by Mark Stevens
“And it doesn’t matter if I can picture it,” said Marker. “Stranger things have happened. A mountain lion will eat anything from elk to grasshopper so a good old slow-moving guy is really just another option. Hey, for him, it worked.”
There wasn’t much arguing with fact-based reason.
“Experts will get a better look in the lab,” said Marker. “This guy’s too much of a mess right now to tell his story without help.”
Hickman let his dogs go with a “hunt it up” command. Marker gave him a walkie talkie. The dogs circled, all-business. Noses scraped the ground.
“You had maggots all over the body,” said Allison, “which means it’s not a fresh kill—those eggs take at least eight hours to hatch. And there would be birds that would come in to graze and there’s some evidence of birds and their droppings but not as much as you’d think.”
“True,” said Marker.
“And no drag marks,” said Allison. “If it was a mountain lion, he would have dragged the body and this guy looks like he fell out of the sky.”
Marker sighed. “Lots to consider.”
The dogs headed off and Hickman followed on his horse.
Back at Lumberjack Camp, they sat around the fireless fire ring. Trudy’s sandwich concoction went down without conversation. Whole wheat baguette with cucumber, bean sprouts, tomatoes, and some sort of olive tapenade that served, as Trudy put it, as a binding schmear. Tasted like heaven to Allison. If the guys were expecting roast beef, they were likely disappointed. But no complaints were uttered. They were joined by a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer, who had circled the site on his own and had taken dozens of photographs. He was the seasoned type, with curly gray hair and black eyes. His uniform was spotless and, among all those who had come on this mission, he looked the most like a cop, with his full belt and holstered gun.
They chatted about the shooting in Glenwood Springs. Marker didn’t know much. The others didn’t say much.
“Still waiting for our first solid lead,” said Marker. “But I’ve been out of touch, obviously, since I climbed on the horse this morning. They could have it all wrapped up by now, you never know.”
Marker’s walkie talkie crackled to life.
Allison couldn’t make out Hickman’s garble, but Marker got the gist. “How much farther you going?” he asked.
More static and garble, but Hickman’s upbeat tone was clear. The dogs had lit on something.
“Okay,” said Marker. “Take it as far as you need or as far as you can.”
Allison’s stared at Marker in disbelief. “What?”
Marker put down his walkie-talkie. “He’s on the trail of a live one,” he said. “The dogs are on a tear.”
“A cat? A mountain lion?” said Allison, feeling the jabbing sting of humiliation. She imagined the smug look on Colin’s face when he heard the news.
“Sal’s specialty, as the whole valley knows,” said Marker. The implication was clear.
The men packed up their lunch trash, stretched. They were all content to be sucked into the groupthink. Must have been a mountain lion. It wasn’t hard to pick up on their relief. One lit a cigarette, exhaled clouds against the blue sky.
“Well, the hot pursuit of a live cat might settle things down,” said Marker. “And that will let us pour everything we’ve got into the looking for the shooter in Glenwood Springs. We really didn’t need this distraction and, as a matter of fact, we better get.”
“What about Hickman and the dogs?” said Allison.
“He could be gone for hours,” said Marker. “If he gets the cat, he’ll bring it out and we can cut him open, see if we can find the other half of our victim. Put this baby to rest.”
The sun told the time. Just past two. Maybe she’d stare at the sun until she went blind, protect her from any future temptation to jump to conclusions.
Marker and the others checked their horses and saddles. Allison tied Eli’s lead rope to the tail on Marker’s horse—rope once around the tail, fold the tail, three more loops, lead rope under the wraps and pull tight, leaving an easy-release loop in the knot. Eli knew the drill.
“Wouldn’t you rather have it sorted out and done?” said Marker.
“Did I say something?” said Allison.
“It’s in your scowl,” said Marker.
“Just thinking,” said Allison. Wanted to say, you don’t know a scowl. Wanted to say, you presumptuous jerk. Ground her teeth together instead. “Thinking everything it might mean, what I’m going to tell all my hunters this year.”
They stepped out into the open meadow and pointed their horses toward the trail. Nobody needed a guide now.
“You all go on ahead,” said Allison. She was bringing up the rear, behind the mule.
“What?” said Marker.
“Know the way?” she said.
“Sure,” said Marker.
“I’ve got a few more hours, or at least two. I’m going to hang around.”
“And do what?” Marker said it like a distrusting father.
“Might scout a bit,” said Allison. “No point in wasting the day, now that you’ve got everything.”
And maybe help the houndsman if he ends up coming back this way. She wanted to see the dead cat draped over Hickman’s horse. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she saw with her own eyes and directly from the cat’s guts that the lion was responsible for the demise of the half-corpse.
And besides, she didn’t want to stare at Eli and his sad cargo all the way back to Sweetwater.
eight:
monday, mid-day
“That’s the goddamn problem right there.”
The cream-colored van bore scars. Bloom guessed mid-1990s. New Mexico plates.
Just another traffic stop.
Three cop cars.
