The Weight of Night

by Christine Carbo

  “So it’s Chiles’s land we need to look at,” Ali said.

  “He’s tough to track down.”

  “No shit. That’s what off-the-grid means.” She crossed her arms before her chest. “No address, no phone, no electricity bills.”

  “So how well you know the North Fork? Because last I heard, Minsky was still up there, hadn’t been back to the Yaak.”

  They looked at each other, then excused themselves again to shuffle to the side and whisper a few things. When they came back over, their black boots scuffing on the gravel parking lot of the run-down motel, Ali lifted her chin to me and said, “Forget the posters. You’re coming with me to find this Minsky. Hollywood here”—she motioned to Herman, and I assumed she called him that because of the fancy glasses—“he’ll stay at headquarters and run the search.”

  I knew there was a lot to do back at headquarters: organize a press conference for the parents to speak later in the day, schedule volunteers to comb the widened grid, continue to track down known sex offenders in the West Glacier, Columbia Falls, and Essex areas, take AMBER Alert calls, and keep an eye on searches still sweeping through the wilderness by foot and by helicopter. Joe Smith would be there making sure Park Police did their jobs well and interfaced with the Incident Commander, since the case, like the fires, fell under the umbrella of the IC. As long as the fires continued to create a state of emergency, the command structure would stay in place.

  Herman nodded and she turned back to me. “Before we go, can you please go back in and let the family know that someone will be coming soon?”

  For a moment, her eyes looked pained.

  So, I thought, she had a heart after all. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” I called Tara and asked if she could swing by and sit with the Coreys for a bit until we could get a victim’s specialist or a chaplain to come. She agreed. I looked up at the brilliant sky, which I hadn’t seen in days—at the cerulean oasis above me like a mirage, like a fake movie set; then I sighed, gathered my nerve, and headed back to the Coreys’ room.

  • • •

  Ali and I drove in silence, taking the Camas Creek Cutoff Road, also known simply as Camas Road, toward the North Fork of Flathead River, which courses through British Columbia, Canada, and south into Montana to form part of Glacier Park’s western border. The road was built in the 1960s in the Mission 66 program—a long-abandoned effort to beef up infrastructure in the park to handle growing throngs of visitors. Most national parks were established before national highway systems were built and were not equipped to handle the post–World War II boom that had put so many cars on highways across America and brought even more tourists.

  On our left, tall peaks jutted toward the sky, including Huckleberry Mountain, and on our right, we passed sprawling meadows, including McGee Meadow, where white-tailed deer and elk often grazed. Ali had a file open before her and was studying it. Finally she said, “Guy like Minsky, living like that for over thirty years. Moving from place to place in a damned yurt. Who lives like that?”

  “Different sorts of people, but from what I’ve read, Minsky is the sort who doesn’t trust the system.”

  “And what exactly have you read?”

  “That he’s been watched for buying and selling sawed-off double barrels. That he was mixed up with the Christian Identity Believers for some time after he moved out here years ago and is now hooked up with some other antigovernment types. But ironically, the more you try to wipe yourself clean of the system, the more attention you bring yourself from that very system.”

  “You sound like you’re sticking up for the guy.”

  “Absolutely not sticking up for him, just know how it goes.” I thought of my brother, Adam. He had been a handful his entire life and often did things outside the norm, probably outside the law. He was currently trying to run an iron-welding business in Columbia Falls. But most of the time, he had his own system of reasoning. I spent a good part of my life hating him for it, though I’d actually recently been forced to collaborate with my brother on a case I had worked. I had learned to be more tolerant of him, perhaps more understanding of his way of living.

  “And how does it go for your average Identity Believer or neo-Nazi?” Ali asked.

