Incident at Big Sky

by Johnny France

  Neither man had tried to touch her in the night.

  Despite her cramped limbs and the numbness of her shoulders, Kari remained quiet. There was no sense struggling against the chain and attracting the old man’s attention. Every minute that he dozed and the boy scouted the forest for deer, the rescue team would be drawing closer.

  Kari gazed up at the soft sunlight on the pine boughs and tried to judge the time. By dawn, she knew, her mother and father would have joined the search. There would be forest rangers, the sheriff’s people, and lots of volunteers from Big Sky. If the searchers found her now, with the old man still in bed and the boy away from camp, there might be no more violence. But if …

  The old man rose to an elbow, then thrust aside the folds of the sleeping bag. He called a cheerful greeting, and Kari replied in neutral tones. While he knelt, folding the sleeping bag, he made jolly conversation, again offering the bizarre assurance he had the previous afternoon.

  “When all this is over, Sue, just think what great stories you’ll have to tell your grandchildren. This is a real adventure.”

  Kari nodded, but did not reply. If he thought this was an “adventure,” he was crazier than the boy.

  “How old are you, Sue?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  He frowned. “Oh, well … I was hoping for an older woman for my son.”

  Now she understood the resemblance between the two, and the similarity of their two voices. “Well, why don’t you just let me go, if I’m too young?”

  He busied himself with the bedding. “No, we’re just gonna keep you, and maybe you’ll decide on one of us.”

  A snapping rustle to her right. Danny appeared among the deadfalls, carefully picking his way up the rise toward camp. He carried his rifle in both hands, and she saw no sign of game. As he worked his way through the tangled timber, a pine squirrel chattered shrilly overhead. Without hesitation, Danny raised his rifle, sighted on the treetops and fired. A moment later, a small auburn squirrel tumbled limply onto the pine needles, twenty feet to her right.

  Kari was surprised. She knew a lot about rifles and marksmanship; it could not have been easy to hit such a tiny target fifty feet above the ground. But even more surprising was the casual attitude of the boy as he fired his rifle … right there at the edge of camp. Either he didn’t realize search parties were out, or he simply did not care. And now the old man was pulling on his boots, just as calm as could be. The shot obviously hadn’t alarmed him very much, either.

  He rose and stretched, then strolled to Danny to examine the dead squirrel.

  “Well,” the old man called, “let’s go see how your woman’s doing this morning.”

  He paused. “I think we ought to move camp under those trees.” He pointed to the right, down the grassy rise to a cluster of lodgepoles and large spruce with overhanging boughs. “Better cover over there, in case anybody comes along.”

  “Okay,” Danny answered, hefting the squirrel in his open hand. “Let’s get her up and move her over there.”

  Kari remained silent while they unsnapped the lock and looped the chain back around her waist, this time with the chain’s free end doubled through the end ring. She really was being treated like an animal now, Danny leading the way down through the jumble of deadfalls and the old man taking up the rear like a careful herdsman. Kari’s legs and shoulders were stiff as she worked her way across the uneven ground. They crossed the soggy moss of the creekbed and climbed again to the level shelf where they planned to pitch the new camp.

  In the new clearing she saw that the fir did, indeed, provide excellent cover. The drooping boughs formed a dense conical roof that effectively hid any detail on the ground from aerial observation.

  Wordlessly, Danny found the padlock key and motioned for Kari to sit. The ground was a level bed of dry, springy needles. A dead trunk lay against the far side of the tree. A blow-down lodgepole as thick as Kari’s arm had fallen at an angle atop the pine trunk.

  Kari went to one knee, and Danny looped the free end of the chain around the thin trunk of the dead lodgepole, then snapped the padlock. They handed her the loosely bundled sleeping bag, and she drew the folds up her bare legs against the chill.

  While Danny cleaned the squirrel at the stream to Kari’s left, the old man ferried down the gear from their overnight camp. Once again, they did not seem concerned about any search team as they chatted back and forth, discussing whether they should travel further, or wait for darkness before moving on.

