Paradise Valley

by C. J. Box

  “Just leave it,” Ron said. “They’ll clean it up.”

  I’m sorry, Kyle said. Nime sore-ee.

  “Forget it, son.”

  Then Ron realized Kyle had sliced his finger open from the glass. It was bleeding small droplets into the olive juice on the floor.

  “Christ,” Ron said. “Now you’ve cut yourself.”

  Kyle clasped his cut finger with his other hand. It’s okay.

  “No—go clean it up. The bathroom is in the back.”

  Ron had glared at him to show his displeasure but he followed Kyle to the back of the store where the restrooms were. He waited just outside the door with his cart until he heard the flush inside, then he rapped with his knuckles to indicate that Kyle hurry.

  The boy came out looking sheepish. He’d wrapped a wad of toilet paper around his finger.

  Ron had leaned inside the bathroom to make sure Kyle hadn’t left anything. He hadn’t.

  Ron bought a box of Band-Aids. In the truck he said, “Let me see that finger.”

  Kyle held it out. The cut was long but not deep—a bleeder but not bad enough to require stitches. Ron fastened two strips around it. Kyle watched him carefully as he did it, and the moment seemed to bring them closer together, Ron thought.

  They continued through town on the way to the north entrance. They met only three vehicles coming out, all three with out-of-state plates. In the height of summer, Ron knew, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper in the evening.

  * * *

  THEY CRUISED THROUGH the Ranger Station without stopping.

  Ron saw the puzzled look on Kyle’s face and explained.

  “These are federal employees who work at the entry stations here. They start slacking off in the fall when very few people come into the park this late in the evening. It’s the same way early in the morning, believe me.”

  Kyle nodded slightly.

  “You know what I used to say? I used to say that as long as I entered the park before eight or after five, America’s first national park belonged to the Lizard King. What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t know.” Ah non’t no.

  “You’ve never been to Yellowstone before, have you?”

  “No.” Nuh.

  “I figured that. Well open your eyes and look around. It’s quite a place.”

  Kyle nodded dutifully.

  “How’s your finger?”

  The boy held his hand up. The Band-Aid was stained with blood but his cut was no longer bleeding.

  * * *

  BEFORE RON NEARED the Gardiner River and the narrow switchbacks that would take them up through the canyon and on to Mammoth Hot Springs, he said, “Tiffany didn’t realize how good she had it. That’s the trouble with most of them. You feed ’em, you give them clothes and a warm place to sleep and they turn on you anyway. It’s something you need to learn, Kyle: Whether it’s women in general or your own family—they’ll always turn on you because you’re different. Always.”

  Kyle looked away.

  He was a hard kid to figure out, Ron thought. He kept his own counsel. But he might be coming around.

  If only, Ron thought, he’d had a guy like him around at Kyle’s age.

  He’d have conquered the fucking world.

  * * *

  AS HE DROVE he kept a wary eye out in front and behind him. There was always the chance, although remote, that an over-eager park ranger would pull him over for speeding or simply note his presence in the park if questioned later. But like the entrance booth personnel, traffic rangers seemed to vanish from existence once the hotels and visitor amenities inside the park closed for the season.

  So Ron kept right at the forty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit even though he was driving the only vehicle on the mountain road.

  On the climb out of Mammoth Village toward the steaming terraced springs themselves, he said, “Recognize that sulfur smell, Kyle?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Yeah,” Ron said.

  * * *

  AS HE’D DONE dozens of times before, Ron drove right by the small battered sign on the side of the road that read POISON SPRINGS TRAILHEAD. The sign had deteriorated even since the last time he was there. It was leaning to the side and obscured in shadow from the close walls of lodgepole pine on both sides of the road.

  He slowed the truck and Kyle looked over, puzzled.

  “There’s a little parking area up here,” Ron said. “Or at least there used to be.”

  It was still there. Ron turned off the two-lane onto a gravel road that cut into the pine trees. It went a hundred feet before doglegging to the right and leading them to a single concrete picnic table.