  I slowed down to point out a black bear on the side of the road that was nibbling some shriveled berries off some huckleberry bushes. There were hardly any to be had because of the drought, and the bear looked skinny. Ali wasn’t having it. She glanced, nodded slightly, but didn’t speak. I can’t say I blamed her under the circumstances, although I did have to wonder if that would be her reaction even without a missing child in the picture. “Regardless of religious thoughts, of how despicable some of their beliefs are,” I answered, “a lot of these folks, well, they try to live outside the financial system, try to barter, stock up on gold and whatnot. It just ends up making it harder for them to survive. So ironically, they need to take illegal jobs like trading and selling firearms, growing and selling weed . . . to make money to get by in the very system they’re trying to avoid. I’m not condoning it, just explaining it.”

  “Not just avoid. Destroy. You left that out. His file said he was detained for some half-assed plot to knock over the Wells Fargo branch in Kalispell. Then they set their sights on an elaborate plan to take down the city government building. I personally know a judge in Kalispell who wore a bulletproof vest to work every day for two years—he was on their hit list for sentencing a member of their group who was picked up in the early nineties for carrying a box of pipe bombs in his trunk. One of Minsky’s fellow group members. You defending that?”

  “No, I told you, I’m most definitely not defending that.” I figured I should keep my mouth shut. Although it was worth trying, tracking Minsky down seemed like a long shot. “Do you really think this guy fits the profile of a child abductor?”

  “I think he fits the profile of someone who’s off his rocker. Plus, you said it yourself, some of these guys end up needing money, not just to live, but to carry out their crazy antigovernment plots. With Jeremy’s dad making the news for hitting it big with a few of his songs, maybe he thinks he can make a little ransom money, calling Linda out of the blue like that. Don’t you agree that that was strange?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “I’m well aware it’s outside the norm, that it doesn’t fit the profile of an abductor, but don’t you think it’s a weird coincidence? The mother of a boy who happens to be vacationing in Montana has an estranged uncle who happened to call for money several weeks before, after her husband gets a hit single playing on the radio. And now we know he’s not just in the northwest part of the same state, that according to you he’s closer, in the vicinity of the very park they’re visiting?”

  “It’s strange,” I agreed. “But have there been any complaints about him over the years, any incidents of lewd behavior or crimes against children?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Plus, like I said, the motive doesn’t have to be sexual. He could have been looking for money, or thinking that he might take some sort of revenge. Years of estrangement can mess with your mind. Who knows, maybe he figured Jeremy was the ripe recruiting age for his cause. Maybe he knew he’d never get to know him unless he just took him. Maybe he’s getting too old to set up and take down his yurt,” she said flippantly, “and he needs a young man around to mold into a separatist, a sympathizer.”

  The asphalt road came to an end, and I turned north on the gravel road leading to the tiny town of Polebridge. I knew she was just speculating, but I wanted to say, Don’t you think you’re making some huge assumptions without any evidence? I decided I better not piss her off. She seemed to be just barely tolerating me in the first place, and a huge part of me hoped she was correct—that this case was as simple as an abduction by a family member. Not that it was ideal by any stretch, but, as Linda said, perhaps it was better than a stranger.

&nbs
p; I stayed quiet as we drove toward Chiles’s property. He owned a large piece of land that spread away from the North Fork River, his cabin squatting back about two hundred yards in a forest of skinny lodgepole pines and tamarack trees. The cabin looked out at a field filled with drying red Indian paintbrush and fireweed with a view of the Livingston Range. Its peaks reared up to the sky and made an impressive thirty-six-mile majestic chain from the United States to Canada. No smoke hung over the range and light clouds laced the mountains as the wind still held the fires’ dry precipitate of ash and smoke to the east.

  “This is it,” I said.

  “A slice of heaven,” Ali said. “Guess you gotta be willin’ to live far away from all the conveniences if you want something this pretty.”

  “Pretty much,” I agreed. “It’s not for everyone.”

  “Funny”—she chuckled—“how the wacky ones are the ones willing to live out here—around all this beauty and fresh air. Too bad it doesn’t breathe some sense into them.”

