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And, really, as I said to Diana after recounting the conversation when I called her as soon as Jennifer and I ended our call, it might not be anything other than me being overly sensitive to what she said because Mike didn’t approve.
“Huh,” Diana said.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing in particular,” she lied.
I recognized a Diana stonewall when it was erected in front of me.
“Okay, you’re not going to tell me what you’re really thinking, I know that. But promise me one thing.”
“Depends on what it is.” Sometimes she’s a little too wise for my good.
“Don’t tell Russ whatever it is you’re thinking about this topic that you’re not telling me now until after you’ve told me.”
She thought a moment. “Deal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I couldn’t resist stopping by the Circle B to see if Tom happened to be around.
He was. In the barn, preparing a dose of antibiotic for Tamantha’s horse, Roxanne. As he said he didn’t like the look of a cut on her leg.
“I want to interview this person Gee describes as Keefe’s best friend. He lives in Cooke City, Montana. I thought I’d drive up there and—. Why not?” I asked in response to Tom’s shaking head.
He stopped shaking his head, but I knew it wasn’t because he withdrew his objection.
“I’d check the weather, of course,” I said, “but I looked at the map in my SUV and Cooke City’s just north of Yellowstone, barely into Montana and not that far west of Red Lodge.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So that’s not that far away. Doesn’t look like it would be much farther than Red Lodge.”
That’s where Tom’s sister lived and they visited back and forth regularly, including taking Tamantha up for visits. We’d stayed there a couple nights to celebrate New Years.
“You’ve got a few mountains in the way to reach Cooke City,” Tom said dryly.
“But Jean-Marie was talking at New Year’s about seeing her good friend who lives in Cooke City.”
He nodded. “They do get together regularly... during the summer.”
I eyed him with suspicion rising in my heart. “Why only in summer?”
“It’s not Red Lodge,” he said quickly, apparently divining the direction of my suspicion. “Not really. But what connects the two towns most directly is the Beartooth Highway and that closes in the winter. Snows pretty much every month of the year on that road,” he added thoughtfully.
I might have grimaced, because Tom said consolingly, “It’s not all Beartooth. The Chief Joseph Highway gets most of the way to Cooke City.”
“Most of the way.” Suspicion had gone to certainty.
“They don’t try to clear all of Colter Pass, so you can’t actually drive it, although snowmobiles usually get through. Snow coaches, too.”
“Snow coaches?”
“Don’t think of public transportation,” Tom said. “People who don’t want to face the cold on a snowmobile get tours in Yellowstone in them. Big windows. And they sit up high, with some serious tires.”
Dragging him back to the point, I said, “Cooke City is cut off for the winter?”
“Not usually. Highway 212 through the park’s kept open pretty much, even when all the other roads are closed to anything but snowmobiles and the snow coaches. So they can go across the northern part of the park to reach Gardiner, Montana, and go north from there.”