  “It’s still here,” Ron said.

  A dark squirrel sat on its haunches on the top of the table eating something between its tiny paws. When Ron stopped and pulled on the emergency brake the rodent ran off.

  “Okay, we can get out here.”

  He heard the tinkle of a tiny runoff creek through the trees in front of him, and there was a low rush of cold wind in the crowns of the lodgepole pines, enough to rock the trees back and forth slightly.

  Slamming the door shut, Ron peered through the cab to make sure Kyle was coming. The boy was, but tentatively. That was okay, Ron thought. Better than Kyle thinking he might run away.

  “Let’s just stand here for a few minutes and listen,” Ron said, gesturing with his chin toward the tops of the trees. “We need to make sure there’s nobody around and no cars coming.”

  Kyle just stared at him over the hood of the truck.

  There was no road traffic. There had been no cars parked alongside the road so it was doubtful any hikers would startle them coming out of the forest that late in the evening. Plus, Ron knew, this area was not among the highly trafficked trails that existed in other places in the park.

  “Okay, come around on my side and help me pull it out.”

  Kyle came around the front of the truck and stood with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

  Ron opened the rear door of the cab and grasped the edge of the plastic tarp. It slid out of the truck and landed heavily on the ground.

  “Close the door and pick up the other side,” Ron said. “We don’t have to carry it. We can slide it along the ground.”

  Kyle shook his head.

  “Come on, Kyle,” Ron said.

  Kyle closed his eyes briefly but shut the truck door and bent over to grasp the plastic.

  “Follow my lead,” Ron said, turning so he could pull the weight behind him instead of backpedaling. “It’s about two hundred yards.”

  “What is two hundred yards?” Wha iz too-hunert yahds?

  Ron again resisted the urge to mock Kyle’s speech defect. The boy wouldn’t be any help if he was crying. Plus, Ron knew what it felt like to be mocked. He was still ashamed at how quickly he’d fallen into that behavior pattern back at the cabin. It was as if mocking a boy had been hardwired into him at an early age.

  There was no doubt where that had come from.

  “It’s called Poisoned Springs for a reason,” Ron said. “I’ve been here many, many times.”

  * * *

  FIVE MINUTES INTO THE FOREST the trees began to look different. Instead of supple trunks with green needles the trees became stiff white posts. The dead branches above them opened up the sky.

  Ron let go of the tarp and paused to get his breath back.

  “Look,” Ron said to Kyle, rapping a white trunk with his knuckles, “This tree has turned to stone. Like it’s petrified. You can blame all the minerals just below the surface for that.”

  Kyle was obviously intrigued. He stepped over to one of the stiff white trees and knocked on the trunk.

  “Crazy things happen in this park,” Ron said. “Ninety-nine percent of the people who come here never get off the figure-eight road system. They don’t know there are petrified trees just out of sight or that there are natural hot springs filled with sulphuric acid.”

  He bent t
o grasp a handful of the plastic tarp to pull the body the rest of the way. “Now be careful when we get close. The crust of the earth is really thin here. If you don’t watch where you step you could break right through it and scald your foot.”

  The sulfur smell was strong as they closed in on Poisoned Springs. The spring itself was kidney shaped, twelve feet by twenty feet, and it was filled with clear sapphire-colored water that licked gently at the crusty edge of the opening. Wisps of steam curled from the surface of the hot water.

  “Looks like you might want to take a bath in it, doesn’t it?” Ron asked. “Well, don’t. That acid will eat the flesh right off your bones.”

  Ron inched closer to the opening. The brittle crust on the edge overhung the pool itself and it was difficult to see how far it extended into the water. He stopped several feet short of the edge and stood on the balls of his feet so he could see better into the cavern beneath the surface.

  “There used to be a femur bone caught on a ledge on the side of it,” he said to Kyle. “Doesn’t look like it’s there anymore, which is good. I guess it finally dissolved away.”

