The trail took us to an overlook of a waterfall, and Jack set up his tripod. He took a lot of pictures with different lenses. I took a couple with my iPhone that I thought looked pretty good.
We had walked well off the trail at the overlook so Jack could get pictures without people in them. I heard something chirping real loud behind me and turned around to see what it was, and I jumped backward into Jack and almost knocked over his tripod. A big groundhog-looking thing was glaring up at me from only three feet away, and he wasn’t happy.
“What is that?” I asked Jack.
“I think it’s a marmot,” he said. “Remember, they had a stuffed one at the visitor center?”
“But it wasn’t yelling at me!”
Jack laughed and stomped at the miniature monster to scare it away, but that just made it madder. The marmot ran at him chirping up a storm.
Now Jack jumped back. “Whoa, fella,” he said to the creature.
The marmot chirped a blue streak at him; then scampered a few yards away then sat and watched us with wary eyes.
Jack turned to me and said, “Watch him so he doesn’t attack us. I have a few more shots to get.”
“I don’t know what I can do to hold him off if he decides to charge.”
“Take away his credit card.”
“Thank you. That’s very helpful.”
We escaped the terrors of the giant marmot, and retraced our steps back to the visitor center. At the snowfield, two mountain goats walked onto the trail right in front of us and just stood there. They were so cute!
Jack set his tripod back up and got some great close-ups. When we got all he wanted, he turned to me with a smug smile and said, “See, I told you they pose.”
We drove back to Saint Mary and stopped at a café where we gulped down some sandwiches and fries. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. Jack wanted to call Agent Burd since we had promised him we’d keep in touch, so we stepped outside for some privacy.
He got Burd’s voicemail, so he told him where we’d been so far today and that we were heading back into the park. He looked at me and shrugged. “We didn’t really have anything to tell him, anyway.”
“What if he had something to tell us?” I asked. “Maybe there’s another threat or something.”
“Then he would have left us a voicemail, right?” Jack’s phone rang. “There, that’s probably him calling back now.”
Jack answered the call. “Yeah, that’s me. Why so quick?”
Jack stared into the distance as the other person spoke. “
Um, yeah, why would I pass that up? Probably an hour or so. Wow, that much?” Jack pulled out his wallet and read off his credit card number, then disconnected from the call. He looked at me and said, “I’m going hunting.”
12
Ptarmigan Tunnel
“What do you mean, you’re going hunting?”
“Remember that guy I was talking to back at the Many Glacier? In front of the mountain goat head?”
“Sort of. When I finished my interview with Matt? Had on a green jacket and his hair needed combed.”
Jack shook his head, looking startled. “Yeah, I guess. Anyway, he just invited me to go mountain goat hunting.”
“Absolutely not. Jack, you cannot be serious. You can’t go hunting,” I said. “You don’t even have a gun. And what am I supposed to do while you’re off running around in the woods? Woods that, I should remind you, are filled with murderous people who are out to get you.”
“No, you don’t get it. He just invited me to go mountain goat hunting inside the park.”
“Isn’t that illega— Jack, you can’t do that! It’s way too dangerous.”
“These guys are the poachers,” he said. “The ones that killed the policeman that I watched them bury.”
“Yeah. Exactly why you can’t go.”
“No, that’s exactly why I have to go: to catch them.”
“How are you going to catch them?” I shrieked. “You’re not a cop. What’s to keep them from killing you too? Let’s just call the police and—.”
“I can outrun them.” Jack interrupted me. “And we have to catch these guys. They already killed one person, and they want to kill us.”
“And you’re going to do that how?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get their pictures so the police can identify them.”
“Oh, are they going to pose for you like that mountain goat did?”
“Sure. I’m great at getting people to pose for me. Come on. We have to go right now.”
“I’m calling Agent Burd,” I said, digging my own phone out of my purse.
“He’s not in, remember?”
“Duh, his cell phone.”
“Oh … yeah.”
I got Burd’s voicemail on his cell phone, too, so I told him about Jack’s hair-brained idea and followed Jack to the car.
On the road, Jack said that they were hiking out from Many Glacier as soon as we could get there. They had a cancellation, so it was now or never.
“What did you need your credit card for?” I asked him.
“To pay for the trip.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“What! Are you crazy?”
“That’s actually a deal,” Jack said. “He told me yesterday that it costs twelve thousand for a guided hunting trip in Canada. Anyway, I’ll get it back after Burd catches them.”
“This is crazy. How long are you going to be gone? What am I supposed to do while you’re off getting killed?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t have time for all the details.”
“These are pretty important details!”
“I know. I’m figuring this out as I go.”
As soon as we entered the parking lot at the lodge, I told Jack to pull over. “I don’t want to be seen together.”
“Are you really that mad about this?”
“No, dummy. They know me here, and I don’t want these poachers putting us together.”
“Oh. That’s probably a good idea,” Jack agreed.
