by Henry, Sue
Pulling on his jacket and picking up the Remington Springfield .30-06 he had taken from the plane, he started up the ridge to see if he could find the place where someone had shot Lewis’s plane out of the sky. He knew his chances were extremely thin, but anything was possible. With no accurate knowledge of how much altitude the Cessna had gained or how fast the engine had died, he couldn’t estimate how far it could have traveled after being hit before crashing. But if it had gone in a relatively straight line, trying for the waters of the lake, and if the shooter had, as Cas speculated, picked a high spot from which to shoot, he could even the odds somewhat.
As he climbed steadily up the slope, he slung the Remington diagonally across his back, to have both hands free. At the top, where Chelle had stood two days before, near the trees broken by the floats of her husband’s plane, he paused and assessed the landscape in front of him. To the left lay a marshy area, slightly lower than the ridge and quite flat, full of hummocks, mud, and standing water. To his right the ground rose for a half mile into several rough hills, between fifty and a hundred feet higher, covered with bare rock and trees. He remembered seeing from the air that there were two or three small lakes among them, one almost as large as the one on which he had landed earlier, but shaped like a crooked, flattened letter W. The rocky summit of the hill closest to him was the most free of trees and seemed a good possibility. He headed for it, hiking along the ridge, then up through a stand of alder and spruce to come out on top, where he could look down to see a roundish lake below it that had been hidden by the hill itself. The crooked lake was still out of sight beyond other hills. This summit was bare and empty of any sign of occupation.
Farther east, across the tops of another thicket of trees, he could see another hill, perhaps a hundred feet higher than the one on which he stood. Its summit was flatter, seemed a little bowl-shaped, with a rocky prominence rising up above it. Heading down the slope, he started toward it.
Half an hour later, he was examining the remains of a small fire just under the highest, rocky point. It was old, had probably been there all winter, but the rocks behind it were smoke-blackened by more than one blaze. A couple of faded aluminum beer cans and a small amount of other trash, including the plastic rings from a six-pack, the box from some kind of heavy-caliber ammunition, and dozens of cigarette filters, lay scattered around. Someone, perhaps more than one someone, had spent time here. Hunters? The hill was high enough to be a good lookout sight for game, if you wanted to spend your time waiting rather than tracking. About half of the W-shaped lake could be seen clearly below. He found no shell casings of any kind.
Would anyone pick up shell casings and leave an ammunition box in their trash, Cas wondered. It might make sense if they wanted them to reload. Could they be reloaded? Never having been a hunter, he didn’t know, but perhaps the brass casings were worth something. Someone might retrieve what might incriminate them in the shooting of the Lewis plane, implicate a shooter with fingerprints or other identification. Perhaps the absence of shell casings implied almost as much as their presence. Still it gave him no location.
Disgusted with the litter whoever had used the site had left, Caswell searched his jacket pockets for something in which to collect it, and found an evidence bag. He and Jensen usually carried some along, finding them handy for more than evidence at times. This one was large enough for the trash, and he set about picking it up. Around one side of the rock prominence, he came upon another handful, including more beer cans and a cracked water bottle. Next to it, with two plastic produce bags from some grocery store, was a single playing card.
He picked it up, turned it over, and grinned. The ace of spades. Playing cards without this ace would certainly have unbalanced their game, whatever it was. He hoped some litterbug had lost a bundle. Maybe it had dropped out of a sleeve and gone unnoticed. Whatever. He flipped it into the evidence bag with the rest of the trash.
As he was closing the top of the bag containing his collection of trash, the sound of another plane drew his attention to the western part of the sky. Flying much lower than the Super Cub he had spoken to earlier, a silver Cessna was gaining altitude, apparently from a takeoff on Lower Beluga Lake. It headed north, then leveled off and banked in a large, sweeping turn, altering course till it was coming straight in his direction.
