He swallowed back the lump in his throat. “I’ve got to transport him out of here safely. And the best possible way to do that is to get help. We’re only an hour away from that guard station radio and our vehicles. But I need to stay with Perry. Can you get there and call for help?” It crossed his mind that he was split up from Susanne and Lana, that Trish and Bunny had gone back to camp, and that his father had stomped off. What had happened to his plan to keep everyone together? Now he was breaking the group up further, but it couldn’t be helped.
Pete nodded, hands on his hips. “I’ll run the whole way. Do you agree that I should follow the creek to the Tukudika, then head downstream and cross at the bridge?”
“That’s what I would do.”
“I don’t have the keys. But I have hotwiring skills.”
“Hopefully you’ll be able to call for help by radio.”
Pete was dancing from foot to foot. “We’re on the east side of Trout Creek off the Tukudika River, just past Yellowjacket Guard Station and the footbridge. Right?”
“Right.”
The brothers embraced. Then Pete kissed Vera on the cheek and took off at a dead run.
Chapter Thirteen: Hurt
North of the campsite, Trout Creek, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming
Friday, June 24, 1977, 10:55 a.m.
Perry
The ringing in his ears was so loud that it vibrated his brain inside his skull. Ow. Make it stop. Perry tried to clap his hands over his ears, but he felt like he was up to his neck in mud, and the effort to move them was just too much. He tried to ignore the piercing sound and return to oblivion, but it didn’t work.
He groaned. “Stop,” he said. Or tried to. The ringing was too loud to hear his own voice.
A hand gripped his shoulder.
He struggled to open his eyes. It wasn’t much easier to move the lids than his hands. He felt them twitch, then flutter.
“Perry. Come on, Perry. Wake up.” The voice belonged to his dad, although it seemed a million miles away.
“Dad?” His words came out as a soft croak.
“It’s me, son. I’m right here.”
Perry’s eyes opened. The light felt like an explosion in his head, and he closed his eyes again. His dad’s face was an afterimage in his mind. “What happened to me?”
His dad squeezed his shoulder, but not hard. “You fell and hit your head.”
“You were showing me how to climb the waterfall. It’s my fault.” Brian. Brian was there, too. His voice at least. Perry couldn’t see him.
“It’s not your fault, Brian.” To Perry, Patrick said, “Does your head hurt?”
Perry tensed his face, then relaxed it. “Yeah. I think so.” He opened his eyes again. The light wasn’t as bad the second time. His dad was smiling at him. Behind him, Perry saw other faces, but they were blurry. He blinked. They came into focus. Aunt Vera and his cousins. “Where are we?”
“Still out on Trout Creek. Your Uncle Pete has gone down to get help.”
“Help for what?” Perry started becoming more aware of the pain in his head. It seemed like his head was in a vise that was being cranked tighter and tighter. But that wasn’t possible. Why does it hurt so much?
“You.”
Perry rocked his head from side to side. Mistake. It made him feel like puking. “Am I going to be okay?”
“Yes. But we need to be careful. Can you move your hands and feet?”
Perry tried again with his hands. His arms lifted, and his fingers made fists. He bent his knees, waggled his feet, wiggled his toes.
“Great. How does the rest of you feel?”
Perry wasn’t sure, so he decided to check it out. He rolled up onto an elbow.
“Careful, now.”
The world tilted, swayed, then righted itself. The nausea got worse. A lot worse. He pushed to a sitting position and groaned. Pressing one hand to his head and supporting himself with the other, he slowly rotated his neck. “Feels like I got tackled by a bull, and I wasn’t wearing a helmet.”
His dad laughed. “Pretty much.” He walked a few steps, picked up the hat Mr. Hilliard had called a fedora, and crammed it on his head.
“Was I unconscious?”
“You were.
“How long?”
“Not too long.”
“And everyone has just been sitting here?”
His dad nodded. “Worrying about you.”
“Without lunch,” Stan said.
“Stan!” Vera frowned at him.
“It’s true. Because our food got ruined when Brian dropped it in the water.”
Perry said, “I’m good enough to go back to camp.”
Patrick put a hand on Perry’s arm. “Don’t be in a rush.”
Perry tried to stand. When that didn’t go well, he rotated to his hands and knees, then climbed to his feet. His stomach floated up and down, like he was on a boat. “I don’t feel so hot.” Then he bent over his knees and vomited up breakfast.
Annie screamed. “Ew.”
“Sorry,” Perry groaned. He heaved for a minute until the barfy feeling passed. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, straightened, and tried to grin. “Now I’m hungry, too. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Fourteen: Changeup
Trout Creek near the Tukudika River, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming
Friday, June 24, 1977, 11:05 a.m.
Patrick
Patrick hiked behind his son so he could monitor his condition. Within minutes, Perry was hiking as well as the rest of the group, and Patrick felt encouraged. He still wanted to get him back to Jackson and to the hospital. He needed to have Perry checked out. Just because a patient was up and about and speaking normally didn’t mean there wasn’t something going on in the brain that could cause death from a head injury. Perry would need to remain under close observation. But Patrick felt confident the kid could get back to the Suburban under his own power, and that was a huge plus. Patrick thought about Pete’s mission to the guard station to call for help. If Pete was successful, it would trigger a massive waste of resources. As a physician, Patrick was sensitive to this, since that meant the resources would be unavailable to anyone else who might need them at the same time. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that it could cost someone’s life.
