by Forsaken
She thought of the note he’d left only that morning about needing to go out to the ranch. Last night was wonderful. I’ll be thinking of you all day.
Nettie felt like crying. She’d allowed two men into her life and she wasn’t sure about either of them. J.D.’s explanation of the bloody bandages had been believable enough. It was the way he’d acted after she’d questioned him. She knew it could have just been disappointment when he realized she didn’t trust him.
She had thought about calling the local veterinarians to see if any of them remembered a man matching J.D. bringing in a dog that had been hit by a car. The fact that she had even considered doing that showed how little she trusted him.
Then there was Frank. It wasn’t her imagination that he pulled her in then pushed her away and had been doing it for some time. She felt like a yo-yo around him.
“Frank needs to make up his mind what he wants and then take it,” J.D. had said last night at the bar. “He’d better, before someone else takes it from him.” He’d grinned and pulled her out on the dance floor.
Nettie felt sad, remembering how much fun she’d had with J.D. She was pretty sure that was long over. In her dark mood, she’d barely looked up when the bell over the front door jangled and in came what she decided was going to be her last customer of the day.
Bethany Reynolds looked as if she’d just climbed out of bed. She was wearing bunny slippers and pajamas under a ratty chenille robe that was too small to cover her protruding stomach. She looked as if she’d been crying.
Nettie had never said more than two words to Bethany. She still thought of her as a girl, a troubled girl, at least according to local gossip.
Bethany had thrown herself at Clete Reynolds, got him to marry her and then had an affair with an older man. Nettie shuddered at the memory of that scandal since everyone knew the older married man, not that he was innocent in any way.
And now Bethany had gone and gotten herself pregnant—with her husband at least. According to the grapevine, the girl and her husband had gone to marriage counseling and now everything was fine between them.
Nettie wouldn’t lay odds on that. She watched Bethany shuffle around the store until she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Can I help you?”
Bethany shook her head, looking as if she was going to start bawling again. Running a general store this far from anything, Nettie heard a lot of sad stories from the people who came and went every day. She had a couple of her own sad stories, so she was in no mood for anyone else’s today.
She wished Bethany would just buy something and leave. But when the pregnant girl continued to wander around the store as if lost, Nettie finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” she asked with a groan. “Spit it out. I don’t have all day.”
Bethany burst into tears. “It’s Clete,” she said between sobs. “I haven’t been able to stop worrying about him ever since he left.”
“He left you already?”
Bethany shook her head. “He took some men up into the Beartooths. They’re hiking to Yellowstone.”
“This time of year?” Nettie instantly regretted her words.
“That’s exactly what I said!”
“I’m sure it’s fine.” She wasn’t at all sure since when she’d glanced in that direction just moments ago, she’d seen that the peaks were shrouded in dark clouds. Everyone knew what that meant this time of year. Snow. It could easily dump a couple feet overnight.
What had Clete been thinking taking anyone up there for a hike? Worse, what had he been thinking leaving such a pregnant young wife?
Bethany was crying harder.
“Look, Clete is born and raised here,” Nettie said, trying to console her. “He knows how to handle himself in all kinds of outdoor situations. He’ll be just fine. But he wouldn’t like you carrying on like this. Think about your baby and stop that bawlin’.”
The girl choked out a few more sobs and finally pulled herself together.
“There, that’s much better,” Nettie said with relief. “It’s just all those hormones from being pregnant. There is nothing to worry about.”
Bethany shook her head. “Clete called me this morning. He...he said...” Her voice broke and a sob escaped.
“Did he say he was in trouble?” Now Nettie was worried.
“He said he loved me and the baby and to take care of ourselves.” With that she burst into tears again.
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud. That’s what has you so worked up?”
“You didn’t hear his voice. It was like...like he was saying goodbye.”
She stared at the girl, trying to remember being Bethany’s age. Bethany made her feel old. And yet she couldn’t ignore the chill that had run the length of her spine. It was like he was saying goodbye.
