by Jeff Carson
“You can do it sheriff! Waaahooo!” Margaret Hitchens’s voice was easily picked out of the silence.
Wolf tried again, missing the mark one more time, and then again. This time the toss was good, but he was late pulling the slack.
“You gotta flatten your toss!” MacLean said.
Wolf chuckled to himself as he reeled in the rope. I’ve gotta flatten your face.
Amid a deafening uncomfortable silence, Wolf missed again.
“All right,” MacLean declared. “I’ll take the heels. You got the head.”
Ah. Okay. Easy enough, Wolf thought. He felt like he was thirteen all over again, tossing a rope at a wooden dummy with his father barking at him.
“Okay, you got this!” Deputy Rachette started a renewed wave of banter. “Come on, Sheriff!”
“Yay, Sheriff Wolf!”
Wolf took a deep breath, twirled the rope above his head, this time keeping a nice bend in his elbow with each revolution. He picked an easy target: a calf that was standing still, unobstructed in the confusion of moving cattle.
The rope hit the rear half of the animal and dropped to the ground.
MacLean laughed. “Okay, let’s give back the pros their horses. We could be here all day!”
Wolf ignored him. He whipped back the rope and stretched the loop out, twirled it over his head twice and tossed it. Sailing through the air, the loop went over the head of a brown-and-white spotted calf and landed around its neck. He pulled back, tightening the slack, and then wrapped the rope around the saddle horn. He steered his horse the opposite way, whipping the calf around and presenting the hind legs to MacLean.
“Hey! Now we’re talkin’!” MacLean yelled.
A split second later, Wolf’s rope yanked back incredibly hard—too hard—almost sending him off the saddle as the Mustang twisted back. At that second, he saw the calf in the air, both hind legs securely roped and pulled back, the animal poised to land on its side.
“Whoa!” Wolf pulled up on the reins, but too late—the calf was stretched inhumanely thin, and just when Wolf thought he had ripped the animal in half, the Mustang stopped and backed up a few steps.
MacLean wasted no time turning and dragged the calf backwards towards the men with the branding iron.
Wolf followed, keeping total slack in his rope, more than a little relieved that the calf was struggling against the tow.
As the men branded the calf, MacLean sat tall with a self-satisfied grin plastered on his face.
Once again, Wolf felt bested by this man, in an arena he was unfamiliar with.
Being appointed sheriff of Sluice County, just like Hal Burton before him, and Wolf’s father before Burton, Wolf had never had to pander to the masses, never had to act a part; he’d simply shown up for work and done the best job he could.
Now that the smaller Sluice County was merging with its neighbor to the south, Byron, things were changing. Big time. Down in Rocky Points, just a block and a half from the station, a three-story monstrosity of a municipal building and new sheriff’s office, complete with state-of-the-art jail cells in the basement, was going up in record time. And with the new structure came something even bigger. An election. And a campaign. Multiple campaigns, because the people of the newly formed Sluice–Byron County were voting not only for a sheriff but for other seats in the new county government too.
It was now spring and the election would be held in mid-summer by special order of the governor of Colorado. With the political atmosphere like a mosh pit at a thrash-metal concert, Sheriff Will MacLean seemed to be at home amid the chaos.
Wolf wondered just how MacLean planned on cutting and pasting all this video footage, what exactly he was going to do with all these photos.
No doubt something awe-inspiring, just like the rest of the man’s campaign for sheriff had been thus far.
Wolf felt no awkwardness when it came to mountain living. But the pixels captured through those lenses said otherwise. That’s all that mattered. The airtime on television that MacLean’s campaign could buy would undoubtedly show the people otherwise.
“And that,” Margaret Hitchens yelled, “is Sheriff Wolf’s attitude towards his job in action. Never give up! Never give up!”
A lone whistle pierced a smattering of applause.
Wolf felt his face go red as he jumped down and handed over the reins.
“Sheriff Wolf!”
Rachette had his cowboy hat off, waving it in the air with one hand and holding a radio in the other.
