggin’ wildlife will be so far gone that it doesn’t matter if they know a cow from a dog or anything. But I want them to at least get to know some wild things, and not so wild things, up close and personal. It’s good for the soul.

That’s why Aisha and the girls like all the horses so much—Cat and Mike were already out riding. Cat’s great rider and Mike is learning fast. Aisha’s a “petter.” She’ll even muck the stalls. That’s her way of showing them some love and getting to baby them for a while.

She was all over Butch, as usual, but she stopped to ask Wyatt, “You ride?”

I think it startled Wyatt a little bit that Aisha had even noticed her. So she shrugged and said, “Oh, God no. I’ve gone on little trail rides, but just...you know, touristy things.”

“I don’t ride ‘em, neither,” Aisha said.

 “No, you just braid their hair and all that,” I said.

 “Yeah, I mess wit they hair. They got pretty hair. But I don’t like all them tricks and things they be teachin’ ‘em.”

“They’re not tricks,” I said.

“Whatchu call it? Like when he spin all around like that?”

She meant the way we teach them to turn around and around and around real fast and then stop on a dime.

“That’s for control,” I said. “I mean, they do it in competitions, but around here, it’s so they’ll mind you when we’re rounding up the stock and all. He’s a cutting horse.”

“Which is...” Wyatt said.

“They chase cows’n’ whatnot,” Aisha told her. “One of ‘em get away, this one here, he’ll chase ‘im down’n’ get ‘im back over to the other ones.”

“Or cut one out of the herd for us,” I said. “If we need to get to a calf or something, cutters’ll do that.”

Aisha rubbed Butch’s fetlock and said, “It look like he playin’ wit ‘em. He be runnin’ and jumpin’ and zig zaggin’ back and forth, like he darin’ ‘em to try’n’ get by.”

“So he’s a working horse,” Wyatt said, like she was even prouder of him for that.

“He used to do shows and whatnot,” I said. “But I don’t like any of the stock doing that kind of stuff anymore. In fact, we take in retirees. Horses and bulls. Couple o’ famous ones, actually. They’re real popular studs, too.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Wyatt said.

“Yeah, sound like them’n’ Papi all workin’ overtime these days,” Aisha teased. “’cordin’ to allat noise them womens heard."

“Saw that one comin’,” I said.

And she gave me this look and said, “Tha’s what I’m sayin’,” as she went trotting off.

So I called out “Yeah, you better run,” and she smiled at me over her shoulder and gave Wyatt a little wink.

I gave Wyatt a wink, too. And said, “Well, c’mon, then,” nodding toward the corral gate.

She stepped right up, too. Totally down for whatever. And I was happy that Butch came  over as soon as I shut the gate. But she’s so tiny that he just towered over her. So she stepped back against me like a scared kid.

And I said, “Don’t back down, okay? Stand your ground.”

She gave me a nervous laugh and said, “Who are we trying to kid here?”

“He’s smart enough to know not to act a fool,” I said, “But you have to learn how to act with the ones who aren’t.”

They sized each other up for a minute or two, her and Butch. Him, trying to figure out who she was to me and what that meant to him. They’re that smart, horses. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

And once he’d figured out she was somebody I really cared about, he backed up off her and started doing that chewing thing that means they’re okay with you. So I went over and rubbed him down for being a good boy.

“He’ll stand by that big box over there, if you want to get on him,” I said.

“There’s no....saddle.”

“There’s a bridle on the post there.”

“Oh, I don’t like--doesn’t it hurt them, a little? That thing that goes in their mouths?”

I went over and got the bridle and said, “It’s bitless, see?”

I opened it up a little, but she didn’t know the difference. But just so you do, we use bridles that don’t have those metal bars that go in their mouths. Ours fit over their muzzles instead. And we also don’t “shoe” horses with iron and nails, FYI. We slip on these little leather horse boot things that look like big old baby shoes when we’re ready to ride.

Of course, the locals thought I was losing my mind when I told them about those boots, so we only put them on my horses. And the ranch guys smooch at my horses sometimes, not like you smooch to get them to come to you but like they’re calling them “sissies.” But every time one of theirs gets a split hoof or something, I think they sort of wonder if they shouldn’t give those little “baby booties” a try.

Wyatt seemed a bit reluctant to give Butch a try, though. And I could tell it wasn’t just because of how huge he was.

So I said, “What’s goin’ on?” to get the scoop.

“The last horse I rode threw me off deliberately,” she said. “I don’t think he liked me.”

I gave her a hug as if we were back there on that day the horse threw her. Because I figured that was my job now. Righting old wrongs.

And then I said, “You passed the fry bread test this mornin’, girl. Tia’s ‘way more scary than some horse.”

She laughed a little. And then said, “Oh, all right. Just...around the corral—slowly.”