He had to stop Pete.
Patrick was in the best cardiovascular shape of his life, since he’d been training for a half marathon since March. Pete, on the other hand, lived a musician’s lifestyle. Sleep all day, gig all night, with very little exercise, plenty of alcohol, and God knew what else. He didn’t have that long of a head start on Patrick. Patrick could catch him. Vera could keep an eye on Perry and walk the kids back. Yes, he’d be splitting the group up even further, but it was the ethical thing to do. They could hike to the Tukudika together. He and Pete could meet them at the canoes.
But the clock was ticking, and with every second, Pete pulled further ahead of him. If Patrick was going to do this, he had to leave ASAP. There was no more time to mull things over.
He jogged past Perry and up to Vera, who was at the head of the line. “Can you handle things with the kids? I need to catch up to Pete and bring him back.” He pointed ahead to a rock formation. It was hiding the mouth of the trail back to camp. “That’s the turn. From there it’s a straight shot back to camp.”
Vera was already nodding. “Of course. Should we wait for you there?”
“Let’s meet back up at the canoes, on the river. It’ll save some hiking and time.”
“Sounds good.”
He leaned closer to her. “Just tell Susanne that I said you guys need to hurry. I want to get Perry out of here. He needs to be examined at the hospital in Jackson.”
She grasped his hand. “Absolutely. You can count on me, Patrick. I’m just glad he’s awake and doing better.”
“Me, too.” He turned back to the others. “Perry, your Aunt Vera is in charge. You and Brian are going to
have to carry the packs. I’ve got to bring Pete back, since we don’t need help getting you out of here.” He gave them a crisp, military-style salute. “See you soon.”
The kids giggled at his gesture. The younger ones saluted him. Brian and Annie looked at each other, and when they saw that neither had saluted their uncle, they trained their eyes on the ground, nodding without being goofballs like the little ones.
Perry waved. “Be careful, Dad. The rocks are slick.”
Patrick laughed and took off running. He gave the creek a wide berth. Perry might be kidding, but the last thing this group needed was for him to get injured, too.
Chapter Fifteen: Intercept
East of Trout Creek, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming
Friday, June 24, 1977, Noon
Patrick
To Patrick’s ears, his own breathing sounded like a foghorn. His lungs burned as if he’d swallowed a blowtorch. And this was after only a mile, running downhill. The combination of nearly 7500 feet in elevation, uneven terrain, heavy footwear, and a punishing pace were adding up. But he really wanted to catch Pete while his brother was still on Trout Creek, before he turned down the Tukudika. And it was only pain, after all, from effort and not injury. He should really be more worried about the livid bruise he was going to have from the nearly five pounds of revolver pummeling his hip. Mind over matter, Flint, he told himself. He kicked it up another notch.
After roughly another quarter mile, he heard men’s voices ahead of him. Pete. Good. He accelerated yet again, relieved to be nearing the end of the effort. They sounded nearly close enough for Patrick to call out to his brother. Just another ten yards or so. He rounded a bend. About one hundred yards ahead on the edge of the creek, he caught sight of Pete with several other men. His attention was diverted momentarily from his footing on the challenging terrain. He tripped and went down, catching himself on his hands, but not before twisting his ankle and banging a knee on a rock.
The pain of the knee injury hit him first, sharp and precise, like a blow from a pickax. He winced and groaned, rolling onto his non-gun hip. But as he pushed off his ankle, it gave him an unwelcome surprise. The ankle hurt a lot more than the knee. The knee pain, in fact, had already started to abate. He caught his ankle with both hands, moving it and pressing into it to check for a break. He didn’t see evidence of one, but that was only mild consolation. The pain mushroomed. Before his eyes, his ankle seemed to discolor. Was it his imagination, or was a bruise already blossoming? He held on to it, and he was almost positive that in addition to a pulsing throb, he felt it swelling. Literally felt the fluid accumulate and the ankle enlarge.
A sprain. Just what I need.
From his prone position, he’d lost sight of Pete and the other men, but he could hear them. Since Pete wasn’t heading anywhere fast, Patrick decided to ice his ankle in the creek for a minute. He could shout out to his brother at any time if it appeared Pete was leaving. An ankle dunking would help with the pain and clear his head, which was muddled from the fall. He untied his hiking boot, slid it and his sock off, and scooted to the stream. He lowered his foot into the stream, which was just deep enough to submerge his ankle. The icy water was shockingly cold, and he jerked his foot back. Cold enough to stop a heart. It was especially jarring with his ankle and foot overheated from running in wool socks and hiking boots. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and forced himself to submerge the ankle and foot and hold them there. He started counting. Sixty seconds was his goal.
Pete’s voice rose. It was strained and pitched higher than normal. He suddenly sounded as loud and clear as if he were standing next to Patrick. “I’m not going to tell anyone about the gold and the cave. I swear.”
