Blood Trail

by C. J. Box

  “What?” he asked.

  “Joe, you can be so dense sometimes,” she said, shaking her head. “Can’t you see what’s going on?”

  “No, obviously.”

  “Those two are deeply in love.”

  “That I can see.”

  “It’s not just that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Nate wants to tell you something but Alisha isn’t sure she wants him to. She thinks he’d be breaking a confidence with her, and he’s asking her permission to do that. Alisha can’t decide if Nate’s relationship with you is more important than his relationship with her.”

  Joe was flummoxed. “How can you possibly figure that out? Is that why she’s so angry with me? And what relationship are you talking about with me? Sheesh.”

  She shrugged. “Trust me on this.”

  “How can I look at them and not see any of that?” Joe asked. “How is that possible?”

  “This is why you need me,” she said, smiling. “You can be as thick as a brick sometimes.”

  He agreed. “So what is it Nate wants to tell me?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s about Alisha and Shannon—or Shenandoah Yellowcalf, and probably what Shenandoah has told Alisha about Klamath Moore. You know how it can be on the reservation—they don’t like to openly air their dirty laundry, and I don’t blame them. Alisha has let Nate inside, and he respects that. You should too.”

  “But we’re talking about murders here,” Joe said. “I don’t care about reservation gossip.”

  She sighed.

  “What?”

  “You might need to prepare yourself for losing him,” she said. “I hope you’ll be okay with that.”

  Joe made a face. “Are we back to the relationship thing again? Come on, Marybeth, we just work together.”

  “He may choose her and her secrets, is all I’m saying.”

  “This is getting too complicated,” he said.

  “It is what it is,” Marybeth said ruefully.

  He turned and opened the closet and squatted down, shoving old boots and shoes aside and reaching for a cardboard box.

  Marybeth asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for some old notes,” he said, sliding the box out and taking the lid off. “I’ve kept all of my old patrol journals since I was a trainee. I’m looking for the one from when I worked under Vern Dunnegan.”

  “I despise that man.” She shuddered.

  “Me too,” Joe said, digging through the thick spiral notebooks until he found the one from nine years before.

  WHEN JOE and Marybeth returned to the kitchen, Nate was still at the table but Alisha was across the room, leaning against the counter. She was stoic, avoiding his eyes, and Joe could tell nothing about what had gone on in their absence.

  Nate cleared his throat, said, “When you told me about the governor hiring that master tracker and Randy Pope personally overseeing the murder of the hunters, it struck me as all wrong.”

  Okay, Joe thought, Nate and Alisha had come to an understanding.

  Joe said, “How so?”

  “It was typical law-enforcement procedure. Get the experts in to look at the physical evidence, try to figure out what was going on scientifically. And when Klamath Moore showed up it established a motive and a philosophy for the murders. You all put yourself in that particular stream of thought and never got out of it. You’re like trout sitting in a channel waiting for insects to come to you. When the insects stop coming, you don’t move to another part of the river. You just sit there, finning in one place, wondering why you’re getting hungry. You, Joe Pickett, are right there with the rest of ’em in that stream.”

  Joe nodded, said, “Finning,” with a hint of sarcasm. He was used to Nate’s circular and obscure reasoning and had learned to let it play out, see where it led. Sometimes it wound up nowhere, in the ether.

  “There’s nothing wrong with hiring experts and gathering evidence and doing forensics tests and all of that,” Nate said, “but without on-the-ground intelligence it’s all just technical jerking off. It gives bureaucrats something to do. I learned a long time ago when I worked for the government myself that there is no substitute for intelligence, for talking to people where they live. By being sympathetic, actually listening to what they say and sometimes what they don’t. By doing that, you might find a whole other way to look at what’s going on.”

  Joe flashed back to what Marybeth had told him upstairs, how they had both looked at Alisha and Nate and seen different things.

  “But without hard evidence we can’t arrest or convict,” Joe said.

  Nate shrugged. “It’s not about the how—it’s about the why. And until you can figure out the why, the how doesn’t matter. But when you determine the why, the how evidence you’ve gathered will support it and prop it up.”

  Joe shook his head, confused.

  Nate turned toward Alisha and arched his eyebrows.

  She said, “Shenandoah was—is—my best friend. We’re not blood, but we’re closer than that. We were in cribs next to each other in the nursery at Fremont County General, and we grew up together. She is closer to me than my sisters. Since she’s been back we’ve had some long, intimate talks. What you’re asking me to do now is betray her.”

  “I’m not asking that,” Joe said.

  “If I talk to you, that’s what I’d be doing,” she said sadly.

  Joe looked from Nate to Marybeth and back to Alisha. She looked both beautiful and sad.

  “My friend Shenandoah is finally happy in her life,” Alisha said, almost whispering. “She’s a mother and at long last she’s happy and grounded. She loves her family but she has a blind spot when it comes to her husband. Many of us do when it comes to the men we love.” As she said it, she gestured toward Nate, who smiled a tiny smile. She continued, “This may destroy her family. I’m her best friend, and I could destroy her when she’s finally happy. Do you understand? Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?”

