1. Anthony D’Amato
2. Walt Franck
3. Justin Hoyt
4. James Knox
5. Rachel Mina
6. Tristan Glode
7. Donna Glode
8. Andre Russell
9. Ted Sullivan
10. Gracie Sullivan
11. Danielle Sullivan
12. K. W. Wilson
On the bottom of the page he scrawled,
13. Jed McCarthy
14. Dakota Hill
He thought,
The applications had arrived in Jed McCarthy’s office throughout the past year. They were designed to elicit information Jed needed to know to plan the trip and to match up horses with riders. There was a short questionnaire about dietary restrictions, riding ability, allergies, medical issues, and emergency contact information. The last item on the application was “What do you hope to gain from this backcountry wilderness experience?” Cody wished there were more questions and information but he was grateful he had what he had. He hoped Larry was running the whole lot of them through every criminal background database he could access.
Anthony D’Amato, thirty-four, was from Brooklyn, New York, and worked for Goldman Sachs. He was married, no children. He weighed 185 pounds and listed his wife Lisa as his emergency contact. He’d ridden a horse once, at the Iowa State Fair when he was visiting relatives as a teenager. He answered the last question, “To not be eaten by a wild animal.”
Walt Franck, fifty-four, listed his home locations as Aspen and Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as Omaha. He was a commercial Realtor and developer of strip malls in the Mountain West and Midwest. He was soon to be married to Jenny, Cody’s ex, and listed her as his emergency contact. Cody snorted derisively when he saw His Richness listed his weight as 220 pounds, and he planned hereafter to refer to him as “His Fat Richness.” Walt was a novice rider, and he hoped the trip would “provide unique fly-fishing locations and bonding opportunities for me and my future stepson.” Cody snorted again.
Justin Hoyt, seventeen, Fort Collins, 165 pounds, stepson of His Fat Richness, was next. Cody recognized the handwriting on the application as Jenny’s, and it elicited a sudden desire for her again that had been rekindled the night before. He shook it off and continued reading. She said Justin wanted to experience “nature and outdoor skills.”
“Shit,” Cody said. “Send him to me in Montana. I could do
James Knox, thirty-seven, Manhattan. Not married but had a partner named Martha, who was also his emergency contact. Worked as an executive with Millennium Capital Advisors and weighed 180 pounds. He had no experience with horses, and wrote that he and his two friends wanted to experience “the nature and diversity of Yellowstone while waiting for the market to come back.”
Cody smiled at that, and skipped ahead in the stack to find the third of the buddies.
Andre Russell, thirty-nine, of Manhattan. Married, two children, a boy and a girl, ages twelve and nine. Wife and emergency contact was named Danika. A VP with J. P. Morgan and had ridden horses at stables in Central Park to prepare for the trip. Cody was impressed by that. For his ambition for the trip he wrote, “To try and keep Tony D’Amato from being eaten by wild animals.”
Rachel Mina was single. She didn’t indicate whether she was divorced, widowed, or never married. A hospital administrator on leave from Chicago. She was thirty-seven and weighed 115 pounds. In Cody’s experience, that meant he should add a few years and at least ten pounds, so he scratched in “40” and “125” on the page. Mina indicated she was a vegetarian (fish was okay) and intermediate rider. She wrote: “Discovery tour.”
He wondered what “on leave” meant. His first thought was she seemed to be the only one of the clients thus far who might have had the free time-and means-to visit homes in four states and leave bodies and ashes behind. But a woman, and a single one at that?
He placed her application aside from the others into what he thought of as the hot stack.
Tristan Glode was the president and CEO of The Glode Company of St. Louis. Cody didn’t know what the company did but planned to find out. Glode was sixty-one and claimed to be an expert rider. He’d indicated he weighed 211 pounds and had written in the margin that he had bad knees and would prefer a Tennessee walker for a horse. In the margin, someone (Jed?) had scribbled, “Call Pat.” Cody guessed Pat, whomever he or she was, knew of a walker that could be leased for the trip.
