Trapline

by Mark Stevens

  “We don’t go more than about 70 miles per hour but when you’re buzzing treetops it can get a bit hairy.” Ziggy was doing pre-flight, literally kicking the tires, studying the wings, checking the fuel and oil levels with dipsticks.

  The plane looked like a couple of backyard armchairs sitting on an aluminum base that might double as a canoe rack for a mid-size SUV.

  For the most part, Bloom concentrated on the story he’d write when he got back and worked hard to ignore that he was putting his life in the hands of a stoner hippie from Paonia and an “aircraft” that looked like aviation’s answer to whatever would be produced if an early VW bug and a recumbent bicycle had babies. “How’s Devo doing?”

  A change in topics might help.

  “Fine as far as I know. Still big on YouTube and last I heard he’s got more than a few folks with him now, starting some sort of encampment.”

  Ziggy picked up the ultralight by the tail, gave it a spin around. He handed Bloom a helmet, showed him how to work the built-in headset so they could talk in flight.

  Ten a.m. If there was fatigue building, it had been chased away by white hot fear.

  Bloom’s cell phone chirped.

  “Do you mind?” said Bloom.

  “Hey, it’s cool,” said Ziggy.

  DiMarco calling back; Bloom had left a message.

  “Does the name Woodrow Armbruster mean anything to you?”

  DiMarco paused. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “Pretty damn good.”

  “He’s your guy,” said Bloom. “And lives in a ramshackle house back in the canyons before you get to New Castle.”

  “Funny,” said DiMarco.

  “Funny ha-ha or funny coincidence?” said Bloom.

  “We’ve been watching that house since dusk last night.”

  “So I’m right,” said Bloom. “And obviously he’s not there because you’d stop watching and start questioning.”

  “Correct,” said DiMarco.

  Which meant if the house was empty, Allison was likely in deep trouble.

  “You know about the detention center in Rifle?”

  “What about it?” said DiMarco.

  “How come you didn’t tell me about it? When I was asking about ICE?”

  “It’s not our deal,” said DiMarco.

  Bloom cut him off. “Yeah, private contractor. Did you look at people associated with them?”

  “We checked everything,” said DiMarco. “And beyond.”

  “There’s a few in that group took it to a whole other level,” said Bloom. “At least, the feeder system—rounding up Mexicans that looked like they didn’t belong. And using them for sport up in the woods, too.”

  “Now you’re beyond me,” said DiMarco.

  Ziggy climbed into the front seat of the ultralight.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Bloom. “But the whole private prison thing—”

  “Not something Glenwood cops or Garfield County cops are going to give a rat’s ass about,” said DiMarco. “Only makes our job easier.”

  “But there wasn’t always enough supply,” said Bloom. “So they played both ends of the system, trucking them north, working with coyotes, let them get settled up here and then snatching them back.”

  “Helluva story,” said DiMarco. “Hope you’ve got it air tight.”

  “Find Larry Armbruster,” said Bloom. “Find his son. The rifle that shot Tom Lamott is in the Armbruster place if it’s anywhere at all.”

  “I’ll pass it along,” said DiMarco.

  “We think Armbruster and maybe his son too are in the Flat Tops,” said Bloom. “Can you send some manpower?”

  “We?” said DiMarco. “Who is ‘we?’”

  “My editor and Marjorie Hayes. Been working all night,” said Bloom.

  “Marjorie Hayes the knitting and gardening queen?” said DiMarco. “That one?”

  “Can you send someone?” said Bloom, ignoring him.

  “You make it sound like I control the National Guard,” said DiMarco. “If we had spare troops, where should they go?”

  “Start at Allison’s place at Sweetwater,” said Bloom. “Ask for directions or a guide to take you to Lumberjack. The main trail goes west from there. All the help they can bring. Or send the helicopter to Lumberjack Camp. If you’re looking for Woodrow Armbruster, it’s a better bet than anything you’ve got going right now.”