  Our plan was to ask Chiles for permission to visit Minsky’s yurt, which wasn’t on Glacier’s access land, so we wouldn’t be trespassing.

  Not all of the people living in the Yaak near the northwestern Montana border were there for political reasons. And even though many were downright anarchists, some just wanted to be left alone. It was a way of life. The year-round residents lived there because they felt far away from the government, even from the post office. They plowed their own roads, hunted and fished whenever they wanted, and avoided authority. But those up in the North Fork, well, they knew they were near the park, close to federal land. They knew they might need to put up with a ranger or Park Police once in a while, even if they didn’t like it.

  We both stood still for a moment and took in the cabin. It was fairly crude, with thin spaces between the logs, a bitch to heat in the winter. Something about the place told me this was no summer cabin and that old man Chiles took residence in it year-round, unlike many others in the area. Clotheslines hung between two lodgepoles on the side of the house, and long stacks of freshly cut wood lined the side of the cabin. Old rusty wind chimes dangled from one corner and an old empty hummingbird feeder from the other. They framed a slanted porch that looked like it was falling apart.

  We walked slowly toward the cabin, guessing we were being watched by Chiles, maybe even Minsky. Before we knocked on his dilapidated gray door, Chiles swung it open. “What’d’ya here for?” he asked me, but instantly took in Ali and her blue FBI uniform. His eyes reminded me of a rodent’s, sharp and twitchy. He wore a black flannel shirt and saggy old jeans. A stringy gray-and-black beard that resembled Spanish moss dangled from his chin.

  “Sir, we’d like a word with you, just a moment, if you don’t mind.”

  “Hell yeah, I mind. What makes you think I have a moment?” he said, and slammed the door in our faces.

  “Guess he doesn’t really want us to answer that,” I said.

  Ali glared at Chiles’s door and held up her fist to knock again. I could see her jaw tense with anger. I reached over and gently pushed her arm down. “I’ve met him before. Let me handle this, okay?”

  Something told me she did not like taking direction from anyone, least of all Park Police, but I could see her turn it over in her head for a second. She dropped her arm and gave a curt nod.

  “Chiles,” I yelled without knocking. “We’re only here to ask you a few questions about your neighbor. Nothing to do with you, nothing at all.”

  “Ain’t got no neighbor,” he called back.

  “I’m talking about Minsky. Just a few questions, that’s all.”

  “He in trouble?”

  “No, no, he’s not.”

  “I don’t believe shit coming from the likes of you. I ain’t stupid. What the hell you bringing the feds to my place for?”

  “It’s not what you think. Really. We’re simply looking for a missing boy. You’ve heard helicopters flying around?”

  “A few. ’Cause of the fires.”

  “Yes, but also for a missing boy.”

  “What does that have to do with Minsky?”

  “Open up and we’ll fill you in.”

  Ali and I waited by the door as Chiles considered what I’d said. We had been standing there a good half minute when Ali shifted impatiently in her stance, lifted her chin, and was about to say something, but stopped when the door clicked. She took a step back as it swung open. Chiles stood in the dim light of the cabin.

  “Can we come in, Mr. Chiles?” Ali said sweetly, in a tone I’d not yet heard.

  He looked down at her, his chin lifted in distrust. He didn’t answer.

  “Just a few words,” I added. Dealing with suspicious mountain men was nothing new to me, and I sensed it wasn’t new to Ali either, but I could tell her patience was running thin. She wanted to find this boy, we all did, and the urgency was building with each passing moment.

  Chiles finally backed up and let us enter. I looked around and saw the log walls lined with deer, elk, and moose heads with dull, dead eyes. Dioramas of game birds—grouse and pheasant sprouting long, dusty tail feathers—sat on two wooden side tables. The cabin smelled pungent, like smoke, bitter coffee, and old clothes that had been drenched in sweat one too many times.

