Page 2 of Rogue's Pawn (Covenant of Thorns 1)

And no one saw me go.

I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing until I was driving down the two-lane rural highway, turning up the radio to non-Clive-approved volumes so I could better hear Nickelback assure me that everything would be all right. But just not right now. I sang along, a curious sense of elated freedom lightening my mood. It felt good not to think.

When I did start thinking again, the first thing my brain did was point out that I wasn’t on the interstate. Instead it coursed off to my left about half a mile across railroad tracks and prairie, angling away. I hadn’t passed any kind of sign in quite a while, but I’d definitely missed the interstate access and was probably going east, not west, in the deepening evening.

Well, shit.

To get on I-90, I’d have to turn around, which I found myself absolutely unable to do. As if I’d gained some kind of escape velocity from the immense gravity well of Clive, from my old life, momentum I couldn’t afford to lose. So I just kept driving, feeling the tension bleed away with the rhythm of the highway.

I ended up at Devils Tower.

What can I say? The weathered billboards with the big arrows caught my eye.

They produced a kind of longing in me for something I couldn’t quite define. That cold, creeping restlessness in me warmed to the sight of the arrows, like they pointed to the one thing I’d always wanted and never had. I felt compelled to follow them, as I did in those dreams. As if someone was sending messages I couldn’t quite hear.

Not logical, but at least it seemed that the plates of my skull might hold together.

Night hung heavy under the trees, a shadowed contrast to the spring sky, which still held a little light. As I wound around the hills, buff-colored sandstone stood out in bright relief to the dark greens of the pines, which in turn made dark silhouettes against the gloaming. Wyoming skies radiate light—one of the best things about the place.

The next bend revealed the tower, starkly outlined against the blue dusk. I might have seen it before, had I been looking in the right place—down instead of up. I’d expected a peak thrusting against the sky, but Devils Tower sits down in a river bottom, carved out of soft sandstone by the Belle Fourche River until only the striated stump of granite remains. As I dropped into its valley, the tower showed black against the darkness, so dark the shadows around it paled to vivid blues.

I found the gates to the park open but unmanned, so I filled out the yellow envelope at the self-pay station with one of those three-inch pencils provided in the bin. Name, date, car make and year, a ten-dollar bill stuffed inside. I kept going, excited now, circling the base of the tower that loomed so immediately above me that I couldn’t see it much anymore.

The road terminated, fittingly, in one final curl—a circular parking lot at the base of the tower, gleaming in the growing moonlight. I stood out in the dark, leaning against the car, as if I was waiting for someone. Like when you were a teenager and every trip to the mall held limitless romantic possibilities. I remembered the champagne giddiness of it all, as if, if you could just walk around enough, you’d find him. Or he’d find you.

Mule deer wandered nearby, cropping the new green grass in the center parkway. And that was it. Pretty evening. Peaceful scene. Nothing else happened.

So much for epiphanies.

Oddly disappointed and abruptly exhausted again, I drove back down the paved road. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting. Something more than deer.

A dirt turnoff to the right was marked by a peeling sign for Devils Tower Lodge: Friends and Guests Only. A place to sleep was absolutely what I needed. I turned in. A sign at a second cattle guard repeated the invitation and warning.

At the end of the road a few buildings clustered beneath the bright light on the pole, the same blue-tinged spotlight every rural homestead in Wyoming seemed to have, as if they came free with cattle-guard grates, woven wire fencing and sheet-metal tool sheds. A new-looking Jetta was parked in front of the house that didn’t look like a lodge. As I walked up to the door, another sign said Welcome. Piano music tumbled softly within.

Okay then.I rang the bell.

“Hi there!” said the guy who opened the door, as if I were a neighbor who stopped by frequently.

I hesitated on the doorstep. He wore several beaded chokers around his neck, framed in the open collar of his faded work shirt. A white mustache stood in stark relief to his tanned, wind-roughened face. An ex-hippie.

“I’m Frank,” he said, holding out a hand. It seemed he might be about to hug me, but then thought better of it.

“Dr. McGee,” I answered automatically.

“You got a first name to go with that title?”

“Oh—sorry. Habit. Obnoxious habit,” I amended, embarrassed. “Jennifer.”

He shook my hand. “I’ve always liked Jennifers. Come on in!”

“Is this a lodge? I’m looking for a hotel or something.”

“I have four rooms, all empty, you can take your pick. When the rooms are full, you can camp in the yard. Come any time!” He turned and walked back through the mudroom. A shelf ran along the wall with various hiking boots and climbing shoes ranged along it. A scribbled sign said Shoes, with a helpful arrow pointing to the shelf. I slipped off my pumps and set them there with the outdoorsy footwear. Frank waited for me inside the house, by the now-silent piano.

“I’m sorry to come so late, without notice…” I began. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“Hey, I figure everyone who comes to this door is brought by divine inspiration of some kind—Buddha, God, the devil, whatever you believe. It’s my job to help you on your way.”

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