Death Canyon

by David Riley Bertsch

  “Thanks, man. Good night.” J.P. was coughing and lighting another cigarette.

  Once inside, Jake took off his jeans and watch but got into bed with his T-shirt and socks on. He didn’t brush his teeth. His mouth still tasted peppery from the tequila. His mind wandered, perching momentarily on images, scents, and sounds of Noelle, rivers, Elspet, crime scenes, and courtrooms. He was drunk.

  As sleep approached, his thoughts settled on Noelle. The way she looked and talked. The way she smelled. Her smile. A drunken mutter left his lips. Don’t get involved. It wasn’t Elspet’s memory that caused it. He was meant to be alone. He could fast-forward a few months in his mind and see the aftermath. Two hurt, estranged individuals wondering what went wrong, hoping never to run into each other again. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice. It was so much easier this way.

  Sleep was near, but his mind posed some final questions: What if J.P. is right? What if I am overthinking it? What if I am too far removed from the game to sense my own demise?

  16

  THE HOT ROCK TRACT, MONTANA, ELEVEN MILES NORTH OF YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. THE SAME NIGHT.

  The man looked out over the Yellowstone Plateau from a large house on a hill. The home was a modern-looking cedar structure and it was built in a hurry. He had bought up the land and contracted the build from start to finish in only six weeks. Cost was no concern. It sat up high in a swath of trees that was surrounded by wildfire damage, facing south so that the sun warmed it during the day.

  The room resembled a control center. A few computers, a fax machine, two flat-panel TVs, and other various, albeit less common, electronic devices. Like the rest of the house it was cold, unlived in.

  The man stood up and rolled his neck. He had been sitting at the computer for too many hours. Checking numbers and worrying.

  Walking to the window that looked out on the national park’s northern tract, he inhaled deeply and rubbed his face with his hands. He was anxious.

  His name was Jan Lewis Rammel, pronounced “John” for simplicity’s sake. Born in Germany, he had a huge, muscular body that stood six feet three inches tall. His cropped blond hair was just now starting to gray as he approached middle age.

  A former college athlete and successful businessman, he was used to pressure, but the type of pressure he was under now was enough to make anyone crack. The unlikely possibilities were slowly turning into probabilities, and they were sickening. If the worst happened, the consequences were mind-boggling.

  Horrific, really.

  But the others involved in the project seemingly couldn’t be bothered with that reality. They were trying to remain optimistic. “Stay positive. Do your job,” they told him. But they were unrealistic and greedy. The truth of the matter was that the situation was getting out of control, and there was no stopping it.

  At first he had spent what seemed like eighteen hours a day, seven days a week with them. Working to end the crisis. Save the world. He wasn’t so sure they weren’t destroying it.

  Now everyone had left. Now, with the wheels in motion. They’d all gone back to their cities: D.C., Houston, Abu Dhabi, and New York.

  They were oilmen and politicians mainly, all criminals in one way or another, but that identity was hidden behind a thick wall of respectability. A few, he didn’t know what the hell they did. They operated in the shadows. Google searches revealed nothing. They treated Jan like shit.

  He was the low man on the totem pole, except for Makter.

  Jan’s wealth was significant, but not compared to theirs. Anyway, his money had been made by endeavors more conventionally criminal: drugs, arms, and bribes. A few times, someone’s life. This made Jan a less-legitimate businessperson in the eyes of the others. It also made them fear him.

  In his own eyes, he wasn’t hopelessly evil. Quite the contrary. He was motivated by success just like anyone else. And like most, especially those who had hired him, he was indiscriminate about the means to the end.

  His career had started with legitimate businesses. It was manufacturing plants, the low cost of labor, that first drew his interest to South America and Asia. There his companies found relaxed regulations and higher profits. After a few years, the opium industry’s outlandish profits convinced him to pawn off his companies and invest in poppy fields, refineries, and trafficking vessels. He expanded his operations into the Colombian cocaine industry the next year. In the 1980s, when civil unrest was tearing apart El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Jan made a killing, both literally and figuratively, in the weapons trade.