Deputy Patterson stood next to him with excitement painted on her face, and not because of the recent action. She held her radio, too.
“What’s up?” he asked as he reached the fence line.
Patterson climbed two slats of the fence and leaned toward him.
“We have a dead body,” she said. “Correction: almost a dead body.”
Chapter 2
Rubber boat fenders squeaked against the wood of the marina docks as wake waves rolled in.
Wolf raised his face to the sun, letting it inject some warmth into his skin while the breeze sucked it away. He knew the lake had been named for a temperature inversion found at roughly fifty feet beneath the surface of the water, but as he zipped his jacket to his chin he thought that Cold Lake was living up to its namesake.
Taking a deep inhale through his nose, he whiffed gasoline, vinyl seats, and dead fish, a combination that brought back memories of bass fishing with his father.
Lime green in color, the boat in front of him was nothing flashy, just a middle-of-the-line family model with a powerful outboard motor that five to ten grand could buy. What lay inside on the stern floor, however, was anything but ordinary.
The hypnotic movement of the sphere in the black plastic bag slowed as the wake of the passing boat dissipated. Then a combination of waves lifted the back end and rolled the bag over for an instant, revealing a mouth and nose through a tear in the plastic.
Rachette let out a soft whistle.
Stepping off the dock and onto the rear seat, Patterson snapped on her rubber gloves. She was five foot one and a year younger than Rachette, and she had a granite physique that was maintained with strict diet and exercise. Unlike Rachette’s stocky build, she was thin and wiry. As she moved with quick precision, the boat barely swayed under her negligible weight.
With wide blue eyes and bobbed dark hair, she was the definition of cute, and could lull the opposite sex into leering, but as Wolf watched her grip the plastic bag without hesitation and look inside the rip, he, just like everyone who met Heather Patterson, was reminded of the fearless fire within.
The teeth within the disembodied head were yellow, unnaturally large-looking from receding gums. The lips were like mangled worms, and the nose was snow white and waxy, like it had melted flat against the face.
Rachette stepped into the boat after Patterson, keeping his distance with his second step.
Wolf turned at the sound of boots coming down the dock.
Sheriff MacLean stepped next to him and watched Patterson work.
“Eye sockets look mutilated,” she said. “Gouged with a knife.”
“Jesus.” Rachette backed into the space next to the driver’s seat.
“That’s beyond disturbing.” MacLean zoned out for a moment and turned to Wolf. “Listen. I’ve got a thing tonight. Congressman. Attorney General. Commissioner. DA. I can have Lancaster stay if you need, get another few deputies up here.”
Lancaster stood motionless behind his boss, a head taller than MacLean, clearly staring down at Patterson’s backside and not the grotesque item she was prodding.
“No thanks,” Wolf said.
MacLean shrugged and then squinted one eye. “Deputy Patterson, right? And Rachette?”
“Yes, sir.” Rachette nodded politely.
Patterson nodded and snapped some photos with her Nikon DSLR camera.
“You two are going to be interviewing for the new Sheriff’s Department next month, correct?”<
br />
“You two carry on.” Wolf stepped backwards and walked up the dock toward the marina. “MacLean, Lancaster, follow me, please.”
“I’ll see you later, Deputies,” MacLean said, taking his time turning and walking after Wolf.
Lancaster trailed his eyes up and down Patterson one more time and walked after his boss.
Wolf escorted them under the tape and over to their SUV, which sat in the newly paved parking lot of the lake marina.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bully my deputies.”
MacLean frowned and took off his sunglasses. “Bully? I’m not bullying your deputies. I’m trying to open a discussion with them about their future. I would think you might be open to that.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Wolf looked at Lancaster. “And you: Deputy Patterson is a fifth-degree black belt, so you keep letting those dead eyes of yours wander like that and I can’t guarantee your safety.”
Lancaster nodded with a sneer.
“And Sheriff, the election hasn’t happened yet,” Wolf said. “The Sluice–Byron County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t even exist for another month. You might want to remember that. You guys have a nice fundraiser tonight.”