  “What do you want?” He motioned for us to sit at a small table near the rustic kitchen. A big, colorful bird—some kind of parrot, alive and watchful—perched on one of the backs of the four chairs, its exotic orange, blue, and yellow tail swooping away from the table. Ali eyed it as she took a seat. I sat down too. “Nice parrot,” I said, noting the irony of the beautiful bird held up in a dingy cabin full of mounted wild game. “Is it a particular type?”

  “Nah, just a parrot,” he said.

  “Pretty,” Ali said.

  “Want to let ’em perch on your shoulder?”

  “No thanks,” she said. “Where does that thing poop?”

  “Around.” Chiles waved, then grabbed a round, daisy-colored container of disinfecting wipes—the cheeriest and most colorful item in the entire cabin—off his counter and brought it over to the table. “These come in handy.”

  Ali nodded. “I see.”

  “If you’re lying to me and this is about ATVing or something”—Chiles pulled out the fourth chair and took a seat—“I haven’t done any of that, so you can turn around and leave.”

  “It’s definitely not about that,” I said.

  “Like he said, it’s about a missing boy,” Ali offered. “One we believe is related to Alfred Minsky.”

  “Gunner?”

  “Yeah, I guess. That what you call him?”

  Chiles nodded. “Name he got in Vietnam. It stuck.”

  “We thought he might be able to help. We understand he’s been staying on your land.”

  “Wonder where you heard that.” Chiles turned his head and glared at me almost comically.

  “We just want to ask him a few questions, that’s all.” Ali set her hand on the table, and as soon as it settled, the bird dove over and pecked—or rather, jabbed—her wrist. “Bitch.” She pulled it back quickly, cradled it in the other, and slid them both under the table while the bird strutted back to his perch.

  “It’s a he, not a she, and he don’t like strangers,” Chiles said, one corner of his mouth slanting up into a wry smile, obviously enjoying the show.

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said, pulling her hand back out from under the table and shaking it. “So, what about Minsky?”

  “He’s gone.”

  I glanced at Ali, then back to Chiles. “Gone? When?”

  “Left a few days ago.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Couldn’t tell ya. Have no clue.”

  “He have anyone with him?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Can you tell us why he was
here in the first place?” I asked.

  “Said he needed a place to stay for a while.”

  “And why did you feel the need to oblige?” Ali asked. “You two good friends?”

  “I wouldn’t call us that. Like I said, we were in Vietnam together, and let’s just say I’ve owed him a favor or two for some time and it wasn’t until recently that he’s come calling for one.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Hell if I know what kind. The usual kind—guy gets down and out and needs a place to stay. Glad it was only that and not much more. Old man like me doesn’t need any trouble.”

  “What makes you think he’s trouble?”

  “I don’t,” he said, but I could see in the shift of his eyes—how he looked away to the window—that he did. “Anything out of the routine at my age can be trouble.” He grinned, showing rotten tea-colored teeth. I sensed we weren’t going to get a whole lot out of the guy.

  “You notice anything strange about his comings and goings while he’s been living here?”

  “Can’t say that I do. I hardly noticed him much at all. He kept to himself, way on the back end of my property. It’s not like he came over for evening cocktails.” The bird cawed loudly, and both Ali and I flinched. Chiles laughed, reached into his pocket, pulled out a peanut, and held it in his slightly quivering palm before the parrot’s yellow beak. “There you go, Crook,” he crooned.

  “Crook?” Ali lifted an eyebrow.

  “ ’Cause of his beak. It’s curved, crooked.”

  “How long did Minsky say he was going to stay?” she asked.

  “Didn’t really. Just said awhile. Turns out he was here about two months.”

  “And you don’t know why he left? Because it’s important, Mr. Chiles.”

  “I told you, I don’t. One minute he was here, the next he was gone. Didn’t even say good-bye or thank you.”

  “That’s kind of odd,” I said. “Why wouldn’t he thank you?”

  Chiles pulled out another peanut for Crook, who was spilling bits of shells all over the wooden floor from the first one, then sighed dramatically. “You guys really don’t get it, do you?”