That last part was a lie; they hadn’t been able to see license numbers until now. And she knew they were in a radio-free zone. Would Joe’s bluff work? Would the poachers walk out of the woods with their hands up? Staring angrily at the lifeless black heap that used to be a bear, she hoped it wouldn’t happen that easily. It would be nice if Joe was forced to shoot at least one of the murderers.
“I know these trucks belong to Garrett Ford and Gale Martinson,” Joe yelled. “We can either do this peaceably right now, or we’ll impound your trucks and pick you up later.”
After a tense moment, a teenage boy walked out of the woods, his hands held out to his sides. “Michael Martinson?” Joe said. “What in the hell—”
A branch cracked. The bulky form of Garrett Ford in a rain poncho materialized next to his pickup. He held a rifle in his right hand. “Don’t blame Mike,” he said. “He’s just helping me load.”
“Drop the weapon!” Joe barked.
Ford seemed to consider whether or not this was a good idea. Sam wished for the second time she’d brought her Glock with her. What was she going to do if bullets started flying?
She heard Joe click the safety off his shotgun. “Put down that rifle!” he yelled again.
“Never leave the safety on myself. Too slow.” Ford continued to point his weapon at Joe. He lowered his head as if aiming down the sights. Rain dripped from his graying forelock.
A flash of headlights and the groan of an engine announced an approaching vehicle. Sam’s blood suddenly chilled. Did Ford and Martinson have armed comrades on the way? She looked to Joe in alarm. His gaze was locked with Ford’s. She glanced at Mike Martinson, who looked as uncertain as she felt.
A rivulet of rain ran down the side of her neck. There was a sizable rock next to her right foot. Should she chuck it at Ford? Mike studied the ground around him as though he might be weighing the same consideration. Except she was pretty sure that his target would be Joe.
All four of them flinched when a voice came from the darkness around them. “Dammit, Garrett, what are you up to now?”
Unbelievably, it was Arnie Cole, and he had a rifle trained on Ford. A rustle on the other side of the circle brought her attention to another forest service ranger. He, too, had a rifle pointed in the same direction. “Three to one, Ford. Give it up,” he said.
Finally making up his mind, Ford laid his rifle on the ground. Joe ordered Mike Martinson to sit on the ground, hands under his buttocks. Then he patted Ford down for other weapons.
Arnie pointed his rifle skyward as he clutched the poacher’s arm. “Just two miles north and four more days, you dumb shit, and you could have been hunting legally.”
“How could you?” Sam spat at Ford. “How could you kill this bear, in a protected zone, for no good reason—”
“I don’t kill them,” Ford grunted.
Sam frowned, squatted, and thrust a hand through the bars of the cage. The carcass was still warm. Now that she had her hand pressed to his furry flank, she could feel that Raider was still breathing, although barely. “He’s not dead.” Her voice was squeaky with surprise. “They darted him, Joe.”
“Why?” Joe asked. Pulling handcuffs from a pouch on his service belt, he manacled Ford’s hands behind his back.
“I want a lawyer.” Ford frowned at Sam. “I shoulda just let him shoot you.”
She blanched. “Let who shoot me?”
“Don’t let him yank your chain, Sam.” Joe turned to the boy. “Stand up, Mike.” He pulled a zip-tie out of his pocket and motioned for the kid to turn around. “Aren’t you only fifteen? You can’t even drive legally yet.”
“Fifteen and a half. I got my learner’s permit.”
“Not anymore you don’t. Why are you darting bears, Mike?”
“Five,” the boy said.
Joe rolled his eyes.
Arnie’s grin was so wide that his teeth were visible in the dim light. “Forest service saves park service ass again.”
The other USFS ranger nodded. “Typical.”
Joe shot Sam an apologetic look. “I had to call them. I didn’t know what jurisdiction we’d end up in.”
“Well, well, well.” Arnie’s boots made sucking sounds in the mud as he strutted around her like a rooster. “I shoulda known hot-time-in-the-Summer Westin would be in the middle of some bear business.” Leaning close, he gave her a wink. “Told you Marmot Lake was trouble.”
