BECAME

By Nathan Truzzolino

Story inspired by the song 'Became' by Atmosphere 

Chapter 1

I Want a Lawyer

Mark Bell was at the small bagel shop across the street from the courthouse when the Sheriff's department called to inform him that he had a new client and that the client needed him right away.  

It was 6:45 in the morning. Mark had just ordered his large coffee and a plain bagel with plain cream cheese toasted and pressed panini-like. He was worried about his expensive loafers getting soaked in the surprising new fell snow that slowly accumulated throughout the night. He did not know that today would be one of the most exciting days of his entire life. 

By 7:02, Mark was wanded, signed in, and directed to interview room 3 in the Missoula Country Sheriffs' office, located downtown in the municipal court house. 

It was September 30th, and Indian summer finally gave up the ghost when old man winter kicked his loitering ass out of Montana, not to be seen again for nine months. 

Detective Kennedy greeted Mark at the interview room door. 

"Is that a panini?" Kennedy asked. 

"It's a bagel panini." Bell tolled. "Clear to bring it inside?"

Kennedy nodded yes. "Slam that coffee, son. It's going to be a long day." Here the Detective did not laugh or grin but sighed like a Shakespearian actor.  

Mark sipped the liquid lava quickly and motioned for the Detective to start the rundown. 

"Tom Brewer. Age 29. Lives in Helena. He came in this morning around 3:00 am, claiming he lost his wife out camping last night up the Rattlesnake Wilderness. He is the last person to see her and has a rather interesting tale of how it all went down." 

"Interesting how?" Mark asked through scolded lips. 

"Interesting enough to where he needed you if you hear me."  

"Copy," Mark said, looking towards the door. He heaved the remaining three ounces of still boiling coffee into the small wastebasket. The Columbian aroma fumigated the office, making every soul within thirty feet think about the bagel shop across the street.

With that, Kennedy opened the door to interview room #3, and inside, sitting on a red plastic chair, was disheveled, sleep-deprived, and manic Tom Brewer. Mark noticed Tom's matted hair from his winter cap that sat on the table. He was of average height, slim build, and had a red face with a nose growing larger with every consumed whiskey.  

Mark took the rolling seat, pushed into the far corner, and wheeled it to the white ceramic desk. Mark slowly retrieved a tape recorder and notepad from his satchel without taking his eyes off of Tom. Tom looked at him like a wild goose.  

Next came a card from his inside breast pocket. He slid it over to Tom, who looked at it like a land mine. 

"Mark Bell, I am the public defender around these parts, and I am here to serve you, Mr. Brewer, is it?"

Mark nodded in a way that signaled affirmative.  

"Do you accept my council this morning Mr. Brewer?"  

Another nod.  

"Let the record show that Mr. Brewer nodded yes." Mark pointed at the recorder and mouthed the word 'recording' to Tom. Tom didn't blink. Hadn't blinked since he entered the room. 

A pulse of hostility was radiating off of Tom. Mark Bell has always picked up on cues that others may ignore. He found others often unintentionally ignored the slightly odd and subtle feelings around them like a cold shiver, goosebumps, the sudden urge to shit, floaties in vision, and elevated heart rate.  

Mark had most of these feelings in a splendid rotating fashion while sitting across from Tom Brewer. From his satchel, Mark grabbed the bagel and unwrapped the wax paper. He took half the pre-sliced bagel for himself and slid the rest over to Tom.  

Tom didn't move his head, just his eyes, and somehow his nostrils moved too, like a cartoon dog floating through the air inhaling a delicious smell. 

Mark swore that Tom mumbled under his breath, "Panini?"

Mark waited for Tom to take his half before starting in on his half. Quickly Tom took the bagel and gnawed it for possibly 3 seconds before inhaling the half-circle carbohydrate machine. 

Mark could see a little life come back into his eyes after eating the sandwich.  

"Mr. Brewer, shall we start from the beginning?"  

Tom straightened up in the uncomfortable chair and placed his hands on the cool, stained white table.  

"My wife ran away with a pack of wolves early this morning," Tom said in stone-cold seriousness. 

Mark leaned forward, and those subtle vibes he had so boastfully thought about moments earlier were now gone. The bowels stopped sloshing, warmth returned to his skin, and fearless focus returned to his mind and vision. Mark's bullshit meter was quiet as a church mouse. 

Mark loved this part of his job, the client's story. It's what got him out of bed every morning.  

Mark leaned back in his chair, took in all of what Tom was and had to offer, and decided he and his new client needed two more panini bagels and coffee. Mark texted his paralegal the food order and slid the recorder closer to Tom. 

"Ok. Let's hear what happened before that, huh?"

Chapter 2

A Tail as Old as Time

"I've said this four times now, god dammit!"

Still waiting on their bagels and coffee, Mark is having difficulty getting Tom to focus.  

"I know you have Tom, but you told that story to the people trying to put your ass in jail. I'm the only person in this building who isn't."

Mark appreciates a tough nut to crack from time to time, but he was on edge this time because deep down in his heart, he knew he just wanted to hear this fucking story already. 

A soft knock came at the door. Penny Waltrip, paralegal for the Missoula County Public Defenders Office, slips in with two massive coffees and a paper bag of bagels. Penny was a tall and rather slender woman who seemed to carry all of her weight in her hair which she wore like a fed-up Rapunzel. Her hair was always styled up upon her head in a massive bun that hung to the left or right, depending on whether Mercury was retrograde. 

"God bless your cotton socks, Penny," Mark said with all sincerity. 

Tom looked at Penny as if he was more interested in eating her than the sack of bagels. Mark and Penny, due to their trial training, took mental notice.  

"Anything else? If not, I'll be heading downstairs." 

"That will be all for now. Thank you kindly." Mark responded, still staring at Tom, who was staring at Penny, who was staring at her shoes. 

After Penny left the room, Mark withdrew a bagel out of the bag and started to eat furiously.  

"One of them for me or what?" Tom asked angrily. 

"Thought you rather finish eye fucking my paralegal first before you take a bite of breakfast," Mark said through a full mouth, intentionally throwing spittle and bits of bagel on the table. 

Tom looked sheepishly down at his hands. Mark noticed them for the first time and saw they were thick and well used. Tradesman of some kind, he thought. The skin on his fingers and knuckles is a darker shade of redneck than the rest of his skin.  

"Start telling me the story Tom, and once I feel you have earned a reward, I'll toss you a bone. Punishment for creeping out my employee."  

Tom's face grew red and taught, like an old basketball. His anger was about to get the best of him. His dirty hands started to clap silently, ten times, then they stopped moving, and Tom's face was back to his pale shade of usual asshole. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and exhaled loudly.  

Mark took notice of the quick temper and put a mental tally mark in the column labeled guilty. Not a great start, he thought. He knew the percentage of cases that ended poorly when they started precisely so, and that number was two digits and started with an 8.  

"Go on now. From the beginning. Best as you can remember. No pressure. It's going to be alright." Mark said, sliding over the bagel he lifted from the sack next to him.  