  Joe grimaced, not sure what to say.

  “I’ve only ever seen her this happy when we were playing basketball,” Alisha said, looking at Joe but not really seeing him. “She was so willful and determined. She was so good, and it was not as natural to her as many people thought. She made herself what she was. I was in awe of her. She’d practice by herself on the hoop above her grandfather’s garage until her hands bled from handling the ball. She’d shoot at night, in the snow and wind. She’d even practice when her grandfather and her uncle went hunting and hung antelope and deer from the hoop—she’d dribble around them and pretend the animal carcasses were opposing players. She gave herself confidence and it became grace, and I loved her for that because I learned from her. That’s one thing I fault many of my people on; we don’t give our children confidence. That’s why I’m back, to try to do that for them and help them see. But it was Shenandoah—she showed me how it was done.”

  Alisha paused to angrily wipe a tear away, then continued.

  “I’m sure you heard that she could have gone anywhere on scholarship, and she could have. And it wasn’t that she was scared like so many people think. It’s that her grandmother really was sick. Her grandmother raised her because Shannon’s mother was a violent alcoholic and her father could have been any one of seven men. Shannon owed her grandmother everything, so she stayed to take care of her because no one else would. I thought it was stupid and wasteful at the time because I didn’t have the right perspective. We all laugh about Indian time, but it can be a noble attribute in a circumstance like that. Shenandoah had only one grandmother and that grandmother had lung cancer. Shenandoah could go to college and leave her sick grandmother to die or she could stay and nurse her. She made the choice to stay because her grandmother had only a couple of years left but Shenandoah had many. Shenandoah put off her own reward to take care of the only woman who’d ever really loved her and encouraged her. What she did was noble, not stupid. How many high-school-age girls can make a sacrifice like that?”


  Joe and Marybeth looked at each other. Their girls were upstairs sleeping in their beds. Would Sheridan or Lucy give up their dreams to stay home and take care of a parent? Joe hoped not. But in his heart of hearts, he also hoped so.

  “So she stayed,” Alisha said.

  “That’s what I’m curious about,” Joe said gently. “How did we go from there to here? When did she meet Klamath Moore?”

  Alisha nodded. “I lost track of her for a while. I have to admit that for five or six years after I graduated high school and went to college and then on to my career, I really didn’t want to see her. I was ashamed of her. I heard she got fat and started bouncing from job to job, from man to man after her grandmother died. I am ashamed now that I felt so ashamed then. You know, this is tough for me,” she said, her voice cracking.

  Joe heard Marybeth sniff back her own tears.

  Nate rose to cross the room to comfort Alisha, but she shook her head at him.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just let me get through this.”

  She turned back to Joe. “Shannon got a little wild for a while there. It happens very easily here, and I hate to say it but there are many people on and off the res who enable and encourage a fall from grace for American Indians. Bigots expect it and it suits the worldview of many liberals. Too many people, both Indians and whites, are more comfortable with an Indian girl who gets fat and fails than one who breaks out and does well. Shannon let herself fall, and she got mixed up with the wrong people for a while. I wasn’t here to help her like I should have been. I was only too happy to use her as an example of victimhood because that served me at the time with my professors. It was only later that I realized the only person I knew who truly thought for herself and did the right thing was Shenandoah. She wasn’t a victim, she was a warrior who did what was right. She used to call me and write me, and I was so wrapped up in myself I let myself lose touch with her. When I abandoned her, she took it hard.”

  Alisha paused to fight back another round of tears. Then:

  “But she got right again, from what she told me recently. She decided to go to college on her own, even though no one was offering her any scholarships anymore. To make some money to pay tuition she started up a little business where she guided and cooked for hunting parties. She always liked being outdoors. She was really popular with hunters, and she made a lot of money. Guiding and outfitting is really hard work. I know because my father was an outfitter and I used to go with him. But something happened while she was working once, and it knocked her right off the wagon. She said she drifted and did drugs and drank for two years after that before finally getting right again and enrolling at CU in Boulder.”

  “Where she met Klamath Moore,” Marybeth said.

  Alisha nodded. “Klamath fell hard for her and she fell hard for him. Since they got married, she’s lost a lot of weight and become the Shenandoah I used to know. Especially since she had her baby.”

  Joe rubbed his chin, asked, “What was it that happened at a hunting camp that sent her reeling for two years?”

  Alisha shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’ve said too much already. I promised her I would keep that between us.”

  Joe looked at Nate for help. He didn’t give it.

  “Come on, Alisha,” Joe said, “it might be relevant. Something might have happened that completely turned her off hunting and hunters. Maybe that’s why she and Klamath Moore hit it off so well.”

  “I’m not saying any more, I told you,” Alisha said. “Besides, this isn’t about Shenandoah. It’s about Klamath.”

  “Granted,” Joe said, “but if you could give me some insight into their relationship—”

  “No,” Alisha said firmly.

  “Joe,” Marybeth said, reaching across the table and putting her hand on his arm again, “I think that’s enough for now.”

  “Yup,” Nate said.

  “Okay,” Joe said, raising his hands to her and smiling. “I’ll stop.”

