Gagging from the odor, he aimed the Gamma-Scout up the carcass toward the rotting, burned head. The bloat had cracked open the animal’s blackened skin with expansion, and this is where the meter’s numbers edged up slightly-the frozen, exposed flesh.
Water, Walt thought.
“Sheriff! We got company!” Brandon called down into the pit, his hand cupped so tightly over his mouth and nose that Walt barely understood him. “An ATV, maybe. Two small headlights.”
Walt set the Gamma-Scout onto the keyboard and dug around the day pack with his free hand. He came out with a hunting knife with a six-inch serrated blade of carbon steel. He hesitated only briefly before plunging the tip through the hardened shell of burned skin. The bloated carcass spit through the rent and hissed out a gas that made Walt retch.
“Christ Almighty!” Brandon complained, the stink quickly reaching him.
The meter’s readout jumped significantly, this time to dangerous levels.
“Light!” Walt called out.
Brandon, in monitoring the approaching vehicle, had neglected his responsibility. Now the light caught Walt, and the sheriff glanced down at the fresh biosensor tag he had clipped to his uniform a day earlier. The same wedge was shaded a ghostly purple, indicating additional exposure to radioactivity.
“Check your tag!” Walt hollered up from the pit.
“Shit!” Brandon said a moment later. “I’m hot.”
His voice was now overcome by the whine of the ATV’s motor.
“How close?” Walt shouted.
“A minute. Maybe less.”
“Bury the rope in the snow. Hide yourself in that slash pile.”
“Hide?”
“Now, Tommy. That’s an order!”
Walt felt the same way as his deputy: it was not in his nature to hide. But for a rancher to burn this many sheep-to throw away that kind of money-the stakes had to be extremely high. High enough to kidnap or kill? A rancher like Lon Bernie was likely to shoot first and ask questions later, and Walt had no great desire to test that theory. If Lon Bernie figured out his burned sheep had been discovered, he and Brandon might wind up buried along with them.
Walt slapped the laptop shut and zipped it and the Gamma-Scout in the day pack. He kept the pack in front of him, as he curled down into the corner of the pit, his head lower than the nearest sheep, and huddled there. The sound of the ATV grew progressively closer and louder, like the buzzing of a bee. The cold penetrated, as he held his head between his legs, offering only the back of his jacket to the night sky. Bernie would have to shine a light and look right down at him in order to see him.
The ATV arrived and quieted, its motor idling.
Out of the corner of his eye, Walt caught the light from the headlights shifting, as the driver moved the vehicle to spread the light around the edges of the pit.
Walt believed he’d discovered the boot prints behind the barn, had followed them out to the pit. So now, finding no one, Bernie had to wonder if they were fresh tracks or if a couple of his hands had come out here on foot. It was the wrong time of year to go marching around the ranch on foot. Bernie-or whoever was driving the ATV-would be trying to reconcile things.
At last, Walt heard the dry crunch of footfalls. The driver was off the ATV and heading toward the pit. Silence followed. Walt could picture the man up there, studying the pile of bloated carcasses, troubled by the sensation that all was not well. Walt had been there enough times himself: trusting his senses more than his reasoning.
He heard something unexpected: a stream of water. Lon Bernie, or whoever was up there, was urinating into the pit-not a pleasant practice in these temperatures. But then Walt’s nose took over: not urine but petroleum. Diesel fuel.
A shudder rushed through him.
The driver of the ATV had not come looking for them; he’d come to douse the pit and burn the sheep in the dead of night. With the pit dug as deeply as it was, the flames would show as no more than a glow at night, the rising black smoke not revealing itself to the distant neighbors. Only a plume would linger by daylight. Burning trash and debris was a year-round practice on any ranch. A little smoke wasn’t going to raise eyebrows. The ATV held a drum of fuel oil. It was hand pumped, and it showered onto the carcasses. None of the fuel fell directly on Walt; it was concentrated toward the pit’s center and the heaped carcasses. But it came, gallon after gallon, the stench alone enough to choke him.