Tom left the bagel in front of him untouched for a few moments, increasing the tension in Mark's chest. Tom closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled through his nose. He seemed to be deflating.  

"Alright. Here's how it happened."

- Transcript of Tom Brewer's account of the night his wife went missing - Italics are Tom Brewer, Underline is his attorney Mark Bell

 Transcript of Tom Brewer's account of the night his wife went missing - Italics are Tom Brewer, Bold is his attorney Mark Bell.

_The wife and I see; we wanted to get the hell outta Dodge sows we hoed and hummed over where to go. Quinn's hot springs was booked up and so was Fairmont so we thought maybe we would camp out for a few nights. She got all pissy at me for not wanting to get the pull camper out since that in itself takes a weekend to get prepped so I suggested we hike in somewheres and rough it for a few nights. She was ok with that, and so we decided to go up the Rattlesnake. We both went to college in Missoula and hadn't been hiking up there for a while._

_The internet forecasted the weather as mild with some rain showers, but we had good rain gear and were itching so badly to get out we just kind of said fuck it and chanced it. _

_I won't lie._

Please don't 

_Yeah. As I said, I wouldn't lie; It didn't start great. Argued her and I the whole ways over Rogers Pass and clear up the Blackfoot River. It wasn't until Mill Town did we stop yelling. It was a rough start. _

_We stopped at REI out there on Reserve Street to get supplies, mostly pack food. We got a bite to eat at that Mexican restaurant near then we got ready to hike. _

Fiesta En Jalisco?

_That's the one. Glad you said it. I never say it right. _

What time was that about?

_Early. Two or three abouts. _

_We parked at the trailhead and made it back up a few miles before deciding to take a break. This may have been around 4:30 now. That was a terrible idea because I was already exhausted from arguing all day and this little spell in hiking just left the window open for more yelling. So I kept walking, trying to ignore her, and before I knew it, we were way the fuck back there. Getting dark now. We stopped for the night in a clearing on the base of a steep ridge with plenty of coverage. _

_We set up camp, and I started to cook some food, and like a fucking scene outta Netflix, the sky got black, and it just fucking dumped on us. Rain like I've never seen before. This turn in weather ignited another argument. We debated on going back or moving to a higher ground area or just staying put, and for fucks sake, she just contradicted every god damn thing I suggested. So we fucking sat there in the rain until it turned to fucking snow. It snowed just a little, though, not enough to stick much, so we weren't too worried, but we were so god damn mad at each other we didn't care about the weather. _

_When it started to get dark, I cooked up some MREs and the sausages I packed. We had a few tin cups of Pendleton and just stared at the fire as the snow came and went. _

(Long pause in audio)

(Inaudibly, Mr. Bell) Take your time. 

_She said something I wasn't ready to hear. She asked if I loved her anymore. If I still wanted to be with her. We had been trudging through a rough patch in our relationship for ways now. Only married a year and things already felt spent. I didn't know why. She seemed to be fading away. _

_We talked and talked, and I was over it by cup three of whisky and said I was turning in. She flipped the fuck out and threw her tin cup in the fire, which I had to fish out. _

Does the cup in the fire explain the red hands then?

_Yeah burnt it up some. _

Those scratches on the knuckles there. Where'd they come from?

_Can I finish the fucking story?_

_Anyways, I go into the tent and slip into my night bag. I hear her out there pacing and snorting, and so I yell at her to kill the fire and come to bed. The wind is really picking up now, and I ain't getting a massive fine for starting no forest fire, so I get up out of the tent and douse the fire myself. I went back in and lay down. The last thing she said was she had to piss. I closed my eyes, and before I knew it, I was out. _

_I was startled out of sleep for some reason. I had to piss, I guess. I noticed she ain't in the tent, which really pissed me off because I had no idea how long I'd been out, and I could tell there was no fire going. I unzipped the tent, and there was a foot of fucking snow on the ground. _ 

_I threw on my rain jacket and Muck Boots and went to see where she was. I had a lantern I set on a stump and grabbed my pocket torch to shine around the camp. I could see her footprints making a small track on the outside of the camp. Over and over, round and round she paced, probably a hundred times by the look of the snow. I took my piss, stood by the dead fire, and stacked some snowy wood in the pit to try and get another one going. The wind was still screaming, and I had no gloves, and the rain jacket wasn't doing shit for warmth I said fuck it and gave up on the fire.   

_It was still dark as hell, so I spotlighted around the camp again and called out her name. _

I never got her name.  

_Josie. Josie Red Horse. Josie Brewer, now I guess. _

_Anyways, I futz around a little longer, then finally I see her footprints take off north up the path. I follow using my lantern and flashlight. I hike up the god-forsaken steep path for probably a mile, and that's when I see the first set of new prints come out of the woods. Giant dog prints. That's what I thought and hoped for at first. Then I remembered where I was. It was a wolf. _

I haven't heard of wolves up the Rattlesnake in a long time. I mountain bike back there all the time. Positive about that?

_Ever seen a wolf before councilor?_

Can't say I have.  

(Long pause in audio)

Please proceed.

_The prints started to follow my wife's, so I followed them further up the path. Probably a hundred yards further and from the left of the trail, the steep side came another set of tracks—Wolf number two.  

_Her steps were getting further apart. She was running. I killed the pocket torch and took my Bowie from my hip, waiting for a wolf to be just up ahead. It was eerie, man. I felt eyes were upon me.  

_I ran after her tracks, and they jumped off the trail now and went straight uphill, up this fucking mountain that was lousy with brush and debris. I struggled and finally caught up with the tracks again, and her's were gone now. I don't know how she made it through all that brush, especially with this new snow.  

Gone? Gone how?

 _Where her tracks stopped, another set of wolf tracks started. Hand to god. _

Her tracks stopped and they changed into wolf prints? Is this correct?

_Hand to god._

Any clothing or signs of struggle at all?

_That's the thing, councilor. There was nothing. _

How can that be?

_I'll get to that. _

Sorry, keep going. 

_I try my best to get up this god-forsaken hill right, screaming out her name, and I finally get to his knoll, and I can see now another game path starting that skirts the hill, so I take that and on the second blind corner sits two giant grey wolves. One of them, massive, he was squatted like he had expected me, and the other was sitting calmly with his head up high.  

_I about shit myself and stopped dead in my tracks. I got my knife ready when I heard movement behind me. Then I heard it from both sides of me. The entire pack was around me. That's when I ran. _

You ran back down the hill in the same area you came up it?

_Ran in my old tracks and all.  

Alright. 

_I hightail it back to camp to try and get some cell service, but it was pointless; it just doesn't work up there. _

_I start to panic, so I go to find my pack when I notice in the tent that her pack is still there. Next to her bag are her jeans, socks, boots, shirt, and underthings, all stacked in a neat pile. _

Previous day's clothes?

_Yes, councilor. _

Was she nude?