I kissed her cheek and went on and got Butch into his boots and bridle right quick. And Wyatt finally got up on his back without the box and just sat there grinning like she was all proud of herself. So then I got on behind her and had Butch take us around the corral just walking, while the babies laughed and pointed at us.

After she got really relaxed with that, I let her get off and then hand the kids up one at a time for a little walk around, too. Ty surprised me by sitting real still and paying real close attention to every move the horse made instead of kicking and squealing. Butch was new to babies, too, so I was glad the first one on was so nice and calm.

Taylor was more concerned about holding the reins like Daddy, so I let her think she was doing something, but her hands were back behind mine. To her, the horse was just a toy, sort of. This big toy that moved. Ty had picked up on the other stuff I told you about, how smart and sensitive they are.

Butch would remember that, too, the next time we rode. They were going to be good buddies. I think he could almost tell he was a piece of me or someone who was a lot like me, on his back.

Once the kids had been around a few times, I got Wyatt back up there and had Butch trot and then canter a little bit. And when we picked up speed again, Wyatt leaned into it and almost forgot about me. Which I loved.

So when we’d gone around a few times, I slowed him down again and said, “You like that?”

Her eyes were all glittery and excited.

“He’s magnificent. Honestly. And very obedient,” she said.

“You ready to rock, then? He is.”

She gave him a little neck rub while she thought about it. I knew she wanted to go. But she said, “He wants a real run. The babies and I can wait here.”

“You sure?”

“No, but we’ll have time. He wants his Daddy now. So he doesn’t have to hold back.”

“Well, I actually brought you over so you could see something amazing.”

“What could be more amazing than this guy?”

“You’ll see. Get the munchkins and follow me, okay?”

I helped her slide down and Butch got all jumpy the minute she stepped away. He really did want to run. They ride him for pleasure more than almost all the others up there, and he loves that. Never gets tired. In fact, he’ll get all restless and impatient if you stop too long.

So as soon as she got the carriage and kids into the UTV I galloped off—not too fast—so that she could follow behind. It’s not like she couldn’t have seen us even if I really let him run, though. There weren’t a lot of trees or anything, where we were headed.

But without a saddle it can get weird right quick if you’re not a real rider, which I’m not. I wouldn’t ride any other horse that way, for sure. But like I said, Butch and I have been brothers from the minute we met. I tell people he can “read my butt.” Which is why I don’t saddle him. I want to be almost part of him.

And we jam, man—I’m a big old joystick. I lean left, he goes left. I lean right, he goes right. Forward, he speeds up. Back, he slows down—sometimes I have to tug the reins a tiny bit, though, if he’s really enjoying himself.

A strong tug means to put on the brakes—he stops fast, too, like I said before. No wobbling no wiggling. So I tugged hard when we got to this big arthritic looking tree that sits just a little ways back from what I wanted Wyatt to see.

It looks like a bunch of trees twisted together, so the trunk and limbs are all crooked and tangled and about three times as big as they should be. I tied Butch to this low branch that’s almost laying on the ground. He didn’t need it, but I decided to do it so that Wyatt wouldn’t freak out. Except that she already had. In a good way.

Because going slow behind me, she had seen the canyon I was taking her to. The little road ran right alongside it. And she had stopped the UTV—I didn’t realize that ‘til I looked up from tying Butch. She she’d got out and was standing there totally still, staring down into that  ginormous, Technicolor crack in the earth.

It’s not the Grand one, our canyon. But it’s a great big one. And it was getting to be late afternoon so it was putting on a show. See, the walls are sort of golden during the day. And then as the day passes, they go salmon pink, then salmon red, then almost ruby red as the sun sets.

As I’d promised her, the updrafts were sighing at us. And there were these hawks floating on the wind like it was water. Wings stretched out, whirling and soaring like big old kites.

When I walked over, she looked up at me and asked, “Is this yours, too?”

“I guess it’s...well...on paper, yeah,” I said. “I mean, part of it. The property ends before the canyon does. But you can’t own something like this, really, can you?”

“Well, I want it to be yours. And theirs. The children, I mean. So that it’s protected.”

“It’s not for us, though. That I did it. Tuff didn’t buy it for himself, either.”

She frowned, so I went on and told her the real reason Tuff first bought it. And why I’d decided to take it over, when nobody else would.

“See, there’s a trail down there they came up here on, the people who were here first,” I told her. “There’s all these big ledges where they used to hide from anyone who came around. They could shoot at them, too, from there. If you look over the sides, you can see where they cut steps and little dug outs into the sides of the cliffs. There were little settlements down there, too—there were fields and everything. But then they moved on up top when things got all civilized. Sort of.”

She got quiet again, like she was thinking about and filing away everything I’d said. Or maybe just adding it to the dozens of other random puzzle pieces my life still seemed to be to her, I think.