He pulled over and opened up his camera case-backpack. He removed a couple items, filled the void with underwear and T-shirts from his suitcase, and zipped his backpack closed.
“What about food and water?” I asked him.
“They’re going to have to have provisions,” he replied, grabbing two water bottles out of the case and putting one inside his pack and the other in a pocket on the outside. “I still have a couple bars in here.”
“Oh, that will last you until what, suppertime?”
“Hey, it’s a guided hike. Illegal or not, they have to have food. You drive, and drop me off at the door.”
I did that; then drove to the back of the parking lot in case he came back out.
Which he did, almost immediately, but with three other men. I saw them walk into the parking lot, then start hiking away.
I sat there and started to cry. I didn’t even kiss him goodbye. Then I realized what I was letting him do to me and what Grandma told me. Never cry over a man, honey. They’re not worth it. They’ll let you down every time. She was right. I didn’t ask for this. Jack decided on his own to go put himself in front of those stupid poachers. That’s not my problem.
But I didn’t really believe that. I hoped he was okay.
As soon as I left Alison and walked into the lodge, I saw the guy from the Many Glacier stand up and walk toward me. Two other men stood up and walked behind him.
“Follow me,” he said. “We can make our introductions outside.”
We walked out the door and into the parking lot. “We’re getting a very late start,” the man said. “What do you have in that backpack?”
“Some clothes and camera equipment,” I answered. “I have two bottles of water with me and two or three protein bars—.”
“No cameras.” This came from one of the other men—the biggest of the three.
“I’m a photographer,” I said.
“I always carry a camera.”
“Not on this trip you don’t. No pictures allowed.”
The third man suddenly looked alarmed. “I want a picture.”
Everybody looked at him.
“What? I paid a lot of money for this trip. When I get my goat, I want a picture with it.”
“You get the trophy,” the big guy said. “That’s enough.”
“That’s only the head. I want a picture of the whole thing.”
“We’re burning time here,” the leader said. “We can argue about this later.” He turned to me and asked, “Where’s your rifle?”
“I came here on a photographic trip. I didn’t think I’d need a gun.”
He sighed. “You can use mine. I’m not used to lending it out.”
“Well, it’s not like you gave me a lot of time—.”
He raised his hand to cut me off. “I know. It’s okay. We have food, too, and a water pump with a filter. We may not make it to a water source, though, until tomorrow, with such a late start. Your water will have to get you through the night.”
We walked to a black pickup truck with a cap on the back—the same one I saw on the first day. Each of the three men pulled a backpack out of the back of the truck. I noted that they slid easily on the loose dirt scattered on the floor, and I suppressed a shiver. It was too late for second thoughts now.
The guy who’d been doing most of the talking tied a bag of food onto my pack and said, “My name’s John. That’s Jason.”
He pointed to the big guy that had already taken off at a fast clip. “And this is Chris.”
“Christopher,” the man corrected, turning his head toward me. “How ya doin’?”
“Christopher is our other client,” John said. “Jason’s with me. Let’s get moving.”
We entered a trail and hiked single-file for a long time: Jason in the lead, followed by Christopher, then me, then John bringing up the rear. There was no conversation, and I was working so hard to keep up that I didn’t offer any.
The trail worked its way up against the side of a very steep mountain and switched from a path through the woods to a ledge that was carved out of the side of the mountain. The mountain wall was on the left, extending hundreds of feet straight up, and there was a short rock wall on the right I guess they built to keep hikers from falling over the edge. In between the two was a wide gravel path. It was a great trail to walk on and I might’ve enjoyed it if I hadn’t had triple the normal amount of adrenaline pumping through my system.
The mountain wall itself was beautiful, with dark red layers of rock alternating with white-gray layers. The colored stripes sloped up at an angle until they disappeared at the farthest ridge and new layers came out of the ground below. The view to the right was equally spectacular. Another red mountainside stood across a green valley far below, and in the distance ahead was a lake, bluer than any I had ever seen before. I could spend an entire day here just working with all the colors.
I stopped and lowered my pack to get my camera out.
“What are you doing?” John asked me.
“Getting a photo of this,” I replied. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Save your pictures till you get a goat.”
“But I’m a photographer. This is what I do. What’s the big deal with taking pictures, anyway?”
“Because this trip never happened. Think about it.”
I suddenly got his point, but this was still a beautiful view. “Those guys are already around the bend; they’re out of the shot. Just let me get a photo of this view with the lake. And one of the stripes on this wall.”
“One picture of the lake, and that’s it.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him because the sun was starting to drop, casting some interesting shadows that I didn’t want to miss. I bracketed four shots with different exposure settings because of the shadows. I’d like to have had the time to set this up on my tripod, but I didn’t bring it along.
“Hey! No pictures.” Jason had reappeared from around the curve in the trail.
“I got it taken care of,” John said back to him. Then to me he said, “Put that away and let’s get moving. It’s going to be dark soon.”
