by Laura Crum
My heart thumped a pounding rhythm as I watched the hiker stride toward me. I fingered the pistol in the pack at my side. Sure. I could hardly go pointing a gun at someone who had done nothing worse than climb into the blind, not knowing I was there. But the thought of being trapped in the blind with this particular individual made the hair rise on the back of my neck.
Something in his very energy was unsettling. His stride, the carriage of his head, his facial expression—all were arrogant, as if the rest of the world should get out of his way. I remembered the several times he had blasted by me on his motorcycle while I was out riding, and what Jane had said about him. Even the idly destructive circular donut dug into the dusty ground of the Lookout was testament to this guy’s obvious jerkdom. At a guess he was a rich kid who had never learned to respect anything, grown to be a lazy man who had nothing better to do than tear up the scenery in a noisy fashion. My hand clenched on the butt of the gun.
He was out of my sight now, right underneath the platform. What had Jeri said his name was? Len something. I heard the clink of the chain ladder. Oh shit.
My heart thudded like it would jump out of my chest. I crouched silently, holding the gun, not sure at all what I should do if this guy emerged on the platform. The feeling of the heavy, solid weight of the .357 in my hand was reassuring, but it didn’t constitute a plan of action.
For a second there was silence. I strained to hear the noise of the ladder squeaking and clanking. Nothing. The chains did not move. What was he doing?
It would be impossible for anyone to climb the ladder without the chains moving and they were still. What the hell was he doing? It was very quiet. I could see the dirt bike lying on its side in the clearing. I thought I could hear tiny rustling noises from beneath the platform. Crouching silently, I strained to hear or see something.
And then I smelled smoke. For a second my mind reeled. Was he setting the tree on fire? I breathed in deeply. The smoky whiff in the air was plain, and something else. A particular distinct herbal smell. I shook my head. Pot. The guy was smoking pot. Sitting under the tree smoking a joint. I knew it as clearly as if I could see it.
The relief was huge. He wasn’t on his way up to the platform, he wasn’t setting the woods on fire. Just smoking a joint. I half smiled. Maybe one that he’d bought from Ross. Perhaps Len was another one of Ross’s customers.
This thought brought another flurry of ideas. Could Ross and his pot growing operation have more connections to the shooting deaths in the woods than I had ever supposed? I couldn’t imagine what the connections might be, but pot seemed to keep coming up. Trish had said that Juli smoked it and had bought it from Ross. Juli was currently hiding Ross and Tammi. Ross and Tammi’s indoor gardening was the source of the mysterious light on the ridge which had puzzled me for months. And now the bearded dirt bike rider who had come close to mowing me down was enjoying a joint while I crouched above him. It all seemed very odd.
More rustling noises from underneath the platform. And then the bearded guy emerged, stretching his arms above his head. I longed to do the same but didn’t dare move. I noticed that he had a small daypack on his back, very like my own. Big enough to conceal a pistol.
The man had his back to me now; he was walking away. Headed toward his motorcycle. Once again I was struck by the arrogance of his stride. I could still smell the lingering odor of marijuana.
I watched him walk to his motorcycle, jerk it up off the ground, throw his leg over it, and start the engine. For a second he glanced around and then revved the motor and took off, back wheel spinning in the loose dirt. I sighed and stretched my legs and arms, while the dirt bike disappeared down the trail in a blast of angry sound.
Grateful to see the last of this visitor I scanned idly around the clearing and nearly jumped a foot. Someone was there, standing in the grove of redwood trees where the logging road emerged. Looking very carefully around the bluff. And I knew who that someone was.
Chapter 19
Brandon Carter stood in the shadows of the redwood grove, his rifle cradled in his arms. For a second he squatted and peered at the ground in front of him, then he stood up and looked carefully around the clearing. Every inch of his demeanor proclaimed he was searching for something. The question was what?
After a moment he walked forward slowly, turning his head from side to side like a satellite dish scanning for a signal. At one point his eyes rested on the blind where I crouched, holding my breath. For some odd reason I had the notion he could see through the screen and knew where I was hiding.
