Primal Threat

by Earl Emerson

  “I agree,” said Giancarlo.

  “I also vote that we’re not morons,” said Zak, facetiously.

  Stephens added, “You’re absolutely right. That is…Well, after all, bicycles don’t set off sparks. Everybody knows…I mean rules like this are, uh, to keep out the vast majority of the public, because they know if they let everybody up there on a dry weekend like this…I’m sure you’ll all agree, uh, there’ll be a certain percentage of the population who don’t obey anybody’s rules, and of course, as we’ve all discussed before, at least Morse and I have, all it takes is one.”

  Zak was beginning to remember Stephens from a ride they’d been on together the previous year. In his late forties, he was two years younger than Muldaur, and he had a way of stammering out his thoughts as if English were a second language. In his own clumsy way he was fond of repeating important points others had stated, but at a torturously slower pace than the original speaker. It was almost as if he thought something hadn’t been said until he said it himself. Muldaur once said, “I always wondered where the center of the universe was, and then I met Steve Stephens and realized he was it.” Cruel, but there was a core of truth to the remark.

  “It’s a very dry forest,” said Giancarlo Barrett. At 220 pounds, six feet three inches tall, Giancarlo had climbed Mount Rainier half a dozen times and had done STP, the Seattle to Portland bike ride, eleven years in a row. He and Zak had been friends since drill school six years earlier, and Zak was the best man at his wedding. “The weather guys said it was going to be dry and hotter into next week. More danger of fires. This’ll be our best window.”

  “I’m going,” Muldaur said.

  Giancarlo turned on his impish grin. “I’m going too, then.”

  They would be riding north along the face of the mountain, circumnavigating it and other sheer peaks, pedaling up into a series of low, rolling hills that stretched into the northern part of western Washington. It was an area frequented by fishermen looking to be alone, loggers, mushroom gatherers, dope smugglers, and bear hunters.

  A sign cautioned travelers that the road stretched twenty-six miles on gravel before ending, though Stephens assured everyone it was possible to ride mountain bikes all the way to the small town of Snohomish on Highway 2. But that wasn’t where they were headed. They would trek five miles into the hills and then turn east into the real foothills. The first climb after they crossed the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River would gain four thousand feet of elevation.

  The plan was to scout for a couple of hours on the rolling county roads and then climb halfway up the side of the Cascades to a camping spot at Panther Creek, where Stephens had paid to have a local man stash their gear. Framed by the summer twilight, they would have a splendid view of Seattle and Bellevue and the Olympic Mountains eighty miles away.

  They would spend the first two nights on the western side of the Cascades and then thread their way along hiking trails and back roads until they traversed the Cascade Crest Trail and descended into Salmon La Sac, a small tourist town in central Washington.

  They were carrying only rudimentary repair kits for their bicycles, CamelBak water bags, GU packets, Clif Bars, sunglasses, and other necessities: traveling as light as a body could travel in these mountains. At the finish they would savor a Mexican dinner in Salmon La Sac with a couple of the wives, who would caravan across Snoqualmie Pass to meet them on Sunday afternoon.

  The part Zak liked best was that there would be no cell phones, no GPS finders, and except for their bikes no appurtenances of the modern age. For one weekend they would be largely independent of modern amenities, knights errant jousting with one another on the climbs, racing down the miles-long descents at breakneck speeds, roaming a section of the Northwest where they were unlikely to see another human being for at least three days.

  3

  They rode easily on the five miles of pavement that preceded the first climb into Weyerhaeuser property. Traffic in the upper Snoqualmie Valley was sparse, and the sunbaked tarmac roads gave off heat in waves they could see. In front of them to the east were the low, rolling green foothills of the Cascades they would soon be climbing.

  The road pointed north with the sheer, rocky base of the foothills to their right and a series of low, forested hills to their left. Even though the Northwest had been suffering a drought for months, the stark green of the foothills never faded. They passed a Christmas tree farm and a few isolated houses. Then, while they were still on the paved road, four teenagers in a Honda sped past, honking and shouting. Muldaur, who was in the front next to Barrett, turned around with a smile and said, “None of that shit where we’re going.”

