The Taking of Libbie, SD (Mac McKenzie #7)

“How the hell did I get here?” I said aloud

The answer was obvious enough—Evan. He drugged me. I remembered that the beer he gave me had a slightly bitter taste. Chloral hydrate tasted bitter. Chloral hydrate was the first depressant developed for the specific purpose of inducing sleep. Add it to alcohol and you have what the Victorians called a Mickey Finn. It works in a relatively short period of time, figure thirty minutes. I went down quicker than that, which means either he gave me a lot of it or the lack of food in my system accelerated its effects.

Why would he do it?

He wouldn’t unless someone told him to, paid him to.

Sharren Nuffer?

I didn’t think so. Evan used Sharren’s name because Sharren had fed me late Saturday night. He knew this because he poured me a Ringneck. Only Sharren wasn’t working Sunday. I was aware of that, yet I didn’t call him on it. Why not? How come I didn’t remember about the taste of chloral hydrate last night?

It was late. You were tired. Tired people make mistakes.

I moved my fingers gingerly up and down my rib cage and then across my face. Someone had kicked me while I was down, while I was unconscious. Someone who didn’t like me at all.

It was Dewey Miller. He owns the Pioneer Hotel. Evan works for him.

“Ahh, Mr. Miller,” I said aloud. “This time I think you have pushed your luck too far.”

Now what?

Despite the pain, I stretched my body. Then I brushed the red-brown dirt from my bare arms, my rust-colored polo shirt, and my blue jeans. It would have been nice to have my sports jacket with the cell phone in the pocket, but I doubted I’d have coverage out there anyway.

I was in for a long walk; there was no doubt about it. The question was, which direction? I slowly spun in a tight circle, examining the skyline as best I could. I saw no transmission lines, no water towers, no power or telephone poles, no fences, no roads. There was not a single tree anywhere, not a river or lake, not a bump of high ground to break the monotony of the limitless horizon.

“I guess they don’t call it the Great American Desert for nothing,” I said.

I set off, walking in a large circle, scrutinizing the ground intently. I found no tire tracks, from a car or a truck or an ATV.

“How the hell did I get here?” I said. “I didn’t fall from the sky.”

I circled again, moving more slowly this time, more carefully, examining the prairie grass as well as the ground, looking for bent stems, anything to indicate where a vehicle might have come from or in which direction it went, anything to follow. I failed.

Oh, this is not good.

Would you stop saying that?

I reached down and pulled up a stem of grass. Next, I removed my watch from my wrist. I held it horizontally, pointing the hour hand directly at the sun. I took the blade of grass and placed it halfway between the hour hand and the numeral twelve. This gave me the north and south line. Due east was at ten fifteen.

“That way,” I said.

Why that way?

“It’s the direction home.”

The way my father taught it to me, you pick a point in the distance and walk directly to it, then pick another spot in the distance and walk to that. This way you’re always moving more or less in a straight line; the strength of your right leg—I was right-handed—wouldn’t push you into a circle. Yet I came to realize that I could not follow those instructions here. I could not walk with an eye to a far goal because there was no way to measure the distance I was closing anymore than I could with a mirage. There simply were no reference points. The land was without water, without trees, without rocks, without discernible hills; there was nothing to help you determine where you’ve been or where you are going. I began to feel like I was on a gigantic conveyor belt and the earth was rotating at walking speed beneath my feet so that I gained no ground.

I stopped and used my watch to align myself again.

Dammit.

What?

My watch was set to Daylight Saving Time, not the natural arch of the sun. I was hiking northeast.

Does it matter?

Of course it matters.

I reset my watch, turning the hands back an hour, and realigned myself. I decided that I could no longer look to the horizon, so I concentrated on what was nearer my feet—a tuft of grass fifteen paces in front of me, a shrub twenty paces in front of that. All the while, I scanned the horizon, searching for a fence line, a silo, any kind of man-made structure that might lead me out of the wilderness.

A jackrabbit appeared. He was about two feet in length and gray, with those distinctive long ears pointed straight up from his head. The ears twitched while he watched me, a contemptuous expression on his otherwise placid face. I stamped my foot and said, “Hasenpfeffer,” which is the name of a German stew made with marinated rabbit. Either he was an uneducated rabbit or he didn’t fear the implied threat. After a moment he hopped away, moving in no particular hurry.