  “How many bodies are in there?” Kyle asked in his mush-mouthed way. It was a clinical question. Ron was pleased that he even understood the boy.

  “Dozens.”

  Kyle looked at him blankly.

  “Don’t think about it. It’s just nature doing what nature does. Instead, think about helping me unwrap this thing. Then help me find a long pole. We’ll push it in with that. No way I’m gonna get any closer to the edge of that spring than I am now.”

  Kyle’s face blanched with horror.

  * * *

  “KYLE, YOU LOOK PALE.”

  Actually, the boy’s face in the diffuse light from the dashboard of the pickup looked pale green.

  They were coming down the switchback road from Mammoth Hot Springs toward the north exit. Ron drove slowly and deliberately because there were no overhead highway lights in the park and animals could be anywhere.

  “Are you all right?”

  Kyle pulled his hood up tighter and looked out the passenger window.

  Ron said, “Quit thinking of her as a real person. That wasn’t Tiffany we rolled into that spring. Tiffany is gone. Once a person is dead all that’s left is bones and meat just like any animal. Think of it that way. Plus, people like her aren’t like us. They’re losers. They wouldn’t even exist if the world weren’t so cushy.

  “If it wasn’t me it would be somebody else. Or she’d have done it to herself with drugs or alcohol. We actually did her a favor.”

  Kyle didn’t react.

  As they drove through Gardiner, Ron sighed and said, “We need to get a new one with even bigger hips so we don’t have to worry about her trying to crawl out a window. But not you, Kyle. You’re obviously not ready yet. Maybe down the road but not now.

  “I’m going to take you back to the cabin and fix that window. You and Amanda will be on your own tonight.”

  Ron paused as he drove past a small lighted football field next to the school where a high school game was in progress. The Gardiner Tigers were playing. He could see teams on the field, knots of students in the stands, cheerleaders on the sidelines, and dozens of parked vehicles in the lot outside the stands.

  “Because I’m going hunting.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  BEFORE DAWN THE NEXT MORNING Cassie heard movement and heavy sounds outside the Tomahawk Motel. She slipped out of the bed and walked to the window with bare feet and parted the curtains.

  Under the blue glow of a pole light, Bull Mitchell led his horses one by one from where they’d been picketed in the field behind the motel the night before into his horse trailer. He looked fit and purposeful as he did it, and she noticed he wore a holster with a long revolver on his hip. His breath condensed in the freezing air and haloed around his head.

  She thought: He’s in his element. This is what he did for decades—rose long before the sun came up or his clients arose to break camp. He was doing what he was meant to do and she’d provided the conduit.

  She prayed Bull would return to Bozeman and Rachel as healthy and safe when the expedition was over as he appeared at that moment. If he didn’t, Rachel would never forgive Cassie and she wouldn’t blame her one bit.

  Cassie let the curtains close and stepped away to make coffee in the small plastic brewer in the room. She’d barely slept herself; prey to a combination of a worn-out bed, a room that smelled of Lysol, and nerves. Instead, she’d removed the tags off her newly purchased outdoor clothing and cleaned and oiled her Glock.

  She started to write a letter to Ben to tell him how much she loved him in case something happened in the mountains and she didn’t return. But she couldn’t put what she wanted to say into words and the very act of writing the letter felt like creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. So she abandoned the effort.

  At one point during the night she’d considered not going into the mountains herself. Bull knew where he was going and Sheriff Pederson and his “horse-savvy” deputies could likely handle any situation they came across.

  But she’d talked herself out of it. She owed it to Lottie, to Ralph Johnson, to Raheem, and to Kyle to see it through. It was because of her the expedition was coming together.

  Cassie had lived with the Lizard King in the back of her brain for years. So long that he’d become almost a part of her being.

  She wanted to be rid of him forever.

  * * *

  SHERIFF PEDERSON AND HIS TWO deputies pulled into the motel parking lot at seven-thirty that morning. The deputies drove a pickup with a horse trailer behind it and Pederson arrived in his SUV.

  Cassie emerged from her room as the sheriff began introductions all around.