Brandon kept walking, glancing down from time to time at the ground in front of him. He was tracking something, I thought. I just hoped it wasn’t me.
Brandon strolled quietly across the clearing, his eyes shifting downward from time to time. Eventually he stopped, about twenty feet from the tree where I was hidden. He looked down and then up. For a long moment he seemed to meet my eyes through the screen.
I stayed frozen, holding my breath. But I had the inescapable conviction that Brandon guessed I was hidden in the blind.
Brandon Carter’s body language remained relaxed. The rifle was carried loosely in his right hand, not pointed at anything. After a minute his gaze shifted from the blind and he looked out over the ocean. One shoulder twitched in what might have been a minuscule shrug. And then Brandon moseyed slowly off in the direction of the trail that led to the reservoir and disappeared from my sight.
Whew. I had no idea what was in Brandon’s mind, but I suddenly wanted out of here. I did not want to be trapped by a guy with a rifle.
I hesitated, not wanting to leave the blind until I was sure Brandon was long gone. Wind skimmed through my hair and the air was getting colder. By my reckoning it was midafternoon. Time to go home.
I stared around the clearing and could see and hear nothing. Just the wind in the trees. I scooted to the edge of the platform and froze. Motion from the direction of the logging road—something was coming.
The movement shortly became a bicycle. A bicycle being pedaled by a guy with a shiny bald head. Oh shit. As the form came closer I was sure that it was Buddy. I immediately pictured his odd eyes with the white rims and quickly tucked my feet out of sight.
Buddy pedaled on, crossing the clearing and stopping in front of the view. He carried a small pack on his back, and wore ragged jeans and a T-shirt. Taking a drink from a water bottle hung from his pack, he glanced around the clearing in an idle way, and then swung the bike around and pedaled towards my tree. In a minute it became obvious that he was headed down toward the pretty trail. I watched him disappear down the hill.
Now that was one guy I really did not want to meet up here.
I slithered to the edge of the platform, grabbed the ladder, and began to lower myself. I was done. I wanted out of here. Hand over hand, one step at a time, I descended the swaying chain ladder until my feet touched the ground. Heaving a sigh of relief, I glanced quickly around the deserted clearing and headed off in the direction of my truck and the logging road. I was going home.
Twenty minutes later I pulled in my own driveway. I had seen no one on my return trip, and my truck appeared undisturbed, though it seemed to me that there were unfamiliar footprints around it. More than one set, I thought.
Blue and Mac were home, both hanging out in the little house. Blue was playing his pipes and Mac was immersed in a book on physics, one of his favorite subjects. Freckles and Star were asleep on the floor. Everybody seemed happy to see me; nobody asked where I’d been. Good.
I went over to the main house and made a sandwich and a cup of tea and sat down on the porch. The wind riffled across our little hollow in the hills, rustling the drooping sunflowers and the dry bean vines on the garden tepee. Whirling leaves whipped through the air. Fall was really here.
I took a sip of tea and squinted through the steam at the distant ridgeline. There, silhouetted against the cloudy sky, was the grove of redwoods that stood near the Lookout. The Lookout bluff an
d the oak tree with the blind were hidden behind the tall eucalyptus trees on the ridge trail in the foreground, but I knew exactly where the blind was in relation to the redwoods I could see. Less than an hour ago I had been there, hidden on that platform, watching the woods.
The notion of here and there, now and then, still fascinated me, even embroiled in the mystery of the trails as I was. I sat on my porch and sipped my tea and reviewed the hours I had waited in the blind. I’d seen a number of things—I just wasn’t sure what they all meant.
Sandwich eaten and tea drunk, I went into the house to call Jeri Ward.
She answered on the first ring. “Hi Gail. What’s new?”
“I’ve been watching the woods. I saw some people.”
“You’ve been what?”
“Watching up in the woods.”
“What are you talking about exactly?”
“Jeri, I’d rather not tell you exactly. Do you want to know who I saw?”