_Had to be. Nothing else was missing. She mighta came into the tent when I passed out. I have no idea. _

Are you still drunk at this time?

_No._

So what then? 

_It finally started to get lighter, so I grabbed my pack, and I ran down the path back towards the truck. I called the police, who met me at the trailhead. Two cops showed up. One went up the path a ways but said there wasn't a lot of personnel available due to road accidents given the dumping of snow. _

Why'd they bring you to the station?  

_Beat's me. I said I'd go back up with the one, but they said to come back to the station to make a statement.  

That doesn't make any sense Mr. Brewer. Why take you in if you are the only one who knows the exact whereabouts of your camp?

(Long Pause)

_I may have had an altercation with one of the officers._

Physical?

_Barely. _

I'll ask again, were you drunk Mr. Brewer?

_I mean I had a few cocktails before bed, so maybe some was still in my belly. I don't know. I just escaped a pack of fucking wolves, buddy. I was on edge. _

We'll figure this part out in time. What happened next?

_They took me here and asked me questions for god knows how long until I said I wanted to speak to my lawyer._

Did they read you your Miranda rights?

_Yes.

When?

_When he stuck me in the car at the trailhead._

And you talked to them for hours after that?

_Yeah, I had to tell them about Josie. They need to get up there and find her._

Jesus Christ, Mr. Brewer. Rule number one after they read you your rights is you shut the fuck up. Rule number two is you shut the fuck up. What else did you tell them?

_Nothing. Just what I told you is all. More or less. _

More, more, or more less?

(Audible sigh from Mr. Brewer)

This concludes interview number one with client Mr. Tom Brewer. 

Chapter 3

She Went As Far As She Could Go

The collective personnel of the Missoula County Public Defenders office was at the James Bar in downtown Missoula the night of December 23rd. It was a semi-Christmas party/retirement party/moving-on so long, fare thee well sendoff. 

A senior public defender named Skip Bancroft finally retired after 40 years of practicing law. He grew up on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and had been dying to get back there to become the elder he always wanted to be. His heart needs a pacemaker to run appropriately, and he blames the current state of politics for said ailment. The entire office was sad yet happy to see him go.  

The saddest note of the party, at least for head Public Defender Mark Bell, was that they were also celebrating paralegal Penny Waltrip taking a new position in Austin, Texas, after only a year on staff. Penny quickly became an office favorite and a go-to for anything with a tight deadline. Mark, above everyone else, would miss her the most. She was his Gal Friday, and secretly, he had late-night fantasies about being with her intimately. Yet he knew that wasn't possibly being her direct supervisor. At the end of the night, Mark Bell delivered a toast.  

No one heard what he said over the noisy crowd and post-punk music from the bar next door called Al & Vics, that's connected by a doorway with two swinging saloon doors that do a piss poor job at anything resembling the duties of a practical door.  

After Mark finished his toast that no one heard but wouldn't have understood even if they heard it, he raised his beer and drank to Penny Waltrip's health and future endeavors.  

It was approaching the end of the evening when most people had Uber'd home. Penny Waltrip was properly drunk but wasn't at the point of being needy and reliant on others for necessities like walking or ordering drinks. Yet she lingered around later than anyone expected. Just as he had feared, Mark was the last man standing with the Queen of Hearts still by his side. Penny was an infamous lightweight and had a propensity for leaving parties early. Penny was naturally shy and mostly introspective, so Mark thought it strange to see her let loose tonight, talk to strangers and even deliver a heartfelt rendition of "Where Do Broken Hearts Go?" via a dodgy Karaoke machine in the back of Al & Vics.  

Mark took a violent piss, splashed his face with dirty bathroom bar water in the sink, and shook his head, hoping those last three beers would fling out of him like water shedding of a wet dog. Mark knew Penny was still out there, which to his beer-soaked brain meant one thing. She wants to take him home.  

With the confidence that only comes after seven PBRs, Mark walked out of the men's room and into an invisible bear trap. 

Penny Waltrip stood by the entrance to the bar, winter coat wrapped around her arm and burning a hole like lasers with her eyes through Mark Bell's heart.  

Mark strolled up to Penny as casually as possible, feeling the liquid confidence leaving his body with every step forward. He feared he wouldn't make it to her at all. Yet Mark, the lawyer, always had a way with words. 

"Gavin up, spooky finally?"

Penny furrowed her brow and then gave a confused smile. 

"I thought I was drunk," she laughed.

Mark's Irish face flushed.  

"Jesus. Sorry, Penny. I was trying to say giving up the ghost finally?" 

"Yeah, I have a cab on the way. It was an entertaining night. It made me feel special."

She looked down at her shoes, heavy reinforced rubber boots made to withstand the terrible snow that has plagued Montana this December.  

"We are all sad to see you leave," Mark said with a sincere smile. 

Penny seemed to hold her breath, waiting to say something. 

Her phone buzzed, and Mark could see the bright pink Lyft logo on the screen. Her ride had arrived. She looked back at her former boss with what appeared to be sadness.  

Mark locked in on it and went into "best friend" mode. He had officially thrown in the intimacy towel.

"Hey, if you are ever in Missoula or Montana, give me a ring, and I'll hook you up with the best hotel and restaurants and all the dope and hookers you could ever want." Mark was trying to be cute but knew it came off corny and pathetic. He was out of practice. Divorced for three years now and precisely zero second dates. 

Penny smiled politely and asked nicely, "Walk me to my ride?".

Mark found his heavy and expensive arctic climate jacket and escorted the young Penny into the cold, and delivered her into the back of a red Chevy Impala.  

"Keep in touch, kid." Mark was now bailing out of the intimate role with full tilt, evoking the old man nomenclature by calling Penny' ‘kid’. 

"You too, Mark." She blew a quick non-intimate kiss. 

And with that, the door closed, and she was gone into that sweet night.   

Mark had a townhome nearby and was dreading the lonely walk of shame home. After Mark's divorce, he sold the forever home in the countryside he had built for him and his wife and moved into this uppity Seattle-style condo on the north side of Missoula near the train tracks only because it was a five-minute walk to the office downtown. The apartment sits feet away from the tracks, where the train cars like to hook up at two miles an hour at 3:00 am, which meant his condo shook like it was twerking on San Andreas' fault. Still, he thought, it beat living in a mansion with a life-sucking whore. 

The snow would not let up on his walk home, and he dreaded having to take the pedestrian bridge that rose above the many train cars that passed through Missoula every day. The homeless folks and drug addicts who couldn't stand to live a minute in a homeless shelter liked to sleep on the pedestrian bridge. Most were harmless, but still, he was a tad nervous walking along by a group of them during the witching hour.  

The five rotations up the ramp seemed to take forever until he finally got to the apex of the bridge, and to his surprise, he saw not a soul on the bridge. Just a healthy serving of freshly fallen snow, and right down the middle of the bridge was a fresh track, small, dainty, and straight as an arrow. They were dog tracks. One dog, to be exact.  

A train passed underneath, making the bridge sway a little, throwing Mark's already uneasy equilibrium off. 

