The Hunt

by William Diehl

  He backed into one of his skis and it tipped and slid out of the cave. He reached frantically for it but missed. The ski bounded down the steep cliff and plunged out of sight.

  Trexler whirled back as the great beast charged again, rising up over him, its roar booming through the cavern. Trexler swung the gun up and got off the last shot. It hit the bear in the eye. The eye burst like a grape, the bear’s head snapped back. it shook its head violently and fell as he tried to roll out of the way. The animal fell across his legs and lay there groaning.

  Trexler wriggled one leg free and kicked and pushed at the dying creature until he freed his other leg. He snapped the clip out of the gun, found a box of bullets and nervously slipped six more shells into the clip. He slammed it back in the gun, held it six inches from the bear’s head and shot it three more times. Then he dropped the gun and, groaning with pain from the deep gouges in his face, he crawled outside and bathed the three wounds with snow.

  Trexler was not cold anymore. Adrenaline was roaring through his veins. He took out his torch and flicked the beam through the cave. It appeared empty. He lay on his stomach and looked down over the side. The ski was gone. A thousand feet down in the valley someplace.

  He had another ten miles to go.

  He dug out the first aid kit and a mirror. Using a pad of bandage, he dabbed iodine on the wounds. The antiseptic sent arrows of pain into the side of his face. He fell back against the cavern wall, gasping for breath while tears streaked his bloody cheeks. He threw back his head and howled like a wounded animal. The scream echoed down through the gorge and back.

  Lamar Trammel was turning off the downstairs lights when the dogs started barking. It was almost ten o’clock and the snow had already reached a foot and a half. The barking was persistent.

  “Lamar?” his wife Melinda called down from the bedroom. “What’s got into the dogs?”

  “Dunno. Maybe there’s a bear or a cat out there.”

  “In this storm?”

  His son Byron, a junior in high school, came out of his room.

  “Something’s raising the dogs, Dad,” he yelled down.

  “I hear ‘em, son. I’m not deaf.”

  His sister Grace stuck her head out of her bedroom door. “What’s eating the dogs?” the pretty eighth grader asked. Byron went downstairs and joined his father.

  “Shall I get the thirty-thirty?” he asked.

  Lamar, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man with wispy brown hair that needed cutting, smiled down at the youth.

  “Now what d’ya think you’re gonna shoot in this? Probably kill one of our cows.”

  The dogs, locked in the barn to protect them from the storm, were howling and yapping like hounds on a hunt. Lamar got his heavy flashlight, went to the back door and unlocked it. When he opened it, he reared back in alarm. Behind him, Byron screamed with surprise.

  An apparition was framed in the doorway. A man, snow- and ice-caked, his feet tied to pine boughs that had been fashioned into homemade snowshoes, his gloved fingers crooked and frozen. Crazed eyes peered at them from behind a ski mask. The man reached out and tried to say something, then collapsed in the doorway.

  Trexler awoke with a soothing wash of warm water on the side of his face. He opened his eyes. A handsome woman, her face leathery from hard living, her long brown hair tied at the back, was cleaning his wound.

  “Are you an angel?” he mumbled. “Did I die?”

  She smiled warmly. “Thank God you’re awake,” she said softly, and turning, called out, “Lamar.”

  A tall string bean of a man sauntered into the room followed by two teenagers.

  “How ya doin’?” the older man asked.

  “I don’t know? Where am I?”

  “Pitkin. We’re a couple miles up from town.”

  “Pitkin!” he said with surprise. “How did I get way down here?”

  “We’re the Trammels,” Lamar said. “Melinda, Byron, Gracie. I’m Lamar. You appeared at our door an hour ago. Scared hell out of all of us.”

  “He means you were a sight,” Melinda hurriedly added.

  “Afraid we can’t get you a doctor,” the father said. “Phone’s out and besides, the roads are all under two foot of snow.”

  “I’ve cleaned the wounds out and dressed them,” said Melinda. “Just need to keep them clean.”