  By 1999, he was completely detached from the day-to-day operations of all these endeavors. He held estates in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Florida and had a four-thousand-square-foot flat on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he resided with his wife and their child. It appeared as if he’d escaped from the risky game unscathed. He had finally made it. It was country clubs, private schools, and five-star dining from here on out.

  Then, one early morning in New Jersey, things changed.

  Unbeknownst to Jan, his son, Argus, had begun operating an outfit between Miami and New York City with Makter. A drug outfit.

  Makter. Uncle Mak.

  Argus had become attached to Makter over the years. It wasn’t really a bad thing, their relationship. Mak took care of Argus. Helped him become a man. It was just that Makter had always had something off about him. Dark. Ghoulish, even for a criminal. This frightened Jan, which was quite an accomplishment.

  South of the city, in the gritty Jersey suburbs, Argus and Makter would sell their product to middleman dealers.

  Jan got the call at 5:18 in the morning, and he would never forget that time. His bright, young baby boy had been shot four times and was in intensive care in Brooklyn.

  When he arrived at the hospital Argus was stable, but the prognosis wasn’t good. The boy had been shot three times in the chest and once in the neck. Luckily, the bullets had pierced the right side of his body and left his heart undamaged, although his right lung had collapsed. The neck wound was more significant. When the swelling came down, the doctors confirmed that the round had severely damaged his spinal cord. If Argus survived, he would never walk again.

  It was the cops that did it. Those rats. They’d raided the transaction, guns drawn. When Argus reached for his pistol, two officers had fired on him without mercy.

  The boy lived, but what kind of life? He’d lost the ability to speak and spent his days wheeling around the flat, silently. A permanent look of shock was plastered on his face—one of the many surgeries he underwent during his recovery left him with facial paresis.

  Jan was distraught. He also secretly despised the hideous sight of his own progeny. A strong, cunning, and proud heir brought to his knees. Jan refused to accept his son’s condition as permanent.

  No cost was too high. He installed elevators and ramps in his villas. He rigged his son’s favorite boat so that it could accommodate him. He bought cars and leased a private jet so that Argus would not have to endure the public humiliation and inconvenience of the airport. It all started to add up.

  Then there were the medical expenses. Jan sent Argus all over the world for experimental treatments: India, California, Switzerland. Jan paid out of pocket. But none of it worked. Still, his son wheeled around silently, looking as if he had just seen a ghost.

  Communication was limited to notepads and Argus’s small repertoire of sign language signals. As Jan became more engaged in his son’s crisis, his wife wandered: she traveled, gambled, cheated, and developed an expensive drug habit. Before long, his family’s expenses had caught up with them. It was a lucky coincidence that he was called about this project before his assets were completely drained. The job had sounded so good at the time.

  Jan poured himself two fingers of scotch and spent a moment smelling the golden liquor before he took his first sip. He remembered the pitch. The payoff could be in the hundreds of millions, they said. The risk was low, they said. The federal government was aware of
the situation and they were turning a blind eye because they were interested in the results. The only risk was state authorities and the media. Jan hired Makter to take care of those things.

  The idea was genius in many ways, and it appealed to Jan especially. He had made his first fortune by knowing what people needed, never bothering with what they wanted. Wants could be ignored. So he’d sold drugs for their addictions and guns for their survival. Rehab from heroin was extremely rare, especially outside of the developed world. Civil unrest rarely resolved itself without guns in undeveloped nations.

  In Jan’s mind, this experiment was based on similar assumptions. He was disappointed that he hadn’t made the connection earlier, for he could have been a much richer man by less risky means. “Energy,” he said aloud for the umpteenth time in recent weeks. He shook his head and chortled as he walked back to his desk to watch the numbers.

