They rode in silence as the horses continued navigating the descent into the canyon. The six and a half miles of switchbacks were relatively wide, but the edge was still sharp enough that they stuck to the inside of the trail, acutely aware that only five of them rode this morning instead of six.
Lily assured them that the horses had done this before, and that to them it was sort of a game. She was right. They nickered and called to each other almost all the way down and around the mountain, ears forward, tails up. Calypso seemed to be the most enthusiastic. Leo wasn’t sure whether it was because she didn’t have the weight of a rider to carry or because she was specifically happy to be rid of Terry, but Lily and Nicole each yelled at her to take it down a notch at least twice before they’d reached the sandy washout below.
The trip had obviously gone off script, so after a break where the guys handled lunch and Lily and Nicole took care of the horses, it was another three hours at least before they stopped just at the edge of the town where they would meet Lily’s friend Lucky.
She’d used the word town generously.
“This is it?” Leo asked when they finally came to a stop at the vague beginnings of a dirt road. It was nothing more than two dusty walkways set parallel to each other and a few small, rickety buildings.
“Looks like Redneck Radiator Springs,” Bradley mumbled.
Leo glanced around. “That’s an insult to rednecks.”
Deflating, Walter admitted, “When you said ‘town,’ I was hoping we could get massages.”
“You could get off your horse,” Nicole said, “and I’ll step on your neck for free.”
Walter blushed hotly and Bradley stared blankly at them. “This is the most bizarre flirting I’ve ever witnessed.”
“Welcome to Ely. Population… I don’t know. Two?” Lily ignored the commotion behind her and pointed to a tan double-wide with a tin awning on the front. “That’s the ranger station. If we’re going through with this, then we’ll want to steer clear.” At Leo’s continued wide-eyed appraisal of the town, she added, “Reset your expectations, city boy.”
“As with the ‘bus depot,’?” Bradley recollected. “Or what you’re calling ‘toilet paper’ out here.”
Lily leaned forward, urging Bonnie into a walk, and Leo sat up in the saddle, signaling to Ace to follow. “Who’s Lucky?”
They passed another old, crooked building with the word EAT painted onto a wood board outside. A pair of ATVs were parked haphazardly—he doubted there were any actual parking spots anywhere—and a couple of mountain bikes leaned against an empty flagpole. “He was a good friend of Duke’s.”
The horses’ hooves clip-clopped along the dusty ground.
“And he’ll be okay with you just stopping by?”
“I hope so, because there was no way to make an appointment.” She looked over at him, grinning, and it sent a thrill down his back to see the old fire come to life inside her. “He’s mostly around for the idiots who bring their giant trucks out here and end up high-centered on a trail or in a ditch.”
Sure enough, at the end of the “road” was another double-wide. The land around it looked like a 4x4 graveyard. There was also a small barn that was a lot nicer than the trailer, and a paddock with a handful of horses inside. Bonnie immediately whinnied to them, which set the others off as well.
“Guess she’s been here before,” he said, nodding to Bonnie.
“This mare loves it here,” Lily drawled in a voice that implied she did not share the sentiment.
“Not your favorite place?”
“Nope.” Lily looked over at him and let out a scoffing laugh. “This tiny town represents what I fear my entire future will be: dry, dusty, and decrepit.”
* * *
An hour later, they crowded around a table in the ramshackle building with the EAT sign out front. It was more bar than café, but it had beer, a jukebox, a couple of cramped but real restrooms in the back, and many, many photos of Duke Wilder on the walls: the framed National Geographic cover of Duke; him with a team from Princeton, huddled around a large tarp weighed down by a collection of dusty artifacts; photographs of him on horses, on a motorcycle, hiking in Moab, sitting at a campfire under the stars. There was even one with a front-tooth-less five-year-old Lily at his side holding a huge set of deer antlers.
“Wow, Lily,” Walt said with breathless admiration, “your dad really was famous.”
They took it all in for a long, silent minute. The magnitude of Duke’s history seemed to fill the room as they sat in the first actual chairs their asses had seen in days and sipped ice-cold beers out of mismatched glasses. Thanks to the quintessential aging cowboy Lucky—wiry, mustached, and skeptical of the men—the horses were now happily munching hay in his stables, and the treasure seekers had a borrowed Jeep parked out front. They also had fresh water and supplies in their packs, a few pairs of boots better suited for rocky terrain, and a handful of paper maps spread out between them.