The briefcase in Ansel’s hand felt like lead. She didn’t want the responsibility of being the caretaker of Outerbridge’s covert strategies and dogmas, but she couldn’t deny Parker his request. He trusted her implicitly, and she wouldn’t let him down. Her face softened. “All right, but make this quick. I’ve got to get to McCone, and I expect you to take me there.”
Ansel turned and ran with every fiber of her being. Her last vision of Parker was that of him standing feet spread and arms locked straight with automatic weapon aimed at the sky.
Overhead the Gazelle swooped toward him, miniguns blazing.
Chapter 31
“Treachery darkens the chain of friendship, but truth makes it brighter than ever.”
Conestoga
Safely at the boulders, Ansel slowed and watched the scene unfolding behind her, heart jack hammering against her rib cage. The copter was low, coming at Parker with tremendous speed as a strafe of bullets tore across the ground. Parker fired several rounds at the copter’s windshield while dirt, plants, and rocks before him fanned upwards in a linear spray.
One bullet hit the plexiglass and Ansel saw the helmeted pilot jerk abruptly. Suddenly the copter swerved right, and the deadly strike ceased. Parker threw himself to the left, rolled away from the turning aircraft, then jumped to his feet, and started running toward her. The copter gained altitude in the turquoise sky and headed north.
Parker reached her out of breath. Ansel dropped his duffel and the briefcase to give him a joyful hug. “That was amazing, but don’t you dare do it again.”
A lopsided grin encompassed his face. “I think I gave them something to think about.”
Dixie appeared from behind a boulder wall. She watched the horizon, her demeanor leery. “You were lucky. They could have made beef jerky out of you. Then what good would you be to us?” She walked stiffly into the prairie.
Parker stared after the paleontologist.“What’s eating her?”
“She’s not happy to be here. Let’s get moving. I’ve got to reach my father.”
Parker checked his ammunition clip and then reloaded. “I’ll get you to him. No more heroics. I promise.”
They made the rest of the journey across the prairie in record time. When they reached the east rim of the canyon, they were tired and hot. Just that bit of exertion under the broiling sun had taxed them greatly. Parker used the GPS to find the exact location of the exit ravine. They found it just beyond an unusually green and grassy spot with a perfect ring of huge white and brown giant puffballs. The fungi grew out of a loamy pile of decaying plant matter and fallen limbs washed off the cliff above.
Parker cleared the accumulated dead fall and discovered that the exit path was nothing but a narrow, three-foot wide swatch cut between two towering bluff walls. It served more as a drainage gully for winter run-off than as a pass through. On top of that, the cut-out was riddled with scrub trees, fallen rocks or small boulders for as far as their eyes could see. Walking through or over the jumble of debris would be a real physical challenge.
“We’ll never get through that,” Dixie groused upon seeing the dark, tiny, overgrown pass. “Like trying to squeeze through a bottle neck filled with gravel.
Ansel sucked in a breath. “We going to have to. At least it will be out of the sun. I’ll lead.”
“No, I’ll lead,” Parker declared. He stepped in front of her. “I have the upper body strength to move things.”
Ansel stepped back and searched the ground, looking for anything that could be used as a walking stick. She found a sturdy ponderosa branch which had fallen from a hundred feet above and stripped the smaller, dried limbs from it.
“Use this to poke the area ahead of you. Watch for snakes, bees, wasps, spiders, and scorpions. I fossil hunt in places like this. They’re full of critters that can kill you. I’ll carry your bag.”
Parker took the limb and smiled. “Good idea.”
He went into the ravine, walking as far as he could and then stopping to push or pull away whatever blocked their travel. It wasn’t easy. Though it was shady and much cooler between the humongous, gritty walls, it was also a tight squeeze with little maneuvering room to re-arrange materials so that they could be passed, stacked out of the way, or stepped over.
Ansel went second, clearing more space wherever she could so that Dixie’s larger form could follow more easily. The anxiety of feeling hemmed in from all sides was almost overpowering. The further they walked, the more the light from behind dissipated, casting them in a shadowy, confining tunnel. Ahead, there was equally minimal light. Even looking straight up toward the open sky, which was nothing but a tiny blue strip between brown firmament, didn’t help. They were like rats in a maze.
