Page 52

“When he gets here.” Harlan and I left, and I locked up the run. I headed to the squad room to see what time the PD was coming for the prisoner and Molly was taking an incoming call.

She was writing down information on her yellow pad.

“Zeke Traymore, out on Wild Horse Break says his neighbor, Walt Clemson, was buried in a mudslide. He wants help out there to look for Walt.”

“Did he call Fire and Rescue?”

“Yes, he’s waiting for somebody to come and help him, and nobody showed up yet.”

“We’ll take the dogs and see what they can do. Molly, check with Fire and Rescue and make sure they got the call. Come on, Harlan. Let’s go.”

Wild Horse Break.

Still raining—not quite as hard as the day before—when we left the station, but when we got driving across Wild Horse Break, the sky went black as tar and the rain came down in torrents.

Harlan and I both wore our rain gear. Yellow slickers and rubber boots. The dogs had their harnesses on, but those wouldn’t keep them dry.

Zeke Traymore’s house was perched a long ways up the hillside, high above the deep ditches on both sides of the road that were supposed to take the spring runoff and the spring rains away. Those ditches were full.

Halfway up his sloped driveway I stopped, not wanting to get stuck in the quagmire. Harlan and I walked the rest of the way. I knocked and Zeke let us in. The small house was warm—wood burning in the stove was kicking off a lot of heat.

“Sheriff, something god-awful happened to Walt next door to me. I walked the trail of where his house slid down the mountain and I can’t find him. Don’t know how to find him without help.”

“I brought my dogs, Mister Traymore. Show me what you mean.”

We walked to the property line and Zeke pointed.

“His house was sitting right there.”

“His house is completely gone?”

“Mud slide came down the mountain and just shoved Walt’s house down the slope. He was inside.”

“There’s no house where you’re pointing, sir.”

“I’m telling you the house slid down the hill with Walt inside. You gotta go find him.”

“The whole house?” Harlan wasn’t quite believing it.

“I’ll do my best to find him,” I said. “You wait at your place for the firemen.”

“Okay, Sheriff. I’d better do that.”

When we got closer, I could see where Walt’s house had been sitting. It was now a clear patch of mud surrounded by a shallow stone foundation. That’s all that was left.

“The whole house got pushed by mud?” Harlan looked puzzled. “How is that possible?”

“If the mud was as big as a wall—like an avalanche of snow—it is possible,” I said.

“That would be a fucking huge amount of mud,” said Harlan.

“Yeah, it would be, and it would be a helluva lot heavier than snow.”

“I can’t picture it,” said Harlan.

“Yeah, hard to imagine, but if there was a man inside the house, we’d better find him and get him to a hospital. We’ll start here and work our way down the mountain.”

“Wouldn’t we see a house if there was anything left of it? Like wood or shingles? Like that?”