My life is like a machine gun. Bullets flying. Shit just...blowing up all over the place. It’s hard to see the patterns. Even for me. Stuff just happens, and you have to figure out how to make sense of it all. And I don’t always have the time to try.

The trick is to stick to your basic beliefs. No matter what comes at you, you stand your ground—like with Butch. If you know what you stand for, it’s not so hard. But the older I get the more I notice that most people don’t know that. So every blast knocks them this way and that—a real big one’ll knock them right off their feet. And they stand there all dizzy, wondering what the fuck, right?

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen to me—you’ve seen me reel around lots of times. But I find my way back pretty quick, usually. Maybe because I’m too young to be all that conflicted. That’s what I was sort of learning from Wyatt. That young folks are sure of everything because they haven’t seen everything yet.

Whatever she’d seen, it had shut her down, almost. I was starting to pry her open again, but it wasn’t easy for her to trust me or the new territory she was wandering into.

So I left her there on the edge and got out an old blanket and the basket I’d thrown all kinds of munchies into for us and the kiddies. And then I took the babies out of the carriage so they could sit on the blanket with us.

They didn’t know what to make of all the space they had up there. This world with no walls and all the trees and bushes and grass, even. Partly desert, but also very green. Every bird song made them startle and look all around. I was glad my babies smiled when they heard or saw something new. No crying. No fear.

So I sat down by them to make them feel a little more secure. And when Wyatt finally joined us, she did this cool thing for them with an apple. Simple thing—one of those things you can’t believe you didn’t think of first.

She just cut the apple in half and started scraping up little spoonfuls of it to feed to the babies right from the apple itself. Instant apple sauce, right? And after they got over how tart that particular apple was, they started scarfing it up like mad.

 “How do you do that thing you mentioned? Sweeten stuff with fruit?” I asked her.

“Well, for this...dates, probably. A little piece in each spoonful. Softened, of course.”

“Is that how you eat at home? Like, raw foods?”

 “Quite often. But it’s not really a health thing,” she said. “I’m all about quick. Things you can just whip up. I mean, the best lemonade I’ve ever made is made of mostly apples. In a juicer. Four apples, a wedge of lemon, done!”

“So let’s make them some. So they can have something sweet like the other kids.”

“Well, it turns brown, though. Apples. You know.”

“They won’t care.”

She wiped some apple from Ty’s chin and smiled down at him as if she’d just at that moment actually “seen” him. Like up ‘til this day, they’d been sort of abstract, right? Little vague lumps attached to me, not two individual baby beings.

But they’d come into focus as she fed them. She even let them crawl up onto her lap and lay there against her when they were done eating. But then she looked up at me, and I could feel her really struggling to pull away from them emotionally. It was getting too real, I guess.

She said, “So, they remember where they came from, the people here?” Flipping the channel to something more...NPR. Cerebral.

I just smiled and reached over to tickle Ty under his chins. When they laid back against something, they got double chins—baby fat. But they were starting to get a little more defined, you know? So you could see what they were really going to look like. And they both looked a lot like me, but I could see Maddie, too.

“It’s part of the story they tell,” I said, to get Maddie out of my head. We were both trying to hide from things.

“I don’t think anyone’s old enough to remember. But they swear that they walked into the canyon by accident on their way up. And when they got a little nervous, they sent some of the younger men to see if they could find a way out. Some of ‘em had little farms down in there at the bottom and on the ledges I told you about. But most of them were up here.”

She looked out over the canyon again. And then down at Ty trying to burrow into her belly like he was making a nest there. Or was determined to “unlock” that door she’d shut in his face.

It was the closest she would ever get to feeling what pregnant was like, my babies rooting around on her stomach like that. She sort of startled at first. The way I imagine a woman would, the first time the baby moves inside them, you know? And I could tell she was thinking the same thing. And it choked her up before she could catch herself.

But she gave Ty a shaky little smile. And then ran her fingers through his curls and pressed his little head against her belly. Surrendering, I guess—she gave Taylor a little head hug, too.

We were just quiet for a few minutes after that. Listening to the birds and the sighing and the rustling leaves. And when she reached for my hand, one of the hawks made that piercing sound they make when they’re really soaring and feeling their power.

That’s a blessing, in Native circles. She smiled, because she knew that, too.

But then we both heard loud voices. A bunch of people coming to disturb the peace--Goons on mountain bikes. The whole crew, it looked like.

“Jefito! Bring that horse, man!” one yelled as he sped by.

And JR, called, “There’s some damned Mexicans stuck down in there,” as he flew past us, kicking up dust and rocks.

“Down there?” Wyatt said.

I was already up, trying to decide what to do next.

 Chapter Six

There was a whole pack of Goons riding to the rescue. Wyatt leaned over to protect the babies from the dust cloud they created on those damned bikes—speaking of clunkers, these things looked prehistoric, almost. Or like the bicycle equivalent of an Old School muscle car. But you needed something sturdy if you were going to punish them the way they were.