Bloom counted seventeen passengers, then counted again to double-check.
Sitting cross-legged. Quiet. Obedient. They have accepted their fate. They are used to this.
“Can you believe they were all packed in that one van? On a day like this?”
DiMarco muttered. He wouldn’t want to be seen consorting with a journalist. But it was DiMarco who had alerted him, ten minutes ago.
The van had been pulled over in the parking lot for the stand-alone, mid-valley restaurant Dos Hermanos, once the semi-swank Mt. Sopris Inn. The shell of the restaurant and its long-abandoned parking lot attracted only weeds and dust. The Mexicans sat on concrete parking bumpers that hadn’t been used for years.
Dos Hermanos. More than “dos.”
Somehow, he would work that into the lead paragraph. He might need to find out the precise date the restaurant was closed for a tasty detail.
The lights on top of the cop cars flashed. Engines idled for the AC.
“What’s going to happen to them?” said Bloom.
DiMarco was average height with a dark complexion and permanent stubble. Bloom guessed he was pressing fifty. He was deliberate and savvy. He wasn’t in charge and didn’t want to be. His nose was fleshy and had a sloping tip.
“One-way ticket back for every one of the passengers,” said DiMarco. “Up to the feds. Unless one of ’em suddenly coughs up a legitimate ID. About the same chances that one of them can recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”
“The driver?” asked Bloom.
They were two strangers talking to the breeze, not each other.
“Whole different story right there,” said DiMarco. “He’ll be arrested, booked, and we’ll try everything we’ve got—human trafficking for sure. Not just a federal crime anymore.”
“Where were they headed?”
“The driver is remarkably unforthcoming right now,” said DiMarco. “That’ll change.”
Four young. Late teens. Rest are older. Two women. They look comfortable, cool, despite heat. One says somethin
g, smiles.
“Heading to Carbondale?”
“Or Aspen,” said DiMarco. “Dishwashers, landscapers, painters—waltzing into the country like they run the place. A thousand get through for every one we stop.”
“Why did they get pulled over?”
“Imagine how low the rig was sitting with all these people inside,” said DiMarco. “It was dragging ass.”
“This ain’t Arizona,” said Bloom. Some Colorado legislators had tried a similar law, but it had failed.
“Illegal U-turn,” said DiMarco. “Don’t get your tighty whities in a knot. Officer said he could hear voices in the back, had the driver show him the cargo.”
A decent news story. Worth ten or twelve inches of copy, maybe more. In the wake of the shooting, ironic at least. Hard to imagine fitting it in with everything else Bloom needed to get done, but with the Dos Hermanos bit, this would practically write itself.
“Where do the illegals go?” said Bloom.
“Federal holding,” said DiMarco. “ICE on the way.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bloom had done stories on a big ICE raid at a meat packing plant in Greeley.
Bloom fought off an undertow of fatigue. The wee-hours meet-up with the cops at the newsroom hadn’t taken as long as he had predicted. A telephone technician quickly isolated the number from the strange caller. Bloom didn’t love the idea of the cops seeing all the numbers from other sources, but what could he do? What could the paper do? The independent editor had prepared a statement in case some left wing journalism professor threw an editorial hand grenade, but they had the cops’ agreement that they’d keep the newspaper’s role out of the narrative.
“Anything new on the main event?”
“There’s a noon press briefing,” said DiMarco.
“I’m aware. Did the phone number lead anywhere?”
DiMarco stood straight, cranked his shoulders around like he needed a stretch, returned his gaze to the gravel. “The number was one of those temporary phones, pre-loaded with minutes, you know?”
“I know them.”
“That’s the bad news,” said DiMarco. “No name goes with the number, you know?”
“If you paid by credit card?”
DiMarco gave him a sideways look that said think about it.
“Okay, probably not likely,” said Bloom. “What’s the good news?
“Who said there is good news?”
“You implied it. The bad news, good news thing. One follows the other.”
Another van, solid beige and spit-shine new, pulled into the parking lot. This one had windows and side-folding doors. There were no markings, but it screamed government business.
Three dark sedans wheeled in behind it and suddenly the parking lot was a busy hub of intergovernmental authorities sorting out roles, rules, laws, and egos.
“My work here is done,” said DiMarco.
“The good news?” said Bloom.
DiMarco looked squarely at Bloom, for a flash. “You still got my back, right? Protect me?”
“All the way to reporter hell,” said Bloom.
“The phone was activated yesterday morning.”
One by one, the Mexicans were interviewed and loaded into the newly arrived van.
“And?”
“And the company that sells these phones distributes ninety percent to convenience stores all over the state.”
DiMarco paused, proud of this nuance. One of the Mexicans, a man with a wrinkled face and dejected eyes, stared out at them from behind the window.
“Do we know which store?” said Bloom.
“No,” said DiMarco. “But we can find the stores that sold a phone yesterday.”
Bloom spotted a flaw in the logic. Just because the phone was activated yesterday didn’t mean that was the day it was purchased. Everything else about the assassination attempt was obviously tight. Why would they have made this slip?