Just ahead, the trail reached a pair of metal doors and actually tunneled right through the mountain. I hid the sudden worry that knifed into my mind.
“Cool, what’s the name of this place?” I asked.
“Ptarmigan Tunnel,” John replied.
“Cut the chit chat,” echoed through the tunnel from the opposite end, where I could see Jason’s huge profile in the opening. The whole tunnel was maybe fifty yards long.
We walked through, with the sound of our feet munching gravel echoing off the walls, and exited to another beautiful vista.
“Oh, I have to get a shot of this, too.”
“No pictures.” Jason again.
“But look at that sunset, and that valley.”
Jason glared at me.
“Okay, okay. But do it quick.”
We hiked onward and I was relieved that the tunnel didn’t become a grave.
We were walking downhill now on a smooth, wide trail, so we made good time. The trail sloped back uphill a little and to the right to go back over the top of the mountain, and we crossed into its shadow.
“We’ll set up camp as soon as we find a level spot,” Jason said. “We shouldn’t get any more hikers through here this late.”
John and Jason each had a two-man tent with them. Supper was military MREs: Meals, Ready-to-Eat. Mine was spaghetti with meat sauce. Not half bad. I wondered if Alison would want to include this in her article.
Thinking of Alison brought me back to reality. This was not a hiking trip on a scenic mountain trail; this was an assignment to get the identities of killers. Killers that were within ten feet of me.
Jason was a big guy, and John was no lightweight himself. There was no way that I could overpower either one of them. The fact that there were two of them really sealed that deal.
And then there was Christopher. All I knew about him was that he was a willing participant in an illegal hunting trip. He didn’t know these guys were murderers, but still, it didn’t look like I could count on him for any help.
So, I was on my own against two men—maybe three. My best chance of succeeding was to just play this out, try to get some pictures of them sometime, and get those to Burd after we got back. I started to doubt my plan as I looked around at the men.
As soon as I got to the hotel, I grabbed my cell phone to try Agent Burd again. I saw I had a voicemail from him and listened to that first.
“Do not let Jack go hunting with those people. Repeat, do not let him go. I’m going to try to call him.”
I hit the reply button, and Burd answered on the first ring. “Alison, where’s Jack?”
“He went off hunting. I dropped him off at the Many Glacier Lodge.”
“That stupid—,” Burd cut himself off and regained his composure. “How long ago did you drop him off?”
“I guess about two hours ago. I just got back here.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Holiday Inn.”
“Did you see the people that Jack left with?”
“Not up close.
“Please stay where you are. I’ll let you know if anything develops.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You can’t just wait till something develops. You have to go after him.”
“As you just said, we’re two hours away from where you dropped him off. By the time we get there, they’d be four hours ahead of us. We can’t catch up to them.”
“Well, can’t you take a helicopter or something?”
“Where would we look? A person can cover a lot of ground in four hours, and there are trees covering most of the places they could be. I’m sorry; I’m afraid that Jack’s on his own now.”
13
Slip Slidin’ Away
John and Jason shared one tent, while Christopher and I
shared another. I didn’t have a sleeping bag, and I didn’t have Alison to curl up against. I had to just pull my knees up to try to preserve what little heat I had. It wasn’t comfortable, but I made it through the night.
In the morning, we hiked down to the edge of a lake and crossed over a river that was flowing out of it. After we refilled our water bottles, we continued along the river until the trail took us to another lake and another river crossing.
The first river had a bridge across it, so that was easy. This river had a cable. John and Jason dropped their packs and their drawers.
“Take off your boots and your pants and make sure they’re tied onto your pack really well,” John said.
Jason stepped into the water on the downstream side of the cable and took hold of it as he got deeper into the river. As I watched him cross, the water level climbed higher on his legs, but it never quite reached his boxers.
Jason was about three inches taller than me.
John sent Christopher next, and me after him. I had my underwear tucked up as high as it would go, and I was feeling for the highest rocks with my feet as I reached the center of the river.
It mostly worked. I made it across without having to wring anything out on the other side.
John crossed right behind me, and dried his legs with a small towel, which he then tossed to me to wipe off my feet before I put my socks and shoes back on.
There was the campsite close by. Jason walked over and reached down into the fire ring.
“Cold,” he said to John, who nodded in response.
“This is where we leave the trail,” Jason said to Christopher and me. “In an hour or two, we’ll be in goat country.”
Or to their killin’ hole.
We had just hiked through relatively level terrain, but it was covered with brush and hidden rocks, so it took a lot of energy. We were far from the trail, far from any other people, facing a big, steep snowfield, and up at the top were two mountain goats.
Jason was the one who spotted them. I could barely make them out. John pulled a pair of binoculars out of his pack to get a better view. I watched him, and had no doubt that this was the man I had watched supervise the burial just a few days earlier.
Goats, Boats, and Killer Cutthroats Page 9