And when this one kid, Wendell—they have real nerdy names, a lot of Indian boys—looked like he was going to run right over us, I ran and grabbed hold of his handle bar and the quick stop knocked him over sideways. But he landed on his feet. Glaring at me like an angry bull.

So I said, “What the fuck?!”

“I didn’t even see you!”

“Apparently!” I said. “So what’s the story, now that I’ve got your attention?”

“There’s Mexicans down in there!”

I did the head tilt thing, and he went, “Got lost in the desert or something. I don’t know.”

“We’re ‘way up here in the mountains, man.”

“I told you, I don’t know! There’s these two women over there screamin’ and yellin’--they were walkin’ up the canyon’n’...somethin’ went wrong.”

“Whereabouts exactly?”

“By the big fields—I gotta go,” he said, shoving off to catch up with the others. And when I turned, Wyatt was up, with Ty on her hip.

“You should probably go find out what’s going on,” she said.

“You wanna bring up the rear?”

“Don’t worry about us.”

“Alls I do is worry about you guys. Follow me, okay?”

I rode Butch and she followed me in the Ranger. We didn’t see anyone but Goons ‘til we got a good ways out, at one of the places where you could just about walk up from out of that canyon.

It was a popular place to go four wheeling because there were these big mounds of rubble and dirt that must’ve fallen off the canyon walls and sort of flattened out eons ago. They reached up almost to the edge in some places, and it was a real easy climb to solid ground from there. The old steps they’d cut into the stone were sort of messed up, but you could still get up top without all that much effort.

That’s where we found all the Goons standing watching two pretty hysterical and really tiny, chubby little women. They were almost spherical and couldn’t have been more than five feet tall if that, with those really round and sort of flat faces. Pure Indian. And probably not from Mexico. I can’t explain how, but you can tell the difference between all the people down there if you care to.

They were sobbing and wringing their fat little scratched up hands—a chubby-cheeked boy about four or five was hiding behind one of them like we were all monsters or something. And one of the Goons was radioing back to “base,” to tell them that I was there with them now.

Wyatt ran over with bottles of water from our basket—a very smart thing to do. It wasn’t summer when they would be damned near dried to jerky meat from walking through the desert without enough to drink. But if they’d split off from a group and got lost or something, you couldn’t tell how long they’d been out there wandering without food or water.

When I walked up, the women both startled and got quieter. I think it was because I was white, mostly, but that Wendell kid went, “Damn, man. You and women,” and the Goons all sort of snort laughed.

Wyatt was on the case, though. In Spanish, she asked the women if they were hurt. And when they said they weren’t, she told them they were on my ranch and that we would like to help.

So their eyes changed, like they trusted us a little bit more. And I noticed that they were all scraped and bruised like that climb I told you about hadn’t been so easy for them. One had a cut on her face that might need stitches, but she didn’t seem to even feel it.

So Wyatt asked them if they would please tell us what happened. And then one of them stopped wiping her eyes long enough to look up at me and hiccup out a few words like little kids do, when they’re trying to control themselves after a big cry.

She said they had heard music and people laughing, from a long ways off. So they had walked toward the sounds, hoping that someone would see and help them.

And then the other one broke in in, in trembly Spanish, she said, “Please, help us! Please, Mister, it’s my baby!” with her hands clasped together like she was praying. And she said it the way you would call out to God at a time like that. But I wasn’t God. So I sure hoped her God was listening.

When I said we would do all we could, she started talking real fast and the tears started falling faster, too.

“She fell down in there!” she bleated—I’m only saying it that way because that’s how it sounded.

And then in a rush she said, “She fell--my little girl--into the ground, she fell! I think something is broken,” or...that’s how I heard it. All chopped up like that.

“Down below here?”

“No, not here. Back there a long way. Lower down. I don’t know how she fell—he was there,” she said, nodding toward the little kid attached to her leg.

He ducked back behind her when I looked down. And when he peeked out again, I got the feeling he knew more than he was ever going to tell. I just felt this vibe, like he’d had something to do with this mess.

And he knew I knew, too. Only, instead of ducking behind her again, his eyes sort of pleaded with me. Like he knew if she didn’t get out of this mess his own life would be over in a way. You can’t just walk off from a thing like that. Young as he was, he knew that much.

Russell, one of the Goons, asked her, “What are you doing out here in the first place?” He also called her “tonta,” which means “stupid” and almost made me pop him in the fuckin’ jaw.

But Wyatt asked, “Can you show us where the baby is?” And then she shot Russell a look to let him know she was pissed with him. Which I loved.

The little mother said, “Yes, I can show,” in English.  And then in Spanish, she told Wyatt, “It is very deep. The boy said she ran away from him. And then she just disappeared.”