And then, minutes later, the match.
The pit lit on fire all of a sudden. Diesel is a slow-burning fuel. There was no great explosion, or even a whoosh. Flame simply ran across the pile, chasing the spent fuel. The heat increased. The flesh began to pop.
Walt knew Brandon would be anxious, might ruin things by leaping to Walt’s rescue, but then the ATV’s motor whirred. And grew faint.
The rope struck Walt on his back.
“Jesus, Sheriff!”
The concentration of flames was well away from Walt, but the heat was intense and the fire was spreading. He grabbed on to the rope, placed his feet on the wall of the pit, and drew himself up and out, where Brandon offered his one good hand and pulled hard.
The ATV’s taillights receded down the access road.
“You’re out of your mind,” Brandon said, his face aglow in the light of the fire. His skin shined from the sweat of anxiety. His eyes flashed white, wide with anger that he disguised as outrage.
“I would have called for help if I’d needed it,” Walt said offhandedly.
“Jesus! How was that possibly worth it, Sheriff?” Indignant. “How is that possibly-”
Walt patted the day pack. “It was well worth it, Tommy.” He looked back at the burning heap of flesh, popping and bubbling. He was thinking about Mark Aker and how much time had passed since his abduction. He was thinking that in these temperatures fire connected one person to another, one ranch to another, one life to another, and that somewhere out there Mark Aker hopefully was near a fire just like he was. Walt’s chance of finding and rescuing Mark Aker came down to efficiency, of turning a number on a Geiger counter into hard evidence, of uncovering an evidence trail that could connect the discolored biosensor to the missing veterinarian.
He understood where that trail would start and, rising to his toes, could almost see it in the blanket of darkness that stretched for miles up this nearly uninhabited valley.
Senator James Peavy’s ranch lay just out of view.
37
MARK AKER WAS SURPRISED BY HIS OWN STRENGTH. HIS legs felt good. Adrenaline, perhaps. He walked in the snowmobile track because it was easier going. It followed what appeared to be a road, given the lack of trees and shrubs. Not only could he move faster on the track, but he was less likely to leave tracks to follow. The moon turned the snow lavender. He heard shouting behind him, coming from the cabin. Coats and Gearbox. These first few minutes were critical. They wouldn’t know where he’d gone: around back to the shed, toward the woodpile, or up the snowmobile track. They’d search for tracks leading into the woods.
It wouldn’t take them long-five minutes, maybe less-to realize he hadn’t headed into virgin snow, that he must have taken the snowmobile track. And then they’d come after him.
He’d hurt Coats badly with that burn. Would Coats stay and lick his wounds or join the hunt? The answer came immediately, as more shouting erupted behind him, and the coughing of the snowmobile trying to start rumbled through the woods.
Aker had yet to turn on the flashlight, still negotiating by the light of the moon. If he left the snowmobile track, his prints would give him away. But if he stayed, he was only minutes from being caught. He could try jumping off the track, making his first prints in the virgin snow as far off the beaten track as possible, but he knew Coats to be a professional tracker. He had to outsmart him.
Think!
At the first curve, the snowmobile track left the road and weaved through the thick forest of lodgepole pine and aspen, no doubt following a shortcut only available in win
ter months. He passed a dozen or more trees before he heard the chain-saw-like buzz of the snowmobile’s motor catching life. They’d be on him in less than a minute.
He stopped. Turned. His mind counting down the time he was wasting. Then he saw it: a branch.
The track cut incredibly close to a twisted pine that had once been struck by lightning. It was a craggy old tree with a few sparse branches low enough to the ground to reach by jumping. Aker squatted and leaped, but his gloves slid off the only branch close enough to reach. He tried again, and again, but could not grab hold.
Now the snowmobile was crying out, well under way.