  “I’ll be okay,” said Trexler. “My name’s Clark, Sam Clark.” They shook hands.

  “Feel like talkin’ about it?” Lamar asked.

  “Sure. I was skiing up around Harvard Peak and the snow caught me. Found a cave, was just getting settled in, and turns out I was sharing it with a grizzly bear.”

  “Holy smokes!” Byron yelped. “How big was he?”

  “Byron!” his mother admonished for interrupting.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “It’s okay,” Trexler said. “I yelled a lot louder than that when I saw it. He looked bigger than King Kong. Smoke from my fire must’ve choked him. He came out of hibernation fighting.”

  “How’d you get away?” the girl asked.

  “I shot him with my old army pistol.”

  “Be damned,” said Lamar. “You killed a grizzly with a pistol?”

  “Lucky shot. He was right on top of me. Hit him in the eye.”

  “Wow!” said Byron, obviously impressed.

  “Are you hungry?” Melinda asked. “I could warm up some stew or make you a bowl of soup.”

  “I’m sure you all want to get back to bed.”

  “Why,” said Gracie. “We won’t be able to leave the house tomorrow anyway. We can stay up all night and take care of you.”

  “Mr. Clark is probably tired, Gracie.”

  Trexler was thinking about energy. He would have to be on his way by dawn. Just a few hours. He needed food and more sleep.

  “A bowl of that stew sounds awfully inviting,” he said.

  “Oh! Great,” Melinda beamed. “I’ll stoke up the stove. Won’t be but a few minutes.”

  “Great. I can’t thank you enough. I probably would’ve died if I hadn’t stumbled on your place.”

  “That’s likely,” Lamar said. “I’ll help with the stove.”

  They all left the room but Byron. He lagged behind, stood in the doorway.

  “I almost got me a grizzly once,” he said. “Up near Crested Butte. But he moved faster than I thought he could.”

  “What kind of gun were you using?” Trexler asked.

  “Winchester thirty-ought-six with a Johnson scope. Dad was carrying his twelve-gauge. You ought to see it. He won it over at the Gunnison Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot two years ago. Got gold curlicues on the stock. Want to see it?”

  “Sure,” Trexler said with a smile. “Sounds like a real treasure.”

  There had been two storms in forty-eight hours with a six-hour break between them. Phone lines were still down and they were just beginning to clear the roads. Keegan and Dryman, huddled against the harsh wind, which was beginning to slack off, scurried down the street and entered the ranger station. It was eight o’clock in the morning and the sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains. They had been holed up in their hotel room for two days.

  Jack Lancey, a grizzled, white-haired ranger, was sitting behind his desk with his feet propped up, drinking hot chocolate.

  “Howdy gents,” he said. “Got coffee and hot chocolate on the stove in the other room. It ain’t the White House but it’ll do.”

  “How’s Duane’s ankle?” Keegan asked.

  “A little better today but what the hell, a compound fracture. That’s gonna smart for a while. You sure did a good job with that splint there, Dryman. He could’ve been crippled for life.”

  “I’m sorry I got him into this,” Keegan said.

  “It’s his job, Mr. Keegan, He’s faced up to a lot worse.”

  “Any news from Kramer’s cabin?”

  Lancey shook his head. “This is a real pisser,” he said. “We can’t get jack shit on the radi
o and our phones are down. Don’t know whether Soapie went on up to the ridge or stayed at the high cabin. Hell, for all we know Trexler went into the gulch, too. He could be an ice cube by now.”

  “No such luck,” Keegan growled. “Got a big map of this area, Jack?”

  “Right in the radio room there, gents. Almost life-size.”

  They went into the radio room and stared at the map, which covered almost one entire wall of the room. Lancey pointed to a spot with his pencil.”

  “That’s us, right there,” he said.

  “Let’s say he skied out of Kramer’s place, just for discussion’s sake, okay? Where would he most likely go?”

  Lancey stared at the map for a few minutes.