Since the park service had jurisdiction and nobody had a backseat, Joe decided to load the prisoners into the bed of his pickup. Ford was sullen and silent. Mike Martinson protested, “But it’s raining.”
“Funny how you didn’t mind that a little bit ago,” Joe told him. “If you want to tell me what you were going to do with the bear, I might reconsider.”
Mike’s chin went up.
“Five,” Joe said simultaneously with the boy.
“You NPS folks speak a weird language,” Arnie said.
“We need to take the bear,” Sam said.
Everyone turned to look at her. She gestured toward the cage and repeated, “We need to take the bear. To make sure he wakes up okay. Unless”—she looked at Ford—“you have the antidote with you.”
Ford stared at her, his eyes cold.
“I didn’t think so,” she said.
The three men lifted the bear crate to the bed of Joe’s pickup. It was a tight squeeze with Garrett Ford and Mike Martinson in the back. Raider didn’t stir as they shifted him.
It was an odd feeling, driving through the woods with two criminals and a crated sleeping bear in the back. “I hope he didn’t overdose Raider,” she told Joe.
He glanced sideways at her. “What do you think Ford was going to do with that bear?”
Sam grimaced. “Notice how he said ‘I don’t kill them’? He could mean that he keeps them alive and milks them for their bile.”
“You can do that?”
She squirmed uncomfortably. “I’ve read about the way they do it in China. It’s the worst kind of torture—they keep a tube inserted through an incision into the bear’s bile duct. They sell the bile that drains out and hope the bear will produce more before it dies.” It nauseated her to think about it. “I’m worried that he said, ‘I don’t kill them.’ That means he’s done this before. He might have bears in cages somewhere.”
They arrived at her truck. She reached for the door handle.
“I’ll dump our boys off at the jail, but what am I going to do with the bear?” Joe asked.
“Does the park service have a vet?”
He winced. “In Port Angeles.”
An hour and a half away. She considered. “I’ll take him to the bunkhouse,” she said. “At least for now, I’m a biologist in the park service. The trail crew kids might get a kick out of having a bear with us tonight.”
She backed her truck up to Joe’s, and with a great deal of shoving and pulling, they finally managed to push the crate from Joe’s pickup into hers. Raider still wasn’t moving, but when she felt his throat to make sure he was breathing, he seemed to be holding his own. His black eyes were dull and still at half-mast, though. Worrisome. “Got some eye ointment in your first aid kit, Joe?”
He did. She squeezed a thread of ointment across the bear’s eyes to keep them from drying out, and stuck the tube in her pocket for later.
She followed Joe back to Road 4312, trying to ignore the icy glares Ford and Martinson aimed at her. She would have turned on her high beams to irritate the two if the bright lights wouldn’t have tortured Joe, too.
What had they been planning to do with Raider? And where? ‘I don’t kill them,’ Ford had said. Her hands, wrapped around the steering wheel, were white at the knuckles. Garrett Ford reminded her of another man who earned his money guiding hunters to wild animals. Wait a minute. She clenched the wheel even more tightly. Had Ford said, ‘I don’t kill them’? Maybe he was more like Buck Ferguson than she’d imagined.
When they reached 4312, she jerked the wh
eel right instead of left. In her rearview mirror, she saw Joe’s truck stop. “What are you up to, Sam?” her radio said a second later.
“I’m just following a hunch, Joe. Go on, I’ll let you know if it pans out.”
“No way. I’m coming, too.”
She saw him turn around, and then his headlights were following her. The USFS pickup turned, too. This would be really embarrassing if her hunch led nowhere. But Road 4312 was perfect—an unmaintained road that went way back into the forest where nobody had good reason to go anymore. There was no active logging going on here now. The road grew increasingly rough, and she kept her four-wheel drive in gear as she drove, slowing to check the side tracks. Mercifully, the rain slacked off and visibility was marginally improved.
Finally she saw what she was looking for—fresh tread marks leading into dense woods. She followed them, grinding over rocks and through a little stream. She could hardly believe it when her headlights lit up a bank of cages. Leaving the lights on, she climbed down from the truck to explore. A handsome five-point buck blinked at her from his enclosure. Two mountain goats cowered in a corner of their cage. A black bear stood on its hind legs and clawed at the heavy mesh that imprisoned it. An enraged snarl split the darkness. Dear lord, was that a cougar?