  “No sirree,” said Morse. “Nothing but bears, coyotes, and deer-shit.”

  Morse was a jolly man, repeatedly cracking impromptu jokes and launching into witty wordplay. The three firemen took to him and his self-deprecating sense of humor immediately, which was ironic because he didn’t seem too concerned whether people liked him or not, in stark contrast with Stephens who worked overtime to make friends without accomplishing a whole lot. Zak tried to recall if he’d ever met anybody who wanted to be an integral part of the crowd as badly as Stephens did.

  Muldaur, the oldest rider and arguably the fittest, wasn’t going to let anybody beat him to the top of a mountain if he could help it; Zak felt the same. Certainly Stephens, who had been a national champion runner in college, wasn’t going to be outshone if he had any say in it. Giancarlo Barrett was tough but too heavy to be competitive on these long climbs. Morse would be at the back of the pack, and he made no bones about it. “Just wait for me, guys. I may be slow, but I’ll make up for it by eating and drinking more than my share.”

  As they rode, Stephens dropped back and rode alongside Zak, attempting to be friendly, giving him encouraging words about how it wasn’t going to be “that hard.” Apparently he thought that because Zak was at the back, he was having a tough time keeping up. Stephens was six feet tall, almost the same as Zak, though built heavier, with pale skin he protected via gobs of sunscreen slapped on like paste. Zak learned as they talked that they’d been to many of the same biking events in years past: STP, Seattle to Portland; the Tour de Blast up Mount St. Helens to the observatory; and RAMROD, the one-day ride around Mount Rainier, 154 miles that included ten thousand feet of climbing. Like Muldaur, Stephens was in incredible shape, considering he was almost twenty years older than Zak and Giancarlo. Muldaur had the newest bike and, oddly enough, Stephens, who was the wealthiest, rode the oldest. Stephens also wore the tattiest clothing, most of it musty racing gear that was ten or fifteen years old. Zak wondered why a man would keep four luxury vehicles in his driveway, a speedboat, a new motor home, motorcycles, and Jet Skis—but then wear a cycling jersey that looked as if it had been in the doghouse.

  At the point where the pavement ended, a sign was nailed to a tree. FIRE DANGER. UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE ALL WEYERHAEUSER PROPERTY NORTH OF THIS POINT WILL BE OFF LIMITS TO HIKERS, CAMPERS, HORSEMEN, AND MOTORIZED VEHICLES.

  “Doesn’t say anything about cyclists, does it?” Zak said.

  “Typically,” Stephens said, “they post a twenty-four-hour guard. But I don’t see him.” A steel gate had been swung across the road, and alongside the gate on a level piece of ground sat a black Ford Bronco coated in dust so thick, the windshield looked opaque.

  “I don’t see a guard,” Muldaur whispered.

  “I don’t see a guard,” Zak repeated as he dismounted and lifted his bike over the gate.

  One by one the others followed. “I don’t see a guard,” said Morse, his voice softer than the others.

  “Do you see a guard?” asked Giancarlo.

  “Obviously…well, I mean, he’s probably asleep in the Bronco, wouldn’t you imagine?” Stephens asked, spoiling the joke for everyone.

  As they rode up the steep hill and pedaled out of sight, they kept waiting for somebody to call them back, but all they heard was the soft crunch of tires in the dirt and the strong, h
ot wind blowing intermittent tornadoes of dust the height of theater curtains in front of them. The late-afternoon sun pounded their backs, and the heat flowing from the woods seemed almost too humid to inhale.

  “It’s going to be great,” Muldaur said, speaking to no one in particular. “The whole area’s closed off, so we won’t have to worry about cars.”

  Less than ten minutes later, after they’d gotten off the steepest part of the road and onto a rolling section, Zak sprinted from the rear to the front of the group. “Car back,” said Zak. “Car back.”

  “It’s probably the guard,” said Muldaur. “Maybe we should duck into the woods.”

  “I’m not hiding,” said Giancarlo. “If he wants to throw us out, let him have at it.”