  This time, Bloom hung up first.

  The seat behind Ziggy in the ultralight had less substance than a bleacher at the ballpark, plus seat belt.

  Ziggy taxied to the end of the runway and revved the motor, his hands on a horizontal bar that was the sole barrier between him and the wide open air.

  The plane lurched forward, spun right and then left and then lifted off the ground. Bloom gripped his knees.

  “Yee haw,” said Ziggy in Bloom’s headset. “Here we go!”

  Ziggy circled to climb up out of the hole where Glenwood Springs sat at the mouth of Glenwood Canyon and as they banked and climbed, Bloom spotted the Riverside Meadows mobile homes and two boys in the street, playing soccer.

  The sky opened up. Ziggy pointed the craft north to the vast sea of woods. Bloom tried to ignore the fact that he was dangling in the air.

  Literally, on a wing.

  And a prayer.

  sixty-eight:

  saturday morning

  Other than the chattering squirrels, the lone resident of Lumberjack Camp was a large, ungainly man perched on the Official Camp Sitting Log.

  On foot, Allison hung back behind a fat aspen, within earshot but back from the camp circle. Sunny Boy was tied up on the edge of the grove, far back.

  Colin had gone in on Merlin, came around the side to suggest he was alone. He wouldn’t have looked right without a horse—he didn’t have enough gear on his back.

  The man sat watching a cup atop an eight-inch tripod over a fire so small that Sunny Boy could have put it out with one painless stomp.

  The pint-size fire reminded Allison of the old Indian saying—Indian build small fire, sit close. White man build big fire, sit far away. This guy ran against stereotype.

  He sat on the camp log where a hundred Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and hikers and hunters had sat before. Nearby, a loosely-folded sleeping bag lay on the dirt next to a sturdy backpack and a five-arrow quiver, an open rack with pre-cut holes for standard broadheads.

  “I figure the less smoke, the more elk,” he said.

  The man’s voice resonated. Purposeful. Over-eager. A voice for theater.

  “Been hunting since dawn. Where’s your rig?”

  Colin replied from the saddle, but he had his back to her. Allison made out the tone—casual. There was a breeze no stronger than a kiss you’d give a newborn. She was downwind, which might be helping.

  “Didn’t see anything,” said the man.

  The lone hunter had a two-day red-brown stubble and a camo baseball hat with an extra-long bill. He was fair. He hadn’t stood up on Colin’s approach, but he appeared to be a healthy XL. He reminded Allison of fluorescent lights and indoor video games.

  Allison was semi-pleased not to find Larry Armbruster lying in wait, but there was something unsettling about the scene.

  How long had he been sitting here? How come they hadn’t spotted him from the ridge, coming in?

  The camper’s water bubbled and he picked the cup from its spot over the fire, dropped in a bag attached to a string.

  “It’s coffee,” he said. “Make you some? Gets to a point I come back to camp and start over.”

  He took a scalding hot slurp. The tag from the coffee bag fluttered in the breeze. The backpack was scuff-free. The guy didn’t look like he’d slept outdoors and been on a five-hour hike that started pre-dawn. If he had camped here, there was no sign of last night’s fir
e.

  “I got this enzyme spray. I can be straight upwind of a fat buck, forty yards away and he doesn’t have a clue I’m there. Like a cloaking device. I know it ain’t me that’s scaring them all away.”

  Colin muttered something.

  “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have instant glue and a superfine nozzle?” He set his cup by the puny fire, stood up, giving her a better view of his face, more square on. “I ripped the fletching on three of my arrows. I was ducking through some scrub. When I went to my kit, I realized I’d forgotten the glue.”

  That face …

  Her insides wobbled and she knew, hot waves of prickly panic shuddering from shoulders to calves and back.

  Colin don’t …

  She scanned left, scanned right.

  Colin don’t …

  The man couldn’t be alone.

  The man held up his quiver. Torn fletching, yes.