  “Well, he probably went to the Copperhead Ridge cabin first. From there it’s just about downhill to anyplace you’d want to go. Hell, there’s a buncha little villages he might’ve made it into. But he would’ve gone southeast, to avoid the river. Over in here someplace. Almont, Gunnison, Sapinero.”

  “What’s this?” Keegan asked, tracing a broken line down the center of the map with his finger.

  “That’s the Continental Divide.”

  “Definitely would’ve gone south, right?”

  “Had to. Too rough going north. I don’t care how good he

  “Down in here someplace,” Keegan said, kneeling down and looking at the bottom of the map.

  “You’re talking about thirty miles before you see a smokestack,” said Lancey. “Trexler didn’t ski thirty miles through that storm. If he tried, he’s dead.”

  “What would he do if he did get to some little burg?” Dryman said. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Two, three feet of snow all over the area, roads closed.”

  “They just got the plows and sand trucks out late last night,” Lancey said.

  “I’m telling you, he’s down there somewhere. Maybe he’s holed up, but he’s down there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he doesn’t think anybody would believe he could make it. And besides, everybody thinks he went into Leadville. He probably figures he’s safe.”

  Lancey sighed.

  “Well, hell,” he said. “We got a four-wheel-drive with slug chains on it. C’mon, we’ll pick up the sheriff and see if we can make it up to Kramer’s cabin and take a look.”

  The sheriff was an enormous man, over six feet tall and weighing about 225, with skin tanned the color of cinnamon. A soft-spoken man with a ready smile and alert eyes, he wore a plaid shirt and cord pants and a bulky sheepskin jacket that made him look even larger. A battered felt hat covered his bald pate. He climbed in the front seat next to Lancey and twisting around with some effort, offered a hand the size of a melon to Keegan and Dryman.

  “Sidney Dowd,” he said softly. “I’m the sheriff hereabouts.”

  Keegan shook the big hand.

  “Francis Keegan, White House Security. This is John Dry- man, my partner.”

  “White House Security, huh?” Dowd said. “You boys go in and check things out ahead of the president?”

  “No,” Keegan said. “We’re in Special Investigations.” He let it drop there, hoping the sheriff would not pursue the point, but it was wishful thinking.

  “What’d Johnny Trexler do?”

  “We need to talk to him,” Dryman said. “Part of an ongoing investigation.”

  “Took the liberty of callin’ the White House,” Dowd said. “Talked to a fella name of Smith who seemed a little surprised you were way out here, but he did say you were official and the investigation was highly confidential.” He paused for a moment and added, “Whatever the hell that means.”

  “We just didn’t want him to get on to us and turn rabbit,” Keegan said. “But somebody tipped him off and that’s exactly what happened.”

  “Don’t think there was anything suspicious about the call,” Dowd said. “Jesse out at the airport heard you mention John’s name when you landed and got all excited. He called to find out if Trexler was going to the White House for some reason.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Keegan said. “I don’t mind telling you I was a little paranoid about that.”

  “It’s a small town, gentlemen. Gossip is not uncommon.”

  “I thought we might swing by Trexler’s place on the way up the mountain, just to check it out,” Keegan suggested.

  “You think he went up to base camp and killed Soapie Kramer instead of going into Leadville?”

  “Yes, we do,” Keegan answered.

  “I really doubt that,” Dowd said and shut up.

  They fell silent as they drove through the town and out the highway toward the base camp trail. Snowplows had piled snow deep on both sides of the road and the chains clinked rhythmically beneath them as they crunched over the road. Lancey could handle the vehicle. He wheeled into the mountain road that led to the Trexler and Kramer cabins, double-clutched down to first gear, and started up the trail at about ten miles an hour. The truck snaked up through the snow, its chains biting through the mud and slush into hard ground. Lancey kept a steady speed, made the turn into Trexler’s driveway and swung around in an arc so the pickup was facing back out on the road.

  They got out and walked toward the cabin. Keegan took Dryman’s arm and held him back a little as they stomped a path through almost two feet of snow.

  “Find a screwdriver,” he said. “And take the handle off the commode. Use gloves.”