The pit of Mark's stomach started to slosh like a sea storm until the contents were no longer content with being inside the abdomen. Mark fell to his knees and vomited an impressive pile of old cheap beer, shelled peanuts, decent hot wings, and regrettable pizza.  

"Trains," Mark spat, dry heaving a little. Why did the train trip this purge?

The image of the dog prints rattled Mark. So much so that they made him lose his last good drunk of the holiday season all over the walking bridge.  

He remembered now why the dog tracks bothered him so. They reminded him of the last case he got hung up on. The last case he swore he would ever take. The unsolved mystery of a mutilated man in the woods. So badly mauled and ripped apart, it was hard for experts to piece him back together again.  

Mark was thinking of Tom Brewer. The images that haunt every sleep now for three months running.  

Mark stood up, moved to the edge of the pedestrian bridge, then spit what was left of his escaping stomach bile over the bridge's ledge onto the snow-covered train tracks below. He felt embarrassed and was sure there was a CC TV camera capturing this manly purging. A buzzing erupted from Mark's left pants pocket. He slipped his glove off and retrieved the iPhone from his jeans.  

It was a text message from Penny Waltrip.  

_You home?_

Holy shit, he thought. No fucking way.  

The trains below him decided they also had hooking up on their minds and did so just at the precise second Mark was trying to text back. The bridge shook ferocity, and the phone flew from Mark's hand down into the rail yard below. 

He saw it land with a soft 'poof' into the inches of snow and guessed it was probably ok. A giant diesel train engine ran it over like a planet rolling over a toy car, seemingly never to be seen again. 

"Mother fuck."

Mark looked up from the train yard to see a white dog with dark eyes and a dark nose sitting patiently at the end of the bridge. It was probably sixty feet away, on its haunches, just watching Mark fuck up any chance of getting laid tonight. 

"Oh fuck," whispered Mark. The train's roar was nearly deafening, yet he still thought he should try to be quiet somehow to avoid attracting the dog's attention. 

Mark declared to himself that he was officially done with this night. The dumb dog's prints already made him sick; he was done being bossed around by this spook K-9.

Mark lunged forward, waving his arms over his head and screaming, "You owe me a new phone, you fucking mutt!"

The dog got up slowly and walked back from where it came—Waltzing down its side of the descending ramp and into the darkness of Northside Missoula streets. 

Mark was out of breath, having put on such a show knowing the louder he shouted and ranted at the dog, the quieter his terror within would be. And on this night, it actually worked.  

Chapter 4

Beer Train

When Mark Bell was seventeen years old, he was a graduating senior in high school living in Butte, MT. Butte is an old mining town 100 miles east of Missoula, where he now practices law. 

In the spring of his senior year, he worked at a grocery store, stocking shelves and bagging groceries. When work at the grocery store was slow, Mark would raise hell with his best work buddy, Pants. He got the title of Pants because he was constantly out of breath from being somewhat overweight and severely asthmatic.  

A month before graduation Mark was sleeping in the back of Albertsons Grocery on Harrison Ave in the shady part of town when Pants pulled him up from his cardboard hammock and started to cry heave in his barely conscious face. 

"You're. Never. Going. To believe. This." Panted Pants. 

Mark, who would go on to study law in Missoula at the University of Montana and graduate at the top of his class, was saving up every ounce of ambition for college, so there was none left in the tank for essential duties like showering, school, work or giving a shit about anything in general.  

Before Mark could respond, Pants continued in his labored cadence. 

"Remember Yorky, the Irish kid who works. Works for. Roach and Smith?" 

"The beer re-stock, kid? Yeah, he's in here all the time harping on us to stop drinking the product." Mark replied, rubbing his eyes. 

"He just told me. They are out of Budweiser." 

"Then he can get more and stock the shelves. That's his job, Pants." Mark said, annoyed. 

"No. Roach. _Roach_ is out of Budweiser. All of it."

Mark shifted his weight to his left foot, prepping to throw a faint jab at Pants and then knock his ass out with a right cross for waking him up for this.  

Sensing this, Pants tightened his grip on Mark and reached the point of finding his breath.

"There is a train car. Stuck up in the hills. Chock-full of Buds. Guess where it is?" 

Mark rests his feet on his heels and shrugs his shoulders, not caring to hear the answer.  

"Roosevelt Pass. Just pass the trailhead."  

Pants waits for the information to seep into Mark's beer-soaked brain. Mark had snuck a few Olympia Lagers on his lunch break out behind the grocery store and was sleeping off the discomfort of suspending day drinking mid-way through the meaty part of the day. 

"That's less than a mile from the trestle," Mark said, on the cusp of grasping the situation. 

"And..." wheezed Pants. 

"And the tunnel." Mark finished. 

"Bingo!"

The train car they spoke of was on its way to Butte from Denver by way of St. Louis, home of all things Budweiser. This train car was malfunctioning outside Whitehall, throwing off sparks and nearly causing multiple forest fires. Hence, they had to pull off onto an old auxiliary track that was no longer in use now that the new train track bi-passes the Continental Divide north of Butte in Bernice and no longer uses the track that ran south of Butte through the southern Highlands Mountain Range.  

This all meant that the train car full of beer was less than a mile away from the location of their senior keg, which was the abandoned train tunnel near Roosevelt Pass.  

"We could just go..." 

"Yup."

"Then we would have people..." 

"Uh, huh." 

"It would be insane." 

"The best!" 

"Best senior keg ever!"  

"Legendary." 

Yorky, the beer stocking kid who spilled his guts about the abandoned train car, forgot to tell Pants about the part about how the train car wasn't entirely deserted.  

When Mark and his more in-shape friend Lin went to check the rail car out, they found a man sitting in a folding chair with his feet propped up on a stump, ghetto blaster playing Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.  

After further investigation, they found that the man was a giant Native man with long black hair and wearing a bright and freshly pressed SECURITY uniform sans shoes or socks.  

The boys snuck back to Mark's Chevy Nova and tore like hell back to Butte to deal with Yorky.  

They found him at a grocery store called Buttrey's, counting cases of Michelob with his pencil and notepad. 

"York, you gone fucked up, bud," Lin said, grabbing York by the scruff of his neck.  

Mark explained what they glimpsed when they found the train car. 

"I didn't know of any Indian fellas. No fooling," cried York in his fading Irish accent. 

"Get the 411 on the guy York. Or I'll ensure Roach and Smith will have to get you a handicap van for the remainder of your career." Lin said, letting go of his neck.  

The following day Yorky phoned Mark at his home.  

"He's a hired guard from an outfit out of Dillon. They didn't want to use anyone local in Butte because they knew they would get ripped off by them. He's there all day and all night, camps out there, has a familiar bring him supplies. The car is running on an internal generator, keeping the product cool. No word yet on a mechanic fixing the car yet." 

Yorky said they thought the guard's name was George or Jerry or Gerald.  