There was a moment’s silence. Then, “I’ll be over there in about an hour. It’s better if we talk there.”
“All right,” I said, and hung up.
I spent the next hour playing with Mac and Star in the new house, while the sky grew darker. Evening was drawing in and it felt like a storm was coming. The light had that odd greenish hue it often got on the brink of blustery weather. Eventually Mac and Blue decided to make tacos for dinner and headed over to the main house to build a fire in the woodstove and begin their cooking. I fed the horses and then waited in the little house for Jeri.
The sight of headlights coming up my driveway caused me to sit up straighter in the rocking chair. Jeri parked her car and strode up the hill at a brisk pace. Looked like she was in a hurry.
I stood up and pulled the sliding glass door. Jeri walked through it talking. “What were you doing, Gail?”
“I was up in the woods, watching,” I said. “There’s no law that says I can’t hang out in the woods.”
“Well, it’s pretty goddamn dumb,” Jeri snapped. “Do you want to be the next victim?”
“I wasn’t riding, and no one knew I was there. Besides I thought you guys had decided that Sheryl shot Jane and Doug killed Sheryl.”
“Sheryl’s gun did not kill Jane, as it turns out. And it looks as though the same gun killed both of them,” Jeri said tersely. “We haven’t arrested Doug Martin. There is still the distinct possibility that these shootings were random.”
“Just happened to be two women on horseback? Who happened to both be dating the same guy?”
“I know,” Jeri sighed. “I just got done interviewing Bill Waters, the guy with the white dog. He is hostile enough to take out a whole boatload of horse people. He went on and on about how the horses tear up the ground and so forth. He admits to blocking the trails and siccing his dog on riders. And he says he did not hear the shot that killed Sheryl, though he was at home with no alibi on Tuesday afternoon. Neither does he have an alibi for Saturday afternoon when Jane was shot. So he’s definitely on my radar.”
“How about Ross and Tammi?”
“I went out to Lazy Valley to pick them up, but the owner swore she’d never seen them. My next step is to get a search warrant.”
“I think you’d better do that.”
“Why’s that?” Jeri’s eyes shot to mine.
“Well, do you want to hear what I saw up in the woods?”
“Sure.”
“Ross and Tammi for one thing.” And I recounted what I had seen and heard.
“Now that is very interesting,” Jeri said. “What else did you see?”
“Well, a bobcat and a buck. Also Brandon Carter and that hiker with the yellow Lab. And the bearded guy that rides the dirt bike. Len something. And Buddy.”
“Buddy?” Jeri’s spine stiffened. “The guy with the camper?”
“Yeah, him. He was on a bike. I didn’t see the camper, though I went right past the spot where it used to be parked.”
Jeri gave me a funny look, but said nothing.
“Have you thought about the way pot just keeps coming into this?” I asked her. “First Ross and his pot growing scheme and Jane turning him in, then Jane gets shot, and Juli supposedly buys pot from Ross and is now hiding him, and that dirt bike guy sat down and smoked a joint.”
“You saw this?” Jeri asked.
“More or less,” I said. “Just don’t ask.”
“All right,” Jeri said slowly, “but don’t you do anything dumb.”
“Right,” I said.
“I think I will get a warrant and go search Lazy Valley,” Jeri said, getting to her feet. “I need to talk to Ross Hart. Thanks for the info.” And she walked to the door. With her thumb on the handle, she looked back at me. “Be careful, Gail. I mean it.”
“Right,” I said again. “I will.” I thought, but didn’t say, that I didn’t plan on falling out of the blind and I ought to be just fine. I was pretty sure Jeri would not have seen it the way I did.
Chapter 20
At ten the next morning I was on my way to the blind. Blue had taken Mac to the homeschool group, which met on Tuesdays and Fridays. After that Blue was going to a bagpipe lesson and then picking Mac up again. No one would wonder where I was until midafternoon. I had plenty of time for some observation on the ridge.