“How long is this?” Dixie said.
“About a quarter mile. We’re halfway through.”
The ravine twisted to the right, and they rounded a curve which widened to five feet. This would have been refreshing for Ansel except she saw what the others did at the same time. Her stomach twisted. Parker stopped suddenly. When he turned to stare at her, his expression was one of exasperation. Already his long-sleeved shirt was dirt-stained and wet with sweat from all his exertions of clearing a path. The coolness without the sun couldn’t compensate for the lack of breeze inside the channel. The air was incredibly close and smelly from their rising body odors under stress.
“Shit,” Dixie exclaimed, staring at the huge, fifteen foot tall, oblong boulder completely blocking the ravine. Even if Parker somehow hoisted them up, there was still no way he could reach the top on his own afterwards. Getting down on the other side would be difficult as well. Nobody could jump it without risking a broken bone or suffering some internal injury.
Parker leaned against the wall. “I can’t move that.”
Ansel looked at her watch. It had taken them an hour to traverse this far. She was hungry and very thirsty. A bad sign. She’d eaten no breakfast. The last time she’d even had liquids was the night before when she’d had two Cokes with the Black Angus takeout. Her own clothes were ringing with sweat and the urge to strip off some clothing was like a kicking mule inside her head, but she knew that keeping her body covered with loose clothing was better for cooling her body than no clothing at all.
She licked her dry lips before speaking. “Going back is not an option. We need to get out of here and find water. We’ll push it over. All three of us.”
Dixie dropped her duffel. “That’s going to be a tight fit, us in the same few feet of space. I guess we could go high, low, lower and all get our hands against it.”
“We don’t know what’s on the other side,” Parker pointed out. “It may not go over even if we have enough leverage to push it.”
Ansel set down the briefcase and his duffel. “Let’s find out.”
He nodded and tossed his walking stick behind Dixie. “All right. I’ll go high. You go in the middle, Dixie. Ansel, you’re low.”
They bunched up together against the backside of the rock and took positions at different levels. Parker asked them if they were ready and then counted to three. They pushed with everything they had for almost thirty grueling seconds, sweaty hands slipping against the stone surface and feet sliding or digging into the dirt on the ravine floor. The rock wobbled fiercely, then settled back in place with a crunching finality.
“Stop,” Parker yelled. Ansel sat on her rump and Dixie fell back against the cliff wall, panting heavily. “Nice try, but it isn’t going to work. Any other ideas?” He sat down on the ground beside Ansel and leaned back against the wall, face flushed with heat.
“I don’t suppose you packed any rope,” Ansel said with a grim smile. It felt good to rest, and she wished she could just lay down and sleep for a while.
Parker laughed. “No, I saved the space for my six-pack of spring water.”
Dixie smiled for the first time. “Anybody bring a ladder? We could just shoot right up and over that old rock.”
“Or some dynamite so we cou
ld just blow it out of the way,” Ansel said. She saw Parker’s strange look. “What?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said.
“Dynamite?” Dixie wondered aloud.
“No. Making a ladder. We’ve got plenty of old timber around here.”
Ansel’s face turned serious. “And rolls of gauze and tape in the medical kit for lashing the cross pieces. Or we could use bark strips from shrubs and fallen limbs if it came down to it.”
Parker stood up, suddenly energized. “I’ll collect the larger logs. Dixie can get the small crossbars. You get the lashing materials, Ansel.”
The next hour was spent slowly accumulating the raw materials for the ladder. Parker had to walk back through the ravine a ways, but he came back with two near ten-foot lengths of sturdy pine logs about three inches in diameter. Dixie collected a few thick limbs of fallen spruce and broke them into fifteen inch pieces. The white medical tape worked well as a first lashing material to connect cross limbs to the log sides. It was strong and very hard to tear. The corner ties were further strengthened by using gauze strips.