Mark and Lin had two days til the kegger. They had to decide because if they weren't going to boost the beer train, they needed to get kegs ASAP.  

They decided to get two kegs as a backup from Lin's older brother. The beer heist, though, was still a go. On the day of the keg, Pants, Mark, Lin, and their Sasquatch-looking friend, whom they called Gandalf, would grab the security guard, detain him for the night, raid the train car and cut him loose in the morning.  

What could go wrong?

The gang of four woke at noon the day of the party and drove out to negotiate with George or Jerry or Gerald. They parked Mark's Nova at the bottom of the Roosevelt Pass train trestle, where most party attendees would be parking that night. They hiked up the steep hill and went East towards the trailhead where the train car slept.  

They could hear AC/DC playing when they reached the last bend, where they could finally see the train car radiating an aurora of heat waves off its steel frame. The boys approached cautiously.  

They surrounded the train car but found nothing but the folding chair and the ghetto blaster: no tent or sign of a camp anywhere. 

"Help you?" 

A voice in a reservation cadence came booming from the top of the rail car.  

Every boy screamed.  

Mark was first to recover.  

"Need you to come down from there, old timer." 

The big Indian looked down on the boys from a laying position, like he had just rolled over from a legendary nap.  

"I was just taking a sunny. Whatchu boys need?" 

Lin, feeling confident, again yelled, "All the beer!" 

"I don't got none." The Indian said calmly.  

"You're laying on a mountain of it," Mark said patiently.  

"Now come on down, and we can discuss this like men," Lin said, balling his fists.  

"Alight. Let me get my shirt and jeans on."  

They could hardly see the man getting dressed when Pants, who was still out of breath, spoke up.  

"What if he got a gun up there?" He puffed. 

They all looked at Gandalf, the resident tough guy, who just shrugged.  

"Hey, old timer, you got a gun up there?" Lin yelled. 

"Nope. Just a bag of sunflower seeds."  

"No lying?" Mark asked. 

"I never lie," came the voice more distant now.  

They looked at Pants now, everyone wishing they could fry little piggy boy alive right there on the tracks for even suggesting the idea of a gun.  

"Ok, I'm ready."  

The voice was now behind them, and again it boomed like an amplified PA.  

The boys screamed in unison again.  

"Got a key for this thing?" Mark asked the native.

"No key." He replied, patting his jeans pockets. 

They all walked over to the seven-foot sliding door with a hefty industrial lock securing the insulated door shut. The closer Mark got to the car, the more distinctly he could hear the generator's hum.  

"No problem. That's why we brought the wizard." Lin said, patting Gandalf on the back.  

The giant man walked over to the lock and took a bolt cutter from his backpack. He snipped the lock as easily as a gardener prunes a rose.  

Like Moses parting the Red Sea, Gandalf rolled the door to the left, exposing cases upon cases of bottles of great American Budweiser lager.  

The refrigerated air hit them like an ocean wave, and some even gave an audible gasp of ecstasy.

Even the big Indian was marveling at the lagers. With everyone mesmerized by the cache of beer, Lin grabbed the big native's wrist and threw on one half of a handcuff and swift as a mouse threw the other half on Pants chubby wrist.  

Both the Indian and Pants looked down at their conjoined hands and then at each other. Pants let out a moan and all the big native had to say was "Shoots." 

"Boys, this night will be one for the record books," Mark said, still staring at the sweating bottles of beer.   

Chapter 5

Poor Tom is Dead

The morning after Penny's going away party and the odd occurrence on the pedestrian bridge with the ghost dog, Mark felt he had ordered a one-of-a-kind, custom-made hangover. A sweet combination of headache, stomach rot, and body aches mixed with a dash of self-loathing.  

He awoke on his couch with a half-eaten cheese melt in his hand and Mystery Science Theater 3000 playing on repeat. The once sweet sounds of Crow and Servo were now haunting the empty cave of despair that was his head. 

Mark instinctively reached for his phone and slowly realized it was where he last put it, on the bottom of a train track about 500 yards from his apartment. "Oh hell," moaned Mark as he used all the momentum he could muster to do a sit-up off the couch.   

Mark threw on his high-priced Kenetreck hunting boots and slung on his puffy, fur-lined winter jacket to brave the elements and retrieve his phone from the rail yard.  

To his awful surprise, the day was bright and relatively warm. The pain of the sun hurt his brain, and he remembered one of his favorite songs.  

'The sunlight hit me dead in the eye like

It's mad that I gave half the day to last night.'

_Yeah, that was about right_ thought Mark. The walk to the fence was short, and when he reached the hole that the homeless cut near the pedestrian bridge, he took off his jacket and laid it on the ground so he could fit through the space.  

Mark made sure no trains were going to surprise attack him and hurried over the now visible tracks until he got to the point in which he thought his phone went overboard the night before.  

Kicking around with his boots and finding his prize didn't take long.  

Sitting there looking better than the day it was unboxed was his iPhone 13, shining like a newborn phone in the sun. Winking at its master, saying, "Hey, welcome back!". 

"Missed you too, bud," said Mark, and they both went home happily together in the low winter sun, 

After an hour of showering, shitting, and shaving, Mark could finally face the day. It was Saturday, and he was a bachelor, which meant he could do whatever he wanted today. The overabundance of choices left him paralyzed, so he sat at his kitchen counter and picked up his charging iPhone.  

Mark tried to recall beer-soaked memories from the night before and remembered the text from Penny.  

He swiped the phone and looked at the message for a long time, trying to decipher what she meant when she said, "You home?". Was she being friendly and making sure my drunk ass didn't get attached by drug addicts? Possibly she was looking to come over?  

Not one to shy away from a mystery, Mark texted her back that he was home safe, hungover, but otherwise happy to be alive.  

She texted back instantly. 

"I need to show you something."  

Hello! thought Mark. Today was getting better and better.  

"Can you check your email?" She texted again.  

"Sure thing ;)" 

"Ah fuck, why did you put a winky face," said Mark. 

Mark slid over and opened up his MacBook. He quickly clicked open his email and found an email from Penny's personal email. The subject read 'FYEO,' which he knew and came across all the time in his office, meaning For Your Eyes Only.  

Mark opened up the email to a long text. 

_Mark, I am so sorry I had to drop this on you like this. I had no idea what else to do. I felt you were justified in having an answer on why I was leaving Montana and moving to Texas. I love it here or loved it. I wish I could spend the rest of my life in this town, and I even flirted with the idea of spending it with you. I know that is a hurtful thing to say when I have one foot out the door, but I felt you deserved to hear that too. I want to show you something I have hidden for months. I don't know how else to describe it other than traumatizing. I am tearing up just writing about it. I wish I would have brought this to you sooner, but I was so scared of…whatever that I couldn't do it. Please don't be mad at me. I care for you, Mark, and I had a pretty good idea you care for me too. That is why I sent you this video. I need someone else to help carry this burden. I will miss you. Please let me know if you ever come to Austin. All the best, with love. -P.  _

Mark read the message a few times and was increasingly confused with each reading.  