I did not question why I was so determined to do this. I already knew that Jeri, and no doubt Blue, would think it qualified as dumb. But yesterday had convinced me that I might, indeed, see some things that would provide useful information towards solving this mystery. And I was determined that it would be solved. I wanted to ride my yellow horse on many more pleasant trail rides. I did not want to be forever afraid to be out in the woods.
I drove slowly up the logging road under gray skies, reflecting that I would, indeed, be afraid if I were riding my horse right now. The feeling that someone might be watching me, sighting a gun on me, was causing me to tense up, even in the truck. I would feel a thousand times more vulnerable on my horse.
This thought brought another to mind. Was this shooter targeting equestrians just because they were on horses? Was he specifically targeting women on horses? And if so, why? An irrational distaste for horse traffic? Or something more bizarre? Or was this your typical love triangle with Doug Martin in the center? Somehow I had a hard time believing that.
My instincts shouted that this mystery had to do with the ridge; from the beginning I had felt what seemed like a dark shadow hanging over my beloved trails. It was this that lay at the root of my determination. I wanted to clear the stain on the hills of my home. And the only way to make that happen was to bring the murderer to justice.
I was surprised at the sudden rush of pure fury that seethed through my veins at the thought of a murderer haunting these hills. My jaw clenched and fear almost disappeared in the rush of burning rage. Damn it, this evil beast WAS going to be hunted down as he deserved, and the trails would be free and beautiful again. For fucking sure.
I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of the anger. I needed to pay attention to my surroundings, not get lost in fantasies of revenge. But I was aware of the powerful current that coursed through my body, even as I did my best to pilot the truck carefully up the rough road.
Potholes caused the vehicle to bounce awkwardly; we were crossing the pampas grass meadow now. I looked idly to my right, across the open sandy terrain, dotted with big, rustling clumps of the invasive grass, and suddenly slammed on the brakes. Over in the far corner, half hidden under a tree, I could see something white. It was completely screened from the road, except when seen from this one spot. But I was pretty sure that it was Buddy’s camper.
After a minute I let the truck creep forward. I did not feel up to accosting Buddy on my own, nor was I sure that there was much point to it. I had no evidence that Buddy was the culprit. But I would darn sure tell Jeri Ward where that camper was parked.
Up the road I jounced, trying to stay out of the bigger ruts and holes. I went slowly, peering t
hrough the windshield, making an effort to be aware of as much as I could despite the loud noise of the diesel engine. But I saw nothing worth noting.
Eventually I reached the logging deck where I had parked yesterday and stopped the truck in the same spot. With a sigh of relief I turned off the noisy engine.
As soon as I got out of the truck the wind smacked me, fresh and sharp. There was a cool edge to it that said rain was not far away. The fringed tops of the redwoods ahead of me waved briskly as I started up the road, shouldering my pack on my back.
I kept my head down, as strands of my hair brushed across my eyes. Flicking them away with my hand, I kept walking, almost trotting. I was eager to reach the blind and concealment. I felt uncomfortably vulnerable out in the open.
Covering the ground as quickly as I could, I made my way towards the tree with the ladder. I glanced from side to side, but did not pause to reconnoiter and check in with the woods. That could wait until I was hidden. The knife edge of the harsh breeze was making me shiver, even through the thick sweatshirt I wore. I was looking forward to the shelter of the blind.
When I reached the big oak tree, I shook the ladder once to make sure it seemed solid, and reached up for the rungs. The chains swung out awkwardly as I climbed, but I was prepared for this after yesterday, and just kept hauling myself up, hand over hand. Once I got to the platform, I heaved myself over the edge and rolled onto the floor. Right on top of a pair of boots.
What the hell? I looked upward and met the blue, blue eyes of Brandon Carter.
Oh shit. My heart dropped as if it were in a falling elevator. I could hardly catch my breath. From my completely vulnerable position on the floor of the blind I croaked, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Brandon smiled. “Just what you were doing yesterday, or so I assume. Watching the woods. Seeing what there is to see.”