  They’d passed two gravel pits, a section of younger trees interspersed with hundreds of tall foxgloves gone to seed, and now were riding through a mature section of Douglas fir. If they were quick about it, they could conceal themselves in the woods alongside the road, and if they hiked far enough into the trees, they would avoid both the afternoon sun and the dust that coated everything within thirty yards of the road.

  “The speed these guys are traveling,” Zak said, “they’re going to bury us in dust.”

  “There’s more than one?” Morse asked, gasping for breath.

  “At least two. Maybe three. Hear them?”

  Traveling close to sixty and towing a gigantic plume of dust, the first vehicle, a white Land Rover, passed them on a section of small rolling hills. The fine-grained silt was light enough that even their bicycle tires were kicking it up, and when Zak looked down at his legs, his socks were tan with it. As the Land Rover overtook them, the air became saturated with a brown haze. Zak took a huge gulp of clean air and tried to hold his breath. In the miasma that was being created, the following vehicles had no way of knowing they were passing five bicyclists. It would be a miracle if one or more of them wasn’t run down, crushed, or annihilated without the drivers even knowing they’d hit anything. One or more of them would be hit and dragged for a quarter mile. Any second. There was no escape. To Zak’s mind, the actions of the first driver were criminal, the most reckless and infuriating driving he had encountered in a long time.

  What saved their lives was Muldaur shouting “This way” as he bounced off the road, across a shallow ditch, over a log, and into the woods. All four riders followed in the nick of time as more vehicles roared past, four in all.

  4

  August

  William Potter III’s entire life was blessed with luck, starting from the moment twenty years earlier when he’d dropped into the arms of the most expensive obstetrician in the state, and continuing as he rolled out of his playpen into the lap of a trust fund his grandfather set up for him and his sister, a fund that meant neither of them would ever work a day in their lives if they didn’t want to. Scooter, as he was affectionately known to friends and family, had decided a long time ago that only suckers worked for money. Sissie had taken a different tack and was in medical school, but he figured that would wear off.

  Scooter squandered his time in high school partying and getting drunk, and after the family pulled strings to get him into Columbia, he ceased studying and even quit cheating on tests somewhere in his sophomore year—and eventually flunked out. His folks were furious, but what did he need school for? So he could translate his quarterly stock portfolio statements into English? He’d been explaining the paperwork to his parents since he was fourteen. To fill out his tax forms? He’d had a private accountant since he was twelve. Scooter understood finances, and when you understood finances everything else in life fell into place without a whole lot of exertion.

  They’d trekked up I-90 to North Bend, four vehicles carrying five of Scooter’s best friends along with one of their girlfriends, Jennifer. Scooter was riding in the Porsche Cayenne with Kasey Newcastle, his best buddy since second grade, when they were both enrolled in the Bush private school. This year alone they’d taken two trips to Mexico and one off the Washington coast in the Newcastle family boat. Scooter couldn’t imagine not being best friends with Kasey. Hell, they were going to be family once Scooter settled down and married Kasey’s sister, Nadine.

  In North Bend they spotted a few cyclists, but no large groups and none riding mountain bikes. After driving around for an hour looking for their quarry, they regrouped at Scott’s Dairy Freeze and had a flustered lunch trying to figure out where Zak and his buddies might be mountain biking for three days. Scooter had hatched the scheme to drive up into the hills and camp out, and if they happened to intercept them—well then, that would just be their good luck, wouldn’t it?

  Even though Nadine and Zak weren’t supposed to be seeing each other anymore, during one of their semiregular phone chats Zak had told her that Thursday evening he and some friends would be riding out of North Bend and into the Cascade Mountains for three days. It burned Scooter up that she was still talking to the fireman on a daily basis, because when she broke up with him she’d done her best to cut off all communication and had at one point even threatened to get a restraining order against him. When he went over to visit Kasey, she wasn’t even civil, and it galled Scooter no end that she didn’t treat the fire dude the same way. For weeks after she told Scooter she didn’t want to see him anymore, he’d assumed she was joking. Even when he heard she was seeing the fireman, he thought it was a charade to make him jealous. By the time he realized Nadine was actually dating the guy, it was too late to reverse things. To Scooter’s way of thinking, Nadine had a simple mind, and that made her easy to manipulate, which was exactly what Zak had been doing from the moment he met her.