"Well. Shit," said Mark.  

He clicked on the .MOV file that was attached to the email. Before he pushed play, a text buzzed on his phone. It was from Penny. 

"Did you see it?"

He typed back he was about to watch it now. 

He felt a sense of dread wash over him. What could this be?

He clicked on the video.  

It took a few seconds to load, and when the prompt screen finally appeared, Mark clicked on it to be full screen.  

On the screen, he glimpses Penny looking at herself in her phone. She quickly flips it back to record her walking in the woods. To each side of her are other people walking with her.  

Mark knew exactly what this was. It was the search party in the Rattlesnake looking for Josie Red Horse. After Tom Brewer was arrested then later released on Bond, a search party was organize to help find Josie the day after she went missing.

The video continues for a while, just all of them walking, and sometimes you hear voices yelling for Josie. Mark remembered this day well because it felt like the sun went down too early, but the moon was full, making visibility about the same as during the day with the low winter sun.  

The video records a man ambling in front of her and then eventually and suddenly veering off to the right down a path. Mark also knew who that was. It was Tom Brewer, husband of the missing Josie Red Horse and suspect numero uno. 

Penny says to an offscreen person that she's going to 'check over here and makes a quick right to follow Tom Brewer. To Mark's surprise, the video showed Tom walking away from the group and then running away. Penny focuses her camera on this and says quietly, "What the fuck?". 

Tom was out on bail, and Penny must have known that if Tom fled, it was over for their case. She was always such an intelligent woman, thought Mark. The video goes on for about five minutes until Penny stops. She doesn't move an inch for maybe 45 seconds and, like a snow bunny, dashes down behind a fallen tree and starts breathing heavily.  

The audio was quiet, but faint voices were chiming in the distance. This time they were not screaming for Josie. They were laughing. Cackling. Like those Hyenas in the African safari land. Josie kept quiet, but she was shaking now because the phone would not stay still. Josie flipped her phone to selfie mode, and for a split second, you could see her eyes welling up and her nose running. She was vividly scared.  

She tilted the phone over the dead tree to reveal seven giant wolves standing in a semi-circle. Standing inside the circle was a terrified Tom Brewer. The cackling became louder, and it was clear now that Tom was crying. He had his hands up like he was warding off the wolves with an invisible force field. None of them moved towards Tom. They were waiting. 

The cackling stopped, and the buzz of the still air rang out loud. Then a voice came from outside the vicious circle.  

"You couldn't resist, could you?" Said the soft voice. 

"Please," cried Tom.  

"We GAVE you all opportunities to be free. To be forgiven. Yet you defied all of them, and you came back."  

"I had to. They made me. It's a search party." Tom sniffled. 

"You had to? You had to come back even after we told you not to? Just like you had to beat Josie's face in until she was seconds from death? Just like you had to break her bones in her body by kicking then throwing her off a ledge into a ravine? You had to leave her to die? You seem to have to do many things that put your life in danger." 

The soft voice was intentionally getting louder now with each hostile sentence. 

"I never meant to," cried Tom.  

"Yes, we know. You said that last time."  

The voice appeared out of the dark, and a woman dressed in white stepped out. It seems she was wearing almost sheer clothing, the outline of her body noticeably visible. Her hair was long and sheer black. Her complexion was dark, and she had a strikingly angular face.  

"Tom Brewer, you didn't deserve a second chance. Yet it is the way of our people to forgive all souls, all brothers and sisters. Once. After that, as your people say, all bets are off. 

"Please!" Yelled Tom.  

Penny was crying now. She tries to contain her sobbing. She sniffs quietly to keep the snot from running down her face. 

"Please? I asked you please never to show your face here again. Yet here you are? I asked you please never to disturb my sister or any of my family again. Still, you are present here and now. This is a great offense to my sisters and me." The voice is rising now, with venom this time. 

The circle moved in closer to Tom, as did the ghostly woman. All except for one wolf. This wolf limped over on what appeared to be two hurt paws. The wolf was grey with a dark stripe running down the ridge of its back. The eyes were as yellow as the harvest moon. This wolf, it appeared, wanted nothing to do with Tom Brewer. 

"They will come looking for me." Tom cried out. "Please don't do this." He dropped to his knees and held his hands in prayer.  

"They will find you. Parts of you." 

What Mark saw next was something out of a horror movie. The woman in white dropped to her knees, and with a white flash like a stun grenade, the woman was gone, and in her place now a giant grey wolf, fangs gnashing. Faster than the woman had changed into the predator, it sank its fangs into Tom's neck. The rest of the pack followed suit.  

The phone went down and was now clutched to Penny's chest, muffling out the life-altering screams of Tom Brewer being torn to pieces and eaten alive.  

The video ends.  

Mark moves his face away from the computer screen and sits straight on his stool. He exhales the breath he had been holding.  

Mark's shoulders fall from being tensed up, and he lets his jaw relax, doing his best to get his body calm after watching the video.  

Mark sat silent for a while, not thinking about anything. Then a memory flashed in his mind—a memory from a long time ago.  

Mark smiled and let loose from his lips. 

"I knew it."

Chapter 6

The Epic Butte High School Senior Rager Kegger of 1987

There was no official head count that Mark had tallied. Still, according to the number of cars lined up along Roosevelt Drive under the train trestle, he estimated about 300 people were partying at the senior keg of 1987.  

The boys had some rednecks bring up their Yamaha and Kawasaki dirtbikes to ferry the beer back and forth from the train car, over the train trestle, and to the train tunnel where a massive bonfire was forever burning the eternal flame.  

People started to show up around 7:30 pm, and the party did not stop or get interrupted until 10:30 am the next day when someone got too drunk and began firing shots at imaginary bats, causing everyone to scatter out of the tunnel. 

Mark did not think he would make it to 10:30 am; he had made a makeshift bed out of ten of the hundreds of cardboard boxes that housed the bottles of Bud. Mark knew he needed a good place to crash; otherwise, it would be inevitable that someone would fuck with him somehow if he passed out. Near the east gate of the trestle was a crown-like cluster of giant rocks that made a nice semi-circle. The inside of the crown was barely visible in the daylight, so Mark assumed that at night he would be golden. 

Mark stashed a small sleeping bag inside the cluster along with the cardboard box cot.  

Looking back on it, Mark doesn't remember a ton about the epic rager of 1987. He had a lot of beers and kissed a junior girl who ended up being a district attorney in a town in eastern Montana called Miles City. He would see her at a conference some years later and she would end up looking at him as if she had no idea who he was and rightly so Mark thought. He saw a bunch of naked girls and too many naked guys. People were smoking weed, eating acid, and tripping on mushrooms.  

Parties on Roosevelt Ridge were always nerve-racking because getting to the tunnel, you had to pass over the train trestle 300 feet above Roosevelt Drive. Before that, you had to hike straight uphill on shitty game trials to access the trestle.  