Nettie glanced toward the Beartooths again and the one jagged peak that had given the town its name. Definitely snowing up there.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” she said as she led Bethany over to the counter where she kept the candy. “I’ll get you a nice cold drink and a chocolate bar. That will pick you right up. And then I’ll call the sheriff and see what he thinks, okay?”
Bethany sniffled. “Clete had second thoughts right before he left as if he sensed he shouldn’t go. I pretended to be asleep when he left because I was angry with him for going, but I was watching him. I saw him. He almost changed his mind. And then he took his gun and extra ammunition.”
“A lot of people take guns into the mountains because of the grizzly bears and other varmints,” Nettie said.
“Not a pistol. Clete always takes pepper spray. He knows better than to use a pistol on a grizzly bear. He took that gun because he didn’t trust those men and I don’t, either.”
“Well, we’ll just let the sheriff sort it out.”
But when Nettie called, she couldn’t reach Frank. Instead she talked to Undersheriff Dillon Lawson.
“How long ago did Clete go back in? How many people are with him? Do you know what route he planned to take?”
Nettie tried to put Bethany on the phone, but she was leaning against the wall, both hands over her swollen belly and shaking her head as if she was trying hard not to cry again.
“Let me ask her,” Nettie said to the undersheriff. She asked Bethany then repeated the answers. “Yesterday. Clete and three others. As far as she knows they were on foot and planning to come out at Tower Junction. That’s all she knows.”
“A storm has blown in up there,” Dillon said. “But Clete managed to call out before it hit?”
“Yes. He sounded worried. At least that’s what Bethany got out of the short conversation. She said it sounded as if he was saying goodbye.”
“We have a deputy up there in the mountains. Tell her not to worry. I’ll pass this information along to the sheriff. He just walked in.”
“I’ll tell her.” Nettie hung up and looked over at Bethany. She repeated what the undersheriff had told her.
For just an instant Bethany seemed to relax, but then she let out a cry.
“Now what?” Nettie demanded.
“My water just broke.” She looked at Nettie with huge eyes. “The baby is coming. I’ve been having cramps all morning.”
“And you only just thought to mention that?” Nettie picked up the phone to call an ambulance but realized she could get Bethany to the hospital faster on her own.
* * *
“JAMISON CALLED,” DILLON said when Frank walked into the sheriff’s department. “We were cut off, but he found Branch Murdock. He said he’s been murdered. He wanted us to send a chopper, but with this storm blowing in—”
It took Frank a moment to make sense of what the undersheriff was saying. “Branch was murdered?”
“That’s what he said. I’ve been trying to reach him without any luck.”
Frank knew Branch. He felt a deep sadness to hear of his passing, let alone that he’d been murdered. For some time now he’d been so involved in his own problems
that he felt as if he hadn’t been doing more than sleepwalking through his job.
“I’m going to have to pick up Dewey Putman,” Dillon said.
“Let me go. I want to talk to him first,” he told Dillon.
“I thought you were taking a few more days off.” The undersheriff sounded worried about him.
“I’m fine.” Frank still had a headache, but he wasn’t about to admit that. “I need to keep busy right now.” That at least was true. “Let me know if you hear from Jamison again.” He didn’t have to add, “Or hear anything on Pam.” That was a given.
Dewey’s father had come down out of the oil fields after getting the calls from Maddie and the undersheriff. Since the divorce, Chester Putman kept a small house in Livingston where Dewey had been living until he’d gotten into trouble. Chester had apparently made Maddie Dewey’s guardian and asked her to help the boy since he couldn’t very well take him north to the oil fields.
“I need to speak with your son,” Frank told him when he opened the door. Chester Putman was a stocky former railroad worker. Livingston, Montana, had at one time been a huge railroad town, but when the railroad pulled out, it left a lot of workers on pensions. Chester was one of them.