Ansel was the most proficient at doing the final strengthening of the lashings by using peeled strips of scrub bark and timber hitches she’d learned to used on the Arrowhead for joining broken fence boards to posts when staples weren’t available. Another hour and they were ready to lift the impromptu ladder up against the boulder.
Parker easily positioned the ladder and grabbed his duffel bag. “I’ll go first. If it holds me, it will hold you two.”
Ansel and Dixie held the leg struts steady for him, and he climbed quickly up the rungs, careful not to let his weight settle too long on any one cross limb. The ladder was five feet short of the boulder top, but easily reached by stepping on the top rung. Parker pulled himself up and stood on the boulder, arms outstretched to steady himself on the cliff walls.
“There’s nothing on the other side except some scrub brush. Lift the ladder up to me. I’ll position it on the other side and get down, then tip it back over the top to you. Use it to come up one at a time, and I’ll help get you down again.”
Ansel and Dixie lifted the ladder up so Parker could grab the highest rung and pull it up enough to let it see-saw over the flattened boulder top. A few seconds later, he turned around to face them and stepped down onto the ladder. He disappeared from view as he descended. After calling that he was down safely, the ladder top was pushed up and over the boulder again, sliding down so that Ansel could grab it and reposition it again.
Dixie went up next carrying her duffel. She repeated Parker’s previous ascent onto the boulder. Ansel lifted the ladder up to her and Dixie pulled on it enough to swing it past her and down to Parker. When she had descended, the ladder was pushed over again once last time.
Ansel grabbed the descending ladder end and carefully steadied it against the boulder for her own ascent. She realized that in order to get the ladder up behind her, she’d have to tie something on the top rung so that she could pull it up to her the last five feet and over the boulder top. There was just enough gauze left. She stooped to grab the cotton roll on the ground when the loud snapping sound of trampled foliage echoed behind her.
Ansel froze, disbelieving but knowing that her ears weren’t wrong. The noise of footsteps on rock and breaking brush was undeniable. Somebody was coming down the ravine straight at her. Panic spurred her into action. She yanked the last long strip of gauze off the cardstock spindle, grabbed the briefcase, and went up the ladder as quickly as she could in her long skirt. When she was high enough to reach the top rung, she fumbled with the gauze, one hand through the briefcase handle loops, and hastily tied a double knot. Behind her she heard a man cough.
“Ansel, where are you?” called Parker.
Damn. Ansel turned to look behind her. Several yards away, a pale, red-haired man quickly rounded the ravine curve and stared at her in amazement. He carried a shotgun in his right hand. It was Rusty, and she could see by his expression that he now knew exactly who she was. Surprise and equal disbelief that he’d met her once before and hadn’t recognized her as Chase Phoenix’s daughter twisted his face into a wide-mouthed scowl. She bolted up the ladder, gauze in one hand, case in the other, and practically jumped up onto the boulder.
Without preamble, she tossed the briefcase down to Parker who was gazing up at her quizzically. Then she yanked on the gauze and the ladder rose. Out the corner of her eye, she saw that Cyrus was running toward her, intent on grabbing the ladder. She couldn’t let him get it. The boulder was the only thing standing between him and their lives.
Ansel latched onto the top rung and jerked it roughly off the ground. Cyrus bellowed his anger as he half ran and half stumbled across the rocky earth in an effort to foil her. The ladder came up smoothly, almost beyond his reach, but he jumped for it and managed to catch the left leg with his free hand.
“Give me that.” He yanked the ladder with a maniacal brute force.
Somehow she managed to hold onto it without being pulled off the boulder. She grabbed the next rung down and then the next, and used her own strength to pull and pivot the middle of the ladder onto the boulder. Gravity won out and the ladder tipped toward Parker and Dixie on the other side, effectively slamming Rusty’s arm with the resulting change in angle. He yelped and let go. Ansel let the ladder fall down freely, hoping Parker would catch it and get it instantly ready for her to descend.
“Get down here,” Parker ordered, realizing that she was in serious trouble.