  More show.

  “These old school recurves. The only way to hunt,” said the man.

  The bow was dark, elegant and classic. Five feet high, tip to tip.

  Allison focused on the man’s face.

  Colin don’t …

  But Colin felt some inner kinship.

  Always wanted to help.

  He slid off Merlin.

  Colin was glancing at the ankle-biter fire and when he looked up he was facing a large, shiny gun that glinted in the grove like a diamond.

  “Right there,” said the man.

  Elbow locked and arm shoulder higher.

  He was taller than Colin. The gun barrel looked big enough to store quarters in a stack. It gaped long and dark, like the opening to a coal mine.

  “Where is she?”

  “What the hell?” said Colin, like he meant it. Louder for her.

  “Where is she?”

  He kept the gun on Colin, stole quick looks around.

  “Who?”

  “Motherfucker, come on.”

  Come awwwwwwn.

  Colin took a step back. Two.

  She put her hands in her pockets, hoping to find a Ninja five-star throwing blade.

  Nothing.

  But throwing something …

  “Where is she?” he said. “I got all day. You, on the other hand. Care to see this thing work?”

  Held the gun like it was no heavier than a toothbrush.

  “I’m on my way back—”

  “Fuck that.” He let Colin stare down the barrel for a couple of painful seconds. “You did not come alone.”

  She’d been scanning the ground, spotted a stick with a nub like a thumb jutting up at the end. The length of a mini-baguette, but thinner.

  She’d need an arrow.

  The mini-baguette was a couple strides away, across a gap in the trees.

  Down like a crab, scampering low, she came up with the stick in her hand and gripped it like a club, nub out.

  Tingle in her shoulders, an infusion of panic like a booster shot.

  “How about if you wait right here,” said the man. He took two steps toward Colin, who recoiled before being pushed back and plunked down on the Official Camp Sitting Log.

  “What the hell—”

  Allison peered up, hand around the stick. Thought about giving herself up. Two on one. It had worked with Boyd. Two on one, let Colin find his moment.

  The man had his head down and Allison moved one tree closer. Stayed low.

  Colin’s hands were tied behind him at calf-roper speed. He was face down. A moment later, his legs were bound at the ankle and the rope went around Colin’s neck, pulling his head off the ground. It was a hog tie, torture style. Colin would need every bit of strength he could manage to keep his neck up and avoid strangling himself.

  “She can’t be far, can she?”

  Rhetorical. He was looking around now, choosing a direction.

  Pocket knife out, Allison whacked the tip of a new stick. Six quick strokes.

  A flash came of her patient from the dog attack. He must have made his weapon in a rush, too. But with what knife?

  It was no time for perfection. No time for feathers. No time for pretty things.

  No time for a nock in the butt end of the arrow, either, but it fit pretty snug against the protruding nub.

  She grabbed a stone and flicked it deeper into the woods but to draw him toward her.

  “Nice,” said the man. “Thank you.”

  Allison slithered up against the tree until she was standing, back to the tree and to him. Waiting.

  Heard him approach.

  She walked clear of her spot, stood there, hands low and hands trying their best not to shake.

  “Right here,” she said.

  He was ten steps away, but stopped.

  Shook his head.

  “Told you,” he said. Turned to Colin. “Told you so. Well, that was easy. Now, come join your buddy.”

  Colin groaned. Saw his neck bulging and red.

  Mini-baguette gripped low, behind her leg. Clamping the arrow down with her hand, too.

  “You’re a little thing,” he said. “My god, causing all this trouble. Shit.”

  Sheeeit.

  He relaxed, lowered the gun.

  She gave her best sigh, her best I surrender body language. Slumped, defeated.

  Took two steps forward, showed complicity.

  Cleared the trees.

  In the open.

  “Come on now,” he said.

  One more step and then as naturally as if she was stretching she lifted the mini-baguette stick, gripped it hard, flung it forward, and whipped the arrow-dart with a snarl.