  She nodded her appreciation to him.

  “One more question,” Joe said.

  Marybeth sighed. Alisha arched her eyebrows, as if saying, What?

  “Would she protect him, no matter what he’d done?”

  Alisha didn’t hesitate. “For the sake of her daughter, yes.”

  JOE EXCUSED himself while Marybeth and Alisha cleaned up the glassware and dishes. He was tired, but he was also charged up, thinking at last he was on the verge of something. In the bathroom he shut the door and drew his old notebook out of his back pocket, flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

  JOE AND MARYBETH saw Nate and Alisha to the door. It was 4 A.M. and cold and still outside. Joe thanked Alisha and apologized for asking so many questions. Nate held out his hand to say good-bye, and Joe shook it.

  “Nate,” Joe said, “are you available in three hours for a trip to Rawlins and back?”

  “Rawlins? Three hours?”

  “I’m not supposed to go anywhere, but I think we can get there and back by midafternoon before Randy Pope gets here and McLanahan even knows I’m gone.”

  Nate looked at Alisha. She shrugged.

  “Why Rawlins?” Marybeth asked.

  “Because that’s where the state penitentiary is,” Joe said. “Home of Vern Dunnegan.”

  27

  IT TOOK three and a half hours—pushing the speed limit—to get to Rawlins from Saddlestring via I-25 south to Casper, then paralleling the North Platte River to Alcova, past Independence Rock and Martin’s Cove on the Oregon Trail, then taking US 287 south at Muddy Gap. Nate slept for most of it. Joe listened to Brian Scott on KTWO out of Casper taking calls about the hunting moratorium but he had trouble concentrating on either the radio or his driving because he was testing and discarding scenarios that had opened up since the night before and thinking Nate was right when he said the investigation had been too narrowly focused.

  Nate awoke and stretched as Green Mountain loomed to the east. The landscape was vast and still, sagebrush dotted with herds of pronghorn antelope, hawks flying low, puffy cumulus clouds looking like cartoon thought balloons.

  With Rawlins itself nearly in view, Joe spoke for the first time since they’d left.

  “Nate, do you have any idea what we’re about to find out?”

  “Do you mean did Alisha tell me?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “One more question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “When I dropped you off, did you know you’d be picked up by Klamath and Shannon Moore as well as Alisha?”

  “Yup. Alisha told me when I called her from Large Merle’s.”

  “But you didn’t tell me.”

  “Nope. I knew if I told you, you’d get all hot and bothered and you wouldn’t let me do my work on my own schedule.”

  “You’re probably right,” Joe said sourly.

  “Plus, you’d probably mention it to somebody—the governor or Randy Pope—and it could have gotten back to Klamath. He’s got sympathizers everywhere who keep him informed. He’s even got someone at the FBI who told him about your meeting Bill Gordon.”

  “Apparently.”

  “True believers,” Nate said, shaking his head.

  WHEN HE was close enough to Rawlins to pick up a cell phone signal, Joe called the Wyoming state pen. Like all the inmates, Vern Dunnegan would have to agree to talk to Joe and put him officially on his visit list. If Vern declined, Joe would need to go to the warden and try to force a meeting where Vern could show up with his counsel and refuse to talk. The receptionist said she’d check with security and call Joe back. For once, Joe was happy he worked for the governor and therefore had some clout in the state system.

  As Joe punched off, Nate said, “There are many things about this case that baffle me, but one really stands out for an explanation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your boss, Randy Pope.”

  “What about him?”

 
; “He hates you and me with a passion and a viciousness reserved for only the most cold-blooded of bureaucrats.”

  “That he does.”

  “So why did he become your champion?”

  Joe shrugged. “I’ve wondered that myself. My only answer is that he’s more pragmatic than I gave him credit for. He values his agency and his title more than he hates me. I took it as sort of a compliment that when the chips were down he put our problems aside and even argued for your release.”

  Nate said, “Hmmmm.”

  “Maybe we’re about to find out,” said Joe.

  THEY PASSED through town and dropped off the butte and saw the prison sprawled out on the valley floor below them, coils of silver razor wire reflecting the high sun. Joe’s phone chirped. It was the receptionist.

  “Inmate Dunnegan has agreed to meet with you,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “In fact, he wanted me to relay something to you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “He wanted me to ask why it took you so long.”

  Joe felt a trill of cognition.

  “Tell him I was finning in the wrong channel,” Joe said.

  “Excuse me?”

  NATE STAYED in Joe’s pickup in the parking lot while Joe went in the visitors’ entrance of the administration building and put all his possessions including his cell phone into a locker. He’d left his weapon and wallet in the truck, taking only his badge and state ID. He filled out the paperwork at the counter, passed through security, and sat alone in the minibus that took him the mile from the admin building past the heavily guarded Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) and other gray, low-slung buildings to a checkpoint, where he was searched again and asked the nature of his visit.

  “I’m here to see Vern Dunnegan,” Joe said.

  At the name, the guard grinned. “Ole Vern,” he said. “Good guy.”

  Joe said, “Unless he’s trying to get your family killed.”