She turned, and I could see the tears shining on her cheeks. “More Pascal?”
“More Pascal.” It was time to change the subject, and I only hoped she’d stay with me. “I’m going to be honest with you; there are some serious consequences for what you’ve done, but that really doesn’t concern me right now. Right now, I’ve got only one question-do you have any idea where they might be going?”
“No.” Behind the glasses, her eyes were still full of tears-maybe she was attempting to dampen the flames. “I really don’t know.”
I waited a little before asking again. “Anything you might’ve overheard?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I leaned back in the sofa, and it was so soft I thought I might die there. I was tired and not sure how to proceed. The choice was to either leave her and Omar here or send them out and back to Meadowlark Lodge, and for me to continue up.
“There was something about money.”
I shifted my position on the sofa. “Excuse me?”
“Raynaud said something about money.”
“What’d he say?”
“There was some money that had been taken or something and that they would get the money if they helped him-that’s what he told all of them.”
“Who?”
She glanced toward the door where I’d duct-taped a piece of cardboard over the broken glass after I had dragged Popp onto the porch-if I had to leave the two of them in the cabin, I wasn’t going to leave them here with a corpse in full view.
“The other convicts?”
“Yes, and…”
“What?”
“He has a package with him, a rubber duffel, and waterproof like you carry in a kayak.”
This was news. “And you think it’s full of money? ”
“I don’t know. I could have sworn he didn’t have it with him, and then it was just there suddenly.”
“You didn’t bring him the bag?”
“No.”
Perhaps the story of the money was true after all. “You are sure you don’t know where they’re going?”
She honestly seemed confused. “I don’t… Away-that’s all I know.”
“Beatrice, there’s no way out where they’re headed.” She continued to look at me blankly. “There are no roads.”
“Raynaud said there was a road… Battle Park.”
“You’re already past that-it’s about three miles back.” I tried to get her to understand. “There are only a few branch roads off of West Tensleep and you’re already past all of them. The main road goes on for another mile and a half but then it throttles off into trails that are going to be so choked with snow that he won’t even be able to walk out of there, even with snowshoes.”
“Raynaud said…”
“Beatrice, there are no roads.”
She was confused by this information. “Maybe they turned back.”
I shook my head. “No, the tracks went on.”
I left it at that. There were a few other questions I had and couldn’t risk her shutting down again. “You brought them supplies?”
She swallowed. “I did.”
“What’ve they got?”
“I don’t…”
“Insulated clothing, packs, sleeping bags, food, snowshoes? The things they’d need if they were going to try and hike out of here?”
“I guess. Yesss…” It was a strangled reply, like a tire slowly deflating.
“What about weapons? I know they took the marshal’s rifle from our van and some sidearms from the federal agents and the two Ameri-Trans guards. Was there anything else?”
“No.”
I nodded. “I’ve got to know: are the others, Pfaff and the Ameri-Trans driver, still alive?”
“Yes, they are.” She nodded with the words-glad to have good news, I suppose. “They were fine-no one had done anything to them the last time I saw them.”
“Good.”
She started to say something and then paused for a moment. “There was someone they were going to meet.”
I didn’t move but then finally pulled in enough air to ask, “What?”
“Someone. Raynaud said something about meeting somebody who knew the way.”
“The way out of the mountains?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Who?”
The frustration rose in her voice. “I don’t know.” She sat there fingering the edge of the blanket like a child would, and I thought she was through talking, but she wasn’t. “Raynaud, he’s rather… Charismatic is the only way I can describe it. He has a power over people… not just me.” Her eyes came up to mine. “I’m not crazy, Sheriff. If it wasn’t impressed on me that Raynaud was a killer before, it is now. He left me here to die, and I thought I was the most important person in his life.” She looked at the ceiling, and when she looked at me, there were still tears. “I just don’t want you to underestimate him.”
“I wasn’t intending to.”
“If you go after him, he’ll kill you.”
I nodded and rose. “Drink the rest of your tea.”
Her face returned to the fireplace, and the reflection of the conflagration again replaced her eyes. I turned and looked at the fire, reveling in its warmth and letting my mind thaw with my face.
For the first time, I noticed that Omar’s Sharps buffalo rifle was hanging above the mantel. I stepped forward and placed a hand on its elongated barrel; it was the one I’d used to explode a pumpkin in his backyard. It wasn’t like the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead that was securely ensconced in the gun safe in my closet, but it was close enough to raise the hair on the back of my hand. It was beautiful, a museum piece, really. It hadn’t had the hard wear of the Indian weapon but had a dignity of its own. There were new additions since the last time I’d seen it over a year ago: a period military shoulder strap and a beaded rear stock cover with three. 45-70 rounds tucked in the butterlike leather-the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost.
I fingered the rounds as I thought.
The hostages were easy to understand; if Shade were cornered he’d need insurance. But why corner yourself and why in the mountains? I was sure the money was bullshit and simply Shade’s way of keeping them all going, but then what was in the duffel? Where and to whom was he attempting to get? Deer Park Campground was ahead, along with West Tensleep Lake proper, but no one in his right mind would be up that high this early in the season.