A man with a nasally voice snarled an answer. “You’re damn right you’re not. Winthropp, take him back to camp and tie him up.”
Patrick forgot about the cold water. He shook his head, certain he had misunderstood the man. Tie him up? Who would want to tie Pete up, and why? It didn’t make sense.
An accented voice came next. Mexican. Like the voice the Flints had heard from their camp the night before. “Les, come on, man. Just let him go.”
The snarly voice replied. The man’s name was Les, Patrick surmised. “Let him go? You may not care about your share of the money, but I care about mine. I’m not going to lose a fortune to a bunch of weekend warriors with picks and pans. Peak tourist season starts next week. No one, and I mean no one, gets to see what we’ve found until we’ve emptied the cave.”
“But how are you going to keep him quiet—hold him hostage the whole time?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Diego. I’m not wasting our food supply on him.”
“So, what, you’re going to kill him?”
The silence was deafening, and Patrick forgot all about the pain in his ankle. He drew his foot out of the water and scrambled backwards to his sock and boot. His brother was in trouble. Serious trouble. He had to get to him.
The man repeated himself. “Les, are you planning on killing him, too?”
“No. I’m planning on you doing it. You and Hector. It’s about time you pulled your weight. Winthropp handled the job with Jimbo all by himself.”
“Les, you’re crazy.” It was a third man’s voice. Scratchy. Wheezy. “He’s not the only person we’re going to see out here. Heck, he’s not the only person we’ve seen out here today.”
The pain was blinding as Patrick pulled on his sock. Mind over matter.
Diego, the accented one, said, “And people will come looking for him, man.”
“We only need a few more days,” Les said. “From now on, full time lookout. Although you were supposed to be our lookout today, Hector, and you can see how much good that did us.”
“How was I to know this guy would be jogging the wrong way down the creek? He was on us before I ever saw him. Moving too fast.”
Patrick shoved his foot in the hiking boot. It was almost as bad as the sock. He bit his lip to keep from making a sound.
“Well, he’s not moving that fast now, is he? You two find a place to take care of him.” Patrick heard a slapping noise and a splash. “And don’t do it too near the camp. I don’t want to attract any grizzlies.”
Pete’s voice sounded like a wire about to snap. “Man, you do not have to do this. Seriously. I’ve got zero interest in your gold. I just want to get back to my family.”
“Family? Who all is with you?” Les asked.
An icy sensation prickled Patrick’s face. Oh, no. No, no, no.
“Uh, no one. I meant back out of the wilderness to my family.”
“Where are they?” Les asked.
“Uh, down in Jackson.”
Patrick was relieved at his brother’s quick thinking.
But Les didn’t seem to be buying Pete’s story. “You told us earlier you were running to the guard station to get help for your kid.”
“Not my kid. A kid. One with another group. I ran into them, and because I was, uh, running this direction, they asked me to go for help.”
“And they’re upstream?”
“Yeah. Way upstream. Way, way upstream.”
Les sneered. “I didn’t see any groups with kids go by. Did any of you?”
Diego and Hector both said no.
A fourth voice, deep and slow, said, “Not me, boss.”
Boot tied, Patrick crawled forward, ignoring the pain and keeping low to the ground, until he could see his brother. A man was holding Pete by the neck with the crook of one arm. He’d pinned Pete’s arms behind his back with the other. The man towered over Pete by a good head in height, and Pete wasn’t short at a hair under six feet. Pete and his captor were facing upstream, and the other men were looking downstream. Winthropp, Patrick thought. The big man is Winthropp. One—half the height of Winthropp—was olive-skinned with short black hair and a stocky build. Diego. He wasn’t sure about the other two. Patrick wanted Pete to see him, but he didn’t see how he could reveal himself without the other me
n catching sight of him, too. He had to get Pete away from these guys, but so far, he had no idea how to do it. There were too many of them for Patrick to confront them directly. He had his .357 Magnum, but if they were armed, that was four guns to one. And all it took was one gun to end Pete’s life. Or Patrick’s.
Diego said, “Great. Then we should expect more people, then, coming downstream with the kid, no matter what we do with him.”
“We’ll be prepared. Or were you not listening, dipshit?” It was the man with the nasally, sneering tone.
Now Patrick had a face to the voice and name. Les. He was a pasty, short white guy with a shaved head and crazy eyes, who looked like he needed to eat a bag of Big Macs if he wanted to keep his pants up. That meant Hector had to be the very normal-looking man with dark blond hair. Average height and weight, no noticeable deformities or unusual features. Just a man in a red plaid shirt like any of the thousands of others in Wyoming.
In a deep, slow voice, Winthropp said, “Want me to take him to camp, boss?”
“I’ve changed my mind. Hector and Diego will handle him from the get-go. You be my lookout. I’ve got to keep working. We are here to unload that cave of gold, after all.”
Diego and Hector took Pete’s arms. Winthropp released him.
Diego shook his head. “You’re crazy, Les. And you’re going to get us killed.”
Scapegoat: A Patrick Flint Novel Page 8