“They had them deep holes where they stored shit,” Vernon said. Another Goon. “Them Indians used to be here ‘way back in the day, they hid corn and shit in there.”

“Corn and shit?” JR said. Predictably. I mean, no Goon would let that one pass, even at a time like this.

So Vernon scowled and said, “Whatever Indians ate!”

And Wendell sort of rolled his eyes and went back to the women—that said a lot to me, about him. That he was embarrassed about that stupid conversation. I was going to have to re-evaluate my opinion of him. Maybe. I mean, he’d almost run over my kids, so...

He asked the women, in Spanish, “Are they right down below here?”

Which was also a good question, because we really needed to pin down where the baby was, exactly.

And the other woman said, “No. Back where we first came from. It is far.”

We couldn’t say if it was far walking or far driving, but we made another little convoy then, with me and Butch bringing up the rear—Butch knew something was wrong. I could feel it in the way he kept glancing back at me and looking all around like he was trying to find whatever I was so upset about.

Pretty soon we met up with a truck that security had sent, and they followed us, too, until the ladies started yelling and pointing--it was a long way, too. They must’ve been walking for hours—maybe a day or so, even. And it wasn’t by the big fields, so you couldn’t just walk down. I mean, you knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, right?

The head security honcho, Luis, leaned over the edge, shook his head and said, “What’n’a hell were they doing here?”

They call him Guero (White) because he’s real light skinned, but some of them call him Canelo (Cinnamon), because he also has red hair. And I hate to say this, but it’s his color that makes them mind him better. I don’t know why “colored” people do that sometimes, thinking lighter people are smarter and even prettier than dark ones. Why do people worship stuff they can’t be or can’t have? Like the poor people who vote for the rich people who keep them poor—we talked about that before. And it’s still a mystery to me.

The two women were the same way, though it might have been the uniform, too. Whatever it was, when he spoke to them, they clammed up like they were in the principal’s office.

So Wyatt stepped up again, and asked, “Can you see the place from here?”

The women responded better to her, but they looked sort of confused. The mother of the girl kept looking this way and that, like she wasn’t sure it was the right place. And after she’d walked along the edge back and forth a few times all confused, I realized what was wrong.

“You can’t see how to get down there from up here,” I told everyone. “It’s like the friggin’ pyramids down there where they come from.”

That’s when Carlos, the gigantic Indian security guard who’d come along with Luis said, “Okay, well we don’t know nothin’ about the pyramids,” with this little chuckle in his voice.

The locals minded him because he was a mountain. I’m not kidding. I always expected the ground to shake when he walked, he was so huge. I mean, he was built like a big ass spinning top: real big at the shoulders and then tapering down to his toes. But even the tapered part was bigger than one man should be. Mostly muscle. And no neck. Just a big bristly crew cut head stuck right down on those massive shoulders.

I went over and leaned to look down, but all I saw was thin air and how far you could fall, like I said. There was this overhang, is why. And I guess what she was looking for was right under it. So you couldn’t see it from there.

Different from the pyramids, but I needed to explain them to the man mountain anyway.

So I said, “You can’t see the steps when you get up to the top of those things. It looks like a straight drop—that’s how they designed ‘em. Cause they were going to cut your heart out, if they hauled your ass up there. So they thought it was magic, I guess. The ones they sacrificed. How the steps disappeared.”

“How’d you get down, then?” he asked me. And I was sorry I’d brought it up then, because it wasn’t about the damned pyramids, right? But you don’t argue with Carlos.

So I said, “I sat down on my butt and sort of slid down to the first step. But here, it’s different. There’s nothing to walk down on. It juts out away from the wall, this part. Like the rock fell away from under it or something.”

The mother was pretty frantic by then, watching us men pretty much doing nothing but yammer and shrug. But then a Goon named Harlan came running from somewhere farther down, yelling, “I can hear her!”

So we ran after him ‘til he stopped and raised a hand to shush us. At first, there was nothing. Then, I could hear a little one crying real hard, like she was scared to death, probably.

“My God--how do we get down there?” Wyatt said. She was looking at me as if to say, “Don’t even try it, buster.” And then she deflated a little, because she knew she couldn’t win this one.

Carlos made it worse, by saying, “There’s all kindsa cracks in those rocks. She coulda kept fallin’ for all we know.”

The mother screamed like she suddenly understood English. Or enough to understand that. So Wyatt went over and hugged her, murmuring something to her in Spanish while we men huddled up.

 “There’s a flat place down below there, though,” Luis finally said. “There used to be some kinda altar on it—you know the place, man. The old dudes talk about it all the time. I’m gonna go down.”

“There?” Wendell asked, all shocked. The Goons had come over to find out what us tough guys were trying to pull.

And Luis went, “No, Nogales, pendejo.” 

“I mean, how are you gonna get down there, damn,” Wendell said.