  Now he knew the payoff wouldn’t be quite as much as expected. They had conveniently shared that news with him yesterday. Still, if the experiment proved unsuccessful and the major payoff never occurred, they guaranteed ten million dollars and a clean police record. “As long as the drills get deep enough,” they told him. Not a bad take for one job. Nonetheless, the idea of working for politicians made the seasoned criminal wary. The only real upside was the immunity.

  The men in charge were shortsighted, Jan thought. Even a criminal like him could understand that this project needed more planning and research. Nobody had really understood until now how bad it could get; they were too caught up in its potential.

  And it all started with those fucking cops shooting down Argus. My boy in the wheelchair with the hideous face.

  And Jake fucking Trent.

  17

  WEST BANK, SNAKE RIVER. THE NEXT MORNING.

  Jake woke up with a start. His head felt like a pressure cooker ready to explode. To remedy this, he started the coffee, downed a glass of water, and got in the shower. When he finished, he poured the coffee, black, into a plastic to-go mug, grabbed two ibuprofens from the cabinet, and headed for the door.

  His stomach grumbled as he pulled off the road to fill up on gas. It occurred to Jake that he had neglected dinner, which surely didn’t help the hangover. While the gas was pumping, he jogged inside to the convenience store to find a bite to eat. He bought a handful of granola bars and two bottles of water. On the way out the door he also picked up the local freebie newspaper.

  Glancing at the paper, which he had laid on the hood of the vehicle, a headline leaped to his eye: “Development Site Vandalized.” Jake read quickly.

  Police are interested in “any and all leads” from the public, Jackson Police Chief Roger Terrell said last evening, stressing that the force is treating the vandalism as an act of “aggression and terror, rather than meaningless destruction.”

  When asked what factors went into his determination of the nature of the vandalism, Terrell refused to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation.

  Jake read on. The construction site had been thoroughly sabotaged—replete with booby traps made of barbed wire and threats scrawled into the yellow paint of its back-end loaders and bulldozers. Someone had even burned out the interior of a pickup truck.

  It still didn’t quite add up to Jake. It was clear that someone wanted the building at the milk ranch to stop. Someone had it in for the Parrana family.

  But who? And what the hell does it have to do with me? And J.P.?

  He thought briefly of Noelle—thought of calling her but decided against it. There were more important things to do. Besides, Jake knew he would never forgive himself if he put her in danger.

  The tank was full. Jake started the long drive back to the camp near Yellowstone to investigate for himself. He hoped the chief and the police had already come and gone.

  * * *

  The Shaman was long gone from Camp Bodhi by now. He’d left immediately after Sam called. He didn’t fill his followers in totally, but he told them a raid was coming. They knew what to do, this scenario had been practiced. They dispersed randomly, mostly north. The Shaman went south, toward Jackson; he still had business to do. He’d registered at a cheap motel under a fake name, and that was where he sat now, perched on the bed’s edge. The TV was on but he ignored it.

  The Shaman’s name was Makter, but even that was somewhat of a farce.

  He’d assumed his middle name as his first name a few decades back to avoid some enemies. He’d been messing around with a dancer from the Phillies’ Club. A girl from a connected family. One night he beat her up pretty good and she went crying to Daddy. That was all it took—the wrath of an overprotective Sicilian patriarch became focused on one thing: killing the asshole who hurt his baby girl.

  Makter had wanted to kill the whole family, but the risk was just too high. Someone would ultimately find him and make him pay, and he knew it. He changed his name but vowed to go back for the father and daughter eventually.

  I want the fat fuck to watch his daughter die.

  Thinking on it now excited him. He closed his eyes and pictured the scene. Like his mother lying in his dreams, a woman was motionless in a pool of her own blood.

  When I get out of this fucking wilderness, I’ll take care of it.

  His fists were numb from being clenched, and the pinprick tingling brought him back to reality. Earlier that day, Makter had heard the reports about the sabotage efforts in Jackson. He was disappointed that the attack was so weakly executed—more aesthetic than damaging—but it didn’t matter much.