He jumped a fourth time and managed to hook his hands and lace his fingers over the branch. He walked his feet up the trunk, hooked a knee over the branch, and struggled up to a sitting position. With the adrenaline spent, he was far weaker than he’d first thought. He continued to climb, following the tree’s natural ladder. Two, three, four branches up; and now, looking down, he saw only branches. He moved himself higher, and on the opposite side of the tree from the track. He straddled the branch and kept himself against the trunk.
The snowmobile’s headlight winked through the woods, as the grind of the motor drew nearer. It was traveling slowly, and now a second light was revealed: a flashlight, searching both sides of the track.
Aker caught himself holding his breath as it came into view, staying in the track. Two men. Gearbox was driving, Coats, straddling the motorcycle-style seat behind Gearbox, holding the flashlight.
The snowmobile purred up the track approaching Aker’s tree, the flashlight alternately illuminating the forest on both sides, throwing harsh shadows that moved around in a jarring dance. It continued past.
A red taillight now. Nothing more. The sound grew more and more distant.
A person on foot was no match for a snowmobile. It would only take them minutes to realize they’d missed him.
Aker climbed down out of the tree as quickly as humanly possible. He landed back on the track and took off for the cabin. He tried to run but wasn’t up to it. It seemed to take forever to reach the camp, but it was only minutes. But how long until the snowmobile returned?
Inside the cabin now-the smell of burned hair and flesh, a nauseating stink-he stole a backpack, ripped a regional map off the wall, and stuffed it and other items into the zippered compartment: canned foods, matches, a church key, can opener, saltshaker, a fork, and a kitchen knife. He snatched up the syringes from the table and took the vials of insulin and the medication Coats had used to subdue him: opiates and narcotics. A pair of wool socks hanging by the woodstove. A wool cap. He grabbed a pair of snowshoes from a peg.
The sound of the snowmobile was suddenly louder. Closer…
He’d heard the two talk about spotting a cow elk by the salt lick. That meant game, which meant a game trail to follow. Out back, he briefly risked the flashlight, the moon having hidden behind the fast-moving clouds overhead. He couldn’t find the salt lick. The unbroken snow that formed an apron beyond the shed trapped him as neatly as a fence.
Leaving any tracks would give him away.
And there, in the flashlight’s beam, came his answer: two woodpiles, one for the split logs, neatly stacked very high, and, beyond it, a pile of ten or twelve massive tree trunks, ready for cutting and splitting. Small animals had greatly disturbed the snow in and around the logs; his tracks wouldn’t be easily noticed. By daylight, they might spot his route, but, if he hurried, he could be far gone by then.
He struggled up the pile of stacked wood, winded and weak. He fumbled his way over it and fell to the other side. Next, he took two great leaps in succession and reached the pile of felled trees. He clambered over this pile as well, the whine of the snowmobile fast approaching.
In all, he’d left but two prints in the deep snow, between the stacked wood and felled trees, both hidden by the woodpile itself. He crept under a tree’s snow-laden branches and out to the other side. Crawled under the branches of the next tree, to hide his tracks. He was at least twenty yards from the shed now.
The snowmobile’s engine coughed to silence. Coats shouted: “Fuck this! He can’t be far!”
Aker strapped on the snowshoes. His pursuers searched the far side of the cabin first, buying him precious time.
He found a rhythm in a half-speed run, leaning forward slightly to compensate for the added weight of the backpack. The adrenaline was back, and, with it, some needed energy.
He had no compass and no idea where he was. But he was no stranger to the outdoors and he knew where he was headed: as far away as he could get.
SUNDAY
*
38
WALT STRUCK THE BRASS KNOCKER SHARPLY AGAINST THE plate on the front door. Despite a career of getting used to it, he was put off by the grandeur of the farmhouse and generational wealth it represented.
Brandon stomped his boots on the porch, trying to feel his feet.
“You sure about this, Sheriff? It’s almost three in the morning.”
“We’re not driving back over here tomorrow.”
“No offense, but you don’t smell so good.”
Walt smacked the door knocker-a brass cowboy boot-against the door again.