“On a rope, dumb ass. I learned that in basic, back in the day,” he said. And then he chuckled and said, “We’ll use that big ass winch on the truck so the boss can see where all that money went.”

I wasn’t in a joking mood, though. I was mostly thinking of that little girl stuck down there somewhere with night about to fall and no idea where her mother was--where anything was, you know? I think I was feeling how my own brothers and sisters must’ve cried when the fire rose up and ate them. She was screaming like that. Like she knew she was going to die.

So I said, “Lemme work it, then—ready to go?”

“I need you to stay right here and listen for me,” he said to me. And to the Goons, he barked, “Gimme one o’ those radios!”

He took the one Russell held out and leaned out one more time, trying to see where he’d land. And then he walked off a little way, trying to get a better look from another angle. But that overhang went a long way around.

Even so, he smiled while he was watching Carlos get that winch set up. It was made for pulling real heavy things. A man would be easy.  

While the rest of us were sort of freaking out despite that, he looked over at Wyatt and said, “You’re the one alla guys are talkin’ about! I see why now, too.”

Wyatt blushed a little bit, but turned her attention back to the mother who was just sort of mewling softly at this point. Like she didn’t really think we could help, but didn’t want to say anything that would make us mad, either.

I wasn’t so sure about all this myself. The sun was going to go down pretty soon and doing something that dangerous in the dark--bad idea. But Luis started whistling like it was no big thing at all. I coulda hugged the guy for trying so hard to keep the ladies calm, except that he probably would’ve socked me or something.

So I looked back at my kids, who were starting to fuss a little like they knew something was wrong now, too. And Wyatt put a hand on my shoulder and said, “They’re fine.”

I could see in her eyes that she was relieved it wasn’t me going down there. I gave that hand a pat and she smiled quietly. Probably because she didn’t want to ladies to see that she felt so safe, when they were still so scared.

Luis snatched another radio from a Goon, gave it to me, and said, “Here’s the plan. I’m gonna just go down a little ways, listen, and figure out what the hell we’re dealing with here—Carlos, you listen for me, too. So I can tell you when to hit that switch, okay?”

And then he looked at the Goons and said, “The boss here will handle communication. The rest of you will do what he tells you to do or somebody’s gonna get their ass kicked. You got that?”

The Goons all became big bobble heads for a minute. And Luis chuckled like he was thinking exactly that, before he grabbed the rope Carlos brought over, turned and just...stepped back into nothing.

All three women gasped when he went over, but I could sort of see he was standing, like, about a 45 degree angle out from the cliff face. So there was some flat wall there. But then he took a coupla hops and I couldn’t see anything but the rope was moving.

It was all good for a little while, but then we heard rocks falling, lots of them. And then Luis yelling to somebody to go fuck his own mother in Spanish. Also that their mother was a whore. And then he quit that and called me on the radio.

“Damned wall’s fallin’ apart on me!”

“You want up?”

“Nah, I’ll live. That flat place isn’t all that far down. I don’t see a hole, but I can hear the kid pretty good.”

Carlos cut in with, “You want more rope?”

“Nope! I got it. Just hang on.”

I think we all held our breath for a few seconds, until I heard a real loud, “SHIT! God DAMN, mother fuckin’ son of a—“

I don’t think the others could hear it as well as I could right there on the edge. But they heard enough for Carlos to go, “Yo! What up?”

And then on the radios we heard, “I misjudged it, man. Came down hard.”

“You ah’ite, though, ‘mano?”

“Fuckin’ knee popped out. Hurts like a mother.”

The little women started freaking out again, then. That’s when we knew they understood ‘way more English than they’d let on. And were probably sorry.

That’s why Carlos went, “We got a problem,” sort of quiet to me, so it wouldn’t get them even more upset.

“Well, we’d better solve it fast,” I said—also quietly. “It’s getting dark, man.”

And then I clicked and asked, “You need help down there?”

“I may be able to get over to where she is, but...”

Carlos leaned in and said, “Lemme come down there, ‘mano. No shame.”

“You’ll pull the whole damned truck down on top o’ me! Get one o’ those Metal heads  to come down here! He falls, it won’t even make a dent.”

The Goons exchanged dopey, cow eyed glances. So I did what Wyatt had hoped I wouldn’t. I said, “I can do it.”

And she said, “God...” and looked away, trying not to show how upset she was. But I felt it. And I went and put my arms around her.

“It’s not that far down, okay?” I said. “Alls I have to do is walk down the wall a little ways and then drop.”

“Which is how he got injured!”

“I gotta go, okay?” I said. “Just...watch the kids and keep the ladies from freaking out.”

“Where’s that helicopter you called?”

That made me laugh. She was thinking ‘way back to the time she wanted to run away over at the school.

I gave her a pat on the cheek and said, “That thing’s ‘way down in Tucson. The cops in town have one, but that’d take forever and it’s already getting dark. So who would you rather? Me or one o’ those guys?”