  When he had skinned the squirrel, Danny rolled three large stones from the streambed and built a fire ring. As he had the night before, he built his fire from dry squaw wood twigs to prevent a telltale smoke plume. The old man entered the clearing and took Danny to one side.

  But Kari could hear their words. “We gotta do something about those red shorts of hers,” the old man said. “They’re just too bright, too easy to spot from the air.”

  Kari went chill inside. Her mouth was dry and once more her limbs trembled. If they took away her shorts, they would rape her. What else would be on their minds at a time like that?

  “Let me have your shorts,” the old man commanded, reaching down with his bony hand.

  Again, Kari protested. “You’re going to rape me, aren’t you?”

  The old man shook his head violently. “No, no, no, no … no.”

  Kari had no choice; she was chained to the deadfall and unable even to sit properly, let alone stand or run. She pulled the sleeping bag as high as she could and slid off her red jogging shorts.

  The old man bunched them in his hand and strode back toward their camp on the rise.

  Kari forced herself lower in the sleeping bag, acutely aware of her vulnerability.

  Danny knelt only three feet away, calmly feeding dry twigs to the fire.

  Kari’s exhaustion and fear had reached a terminal point. “Why don’t you just turn me loose?” she begged, hot tears coming now for the first time. “You really don’t want to get involved with anything like this.”

  Danny shook his head stubbornly, but did not answer.

  “I’m married,” Kari sobbed. “I love my husband, and I don’t want to be with you. Any chance I get, I’m going to leave.”

  “No, no,” Danny muttered, shaking his head just like his father.

  “Please turn me loose.”

  “No, I won’t let you go,” he said, again shaking his head. “I want to keep you for myself.”

  The old man strode back down the rise, carrying her jogging shorts. “Here,” he said, bending over her. “They’re a lot better now.”

  He had done a thorough job. Using charcoal from the dinner fire, he’d blackened the bright shorts both inside and out, muting the Day-Glo red to a dull ocher. Kari snatched back the shorts and tucked the fold of the sleeping bag as high above her waist as the chain allowed. It was hard to move her feet and legs inside the bag. Her cleats no doubt snagged on the shorts’ mesh liner, and she probably realized they were watching her.

  They all heard the dry rustling from the thick timber to the right of camp. Kari swung inside the sleeping bag to get a better view. As she did, the two men grabbed their weapons. Danny had his .22 pistol out of the holster, and the old man gripped his hunting rifle. At the far edge of the clearing, Kari saw a stocky, suntanned young man in a red-and-black lumberjack shirt, kneeling in the tall grass.

  Kari did not hesitate. “Watch out!” she screamed. “They’ll shoot.” The old man spun to face her, but Kari did not stop. “They’ll kill you. Don’t come in … they’ve got guns.”

  “Stop right there!” Danny yelled, using both hands to aim the pistol at the kneeling man.

  “Is this the girl you’re looking for?” the old man called.

  “Yes,” the man called. “We’re looking for her.”

  “Don’t come in!” Kari screamed. “Watch out! They’ll kill you.”

  The old man’s face was mottled with fear and anger. “Shut her up, Danny,” he yelled,
turning to level his rifle at the stranger. “Just shut her up.”

  When Danny turned back to confront Kari, his eyes were loose with panic. He stumbled toward her, his pistol extended.

  Still Kari screamed her warning to the rescuer. “Watch out … don’t come in, they’ll …” Danny jerked the cocking slide of the automatic, as if to menace her, and the pistol cracked.

  The bullet pounded Kari against the log with the force of a club. Her right side went numb and the bright morning forest around her began to fade to shades of gray.

  From her left, another voice called. “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. I’m not a bear.”

  “I shot her,” Danny yelled. “Oh, I didn’t mean to shoot her.”

  “Help me,” Kari called, her voice suddenly very small. “Help me, I’ve been shot.” All color was washing from her vision. She realized with ultimate horror that she was badly wounded, that she would die in this terrible forest.

  The voices above her echoed, as if the men were calling to her through a dark cave.

  “We need some help here,” Danny shouted. “The girl’s been shot.”

