Free Fire - C. J. Box [51]
Joe drove down the switchbacks toward Gardiner. As he did, a growing sense of dread introduced itself to his stomach.
“Do you notice how laid back the pace is here?” Demming said, unaware of Joe’s increasing trepidation. “No one is in a hurry. Rangers, waiters, desk clerks . . . everybody moves at a slower pace than the outside world. We’re like a tropical island in the middle of the county—everything is different here. Slower, more deliberate. Nothing can’t wait until tomorrow. It drives you crazy at first but you get used to it. You know what we call it?”
They cleared the switchbacks and the terrain flattened out. The road became a long straightaway of asphalt across a grassy meadow. In the distance he could see the stone arch that signified the north entrance to the park. At one time, when the railroadsdelivered tourists like Rudyard Kipling, it was the primary gateway to Yellowstone.
“Joe, did you hear me?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I said, do you know what we call it?”
“No.”
“Yellowstone Time. Everybody here is on Yellowstone Time.”
“I see,” he said, distracted.
They drove under the arch with the words FOR THE BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT OF THE PEOPLE carved into the rock. The cornerwas still scarred and had not been patched. It receded in his rearview mirror.
“Joe, are you okay?” Demming asked.
“Why?”
“Your face is white. Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Are you okay to drive?”
“Yes.”
She settled back in her seat, silent, but stealing looks at him.
“I haven’t seen that arch for twenty-one years,” Joe said finally.“It brings back all kinds of bad memories. I’m sorry, but it sort of took me by surprise.”
“A stone archway took you by surprise?” she said gently.
He nodded. “My family used to vacation in the park. This is the way we came in. I still have pictures of us standing by the arch, my dad and mom, my brother and me. Victor was two years younger. We were close. The park was our special place, maybe because it was the only place where my dad was happy. He loved Teddy Roosevelt’s words: ‘For the benefit and enjoymentof the people.’ He used to say it all the time.”
Joe hesitated, surprised how hard it was to tell the story, surprisedhe wanted to tell it.
Demming didn’t prompt him for more. They drove north through Paradise Valley in Montana as the morning sun poured over the Absaroka Mountains.
He swallowed, continued. “I was in college. On my brother’s sixteenth birthday he called me in my dorm room at two in the morning. He was drunk and real upset. His girlfriend had dumped him that day and he was, well, sixteen. Everything was a crisis. He wanted to talk but I told him to go home, get some sleep, I had a test in the morning.”
Joe slowed while a rancher and two cowboys herded cows down the borrow pit next to the highway. Puffs of condensation came out of their mouths like silent word balloons. Calves bawled. When they were past, Joe sped up.
“After I hung up on him, Victor went home like I told him but took my dad’s car. Stole it, actually. He drove five hours in the middle of the night and crashed it head-on into that arch. The police said later they estimated he was going a hundred and ten miles an hour.”
She said, “My God.”
“We stayed at the Mammoth Hotel for the funeral. Victor’s buried in the Gardiner cemetery somewhere. My dad said he didn’t want him back. I haven’t been to his grave since.”
Tears formed in his eyes and he didn’t want them there. He wiped brusquely at his face with the back of his hand, hoping she didn’t see them.
“Do you want to turn around and go there?”
Joe turned his head away from her. “Later, maybe.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry I started your morning out with such a downer.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Okay.”
What he didn’t tell her, couldn’t tell her, was that when his family returned home after the funeral his mother never unpacked.She left without saying good-bye. His mother and father blamed each other for Victor’s death, although Joe knew it