  What mattered more was that his spy, Sam, was out of the picture. This would make things a little more difficult. Who would keep tabs on Trent? The police had seized the Impala the night before and Sam was God knows where.

  To make matters worse, the police now knew that Jake wasn’t the culprit behind the hit and run. That didn’t matter much to Makter, but Jan would be furious.

  Makter and Jan had seen eye to eye at first. They both wanted Jake out of their hair, now and forever. Since he was poisoned, though, the thought of Jake’s imprisonment didn’t satisfy Makter. That poison, whatever the hell it was, had planted a rage inside him. He wanted blood.

  Of course, Jan said that wasn’t necessary.

  Weak, frightened Jan. A little boy in a man’s body.

  * * *

  Noelle was awake early that morning, too. She cringed as she recalled the prior night.

  What did I even want from him? It wasn’t like her to be so bold.

  She thought of calling him, clearing things up, but changed her mind. If he needed her he would call. Besides, she wanted to go to the morgue to look at the Frenchman’s body.

  Before she left, she called the hospital and asked to be transferred downstairs to the morgue. Smith answered.

  “Hello?” he said in a hurried voice.

  “This is Noelle Klimpton from the NPS. I’d like to come in and look at your bear attack victim if I could.”

  “Yeah, uhhh, fine. Hurry though. The body is leaving with the family this afternoon. You’ll have to let yourself in through reception; I’m leaving for Pinedale. Suicide. Sad, sad. Real messy.”

  Noelle thanked him and let him off the phone. Weirdo. She got dressed and drove toward town. As she did, a gentle quake shook the car.

  The women at the reception desk were expecting Noelle. One of them led her down the stairs to the cool basement and waved her through the doors before turning back. Noelle opened the push doors to the morgue and walked inside. The room reeked of chemicals.

  Something moved in a dark corner of the space. Noelle froze. The bright lights elsewhere in the lab made it difficult for her eyes to adjust to the dark place that delivered the noise. She couldn’t see a thing. She sensed a large, human-sized shape there but couldn’t be sure. Suddenly a bright LED ray shined directly into her eyes. The beam of light blinded her. Panic gripped her.

  “Holy . . .” The man’s voice faded to calm. “Whoa, you scared me there, miss! I thought Smith left
. Should you be down here? Excuse my language.” The man hadn’t even let an expletive escape his lips.

  Noelle hoped her own fear wasn’t quite as apparent as she took a deep breath. “Er . . . yeah. It’s okay. I spoke with Smith earlier; he gave me permission to take a look at a body. What are you doing down here?”

  The man switched off his headlamp and stepped into the light. He was in his late sixties. “Working on these halogens. Whole row has been out for two weeks. I can’t figure it out. It’s not the bulbs or the power source . . .”

  Noelle looked up at the steel fixtures with their chrome reflectors, understanding now. Before she could speak again the man glanced at his watch and excused himself for a coffee break.

  “Be back in a few.”

  She shook off the remaining chills and moved farther into the room. Approaching the wall of drawers, she checked for the red name tag that meant there was a body inside. Empty, empty, empty. Only one compartment was in use.

  Noelle grabbed the cold chrome handle on the drawer and pulled it open to find a black zippered bag. Before opening it, she put on a pair of latex gloves that she grabbed from Smith’s desk. She took a deep breath and slid the zipper down.

  The sight and smells weren’t as grotesque as she expected. The man looked like one of those plastic corpses from a science exhibit and the only scent was that of the chemicals. Noelle took the top part of the bag that was still obscuring her view of the body and tucked it under in a few spots, under his head, his shoulders, and his heels.

  There was a long Y-shaped cut starting at either shoulder, converging at the sternum, and ending shortly below and left of the belly button. The incision had not yet been stitched shut. Noelle could see that the victim’s organs were inside, but contained in a plastic bag. Reinserted for burial, she assumed.