I was exhausted. I turned around and looked at Beatrice, who had lowered her head to the arm of the sofa and closed her eyes.
I left the rifle and carried my mug back to Omar and the butcher-block island. He seemed to be sobering up. “I’ve got to get going.”
He stood. “What’s a misanthrope?”
“Somebody who hates all of humanity.”
He shrugged with his good shoulder and stood. “Workin’ on that myself.” He studied me for a moment. “You should get some sleep; even a little bit would help.”
“I can’t, I’ve got to…”
“Got to what?” He started to fold his arms but then thought better of it. “They’re not going anywhere. Go back over to the other sofa and stretch out. I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours and you can start. It’ll still be before daybreak.”
He was right, of course.
“And I’ll go with you.”
The absurdity of that statement played across my face. “No, you’re not.”
“How many of them, with hostages, and only one of you?”
“You’re in no shape.” I gestured with my chin toward Beatrice. “And I can’t leave her here alone. I’ve got people back at Meadowlark, and you can wait and see what the weather does before you make up your mind to stay here or go there.” I glanced around at the comforts of the cabin I would soon be leaving. “Personally, I’d have groceries delivered and just hole up till the cavalry shows.”
He took a breath and cultivated it into a sigh. “I’ll make y
ou a deal; you sleep for a couple of hours and I’ll let you go on your own.” He glanced back at the sofa and shook his head. “What we do when we think we’re in love.” He looked at me. “Deal?”
I settled into the Indian blanket chair opposite the sofa where Beatrice was sleeping, pulled my hat over my face, and listened to the logs spitting in the fireplace. Omar brought my sheepskin coat and threw it over me.
“I’m still not going to help you with the horny thing.”
“Shut up and go to sleep.” There was a pause, and then he added, “How are you going to follow them?”
I could already feel myself drifting away. “I’ve got snowshoes.”
Somewhere in the distance I could hear his voice: “Oh, I think we can do better than that.”
There is a familiar odor to old trucks; it is a comforting smell and it is what he smells now. The knobs on the dash are large and chrome metal and he pushes one in where it stays for a moment and then pops back at him. He blinks and then pulls the knob the rest of the way out, turning it and looking into the red-hot coils inside.
He doesn’t know why they have to fish; he doesn’t like fish, doesn’t like picking bones out of his mouth.
He points a finger into the lip of the cigarette lighter where the burning coil is cooling, but he can still feel the heat.
“Stay here while I go get more worms and some beer.”
So he stays, and he waits.
He puts the lighter back in the dashboard and listens to the breeze shimmering the yellow and stiff leaves of the cottonwoods alongside the Big Horn River. It’s warm and he becomes drowsy, having a dream of his own. A dream within a dream, but this one was real-where his father, eyes wide with whiskey, broke up the furniture and burned it one night.
He has that ability, they say, to blend dreams with life. In the murmuring voices in the next room he overhears the old woman saying it will lead to tragedy.
He unwraps the candy bar the big man left for him, a Mallo Cup in the bright yellow wrapper that feels slick in his hands, wondering who the Boyer Brothers are or where Altoona, Pennsylvania, is.
He starts at the knock on the window of the truck and looks up to see a smiling face with lots of teeth but no warmth. “Unlock the door.”
Snow machines scare me, and this one scared me more than any I’d ever seen before. It was red, blood red, and huge, with some sort of track system all its own. I guess it started out as a four-wheeler, but with all the modifications I really couldn’t tell.
There were lots of other sleds there in Omar’s garage, but it was easy to see why he’d chosen this one for me. A regular snowmobile would have skis on the front and those would take me only so far; with treads on the front and rear, this monster would be able to follow the narrow trails and, more important, be able to climb the rocks that were buried in the snow as well.
It was early morning, about six thirty, and the big-game hunter had returned three times with supplies stuffed under his one arm, including my backpack, my snowshoes, and a leather rifle scabbard. He gestured toward one of the snowmobiles. “This one over here is the fastest, but without experience on these things, especially this one, you’ll end up piled into a tree or off a cliff.” He looked down at the machine where he’d stacked my supplies. “Not that this one’s for the faint of heart-more than a thousand cc’s. I had it special-made in Minnesota. The suspension is custom-reinforced, and the Trax-System will not fail.”
“How fast will it go?”
He studied the machine in the battery-lit garage like it might leave on its own. “Faster than you want.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” I sat Saizarbitoria’s pack on the utility rack of the ATV. “What if I wreck it?”
“I’ll buy another one, or three.” He rested a much larger pack on the rack with mine and propped the rifle on one of the rubber and metal tracks. “I took the liberty of packing you some supplies. There’s food, drink, a sixty-degree-below-zero bag, and a pair of Zeiss 20?60 image-stabilization binoculars.”
“I don’t want to know how much those cost.”
“About six grand.”
“I told you I didn’t want to know that.”
He reached back with his good arm and pulled something from a shelf. “Here.”
I unfolded a massive amount of newfangled mountaineering gear. “What’s this all about?”