Ansel started down. Below her, Rusty had recovered and was sighting his shotgun at her chest. “I should have killed you the first time, bitch,” he sputtered. Then he pulled the trigger.
Ansel’s feet skipped a rung as she hopped downward and ducked at the same time. She barely slipped behind the boulder before the shotgun blast deafened her. A wash of hot air jetted over her head and hundreds of shotgun pellets hit the bluff wall to her left. Parker pulled her off the ladder and to the ground as rock shards rained down on them, and the smell of gunpowder fouled the ravine. Flynn’s curses of frustration filled the air next as he stormed around on the other side, pounding on the rock with the shotgun butt and tearing up bushes in a tantrum.
Parker helped Ansel further to her feet. “What the hell is going on?”
Ansel took a moment to catch her breath. “It’s Cyrus Flynn. He came up behind me.”
“Flynn? The copter must have come back and dropped him off to flush us out. Now we know that they’re poachers. We’ve got to hurry. The pilot will be waiting for us on the other end if Flynn gets back to him and tells him we got away.” Parker turned to reach for his duffel bag, but it was gone. Ansel followed his strident gaze.
Dixie stood several yards away. Parker’s unzipped bag lay at her feet. Pointing Outerbridge’s Magnum at both of them with one hand and clutching the agent’s brief case with the other, Dixie displayed her usual toothesome smile.
“Either of you Lovebirds move and you’ll be feeding the buzzards.”
Chapter 32
“There is a hole at the end of a thief’s path.”
Lakota
“I heard that Captain McKenzie gave you a FLEAT enema when you got back from Billings this afternoon,” Odie said. He steered the dusty sedan toward Cyrus’ house.
Reid grimaced at the parodied acronym used by officers which described a “Federal Law Enforcement Ass Thrashing.” Agent Broderick had complained to McKenzie about their public match-off, and his boss had gleefully run a goal with it up his end zone, so to speak.
Mckenzie’s Imperial Commandments were predictable. Thou shalt never pull a stunt like that again with a BLM official. Thou shalt never bring personal grievances into homicide investigations. Thou shalt be condemned to a suspension hell without pay if thou disobeys any of the above.
The fact that he’d found Cullen Flynn’s vehicle, connected Cyrus to the sheriff’s disappearance, exposed Jessie Frost as a poacher, and learned the truth about Operation Drag
on and the mafia connection hadn’t figured into McKenzie’s gratitude factor.
“I’m steeping in my own regrets,” Reid said. “Can’t you tell?”
“Well, at least you’ll enjoy the next few hours.”
Reid cast a pleased glance at Odie as they rode up the dirt driveway. A deputy sheriff’s car followed behind. He’d waited for this moment for the last two hours The search warrant in his left hand, authorized by Judge Elizabet Ottey, empowered him to take some constructive action. The paper allowed him to locate Cyrus’ car and to search it, as well as to search the residence for any evidence which might give them information about Cullen’s whereabouts.
It hadn’t hurt that Frost was cooling his heels in a Billings hospital after surgery to remove the bullet in his shoulder and had a criminal record as well. Though the stockyard foreman wasn’t talking, his association with operation director Carigliano, who in turn was linked to mafia contacts, made the possible threat to Cullen Flynn’s life even more pressing. Judge Ottey was Cullen’s friend and after reading Reid’s request for a search affidavit, she signed the warrant in less than a minute.
The drive was empty. The windows were firmly shut. “Nobody home,” Odie surmised.
“No surprise. Guess who rents this house to Cyrus.”
“Frost?”
“Close. Carigliano. We need to find a gun or drugs. Let’s toss it good.”
Reid and Odie went up the disintegrating steps. The deputies trailed behind wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying their guns ready. After knocking on the door and announcing their intentions to enter with a search warrant, Reid turned and nodded at the uniforms.
A stocky young officer, still smaller than Odie and ironically named Samson, stepped up and gave the doorknob plate a couple of good kicks. The ugly green door whipped open and slammed against the interior. A putrid smell composed of rotten food, a backed-up toilet, and other unidentifiable smells flew at them like a hot, invisible wall.
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