Standing beneath the porch roof, they didn’t see a light go on in a second-story window, but the snow behind them lit up from the glow, and Walt stepped back.
The door rattled and opened.
Senator James Peavy wore a pair of blue jeans with a sweater turned inside out. He squinted into the brightness of the porch light. His head of wispy white hair was thin on top, a fact usually hidden by the ubiquitous Stetson.
“Sheriff?” Astonishment. “Deputy?”
“We need a minute of your time,” Walt said.
“You come in here smelling like that, obviously you must,” said Peavy, waving them inside. “Come in.”
The parlor could have been from a homesteading museum. Peavy motioned for them to sit. Walt wanted to stand, but he took a seat on a blue velvet love seat with ruby piping. Brandon took the end of the piano bench, facing into the spacious room. Sheer curtains hung on the windows of air-bubbled, imperfect glass.
Peavy remained standing, an act that infuriated Walt. Perhaps sensing this, the rancher then sat down on the edge of a blue-and-white-crocheted slide rocker. He moved gently forward and back.
“So?”
“Why would Lon Bernie burn fifty head of sheep? And why in the dead of night?”
Peavy’s life in politics mixed with time spent in the great outdoors afforded him a wonderfully expressive face, gracious and kind and handsome. Even half awake, he possessed the countenance of a minister and the composure of a therapist.
“You want to talk about Lon Bernie’s sheep?” he said.
“I’d rather not dance around the issue. Mark Aker’s life is in play. Something’s going on here, and before I tear the lid off this thing I wanted to give you a chance to break it to me gently.”
“So you’re here out of thoughtful consideration, are you? At three in the morning?”
“This was a convenient time.”
“Not for all of us.”
“Radiation contamination,” Walt said.
Peavy scowled, an expression impossible to read as anything but surprise. “Jesus, what is that smell?”
“Help me out here, James,” Walt said. “What’s going on?”
“This is your party.”
“The invitation for me to go to Washington. That was your doing. Why?”
“Because I think you’re underrated, Walt. Sometimes we control the timing of the events in our lives, sometimes not. The vice president is eager for you to serve on a national level. Don’t think this was just me. You have more friends than you’re aware of.”
“One of them’s dead. Another’s missing.”
An uneasy silence. The piano bench squeaked under Brandon ’s weight.
“You called Mark to take care of your sheep.”
“We
’ve been over this.”
“I thought it was the hay or grain. Mad cow, or something like that. Come to find out, it’s the water.”
Peavy asked to speak with Walt privately, and Walt told Brandon to stay where he was. He wanted a witness to anything discussed and he said so. Peavy winced, part disgust, part concession.
“Sheriff, if you have a crime to charge me with, please do so. Otherwise…”
“Senator…”
“I understand your concern over Mark Aker. I share it. I know nothing about his disappearance. Do you hear me, Walt? Nothing. As for your suggestion, this other subject, I can tell you this: there is a good deal of money involved when a rancher loses a head or two of livestock. What you’re reporting with Lon, twenty-five, fifty head, that’s not just a backbreaker, it’s a bank breaker. That’s forty-five thousand, plus the loss of the ewe producing for you. Probably a hundred grand, all told. On our margins, that’s your operation, or damn near. Think about that, Walt. Consider that very carefully. It isn’t entered into lightly. You’re assuming the invitation to Washington somehow benefited me. But what if it’s me, or people in high places, trying to protect you? What if that’s how wrong you’ve got this?”
“If there’s a crime, then you’re a victim-Lon Bernie’s a victim. Why won’t you come forward? How can you not come forward?”
The senator arched his brows. “Your explanation, not mine.”
“Then what’s yours?”
“I don’t have one. Don’t need one.”
“Mark came out to these ranches because of sick sheep. He discovered radiation poisoning in the water. He kept his work away from his office because he understood the politics. He tried to warn me about the politics.”
“And you’re not listening.”
“This can’t be you talking, Senator. We’ve known each other forever. I consider us friends,” Walt said.
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