She sighed heavily. So I pinched her cheek and went on over to the rope.

“I could just lower you down,” Carlos suggested.

“I’d rather have a lotta rope to hang onto, like it is now,” I said. “Just gimme a second. And take this.”

I gave him the radio, grabbed the rope, looked at the Goons to remind myself how they were going to feel when the whole village asked them what the hell they did while everybody else was trying to help...and then leaned ‘way back before I took that first step down.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because I could see the little bit of almost flat wall beneath that overhang that I could walk down on. And that made me feel better, but I have to admit, the first step was very weird.

You’re there leaning off the side of the damned cliff with nothing below you. Some people love that feeling. I have friends who sleep in tents hanging from cliff faces. I would not do that if my life depended on it. Or...unless my life depended on it, I guess.

Someone else’s life depended on me getting my ass down that rope. So I just said, “Fuck it,” out loud, and walked down as far as I could, trying to keep from swinging away from the little bit of wall there was.

When I got to where there was no more wall to walk on, I started doing this SEAL technique, modified the way that Nam vet I told you about taught us. You can’t do it like you did it in gym class. I would’ve done a Wile E. Coyote right quick if I’d used that.

I’m not going into it step by step for you here, but it’s pretty dope, once you get the hang. That Nam vet I told you about once used to make us climb up onto the top of this one old abandoned building you could get into from a door in the roof.  He’d make us go up and down, up and down on—sometimes just with our arms, too, the psycho.

I thanked him in my head that day, though. Because it didn’t take hardly any effort for me to get down low enough to drop onto that big flat space. And when I got down there, Luis’ knee was scarier than the fall. It was bent at this weird angle that looked almost comical, except I knew it had to hurt like hell.

I winced and said, “Damn, that’s fucked up!”

“Tell me about it,” he said--through his teeth, because he was in so much pain. And I felt for him, but I walked on over toward the sound of that little girl crying. It was just “Mamá! Mamá!” over and over now. And really, really sad. She’d given up. So I couldn’t.

Only, when I got there, I realized it wasn’t a storage hole. It was this bizarre crack in the rocks that looked like a big piece had crumbled or fallen away and left a little skinny space between two big slabs.

The second thing I realized was that I was too big to go down after her. All that “upper body” I’d just bragged about would get stuck right at the top. My lower body might not make it very far, either. And all we needed was for me to get stuck, too.

So I sat back on my heels feeling useless. And then I leaned to see what I could see. And didn’t like it at all. It was so dark I couldn’t even see her. I hoped she might be able to see me. But then when I called down to her, all she did was start screaming again. And by her crying I could tell she was a little one. Maybe just a little bit older than my kids, but not by much.

I radioed for her name. It was Amanda—Mandi, they called her.

So I called out her pet name and told her in Spanish that her mother was waiting for her and that we were going to come for her now. I told her that she should just sit still for a minute, and to look for the rope I was going to send down there.

I didn’t know how much she understood at that age, but I did know I couldn’t trust her to hang onto a rope. We had to come up with something fast.

“Can you get her mother on the radio?” I asked Carlos. And the next voice we heard was the mother begging me to “PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE” go get her baby.

So she wasn’t going help me calm the baby down. I told her we would and then asked her to put Carlos on.

To him, I said, “None of us are ever gonna fit down in that hole, man. We need some serious back up here. Like, search and rescue. And they’re not goin’ down there, either, to be honest with you. So I dunno.”

There was a long pause, and then I got a response from up top I hadn’t thought of.

“Okay, don’t freak out, but your lady wants know if she can try,” Carlos said. And to speak on her own behalf, Wyatt got on, and said, “I’m the only option you have at this point.”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“Would I be, at a moment like this?”

“Tell me you’re joking,” I said, again. But firmer that time.

And she came right back at me, too.

“I climbed for years,” she said. “Near Monte Blanc, once, actually. In the Alps.”

“Yeah? When?”

“Before you were born. But I’m trained, at least.”

“Yeah, when’s the last time since?”

“Oh, my God! Would I—“

“I’m serious!”

“All right--with the Park Service. When I thought I might want to be a ranger.”

“I bet that’s when you figured out you didn’t wanna be one, too.”

“Colton.”

“I’ll lower her down,” Carlos said. “You can grab hold of ‘er when she gets close enough.”

I went, “Dammit,” because I knew there was no way to stop this from happening. And also because a part of me knew it was supposed to happen. Like that it might even be the real reason we wound up at the ranch in the first place. Life does that shit sometimes.

And Luis went, “Whatever we’re gonna do we better do it now. That sun goes down, we’re done.”

So I ran over to where the rope was and watched it go up. And when I saw Wyatt already standing there on the edge with one of the baby slings around her neck, I almost threw up all that food we’d eaten a while ago.