Wolf patted him on the shoulder.
MacLean looked down at the spot Wolf had touched, smiled and put his sunglasses back on. “Have you heard about my event?”
“The fundraiser? The one you just told me about on the dock?” The lake they stood next to, though being the third largest in Colorado, could not contain Will MacLean’s ego.
“I was serious back there. I have Congressman Blake coming. Commissioner Heller, the retiring commissioner of your county.” MacLean ticked off his fingers. “The DA. The ADA. Your old boss, Burton, he’s confirmed.”
The last name stung Wolf. But he figured if Burton was going, it was for the Scotch and food, not for support.
“If you’d like to join reality and come down to Ashland tonight, it’s going to be quite a party. I sent you an invitation.”
Wolf turned and walked away.
“See you Monday night,” MacLean called after him. “Hope you can prepare all those talking points with all this new action going on.”
Wolf sucked in a calming breath with little success.
Chapter 3
“Here.” Oliver Chevalier tapped his fish-finder screen and pulled back the throttle. “This is the spot.”
The boat coasted, riding up as the wake passed underneath it, and then bobbed in the water. Wolf’s ears rang in the relative silence of the idling motor and his skin tingled as the cold rushing air became warm and still.
“Right here.” Oliver looked pale. “You can see the depth change underneath us. Starts at one hundred and thirty feet, give or take, then it drops off to three hundred feet plus.” Oliver tipped a paper cup vertical and sucked down the last drops of his coffee, then poured another helping from his metal thermos with shaking hands.
Wolf gazed at the screen, seeing the precipitous drop off underneath them. He rubbed his hands together to build warmth.
“Should have felt it this morning,” Oliver said. “It was damn cold. Every year you forget how cold it still is, all the way into June.”
“Where did you pull up the bag?” Wolf asked.
Oliver Chevalier shivered and shut his eyes. “Yes. Sorry. We were trawling the deep parts with this downrigger. Looking to catch some lake trout. Caught one”—he raised his eyebrows—“big. Huge. And then later, I snagged something, and I realized I’d run too far. I knew I’d probably snagged the boulders where it turns shallow. Then I turned around and pulled up that bag. Billy was makin’ fun of me about it. He grabbed it and brought it in, and then he dropped it and started yelling. I still remember that sound. A head dropping into the boat.”
Oliver stopped talking and took another sip of coffee. He set the cup down, walked to the front of the boat, knelt on the cushion and vomited over the side. The loud grunt of his expulsion echoed off rock cliffs looming over the western shoreline in the distance.
“Oooookay,” Patterson said, turning towards Wolf and Rachette.
Wolf studied the fish finder. “You come here a lot?”
Oliver wiped his mouth. “Yeah, the boulders are a marker for me and Jed. We usually start here and troll north and south. It’s our spot.”
The screen of the sonar device was split, with a multicolored image sliding by on the left, and a black-and-white image on the right. “Can you tell me what we’re looking at here, Oliver?”
Oliver looked over at him and wiped his chin. He wobbled over and leaned over the display.
Wolf caught a whiff of Oliver and held his breath.
“Bottom’s at one hundred thirty-four feet indicated by that number—you can see the boulders there—then the bottom drops out from under at that bright-white patch. They say it goes down to four hundred plus feet. The down-imager won’t go that deep. This right here is the lowest point between that island,” Oliver pointed to a low-forested island to the east, “and the shore there.” He pointed to the west to the cliffs.
“So you thought you snagged one of those boulders?” Wolf tapped the screen.
Oliver stood up and nodded. “Well, yeah. Had to be. There’s nothin’ else down there. Of course, it wasn’t a boulder.” He lunged back to the front of the boat and bent over, his grunts echoing once again.
Wolf, Rachette, and Patterson huddled in the back of the boat and Wolf studied the surrounding landscape. To the east was a wooded island the size of a football field. Opposite the island to the west, there was a steep wooded embankment with a line of cliffs above that that stretched to the north and south. The granite cliff line varied in steepness, and the cabins on the rugged shore hugged the back of their properties up to the precipice. Wooden staircases zigged and zagged down the rocks, teetering on stilts, down to the shore where docks jutted out into the water. Behind it all, thousands of acres of virgin forest and snow-veined rocky peaks shone in the mid-morning sun.