“A little sloppy,” said Bloom. “Correct?”
“The kind of slop we need,” said DiMarco. “And like.”
Besides the sick notion that he might have been on the phone with Lamott’s shooter—or one of the accomplices—there was also the question of whether he could write today’s article since he was now part of it. That might be a journalism no-no in the big city but couldn’t be helped in a two-reporter town.
“How long is it going to take?” asked Bloom.
“To what?”
“I assume you’re checking all the store cameras in all the stores from Grand Junction to Denver where a phone was sold yesterday,” said Bloom.
DiMarco shrugged his shoulders up, held them there for a second. “Maybe. All this consorting with the cops must be rubbing off. You’re wearing your Dick Tracy hat.”
Bloom ignored the slight. “How long do you think?”
“Today,” said DiMarco. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“And nothing more from Lookout Mountain?”
“You think you can keep squeezing me until I run dry?”
“So you’re still coming up empty. Don’t worry,” said Bloom. “I gotta go talk to the feds—do my job.”
“Understood,” said DiMarco. “Keep in mind we wouldn’t be here today if the feds had done their job in the first place—protecting our fucking borders. None of this would have happened.”
nine:
monday afternoon
This time she rode Sunny Boy all the way up the ridge. She tied him to a tree and went back to stand in the same spot where she had been with Colin the day before, when they had looked down at the half-corpse for the first time.
Indignation wasn’t a mood she relished. Fused with her stubborn streak, it would be a grueling afternoon. She knew not to fight the gathering cloud. It was better to stomp through the emotional muck—muck she’d proudly produced all by herself—than ignore it.
Allison pulled her cell phone from her jean jacket pocket and dialed up the pictures she’d taken before the sheriff’s men and the coroner played Pick-Up Sticks with the tinder and wood scraps that had covered the half-corpse.
Again the picture sent the same odd signals but Allison couldn’t grasp the specific idea, like rain that evaporated before it hit the ground.
Three times she circled the site in concentric circles—ten, twenty, and thirty yards out from where the half-corpse had been found. No drag marks.
She walked back and forth across the slope that rose up from Lumberjack Camp—hundred-yard-long sweeps. She moved quickly, scanning for anything undisturbed, broken brush or wildflowers.
Near the northern end of her last sweep, she spotted a set of parallel and faint tracks, subtle indents about three feet long in an exposed patch of dirt. Each was slightly wider than her thumb. The two tracks were about 18 inches apart. Straight, parallel lines. The indents were carved in a layer of loose grit on top of the hard-baked dirt. Something had been rolled or dragged. No tread. The tracks followed the line she would have followed if she was walking uphill and headed to the spot where the half-corpse had been found. She followed down the slope and found another set, even more subtle and only inches long but oriented in the same direction as the first.
Again back at the first location, she snapped a photo with her cell phone from a variety of angles, but the tracks didn’t have enough relief to show up on her crappy device. One good breeze or rain shower would destroy the tracks. Maybe the detail would emerge once uploaded to a computer. She stared at the tracks, felt her anger rise. From the moment she’d found Gail and the boys at Lumberjack Camp, nothing about this scene had seemed right, no matter what the houndsman claimed.
She retrieved Sunny Boy and walked him to the edge of the ridge.
“Had about enough?” she asked Sunny Boy. “Eager to get?”
Sunny Boy shook his mane.
“I know—fru
strating, isn’t it?” she said. “But I think what you’re thinking—we’ve got something fishy here.”
Allison realized the earth had, in fact, maintained its rotational speed and not even this once had put her needs for a bit more daylight over its boringly predictable habits.
She walked around to Sunny Boy’s uphill side—the easier to climb on—and spotted three riders on horseback heading east to west. They were on the trail that formed the spine of the valley floor far below. Sunlight caught them flush, heightened the detail. Allison dug for her binoculars. She and Sunny Boy were in the shade of the mountains and likely hard to spot. But what did it matter?
They were almost out of view, rounding a bend in the long flank of the ridge where she was perched. All three horses were nose-to-tail.
The lead rider wasn’t merely tall or wide, he transformed what appeared to be a regular-size blond sorrel into the stubby runt of the litter. The way he sat on the horse—an odd, uncomfortable-to-watch melding, like he was the first man to ever try it—was painful to watch. His horse would remember this day and Allison hoped it was only one. The middle rider was on a dark bay and the third rode a brown-and-white paint. The third rider carried a rifle with the butt down on his thigh. “It’s archery season, boys,” Allison said out loud. Even if the rifle was replaced by a butterfly net, their energy was dark.
Riding with a rifle out in the open meant they expected to need it in a hurry and that meant, of course, that it was loaded.
Three horses, three men, three saddles. They had two hours of daylight left. With some groups in the wilderness, you wouldn’t think twice because they looked ready. That’s really what the woods came down to, be prepared. These three were ready for nothing but the sun to shine.