Feeling suddenly exposed, remembering the tracks they had found on the bank leading to Chelle’s plane, Caswell stepped back against the prominence of rock and froze under a slight overhang. With luck, in the absence of motion, whoever was in the plane wouldn’t detect his tan jacket against the variety of colors in the rock. They passed slightly north of him without a hesitation, close enough so he could see the white face of a person in the passenger seat, too far away for recognition.
As soon as they were gone, Cas moved to the eastern edge of the small bowl and leaned against a boulder to watch as the plane lost altitude and made a landing on the crooked lake, taxied to the eastern arm of the flattened W, and grounded the floats on the shore. A figure got out of the passenger side and walked the float to the bank, soon followed by the pilot at his side. The passenger went directly to the edge of the lake and splashed water on his face, over and over. Then he stood rubbing at his eyes.
The pilot, a shorter fatter man, waved him to help and together they heaved the plane higher on the bank. For several minutes they appeared to be discussing something heatedly, for the pilot waved a hand in broad, directive gestures, while the other man seemed to be shaking his head.
Cas pulled out a pair of binoculars from his pack to get a better look, but when he had them in focus the argument seemed to have been settled for they began to quickly unload a large amount of equipment from the back of the Cessna, the taller man moving more slowly and awkwardly, pausing frequently to splash more water onto his face. For the next hour, as he watched, they organized a camp, set up three tents and a rain fly over a fire pit that was quickly dug, lined with stones, and covered with a grill. Into one of the tents went a dozen boxes that seemed to be canned food, four large plastic coolers, water containers, fuel cans, several rifles and a large amount of boxed ammunition.
They had just finished their work and were building a fire, when another plane flew in to land and taxi to the bank. Three men got out and approached the two at the fire. As Caswell watched, the shorter of the original two walked away from the fire with the pilot of the second plane, and they stood talking far enough away to be unheard by the others. Energetically, he waved in the direction of Caswell’s hill, which also included their camp at the small lake, and Lower Beluga Lake. The pilot, who seemed to be in charge, and whose face was partially hidden by a pair of dark glasses, exhibited signs of frustration and anger—kicking at a rock and grabbing the neck of the fat man’s jacket to shake him roughly. Cas could almost hear him swear. Something was unmistakably not to his liking.
Dragging the fat man by one arm, he shouted something in the direction of those at the fire and went hurriedly back to his plane, thrusting the fat man toward the passenger side. Another man came running, got in and the plane was quickly in the air.
As it passed overhead, Cas once more froze against the sheltering rock and watched as the plane disappeared below the ridge of the small lake where his Maule and Chelle’s Cessna were left unattended.
Time to be getting back, he thought. Whatever they were up to, it had a bad feeling.
It was late enough in the afternoon for the sun to have begun its downward slide toward the horizon as Cas went quickly down through the trees and onto the flat space between the hills, hiking in shadow, a little farther south than his original route. As fast as he could travel, he hurried toward his camp and three angry men, one of whom he thought he had recognized through the binoculars.
19
IT WAS ALMOST DARK BEFORE JENSEN, TOBIAS, AND Chelle Lewis made their way back to where Caswell anxiously waited. They walked single file, Rochelle between the two men, needing no assistance, though Jensen had ins
isted on taking her pack. Tobias carried both the others, having consolidated them by hanging the daypack outside the larger one. Chelle wore the Weatherby slung over her left shoulder, which felt slightly awkward, but did not aggravate the bruise it had inflicted on her hip during the chase earlier in the day.
She was once again warm and dry, though it had taken time swaddled in her down sleeping bag, huddled near a fire they had hurriedly built after hauling her from behind the hummock in the marsh. It had taken several cups of coffee and a complete set of extra clothing to still the chattering of her teeth. Because her hiking boots were drenched beyond usefulness, she wore her waders over three pairs of wool socks, which made hiking more difficult on the way back, but allowed her to cross marshy spots without having to change footwear.
While she was recovering from her soak in the swamp, Jensen and Tobias had gone on across to Lower Beluga Lake, where they found evidence that a plane had landed, but nothing else. The other two men Chelle had described had apparently departed, leaving their comrade to his fate.