Chester Putman stood blocking the door, and his look said he wasn’t going to move.
“Look, I can do it here or I can get a warrant for his arrest,” Frank said. “Up to you. Branch Murdock, the sheepherder Dewey went up in the mountains with? He’s dead. Murdered.”
Chester didn’t seem surprised, which led Frank to wonder if Dewey hadn’t been more honest with his old man than he’d been with Deputy Jamison.
“I think we’ll just call a lawyer.”
“Also up to you.” Frank saw Dewey come into the room behind his father. He looked scared, but he held Frank’s gaze. “But one way or another I’m going to get Dewey’s side of this.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Dewey said.
Chester looked reluctant but stepped aside.
Frank moved into the living room. He motioned for the boy to sit. Chester stood near the door, his back against the wall, arms crossed over his barrel chest.
Frank turned on his small recorder. “I need to know if you killed Branch Murdock,” he said to Dewey the moment they’d both sat down.
Dewey’s face crumbled.
“Just tell me the truth. You knew he was dead, didn’t you?”
The boy nodded. “But I didn’t kill him. I swear.”
“Talk to me,” Frank said, leaning toward him.
“He was acting so strange. He was scaring me. So I followed him. He was building these rock formations. He saw me and...”
“It’s all right,” Frank assured him. “We know you got into a fight.”
Dewey was crying now. “He got mad at me for following him. Told me to go back or he was going to whip my ass. I just needed to know what he was doing, why he was piling up those rocks. He took a swing at me. I had to fight him back. I thought he was going to kill me, he was so mad.”
Frank nodded. “Then what happened?”
“I left. I was going back to camp like he told me when I heard the shots. I didn’t know what happened. I thought he might have killed himself or... I don’t know.”
Frank could tell that he did know or at least had a pretty good guess. “So you went back.”
“I found him dead. I swear. He was shot and his head was all caved in and there was this sound on the wind.” He shuddered. “We’d been hearing it at night, but right then it was really loud. It had been freaking us both out, but maybe it was getting to Branch worse after what we saw.”
“What did you see?” Frank asked, feeling his stomach tense.
Dewey looked away. He swallowed and said, “A flying saucer.” He looked at Frank and saw his skepticism. “See? That’s why I didn’t tell anyone. I knew no one would believe me.”
“A flying saucer?”
“Some kind of spaceship. I don’t know. It was dark but we both saw it. It flew right over the tent so close it made my hair stand on end.”
“So what did Branch say it was?”
“He didn’t say. But I’d read about aliens landing in Montana. They pick a place in the middle of nowhere and mutilate animals. I know it’s true. I saw it in the newspaper not all that long ago.”
It was true about the mutilated animals. The alien part was one of the theories that had been circulating at the time.
“The next morning I found...” Dewey’s voice broke again. “Some lambs that had been mutilated.”
Frank didn’t know what to make of this. “So you followed Branch back into the mountains.”
Dewey nodded. “I tried to talk to him about the mutilated lambs...”
“Tell me what you did after you started to leave, went back and found Branch dead.”
“I took off. I could tell there was nothing I could do for him. His head...” The boy’s voice broke.
“Where was his horse?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know. It must have run off or they took it.”
“The aliens?”
Dewey looked away toward the window. “You didn’t hear the crying sound on the wind. It was like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” He looked at Frank again. “They were out there. Branch knew it. I think he went looking for them—and found them. Even Branch said he’d never heard anything like it. He pretended he wasn’t scared, but he was. He was as spooked as I was. We weren’t on that mountain alone.” He began to cry. “They killed him. I swear I didn’t. I swear.”
“It’s okay,” Frank said as he got to his feet. “I’m having a hard time swallowing the part about the aliens, but I believe you didn’t kill him.”
* * *
JAMISON FEARED HE was probably seeing things in his quest to make sense of the cairns and Branch’s death. The simple answer was that Dewey had followed the old sheepherder out here. They’d argued and Dewey had killed him.
