Headlights(72)

Everything is fucked. Beyond fucked. Colossally world-shatteringly fucked.

And in an insane moment of dissonance, just one second, the sun glints off the hood of the red car, the mountains towering over us and those aspen trees that look like a million individuals but are just part of one staggering whole, and I think, Colorado really looks so beautiful.



* * *



We shouldn’t have left the three-sided shelter. We were hidden, no paper trail, the car tucked away, no one to find us. Now we’re out in the open, and a notice has been put out. How far will it be spread? They put it on the fuckin’ news for god’s sake, who else has been notified? Cops, probably. Highway patrol. If they get us on the cameras, if they see us … But we have to find out what’s going on. We need to solve this. We need something.

“I don’t think we need to worry about anyone at Woody Creek,” Hannah says, as if reading my thoughts.

“Why’s that?”

“They’re all Aspen, maybe New York, LA. They’re all people who look around for someone they deem important, and if they don’t see that, they just want to be seen themselves. That’s all they really want. To just be there and be admired. We’re fine. From them anyway.”

I consider her words. Some of them looked like influencers. Influencers have followings. Could go viral with a clip of two wanted, armed, and dangerous people on the run. I don’t think I saw anyone taping us, but you can’t be sure these days.

We take 82 up past Basalt, to Glenwood. The Wild West tourist traps and Doc Holliday signs, the sulfur smell of the hot springs coming through the window. All the historic redbrick stores selling Colorado merch and Old West costume pieces. We head east on 70, take the exit for No Name, and follow it up to No Name Creek Road. No Name seems to be almost nothing in terms of population—two small sections on either side of the highway of homes. Hannah said a hotel too, but I don’t see it.

We find ourselves moments later in a wooded canyon, a winding road. A big drop on one side, slope up on the other. Houses at intervals on either side. The GPS glitches, shuts off. My phone refusing to tell us where to go. The radio flips on again, Lead Belly’s “Springtime in the Rockies.”

We come to a cul-de-sac with a trailhead on our left and an AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY sign for the long windy road ahead.

“I thought there was a sign,” Hannah says. “I remember one. But…”

There’s no sign. Maybe we were supposed to turn right off the highway instead of left. Maybe this was a wild goose chase and we’re no closer to finding what we’re looking for.

“But this looks familiar otherwise? And you remember a wolf on a sign here?”

She nods. “I mean, I think. I just came once for the hike, and now I’m wondering if I—”

We don’t have time to waste. We’re here. Before I let myself hit another dead end, accept that this thing just never yields any answers, I exhale. Fuck it.

I close my eyes, reach out again into that other-space, that place where maybe, sometimes, I get answers. If any of it’s real.

Before I know what I’m doing, my hands are on the wheel, and we’re going past the sign, onto the private road.

We follow it, windows down so we can hear the tires gripping the asphalt.

After a second, Hannah sits up straighter. “You were right,” she says. “This is it.”

“What?” I don’t see anything yet, no sign or anything, just this windy wooded canyon road.

“We’re going the right way,” she says.

“How do you know?”

“You don’t smell them?”

I shake my head, have no idea what she means.

“Horses,” she says. She turns to look at me.

I don’t smell anything, but in another minute, it turns out she’s right.



* * *



To call it a ranch is certainly a stretch, but No Name Equine Therapy definitely has horses. Two large paddocks and a couple smaller ones beyond a small house, a barn at the far end, all in a fairly wide clearing in the canyon. The horses’ tails swish, heads turn, eyes catching as we pull to a stop, dust trailing out from behind our car in the early afternoon light. We step out, and I rub my hands together before sticking them in my pockets. Hannah’s drawing. My fingers brush against it. I’m starting to see my breath now. The sun shining down into the canyon glints against the horses’ coats, against their metal corrals and gates.

“Snow’s coming,” I say. I reach into the back seat for my hat. “You feel it?”

“No,” she says, “but I smell it.”

I look at her again. She shrugs, the nose plug still in.

At the far end of the property near the barn, a man whistles in what I guess is a welcome, or a question. I fight the urge to hover my hand over my gun.

It’s Ryder Smith, same guy from the video, same guy from the website and our previous interviews. Blue jeans, dirty boots, tan Carhartt, white hat, saddling a palomino. We walk through the paddocks toward him, dirt and gravel crunching and shifting beneath our feet. Horses whinny as we pass.

We stop before the barn. Couple of trucks, equipment, hay. Beyond it, the canyon walls close in, making this place feel like a three-sided shelter of its own.

I watch Ryder Smith as he starts to walk toward us with the horse. Could he be Wizdumteller?