  “Shut up, Danny,” the old man yelled again, his voice hoarse with rage and fear. “Everyone stay out of this camp.”

  Kari thrashed in the sleeping bag, her right arm hanging awkwardly at her side. She was shot through the right chest, and the bullet had numbed her entire right torso. There was movement above her, and more voices. But the sound echoed badly now, and her vision was darkening with each breath.

  Now a young man with a ginger mustache hung above her, reaching down to lift the T-shirt neck from the wound. His face looked familiar. He was from Big Sky. There were rescuers in camp. They had come to help her. But something was very wrong here. The old man had his rifle pointing squarely at the blond rescuer’s back as the young man stooped to help her.

  Once more the old man turned to level his rifle at the clearing to the left. “I hope you don’t have any weapons on you,” he yelled.

  Kari heard no answer.

  Someone was telling her that she’d be okay. Someone was turning her gently, lifting the sticky blue fabric of the T-shirt away from her chest. The world grew darker around her. Kari forced herself more upright. She would not just give in to the darkness. As she gazed around her she saw Danny and the blond rescuer, leaning close. But they seemed to be high above her, as if peering down from ladders.

  “Al,” the blond rescuer yelled, “call for help. We need some help.”

  “Shut up!” the old man shouted.

  Now another voice echoed through the twilight. It was the first rescuer, the man in the lumberjack shirt. Her vision steadied and grew bright again. She could see and hear.

  “Drop your guns,” the rescuer called. He was half hidden behind a thick lodgepole at the edge of the camp clearing. The tree had a large curved snag like a giant’s longbow rising along its right side, and the man’s plaid shirt was visible between the snag and the trunk. “You’re surrounded by two hundred men. You can’t get away.”

  To her left, the old man was swinging his rifle back and forth. Now the blond rescuer was on his feet, his hands raised. “Everything’s cool,” the blond shouted. “Nobody’s gonna get hurt. We don’t want any more gunplay.”

  The blond turned to face the old man, but he stepped back to take cover behind a tree directly across the clearing from Kari. For a splintered moment everybody seemed to shout and move at once. But Kari had a clear view of the old man.

  He pressed close to the tree, raised his rifle, sighted down the scope and fired.

  The shot stunned everyone into silence. No one moved. Then the blond dashed toward the snag tree. “Al!” he screamed. “Oh, my God … Al …”

  Kari thrashed to her left, straining to see the first rescuer. But all she saw was empty forest.

  Movement above her. Danny and his father bent close, but their faces were fading into gray again.

  “She’s gonna die,” Danny moaned.

  “No, no, no … She’s not going to die. I’ve seen lots of these wounds. That’s no big deal.”

  They bent even closer. Hands fumbled, and she felt the chain dragged free from her back. Straining to clear her vision, she realized that they were jamming their gear into their packs, that they were breaking camp. A deep, waxy chill spread now through her body. She knew that she was going into shock. “You’re just leaving me here, aren’t you?” Neither man answered. “At least let me have the sleeping bag,” Kari pleaded.

  They did not reply. Instead, they raised the foot of the bag, flopping her roughly to the damp forest floor. The young man lifted her slightly by her naked hips and pulled the shorts up to her waist. She thrashed now against the mounting pain. There was another blur of movement, and she heard them trudging out of camp, down the streambed to her left.

  Kari Swenson lay alone, bleeding steadily into the springy pine needles. The world dulled again to gray, cold, fuzzy gray. Somewhere to her right, a voice squawked on a radio. “Al … call for help,” the rescuer had shouted. If she could crawl to that radio …

  It was no good. Her strength was gone, frozen by the crushing chill. She couldn’t breathe. There was hot pain inside her numb chest, like a dentist’s drill beneath the novacaine. The cold seeped into her body like a fluid. She had to get warm or she knew that shock would take her. Maybe Al was not badly wounded, maybe they could work out some plan together.