  He jumped like he’d walked into a juiced electric fence and his body collapsed, a stun-gun effect and his hands flew up high around his right eye, where he’d been stung.

  Bitten.

  Hurt.

  The gun dropped.

  He writhed on his knees, his hands bloody and wet.

  She needed both hands to untie Colin. Started with the legs, let his head down gently, and then the wrists.

  They sat on the camp log, Colin still gasping for a bit of air and rope burns on his neck.

  Two on one.

  “I wouldn’t last long in that nasty sling,” said Colin.

  She showed him the crude atlatl, at least the mini-baguette piece of it.

  “My eye.” The guy writhed in pain. “My fucking eye.”

  “Now what?” said Allison.

  Her heart worked its way back to even keel.

  Felt a prick on her neck like a hot match.

  Grabbed Colin’s leg, started to look around.

  “Oh no,” said a voice. “Drop the gun right now and then don’t—don’t move. Either of you.”

  Blood trickled down her spine where she’d been pricked.

  “Stay right there,” said the voice.

  The voice she recognized. A recent voice.

  He sounded like he was struggling, straining at something. The voice was stressed, but it was him for sure.

  She heard another layer of grunts and the prick in her neck kept telling her to not look around but Colin had turned and he shook his head, just enough.

  And now the shape came around in the corner of her eye as the voice came front and center.

  Sulchuk.

  With Larry Armbruster in a head lock.

  sixty-nine:

  saturday morning

  Sulchuk held a crossbow, loaded and cocked. The limb strained. The string was taut.

  With a mean shove, Sulchuk body-checked Armbruster out of his grip toward Woodrow, who was still bent over and focused on the wound to his eye.

  Armbruster went sprawling, an awkward somersault of tumbling big man. He issued a grunting gasp as he came to rest in
the dusty earth by the campfire ring.

  Three against two, Allison figured, and the three might be in sweet harmony.

  Three against two.

  Sulchuk put the tip of the arrow inches from her face. The arrow was a three-wing broadhead fat enough to drop an elephant.

  “Quite the little fucking mess,” said Sulchuk. He was breathing hard. His chest heaved. His hands were pristine clean like a secretary’s but any hint of corporate control had vanished.

  “So Armbruster was setting you up?” said Allison, as cool as she could muster. “The so-called mountain lion attack was designed to bring you down—at least, your end of the operation. Did you know about the dogs? Was that the kind of hunting you were going to show Gail?”

  Naming the daughter added extra pleasure, might make him pause before his next rash move.

  “Hell,” said Sulchuk. He spat the word.

  Armbruster made his way up to his knees, his back to them, but facing Woodrow.

  “The hell did you do to my boy Woodrow?” he said.

  My boy …

  Armbruster turned to look at them. His jowls were puffy and red. His eyes didn’t settle on anything for long. He was jacked up.

  “What else was I supposed to figure out?” said Allison. She’d take an answer from any source, whoever wanted to talk. “That there are two groups of hunters chasing Mexican immigrants out of the country?”

  Armbruster stood slowly and turned, launched a prodigious loogie high and off to the left.

  My boy …

  Woodrow …

  Wounded Woodrow …

  Woodrow stood, gasping and making awful noises from the pain. He covered his bloody right eye with his bloody right hand, trying to staunch the flow. It wasn’t working.

  There was something in the eyes and fat nose, a resemblance.

  “Fucking mooches,” said Armbruster. Mooches like a growling bark. He walked back toward them, watching Sulchuk. “Mexico’s finest, crawling all over and taking our work.”

  “Shut up,” said Sulchuk to Armbruster, showing him the crossbow. He gave Armbruster another shove back toward Woodrow, but Armbruster didn’t lose his footing this time. “I told you to shut the hell up, this is my deal now and we’re going to sort this shit out.”

  Sulchuk must have surprised Armbruster and waited for his moment to get the upper hand.