Joe and the forest service rangers caught up with her.
“Unbelievable,” Joe said, climbing down from his truck.
“What made you think this might be here?” asked the other USFS ranger, who’d introduced himself as Hauser.
“I know this hunting guide in Utah,” Sam told him. “He makes big money leading yuppie hunters to trophy animals. And I suddenly realized that Ford could hardly drive through town with a caged bear in the back of his truck.”
“This is downright entrepreneurial.” Arnie paced the line of cages. “How better to guarantee a trophy animal than to keep one for when you need it? Then you just let it out and lead the hunter to it. And since it’s the National Forest instead of some Texas game ranch, the hunter will think you’re a helluva tracker.” He laughed. “It’s brilliant, Garrett!” he yelled toward Joe’s truck.
“Fuck you,” Ford yelled back.
“It’s criminal,” Sam groaned.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Arnie said. “He wasn’t going to kill them until hunting season, I’m sure. He’s got less than a week till bear season out here.” He looked toward Hauser. “Is there a law about imprisoning animals in a national forest?”
“Damned if I know.” Hauser scratched his chin. “Maybe something about operating a commercial enterprise without a permit.”
Sam walked toward a stack of hay she spied under a tarp, peeled off a few flakes, and thrust them into the buck’s and goats’ cages. The animals fell on the hay hungrily.
“Should we let them out?” Hauser asked.
“I want all these animals released in the national park,” Sam said.
Arnie frowned. “We don’t know where they came from. That fella”—he pointed to the buck—“could have come from around here. He’d make a mighty nice hat rack.” He made his hand into a gun and pretend-fired at the buck.
Now Sam wanted to yell “Fuck you” at Arnie.
“It’s a while until hunting season,” Joe said quietly, putting his hand on her arm. “And they could very well end up in the park then.” He turned to Hauser. “Can we agree to leave this until tomorrow? This is a crime scene. We need to get back here and take photos and evidence in daylight. Both NPS and USFS are involved. Fish and Wildlife, too, maybe.”
Sam poured some dog chow into the bear’s cage and, since she didn’t see anything better to feed it, into the cougar’s as well. She made sure they all had water, checked Raider again—he was breathing a little more deeply now—and then they all left, in convoy again.
By the time she reached the trail crew bunkhouse, both she and Raider were staggering; she from fatigue, and he from the anesthetic still flooding his system. The bear kept trying to get to his feet, only to collapse onto his side again, shuddering from the effort.
“Calm down, buddy,” she murmured. “You’re safe with me.” She took a chance on opening the cage door just enough to push in a bucket of water, then tossed a tarp over the top of the cage to protect him from the rain.
“Sleep tight.” She knew she would. It felt good to have finally accomplished something positive. The paintball crazies were still out there, that C-4 was still missing, Caitlin Knight’s murderer was still on the loose, and Lisa Glass’s death remained a mystery. But her bear poacher would sleep behind bars tonight.
She helped herself to bread and peanut butter in the kitchen, sluiced off the worst of her grime in the bathroom, then headed for her bunk. As she was pulling off her shirt, Raider bawled outside.
Maya sat bolt upright in her bunk. “What the fuck was that?”
“Shhh,” Sam murmured. “It’s only a bear. He’s locked up in my truck.”
“Of course, a bear. Why didn’t I think of that?” The girl collapsed back onto her pillow. “Just a regular day here in Disneyland.”
24
WHEN Sam wandered into the kitchen the next morning, she found two notes from the trail crew. No pets allowed, from Tom Blackstock, and an arrow pointing to a sealed envelope. A single page with a question mark written on it—that had to come from the kids. Teens seemed to be into symbols and abbreviated communication these days. She wrote, Y not? after the question mark, preferring to remain a source of mystery a little longer. At their age, she would have thought that packing a bear around was pretty cool. Hell, she still thought packing a bear around was pretty cool.