“Probably heard the shooting and, when he didn’t come back, figured they’d better cut their losses,” Jensen calculated. “Either that, or they came close enough to see us before they took off.”
“May have thought he would chase her clear back to the other lake,” Tobias suggested. “Might have gone there to see and never even heard the shots.”
“Possible. Caswell will keep a good lookout, and he’s a pretty good shot with that thirty oh six he carries. He’d hear a plane before it landed anyway. Still, we’d better get back over there and it’ll be dark if we don’t get moving.”
Unable to remove the body of the man Tobias had shot, they had hoisted it into the tallest tree they could find, hoping no black bear would happen along to notice or smell it. They were not so concerned with grizzlies that lose their climbing ability as they mature and gain weight, are limited by their fixed wrist joints, and lack the sharp hooked claws that blacks retain for climbing, but they picked a tree that was not small enough to be chewed or pushed over by the big browns. They buried what little blood had resulted from the wound that killed him, emptied the coffee grounds over it, along with wet ashes from the fire.
By the time they had finished, Chelle was able to move and they started back the way they had come. There was little talk on the way, for Jensen, wanting nothing more than to make sure that Caswell had not been somehow surprised, moved as quickly as possible over the rough terrain and they were all wearing thin on energy when they neared the lake where they had left the planes.
As they approached the remains of the ancient log cabin at the west end of the lake, Caswell stepped out to meet them with a grim, angry expression.
“Ben,” Jensen said, catching first sight of him. “What’re you doing here? What’s wrong?”
“Thought I’d better keep you from walking into an ambushed camp that some determined strangers spent an hour tearing apart a while ago. Almost everything we had was trashed, dumped, cut apart, broken, or burned. Damned lunatics made a bonfire of the tent and some other stuff, which almost torqued me into putting a bullet into one of them. They seemed to be looking for something as they worked, but most of it was deliberate vandalism.
“If that wasn’t enough, you’re going to hate what comes next. They smashed the radio in the Maule, which they couldn’t fly, of course. But when they left they took both their plane and Rochelle’s Cessna.”
“They took my plane?” she broke in, eyes wide.
“Yeah. Sorry, Chelle. But that’s not the worst of it. The guy who flew it had a key to unlock and start it and—I wasn’t sure till I got back to the ridge, close enough to get a good look, but—it was your brother.”
“Ed?” She simply stared at him, stunned with the information.
“You said got back. Where were you?” Alex asked. “How’d they manage to miss you?”
“They flew in, but earlier I took that hike I was thinking about and got back just in time to watch the last part of the destruction from that ridge above the planes. They’ve got a camp set up on a lake west of ours that we should check out, I think. I’d be willing to bet we’ve stumbled onto part of that poaching ring of Stoffel’s. If so, we could be in trouble, with no transportation or communication. They obviously don’t want us leaving to talk to anyone from the look of it. They left the third man waiting with a rifle for whoever came back. Far as I know he’s still over there, hidden in the brush. I went around him and came here.”
Jensen didn’t say anything for a minute, glanced at Tobias, then at Chelle, who stood, still silent, listening to Caswell with an expression that grew increasingly angry.
“This probably involves the one you sprayed and his fat friend,” he said to her. “And a few others, it seems, including Ed.”
“But why? What’s he got to do with it? What the hell do they want?” she asked.
“This is more than revenge for the guy Ernie shot. It sounds like some kind of illegal hunting activity all right.”
“Shot?” Caswell’s eyebrows lifted in questioning surprise at this piece of news.
Jensen nodded a confirmation to him, as he continued his assessment to Chelle.
“Something they want pretty bad that they think you have? Something to do with Norm, or the Randolph woman? You said they knew you were coming, used your name. Could be the same ones that searched your house.”