  But first she needed warmth. Rolling numbly, Kari forced herself the three feet to the stone fire ring. She grabbed blindly for a handful of pine needles, dumped them onto the black ashes and tried to blow. No air entered her lungs. She could not breathe. Instead of normal breath, she heard a liquid suction under her T-shirt that terrified her. She was shot through the lungs, she now realized with awful finality. With a wound like this, she would not survive very long, especially if she slipped into shock.

  She had to conserve her body’s heat. Rising as high as she could, Kari tried to scan the clearing. She couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be a pair of boots in the grass and wild flowers at the base of the snag tree.

  That would be Al. He made no sound. The boots did not move.

  Mosquitoes and ants swarmed the wet folds of her T-shirt. They had come to feed on her blood. In their mindless efficiency, the insects had congregated to harvest this dying creature, just as the beetles processed the damaged pines. But Kari was not a tree, not a creature; she was an intelligent, vital human being. Danny and his father had left her to die, alone in this tangled forest. She would not give them that satisfaction.

  To her right, she saw a lumpy gray shape. She thrashed in the cold twilight. A large backpack formed under her chill fingers. Maybe there was another radio. It took a long time to drag open the pack and paw through the contents.

  There was no radio. But Kari found a down sleeping bag with a shiny red lining. She also discovered a plastic canteen of lemonade and a candy bar in a foil wrapper. Using all her strength, Kari slid her legs inside the bag and wriggled toward the sunny spot at the base of the tree from which the old man had fired. Blood was pooling under her T-shirt. Liquid, she thought, she had to replace the fluids she was losing through hemorrhage. Shock was her mortal enemy. She had to fight. But now the pain was washing up inside her in hot waves. If she gave in to shock to avoid the pain, she would die.

  But the forest around her, the entire world was growing so dark and cold. She had to balance herself between pain and numbing sleep. If someone did not find her soon, Kari knew with ultimate sadness, she would die here in this awful clearing.

  PART 2

  Manhunt

  6

  Madison County

  July 16, 1984

  Johnny France drove his Eagle down the long incline from the Virginia City Pass. It was after eight, and he was headed from his office at the courthouse, back through Ennis, then on to the logging road in Jack Creek Canyon to join the search team. The last word he’d heard from Big Sky was that there’
d still been no sign of the missing girl.

  He yawned, squinting into the morning sun through the dirty windshield. Around here in the summer, it was a losing battle trying to keep your windshield washer filled, what with the dusty roads and the grasshoppers.

  This stretch of highway dropped due east into the Madison Valley from the barren ridge that separated Ennis and Virginia City. Ahead the Madison Range was arrayed across the horizon like the backdrop of a Charlie Russell painting. The sun was high above Sphinx Mountain. But the cleft of Jack Creek Canyon was still in shadow, the thick lodgepole forest black from this distance. There was a lot of snow above timberline. Johnny knew, though, that it would already be hot on the logging roads and trails. Hot and buggy. In July, the mosquitoes and cloying buffalo flies drove you crazy up there. It always amazed him that people actually liked to hike that country in the summer. Spring and fall, there was no prettier place in the world, but right now, it could get downright miserable in the mountains.

  Johnny had been up at dawn, after a night of worry about the missing girl. While Sue and the kids slept, he got together his personal gear for the search and sorted out the portable radios to bring to the six-fifteen meeting with Robin Shipman and Steve Powell.

  Bettie’s Cafe had been crowded with sleepy fishermen and their riverboat outfitters when Johnny took his place in the end booth—what Sue always called his “Ennis Office.” He spread his Forest Service map between their coffee mugs on the formica tabletop and showed the two men the area he wanted them to search. Robin Shipman had his battered old horse trailer parked across the street; their horses were already saddled. Robin and Steve were experienced in mountain searches, and Johnny didn’t have to explain things more than once. They both agreed that it looked like a bear attack. But none of them was inclined to dwell on the possibility. Like Johnny, they’d been involved the previous summer in the search for the bear incident victim down near Quake Lake when a grizzly pulled a camper from his tent one night and dragged him off into the forest. When they finally found the man the next day, he was dead. The press and TV made quite a thing about that. But the word had not gotten out very far that the bear had eaten over sixty pounds of the man’s flesh.