There were a lot of places for someone to get royally fucked up, and although Mark never knew anyone who had fallen off the trestle before the night of the kegger, there were always rumors of someone's friends, uncle Teddy who did and lived to tell the tale. It was all bullshit, but when you cross that trestle in the dark, that 60 yards seem like 60 miles, especially since in 1987, there was no safety railing like there is today. So one slip on a rock or one asshole buddy fucking around too hard and BLAM, you were a squashed pumpkin on the road below.  

Towards the end of the kegger, when Mark had thrown up for the fifth time, he figured that was simply one too many upchucks. It was time to call it a night. In a sea of 300 people, losing your group of friends was easy, and Mark had barely seen Lin, Pants, or Gandalf all night. He wasn't worried. Well, except for Pants. He was still cuffed to the big security guard, who they found out his name was Gerard. 

Mark hoofed his way through the tunnel, shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, aggressive, and horny teenagers. A few hundred feet later, he crossed the trestle with little fanfare. He reached the crown of stones, which would be his nest for the rest of the evening.  

When Mark climbed into his nest, he found three people occupying the space that was to be his bed.  

Inside the crown were a passed-out Pants and Gerard, the security guard listening to his ghetto blaster on low volume. Mark was shocked he didn't hear the music, but he chalked that up to the natural soundproofing of the crown and the roar of the kegger down the track.  

The third person was a sophomore kid he knew from his younger days when he went to Sunday school. Mark's grandmother was the Sunday school teacher, and he loved every second of it. He learned much about the Bible from those classes and still quotes large swaths of the Good Book from memory.  

The kid's name was Patrick Moore. A rich kid who had every advantage growing up except one. He was a decent basketball player; he had played in a few varsity games that year, but the basketball gods cursed him by being too short to be a great player at the next level, but hell, that kid could shoot. 

"You're in my bed," slurred Mark.  

Gerard and Pat looked up at Mark, startled.  

Pat, now recognizing Mark in the dark moonlight, spoke first.  

"Oh hey, we are just listing to Art Bell. They got a caller on right now disclosing a story about Sasquatch right here in Montana, man. Helena, dude!" 

Mark did not care about monsters, natural or otherwise.  

"Get the fuck out. All of you. I need a quiet place to die."  

"Yeah, I guess. Sorry, Gerard, I'm out, man. Nice toking it up with you."  

The big man raised his free hand in a gesture of goodbye and continued to stay silent.  

Now feeling like an asshole, Mark remembered in his drunken stooper that the big man and Pants had on matching handcuffs.  

"Oh fuck, sorry, Chief. I'll get the keys," Mark said, patting himself down.  

"The other one has them." The big man blurted out. 

"Which one?" 

"The one who looks like you. I dunno, you all look the same to me." The big man chuckled at this ironic joke.  

Mark thought Lin probably still had them.  

Mark walked over to Pants and tried to revive him, but he was gone from the world for the next 5 hours.  

"Had too many beers. Passed out pretty early. Found this place and just rocked out in here until that other white boy come in with a joint."  

Fucking Pat smokes weed? "Son of a bitch," said Mark. Pat really did have every advantage.  

"Come on out of there, and I'll help you with the lush," Mark said.  

"We are going to go find Lin."  

The three did their best Weekend at Bernie's routine, each on one side of Pants, shuffling along back towards the party.  

They got to the train trestle, and Gerard stopped.  

"I can't go." He said.  

"To the party? It's fine, dude. I'm pretty sure there are some college hicks from Western here. You won't be the oldest, I doubt it." 

"No. The bridge. I can't cross."  

Mark looked at the big Indian puzzled.  

"What is this? You like scared of heights?" asked Mark. 

"No." 

"Something to do with your people?" Mark said, trying to be mean now. He was getting frustrated and wanted to hurt the man a little. 

"Yes. Across there is not my territory. I am not allowed. If I cross, there will be trouble not just for me but also for the little ones like you." Said, Gerard. 

"What kind of trouble? Like gang shit?" Asked Mark.  

_" Worse," growled Gerard.  

Mark, tired, drunk, and sick, was now thoroughly pissed off.  

"Help me with Pants across the bridge or stay cuffed to him for the rest of the night. Your pick, big guy." Mark spat. 

Pants lifted his head some to look at Mark. He let loose one of those drunk smiles while his eyes darted off in all directions.  

Gerard looked at Mark, then at Pants, and then straight up at the iridescent, moonlit night.  

The big native then started chanting something in his native tongue. Mark could tell he was repeating a phrase repeatedly but had no idea what he was saying.  

"Hey, man, come one!" Mark yelled.  

The chanting because louder and to the point where it was hurting Mark's ears. It was deafening. 

Pants started to make a howling sound like an ambulance. He seemed to be trying to match Gerard's chant.  

The arm Pants shared with Gerard was now waving far above his head due to the big man making a sweeping circular motion with both arms. Mark swore he looked like he was doing a women's softball fastpitch or the guitar move of the rock god Pete Townsend.  

Suddenly the big man lurched and darted towards the edge of the trestle. Suicide thought Mark. This sudden movement must have taken considerable strength given how fast he tugged the tubby Pants to the edge. With Pants' weight falling from his shoulder, Mark rocked back momentarily and fell straight on his ass in his drunken state.  

The pain shot up Mark's back, and he shouted into the void.  

The void then shouted back.  

A thunderclap sounded overhead, causing the ground to rumble and trestle to sway. The sonic boom stopped all of Mark's momentum in getting up off the ground. Mark nearly jumped out of his skin, and what he saw next he would ponder and theorize on for the remainder of his life.  

In the sonic rage of the thunderclap, which appeared out of nowhere on a cloudless moonlit night, Mark saw Gerard dive off the side of the trestle, with Pants now being drug behind him.  

Mark didn't even have time to make a squeak let alone make a move to help Pants. Mark rolled, got to his feet the best he could, and ended up nose-diving into the gravel that lined all sides of the track.  

Mark looked up, trying to regain his composure and sense of direction. What he saw was Pants holding on to the track for dear life. The arm attached to Gerard dangling over the edge, unseen to Mark. Mark feared his arm must have been ripped clean off. 

He could see in the moonlight Pants' terrified face. That particular image forever tattooed onto Mark's mind for the remainder of his life.

With all his strength, Mark crawled over to Pants and pulled him back to the middle of the trestle. On Pants' arm still dangled the handcuffs, Gerard's side of the cuffs was still locked but sans Gerard. Pants was in hysterics.  

Mark looked around for Gerard but could not find him.

"Oh no, no, no, no," muttered Mark as he clammed towards the edge of the trestle. 

Mark couldn't see below him. It was too dark, even with the moonlight.  

Mark looked back at Pants and said, "I don't see him. Did he go over?"

Pants just stared at Mark. He was shaking out of his skin.  

Mark moved to him and put his arms on his shoulders.  

"Did you see him go over?" Mark asked again.  

"Bbbbbrrrrr," shivered Pants.  

"What?" 

"Brrrrrrdddd," Pants repeated. 