But here’s the really cool part. When she’d been lowered down right into my waiting arms, she didn’t look scared. Not even a little scared. Just real determined—impatient, even.

Luis grinned and said, “Cat Woman in the house!”

But I wasn’t laughing. I said, “Please, don’t try it unless you’re sure.”

She gave me this little smile and said, “Where I’ve lived, kids got into all kinds of trouble. Two ran off and hid in some caves on the side of a mesa, once. And were afraid to get back down, after they went up.”

"And you went after them?”

She folded her arms like she was really getting tired of talking to me. And Luis said, “We’re burnin’ daylight, man. Let ‘er try.”

I just sighed and walked her over to the crack in the rock. She had the baby sling and another rope wrapped around her, I think hoping to maybe make a loop and sling it around the baby some kind of way.

Seeing that little crack in the rock sort of rattled her, I could tell. But she said, “You’ll have to send me down there, you two. Throw some rope down first, so I have extra to work with.”

“No problem, tough guy,” Luis said.

Once we’d sent some down ahead of her, she sat on the side, got hold of the rope and got into position. And as me and Luis started lowering her slowly, she really hugged the rope to make herself even tinier.

After a little while, she said, “This is pretty gnarly. There’s a big hole in the rock across from where she’s sitting—I’m not sure what’s on the opposite side of it. But I don’t want her to move, and I can’t go all the way down with it just wide open like that.”

“So you can’t get to her, either?” I said.

“I think I can. I mean, the good news is, it’s a bit wider as you go down. So I can move around a bit.”

“She look like she’s hurt?” I asked.

“I can’t see her that well. I’m going to go down as far as I can and try to loop the other rope around her—brace myself against the other wall, perhaps. We might even be able to get her up past me if I can get down far enough. And then I can come up, after.”

 "Use the sling,” I said. “Can you get her into it some kinda way?”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. And then we didn’t hear anything for ‘way too long.

So I said, “What’s up? Talk to me.”

And when she said, “Almost...” her voice was so steady that Luis and I quit worrying about her. Though I kept asking her if she was “good” until she finally went, “Colton, I’m fine!” as if she really wanted to say, “Stop asking me that, you moron!”

But I could hardly breathe until I heard, “Start pulling now—very gently! The sling’s tied to the rope, but I’m not sure I’m as good with knots as I was once.”

Luis and I started pulling like we were possessed, both to get the baby up and then to get Wyatt out of there. And when we radioed that we had them both out, I could hear the two women screaming. The Goons were whooping it up, too.

I just hugged Wyatt and the screaming baby as close to me as I could. But mostly, I was humbled by how strong that tiny woman was. Clearly stronger than me and probably everyone else I knew in a lot of ways--damsel in distress my ass.

Luis said, “You a bad mamma jamma,” to salute her in his own silly little way.

And she went, “Oh, my Lord—your knee,” finally waking up from the shock enough to see that leg.

"Yeah, well, you didn’t even need me,” he said. “Let’s get you the hell outta here.”

And I clicked and said, “Start that winch on three, okay? ONE...”

Wyatt put the sling around her and when I got to three, she and the baby started to rise up off the ledge sloooooowly. And I didn’t take my eyes off her ‘til I saw her step off onto solid ground and disappear from sight.

And right when she did that, I heard all this hooting and hollering and people running around—people from the village, probably. Maybe the cops and all, too.

“That’s a helluva girl you got there,” Luis said.

I just kept looking up, waiting for that damned rope to come back down to us. And when I got up there, she came right over and let me hold her as if being safe again had given her a chance to think about what she’d done, maybe. I also sort of wondered if she was just doing that to humor me, but she looked up at me all soft and shivery, so I decided it was genuine.

And boy, when I looked past us, every single person, male and female, was looking at me like they wanted to take my place. And I just smiled sort of cocky as if to say, “Don’t even...”

“Can we ride Butch back?” she asked.

I paused...and then realized that was her way of helping us be alone together for the trip back. And when we were riding back, real slow, trying to fall behind the crowd a little, she leaned back against me, looked up and said, “There was no bottom. Just...that little ledge that caught her and then...just blackness a footstep away. One slip...my God...”

I could hear fear in her voice for the first time. Only, it wasn’t like she was scared, actually. It was more like she was awed—like she respected those rocks. That they could’ve sucked her and that baby into the void and...that’d be that.

And then she reached up to run those fingers through my hair. It didn’t feel motherly that time, though. It felt like she was happy just to be alive. And that I was there. That I’d been there, when she faced the void. And was holding her safe against my body, after.

I was a wall that would not crumble. I would never let her drop into the blackness.

And Butch loped us gently home with his head held high, as if he knew he was carrying a woman as wild and strong as he was. Even the swaying trees seemed to be bowing to her as passed.

This was Wyatt.

I knew her now.