“I’d guess this is more complicated than it first appears,” Cas said slowly. “Waiting for you, I’ve had time to think it over some, and from our two planes, they obviously know there’s more of us than one. It appears they expected Chelle, but not the rest. They don’t know where we are, or how many. On the other hand, with Landreth along, they probably know we’re the law. Taking the only operational plane and smashing my radio is a pretty clear statement they don’t intend anyone to leave. I’d like to know exactly why and what they have in mind now. We can’t fly and have no way to contact anyone for help. The guys to fix my float won’t be here until tomorrow.”
“You got a call out?”
“Yeah, before any of this happened. They showed up well over an hour later.”
“But how could they have known I was coming out here—who I am?” Chelle asked, her forehead furrowed with the effort of trying to figure it out. “I didn’t tell anyone, but…” Her eyes widened in sudden realization, then she shook her head emphatically. “No. Not possible. It doesn’t make sense.”
Jensen assured her it did…somehow. “He knew where you were headed before we left town to come after you. We were at his place and found your note in his mailbox. He must have called someone after we left.”
“What note? Oh…you mean Ed? I left a note for Ed.”
“That’s not who you meant?”
“No. I meant Jeff Bunker. I told him last night that I was going to look for Norm. He offered to come, but I wanted to do it alone. What’s going on? I don’t understand any of this. Why would Ed…or Jeff…have told anyone where I was going? How is Ed connected to this?”
“That’s what I’m beginning to wonder,” Alex answered, thoughtfully.
Tobias was frowning in confused concentration. “Who’s Bunker?”
“Look,” Cas suggested. “Before it gets completely dark, let’s get ourselves settled for the time being. While I waited for you, I cleared out a section of this old cabin. The roof’s gone, but there’s a sheltered corner. You’ve got that plastic rain tarp we can put up and two sleeping bags, right? Chelle, you’ve got another one? Good. If we keep it small, I think it’d be safe to build a fire, make some coffee, and cook that freeze-dried stuff you took along for dinner. It’ll keep four of us from starving. Then we can answer each other’s questions, pool information, and decide what to do.”
The corner of the cabin Cas had claimed was ramshackle, disintegrating with age, and overgrown with moss and weeds that clung to the narrow logs that had been used to build it. With only small trees available as material, none
of these logs was much larger around than ten or twelve inches at the widest, and though the cracks between them had at one time been stuffed with moss and grasses, most now gapped emptily, allowing breezes and insects free access. Luckily, the night that fell was windless and the mosquitoes that would later in the season swarm in such a marshy area were still unhatched and dormant.
When they had moved in, before the light was completely gone, Alex noticed something roughly carved in the log that was the lintel over the door-frame now lacking its door. Going close enough to trace it with one finger, he deciphered it, then couldn’t decide if he had satisfied, or added to, his curiosity. “Small house, great peace” it read in Latin. Apparently, a man with a classical education had lived here, alone and isolated from the rest of his kind. The tall trooper wondered once again what had determined this unknown hermit’s solitary choice.
It interested him how as few as four words could provide an insight into the person who cared enough to carve them—for whom they were meaningful. He wished someone would carve a few words to give him a handle on the happenings of the day and who was responsible for them. It clearly had some kind of associations with Norm Lewis, Karen Randolph, and the illegal hunting activities that had connected them. Whatever these links were, someone was conspicuously concerned that they not be uncovered. And just how did Ed Landreth fit in?
By the time they were settled, it had grown dark enough to make Ben Caswell’s small fire glow brightly and cast flickering shadows on the old, gray logs of the nearest partially standing wall. They crouched around it, warming their hands at its crackling flames and appreciating the appealing smells bubbling from the kettle of freeze-dried stew he had simmering over it.
Chelle had sunk immediately to a spot where she could lean against the wall, propped the Weatherby against it, and gratefully accepted the mug of hot coffee he offered her. The first sip brought a questioning smile to her face. “What…?”
“Just a little medicinal brandy.” He grinned back. “Thought you might need a lift after trying to swim the swamp. Thank Alex. He packed it. You okay?”