“A few years back one of my hunters was a Denver Bronco; he had a bunch of stuff shipped up here and then left it. It’s too big for me.”
I unbuckled my gun belt, took off my hat, jacket, jeans, and boots, and slipped on expedition-weight long underwear. “Which Denver Bronco?”
“Hell, I don’t remember. I don’t watch that shit-he was a big son of a bitch, though, like you.”
Omar took my sheepskin coat and helped me sort through the pile, handing me a pair of 300-weight fleece pants and a jacket to match, a black Gore-Tex North Face Mountain Jacket and overpants, a balaclava, and a pair of insulated gloves. I transferred my pocketknife into the overpants and found that I could still get my gun belt over the entire ensemble.
“Thanks.”
I pulled on my boots, thought about the cell phone, and then carefully placed it in an inside pocket of the jacket. I picked up the two-way radio and handed it to Omar. “Here, it’s useless to me and I don’t want the weight.” I then picked up Sancho’s pack, unzipped the top, and dumped the contents into Omar’s. Everything but the copy of the Inferno made it in.
I grabbed the thumb-worn paperback and glanced at him. “Saizarbitoria’s idea of a joke, I suppose, or maybe he thought I was going to get bored and have some reading time.”
He lifted the weapon onto the saddle of the machine. “You said they had a rifle?”
I zipped the tactical jacket and put on my hat. “Armalite. 223 with an infragreen scope, but it’s the short barrel, maybe sixteen inches.”
“Dangerous up close, but not so good at distance with that carbine model.” He admired the rifle in the leather sheath. “We call this ‘evening the playing field.’ ”
I turned my head and looked at him.
“I’ve got all kinds of handguns and carbines, but nothing that’ll reach out and touch with the impact of this one-besides, I thought it might be a sentimental favorite.”
I looked at the weapon and felt the rush of heat at the remembrance of how things had turned out with a weapon very much like this one almost two years ago. “Favorite, but certainly not sentimental.” I carefully lifted the. 45-70 from the case, sliding the leather cover away. “The three in the stock holder?”
He sighed. “I don’t even have extra ammo-just brought it up here on a lark as decoration. I never thought I’d be shooting it. You’ve only got the three.”
I nodded, feeling the accustomed weight close to eight pounds. I liked the accuracy of the drop-block weapons, the simplicity and smooth action of fewer moving parts. “Well, this gives me an edge over that short-barreled. 223.”
“If you hit him, he’ll know he’s been hit.” He leaned over and slipped open the butt of a plastic rifle scabbard mounted on the other side of the vehicle. “This is padded and should absorb a lot of the vibration and shock should you hit something.”
“Omar, it’s a museum piece, worth a lot of…”
“Take it.”
I didn’t move, giving him the opportunity to change his mind, and then reached across and carefully placed the Sharps in the boot, and his eyes stayed on the encased weapon. I watched him for a long moment and could pretty much guess what was running through his mind, over and over and over again. “Your first?”
“Yeah.” His eyes came up to mine but then returned to the scabbard. “Does it get easier?”
“Not really.” I cleared my throat and stood there trying to think of the words that would make it in some way better. “He was a bad guy with a lot of notches; he would’ve killed you, raped and killed her, and then who knows how many more he would’ve killed.” He nodded, dealing w
ith the sickness that overtakes your soul when you take a life-the sick/scared before, and the sick/sad afterward. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, what human beings can become.”
When I came back from my own sicknesses he was looking at me. “You gave me some advice, now let me give you some.” His eyes went back to the scabbard. “You better become a misanthrope, too… Kill ’em, kill ’em all. Kill ’em fast.” His hand went to the rifle scabbard. “And from far away.”
The handle grips were heated, and the motor warmth of the big Arctic Cat that Omar had loaned me floated up against the trunk of my body before being whipped away at speeds approaching forty miles an hour. The ATV was capable of going a lot faster, but I wasn’t. Fortunately, Omar had remembered to loan me a pair of antifogging goggles or my eyes would’ve been frozen to my eyelids.
Even with the blowing snow and the four hours that had passed, the tracks of the Thiokol were evident, at least until I arrived at West Tensleep Lake. It was only when I got to the fork in the road that I slowed the Cat to see which direction in the parking loop they’d taken. The wide tracks continued on the high road, which was what I’d expected, figuring the cover story that Raynaud had planted was indeed false. The snow had reached levels where no regular wheeled vehicle could go, and even trying on horseback would’ve been nothing but a slog.
Then the tracks simply disappeared.
I pulled up to the two bathroom structures buried in the snow and overlooking the pull-through parking area. Nothing there.
There were no vehicles in the place, and no tracks whatsoever.
Where could the damn thing have gone? It wasn’t as if it a were svelte mode of transportation.
Listening to the idling motor of the ATV, and watching the trees sway with the wind, I sat there thinking about the last time that I’d been this high; about how things had not gone well, and I’d had to haul two men from Lost Twin Lakes in a blizzard. That had been difficult, but it wasn’t the memory that held me still at the moment.
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