  “The commode?” Dryman said.

  “Fingerprints, Dry. Nobody wears gloves when they take a leak.”

  Dryman thought about that for a moment and nodded. “That’s right,” he agreed.

  The cabin was clean and neat. Keegan checked all the closets. No suitcase. He checked the size of a pair of shoes. 10D. Pocketed a hairbrush with strands clinging to the bristles. Trexler’s skis and poles were leaning near the back door.

  “Doesn’t look like he was planning to ski anywhere,” Dowd said.

  “He wants this place to look like he went out of town for a couple of days,” Keegan said. “I’m sure he was planning to use Kramer’s skis. Notice something else? Not a picture in the room. Nothing personal.”

  Dowd shrugged. “Well, Johnny’s a little eccentric, maybe,” he said. “But that still don’t make him a killer.”

  “Come to think of it, he was real funny about photos,” Lancey said, going into the kitchen. “Never would stand still for a picture, said it was bad luck.”

  Lancey looked in the refrigerator. Ice cream—strawberry. Several cans of smoked herring. Pork sausage. Pancake batter. Three bottles of maple syrup. Two Milky Way candy bars, frozen, in the ice compartment.

  “That’s one of those new candies,” Dowd said. “Never tried one before.”

  “Never realized Trexler had such a sweet tooth,” said Lancey.

  “How about this,” Dowd said as he opened the cupboard door. They looked in. There was a case of French champagne on the floor.

  “Candy bars and French champagne,” Dowd said with a shrug. “Got weird eatin’ habits. Still don’t make him a mass murderer.”

  Dryman came into the kitchen from the bathroom and winked to Keegan.

  “Let’s get on up to Kramer’s cabin,” Keegan said.

  It took almost forty-five minutes to get to the top. Dowd got out of the truck and lit a cigar. They were on a broad flat almost at the crest of the mountain. The cabin stood near the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley. Behind it was a large meadow with a lake in its center ringed with stubby pine trees. Beyond the trees, the land fell away again. Below them on three sides a deep valley carved its way through the mountains, leaving deep gorges in its wake. The snow covered many of its traps—the potholes, ice slicks and fallen trees—but even cloaked in new snow, the terrain itself looked awesome and dangerous. It was a stunning sight, this tabletop poised on the edge of the valley. The sheriff nodded toward the gorge.

  “I was a fair skier in my younger days,” Dowd said. “Grew up here. Hell
, I was born not fifty miles away. In my best day and in bright sunlight I wouldn’t think of trying a run like that. And you think your man did in that storm?”

  He shook his head and hefted his way through the knee- deep snow toward the cabin. Keegan stared at the brutal vista. Is it possible he actually made it out of here? Doubts began to creep into his theory.

  The cabin was barren. The radio had been shut down and unplugged, which was standard procedure. Kramer’s pack and skis were gone. The refrigerator was empty.

  Lancey shook his head. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary here, Mr. Keegan. Kramer cleaned the icebox out, shut down the radio. Uh, he took a couple of his big sectionals, but you know, maybe he thought he’d need ‘em.”

  “Sectionals?”

  “Large-scale maps like the one down in my office.”

  “Hmm,” Keegan answered.

  Lancey went into the radio room and swung the telescope around toward a high peak to the west. He squinted into the eyepiece.

  “That’s Snowmass, the big fella,” he said. “A fourteen- thousand-footer. Copperhead Ridge is on the side of her. Come take a look.”

  Keegan peered through the scope at a snowbound cabin tucked against the side of the mountain. He watched it for several minutes. It was obviously deserted.

  The sheriff entered the glass-enclosed room. “No car around,” he offered.

  Dryman snooped around outside the cabin. On the corner of the building he found the stub of the phone line. He kicked around in the snow and finally found the other section of the line. He went back into the cabin.

  “Kee?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Phone line’s cut. Outside going into the house.”

  Keegan shook his head. “Okay, the phone line’s cut, radio’s shut down. Kramer’s pack’s gone. And his maps . .