  North Bend was a small town with traffic backed up on the main drag for blocks in either direction. Too much of their time had already been spent in that god-awful queue, which made Scooter abhor the town even more than he did to begin with. There were a lot of junky little houses off the main drag, and a few blocks farther on somebody had made a pathetic attempt at a swank neighborhood, but Scooter had lived in Clyde Hill his whole life, and contemplating a day out here in the sticks gave him the willies.

  “Maybe they’re not all hicks,” Kasey said, once they’d grown accustomed to the dim light in the Sure Shot Tavern, where they’d gravitated after lunch. “I mean, look around. That guy in the corner nursing the beer, who looks like he’s been sleeping with pigs, sure. But check out the traffic outside. There’s a Benz. A couple of ’Vettes.”

  “’Vettes are all bought on credit, Kase. You know that.”

  The Sure Shot Tavern was a block east of the only stoplight in town, the interior filled with the aroma of suntan lotion, perfume, onion rings, and beer. Pickup trucks and SUVs shuffling along in the heat outside the door lent a whiff of exhaust to the mix. All seven of them were crowded around two tables in the tavern: the Finnigan brothers, Roger Bloomquist, Jennifer, Scooter, Kasey, and Ryan. Except for Jennifer, they’d all known each other for years, had all gone to the same private schools together. This past spring Chuck Finnigan had finished his first year at Stanford, and his brother, Fred, was slated to start this year. Kasey would be off to his third year at Columbia. It was hard to believe that for all practical purposes, everybody but Scooter would be gone in a week.

  “Look at that guy over there,” Scooter said. “Holding a fifty-dollar bill like he’s never seen one before. You think he found it on the sidewalk? Come on. Let’s go have some fun.”

  “Oh, boy,” said Chuck. On numerous occasions over the years the Finnigans found themselves sucked into crazy schemes with Kasey and Scooter, and more than once they’d had interviews with police or security personnel afterward. No matter what happened, Chuck always thought it was a grand adventure, while Fred dreaded the fiascoes.

  Jennifer tugged at her boyfriend’s arm and said, “Chuck, you be good.”

  “I’m always good, baby. You know that.”

  “Except when he’s bad,” said Fred, sulking.

  The local man wor
e a plaid work shirt, jeans that had seen better days, and the faded, angry smirk of a man who’d been trampled by life. He looked like a character actor in a CinemaScope western, his leathery skin a weathered contrast to a close-set pair of icy blue eyes.

  Scooter said, “Hey, man. You didn’t happen to find some money outside, did you? My buddy here dropped a bill.”

  “What kind of bill?”

  “To tell you the truth, it was a fifty-dollar bill. Ulysses S. Grant. My favorite drinking president. Except for the one we got now, of course.”

  “I didn’t find no money. And our president don’t drink no more.”

  “Neither do I,” Scooter said, hoisting a brew.

  “Don’t mind them,” Jennifer said, stepping forward. “They’re just trying to have some fun.”

  “She’s absolutely right,” admitted Scooter. “The truth is, I saw you with that fifty and was wondering if you could change a hundred for me.” Scooter proffered a hundred-dollar bill as crisp as the bill the man had jammed into his jeans.

  “You boys are from Bellevue, are you?” he asked without turning.

  “Clyde Hill,” Kasey said. “Hey. Let me pay for that beer.” He slid a twenty across the bar and sat down next to the older man. “You know where we can meet some women around here?”

  The local sipped from his beer, glanced at Jennifer, and said, “You lookin’ for women, are you?”

  “We’re always looking for women,” said Scooter.

  “Do you prefer the kind with teeth or the kind without?”

  They waited five long beats and then began laughing. They laughed for a while and then Kasey said, “That was a good one. I guess we deserved that.”