The problem was it didn’t answer the question of the cairns and why Branch had made them. Or how the sheepherder’s horse had ended up down by Gardiner.
The storm had darkened the sky to the west and now rushed toward them on the fierce wind, hurling snowflakes at them. As the temperature dropped, the clouds grew darker, snuffing out the daylight.
Jamison kept his eye on the mountainside ahead. Earlier, he’d caught a flash of light in the trees. He’d also heard something on the wind. It was faint, an almost teasing sound like that of a high-pitched whine. Not a steady one since it seemed to come and go with the wind gusts. He was surprised Maddie hadn’t heard it. Or maybe she had and, like him, she’d thought it was just the wind.
Now, though, with the building storm, the whine was louder and more persistent. Jamison didn’t know what to make of the sound or the flicker of light he’d thought he’d seen in the trees across the wide ravine. But given that the old sheepherder had left them a trail in this direction—and had gotten himself killed possibly for it—Jamison was determined to find out. He didn’t believe the sheepherder had gone loco. Not after hearing the stories Maddie had told about the man.
What Jamison kept coming back to was the dog. Maddie had said they were inseparable. He couldn’t help thinking that for some reason Branch hadn’t wanted his dog with him. But what out here had he hoped to protect the dog from?
Even if the man had gone over the edge, so to speak, and headed for Gardiner, determined to leave his life behind, he wouldn’t leave his dog. Jamison thought of the short length of frayed rope that had been tied around the dog’s neck when they’d found her. Branch had apparently tied up the dog at some point. Lucy had gotten loose and taken off possibly in search of him. Then Branch had returned and realized the dog was gone.
That could explain why the sheepherder had left his coat for the dog to find. Because this wasn’t the first time Branch had come out here and he didn’t want the dog getting in the way while he built the cairns?
Jamison had to make sense of this. It had be
come a riddle that he was determined to solve. A young boy’s future lay at the heart of it. Unfortunately, he could feel the clock running out as the storm blew in with a vengeance. The smart thing to do was hightail it back to camp. He promised himself he would—just as soon as he had a look in the dense stand of pines.
The pines ran from the bottom of the wide ravine to the rock cliff on the mountain above them. Jamison rode along the edge of the stand of trees until he saw a gap. Climbing off his horse, he led his mount through the opening.
It was dark in the pines, the boughs forming thick arches over his head that kept out the light as well as most of the falling snow. The whine he’d heard earlier grew even louder. The eerie sound sent a chill along his spine.
He hadn’t gone far when he saw where more than a dozen smaller pines appeared to have been sheared off about six feet above the ground.
He was thinking how odd that was since the destruction had been recent, the exposed wood beneath the bark bright in color. Wind could shear off trees like that. Or ice storms. But in this case, he didn’t think that was what had caused this. The destruction was too contained within the stand of pines.
As he moved deep into the trees he caught the flash of light again. Metal. He stopped in his tracks as he saw what had chopped off the trees.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JAMISON STARED IN SHOCK. Lodged in the pines was the wing from a small plane. “Stay back,” he called to Maddie when he heard a limb snap behind him.
That earlier whining sound he’d heard was now a shriek. It was coming from deeper in the pines and higher on the mountain. Was this the crying sound Dewey said they’d heard?
It was much darker back in here under the thick boughs of the pines, and colder. The lack of sun, even a weaker spring one, had done little to defrost the cold in the trees or melt the piles of snow that had blown in from winter.
Partway into the pines, Jamison glanced back. To his surprise, Maddie was standing a good distance behind him in the pines as if too shocked to move.
A few more yards into the cold darkness of trees and he caught the smell of death. He stopped for a moment to study the tracks in the soft earth next to a pile of snow. The tracks matched the ones he’d seen outside the sheepherder’s camp. Just as in those, the man wearing the hiking books appeared to be limping. Some of the snow next to the tracks was red with blood.