  “This is Cassie Dewell,” he began. “She used to be with the Lewis and Clark Sheriff’s Department and was most recently Chief Investigator for Bakken County in North Dakota.”

  “Pleased to see you again,” Mike Pompy said, removing his hat with his left hand and extending his right. His eyes lingered on her after they shook hands. It took a moment for her to recall that he’d been at Paradise Valley when they were digging up Cody Hoyt’s body.

  “You worked with Cody Hoyt,” Jim Thomsen said with a sly smile. “Anybody who worked with that guy has to be tough.”

  Mike Pompy was in his early forties, short-legged with a barrel chest and a calm disposition. Thomsen was rangy with a cropped ginger beard and light blue eyes. He bounced on the balls of his feet as he talked. He was ready to go. Both were dressed in jeans and wore cowboy boots and tactical vests. Pompy had a semiautomatic holstered under his left arm and Thomsen wore his sidearm on his hip. Combat shotguns and AR-15s with extended tube magazines were clustered muzzle-down between the front seats of the pickup.

  “And this is Bull Mitchell,” Pederson said, stepping back.

  Bull leaned against the front bumper of his Power Wagon with his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans. He looked over both deputies as if he were looking for good colts at a horse sale.

  “Bull will be leading the expedition,” Pederson told his men. “He’s got a lot of experience in these mountains and he knows this country like nobody else. When it comes to the ride in, listen to him. If we get into a law enforcement situation, listen to me. Got that?”

  Pompy and Thomsen nodded in agreement.

  “Okay,” Pederson said, “when can we get going?”

  Bull said, “Twenty minutes. I just talked to Dub and my truck is almost ready.”

  Cassie was pleased.

  “First, let’s do an inventory on the gear you all brought,” Bull said. “We’re going to be traveling light with only one animal other than the horses you’re riding. Meaning I don’t want to take four of anything except weapons. No more than twenty pounds per man of clothing, gear, and all that electronic bullshit you people think is essential.”

  “Twenty pounds?” Thomsen said.

&nb
sp; “Not unless you brought your own packhorse. So start going through your duffel bags, boys, and throwing stuff out.”

  Pompy and Thomsen looked to Pederson for backup but didn’t get it. Thomsen sighed as he turned for his bag to start winnowing out weight.

  Bull carefully oversaw the deputies as they consolidated their belongings.

  “How many GPS machines and satellite phones do you people need?” Bull barked. “One will do.”

  Pompy and Thomsen exchanged looks again. Bull, they conceded, had a point.

  “The heavier we ride the slower we go,” Bull said. “I remember one time…”

  And the stories began, Cassie thought. Testosterone hung in the air like wood smoke, she thought. In a matter of minutes the two deputies and Bull were exchanging experiences on horseback in the mountains. All three were obviously excited to mount up. She wished she could share in the unbridled anticipation but there was a knot in her stomach and she felt a little sick from the metallic motel room coffee.

  “I’m going to delay us a little longer than twenty minutes,” Pederson said to Bull. “We got a call last night that I need to follow up.”

  “What kind of call?” Cassie asked.

  “High school girl. She said a ‘creepy guy’ tried to pick her up last night after the game.”

  Cassie felt a chill run down the back of her spine.

  “Did she get a good look at him?”

  Pederson shrugged. “There wasn’t much in the report. That’s why I need to talk with her in person.”

  “Can I ride along?” Cassie asked. “There’s not much I can do here.”

  She gestured at Thomsen, Pompy, and Bull, who were in animated conversation about past elk hunts. Bull handed over his long-barrelled .44 magnum revolver for them to admire.

  Pederson shrugged and said, “Sure, come on along.”

  “Let me get my notepad,” Cassie said, turning on her heel to go back to her room.

  Bull told Pederson, “Meet us at the Gardiner Market down the road. You can leave your Yukon there and ride the rest of the way with us. We need to get some big steaks, don’t we guys?” he asked Thomsen and Pompy.