Rachette lowered his voice and tapped the screen. “Yeah. I hope those are boulders.”
Chapter 4
“What are you guys going to do for jobs?” The search-and-rescue rookie talking to Rachette was grating on Deputy Heather Patterson’s nerves.
“Do you have to re-apply?” Tall, muscular physique, and a nice set of eyes, the guy was cute and meant well, but he was poking the bear. Either he was a quasi-moron or he knew what he was doing and trying to rile them up, and that made him an asshole.
No, Patterson thought. The guy was a dumbass rookie who didn’t know when to shut up. The apologetic glance from his superior told her as much.
“Yep. Gonna have to re-apply,” Rachette answered, unfazed by the guy’s upfront question. “Bullshit. But necessary bullshit, I guess. They say there should be minimal cuts. I’m confident we’ll have our jobs in the end.”
“Good luck,” the rookie continued. “My sister works for the town of Rocky Points and she says that MacLean’s a real dick, but he’s gonna win. I guess he’s been coming into town, walking around like he already runs it. Made my sister get him a cup of coffee across the street, like she was some sort of—”
“Can we talk about something else?” Patterson glared.
The rookie blinked. “Yeah. Sure.”
Patterson turned and looked at Sheriff Wolf sitting out in one of the ASIS rigid inflatable boats.
Her boss stared at the western coastline in deep thought, up at one of the houses on the cliffs. She followed his eyes to the house on the hill, and then ran her eyes alongshore left to the next property, which must have been a good half-mile away to the south. Then she looked past it to a bend, where the tip of a dock protruded from the shoreline pines, aluminum edges gleaming in the sun.
Patterson took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The fishy lake air smelled exhilarating. She’d always liked spending time near or on freshwater, whether kayaking the Roaring Fork near Aspen growing up, or the time s
he’d spent right here at Cold Lake, waterskiing behind her uncle’s boat. The sound of lapping waves against boat hulls triggered memories of fishing with her father, uncle, and brothers. The whooshing air against her face on the boat ride over had triggered vivid memories of sitting next to her late grandfather, who used to sit on top of the chair back and let his wispy comb-over flap in the breeze. She remembered doing the same, peeking over the glass, the wind rushing up her nose and over her hair.
“Hey, uh, Deputy?” Oliver Chevalier cleared his throat. “I really have to use the bathroom. Like. Now. Number two.”
Patterson opened her eyes.
“Hey, Sheriff?” Rachette said into his radio. “We gotta take Mr. Chevalier in.”
Wolf looked over and held up a thumb. “Okay, let’s get someone to take him into the marina in his boat. Whoever does can stay on shore and wait.”
“Copy that.” Rachette looked at Patterson with raised eyebrows.
She nodded at the rookie. “You take him in. We’ll stay here.” Her tone left no room for arguing.
The Sheriff’s Department fleet boat pulled alongside Oliver’s boat, and as Patterson and Rachette climbed onto the solid 1987 model equipped with two powerful outboards, Patterson felt like her legs were shaking. She realized it was her racing thoughts. It was what Rachette and the rookie had been talking about—their uncertain future.
Because it was clear as day. In the end, Sheriff David Wolf was not going to win the upcoming election for sheriff of the merged counties. Her Aunt Margaret had told her as much in confidence. But it was no secret, not to anyone. Wolf was dead in the water.
She looked back at Wolf. He was staring again at the lake’s edge, immersed in the case, on another dimensional plane. She’d seen him look like that before, and it was a sight to see. A formidable sight at times. She’d never witnessed such sheer determination in anyone. But in the two years she’d been on the force, she’d also seen that he was a ruthless realist when he needed to be. That is, he was quick to see when determination became delusion, and he would act accordingly, with sometimes dizzying speed to cut losses.