"Bird?" Mark asked. 

Mark looked back and saw a giant bird flying into the Highland mountains in the distance. A hawk, he thought, but the body was significantly more prominent and the wings wider. The wings made noise when they gracefully flapped, disappearing quickly in the lunar-lit night.

Pants sat crying with his head in his hands as Mark stood watching the bird until it faded into the night.  

Chapter 7

All We Do Is Take

It took great enthusiasm and one shot of Kentucky bourbon, but Mark finally mustered up the confidence to ask Penny out for dinner. She was in town for two more nights, and Mark knew they needed to discuss this video issue in person. 

She replied yes, and said she wanted pizza and beer at Biga downtown. They met around 7 pm and ate two small pies. They shared a pitcher of beer and then took a stroll to the Rhino bar for a nightcap. 

The entire night they talked about work, their personal lives, Penny's future in Austin, and the possibility of Mark going down to visit her in the summer.  

They never broached the subject of the video.  

Not until beer three of the night at the Rhino, a Moose Drool for Mark, and a Faceplant for Penny. 

They sat at a big booth made for six, but since there was no one else in the quiet bar, they felt guiltless enough to take it. 

Mark felt if he didn't bring it up, she never would. He was confident she was already moving on from the whole situation. She had decided never to think about Missoula, the Rattlesnake Wilderness, Tom Brewer, or Josie Red Horse ever again. 

"Have I ever told you about the Epic Butte High School Senior Rager Kegger of 1987?"

Penny's eyes went wide at his statement. 

"No, but it sounds like a Judd Apatow movie." 

"More like an M. Night joint," laughed Mark.  

It took a whole beer and half of another to finish the story the night Mark first saw something in his life that he could not explain. 

Penny sat enthralled and made very few comments during the story, nursing her beer with a second one sweating full in front of her. 

After concluding with the part where Gerard had somehow conjured himself into a great Thunderbird, Penny bit on the question Mark had been fishing for all night. This question was the reason for the entire night. He didn't want to try to bed Penny or convince her to stay in Missoula. He wanted to tell her about the conversation he and Pants had immediately after Gerard flew away. 

"Pants and I stood on the bridge like two statues after about ten minutes of losing our shit. No one heard us or even saw us. We held each other like two brothers posing for a picture, shoulder to shoulder. Pants finally stopped crying, and I snapped out of my drunken daze. We walked over to the trestle's edge and sat down, letting our legs dangle over the edge. I asked Pants what we should do. Should we call the cops or try to find the company where he worked? Pants never answered, so we sat longer looking out into the wilderness. I don't know what he was thinking, but I can tell you I was terrified. Not of Gerard but of the idea that what I had known in my life, things I was certain, could suddenly and instantaneously be shattered in an instant. I felt the world I was standing on could crumble at any second. If a man can become a giant bird, what else is possible? What else could upend my world?" 

Penny finished her beer and started sipping on her second.  

She didn't move or speak but motioned for me to continue.  

"I had run out of things to say, and all I could ask was if Pants was alright. He shook his head in the affirmative and moved his shoulder slightly to indicate it may be sore. I felt my face where I had nose-dived into the gravel and could feel a few scrapes. My nose felt ok, but the hangover was already starting to creep in. After a while, the sun peaked a bit over the Continental Divide mountains. Then Pants said something to me that I will never forget and what I want you to hear and understand tonight." 

Mark hesitated and cleared his throat.  

"He told me to let the mystery be. I asked what he meant by that, and he explained that what we witnessed tonight did not have any kind of explanation, and he figured it didn't warrant one. What we had seen was a miracle. Sometimes weird shit happens, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason. He made me promise not to tell anyone about it. I asked why and he said because all we do is take. If Gerard was a spiritual man, a Native American like we assumed, then hadn't we already taken everything from him? We made him a prisoner all night. That was the nicest thing we have done to him. Our ancestors took his home, his heritage, and most importantly, they took his future. They promised everything. They stole everything. Pants said we need to stop taking and let them be. Let them live. Let them thrive again."  

Mark finished his beer, feeling his mouth drying up faster than the Clark Fork in August.  

"That is what I want to tell you, Penny. The video you took doesn't need to be seen by anyone else in this world. Fuck Tom Brewer. He got it worse than he probably deserved, but from what I could tell, Tom made a deal with those people and blew his second chance. He bought that ticket, and he had to take that ride."  

Penny looked into her beer, and a small tear dropped in it, making the world's saddest bloop. 

"Kill it. Deleted it. Bury it. Remember it." Mark said. 

Penny nodded yes. 

"I'm afraid," Penny said with a big snotty sniff.  

"I was too for a very long time. I would never go alone into the woods, even with firepower. Then, I had a revelation. I imagined that every creature that spotted me could read my mind. Know my every intention. I figured if I had clear intentions, well, most of these…souls would leave me alone. From that day, I've never let what happened in 87 stop me from living my life." 

Penny wept openly now. The bartender shifted uncomfortably away from us. 

"It will come in time," Mark said, putting a hand on her shoulder.   

"I hope so," Penny said. 

Mark ordered an Uber for Penny. They hugged hard outside the bar, and he put her in a car for the last time and sent her home. Mark knew he'd never see her again. He, too, would be a reminder for her of what happened in the Rattlesnake Wilderness; he was ok with that. As long as she started the healing process, he would be ok being a part of that equation, even as an invisible one.  

Mark began his walk home from lower downtown Missoula back to the Northside. The heavy snow from the night before was mainly melted now, and the streets had little fanfare.  

As Mark dredged up the winding pedestrian bridge, he thought of Penny and how her life would be changed forever, just as he was all those years back on the train trestle.  

On the pedestrian bridge, he walked over loud trains rolling underneath. The smell of diesel exhaust and coal wafted into the air. He passed by some sleeping homeless folks and noticed one had a large cardboard box under him. It was a Budweiser box.  

As Mark reached the end of the bridge, he took a right and marched the last three blocks to his new fancy three-story condo. He had motion sensor lights installed near his front door since many homeless, and drug addicts like to use his covered entrance as shelter. Mark didn't mind that they did this; he didn't want to be surprised by them when he walked out in the morning. The doorbell camera would send an alert and video to his phone, so he could know what he was dealing with on the other side of his door. Most of his neighbors now had installed these motion lights as well.  

With the yellowish street lights barely doing their job, Mark could barely see the shadowy figure on his doorstep. It was sitting straight as a board and staring right at him. Mark approached with caution, balling his house keys in his right hand. He wondered why his motion light wasn't working. He silently cursed his DIY skills. 

It was that large dog he saw the night before. Now that he was this close to the beast, he could see it was massive.  

Mark moved slowly towards it, removing his gloved hand from his jacket pocket and offering it palm up to the animal. It turned its head to the side as if it heard something in the distance, stared for a beat, and started walking away. Mark stopped in his tracks and watched the majestic animal walk up his street, not tripping one of the motion lights as it disappeared into the cold night. 

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