She opened the envelope. Inside was another note from Tom. I’ve been called up; can you believe it? My unit ships out to Afghanistan at the end of next week. Know anyone who can take over for me here for the last three weeks?
She stared at the writing, stunned. The news was pretty unbelievable; Tom had to be nearing fifty. Thank God Tom hadn’t asked her if she’d do it. She really wasn’t the den mother type, especially not for a crew that included six adolescent boys. She searched her memory banks for men she knew, and came up with one she thought might work out. But would the park service accept him? She’d have to talk to everyone concerned. Stuffing the note into her pocket, she walked out to her truck.
Weak sunlight filtered through the dripping trees this morning. Raider was wild-eyed and rambunctious when she lifted the tarp on his cage. After checking her watch—it was only a few minutes after seven—she drove to the Chois’ home. Joe had already left for work, but Laura and the kids were still at breakfast. She brought them out to her truck.
“Lili, you said you wanted to see a bear.” She threw back the tarp. Raider let out a bawl, which made Lili’s younger siblings squeal and stumble backward. The bear rushed to the other side of the cage, slamming into the bars and nearly tipping it over. He hunkered down in the corner and eyed them warily.
Lili put a hand on the pickup fender, her eyes filled with concern. “He looks so scared.”
“He is. Last night someone shot him with a tranquilizer dart, so now he’s probably even more afraid of people than he usually would be.”
Six-year-old Joseph pulled himself up on the back bumper. Laura grabbed the back of his belt so he wouldn’t get too close to the cage. “Why’d they shoot him?” he asked.
“To make him sleep,” Tamara told him, showing off her ten-year-old wisdom. “A tranquilizer is like a sleeping potion.”
“So they could take him to a zoo?”
Sam glanced at Laura. She didn’t know how much reality the younger Chois could handle.
Looking at her kids, Laura said, “Some bad guys wanted to take the bear to a place where some other guys could shoot him.”
All three children appeared stunned by this news. Sam wondered how Laura explained legal hunting to the kids.
“Remember how Daddy got home late last night?” Laura asked. “He and Aunt Summer were catching those bad guys and rescu
ing this bear.”
Sam basked in the glory of that statement for about ten seconds.
Joseph asked, “Can we keep him?”
“No,” Sam laughed. “This is a wild bear. He needs to live in a wild place where there aren’t so many people around. Laura, can I borrow Lili for an hour to help me? I’ll drop her off at school afterwards.”
“Oh, sweet!” Lili chirped excitedly, turning toward the house. “I’ll get my backpack.”
“Finish your toast and brush your teeth,” Laura yelled after her, shepherding the younger children back into the house.
The two of them didn’t talk much on the way to Marmot Lake. Lili kept her head turned most of the way, watching Raider through the back window. Today the girl had her hair loosely twisted up into a bun and secured with a painted Chinese chopstick, and Sam could see the lovely young woman that Lili was fast becoming. It was a little unnerving to think of all the decisions this thirteen-year-old had ahead of her. She understood why Joe and Laura would fret over the possibilities.
They’d climbed down from the truck. Sam asked, “Want to touch him?”
“Can I?” Lili’s eyes gleamed.
Sam scrambled up onto the fender and swung her feet into the truck bed. Raider lunged to the far side of the cage. “I’ll distract him from here. You go around in back and touch him very softly through the bars. Just with your fingers, don’t put your hand into the cage.”
She clasped her fingers around the bars and leaned her face close, talking loudly to cover the sound of Lili’s footsteps. “Hey, Raider, my bad boy, my bear buddy, I’m so glad you’re still alive. I’ll bet you are, too. Ready to get out?”
The bear’s ears swung forward; he looked confused. Then suddenly he lurched forward, looking back suspiciously over his flank at Lili.
“Wow,” she said softly. “He’s so warm. And his fur is so soft.” She walked back to join Sam, sniffing her fingers. “That was so cool, Aunt Summer.”
“Ready to let him go?”
Lili nodded.
Sam let down the tailgate and told her to climb up, swing open the cage door, and stand behind it. In less than a second, Raider leapt from the pickup and disappeared, leaving them staring at the quivering greenery he’d vanished into.
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